A/N: I'm back! Sorry, had a bit of writer's block mixed with medical issues but my gift to you is the next installment of the Legacy Series. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: No, I still don't own Naruto.
Blonde glides through the air as she twists and turns, dancing to an irregular beat. She laughs and smiles and claws. She worries for her boys, her sanity. They keep her mind together, whole. Her eyes flash as her partner sprays her with red and she's bored, getting herself a new partner and a different beat. She spins and whistles through the trees like her last partner, something she stole from his mind. Her partners spray red and she revels in it with eyes of horror at her actions.
She doesn't know where her boys are but they are safe, she knows. So she sits. There is a river and she stares at the woman in the water. She doesn't recognize her blood-covered face, her broken blue eyes, her blond and blood hair. Her fragile, broken mind whispers enemy in her ear and she laughs, maniacal and shattered and scared because nothing is making sense.
The woman shouldn't be in the water because she killed all the enemies, because she didn't let any escape. She scowls at the woman; the woman copies her. She gets scared but doesn't show it as she starts the hand signs she needs. The woman copies her every move. She attacks the woman, her body falling on the river bank just as her boys return.
There is horror on their faces as they rush to her but they are too late. She is gone and will never return. They know but they wait. They will wait forever. They are a team. Never have they been apart before and they will not start now.
The children sat before the old man, drawn in by his story. Many times they'd heard it and they'd hear it many more. It was a tale that never failed to catch their attention.
"Is that why it's called the River of Ten?" a new listener asked, a traveler's kid, and the old man nodded.
"Now," the old man wheezed, "you all get on home. It's time for you to get some lunch." The children groaned but ran home as the old man got up and hobbled over to the nearby river bank. He sat down on a large rock next to a fat, old man. They continued to wait. They would always wait.