The Death God's Hunter
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy, Angel or Naruto
Chapter 1
"Put her down!" A short elderly man, less than five foot in fact, demanded angrily.
"And let go of my only possible insurance at life?" The person addressed asked sarcastically, brown eyes tinged slightly gold, before pressing a kunai closer to the jugular of the young teenage girl, her pink eyes stoic and angry while hiding her fear, ready to slit it in a moment. "Yeah right, old man."
"Arrogant fool!" The elderly man snarled from the rooftops, the men accompanying him also growling their rage, his face flushing red to match his large nose, "the barrier will not last forever," the old man glanced at the slightly distorted air around the capturer and captured, a bubble that prevented anything from reaching the pair, even from underground. "And when it falls..."
"Yeah, yeah." interrupted the kunai holder, with a sneer at the little gnome up above, looking unimpressed, "save it for someone who cares!" the man theatrically sighed a moment, his hand never wavering from pricking his prisoner's delicate throat. "Look, Oniki-"
"That's Onoki Tsuchikage-sama to you, mongrel!" Yelled a man at the short man's side, dwarfing him at over six and half feet and three times the older man's girth.
"-I'll reason with you," the man continued, unconcerned, "Get your men," he glanced to the column of ready masked warriors, the elite of Iwagakure, that blocked each entrance and exit of the small plaza, "to make a path to the main gate. I'll exit your nice cozy little city, with this pretty little thing," he smirked hungrily at the girl he held, making the men all growl lowly, none more so than Onoki, "in tow for a while. Once I am far enough from your village, and if none of the men or women under your command have left the village in pursuit of me, I will let her go, unharmed, and we can both go our separate ways. No muss, no fuss, and we will likely never cross paths again. Sound like a deal?"
Onoki gaped wordlessly at the man. The sheer audacity that he had at dictating terms to him, the Tsuchikage, was unbelievable. Did the man -no, the monster- really expect him to let him go, to let bygones be bygones, after what he had done, the atrocities he had commited under his nose, and had taken his own Genin of a granddaughter hostage after almost killing his daughter-in-law?
A pounding fury filled him as he clenched his fists, killing intent bursting from like a busted main, focused on the pale skinned bastard below him. Many of the men on the roof tops surrounding the plaza wavered, going pale, as they forced themselves to try and weather the storm that was his fury, suddenly reminded that, for all his short stature, he was their Tsuchikage. A man who had seen all three Shinobi Wars and had turned entire battalions of the enemy into dust.
Even as his grandaughter paled herself (in the back of his mind he couldn't help but be proud that that was the only thing she had done. He saw several Genin and Chuunin at the back of the rooftops fall faint under the weight of his ire.) the brown haired bastard, much to his surprise, seemed undeterred, grinning slightly at him with teeth that seemed sharper than they normally would be, despite the weight of his killing intent focused on him.
He frowned inwardly. Something was very wrong here.
He recognised the man, a small time genin nuke-nin from Grass. Reportedly had a minor gift with taijutsu and a degree of sensory talent and was a classic coward, abandoning missions when his senses told him that the opposition was stronger than him, which let the little rat survive. He shouldn't have been able to even touch his daughter in law, a jounin kunoichi with superb physical gifts, let alone injure her so grievously. Nor would he have been brave or stupid enough to enter the heart of Iwagakure.
He eyed the shimmering capsule. There had also been nothing in his file that indicated he had any training or experience in Barriers or Sealing, two particular disciplines that were kept particularly close by all villages and any traitors with said training would have been a priority for their Hunter's division.
Yet this man, wearing the nuke-nin's face, had shown the ability to do so, albeit in a manner Onoki was unfamiliar with, had shown callous brazenness and supreme unconcern along with sadistic tendencies (his daughter in law's maiming had not been clean).
Onoki narrowed his eyes. It may look like the cowardly brat, it may act like the cowardly brat, but he suddenly didn't think that it was the cowardly brat.
Possession perhaps? The Yamanaka of the Leaf were only the most well known with that gift, not the only, and he knew Sarutobi well enough to know that he wouldn't do something like this. There was no benefit except angering Iwa and bringing about a possible military response. The ape was more pacifistic in his approaches and had never desired war.
"Well, old man?" Onoki snapped out of his spinning thoughts as the (soon to be dead) man called out mockingly, "you gonna do what I ask? Or," the kunai at his precious granddaughter's throat pressed deeper, a crimson droplet easily seen to collect on the tip of the blade, "is the pretty little lady going to have a few more scars before you fold?"
Onoki snarled lowly as he eyed the son of a bitch with the fire of a thousand suns, wishing nothing more than his death and destruction after a long period of torture and pain, just to make sure he understood the depths of his own hatred for the bastard.
If only it wasn't for the damned barrier. It seemed to be impervious to any ninjutsu that was thrown at it!
He growled and went to answer, having no other choice. He would have to let the bastard go. He had already lost several of the citizens of his home after the bastard had managed to infiltrate the city somehow (he would be having...words with the Barrier Team after this. Dusty words.) along with, possibly, his son's wife. He didn't wish for any more of his family to suffer.
Fwipp! Fwipp! Fwipp! Fwipp!
He was interrupted as four glints of soared past him at tremendous speed, making his head snap around, along with his tall guard, Akatsuchi. Who the hell had thrown those objects?! He had given orders for all fire to be held.
"Is that supposed to do something?!" Onoki turned back at the mocking call from the nukenin, the bastard's face was exceedingly amused as he looked at the odd shuriken, looking like pentagrams rather than stars, embedded in the pave stones around him and his hostage. There were four of them, arranged in an off square around them both, centred around them.
Onoki then abruptly felt a surge of chakra, one that felt odd and strange, yet not corrupt, enter his senses from close by, and yet he couldn't quite pinpoint it, and judging by the sudden jump in those ninja he knew to have sensory abilities as they looked around neither could they, followed by a rough voice, almost a growl, that echoed around the plaza.
"Ginton: Juujika no Jutsu."
Then the scream began.
Onoki could only watch in shock as the shuriken all abruptly burned with a bright silver light that hurt to look at, like staring a phosphorus flare, before sending up a vertical pillar of that light, at least ten feet high, and then extending into a wall towards one of the counterpart shuriken.
Onoki quickly realised that it wasn't a poorly formed square that the shuriken were arranged in.
It was, as the voice had implied, a cross.
That wall of silver light then cut through the, suddenly apprehensive, bastard's barrier like it wasn't even there and then the light touched the bastard's skin.
The scream was deafening.
With a wail of utter pain, the bastard reflexively released his hold on Onoki's granddaughter, dropping the kunai, and leapt back, faster and far further than any Genin could have done (and if his senses weren't failing him, without a drop of chakra), his clothes billowing smoke as if he were afire beneath them. Onoki also noted numbly that the barrier around him followed his movements, an outright impossibility as Barriers were designed to be stationary, like a fortress wall, and that his now kneeling and gasping granddaughter was also in the centre of that silver formation.
And was unharmed.
All this had happened in a moment and, before he could react, a black blur came out of nowhere, so fast as be indistinguishable except for it's exceptional height, comparably thin stature and yet oddly bulky shoulders and long arms, grabbed his granddaughter and leapt towards him.
Onoki quickly moved back as the being landed, along with the other shinobi that surrounded him, giving them room to move and take down this possible threat.
"Relax," the figure said quickly with a low growl as it landed with a loud click of claws on stone, quickly placing the startled form of Kurotsuchi on her feet and stepping back with their clawed hands, looking more like paws, apart to show him empty handed and having no desire to fight, "I'm not your enemy, ningen." the being looked back down to the plaza where the silver light began to die down, the cowering form of the nukenin slowly began rise back up to his feet as they died further, his hands covering his face. The being's inhuman face showed it's great teeth in a grim and bloodthirsty smile, looking like it wanted nothing more than to wrap those great jaws around it's targets bones and crush them. "That right is reserved for that abomination," the tall beastial formed bipedal figure glanced down at Onoki, the wide smile becoming crooked and glowing greenish-gold eyes showing slight mischief, "Today, at least."
"A summon?!" demanded Onoki. This was unexpected.
The summon nodded with a small grin and a florid bow. "Tobikotsu of the Ivory Plain Hyenas, at your service." The hyena introduced himself before smiling even more as he seemed to snuffle the air with a content expression, "it has been a very long time since we have last been summoned, I have to say I like the scent of the human world."
"Where is your summoner?" Onoki asked demandingly to the hyena. A glance showed the old ninja that this was no messenger summon, not with two fang like knives tucked into the belt of a loincloth and a long thin black wooden spear, dotted here and there with slight specks of a white material. making it appear as mottled as the creatures own fur coat, attached to it's back. It was a battle summon. The wide scars, like massive claw marks, also adorning the hyenas chest also emphasised.
And battle summons were almost never far from their summoner.
The clash of metal and metal was suddenly heard, making Onoki look down into the plaza, his face showing his shock at what he now saw.
"Taking care of business," the hyena said with a nod down at the plaza.
Kurotsuchi's day had been absolute hell.
It had started pleasantly enough, sitting down for a late breakfast with her mother, both of them on the mandatory week long leave from the mission roster that all shinobi had after either four weeks of duty or the equivalent of three C-rank missions. Her father was still on a mission and expected back the day after and her grandfather had already left early for the office as was his custom.
It had felt good to chat with her mother about things, her teams was all male and none of them were any good for a decent girl talk (a serious kunoichi she may be, but she was still a girl/woman and thus still enjoyed a good chat).
It had all went down hill from there.
She had had only a split second's warning, the familiar weight of killer intent making itself known along with her mother's sudden widening eyes and breaking off mid-word, before the earth beneath the kitchen table abruptly rose up, tossing the wooden furnishing aside towards Kurotsuchi and knocking her away and the edge clipping her temple, dazing her for a few precious seconds.
She only remembered the warped sounds of metal on metal and crashing objects before she heard the sound of metal imbedding itself in flesh before everything was quiet for a moment before, with a shocked gasp that was terrifyingly familiar to the young kunoichi, the louder sound of metal on flesh cut through the room, followed by the thick coppery scent of blood and the thud of something heavy hitting the floor along with a harsh malicious laugh.
When she finally raised her head, she only saw a stranger wielding some sort of knife stalking towards her, eyes a poisonous gold, and behind him, laying lifelessly on the floor in a pool of crimson, was her mother.
She didn't have time to fully register the sight before a pale fist had struck her in the same temple as the table, and all thought had ceased.
She had next awoken to see the blurring of roof tiles and the familiar sensation of leaps and bounds as she was carried roughly over the shoulder of her mother's assailant. Her ears could faintly hear the hue and cry and clatter of shinobi sandals striking tiles as others pursued her assailant.
She couldn't see much, facing downward and her motor functions were sluggish and weak with nausea, evidence of a possible concussion. Still, she was a kunoichi, not a damsel in distress despite being carelessly carried as one. She had forced her mind to focus.
The strength and speed with which this man moved showed that she wouldn't be able to physically overpower as she was, and any ninja worth their salt would feel the build up of her chakra for jutsu while being as close as she was to him. She had a feeling he wouldn't appreciate her attempt to escape.
That left putting him in a position for others to capture him. But how to do that?
Her inspiration came when her captor made an abrupt turn and fleeing in a different direction as he managed to dodge an ambush. The turn made her see the direction he was now going and quickly began to plan.
She knew the route he was now taking, one that have him pass near a large open plaza that the chasers could easily surround, especially with brief glimpse of seeing other forces converging from a different angle.
She waited for the right moment, bludgeoning her brain to work carefully and delicately to shift her chakra incremental amounts toward her legs, ready push her target off balance as she measured her distances.
The flash of a familiar white roof had gone by and then she shifted, rolling on her captors should and ignoring that said shoulder buried into her kidneys, she kicked out with both her sandalled feet and all of her chakra magnified strength to the side, hoping that it would hit what she hoped for.
It did.
Her feet met the side of a tall chimney that she had hoped was there, giving her purchase, and she was able to shove her startled and swearing captor and her self through the air and out over the plaza, both of them tumbling through the air.
Kurotsuchi had smirked at a plan well done.
They were both away from the rooftops from which he could travel swiftly, on lower ground, slowed and off balance. The chasers would be able to catch up swiftly.
They had landed roughly but, much to her disappointment, still upright, if a little stumbling. He may have had a chance of still getting away had the chasers not been as fast as they had.
Kurotsuchi, still in her captor's grasp and still dazed from the strike and possible concussion, was, again, able to only watch as her captor was assailed. Stone needles and fist sized rocks fired by her would be rescuers toward their foe.
Her captor had only glared at the missiles, his eyes shining gold, before he had slashed his right calm with a finger nail that was almost a claw, making it bleed, before barking out an incomprehensible word.
She was close enough to feel it. An abrupt swelling of power, feeling almost hungry and insane, full of hatred for all that was and is and will be, filling the immediate air around herself and the pale skinned man, distorting and twisting it, making it look like she was underwater and choking her with it's intensity and strength.
It was completely inhuman.
The missiles that struck the barrier simply bounced off or broke. Successions of carefully aimed volleys of different elements and weapons met with the same result. Attempts to physically assault the barrier were also repelled with ease, blistering the skin and burning through any covering material they had. Attempts to enter from underneath, a mistake many barrier users surprisingly often forgot, had also failed to yield any positive results for the ninjas of Iwagakure.
She might have been impressed with the barrier if she had not been held helplessly captive by the bastard that had created it.
The barrage finally stopped as her grandfather arrived, his short stature belying the air of an outraged Kage he wore like cloak, and gave commands that were carried out instantly. No one was foolish enough to anger their Kage at this point in time.
The short discussion that her captor had then had with her grandfather made her grit her teeth. How dare the man show such a lack of respect for her Tsuchikage! Didn't he know that, if he so desired, her grandfather could have wiped him from existence with a nary a single gesture and surge of chakra?! The Dust Release that her grandfather wielded was just that potent and deadly.
Unfortunately, she knew that the limp dicked bastard would get away with it. For all his hard arsed stances and willingness to sacrifice what was needed for his village to stand triumphant, he was still a man that loved his family. As long as the bastard had her in his grasp... Her grandfather would would follow the bastard's instructions.
Then, out of nowhere, she had been rescued by a rather bizarre jutsu. It the thin barriers had touched her but had done her no harm, while her captor had howled as if he had just been set on fire after being coated in hot tar.
Another blur and then she was set on her feet by a tall gangly summon, a Hyena if she heard correctly, next to her grandfather.
It was nauseating but she managed to hold down her bile, she wouldn't show weakness here.
The screams of her would be captor had now fallen silent, turned to angry growls as metal struck metal.
Her captor was now facing off against another stranger, one that had no hitaiate but was clearly moving at speeds of a trained chakra user.
At first glance, the stranger seemed to have the general configuration of a male, with broad shoulders that were never seemed to appear naturally on one of the female gender. He wore heavy leather boots, something not usually seen on shinobi, generally preferring their sandals. A set of tight, but not too tight, earth-tone coloured pants of a type and material she was unfamiliar with but seemed also heavy and thick. Over his upper body he wore a long white coat that reached just short of his ankles, a high collar that concealed the entirety of his neck and lower face, and seemed to have a cloudy grey hood attached to it and she could see a woven straw hat, similar to those worn by monks, discarded off to the side.
Most of her attention, however was drawn to back of the long coat and the way he fought.
A strip of three characters ran down the coat. Aku Soku Zan. Slay Evil Immediately or a Swift Death to Evil. A rather ominous phrase. Maybe even a naive one. The line between 'good' and 'evil' for the shinobi world was so thin as to be almost non-existent.
Despite that, the way he fought her former captor was mesmerising.
The bastard seemed to have slightly recovered from the effects of the odd jutsu, one that was probably cast by the coat wearing man, to an extent as was fighting the man in weapons combat, a kunai longer and more curved than standard, making them more like daggers, in each hand. His eyes were a poisonous gold, a colour that would no doubt haunt her dreams and nightmares for quite sometime, as he attacked viciously at speeds that she she could barely see and would be unable to match. It was clearly at above Chuunin level speed, maybe bordering Jounin!
The stranger, however, seemed unperturbed and unsurprised, like he was use to dealing with this type of speed on a regular basis.
It was clear that he was slower than her would be abductor by a fair margin, but his reflexes were beyond impressive, reacting at a ridiculous pace.
His skill with his weapon, an odd combination of scythe and axe and sword that she never even heard of let alone seen which seemed to be made of silver or, more likely, a silver alloy, was also beyond impressive. Despite her knowing nothing about the weapon, she knew enough about weapon users to know a master from a novice after a glance.
That man down there was clearly a master and it showed, his clothing barely being ruffled while the bastard, whose style seemed more primal, as if the kunai were being used in the place of claws, than she was use to seeing, was clearly sloppier, sacrificing skill for more bodily might, and the foolishness of that choice was mounting up, gashes and cuts appearing on him with just about every swing of the man's scythe and it was only the bastard's raw speed that kept him in the game.
The big thing that she noticed in that fight however, one that had forced many of those to watch the ongoing fight rather than intervene, was the fact that the weapon was passing through the still raised barrier around the bastard like it wasn't there.
She narrowed her eyes, looking at the words on his coat again, her gears spinning as she pondered a possible answer, a suspicion arising in her mind, before tucking it away in the back of her head for a more thorough thought at a later date.
"You fucking bastard!" Roared her former captor, snapping her back to the fight. Her saviour had managed to, literally, disarm the bastard, sending the severed appendage flying. She blinked as, after a moment, the arm seemingly dissolved into ashes in mid-air. That wasn't normal.
Her grandfather grunted beside her, his black eyes piercing as he also watched the fight with a detached expression and a grim smile as it devolved into a more desperate one. The one-armed combatant trying to scuttle away but the coat wearing one doggedly keeping on him, keeping the pressure on.
"About time," she heard growled, glancing at the bipedal Hyena summon who had spoken and was now detaching the thin spear from his, at least she assumed it was a him, back and rolled a hunched shoulder ready to throw it.
"What are-?" She was about to demand, not entirely sure what was about to happen. Was the summon about to stab his own summoner in the back? She had heard the reputations of wild hyenas and they weren't good. Cowards and scavengers to a one was the common opinion. Was this reflected in the summoning tribe?
"Easy, Princess," the beast said, a hint of respect in the voice at the title he gave to her, "I'm not going to hurt my summoner. We've worked together long enough to know what the other is going to do." He hopped slightly up onto the roof ledge, stretching tall and leaning slightly backward with the spear as he looked down onto the fight with studying eyes, appearing like he was going spear fishing in the shallows more than anything else, waiting for the right moment to reveal itself for him to intervene and strike.
She frowned as she turned back the fight. It was clear who was going to win now, it was just a matter of time and what exactly that the summoner and summoned pair had cooking in their brains.
It was all over less than a minute later.
In a single movement, as the desperate and maimed fool overreached, the odd weapon shot out, the outside and sharp edge cleaving through the wrist in a smooth chopping motion before making it spin in his hand and hooked the inner and blunter edge behind the bleeding bastard's ankle and pulling hard, making the bastard land flat on his back, before the scythe wielder rolled forward and away, leaving the bastard open if it wasn't for the damned barrier he still managed to have up.
This seemed to be what the summon was waiting for.
The spear glowed a light blue as chakra filled it's length, the white spots shining like pearls, before the hyena cast it downward, aiming for the pale bastard with a yell.
Like lightning from the skies, it struck fast and true, going straight through the barrier and piercing the enemy straight through the stomach and pinning him to the earth like a bug on a board.
The scream of pain was music to Kurotsuchi's ears.
But the hyena wasn't done.
Slapping his front paws into a seal, he moulded chakra for a jutsu.
"Hiden: Kotsu no Ori!"
The impaled man screamed even louder as the glowing pearls erupted, growing and extending...
Becoming bones.
They extended and curved, like ribs, digging into earth, stone and flesh with impunity, almost staking out the bastard where he lay. Some entered through his shoulders and other joints, rending and tearing them and ensuring that he couldn't move an inch without an agony of pain. Sadistic and painful, but most definitely an effective jutsu. Kurotsuchi could easily see the possible deadly applications of the jutsu and weapon combination.
Then there was another flicker of chakra from the beast, the paws flowing into another hand seal.
And the spear rotated. Swiftly.
Body parts were sent flying and spinning, the torn head's mouth open in a wordless scream and the earth staining red briefly, before, as with his other lost appendages, turning into ash in the wind. For a moment, the granddaughter of Onoki thought she heard a howl of rage and pain and despair on the wind, making her spine shiver in instinctive fright.
Then the fight was over and the bastard was dead.
"Nice shot," she complimented the much taller hyena with a slight smirk. She could appreciate a job well done, as long as she wasn't the job in question.
"For a whelp, any successful shot is a nice one," the beast shot back with a smirk of his own, "no matter how easy it may be."
She scowled at the beast, going to retort, before a slight humph at her side made her look down...to meet her unsmiling grandfather's eyes.
Oops.
"If you are quite done?" The shorter man drawled slightly, his large eyebrows raised in sarcastic questioning. She nodded slightly meekly. This was not her grandfather she was talking to at the moment, is was the Tsuchikage who's village had just been attacked and wanted answers as to why.
The Tsuchikage glanced at the summon, making the beast stand stiff and tense, his glowing eyes wary. Despite the size difference between them, the beast easily triple the small human's height, it was clear to any that actually looked who was the more powerful of the two, and they both knew it.
"I will give you and your summoner the benefit of the doubt for now," the Tsuchikage said coldly and dispassionately, "you both have done no harm to any citizen of Iwa, that I know of, and have aided in the rescue of one of my shinobi and the capture and execution of the culprit who did so. You will both be treated as guests, despite the fact that you both obviously broke through the village's security...as long as you both cooperate fully with the investigation as to how this whole debacle happened. Are these terms agreeable?"
"Actually only my summoner entered," the beast corrected, "and he did it completely by the book. Passport, questioning and seal. All of it was above board. I was just summoned after he had entered." He looked down at the Third, "but, on behalf of my summoner, I do accept these terms."
"Good," the old man said gruffly before glancing back down at the plaza, his elite shinobi flowing in and either following proper procedure or leaving now that they were not needed. "Go join your summoner."
"Earth Mother bless you, Lord Tsuchikage," responded the Hyena with a nod of respect before leaping down to the plaza and loped easily through the mass of shinobi, casually tearing his spear out of the ground as he passed by it, towards his summoner who was seated off to the side, covered and guarded equally by a half dozen visible GEM units, but otherwise armed and unrestrained as he seemed to carve something from the a block of wood that he had obtained somewhere, a curl of wood coming away by use of a very sharp knife. The odd weapon he had used was nowhere to be seen.
A surprising carefree picture of a man who had, mere minutes before, been in a clearly deadly fight with a nukenin of some degree of skill.
"Akatsuchi," commanded the Tsuchikage, making the ever present large man start at being addressed personally, the older man never even looking at the much taller Jounin, "please ensure that our guests are escorted to the Ambassador's Quarters close to the Spire, and that his needs are seen to," the old man glanced at the sun, judging it's position, "Get something to eat along the way as well for the three of you, Maki's is open now I think, and charge it to my account. Also make sure that the Spire kitchens know that they will be making food for a single, mature and highly physical male and a medium sized carnivorous summon."
"Yes, sir," the large man said and promptly hopped down, landing surprisingly lightly for a man of his size and girth, and went about his orders.
"Granddaughter," the Tsuchikage continued, looking up at her with a slightly soft light, a small liver spotted hand reaching out to gently place it on her arm, "let us go and get you fixed up. Your mother also will no doubt be waiting to hear from you," his eyebrows scrunched together in a frown, "and to give me a verbal thrashing." He muttered under his breath, but Kurotsuchi clearly heard. She withheld a small giggle as much as she could.
Her mother was a formidable force and not one to be taken lightly, even by one as strong as her own father in law.
She nodded in acceptance and her grandfather was quick to channel his chakra around them, preparing for the familiar Shunshin he would execute.
As his chakra and loose earth wrapped around them, she couldn't help but glance once more down at her saviour.
To her surprise, she was able to make eye contact for the first time, finally able to see the face of her rescuer. Her eyes eagerly drank in the features that she saw.
It was a young face, but older than her own by a year or three at best guess, her eyes spotting the premature creases in the face that indicated a life of either excessive laughter or a great deal of struggle, which made him appear a little older. He had black hair, a common sight, that went down his back, looking shaggy and wild, like a mane or a ruff. His firm jaw was more defined than pointed, chiseled but not shaped, and the rest of his features had that same rough edge to them, as if carved from the very bones and stones of the earth, and his skin was deeply tanned, obviously having spent a lot of his time outdoors and working in the sun (with very little protection if the fading marks of peeling that her womanly eyes, ones that were easily able to tell if her make up was good or bad, were able to spot. Although he seemed to changed a little recently, the youngest peeling more than several months old, at least.).
However it was his eyes, or rather eye, that caught her attention.
His left eye was covered in black eye patch that seemed to just stick there, with the character for 'shi', meaning 'four' or 'death', written in white. His other eye was a deep brown, reminding her of fertile soil and hard stone, with flickers and flecks of a vivid emerald green that danced through it like stars in the night sky.
The emotions she saw in his solitary eye were almost overwhelming in their intensity.
A fierce protectiveness, a drive to succeed, a sense of despair and loneliness followed by resignation and a fragment of hope that was hidden by almost everything else. A grim resolve resided there, along with endless endurance, sheer will and dogged determination that could wear down the very mountains themselves. This was not the eye of a mere teen, shinobi or not.
This was the eye of experience, of age. This was an eye that had seen horrors and nightmares, as well as dreams come true. That had seen heaven and experienced the depths of hell.
An eye of an old soldier, an old shinobi. Of a Kage.
Yet, as they made eye contact, that grim expression on his face and glint in his eye vanished for a moment, making her think she had dreamed it, as he gave a crooked grin at her, slight mirth filling his eye, as she felt herself pulled along behind her grandfather in the Shunshin.
She couldn't help but blush at the smile and grin he gave her. She thought that he should do it more often, it made his whole face light up.
Not to mention extraordinarily handsome.
Okay folks, tell me how you like this. This is going to be one of two stories that I will introduce all of you to on the lead up to Christmas. Think of them both as a Christmas present to all of my fans out there that have inspired me to write all of these stories.
This one is a crossover, obviously, between Buffy and Naruto. I am currently thinking of making it post season seven of Buffy, a year or two after the finale and completely ignoring the trash heap that is the supposed season eight and nine. Those just give me a head and ruin my enjoyment of the franchise.
Xander was involved in a nasty little brouhaha with a Master Level Vamp that existed in Africa, who was of course up to no good, when magic got involved. True to form and Harris' luck with the arcane, everything gets shot to hell (not literally) and sets both of the combatants sailing through the void that connects all worlds before getting spat out in the Summons Realm. Xander lands heavily while the Vamp wounded, bleeding and dazed, manages to stagger away, once more falling through the currently unstable dimensional fabric into the Elemental Countries.
With the arrival of Master Vamp in the Elemental Countries, you can bet your boot socks that everything is going to go around the twist. You think the dimensional busting bitch Kaguya is bad? Wait until you get a load of the nasties that will come knocking now that vamp has opened the way through. Pandora's Box, anyone?
I freely admit I stole the idea of Xander introducing vampirism and associated nasties from Relim with his/her Xander in Westeros stories. But I have my own twist that I will introduce and is one of the causes of Xander's new found abilities. That said, I have also altered what exactly happened to him on the very well known Halloween and the after-effects there of. The series will, admittedly, still run very close to cannon with a few of my own touches. Mostly just making it so that the more tragic events didn't happen.
I'm a sucker for a happy ending, the good guys always win, the bad guys always lose and the hero getting his girl, so sue me!
Anyhow, if everything goes right, you guys should see the other story I'm introducing up in less than a week. Hopefully it will also peek your interest.
As always, please leave a review,
Kujikiri21
