From The Author: Hello. This was like all my other works, borne from whacky Idea bunnies bouncing in my brain and whispering in my ears. Further, thanks go out to Nitramy and Martong for their gracious help and support. I hope you all will enjoy this three-part series. Now Onwards!
Their Meeting
"INCOMING!" Screamed a scout in the distance, forcing a heavily armored troop column to grind its advance to a halt. Before them, a blinding glow of white appeared over the mountain pass they were supposed to cross, and came barreling towards them.
"Retreat! NOW!" Roared the commander- a female hefting a viscous sword- at the front of the column, realizing what the light was with a terrifying wrench in her gut.
"TOO LATE!" as the massive streak of pure destruction reached them.
BOOM...
Konoha is the ninja village of Fire Country and the most powerful military force in the Elemental continent. Known for producing many a fine and feared shinobi, their success has been attributed to 'The Will of Fire'; a way of life that teaches its followers to value each other and to protect the future with their all.
The village was not always in the best of positions however. It went through three Great Shinobi Wars with terrible casualties, due to the fact that it was the target of conquest for all the other major powers of the region; Iwa, Kiri, Kumo and Suna.
Victory had come at heavy prices too. The loss of the Nidaime Hokage- their dearly beloved leader- in the Second Great War was one such example.
Namikaze Minato, the Yondaime Hokage who was arguably the greatest of Konoha's rulers, along with nearly a quarter of the active forces sacrificed their own lives to defeat the raging Kyuubi, which had threatened to level Konoha.
Still, not all hope was lost. Many bright new talents were rising up to face the challenges that the modern world threw at them.
One such up and coming star was Uchiha Itachi, the youngest person in all of Konoha's history to be promoted to the ranks of the Assassination Squads, also known as ANBU. Also, as an ANBU Captain at age thirteen, his Clan had never been more proud of their prodigy of a son, who was on a firm course towards becoming one of Konoha's legendary ninjas.
But the one person who was not happy about the chain of events was Uchiha Itachi himself, for he knew the whole truth about his own phenomenal rise to power. He personally knew that although he was strong, he technically did not possess the experience to gain such a title.
Danzo and the two advisers to the aging reinstated Sandaime Hokage had pulled a few strings to give Itachi the perfect position; to spy on his family.
As a highly ranked officer in Konoha's military, Itachi was instantly granted access to the meetings of the Uchiha Clan elders, where the he would have to report any form of activity that was even remotely treacherous to the Council Elders.
The Uchiha Prodigy felt torn inside, constantly having to contemplate on whether he would be able to continue following his orders to betray his very own kin. Itachi also feared that if his parents and the Clan leaders were indeed planning a coup, as suspected by many of the Council, he would be given the orders to start a massacre.
People often lost sight of how fragile and emotional Itachi could actually be, even his closest friends and relatives. Being forced to put up a facade, a ruthless and indifferent mask of a murderer, Uchiha was slowly losing himself to his own persona no matter how much he tried to deny it himself.
Focus. Scolded Itachi's more militaristic and tense part of his brain. We must find out what happened to this training ground where we were supposed to spend our vacation! The ANBU captain briefly wondered if he should consider consulting one of the medic-ninja. He had just been conversing with himself as though he were a madman.
No matter, Itachi told himself, I can see a medic later... this is far more important.
ANBU captain Uchiha Itachi had walked into his favorite training field for a break, only to find it covered in what looked nauseatingly like roasted human parts all over the grounds. And that was not the worst of it.
Blood... the metallic and cloying smell of life fluid riddled the air oppressively as the teen trudged wearily through what looked like a battlefield. His favorite spot was most certainly ruined.
But what was the point of this skirmish... or was there a battle begin with? The young assassin wondered. It was an impossible task, trying to comprehend how so much blood- likely from a great deal of people- could have been spilled in this tiny field.
He squatted daintily in the middle of a blood pond, and dipped his fingers into the sticky liquid before withdrawing said digit to inspect the blood. Hmm... judging from the residue chakra... there's the blood of at least ten different people; all civilians- no... their chakras' are a bit 'off'. Strange... perhaps they were-! Someone's spying... Itachi's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.
In the cover of a bush directly behind the teen, a pair of desperate eyes gazed upon its intended prey.
A tingling over his spine jolted Itachi into action, sending him leaping from his current position to the nearest tree.
There was a cry of, "Shiden Issen!" and a sword, aflame in violet light crossed the space he had been at an instant before.
He took note of the fact that he had not only failed to detect his opponent, but the enemy was apparently fast enough to take off a lock of his hair in that attack. She's strong and dangerous... an enemy ninja? Was this set-up a trap?
But before he could even make a single hand-seal for his trademark Grand Fireball Jutsu, the girl had keeled over onto the ground in a dead faint, her sword, mysteriously disappearing in a flash of purple light.
Activating his bloodline limit, the Sharingan, he quickly determined that the girl was not using a Genjutsu, or playing dead. Her chakra signature indicated that she was dangerously close to death and had probably thrown everything into the previous attack.
On closer inspection, the teen -who was probably just about as old as himself- had a broken shin bone, second-degree burns over every inch of exposed skin on her right arm, various lacerations all over her abused body and what looked like severe dehydration, judging from the deep bleeding cracks on her lips where the skin had begun to liquefy.
She's not a ninja... her Chakra system is enough proof of that, even if her foreign clothes were insufficient evidence. Uchiha Itachi made his decision in a split second, and leaped to the wounded girl's side, taking her as gently as he could into his arms, The Hokage... and I will need some answers from this one.
Without further pause, the young ANBU captain took off for Konoha General Hospital, where he would hand the stranger over to stunned nurses and make an urgent report to the Hokage.
Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Third Hokage known as the Professor to both friend and foe, had rushed over to the said hospital with Itachi, but not before summoning his best mind-reader from the Torture-and-Interrogations Department. Sure, it was almost lunch break for that particular department, but orders were orders. It did not stop the poor chap who had been summoned from being in a foul mood however.
A recipe for trouble.
Yamanaka Inoichi -the annoyed fellow in question- had been thinking about spending the afternoon with his lovely wife and 'baby' daughter. Given the current state of things however, he very much doubted he would have the chance to even have lunch. Silently, he promised himself that the idiot ninja who had been stupid enough to break into Konoha at this time would become a vegetable.
Forgetting his manners in his anger, Inoichi grunted a greeting to his boss (the Third Hokage) and his-technically-superior-in-rank-only-since-I'm-older-and-have-more-experience colleague (Uchiha Itachi), before jumping right to the point, "Whose mind do you want me to suck dry?"
"She's in this ward, 505." Itachi gestured to a heavy steel door in the corridor they were standing in, "But you'll need- Inoichi-san?"
In a bad mood and starting to feel the pangs of hunger, the blond Jounin mind-reader simply went up to the door, slammed it open, and marched up to the girl. Before the Third Hokage could even hold him off and tell him that he needed to be gentle -since the stranger was wounded- Inoichi had performed his technique.
The blond interrogator went in hard and fast, taking in anything he could find, which from the very beginning was already very strange to him:
Inoichi was looking at a little mansion full of smiling, laughing children barely out of their nappies... One sandy blond... another was a brown head... a newborn with a tiny tuft of reddish orange hair... a blue dog of all things... someone called out in a semi-frustrated tone, "Yagami! Signum! Please come here!" and Inoichi found his vision being jerked around to see a smiling yellow blond girl holding onto brown haired girl and standing behind a woman with bright pink hair.
So the girl's name was Signum. Yagami Signum.
Flash
There were screams... and gurgles of the dying too... but over the din, one sentence was easily caught, "Mid-Childa's attacking! Where in heaven's name are the Belkan Knights da- Wait! NO- hurk!"
Flash
Majestic plains and hills, with trees that he had never seen before were littered with corpses... tens of thousands of them. Many of the dead bore similar military uniforms of blues, greens or browns, each bearing the same coat of arms on their left sleeves. Some others though, were garbed in heavy metallic armors that were of a riot of colors, their right breast plates, emblazoned with a simple bronze cross.
Clearly there were two sides in the conflict.
Great rivers that had once fed the quaint little part of the world were now stained crimson, poisoning all that received sustenance from it.
In the distance, the little mansion he saw earlier was little more than a blackened and broken wreck.
Flash
Magnificent cities came into view. Many of them easily twice the size of Konoha at least and made of a strange but tough looking ceramic.
But some of these great settlements looked wrong... they were afire, casting so much smoke and soot skyward that the sun's rays could not reach the ground.
Flash
Finally, he saw some action... he was standing right in the thick of a monstrous battlefield stretching nearly as far as his eye could see. Overhead, two hulking mechanical constructions of war rained misery and death upon the ground and on each other.
On the opposite end of the battle from Inoichi's viewpoint, was a bulky looking vessel that looked as though it were made of blocks and cylinders. It was slightly under two hundred meters long, but still it seemed to shrug off the grasp of gravity with ease. The ship on his side of the conflict, in stark contrast, was a sleek, dagger shaped monolith that dwarfed its enemy twice over and loosed countless beams of light.
Receiving no less than a hundred strikes of light beams from its foe, the enemy ship made of blocks listed to port, on an almost graceful fall towards the earth, with its entire prow ablaze. Immediately, the uniformed soldiers began to flee haphazardly.
"Hunt all these Mid-Childan dogs down!" Inoichi found Signum's hand reaching up to the heavens, with a sword swathed in purple fire, held tightly in her hand, "FOR BELKA!"
Roaring in assent, Inoichi's vision blurred slightly as Signum rushed forward with her compatriots to massacre their Mid-Childan foes.
Flash
"General Nakajima said the enemy might have a new weapon that could rival our Cradle warships." Whispered a poker faced, brown-haired knight, "Don't you find that worrying, Commander Yagami?"
From her vantage point at the front of the advancing Belkan column, Signum shot back a terse reply, "Leave that reported 'Arc'en'ciel' weapon of the Mid-Childans to the Army's scientists to worry about. We're here to fight."
Suddenly, a panicked shout was heard in the distance, "INCOMING!" It was a scout that had been sent up to the fronts just moments before.
Inoichi could see the same things that Signum was seeing, and he nearly lost all bowel control. It was a gargantuan beam of light, so large that it looked more like a wave than a ray, and it was headed right for them.
Signum was shouting at the top of her lungs, "RETREAT! NOW!" Trying desperately to move her men out of the impact zone.
But the pained and forlorn cry of her aide, who looked anything but poker-faced, summed up the futility of her efforts, "TOO LATE!"
Even though it was just a vision of the Belkan's memories, Inoichi could feel the intense pain, not just from the heat and force of the Arc'en'ciel blast, but from the pain of seeing so many companions suddenly just burst into clouds of blood and gore all around as they failed to shield themselves in time.
The hastily erected protection- a shimmering cage of energy- which Signum had created was also starting to show massive cracks from the strain. It would not hold out long enough to wait out the storm of fire from the Mid-Childans.
"Can't let a girl like the commander die." Came a soft, half teasing, half sorrowful whisper from behind. A bloodied, burned, but firm hand grasped Signum's shoulders.
The Belkan glanced back to see her aide and the soldiers she had managed to save- a mere group of twenty out of a hundred- pouring energy that seemed to originate from themselves into a glowing triangular rune of sorts.
"Wa- NO!" Signum wailed, losing all composure as she tried to stop her men.
Chains sprouted up from the rune and latched themselves onto her, dragging her into its center and out of the dimensional plane.
Through her anguished cries, the aide managed a final whisper, hauntingly clear over the roar of fire, "It was an honor, Commander..."
Inoichi's vision went white, and for a moment, he just floated there, in the unconsciousness of this soldier's- Signum's- mind, trying to make sense of what he had just been witness to.
It was incredible... It was war on a scale that the Elemental Nations had never seen before... Or been cursed with before, and terrified even a seasoned Ninja like Inoichi out of his wits. Were these terrible Mid-Childans, seen invading Belka, going to target the Elemental Nations soon?
Would their future generations be subject to such a terrifying and apocalyptic end as the one Signum's men had faced? To be completely erased from existence, with your very bones burned to ashes? The Great Ninja Wars had been brutal, but they were nowhere near the scale of what he had seen.
Only three hundred thousand had died in the last Great War... Inoichi shuddered at a memory of Signum's revealing the death toll for the Belkans to be in excess of one million, with the numbers climbing inexorably upwards each day.
Then...
"GET OUT." A disembodied and feral voice growled threateningly, and Inoichi suddenly felt himself flying back to the realm of consciousness.
The first thing he woke up to was a fist to the face, courtesy of a miraculously awake and very strung Signum.
Yamanaka Inoichi found himself embedded in the wall of the corridor, admiring a hole in the wall of ward 505, which was shaped exactly like him. Ah shit... that's going to leave a big bruise on my back... not to mention the Hokage'll probably charge me for the damage in property.
"HOW DARE YOU!" Signum roared in rage as she moved to inflict greater harm on her mental assailant.
She never even got the chance to take a step from her bed as Itachi slammed her back down with enough force to cause her to spit out a wad of blood on reflex, as her throat inflammation acted up again.
"You will stay put Invader." Itachi growled menacingly, his right hand taking hold of a Kunai, which he brought up to her throat.
Signum sneered, grinding out a scathing reply even through her badly abused throat, "Just kill me you damned Mid-Childan dog. You'll never find anything out from me."
The Third, who had been considering whether he would need to step in, finally spoke up, "I would like for you to refrain from hurling curses or what-not at my ninja madam. And if it helps, I am Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Third Hokage- or rather the leader- of this village known as Konoha. I can safely say that we have nothing at all to do with this conflict between your nation and these Mid-Childans."
Inoichi piped in timidly, praying to the heavens that he would not incur their wrath, "Commander Yagami, I... I apologize for reading your mind, but we needed to learn how and why you ended up here-"
The trio winced at the wild shout from Signum, "Enough with your damned nonsense! This bloody charade! You've murdered my men. You've taken half of Belka's lands. I've had enough of your games! Just finish me off!"
"But you don't want to die." Itachi murmured softly, almost as if to himself.
The wards occupants, plus the poor injured Jounin stuck in a wall jerked their heads in the ANBU captain's direction in surprise.
Sarutobi Hiruzen for one had never heard Itachi speak in such a gentle tone.
Inoichi had simply never ever heard of the Itachi speak on the subject of death.
But to Signum, those six little words were reverberating over and over in her head like a chant, mocking her very existence.
"Wh... wh... wha-?" Signum failed to hold in the gasp that escaped her throat as the stare Itachi had fixed her with.
"If you'd wanted to die so much, you would have slit your own throat on my Kunai already." Itachi, having forgotten all about his fellow ninja, continued on bitterly, "I've killed and nearly been killed more times than I care to remember. I've lost more companions than most other ninja... and I remember every single one of their names... do you know why?"
With a jolt, the Third Hokage and Inoichi suddenly realized that Itachi had just unknowingly laid himself bare to an unknown. Was it because he saw something in her that was similar to his own rather dark life?
"Itachi..." The Third called out warningly, hoping that the unstable boy was not going to reveal any of Konoha's secrets.
"My comrades were soldiers who sacrificed their lives for Konoha's peace. They died so that I could live another day, in the hope that I would never have to raise a weapon again..." Itachi's left hand clenched into a fist so tight, that he drew blood as his trimmed nails punctured his callused palm, "I will not spit on their memory by dying... but would you shame your comrades' memories?"
Signum was many things; a decorated Knight of the Belkan Army, the youngest ever Wolkenritter to attain the rank of commander at the age of thirteen, the Matriarch of the Legendary Yagami Family... But she was still only a human.
The Wolkenritters lips trembled, "I... I..." Vincent... Anna... Valka... Johann... Scheizer... All the names and experiences she had ever shared with her squad-mates... her men, suddenly rose from the depths of her mind.
"Wow... I wish I could be as strong as you Siggy" That was her partner at the Academy... Ingrid... she died shielding a General from a sniper attack... merely a week after graduating.
"Ah... you're the great prodigy of our Army... Well don't worry, we're all equals here!" Johann, her aide had given her a hearty slap on the back and a steaming cup of coffee the first day she arrived to take command... and they all died so quickly to one hellish blaze of fire from the Mid-Childans...
In retrospect, Signum knew she could not kill herself. It would mean all that her friends... her comrades had done would have come to naught. But she could not very well just keep silent over the injustices handed to her fallen companions. She was not willing to simply allow fate to wipe the existence of so many brave souls quietly away.
The only solution then, reasoned her stressed mind, was to let her anguish all out.
After having buried her emotions under countless layers of cold professionalism and military discipline, Signum came apart at the seams as she burst into uncontrolled sobs, her grief, bottled and contained for over half a decade, pouring out in an unstoppable tidal wave of emotions.
Sensing the woman's pain, Itachi gently withdrew his weapon, certain that she would no longer put up a fight. He was greatly surprised when Signum flung her arms around him, and he nearly took out his Kunai yet again.
That was till he realized that the Wolkenritter was using him as a support, whilst she bled out every last bit of remorse, guilt and rage from her system.
For a moment, Sarutobi Hiruzen and Yamanaka Inoichi simply stared at the weirdest scene they would probably come across in their entire lives; that of Uchiha Itachi embracing a woman and a stranger from foreign lands no less, in a comforting manner.
Itachi himself, barely even registered wrapping his own hands round Signum, as though his body, having instinctively sensed another person who had suffered as much as he did, was trying to ease his own sufferings. As if his own pain could leave him by letting it flow through the wounded Knight.
Even without a Sharingan or a Byakugan, the Third Hokage could tell when some people needed some alone time. And even though he knew that it was a risk, leaving his ANBU captain with this unknown quantity, the aged man knew from his gut feelings and experience that he should leave the pair alone for a while.
Sighing inaudibly, Sarutobi Hiruzen reached into his pocket for his smoking pipe, speaking in gravelly tones as he made his way towards the ward doors, "Report to me tomorrow at 0800 sharp Itachi... Get yourself out of the wall Inoichi. You'll be paying for the damages too."
Ignoring the pain grunts and complaints from the blond Jounin, the Third Hokage swept out of the room wordlessly, but not before he made a small earth wall to patch up the Inoichi-made holes. Sneaking a glance into the ward, Inoichi made a small bow in apology, even though he knew the woman would not see it in her current state.
"You will call a doctor to check on this Miss Signum's wounds two hours from now, and I expect you to be in my office in hour to give the council and myself a full report on your findings. I expect the payments for your reckless actions by then as well." Sarutobi Hiruzen fixed his man with a look of absolute disappointment, and disappeared in a Sunshin Jutsu.
I've made a good fool out of myself... Damn. Inoichi had half a mind to slam his own head into a fresh stretch of wall, but decided against it. He did not want to have to pay for more damages. Sighing, Inoichi slouched off to find a nurse, and a medic-ninja who could give him a salve for his aching back I'm not getting any younger.
Inside ward 505, Itachi had a sudden realization that he was hugging a complete stranger. Judging from the way the woman's sobs were quieting and her body was tensing, she had realized it too.
"My name is Uchiha Itachi. ANBU captain of Konohagakure no Sato, one of the Five Powers of the Elemental Continent." Whispered Itachi, nearly wincing at the lack of proper inflections in his tone.
Signum however, did not seem to mind the monotone very much. Instead, she merely stared deep into his obsidian-black pupils, as though searching for a hint of falsehood with her new-found sense of calm. Finding not the slightest bit of deception, Signum hesitantly let the corners of her lips rise upwards in miniscule fashion, "I am Yagami Signum. Wolkenritter of the Belkan Empire, one of two superpowers on the continent of Al Hazard... thank you, Uchiha Itachi."
No more words were exchanged for the rest of the night, even when the doctor came to check on Signum and redress some of her wounds which had been reopened in her fit of insanity. But one would have had to be blind to miss out on the bond that the two strangers had forged so quickly in the single short duration in which they had met.
Elsewhere, in the council chambers of Konoha, the makings of a fierce storm began to brew, as Yamanaka Inoichi made his somber report on the war he had been witness to, and the possible implications of the Belkan Knight's presence.
Still, no one would know just how greatly Itachi's simple act of kindness in saving a stranger would impact the very future of the Elemental Nations. For no matter what the council or other rival nations did, they were soon going to be dragged in by the gears of war. There was no mistaking it; war was coming, with none of its glory, but all its horrors.
The ninjas would have to pick a side soon...
So it begins...
Stand By, Ready... GO!
From The Author: I hope you've enjoyed part one. Reviews will be acknowledged, and cursing will be allowed for as long as there is constructive criticism.
On a brighter note... MERRY CHRISTMAS! and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!