A/N: This story is the tale of what would happen if Naruko fell in the tear of reality at the end of the 8th chapter of .reads' story "A Kunoichi's Tale". This story is based on his and is written with his permission.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
A Kunoichi's Tale: Alternate Path
Chapter 1
Naruko had been rendered unconscious and sent flying; therefore she didn't see that she was flying headlong toward a dark tear in reality with no way of stopping herself.
Unfortunately for her, there was no one there to save her, so she fell in and disappeared, never to be seen in this world again. Without her, the fate of Konoha and, indeed, the fate of all the Elemental Nations, was drastically altered, and not for the better. But that…is a different story.
Naruko had definitely felt better before. Every single muscle and bone of her body was aching and her head felt like an angry porcupine was crawling around her cranium.
She lifted her upper body up and then held her head with her arms and closed her eyes as her headache got a lot worse. "Ouch. Did anybody take the name of the summon that trampled me?" she groaned/asked rhetorically.
To her surprise, she felt to hands grasp her shoulders and push her back down gently. She heard a female person speak. "Take it easy. You don't seem like you should be moving around."
Naruko opened her eyes, wanting to see who was speaking to her and check her surroundings. The first thing she saw was the face of a young woman hovering over her, her eyes filled with worry. She had short blue hair and blue eyes.
Naruko looked around and saw that she was at a beach, lying on the sand. But this was the strangest beach Naruko has ever seen. The water, the sand, the rocks, the sky… everything was some shade of black. For some reason, Naruko doubted it was because it was night time.
AS the pain started to slowly ebb away, Naruko turned her attention to the woman. She wasn't that old; she looked like she was 18-19 years old. She was wearing a black and blue, high-collared halter top, two pink, intersecting belts over her chest, and black shorts. On her arms she had white bell-sleeves and tan, fingerless gloves. She was wearing what appeared to be black stockings or socks on her legs which reach to about halfway up her thighs, leaving a small area of bare skin on her upper thighs. She also bore two strips of blue cloth that drape over either side of her hips, along with a smaller, white strip of cloth tied around her waist, draped in the same manner. Finally, she was wearing pointed, armoured, silver boots with a sharp "hook" on the outer side of each.
All in all, she was, quite possibly, the most beautiful woman Naruko had ever seen, herself included. 'Good thing I'm not the jealous type, otherwise I would be green with envy.' she thought.
She slowly started to lift up her torso once again. She was pleased to see that the pain had dropped to more bearable levels. "Who are you? Where am I? How did I get here?" she asked. Her voice sounded strange. It sounded…older.
"My name is Aqua. We are in the Realm of Darkness. And I would like to know how you get here myself. Are you a Keyblade wielder?" asked Aqua.
Naruko looked at Aqua with a questioning look "Keyblade? Realm of Darkness? What the hell is going on here? And my name is Naruko."
With these words, Naruko started to stand up. She succeeded, but there was one slight problem. She was taller than she remembered. Two to three inches, if she was right.
She looked down at her body, and almost had a heart attack. The fist obvious difference that she saw was that her bust had grown. She now had a nice C cup. Under different circumstances, she would be quite happy about that. Now it only served to freak her out more. It was obvious that she was older than she was when Orochimaru knocked her out. By about three or four years by the look of things.
"What the fuck? For how long was I unconscious? And what the hell happened to my clothes?" yelled Naruko. Indeed, even her clothes had changed. Her new outfit was a simpler version of Aqua's outfit. The same high-collared halter top, though the belts going over her chest were deep red in colour. The same shorts and the same fingerless gloves. She also had armoured boots herself, though hers were neither pointed nor had hooks.
"Calm down. From what you are saying I guess that you don't know what happened to you, but freaking out isn't going to help." said Aqua, trying to calm Naruko down.
"Calm down? CALM DOWN? The last thing I remember is that freak putting me in a genjutsu and kicking me away. Now I wake up in a place I don't know, three years older and with different clothes and have no idea what happened to me. AND YOU ARE TELLING ME TO CALM DOWN?" Usually Naruko was a very calm person. However, in this situation, she was, indeed, completely freaked out.
"Well, maybe I can answer some of the questions you have, Naruko Namikaze, Master Aqua." said a male voice. The reactions of the two women were similar. Naruko turned towards the voice, falling into a taijutsu stance. Aqua turned towards the voice as well, but then something strange happened. With a flash of light, a strange, key-like blade appeared in her hands.
The sword had a smooth, cylindrical, grey shaft that tapered outward at both ends. It had a boxy guard, made up of two small, light grey boxes and copper rods. The base of the guard was connected to the handle, and both sported several small indentations lining them. The teeth were in the shape of an "E"
Aqua pointed the blade towards the man, who was wearing a white cloak with a hood covering his face and was standing a few feet away from them. From the sword's tip a bolt of thunder shot towards him. He raised his left hand and a shield of light appeared, blocking the thunderbolt.
"Light?" Aqua's voice was filled with surprise, hope and suspicion. She did not lower her blade.
"Indeed. But did you have to do that? You just made us a target to every Heartless in the entire damn Realm. Oh well. I guess you wouldn't have survived this long in here if you weren't jumpy. Maybe a little gift will help you trust me, so we can move on to more important matters. Here you go."
He lifted his right hand, palm up. With another flash of light, another key-like blade appeared, hovering above his hand. Aqua gasped. The sword was a short one, the shaft and hilt dark blue in colour, while the guard was silver and separated from the shaft. The token at the end of the chain was a water drop.
The blade went flying, hilt first, towards Aqua. She dropped the sword she was holding and grabbed it with both hands. She brought it to eye level, looking over it with a fondness one would reserve for a long lost friend. "Rainfell." she whispered.
She heard Naruko gasp and looked upwards, only to see a literal sea of Heartless approaching the man from behind. Most of them were small and had a vaguely humanoid body structure. They had round, spherical heads with circular, glowing yellow eyes. They also had two long, twisted antennae sprouting out of the top of their heads. Each of their hands had three clawed fingers, and their feet were large and lacked any discernible digits. With the exception of their eyes, their bodies were completely black. They were Shadows, the most basic type of Heartless.
Aqua wasn't worried about them. Shadows, no matter their numbers, were nothing more than a minor nuisance to a Keyblade Master like herself. What worried her was the large amount of larger and more humanoid shapes that Aqua knew were Neoshadows.
Even more worrisome were the giant humanoid shapes that had a large heart shaped hole on their chests. They were Darksides, one of the most dangerous types of Heartless.
Aqua cursed herself for using the Keyblade. She should have known this would happen. The weapon was a magnet for these creatures.
She prepared to fight them, a part of her eager to fight with her own weapon once again. There was no need however. Without even turning around, the man snapped his fingers and a giant barrier of light was erected between them and the Heartless, incinerating any Heartless that touched it.
"There, that should bye us enough time to say what needs to be said. Before that however…" He raised his hand again and the blade that Aqua had dropped disappeared and reappeared above his hand, only to disperse in countless light particles.
"Why did you do that?" cried Aqua. While it wasn't her weapon, that blade had still protected her ever since she was trapped inside this accursed realm. It pained her to see it gone.
"Be quiet and I'll explain. It's important, so both of you listen carefully." stated the man. Once he made sure that he had the females' attention, he continued.
"There are laws that govern the worlds. They are few, but they are unbreakable. One of the most important is that, when something is taken because of the world, something more or less equal must be given. And vice versa of course. Creatures like you, which are of the worlds, are not bound by this law. On the other hand, creatures such as I, which exist alongside the worlds, are bound by it. That's why, when I returned your Keyblade to you, I had to take something from you."
He turned to Naruko. "That is also true in your case, Naruko Namikaze. The ninja who knocked you unconscious had summoned a snake at the area where you were headed. I saved your life. Because I did, however, I had to take something of equal, or almost equal, value from you. So, I took you from your world and brought you here. This law is also the reason you have grown older."
Naruko took a couple of moments to wrap her heard around everything she had seen and heard till know. "Well, let's see if I've got everything straight. You saved my life, but because of some weird higher law you took me from my world. By the way, can I go back at some point? Now, after you took me from my world, you brought me here and somehow I got three years older and had a change of wardrobe, which I would like to know how it happened. And it seems that whatever this place is, it is populated by there weird but dumb monsters that are currently frying themselves over there. And, to top all of it off, there are these strange swords that are, if I heard you two correctly, called Keyblades and have some kind of special meaning. Am I missing anything? Oh, yeah, what exactly did that 'I exist alongside the worlds' comment meant?" she said, not being sure if all this was actually happening or if it was some kind of dream.
"It's real kit. You were lucky to be unconscious. The travel between the worlds hurt like a bitch." said the Kyuubi in her head.
Naruto sighed. There goes that hope.
Not knowing of her inner debate, the strange man answered. "Well, I'll start from the questions that are easier to answer. The travel between the worlds is a very taxing and dangerous thing. It seemed that you lost some of you life energy during the travel. Around three year's worth of it, from the look of it. Remember when I told you about that law. That life energy was taken by the worlds, yours and this one, during your travel. That means that, if you die of old age, you will die three years earlier than you were meant to. In exchange, the worlds aged you body by the same amount of years you lost. They seemed to have strengthened it somewhat as well. Good for you. I doubt you fate is to die of old age anyway. Your clothes didn't survive the trip. I created the ones you are wearing now in exchange to the ones you lost, since, technically speaking, it was my fault. Is that clear?"
Naruko nodded her consent.
"Good. Now to the question that I'm sure you really want answered. Sorry, but you can't go back to your world. Ever! The exchange is already made and cannot be taken back. The best I can do for you is erasing your memories of your world, though that would require a considerable repayment. And the only thing you have left to lose is you abilities. Sealing your memories would require me to take away a considerable part of them. Something I don't think you can afford. It's your choice, of course."
Naruko was shocked. She just learned that she could never go back to her world. She would never be able to see her loved ones again. The man's blunt words and unsympathetic tone didn't make it any easier on her.
She felt her eyes moisten and she blinked repeatedly, trying to fight back the tears that were coming unbidden to her eyes. She suddenly felt a pair of arms go around. She looked up and saw Aqua.
The Keyblade Master was feeling for the younger girl. This was something similar to what she had gone through when she saw both men that she considered brothers suffer a fate worse than death. However, at least she knew that there was hope for her, hope to some day free herself from the Realm of Darkness and help them. The young girl had no such hope.
Aqua engulfed Naruko in a hug, trying to give her strength and comfort, while at the same time giving the man such a glare that would send anyone else running for the hills.
Naruko couldn't help herself. Right now, she needed the comfort. She hugged Aqua back, planted her face on her chest, and let her tears fall.
It was a quiet thing. There was no shouting, no bawling, no rhetoric questions like "why me?". Even as she let her sorrow bleed out of her in the form of her tears, she was thinking. 'Am I going to give up? Am I really going to succumb to sorrow and let go of my memories or even kill myself?' for a moment, she had no answer to that question. Then she felt the fox's emotions. Disgust with her weakness. Glee with her pain. Hope that she would kill herself and free it. She also felt Aqua tighten the hug.
Those two things brought her resolve back. She could practically feel it, rushing through her like a wave. 'No, I won't. If I'm truly trapped here, then I'll make my life in this world. I'll remember my old friends fondly and make new ones here. And it seems like I've already found one.'
Her decision made, she looked up to Aqua and smiled, muttering a "Thank you". Aqua smiled back and ruffled her hair, like she used to do to Ventus, before releasing her from the hug.
Naruko wiped her eyes and turned back to the man, giving him a glare just as intense as Aqua's…with the same lack of result.
"Well, now that you've decided, let me answer the rest of your questions. The Keyblades are indeed weapons of immense importance. You see, the heart and the emotions that lie within have great power. Also, there are individuals, like Aqua, who possess a strong heart with even greater power than normal. People with such strong hearts have the potential to wield Keyblades. A Keyblade is the heart and emotions of the wielder taking form. That's why they are so strong and that's why no two wielders have the same Keyblade. Of course, a wielder can use the Keyblade of another person, but he could never use that Keyblade's power the way the user could. Also, because of what the Keyblades are, letting another person use your Keyblade is an expression of ultimate trust. The Keyblade is, as you so accurately said, a strange weapon. For one, it chooses it's wielder itself. A man that is not chosen could never hold a Keyblade. Where he or she to try, the Keyblade would simply disappear and return to its owner. Also, a Keyblade wielder can summon his or hers Keyblade and it will appear to his or hers hand instantly almost always. There only three ways for this not to happen. One is for another Keyblade user to be holding it and using his magic to prevent it form happening. He would need to be considerably stronger than the rightful owner however, and doing this is very taxing. Another reason is what happened to Aqua. For the Keyblade and it's wielder to be separated, on in the Realm of Light and one in the Realm of Darkness. The third reason is if the Keyblade itself no longer considers the wielder worthy of it. Are you following me so far?"
Both nodded, listening carefully despite their previous anger. Even Aqua didn't know everything of what he just said. Just who the hell was this man?
"Now, a Keyblade can have many abilities. Almost all of them enhance the wielders physical and magical abilities at a certain degree, which differs from Keyblade to Keyblade. Many of them have other abilities as well. A Keyblade's most important ability, the reason for the name, is that a Keyblade can lock or unlock virtually everything. Be it a lock, a magical barrier, a passageway between connected worlds, or a heart."
Naruko paled at hearing this. "By everything you mean…?"
He nodded. "I mean everything. So, if you ever fight a Keyblade user, I suggest you be extra careful in case that thing is released. It wouldn't kill you, but it still would be bad."
Aqua sent her a questioning look, which Naruko answered with an 'I'll tell you later' look, since the man had resumed talking.
"Something else that you might like to know is that a Keyblade wielder is not limited to one Keyblade. Or rather, not limited to one form of the Keyblade. You see, there are many things that can determine a Keyblade's form. The wielder's characteristics, feelings and memories. The Keyblade itself decides when to take these things and use them to create a new form for itself, with different abilities than the rest. There are some Keyblade users that are capable of manifesting two blades at the same time, each in a different form, but these are extremely rare. However, the most important thing that you must keep in mind is this. In truth, there are only two Keyblades, one of the Realm of Light and on of the Realm of Darkness. They simply take man forms at the same time. And they are both sentient. Not like you or me, they don't have intelligence or feelings, but they do have an instinct about who is worthy and who isn't to wield them. This is quite unpredictable. Even I, who made one of them, cannot be sure about what they look for in each prospective wielder."
He might as well have dropped a nuclear bomb on Aqua. Naruko wasn't that much affected, since everything was new to her, but Aqua couldn't even form coherent sentences.
It seemed however that what she wanted to say was pretty obvious. "You want to ask just who I am, don't you. Very well, but I don't have time to spent to try and persuade you. I'll just tell you and then I'll move on to the real reason I came here. It's up to you to decide if you'll believe me or not. You see, light and darkness have existed for as long as the worlds have existed. However, for the worlds and their inhabitants to survive, balance was needed. For that reason, two beings came to be, one embodying light, one embodying darkness. Their job was to ensure that he balance between the two would never be broken. For that reason, they existed alongside the worlds and were given intelligence and feelings, like humans. They were given hearts. I am one of these two, the embodiment of light. Over time, however, my brother grew discontent with his role. He was bored with his duty and abandoned it to pursue other…activities. I could not dissuade him from that, and if I used force it was quite possible that we would destroy many worlds in our fight. And in the end, no matter the outcome, the balance would still be destroyed. So, I persuaded him to do something else. To pass our duty to the inhabitants of the worlds. For that reason, we created the Keyblades. However, I forgot one thing. The inherent fear that almost all creatures have for the darkness. For that reason, there were extremely few people to wield the power of darkness. And even those few eventually became corrupted, turning against the light and trying to eradicate it. Eventually, a fragile balance was established, one that time and time again came close to breaking. And now it finally did. I cannot give you the details of what happened. You'll have to find that on your own. If you decide to help fix this mess that is."
Realisation dawned on their faces. "So that's why you brought Naruko here. So that she could help me when you free me from this place."
He nodded. "Indeed. But do not forget two things. One is that to effectively fight the enemies that you'll meet, Naruko will need a Keyblade. I can do that for her, like I can take you two out of here, but that brings us to what I told you at the beginning of our conversation."
They understood. If he did that for them, he would have to take something else from them. "And what do you want in return?" asked Naruko cautiously.
"Hmm. Well, you first. To create a Keyblade for you, give you the knowledge in swordplay that you'll need to use it and send you to the realm of light…well, I'll take from you any knowledge of the Hiraishin, remove from you all chakra control you have, so you'll have to rework on that from scratch, and finally limit you to creating at most ten Shadow Clones at any given time. So, what say you?"
Naruko winced. "You are taking a lot of my battle ability away here."
He shrugged. "Your chakra control will return with enough work. You are right about the Hiraishin, but it's the only thing you have that can make a somewhat equal trade for obtaining a Keyblade. And I think that training ten times faster than normal is already fast enough."
Naruto sighed. "Fine, fine, I agree."
The man turned to Aqua. "Your turn now, and I warn you that you won't like it. First, I'll leave you none but you most basic abilities. Like Naruko, you'll to get back to the level you are now slowly. Second, and most importantly, because of the time you've spent here-splendid work on not being corrupted by the way-releasing you from this place is significantly more difficult than releasing Naruko. In return for doing that I'll have to seal away all your memories from the time you took your Mark of Mastery exam until right after you got trapped in the Realm of Darkness. Let me finish!" he raised his hand to stop her from speaking.
"First of all, your memories will eventually return to you. I said let me finish, dammit. I'll tell you when shortly. Now, you will remember what I've told you up till now, so you will know why you don't have your memories. Just so you know, I'll also seal the memories of everyone that met you during that time. What neither of you will remember, is what I'll tell you now. You remember Sora, Riku and Kairi, don't you? Good, because this whole mess revolves around them. Now, first of all, Sora can use the Keyblade for one simple reason. Ventus's heart is resting inside him. If you want to wake him up, you have to free it. Second, after you beat Xehanort in Terra's body, he lost his memory. Since then, he has turned himself to a Heartless. In order to free Terra, you need to destroy both Xehanort's Heartless and his Nobody, which is created when a person with a strong heart turns into a Heartless, so that he can return. Then you'll have to separate his heart from Terra's. Your memories will return when you destroy both his Heartless and his Nobody. Now, what is your choice?" he asked.
Aqua didn't want to lose her memories. She really didn't. But if this was the price she had to pay to help her friends…
"You better hurry up, the barrier won't hold much longer." he warned, his voice urgent.
Aqua sighed and then nodded once.
They could practically feel the man's smile from where he was standing. With a snap of his finger a door of light opened behind then and a strong gust of wind threw them in. As the door closed, the barrier behind the man collapsed.
The man turned towards the Heartless and they stopped, intimidated by the sudden feeling of menace they could feel coming from this man.
He shook his head. "Insignificant bugs like you dare to try and attack me?" He threw his right hand forward and a ball of darkness left it, travelling with great speed, disintegrating all Heartless that touched. When it reached the middle of the Heartless horde, it exploded, creating a gigantic dome of darkness. When it subsided, all that remained was a giant crater.
The man shook his head again and the turned and looked at the water. He thought about the two young women. "Youth. Is the energy and liveliness it possesses worth the trouble its naiveté is creating?" he mused, speaking to himself.
Then he laughed. "Well, it seems like someone resisted the memory sealing. Can't have that now, can I? You're always creating trouble…Yen Sid." with these words, he disappeared in a flash of light.
Destiny Islands
Sora was wandering what the hell was happening. First he had these weird dreams. Then a storm hit the island and the weird small creatures he saw in his dreams turned out to be real. Not only that, but he couldn't even hurt them! Then he met Riku, who said some strange things about opened doors. Then he was swallowed by darkness. The same almost happened to Sora, but then a key-like sword appeared in his hand in a flash of light and saved him.
It turned out that it could even hurt these monsters. Heck, just by holding it he was feeling stronger. He then went into the Secret Place, searching for Kairi. She was there, standing in front of that strange door. He called her, and just as she turned to speak to him, the door opened and she was thrown towards him. He tried to catch her, but she disappeared as soon as he touched her.
Here he was now, trying to brace himself against the wind, which was growing stronger. His struggles ended when two figures came flying out of the door and collided with him. That caused him to lose his footing and all three of them were dragged by the wind out of the cave.
They landed at the only part of the island that wasn't swallowed by darkness, all air leaving their lungs as they collided with the ground. They tried to untangle themselves from each other. When they managed to do it, Sora looked at the two girls. He wondered who the hell they were, though the blue haired one seemed familiar somehow.
Naruko got up and dusted herself. "Okay, which of the two of you decided to take advantage of the situation and grabbed my tit?" she asked, glaring at them.
Aqua copied Naruko and replied. "I'm not sure, what with how we were spinning, but I think we have bigger problems now." she said, pointing behind Naruko. She turned to look around, and then looked up.
"Oh, fuck me sideways."
She jumped back to avoid the massive fist that was heading for her head, courtesy of the Darkside that was towering above her. She landed next to Aqua. By the time she did, Aqua and Sora had already summoned their Keyblades. The two girls were surprised by this, but had no time for that now. The giant Heartless had just started to throw balls of darkness at them.
"Hey, Aqua, how the hell do I summon this thing?" yelled Naruko as she dodged a ball.
"Just think about it." yelled Aqua back, hitting a ball with her Keyblade and sending it back to the monsters face. Seeing this, Sora proceeded to do the same without delay.
Naruko did as Aqua told her. To her surprise, not one but two blades appeared in her hands. In her right hand she was holding a blade about five inches longer than Aqua's. The shaft was straight and until the key part of the blade, where it curved and formed the Uzumaki swirl. It also had an edge. It was black in colour. The handle was orange, while the guard was yellow. The token at the end of the Keychain was the Uzumaki swirl. She somehow knew its name: Maelstrom
The blade in her left hand had the same length as the other one and was also edged. The shaft was completely straight and it had nine teeth, all originating from the same point and forming ten degree angles between them. Each part of the guard seemed to be made from four intertwining tails, the ninth being the handle. The Keychain was made of nine tails attached to one another and the token at its end was fox head. The entire sword was coloured deep red. Naruko shivered, knowing what the blade represented. She also instantly knew that its name was Kyuubi.
This time, Aqua couldn't help but let her surprise take over. "You've got two?" she asked incredulously.
Naruko was about to answer, when she was interrupted by a shout from Sora. "Watch out!" They looked up and saw the Heartless's fist heading towards them. They dashed away to avoid it, but when it met the ground, instead of impacting, it went inside it, creating a shockwave of darkness.
The three jumped up to avoid it, but when they landed they saw that multiple Shadows were coming from the darkness. The three Keyblade wielders quickly took care of them, only to find the Darkside ready to throw some more balls at them. Aqua shot some fireballs and ice shards at its face, interrupting it.
"I've got an idea. Hey, kid, you sword can cut, can't it?" asked Naruko.
"Name's Sora. And yeah, it might not look like it, but somehow it cuts pretty well. Why?" he answered.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Naruko and she is Aqua. Now, here's the plan. Aqua, you attract his attention, while me and Sora go and cut his fragile-looking legs. Then all of us attack the head." Naruko laid out her plan. The other two quickly agreed.
Aqua started shooting more spell at the thing's head, while Naruko and Sora rushed forward, Naruko letting Maelstrom disappear, so she could put more strength in swinging Kyuubi. They reached it's legs and swung at the same time, the Keyblades cleanly cleaving the monster's legs in two.
Aqua jumped back to avoid the giant falling down. The Darkside tried to use its hands to stand up, but it was too late. Three blades entered its head, on from the front and two from the back. It dispersed.
Before the three could celebrate their victory, the darkness swallowed the land they were on, and them along with it.