Disclaimer: I do not own KHR or Naruto
Hikari waved off Han and his watchers sometime during late noon, and shuffled back to her house.
So chakra was pretty much everything in this universe. If you didn't have chakra, you would die. But wasn't there some way to absorb chakra from the surroundings to prevent death from chakra exhaustion? Nature chakra ran the risk of being turned to stone. Was it possible to convert nature chakra to normal chakra?
Hikari blew out a breath. This was confusing. She briefly considered going on a sabbatical to visit some monks to find out. That idea was quickly wiped away. Her brother would blow a fuse. She hated being in the body of a two-year-old.
She flopped onto her bed and dove into her mindscape.
Hikari ignored her other consciousness, and tried to look for a pool. There had to be a pool of chakra somewhere!
Takao coughed to gain her attention, and pointed at the fountain. Hikari felt like slapping herself. Of course. Hidden in plain sight.
She slowly walked up to the fountain, and leaned over the edge, reaching a hand out to touch her chakra pool.
All of a sudden, she was jerked out of her mindscape. Hikari opened her eyes and saw her hands filled with a bluish colour. So this was chakra. Interesting. So chakra was a kind of energy that replaced life force. Or rather, chakra was life force. So shinobi essentially used their own life force for their jutsus.
An image of the Arcobalenos came to mind. Hikari laughed bitterly and shook her head to clear her thoughts.
"…Hikari?" Deidara stood at the doorway and watched his little sister with slightly narrowed eyes.
"I'm fine nii-san. I'm fine." Hikari gave him a reassuring smile.
Deidara stared at her.
"All right." He nodded stiffly.
Hikari smiled at his back. She loved him, and she knew he loved her back. So why did she feel like she was always staring at the backs of the ones she loved?
It was a rare day when both her parents were off on a mission and her brother was home on leave.
"I wanted to spend some time with you." Deidara admitted when she asked. Hikari would deny that she had felt warm inside at his words.
The two of them would eat lunch together, and Hikari would spend the day telling Deidara outrageous-seeming stories.
"Once upon a time, there was a little girl born. She had hair as dark as the night, and skin as pale as snow. She was dainty, but she was loved only by her father. Her name was Entaka. When Entaka was five, her father died of illness. Left with nothing, Entaka's mother had no choice but to sell Entaka into slavery. On her fifth birthday, Entaka was officially a slave, where all her light was forcefully extinguished. She was taught how to be submissive, and to do everything her master asked of her without question. Entaka was ten when she was finally sold." Hikari told her brother, as if she was recalling a memory. Deidara just sat there and listened, because how could he not when it felt like his sister was laying her soul bare for him?
"…She learned, she waited…"
Entaka slowly chopped the vegetables. Most slaves stuck together, but there were a few that would betray each other for something. She couldn't afford to trust anyone. Entaka still had her long and slightly wavy black hair. Her skin was still pale. And she knew she looked like a princess out of a fairytale. But for slaves, being pretty was just a disadvantage. Entaka knew that her 'master' was waiting for her to grow up a bit more. She mentally scoffed. No one was her master.
"When Entaka was thirteen, she stole her master's daggers and stabbed him in the lungs. Entaka escaped."
Entaka stole her master's dagger. She tightened the sheath-holder on her arm, such that it was hidden by her kimono. She walked lightly to her master's room. It was time. She knocked gently on the door. She looked blankly at his pudgy, greedy face. Entaka unsheathed the dagger and stabbed him in the lungs. She watched with satisfaction as he wheezed, gasping for air, begging for help, only to breathe in his own blood. Entaka looked around the room, grabbing whatever money she could find. She placed them into a money pouch an elderly slave had given to her before he died, grabbed the keys and slipped out of the room. Entaka locked the door and dropped the keys, using her foot to rub them in the dust, before kicking it into the room.
She made a roundabout to her ex-master's weapon room, where she grabbed a handgun. She slipped it into the folds of her kimono and made it off the property before anyone could find the body.
"That marked the start of one of the best assassins in the region..."
Entaka found and killed those men with money. She soon earned a reputation as 'Yuki-onna'. A beautiful woman who appeared out of nowhere and killed those who had wronged her, to slip back into nothing.
Entaka knew all the ways to kill someone. Stabbing someone in the throat with a pen. Grabbing someone's head and knocking it at an exact angle against the edge of a table. Breaking a wooden chair into pieces and stabbing someone with it. Strangling someone with clothes lying around. Putting poison in their tea. Putting something in their food such that they would choke on it and die.
There were so many possibilities, not counting Mukuro's illusions. She knew she had no regrets.
Hikari started at the feeling of someone hugging her, but relaxed when she realised that it was her brother.
Absently, she wondered how could Entaka be so different from Mukuro. How could Hikari be so different from Entaka? Mukuro was a psychopathic bastard with a sick sense of humour. Entaka was a cold and detached slave-turned-assassin. Takao was basically Mukuro pulling a Yamamato.
"If someone did something to you, you'll tell me, un?" Deidara asked her, looking into her eyes with a serious expression. Hikari smiled.
"Yeah. Of course nii-san." She had no idea if she was lying, when she was telling him, only in the form of stories.
Deidara pulled away from her.
"Can we get some takoyaki, nii-san?" Hikari asked.
"I think you're addicted to it." Deidara muttered, but got up to visit the food stall anyways. Hikari slipped her hand in his, and they walked together, side-by-side. Hikari let a small, but real smile surface. It was times like this when she thought that Mukuro was wrong, that maybe the Human realm was worth it after all.
Deidara held his sister closer to her as the thunderstorm outside raged. Hikari wasn't scared, she never seemed to be afraid, but he pressed closer to her anyways. There were times when she would shiver. He would never ask whether if it was from the cold or from fear. He would only play the silent companion.
Then there were times like now when she would hum or sing in an unknown language, like she was singing someone to sleep. Occasionally, he wondered if she was singing herself to sleep.
"You've got it all
You lost your mind in the sound
There's so much more
You can reclaim your crown
You're in control
Rid of the monsters inside your head
Put all your faults to bed
You can be king again"
She sang softly. Deidara felt himself drifting in and out of sleep, and wondered if she was singing to him.
Hikari glanced at her sleeping brother.
Chrome had sang that once. Perhaps she had wanted Mukuro to realise where he had gone wrong, perhaps she had wanted him to rise up from the ashes once more. Mukuro would never know. Neither would Hikari.
She snuggled into his chest. Her brother wouldn't understand her words either, but she could only hope that he wouldn't fall into that downwards spiral of insanity, just like he had in the original series. He wasn't a character anymore, he was her brother. He loved her more than their parents did. She loved her parents, but she would gladly sacrifice them for her brother, even if it meant that he would hate her.
Hikari was three-and-a-half when she met the five-tailed jinchuriki once more. She had greeted him with a beaming smile with sparkles. (Sasagawa Kyoko had taught Mukuro a lot of things about cuteness. Hikari wouldn't forget her anytime soon.) She knew that there was nothing his watchers could do about her, because she belonged to a small clan whose kekkai-genkai were highly valued by Iwa's Explosion Corps. Once she had realised that, she had taken advantage of it whenever she needed to.
She had found out that Han disliked humanity in general, leaving bits of his soft spots out for kids like her. He was like Mukuro in that sense.
Hikari then spent the rest of the day playing with his steam that was gently exuded from his armour.
Hikari actually liked Han as a person, partly because Mukuro would have formed a sense of kinship with him, and partly because he was nice, and never treated her like she wouldn't understand something whenever she asked a question. He ranked somewhere slightly below her parents on her list of people she liked.
She was briefly reminded of a little boy with brown hair, huge shining eyes, a striped scarf that covered his chin and a gap-toothed smile. Even three lifetimes after, she still regretted some things that she had done as Mukuro.
This pampered life had softened her.
Her brother was now eight, and he had somehow developed a love for sculpting. He was becoming more and more like the character in canon, and Hikari had absolutely no idea if her presence here had changed anything. That scared her, because she didn't want her brother's arms to be ripped off. She didn't want him to self-combust. She didn't want him to become that madman.
Deidara was meant to be reckless, yes. But he was supposed to be her brother, and that meant returning to her!
"Nii-san?" Hikari tugged on her brother's sleeve almost childishly.
"Yeah?" He looked down at her.
"Promise me something?"
"What?"
"Promise me that you'll never blow yourself up."
"…I'm not that careless, imoto." Deidara smirked.
"Promise me." Hikari persisted. She never wanted that scene to happen. It didn't matter if he didn't understand now. Her brother never went against his promises. He had better remember if it ever came to that.
"…I promise." He raked a hand through his hair and sighed.
Hikari stared at him like she was taking him in. She then nodded resolutely and walked away. Deidara rubbed his eyes. What was up with her?
It was rare when the whole family was home, but it did happen occasionally.
After breakfast, her mother pulled Hikari closer to her.
"How about we train while the boys play around?" She whispered into Hikari's ear playfully. Hikari nodded enthusiastically. Finally!
"This is my favorite jutsu. Then again, I'm probably biased because this is the one I made." She laughed and did some hand seals.
"Senkai no hanabira!" She exclaimed, and a dome of petals formed around her.
"Throw something at me." She ordered. Hikari mentally shrugged, picked up a pebble and tossed it to her mother. The petals knocked the pebble around, and the pebble bounced onto the ground in front of me. Hikari picked it up and examined it. It was chipped badly.
"I wanna learn that." She quickly said.
"I was going to teach you anyway." Mother smiled at her.
"The petals are a mixture of genjutsu and earth release. Using genjutsu, I made the bits of rock seem like petals to conceal them." Mother explained while Hikari listened attentively. So enemies would be more likely to let their guard down, even if it was just slightly. That was clever. Hikari reflected thoughtfully. As expected of her mother.
Hikari sat on the top of the tree. She was reminded of her first conversation with Han. Did she really want to explore the world? For the first time, she felt lost. In her past lives, she always had something to do. She was always working towards something. But now, she had absolutely nothing to do, no drive except to protect her brother. Maybe she would explore the world. She would then write down records of the sights, the people and the journey. And maybe, just maybe, she would find her purpose.
Mukuro had his purpose, no matter how skewed. He had always wanted the downfall of the mafia world. In the end, he had joined Sawada Tsunayoshi and his mafia-turned-vigilante-group. Entaka had wanted to survive, and to free slaves like her from those who took advantage of the slave trade. Takao wanted to survive as well, he had trained himself up from scratch and drove away those who dared come close to the ruins of his birth village. He had wanted to rebuild his village, to see it prosper once more.
And Hikari. Hikari once had no purpose. She still had no purpose other than to protect. But perhaps she would explore the world. And maybe then, she would find her purpose once more.
"What do you think of this?" Her brother pulled her to a side and grinned almost maniacally as he yelled, 'KATSU!'
The resulting explosion was beautiful. She gasped as the white light formed and burst outwards. The loud blast hurt her ears at first, but she quickly ignored that in favor of watching the orange dome of pure energy form and dissipate, small cinders floating down onto the crater where the small patch of earth had once been.
"It's amazing." She whispered, clearly awed. Her brother had already started to develop his explosions into an art form.
"Yeah. Art's a blast, un."
Hikari forced herself to not freeze and to keep moving. Did she even change anything at all?
Deidara seemed to notice, because his smile slipped slightly.
"Hikari?"
"I-I'm fine, nii-san." She smiled brightly, never mind the fact that it was forced like over half her smiles were.
"If you say so." He said, still unconvinced.
How could she be happy and cheerful when her brother was descending into darkness? She didn't want that. She wanted her brother alive, damn it! She was scared, so afraid, but she couldn't show it, because it was dangerous. Questions would be asked, unwanted questions. She wouldn't be able to answer them all truthfully, even if they were half-truths. There would then be a small chasm between them, because Hikari wasn't Mukuro. Hikari couldn't lie to her loved ones without feeling guilt. Hikari was compulsive, no matter how much of Mukuro's manipulative mind she had retained. It was dangerous, so dangerous. And the worst part was that Hikari knew that she might be heading down this dangerous path, and there was nothing she could do about it.
So she lay low and waited.
Waiting, just like always.
Just like Mukuro. Like Entaka. Like Takao.
Hikari was always waiting.
Hikari was four now. And she had a bad feeling. Her brother was confused when he had returned from his C-ranked mission and was barrelled into by his sister. Hikari kept glancing at the clock. Because something bad was going to happen, and please don't let it happen to her brother.
Sometime late at night, a ninja knocked on their door. Deidara opened the door warily, his sister behind her.
"...killed in action." Hikari sat down with a loud thump. She felt numb. A part of her knew that this might happen. She wanted to feel sad. But she also felt relief that it wasn't her brother. She hated herself for it. They were her parents. She might not have spent a lot of time with them, but they were her parents. They hadn't abandoned her like Mukuro's, Entaka's, or Takao's. They had stuck by her and her brother, even going onto more missions to make enough money to keep the both of them comfortable. They actually took care of her, so why was she relieved? She should be feeling sadder than this. But the most prominent emotions were guilt and relief.
Would Hikari have gone to hell if it was possible? She was a bad person after all. But she was numb all over, feeling the wrong emotions.
She felt warmth, and broke out of her trance. Her brother was trying to wipe away tears while hugging her. The jonin was politely not noticing his tears. Hikari felt something wet run down her cheek. Was she crying? Or were those her brother's tears?
"Thank you for telling us." Hikari managed to choke out. She didn't feel like speaking. Her throat constricted. The shinobi nodded and shunshined away. Hikari shut the door.
She collapsed back onto the floor and silently mourned for those who she had called her parents. They had actually taken care of her. And they were the first set of parents who she had called 'Mother' and 'Father', and actually meant it. Because unlike those of her past selves, they had cared.
She buried herself into her brother's chest. For the first time, she mourned for the ones who she had called her parents. She didn't know whether she was crying, but she didn't care. She might not have loved them as much as her brother did, but they cared for her, and she liked them. She wouldn't be able to know what they liked and disliked, like her brother did, but she knew what they were like. And she had loved them in return.
Then, something occurred to her.
They were orphans now. Her brother was an orphan. The story was catching up to her.
They spent the night mourning. Then, they had to pack their stuff the next week, because the Tsuchikage had adopted them.
Her brother had the option of being an emancipated minor, but he wouldn't leave her. Politically, it was a smart move. Because Deidara was intelligent. Deidara had as much a chance of becoming the next Tsuchikage as the current Tsuchikage's own granddaughter, who was roughly two years younger than Deidara. But both siblings knew that. Most importantly, Hikari knew that. Because Hikari was vindictive. And she would make Onoki regret moving onto them so soon after the death of the ones she had called her parents. After all, what was Mukuro's manipulative mind for if she didn't use it?
Mukuro knew politics. Entaka knew how to verbally stab people in the gut, painfully. Takao knew how to gain people's favour. And Hikari would wield these gifts her previous reincarnations had given her.
The first time the siblings met Onoki after the announcement that they were both adopted, Hikari took whatever chance she could to discreetly insult the old man. Deidara had shot her incredulous looks, because it was basically suicide if Onoki caught on, and because he never knew she had that kind of flair. Her words were all double-edged swords, and she knew that. But whenever she was caught, well, Takao had always been the king of bullshitting.
It was fun watching her brother trying to contain his snickers. She had hard-pressed not to laugh as well, because this was just fun. But if she laughed, that would give the game away, so she ended up keeping her poker face and laughing in her mindscape.
A/N: The song is called 'King' by Lauren Aquilina
