A/N: Okay, Ultear's turn! After reading about her past, I decided that she needed-no, DESERVED a happy ending. This, is my solution to that unfourtante misunderstanding that first occurred between mother and daughter so many years ago. NarutoxUltear, ladies and gentlemen! Any AU or OOC that is found within this oneshot is purely an interperation based on the character's pasts on my part, and in no way reflect the original characters. I own nothing! Now that the disclaimer's out of the way, relax, read, review, and, of course...
...ENJOY!
I just wanted to see my mother again...
~Ultear
Rewind
"I hate you."
Those two words were the last two that went out to her late mother in a whisper as she watched; watched as her mother became one with the Iced Shell, as it enveloped Deliora and imprisoned the demon forever. As it forever erected an inpenetrable wall of ice between her and the woman who had given birth to her.
And it was true, she hated it.
For dying that way, by letting herself cease to exist, to save the lives of those two brats by default, for giving her up for dead, for not looking.
For leaving her alone.
Watching the last thing her mother did, was by far, the worst, before she died.
And yet she had smiled.
Smiled, as her body turned to ice and was forever lost to her. Smiled, as the great demon Deliora was sealed. Smiled, as her pupil cried out in dismay and begged her not to use such an accursed technique; not to sacrifice herself for their sake. For their sake. Not the sake of the daughter. Not the one that she'd so callously abandoned, not the one she'd left, behind. Not the one who'd been stolen away by those wicked wicked men who'd inflicted countless experiments-torments-upon her for the sake of magical research, and left her body in shambles.
Ultear sniffled.
And only with that gesture involuntary tears welled up in her little eyes.
"I hate you, Ur." Ultear whispered, just before the words started to hurt; just before she began to mourn. Ur was still her mother after all. It was only natural for her to be sad, it was a bond that she had never known, and now, it had been severed. She had never really known who her mother was, and now, she never would. It was a terrible feeling. Like someone had just reached inside of her chest and squeezed her heart. And they kept on squeezing it, until it shattered into a thousand tiny pieces.
"I hate you!" She screamed! "I hate you, Ur! I hate you so much!"
What was the purose of it all now? What was the point, when she'd gone so far, done so much in her short life to acquire all that magical power for the sake of taking revenge upon her mother. In the end, even that goal had been stolen away from her; like a thief in the night. In this short life she'd lost almost everything. Everything but revenge. If she could take revenge upon her mother, she convinced herself, she would be satisfied. But that day would never come now. And so in the end, she was left with nothing. She had nothing left. Nothing left to love. Nothing left to hate. Nothing at all. She could only scream.
"I hate-
"Hate is a strong thing, little one."
Ultear rounded on the voice in the same instant that a hand reached down to snatch her off the street. She squealed and struggled and screamed, but their grip was too much and too strong and there was no one to hear her frantic cries for help. And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. They-whomever they were-set her down on a crate, snickering softly as they retreated; as Ultear swore and snarled and spat as only a little girl could.
"Are you quite done, Ultear?" The voice sighed; whispering, like leaves in the wind. "I haven't all day."
She looked up, eyes flying wide. She found herself staring up up, up into a hooded cloak from which baleful orbs of sapphire and scarlet-neither iris matching one or the other-shone in the murky morning light. Those twin, mismatching sclera of brackish blue and smoldering scarlet bored into hers as if searching for something, staring into the very depths of her soul.
"W-Who are you?"
"Who am I?" The stranger asked. "A fine question, that." He appeared to ponder it for several seconds before he responded. "Suffice it to say I am a friend." He reached down for her suddenly, scooping Ultear up and placing her upon a broad shoulder. "And because I am a friend, I am going to give you a gift." He chuckled and patted her head as if she'd misbehaved and he'd taken it upon himself to correct her, a child who'd lost their way in life. "A once in a lifetime chance to do things over, to make them as they should have been."
"Th-That's not possible"! Little Ultear spluttered, squirming from where she sat. "I hate my mother! Its not possible to do things over!" She didn't dare to hope that it might be possible; that something like this could be changed, revised, even reversed entirely. But what if it was? What if everything really could be brought back to zero? What then? If there truly was such a magic, then how was it that she'd never heard of it before? No. It was impossible! Not possible!
"Isn't it?" The stranger laughed; it was a deep, throaty sound. "Before I came to this world, I would have done anything for this power. Now that I have finally mastered it and made it my own, I find myself in a bit of a predicament. You see, I cannot use this spell for my benefit. Only others." He shrugged, the motion of which nearly dislodged Ultear from her perch. "Make no mistake. I am not your enemy. I simply wish to prevent you from living through the same tragic fate that befell me in my own world before I was so rudely jettisoned into this one." He shuddered, and for a moment, Ultear caught a glimpse of the face hidden within that cowl.
Roughened bangs shielded mismatching eyes and whiskered cheeks; cheeks that tripled in whisker marks lining either side of his face. He looked young; his facial features put him somewhere between his mid-to-late twenties at the least. But, ultimately, it was the eyes that made him seemed infinitely older than he truly was. This man whomever he was, had seen more in his lifetime than any man should. While the left was perfectly clear and dry, the right-that slitted orb of sinister scarlet-remained moist and afresh with tears, as if he were dwelling upon some great and terrible travesty he'd suffered in the past.
"Would you like a second chance?" He asked at last. "A chance to start over?"
His words ensnared Ultear.
They touched at her hearstrings, invoking such loneliness that she wanted to curl up into a ball and cry. She hated her mother. But she also missed her terribly. She didn't yet know that it had all been a tragic misunderstanding on her part; that her naiveite had led her to this deep-rooted hatred of the mother she was meant to love. She didn't know any of this. She just wanted to understand why. Why? Why had her mother abandoned her? Why had she let that laboratory take her? Why. These were the questions that did not have answers, and this man was offering her them on a silver platter.
'A chance to start over...
Could this man really give her this? Could he really give her what she wanted? Could he give her that second chance and restore her happiness? Ultear did not know. What she did know, however, was that her silence gained her absolutely nothing. Even in her young age Ultear knew this. That settled it. She was curious mostly, but a small part of her jumped at the chance; yearning for nothing more than the chance to see her mother again, to finally have all her questions answered.
"What do I have to do?" she asked, swallowing nervously. "To start over?"
"Do?" The stranger cocked his head a fraction of an inch to the left, then the right. "You don't have to do anything at all. Leave that to me. All I ask is that you stay by my side for the duration of our little...excursion and not ask too many questions afterwards. I'm afraid I can only utilize this particular type of magic one more time, so there will be no return trip. Therefore, I ask you again. Do you truly want this?"
Ultear's only response was to nod.
"Very well."
The stranger inclined his head gently and with that, his eyes began to glow. A strange crackling sound arose from the ruination surrounding them, skittering sparks across the earth and senting subtle reverberations down Ultear's spine. The stranger reached the fingers of his left hand out, and bid her hold tight with his right. Already she could see it as it happened; the landscape blurring together, the ruined town and the eternal ice cage that was her mother and Deliora's eternal prison becoming little more than specks of white in the early morning light. She felt her hair stand on end and dug her fingers into the stranger's cloak and held on for dear life against what was to come.
"Arc of Time...
The stranger smiled and snapped the fingers of his left hand together and the world ruptured around them.
...Rewind!"
Ultear blinked away black spots from her vision as the world grew dark and blurry. She blinked her eyes opening and closing within an infinite slowness. She scrubbed at them with the back of her hands as the world around her swam in and out of focus, struggling to find cohesion in this blank landscape of stark whiteness and bitter chill. She glimpsed a cottage in her peripheal vision, and beyond that-!
She knew this place.
It was etched into her mind, forever forged like an unbreakable brand. She visited it every night in her dreams, no matter how much she didn't want to. She couldn't forget it she didn't want to forget it. She wanted to remember. She wanted to hate. Her hatred made her strong. Without it, she was just a five-year old girl who didn't have a mother or a father or anyone at all to hold her and love her and chase all her fears away. Without it, she couldn't look at her home, as she did now, and not want to run into the arms of her mother, whom she hoped-prayed-might somehow still be alive.
"We have arrived."
Ultear stiffened at the sound of the stranger's voice and hugged her arms to herself. Did he even know where "here" was? Could he even begin to comprehend the significance of what she had suffered in this place? She had escaped her tormentors at the lab once before and run away, run away to her mother. Rather, that had been the plan. Then in a turn of events that still stung to this day, she'd seen them. The boys that her mother had replaced her with. That was why she'd been so happy.
"Where are we?" She dared to ask, somehow already knowing the answer, and dreading every bit of it.
"Where we should be." The stranger answered cryptically, brushing aside a branch as he pressed onward, stooping his shoulders shortly as he ducked under a particularly low swinging bough. Ultear winced as snow-snow!-spattered across her face and nearly dislodged her from her perch. They were close, now. She could feel it. She could even see the same landmarks she'd taken to get here last time; because they were close. Terribly, dreadfully close.
"Aren't you cold?"
He snorted; the first sign of contempt she'd ever seen from him.
"Hyourinmaru raised me better than that."
"Who's that?"
"The Ice Dragon who taught me this spell."
"Oh."
Ultear fell silent at that and left the Dragon Slayer-An actual Dragon Slayer!-to his thoughts. She lost track of the time, and how much of it passed. Eventually, they arrived as he had said they would, and what she saw there nearly caused her heart to stop cold. Her mother. She was looking at her mother. Granted, her mother could not see her, nor did she seem to care; her attention remained fixated on a pair of young, bickering boys. Ultear choked down the bile that rose in her throat at the sight of them.
'It's them again.'
Now she was staring at her mother again, and those feelings of resentment and betrayal welled up in her heart and threatened to strangle her. For a moment, they nearly did just that. Then a strong pair of hands settled upon Ultear's shoulders and with them, came a sudden sense of peace. The stranger lowered her to the ground. Immediately she tucked herself behind a tree, half-fearing-half hoping-that she would be discovered.
"Wait."
"But Ul...she...
The shadowy stranger shook his head.
"Wait."
He crooked a finger toward her mother and the two boys, gesturing for silence. And so she watched and waited. Waited, as the hours draggged on. Waited, as the sun began to dip below the horizon. Waited, as the bitter chill of night sank into her bones and took with it the warmth of day. She waited and waited and waited, untily finally it became too much for her to bear; her little legs began to give and her eyes began to droop.
"I'm c-cold." She muttered.
Dimly, she was aware of the cloaked stranger removing his cloak; the sound creating the faintest of rustlings as he laid it over her. Groggily, Ultear clutched at it, curling into the comfort that the thick furs provided her. Sheltered from the cold and the world, wrapped in the stranger's cloak, ensorcelled in a warm embrace for the first time that she could remember, she allowed herself to drift off, just for a moment...
"Ultear."
Her eyes snapped open.
She was lying on the ground, still wrapped in the stranger's fur cloak, but the stranger was nowhere to be seen. She bolted upright suddenly fearful, suddenly frantic, that her guide had abandoned her and left her to fend for herself. Fear clutched at her heart, launching it into frantic palpatations. She wrestled with herself; torn between the sudden desire to run to the only home she'd ever known, and the urge to fade into the beckoning blackness that the forest offered behind her.
In the end, she needn't have bothered; because the decision was made for her. Ultear yelped yelped as a pair of strong arms swept her off her feet scooped her off the ground and pulled her into the chest that smelled of kindness and ramen.
"W-W-What are you...?"
"I'm taking you home." he said.
"B-But I-
"No buts."
The formerly cloaked stranger grinned in the darkness, a gorgeous white streak of a grin as he clomped through the snow toward the cottage. His steps were light and swift as can be; steady and sure in the thick drifts that spanned the distance between them and the cabin. Within seconds, he'd cleared the threshold; silently ascending the steps in a series of swift bounds as he cleared the railing.
His hand closed on the door and knocked gently. One-Two-Three.
Footsteps approached the door, and Ultear's heart leapt into her throat. The door creaked open a crack and a woman poked her head out. Ultear struggled to say something, anything, but the words refused to come. It felt like she wading through quicksand, her every movement and reactioned dulled-slowed-as the woman glanced from her, back to the stranger, back to her then the stranger again.
"Hello?"
"You are Ur, correct?" The stranger asked.
"Who want's to know?"
"My name is Uzumaki Naruto." The stranger announced solemnly. "I have gone to great lengths to bring someone to you." He nudged Ultear but she didn't budge. She darent move, for fear of being seen, of being discovered.
"Who-
Without pause or pretense, the newly named stranger thrust Ultear forward.
"This may sound strange, but...
He yanked back the wrapping obscuring Ultear's face.
...this is your daughter."
"What?"
Ur blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. She knelt before Ultear and reached for her, cupping the child's tiny face in her palm. Ultear shrank back. But only for a moment. Then she sprang forward and latched onto Ur's jacket and started to cry. For a moment, she felt her mother freeze. Ultear stiffened. What if her mother didn't want her after all? It was too much to bear, such a thought. If she rejected her, here and now...
"My tear. My Ultear.
Ultear froze. She blinked, as warm arms drew her into her Ur's bossom. She felt Ur-no, she felt her mother shudder, a silent sob shaking her from head to toe, wracking all of her slender frame as her nimble fingertips wound their way through her daugther's hair. It felt strange, to be embraced like this. She couldn't remember the last time she had been seized with such passion, she had only dim memories of her mother cradling her in her arms. This was so much more than that. There was relief and joy and sadness as these arms clutched at her, holding her close as her eyes began to sting.
"Momma!"
Ultimately, it was that thought which tore down the barrier between them.
Overshadowing that soft whistle, came a sound. It was strange, this sound, a reedy thin cry, that echoed on into the distance, as though it were the dying gasp of an ancicent creature. It hung in the air, reverberating around them for what seemed like an eternity, before finally losing its tune and fading sadly into the night. However, another chorus immediately overlapped its final note, filling the void that had been left to it by its short lived predecessor.
The antithesis to its parent, this melody contained the voice of a young woman's. Soft and despairing, vibrant and brimming with boundless desire, emanating boundless grief and sorrow within this, its final melody. Unlike its bretheren, it was easily recognizeable, and distinctly human in origin. 'Twas many things, yet all were one and the same. It was the voice of a mother, whispering softly to her child. It was the tearful sobs of a little girl, finally reclaiming what she'd lost. It was joy and sadness, anger and weakness, mistakes made, and yet to be made.
"Thank you." Ur whispered, stroking her daughter's hair, cradling Ultear close to her chest. "Whomever you are, thank you. A thousand times, thank you. I...owe you a debt I may never truly be able to repay."
Naruto stood there, and, for the most part, remained silent. It was only when he felt the eyes of Ultear's mother, of Ur, that he relented and looked up from where he stood in the doorway. He found himself ushered inside soon thereafter, but, as before, said nothing. Instead of speaking, he inclined his head a fraction of an inch and winked toward a teary-eyed Ultear.
"That's what I'm here for."
A/N: Yes, I know that Arc of Time should not be able to work on people! HOWEVER! This Naruto we are talking about here, and even HE was only able to use it once. Whether he still has Arc of Time itself or another magic remains to be seen! I think we've all been wanting to see Ultear be reunited with her mother, and this was the best-not to mention the most interesting-way to go about it! Yes, and I hope you all LOL'ED At the Hyourinmaru Bleach reference! I dunno if I should continue you this or not...so, what to you think? Also, is Naruto's role in this fic more of a father figure toward our lil' Ultear or not?
Kōryu no Hōkō!= Ice Dragon's Roar!