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The first page of my story would start something like this...
If you were open any book on the Bijuu or on the Jinchūriki, you would find a list of nine Tailed Beasts and nine Mediums to go along with them. Nine and only nine conjoined souls. The list would begin with Sabaku no Gaara, joined with the Skukaku, and end with Uzumaki Naruto, who was famously joined with the Kyubi. There were, of course, the lesser known predecessors, but most people only really paid attention to those who were alive after the death of Konoha's third Hokage. This was, of course, because of an organization known to the world only as The Akatsuki, composed of an elite group of nine and only nine S-ranked criminals.
Nine Tailed Beasts.
Nine Spiritualist Mediums.
Nine Akatsuki Members.
What you will never find in any of those books is the tale of a girl born from a pseudo-legend, her name being raised up into false royalty, and put on display for the weak and miserly people who inhabited a small village off the Land of Stone to give them a small ray of hope in an otherwise desolate life. Her name, lost to most as the years went by, would never belong with any of the Nine. It would never belong with the real Spiritualist Mediums, despite the suffering she went through for it. Her name would never be known as a Bijuu, despite the pain that destroyed her. And her name would never belong with the Akatsuki, despite the horrors they caused her.
She was, after all had been said and done, a false deity.
Her name was Keiko.
And that girl… Was me.
The day it ended was the day it began.
It had started with the Konohagakure shinobi coming into the temple unannounced; on a beautiful summer day, no less. I'll never forget it, even down to the last details. The sun shone in through the massive, curved openings carved all over the stone walls. It cast a strange glow all around the spacious room, lighting all of the tapestries in a strange way I had never seen before. The aromatic smell of exotic flowers that hung in baskets was wafting around the room, mixing with the smell of the forest outside to from a pleasant scent that fit the breezy, summer day. I had been sitting on a pile of thick, purple cushions on a raised platform in the center of the room, enjoying a small glass of hot tea a servant had given to me. Mint tea. My favorite.
As attendants flew by, I couldn't seem to do more that sit on a cushion and gawk at the four, tea going cold in my hand. They stared back at me, obviously tired from the long journey to the Land of Stone, yet there were still traces of a vague sort of excitement in their eyes. It was an extremely rare sight for shinobi to come into the temple, and I found myself wondering exactly what it was the strange group wanted. I must have had that same strange glint of excitement in my eyes they had, as I had never seen shinobi from Konohagakure before and they had, undoubtedly, never seen a half-demon before.
"Keiko-hime."
And with that simple greeting and a small bow, the small and strange group proceeded to inform me that a group of S-rank criminals were on their way to the small village to kidnap and, eventually, kill me.
The tea fell from my hand, the beautiful and ornate cup shattering into dozens of tiny pieces on the stone floor.
In many ways, my life was just like that tea cup. Beautiful and lavish one moment, destroyed the next.
It was, like that cup, forever irreplaceable.
Destroyed.
Gone.
Later they explained that it was an organization of nine S-ranked missing-nin shinobi that was after me. The Akatsuki, they said, spitting the word out like a curse. The Red Dawn was coming, they told me, We must protect you. When I asked what such a group could want in the peaceful village, they merely responded with a somber look. Me. It was me they wanted, and they would kill every last person in this village to get to me.
They asked about the nature of my heritage, of course, and I told them all I knew. I was Keiko, an eighteen year old girl who was born of an Ookami demon. A wolf demon. This was the watered down version that the mothers of the village told their children as a bedtime story; the story of the great Wolf Princess Keiko who would grant your wish if you were a good son or daughter.
I told them the actual story soon after; I was a cursed child. My mother had gotten too close to one of the great Ten Bijuu, the Ten-Tailed Ookami, and had been given an cursed child to bear, marked by the last great demon before he had been destroyed in battle by the Nine-Tailed Kitsune . I did not know whether she had already been pregnant with me, and the demon had infused me with his chakra while still in her womb or if I had, as the legend prompts, actually been conceived from him. Refusing to believe the simple-minded villagers, I personally believed the former. Needless to say, my mother had been killed and I had been stolen from her womb bearing the mark of the deceased demon; wolf ears, a tail, fangs, and claws. Wild at birth, the villagers heralded me as a princess of a lost deity and kept me here in this temple where I would "grant wishes" to all who visited and brought gifts.
It was a pathetic tale.
I was only used as a way to bring commerce to this village. Like a caged bird, I was there to sing and attract people. It was worse than a zoo.
The four shinobi were sympathetic and offered to take me away from this place. They told me of The Village Hidden in the Leaves, a wonderful and large city where I would be kept safe from the threat. I wasn't even a real Jinchūriki, they assured me. Once word got out that Keiko-hime did not have the Ookami Bijuu sealed within her, I would be safe. Safe and free. I could fly away at last.
I jumped at the opportunity like a drowned swimmer to a life saver and nearly screamed out my agreement. So the preparations began, and for the first time, I was truly excited for the future. Escape was in my grasp. I could be free.
No one could blame me for my careless mood the next day.
A young girl, shy and quiet with dark hair and named Harumi, was handing me a glass of tea when the first explosion went off.
For the second time, I could only sit atop a pile of cushions holding my tea and gawk as two figures stood at the base of the huge hole the explosion had blown into the wall. Fire spread like wildfire, alighting the tapestries and all of the flowers. The air reeked with the pungent smell of it all. Like me, the others in the temple seem to have been frozen in time, watching the two strange figures. They both wore a bamboo hat that hid their faces from us all. A breeze flew through the gaping hole, causing the little bells on their hats to chime eerily and the strange black cloaks they wore to billow around them; a red cloud was clearly visible on the front of their strange cloaks. Red Dawn. One of them, the taller one, took in the flaming devastation before his gaze settled on me.
"Beautiful."
And with that one word, everyone flew into a panic. Screams were heard, people began to push each other savagely in order to escape the burning room. The flames raged on, consuming everything. They were entrancing, lulling me. The two figures did not move yet, almost like guardians watching over the chaos they had caused. I felt nauseous at the sight of it, even more so when they watched me and seemed to wait for a response. The taller one tilted his head slightly, as the much shorter and heavier figure remained unmoving. Everything around us blurred, I could only focus on the messengers of Death himself. I blinked and realized that I was still holding unto my tea cup. Admiring the intricate sakura blossoms painted onto it for what was going to be the last time, I turned to the pair and held it out to them in a slow and surreal motion. The taller one inclined his head, and I returned the gesture, waiting for what would be, ultimately, my death.
A single bird flew behind him.
A white dove.
The bells on his hat chimed again, welcoming this time.
I smiled.
And that's when all hell broke loose.
Of course the Konohagakure shinobi tried. They fought their hardest, because this mission had been important to them on more levels than I knew. It wasn't just failure that they were faced with, it was my death. They knew perfectly well that if they allowed my kidnap, it was the last they—or anyone else—would see me.
But they underestimated them.
I couldn't blame them when the shorter one easily overtook them, killed everyone in the temple, splattering their blood everywhere. The taller one did nothing, only watched my as his partner massacred everyone, piercing their bodies with some sort of strange tail as their blood painted the walls.
I didn't try to run.
Where could I run to?
The screams slowly died down, replaced by the faint jingling of the bells the pair wore.
I was the only one left.
I watched the temple that had been my home for my entire life burn as they approached me, agonizingly slow in their movements.
The bells continued to chime.
I took a sip of the tea; it had since gone cold since the small girl—Harumi, the only one I called a friend in this place—gave it to me. She watched me drink her last favor to me through huge, cold, and dead eyes as she lay on the stone floor a few feet away from me. The huge gash in her stomach still gushed blood from where the massive tail had pierced right through her body.
It was mint tea.
My favorite.
The cup fell from my hand, empty.
I watched it as it fell to the ground. Slowly… Slowly… Slowly…
The beautifully painted sakura blossoms shattered into dozens of broken, irreplaceable pieces.
Just like my life.
My hand hovered over the place where I had let the cup fall, and I looked up at the pair.
"I'm ready."
That was when the poison-tipped needle pierced the soft flesh of my throat, the hand that guided it so quick and precise that I was blind to it until it was too late.
I sighed, collapsing unto the bloodied cushions and allowing the black shadows to ease their way into my mind in peace, like the curtains closing to some sort of sick and demented show.
It was over.
In the end, it felt like I was flying.
And from somewhere far off, the faint jingling of bells chimed.
I have so many things to explain with this story it's not even funny, haha.
I'm not even sure what the hell my writing style for this fic has turned into. Oh god.
Anyway, once upon a time (when I was 12, lol) Quizilla was the site to be. Well, before it turned into shit, of course. I posted my very first Deidara fic there, entitled "I Always Wanted To Be Free, But This Is Insane!" and it was all about a little wolf girl that the Akatsuki had captured. Actually, if you search my old username Kairix, you should still be able to find it lololol. The comparison between this chapter and those chapters is quite hilariously drastic.
Long story short, back when the Akatsuki came into play, if you were writing an OC fic the "cool" thing every beginning writer and their mother did was have a Bijuu sealed inside their character. It was usually a cat, and the OC would, of course, have cat ears and a tail. I CANNOT BE THE ONLY ONE WHO REMEMBERS THIS GOD-AWFUL PHASE, RIGHT? Anywayyy, my 12 year old self decided to put a spin on it and created a character that could, possibly, actually have ears and a tail using Narutoverse logic.
This fic was the result of that, lol.
Here I am, now 18 years old and I just found that old story today. I decided to make a little challenge for myself and see if I could somehow rework that story into something better. Welp, I tried.
Moral of this A/N is don't take the logic of this story too seriously lol. It's all in self-challenging fun. I just hope that at this point I didn't accidentally make a blatant Mary-Sue, trololol.
Hopefully this is enough of a cover to explain WHY Konoha ninja are sent to the outskirts of Iwa (And why the Land of Stone has a random forest LOL), WHY they already know about the Akatsuki, and WHY Sasori and Deidara are sent to collect what would be (presumably) the "Ten-Tails" (oh lord) even though Gaara (One-Tails) hasn't been captured yet. 12 YEAR OLD LOGIC AT IT'S FINEST.
(Hey, I thought Deidara and Sasori were cool...)
I'll try to fix the blatant plot holes in the next chapter.
For now, I sincerely hope you enjoyed this blast from the past, haha.
The next chapter will be written in a more personal style, I swear.
(And will be longer, haha.)
Leave a review so I know this fic isn't a complete flop? c: