Well... Due to more life stuff, I haven't made much progress with the chapters, but here is chapter two. I hope that this helps people to be happy... for whatever reason.
Don't expect the next chapter for a while, I have a bad habit of taking to much stuff on at once, including a YouTube Channel, Twitch Channel and job hunting... I really need to prioritize things better XD
Chapter 2: War of Wave
One month later
Twilight sighed happily, as she felt her mastered and improved In'yu Shōmetsu sooth her body after an especially tough endurance lesson from Asuma. Her healing speed had recently surpassed Kabuto's and since she began training with her Shikotsumyaku a month ago, her healing had become even quicker and helped to naturally reinforce her bones to become stronger without the need to actively channel the Shikotsumyaku.
Her theory was that as both techniques utilize In'yōton at their base levels, they naturally complimented one another and would work in a sort of symbiotic relationship. Her bones would reinforce her and demand less nutrition as the bulk could be provided by her chakra while her healing would help the bones move and heal any damage done to them quicker and with a less demanding chakra drain.
She had also begun to develop some simple techniques for the Shikotsumyaku. She still didn't dare to try anything too large as she feared that she could still lose control of the artificial bloodline and end up killing herself.
She had also refined Naruto's Transformation technique, making the cost less intensive and remove the need to keep the Jutsu powered from her coils, instead making it a permanent transformation that she could cancel or change at will later.
Herself, Shikamaru, Chōji and their Sensei, Asuma, were returning from another D-Rank mission in the village. However, when they entered the mission room they found the Hokage cursing under his breath as he read a scroll provided by a small orange Nin-Dog.
The Hokage looked up and a small smile spread across his face as he saw his son. "Asuma, you are just in time, I need you and your team to provide Team 7 with back up on a C turned B/A-Rank mission in wave country. Team 7 has encountered the Missing-Nin, Zabuza Momochi; who's been hired by the shipping magnate Gatō to eliminate our client, Tazuna. You shall be the heavy hitter while you're Genin will be the support/ capture unit and Ino shall be your onsite medic." He ordered with a tone of finality, as everyone stood straighter and saluted to him. "You have two hours to prepare for a long-term mission, Ino you must be quicker as you will need to go to the hospital and pick up some extra supplies in case of injured." He added to which she nodded.
Seeing the Genin serious, including the ever-lazy Nara, the Hokage dismissed them.
Two hours later the team was departing from the village and Ninja hopping through the trees at high Genin speeds, Asuma and Ino having to slow down to ensure that Shikamaru and Chōji could keep up.
The trip took two days of non-stop tree-hopping to reach the ocean separating the Land of Fire from the Land of Wave. From there they hired a boat to take them across under the cover of night where Twilight handed out rations of Ninja pills to help them recover from the exhausting journey.
Once they reached the shore, they took to the trees once again to help speed up the journey while Asuma carried Twilight on his back so she could act as an early warning system by keeping her Kagura Shingan (Mind's Eye of the Divine Entertainment), as she had dubbed her sixth sense, at full blast to search for any threats.
A few hours later the Genin and Jōnin were knocking on the door to a small but quaint home on the edge of the island. The only reason they were at that specific house was thanks to Ino who lead them to Naruto's chakra signature.
SOS messages never contain exact details as to the sender's location in case the message were to be intercepted by the enemy, so it was down to them to find Kakashi and his team.
Slowly, the door opened and an elderly man peaked out through the crack, he audibly sighed in relief when he saw the village headbands and opened the door completely and motioned for them to enter.
"Come in quick." He said as they quickly made their way into the small house. Once everyone was in, they all turned back to the man. "My name is Tazuna; I take it that you're the backup for Kakashi-San and his brats?" He asked as Twilight almost gaged from the amount of alcohol she could smell on the man's breath.
"Sir, I must ask that you be more careful when you invite someone into your home." She commented, getting everyone's attention.
Shikamaru, seeing what she was doing, continued for her. "We could have been the enemy disguised as allies to infiltrate your home without drawing suspicion." He drawled out as he lent against the nearest wall.
"As rude as that was, they have a point Tazuna-San." Asuma said as he cast mild glares at both Twilight and Shikamaru, probably telling them to remember their place. Both Genin didn't react to it, as they both knew they were in the right but Shikamaru did mutter a small 'Troublesome'.
"Anyway, my name is Asuma Sarutobi; and these are my students: Shikamaru Nara, Chōji Akimichi and Ino Yamanaka." He said as he gestured to each Genin.
The old man looked shocked and slightly guilty for his actions but quickly shook it off and introduced them to his friendly daughter, Tsunami and they caught a small glimpse of a brooding child who was introduced as Inari, before he ran into another room but not before telling them all they were going to die.
They were led to a room where they found Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke talking to a bed bound Kakashi.
Not even bothering to say anything, Twilight knelt by Kakashi and began to diagnose his injury's as he seemed to be the only truly injured person there. "How long ago was your encounter with Zabuza and how long did the battle last for roughly?" She asked in a serious tone as she began to heal the large cut along the back of his hand while simultaneously transferring a small portion of her chakra into his core.
Kakashi lazily blinked at the question for a moment before his posture stiffened at the annoyed look the blond medic was sending him, promising pain should he deny her an answer. And considering that she was currently using a medical technique on him, she could easy turn that around and use it to cause him pain.
"We encountered him two days ago at noon where we battled for close to an hour before he was removed from the battlefield by a fake Hunter-Nin after they shut him down using Senbon Needles to the neck." He reported as he watched her frown at him.
"How are you suffering from such an advanced stage of Chakra exhausted? You should have already recovered close to two thirds of your capacity yet you only have one third." She asked in confusion as she finished healing his hand before moving to his lungs, where she found some water damage.
"My Sharingan is a transplant, it costs me much more to use it than a natural Uchiha… That and I did throw out a B and A-Rank water style Jutsu." He said slightly sheepishly, but yelped in pain when Twilight's hand pinched his cheek and began pulling.
"If you have something that demands too much, then use it only when necessary." She said with an annoyed edge to it. She hated it when people pushed themselves too far, she hated it when her patients did and its worse when shinobi do it the field and turn themselves into easy targets.
Twilight sighed as she released his cheek and pulled out a small paper packet filled with pills. "Take one every four hours for the next day. These pills are a new combination created by the Yamanaka and Akimichi clans, they will increase your chakra's recharge rate as well as help any minor injury's I missed heal a little." She said before she pulled it away from his extending hand.
"Only one!" She growled at him. "Anymore and your coils will burn to a crisp and you will be bed ridden for months as it repairs itself." She warned before she shoved the container into his chest with a bit of force.
While she knew, it was immature to act in such a way, she honestly hated Kakashi a little after talking with Naruto and learning that he basically favoured Sasuke over him and Sakura while training.
Kakashi blinked as he rubbed his chest while examining the packet.
Twilight huffed before turning to the others, Asuma was shaking his head at her while her teammates seemed amused. The Genin on Team 7 were varied in their reactions; Naruto was grinning, Sakura looked at her in annoyance and Sasuke looked indifferent but still made an evil eye at her.
"So Kakashi." Asuma spoke up, getting the rooms attention. "What's the plan to do now?" He asked as he lit a cigarette.
"For today we all rest." He said before he turned his head to hide his face as he swallowed one of the pills. "Tomorrow we will train the Genin. Zabuza will be out of commission till the end of the week, we have five days to get you lot into shape." He said before laid back into the bed and fell asleep.
With nothing left to do, the rest of the Shinobi fell to sleep with them taking turns on watch every three hours.
The Next Day
Twilight yawned quietly as she stared at the two Jōnin in front of them. One standing with a cigarette in his mouth while the other supported himself with a set of crutches. Her fellow Genin all looked tired having been up at five o'clock.
"Ok." Kakashi called out getting their attention. "We have just under five days to get you ready to fight with Zabuza and his Hunter friend. So, we will be starting today with climbing tree's." He said lamely, drawing a blank look from Twilight, an annoyed look from Naruto and inquisitive looks from Sakura, Sasuke, Shikamaru and Chōji.
Sakura decided to voice her confusion. "How will learning to climb trees help us fight Zabuza, Sensei?" She asked as everyone turned to Twilight after hearing her slap her face in exasperation.
"Well…" The white-haired scarecrow continued, not at all bothered by their female blonde student. "You're going to climb them without the help of your hands." He said, drawing shocked looks from them all except of Twilight and Naruto.
Twilight couldn't take it anymore; the annoying questions being shot out by Sakura were reminding her too much of her past self. Ignoring the stupid conversation on the basics of Chakra, she walked to one of the trees and began to walk up it vertically, aweing those who hadn't seen such a thing happen before.
Twilight turned back to her fellow Ninja. "Channel chakra into the souls of your feet and use it to stick to the bark. Naruto show them!" She instructed before Naruto followed her order and took off with shout of joy as he began to rapidly scale the tree next to her own.
She carefully observed the way Kakashi's single eyebrow twitched in obvious irritation. "This will increase your control, increase your overall chakra capacity and allow you to stick to almost any surface." Twilight explained before both she jumped down and landed in front of the amazed Genin, leaving behind very small cracks in the ground as Naruto followed her example and landed next to her with a slight thud.
Pointing an unamused look to Kakashi and Asuma, she turned and began to drag a surprised Naruto away. "I'm going to teach Naruto the next stage to this exercise. We will be just outside Tazuna-san's house by the water." She said with no room for complaint as she walked away, dragging a gormless Orange-Nin.
Five minutes later, the two Genin were standing in front of the constantly moving shore line.
"Today, you will be moving onto the next stage of chakra control, Water-Walking." Twilight said calmly before she began to walk out onto the water's surface.
"The basis is like that of Wall-Walking, the main difference is that the water beneath you, is in a state of constant shifting. Also, the surface isn't a solid, this means you can't stick to it, instead you use Chakra as a repellent force to stay surfaced." She explained as she turned back to awed boy.
"I recommend you strip down to your boxers, it will make getting dry later faster. You will need to constantly change your output of Charka to stay balanced." She said as she walked back to dry land.
"While you're doing that I'm going to test a few things out." She said as she walked away with a smirk as she heard the boy shout in surprise, followed by a loud splash.
Twilight walked for about thirty minutes till she came out into a clearing filled with flowers of ranging species, making her inner florist swoon. She expanded her Kagura Shingan to encompass almost a mile, easily sensing her fellow Genin and the two Jonin. At full blast, she would probably be able to sense close to a fifth of the island of wave and if she strained it a third.
Confident that she wouldn't be disturbed, she retracted her Kagura Shingan and removed the two leg warmers from her legs revealing the two weights around her lower legs. She carefully removed the two sets and sighed in relief as her legs groaned and ached in thanks from the reprieve of weight.
She slowly began walking around the clearing, testing her new perception of her weight against the compacted muscles in her legs. She felt a lot lighter than she remembered from before she first placed the two weights on. Slowly she began to speed up, reaching from her original low-Chunin speed to High-Chunin.
Smiling, she skidded to a stop in front of medium sized tree after a couple of minutes, entered a combat stance and struck the side of the tree with he left leg with all her strength. She was shocked as the tree shook and a large crack went halfway through the tree and the bark she struck shattering, creating a large indentation in the tree.
Her wonder quickly vanished as she hopped away from the tree and held her leg in pain that was shooting up and down her muscles and bones. Silently cursing herself she amplified her In'yu Shōmetsu through her muscles and her Shikotsumyaku into her bones to heal the fracture she could feel.
After five minutes, she pushed herself up but winced from the phantom pains. Sighing, she waked over to her weights and re-applied them to her legs before covering them with her leg warmers. She turned back to the poor tree she had wounded, with a small frown she walked over to it and applied a small spell from Equestria that would accelerate the rate it's bark would regrow.
She watched with a smile as the large crack began to rapidly fuse back together and the indentation rapidly filled back in. While the spell was good for something like this, it was useless in any other situation. She first learned it when she moved to the Library in Ponyvile to repair any damage to the wooden structure. But it couldn't be used for combat as it would only restore the wood to its original shape and could only be manipulated a small bit, not enough to create a new tree never mind a forest like the Shodai Hokage could do from nothing.
*Snap*
Startled, she spun around and brandished a kunai, entering a combat stance. Across the clearing was a pretty girl with long black hair, dark brown eyes who and wore a pink, sleeveless kimono, with pale red edges and decorated with small plum-coloured swirls, that went to her ankles. Around her waist was a simple white obi tied in a bow, and she wore a pair of light brown sandals with dark straps. She also wore a dark-coloured choker around her neck.
In her arm was a basket filled with different kinds of flowers that Twilight herself recognised could be used for several different medicinal purposes.
The girl looked to be a few years older than Twilight and held a look of shock on her face as her eyes dated between her and the tree that was still mending itself.
Twilight cursed herself for not paying attention: when she used her magic, her Kagura Shingan would become blind until it adjusted to the new energy. She continued to silently curse herself as she waited for her sixth sense to adapt.
"Hello." She said simply as she slowly began to move around the edge of the clearing, keeping the girl in her sight as her Mind's Eye slowly began to gain range again.
"H-hello Shinobi-San." The girl replied with a stutter as she nervously glanced between her and the tree, no doubt thinking she had Mokuton or something along those lines. The last person to have it was Hashirama Senju, who was known to have the power to quell and control all the tailed beasts with the Mokuton's power.
"What are you doing out here miss?" Twilight asked as she stopped moving, now closer to the girl, letting her limited sense finally encompass the unknown girl. The first thing she learnt was that she was not a civilian, no civilian had reserves of chakra that compressed in their coils, a clear sign she was suppressing her stores. The next thing was that her chakra was cold, very cold, the sign of a chakra based bloodline, either snow or ice. The last thing she found was a cluster of chakra at the back of her neck, this typically meant a type of seal is drawing in chakra at an accelerated rate.
Twilight was nervous, this was the first time she had ever been out of the village and she might have just run into a possible enemy.
"I'm collecting herbs for my uncle, he has fallen ill recently." She said as she walked forward slowly, possibly to not startle Twilight and knelt to begin picking the flowers expertly.
Slowly, Twilight lowered the Kunai but kept it in hand and remained in a loose battle stance. "What illness?" Twilight asked as she studied the plants she was picking.
The girl smiled. "He has always had a weak constitution, this time it's a very bad case of the summer flu." She said as she went to pick another herb, but jumped back to avoid several shuriken thrown at her.
Twilight wordlessly charged with her Kunai and went to strike the girl, only to be countered by the girl using a Senbon needle, locking the two together. "You're lying, the herbs you have and the ones you're picking are used to create an ointment to accelerate healing and relax muscles from a stiffened state. This is used for patients who have suffered from electrical damage or rarely been forced into a state of false death… Hello Hunter-Nin." She deduced as she fought down her nerves and fears, this had become a life and death situation with no back-up, she would need to play this smart.
The girl's eyes widened before a look of pure focus appeared on her face. "Smart, not many Shinobi are knowledgeable on these types of flora. May I ask how you knew?" The Nin asked as the temperature around them began to drop. The disguised Ninja began running her free hand through one-handed seal, amazing Twilight who quickly snapped out of her amazement.
"I'm a Yamanaka, we are famous for our knowledge on plants, and I have one more advantage." She replied as her purple eyes began to glow and release a trail of energy. The Ninja didn't have time to ponder this new development as she was forced out of their dead-lock by a nova blast of purplish pink energy, which also destroyed the thousand needles of water that had formed around them.
Twilight panted as she quickly began running through Hand Seals. "Doton: Doro Hōshi (Earth Release: Mud Spore)!" She called out before slamming her hand onto the ground, quickly converting the surrounding earth into a river of mud that began rapidly flowing towards her enemy.
The girl in pink quickly corrected herself and vanished in a blur of speed away from incoming river of mud. Twilights eyes widened as she only just managed to dodge a barrage of needles heading for her neck, but a few still pierced her back. Grimacing in pain, she began running through more Hands Seals, this time for a Jutsu she had found deep in the Konoha's library.
"Genjutsu: Kokuangyo no Jutsu (Illusion Technique: Bringer-of-Darkness Technique)." She muttered as she sent it towards the fast-moving Chakra signature behind her, causing the signature to slow down considerable, allowing Twilight enough time to push her upper body out of the way and avoid a Kunai made of ice that cut along her cheek.
Twilight inwardly winced at the use of that technique, she was nowhere near mastering it, and it cost a lot of chakra to use.
But it gave her enough time to rip her leg warmers and weights off.
She threw the heavy weights at her opponent who quickly span and kicked them out of the air, using the clinking sound of the bars to find them in the darkness, probably thinking the sound to be poorly thrown shuriken, to locate them in the darkness of her vision.
This caused her to scream in pain as her brain registered what she did, that being kicking several sets of compacted metal bars in open foot sandals, no amount of physical training would allow someone to block out the pain without great amounts of pain threshold training. She fell to the ground in pain as she began blinking rapidly, the pain breaking the illusion.
Twilight wasted no time in sprinting at the prone girl, who had ice forming around her in the mud. Twilight flipped before delivered a drop kick into the girl's abdomen, using her strength and the momentum provided by the flip to shatter what looked to be a mirror of Ice that formed under her opponent and force her to spit up bile and blood.
Twilight reached into her pouch and pulled out a seal tag and slapped it on the girl's forehead. This tag was given to medic ninja so they can cope with rowdy ninja who think that they can still fight, sealing off their chakra and stopping any movement signals from the brain reaching the person's limbs.
Twilight panted as she fell onto her rear next to the girl. The adrenaline wearing off as the gravity of the situation she just went through landed on her. Several times in that fight she came close to death. She could have done better in some situations, such as teleporting away from the Ice Kunai instead of using a Genjutsu she hadn't mastered just to have time to dodge.
She raised a shaking hand and began pulling out the Senbon that struck her back, sighing as her In'yōton based healing slowly sealed the wounds and healed the cut along her cheek.
Twilight slowly moved over to the gasping girl and looked her in the eyes. "I win." She said with slightly shaking hands as she placed a Kunai against the girl's throat.
A look of defeat appeared over the girls face she suffered through her laboured breaths. "I'm going to ask you some questions and I want honest answers, I will know if you're lying to me." She told her as she gently applied more pressure to her neck.
"First question, who are you?" She asked, receiving a blank look in return she applied more pressure, drawing blood.
The girl gritted her teeth. "Yuki, Haku." She forced out.
"What is Zabuza Momochi's status, Haku-San?" She asked as she let up on the pressure of the Kunai.
Haku said nothing as she glared defiantly at her captive.
Twilight sighed. "You can either tell me, or I can go looking around that head of yours and see it in your memories for myself. I would rather not do that as it very uncomfortable for the recipient and I doubt you have any mental training to protect your mind." She explained with a pointed look.
Haku glared for a few more moments before sighing. "He is bedbound, if I were to treat him he would be operational in just under a weeks' time." She replied reluctantly.
"Thank you, now why are you working with Zabuza?" She asked as she moved Haku's head and subtly began looking at the now visible seal on the back of her neck.
"He saved me, I owe him everything so I am his tool." Haku replied with glazed eyes and a vacant smile.
"Okay…" Twilight replied unsure. "Next, what is the seal on the back of your neck?" she asked, drawing a confused look from the girl.
"What seal?" She asked looking greatly confused.
"The one on your neck, its passively drawing on your supplies in minuscule amounts." She explained as she reluctantly conjured a mirror of magic in front of Haku's eyes that she connected to her own vision.
Haku gasped at the sight of floating mirror in front of her, being held in the air by a thin pinkish-purple energy. Looking into the mirror she could see the back of her own head, her hair being held up by her captor's hand, revealing a small seal imprinted in her skin.
"I have no clue what that is." Haku said as she tried to make any sense of it, she couldn't remember a single moment or time when a seal master was anywhere near her or Zabuza.
"Haku-San, what is Zabuza too you?" She asked having a sickening feeling in her stomach.
The glazed eyed, vacant smile appeared on her face again. "He is my master and wielder for I am his tool." She replied.
"Haku… do you know what a memory seal is?" She asked causing Haku's eyes to widen. "I know you don't trust me Haku-San, but please let me remove it from you. Extended use of a memory seal on someone is very dangerous as it would eventually lead to fluctuations in the subject's memories, eventually leading to the subject gaining Dementia after several years depending on the seal's quality." Which was all true, as Yamanaka she was trained in anything related to the mind and that included rare seals that the Element Nations generally frowned on.
She gently removed the restraining seal from Haku, as her Chakra would probably be needed but still prepared a Teleportation spell with her magic in case she turned on her.
Haku slowly nodded, and shivered in worry and anticipation as Twilight's fingers moved tortuously slow across the black array on the back of her neck, she was happy that the floating mirror was still in front of her as it let her see everything the blonde-haired girl was doing.
After an hour of slowly analyzing the seal, Twilight was very happy to find that while seal had a complex function, its security wasn't even amateur. The hour she spent tracing the lines were mainly to ensure there wasn't any failsafe's in case someone attempted to remove it.
With a quick swipe along the seal with an application of Chakra, the lines began moving rapidly before dissolving into black dust.
Haku's face gained a look of horror as she released a low cry of misery before she spun and encompassed Twilight in a hug. Shocked, Twilights magic she had charged encompassed the two in a pinkish purple glow as memories flashed in her mind.
Memories that weren't hers.
Watching the murder of her mother and father from the man in the shadows, wielding a large clever… But her mother and father were alive back in Equestria?
Living on the cold streets of a land filled with water and blanketed by snow… But she always slept in a warm bed surrounded by four wall and a solid roof in Canterlot and Konoha?
The gruelling, torturous and inhuman training that Zabuza forced her through and the painful burning pain on the back of her neck as the memory seal was applied… but she never went through any of that?
Haku was going through the same thing.
Feeling the panic as her magic went out of control… But magic isn't real?
Feeling the pain and anguish as her friends abandoned her… But she doesn't have any friends?
Feeling the indescribable pain of falling through the multiverse… What's a multiverse?
Twilight returned the hug with vigor as tears began to trail down her face, a foreign sorrow and anger assaulted her. Haku too felt her own sorrow being reflected through Twilight as well as Twilight's own hollowness.
"He did it! It was Zabuza! He killed them when they refused to help him!" Haku cried as she buried her face into Twilight's shoulder.
Twilight cradled the girl as they both cried to each other. After a few minutes, they pulled away from each other but still had hold of each other's arms.
Twilight, feeling a little guilty, applied the Shōsen no Jutsu to heal the cut along Haku's neck, then the internal damage done to her stomach from Twilights kick and the damage done to her feet.
Haku sighed in relief as the pain began to fade away. "So…" She began. "… you're a magical pony?" She said as she wiped away her tears, burring her anger and sadness.
Twilight was shocked momentarily before she calmed herself, quickly deducing what happened with her uncontrolled magic. "I see, you got my memories while I got yours, and I no longer am one so no." She said, surprising Haku.
Haku lowered her head. "If that's true then you know what he did, don't you?" She asked, receiving a nod in return.
They sat in an unconfutable silence for a moment before Twilight broke it. "You're not a bad person for what you want to do." She said drawing Haku's attention, she continued as she reapplied her leg warmers and weights again. "I know from your memories that you are a kind person by nature. Wanting to hurt the one who took everything from you is normal, it's something I know all too well, I have been holding that desire for close to ten years now. And if you didn't then I would be worried." She said as she brought her magic mirror closer them, absently cutting her vision from it making the mirror's surface go completely black.
Haku released an annoyed sigh as a look of worry crossed her eyes. "I know that I can't take him out by myself, even in his weakened state he would be able to fend me off, the only saving grace I have is that he can't wield the Kubikiribōchō (Decapitating Carving Knife/ Executioner's Blade) and my Kekkei Genkai." She said as she began to fiddle with her Kimono, suddenly feeling rather nervous.
"That's fine, there is more than one way to remove a demon's claw." Twilight responded with a smirk as the mirror flew between the two. "Place your hand on the mirror and think about everything you know of Zabuza." Haku nervously followed the request and was pleasantly surprised with the cold temperature of the mirror.
Her eyes widened in shock as a profile on Zabuza appeared on the glass, lists and lists of information began to appear about him… everything she knew was on the mirror.
Twilight scanned the information, mentally sorting it all and picking out the flaws she could find. While the information was far from perfect it would need to do.
"I need you to return to Zabuza." She said, shocking Haku. "I know you don't want too and trust me I don't want you too, but we don't have too much of a choice. It would be foolish to challenge him at the moment, and I can't reveal you too the Leaf-Nin, as far as they know you are a threat and won't listen to me, they don't know what I do and wont trust you." She said as her mirror vanished into thin air.
"We need them to help us remove him." Twilight said as she stood up before offering her hand to Haku. Haku looked hesitant for a moment before she gently grasped Twilights hand, feeling a pleasant tingle, she smiled.
Twilight smiled, feeling the same tingle, as she pulled her up. "You already know about my true nature, and I know yours. How about we keep each other's secrets?" Twilight asked, feeling oddly comfortable and trusting with Haku after her magic connected the two of them.
Haku smiled, feeling the same way. "Yeah, I would like that Twilight-San." Haku replied with a gentle smile.
Twilight nodded. "You have seen my memories and know what I can do, but what I can't do is give you guaranteed safety or any at all. I might be one of the most respected Genin in Konoha, but I have no authority. I can't give you any safety there, but I can here." She said as she slowly began running through more hand signs.
After a minuet, she placed her left palm on the ground. "Doton: Hi hyōji no sēfuhausu (Earth Release: Hidden Safe House)." She mixed a few drops of her Mana into her Chakra, enhancing its effect as the ground opened, revealing a set of stairs going descending into darkness.
Walking down the stairs she flicked her right hand and purple flames sprung on small outcroppings on the walls, lighting the corridor. Turning back to the dark-haired girl she smiled. "This is a quick safe-house technique that I have modified with some magic. There are several rooms; a functional bathroom, living room, a bedroom, and a kitchen that needs to be stocked. There are only a few things I can't create from magic itself, but food is one of the hardest things to conjure as it's easy to make the food inedible and possibly toxic." She explained to the amazement of Haku who turned her attention to the gently flickering purple flames that emitted a pleasant heat.
Seeing the peaceful look on the girl's face she smirked. "The purple flames are a personal creation of mine that offer light and heat but lack the capability to actually burn." She said before she shoved her hand into the fire.
Haku screamed as she forcefully pulled her new friend's hand out the fire, only for her shock and horror turn to wonder as she examined the unscathed hand.
"Follow me." Twilight said as she moved through the furthest door with the amazed Haku behind her. Entering the room, Haku was greeted to a small room with a sofa and tea table. But her attention was drawn to a bowl that floating off the ground with a green flame burning within.
"This is messenger fire." Twilight began as she stood next to ethereal flame. "It was originally a by-product of my magic being infused into a dragon, after some time I was able to recreate it, allowing me to make a way to transfer small objects and messages to a specific location or person. The tricky part was making sure that I could make another flame without the need for said dragon to send the message himself." She explained before she sat on the sofa.
"With that we will be able to send messages between each other safely once I head back to Konoha. This safe house is for you to use if Zabuza discovers you are no longer loyal, the entrance will naturally hide itself when you are inside and will reveal itself to you and me. But there will be a congregation of chakra at the entrance so be careful." She explained with a serious voice and a minor glare, making Haku slowly nod in understanding.
Twilight smiled "Good, I will leave a Kage Bunshin here to stock the kitchen, remember that this place is here for you in case of emergencies." She said as she made the Shadow Clone's hand sign, summoning a perfect replica of herself who quickly left and went into the kitchen.
"Continue treating Zabuza for now, in a weeks' time he will probably make his presence known by assaulting the Bridge when Tazuna is working. I am part of the back-up sent to help so the Jonin should be able to counter him." She said she got up and pulled out a bottle of cream from a storage seal in her pouch before handing it to Haku.
"This works in the same way as the ointment you would have made with the flowers, medic ninja's always carry some in case of Raiton (Lightning Release) based injury's." She said before she suddenly hugged the girl. "Are you going to be alright?" She asked as she moved away, knowing this would be tricky to do.
Haku looked unsure for a moment. "What if this does work? What will happen to me?" She asked wondering if she could have a life in Konoha.
Twilight winced, that would be hard to explain. "That could be possible, but the problem is that the council would be more likely to turn you into a baby factory for your Hyōton (Ice Release) … or force you to marry the Uchiha to try and have Hyōton wielding Sharingan babies." She said blandly, Konoha might be classed as the best hidden village but even they had done that before.
Haku hung her head, she knew that Kekkei Genkai were revered by most hidden villages due to the fact they were impossible by normal shinobi. While there were other hidden villages such as the Kirigakure no Sato (Village Hidden by Mist) who viewed them as nothing more than demons.
Twilight sighed, her staying within' the hidden village was dangerous enough, especial considering she was part of a mind reader's clan. She was in the same position as Haku concerning her magic, the Elders would jump at the chance to see if they could have a clan of magic users.
"I don't like it either. I don't plan to stay with Konoha forever, I will eventually leave when it's no longer useful to me, I just need to survive long enough so I can get home." She said as she moved over to the entrance.
She suddenly stopped a few steps from the door. "How would you like to join me?" She said, shocking the girl who looked at her in confusion. "I mean that I am not loyal to Konoha and will eventually leave. While I wish to return to my home and be away from here, I still wish to learn as much as I can from this world. But I do not endorse slavery in any way, I could give you a life away from this world… it would take a while but I should be able to get back there." She said as she turned back to shocked girl.
Haku was shocked, a way out? A way out of war, too good to be true… but from the fragmented memories she had from Twilight showed a colourful world that was free of war and had to deal with little things that don't mean much.
Haku could only say one thing. "I would be honoured." She said with wide eyes.
Twilight smirked. "I will try to come back in two days. The cream should last that long with the injury's I saw in the compiled data." She said as she conjured the mirror again with the profile of Zabuza. "With this information and the minimal knowledge, I have on your ability's, mixed with my own ability's we should be able to create a strategy against Zabuza. I am at Low Chunin overall, but I would put myself at high Genin as I lack any real combat experience." She said as she looked over the information.
Haku slowly nodded. "Ok, I will try and be back soon but I can't promise much." She said as she walked out of the hideout with Twilight following just behind.
Once the two were out of the hideout they watched as the ground closed behind them, not even leaving a single mark as the stairs of dirt raised and the lost grass and flowers rapidly grew back. No marks remained other than a small congregation of chakra at the surface she could sense.
Twilight turned back to the Ice Nin. "Be careful, if anything goes wrong, get here and hide. Write me a message and throw it into the fire and I will come as soon as possible." To which Haku nodded in response.
A mask of indifference covered Twilights face as she looked towards the approaching chakra signature of Asuma. "We have incoming; my Jonin-sensei is heading here. This is where we part ways for now." She said as she held her hand out to Haku. "I hope this goes well."
Haku gently grasped Twilights hand. "Me too, this needs to go well." She replied before jumping away and vanishing into the trees.
Seconds later a smoking Asuma fell into the clearing, thinking quickly Twilight began to leak out her chakra to mask Haku's lingering chakra. "Hey Ino, what happened here?" He asked looking at the obviously changed landscape, a sign of either water or earth based Jutsu being used, that and there appeared to be signs of a struggle judging from the uneven earth where something pushed it up.
Twilight regarded the Jonin equally, showing the smallest amounts of respect possible. "I was trying a new Doton technique, worked pretty well and then I started some speed training and forgot to take off my weights." She replied as she began to rub her legs from the actual stress they placed on her, making her act more believable.
While she did respect her Sensei, she only did in miniscule amounts. She respected his skill and prowess, a great Jonin. But she was highly disappointed with his way of teaching; she didn't agree with simply focusing on team based exercises. While she knew that the Konoha military wanted another Ino-Shika-Cho combo, which he seemed too much enthusiastic to encourage, cutting into their individual ability's and making them focus on skills that needed each other to work properly.
Then there were all the times they had seen Team 8 and he had dropped almost everything to try and hit on Kurenai, much to the amusement of all the boys present… to the girls however it was annoying and stupid, but to Twilight it was a sign that he was incompetent as a teacher because he would go at it for close to an hour. Taking time away from six Ninja-in-training and a Jonin who wanted to train her students.
Asuma sighed, while he could get Shikamaru and Chōji to at least respect him, it seemed he hadn't made a good impression on her with the Jonin-Genin test. Even Shikamaru had admitted that it was a good test to weed out the weak, but it seemed to annoy Ino. Especially when he tried to say she was in a Provisional Position at the hospital.
He had no idea that she had read everything on the contract and had it changed to make sure there were no loopholes to be exploited against her.
She seemed to specifically hate the fact he tried to manipulate the conversion, and them into believing something she knew to be false. Since then she seemed to get the slightest kick by revealing anything, even the smallest of thing, he kept hidden from them that concerned them. Making it very hard to give his team any surprises as she would ask a few innocent questions while watching your every move, catching every motion and mistake with cold efficiency.
It was like working with a blonde, mini, female Ibiki…
Terrifying.
She could easily become the best in the T&I (Torture and Interrogation) department. Before he could continue pondering his blond student as she started to walk past him. "We should probably head back now; I need to see how Naruto is doing." She said with indifference as she left the clearing, leaving an annoyed Asuma.
Four Days Later
Not much had occurred over the following four days, Twilight had mainly supervised Naruto with the water walking while she devised a new way to advance her chakra control.
She started by applying pebbles to as many of her Tenketsu points around her body while water walking in the rougher waters away from the shoreline, in doing this she had found her already good chakra control was becoming even more refined while also allowing her to learn where her Tenketsu points were.
She had been able to reach her hideout two days after her initial meeting with Haku and had unfortunately not seen her, but she had found the empty bottle of the formula with a note thanking her.
Since then she had to be a bit more careful as Asuma has noticed when she had vanished and was asking question after question as to where she was. She was lucky that she had could deflect most of the questions while she focused on healing the bruises and scrapes the other Genin had gotten due to the exercises.
One important thing she had accomplished was convincing Kakashi to teach her how to perform the Shunshin no Jutsu (Teleportation/ Body Flicker Technique). She already had a great deal of speed when her weights were removed but the idea of being able to move even quicker was too tempting, plus this way she wouldn't expend as much energy as she would by Teleporting short distances and it would be quieter and less noticeable. She didn't ask Asuma to teach her due to the current bad relationship they had to which Kakashi seemed to be oblivious to as he stared into that little orange book all time.
Since Kakashi had taught her how to perform it she had two clones practice it constantly, becoming more experienced with it and slowly reducing the chakra needed to perform it, she also sent one of her clones after it was done with training to the Hideout as a more reliable method of checking on Haku.
She had demonstrated her progress to Kakashi when asked and he had compared her to someone known as Shisui Uchiha, who was famous for the very technique she was practicing, being able to use it in combat to create speed clones that he could move between effortlessly and instantly to strike from multiple sides and let his afterimages take the hits meant for him.
Since then she had taken to employing the technique whenever she could, becoming something of speed demon, appearing and vanishing without a sound around her comrades to scare them and then be gone before they could react. To say the least, she had avoided a few Kunai swipes having her fun would be an understatement.
She was with her fellow Konoha Shinobi around Tazuna's dinner table when she suddenly stiffened, dropping the chopsticks and the food she held. Everyone turned to her with questioning looks as she calmly stood from the table.
"Sorry Tsunami-san, but I'm feeling tired so I will rest for a while, thank you for the food." She apologised with sincerity before making her way around the table and up the stairs, ignoring the inquisitive, suspicious and confused looks she was receiving from the rooms occupants.
Once she was safely in the room she shared with the other Genin she created a shadow clone that took her place in her sleeping bag before she disappeared in a flash of pinkish-purple light.
She reappeared in the same clearing from four days ago and quickly ran down the revealed stair case into the hideout. She bolted into the main sitting area where she found Haku on the sofa, curled up and crying.
Her outfit consisted of pinstriped outfit which stopped at his knees. Over that she wore a green haori with white trimmings, and around her waist was a brown sash with a fringed trail that wrapped around her waist twice. She also wore light-brown platoon sandals with straps in being the same colour as her kimono with nail polish on her fingernails and toenails in matching blue green colour.
Haku's long hair was gathered in a white bun holder, with two locks of her hair fell loose framing her face, bound with metal hair cuffs at the ends. On her head was a forehead protector with the Kirigakure's symbol carved upon it.
Large cuts and rips dotted her outfit with some blood stains covering her with a very large cut running along her back, as if a cleaver had been swiped along her back with some force.
Wasting no time, Twilight immediately began to heal Haku with an application of the Shōsen no Jutsu.
"What happened? I sensed your chakra in distress." She asked with worry as she monitored her patient's wound as it slowly began to close.
"I-I got cocky." She choked out as she continued to cry. "I was applying his medicine and I saw an opening. He had no weapon and was completely vulnerable… I tried to shut him down again with Senbon but he could dodge. He began ranting about his damaged and useless t-tool, before finding some Kunai and throwing them at me. I was about to escape through one of my mirrors but he was able to use his Zanbatō at the last second." She explained as she slowly began to calm down, finding comfort in her ally as she slowly felt the pain in her back fade away.
"You're an idiot, you could have been killed." She almost growled out as she focused on healing the damage around her spine, being careful around her spinal cord.
Haku whimpered at the words. Twilight, feeling bad, continued. "I'm just glad you're alive, don't make any foolish decisions again." She said, trying to comfort her as she fished out some bandages to cover the scared red skin, to help stop the new cells from tearing.
"So, we have a problem then?" She asked as she pulled Haku up and wiped her face with a spare piece of bandage.
Haku nodded with her head held in shame. "Zabuza might be a solo Nuke-Nin as he doesn't communicate with other ninja, but he still has some connections to another Nuke-Nin. They might not like each other but he and Raiga Kurosuki will work together so long as it will benefit them both." She said as she began to fidget with her hands, un-knowingly making the room to frost over due to her emotions.
Twilight grimaced, that would be an issue. Raiga Kurosuki, the Kirigakure no Raijin (Thunder of the Hidden Mist). An S-Rank Missing Nin that had found a love in performing burials… on living people. One of the few shinobi capable of manipulating Natural Lightning using his swords: The Kiba.
Not much was known about him after he defected, except that he began to wear a large sack on his back and suddenly became almost untouchable in battle, bumping him from his original A-Rank to S.
"That is going to cause some problems." Twilight muttered as she sat next to Haku, not bothered about the blood staining the seat.
While Twilight appeared to be calm on the outside, her mind was working at a mile-a-minute trying to reorganise and plan the strategy - another change brought by the damage to her soul, it had become very hard for her to panic like she did when she couldn't find something for her friendship report.
With the possible addition of Raiga their chances of winning would be greatly reduced, the greatest advantage against him would be Asuma's Fūton (Wind Nature) that would be able to counter Raiga's Raiton, though that might not work against Natural Lightning.
The only logical way to beat him would be to slow him down, and somehow remove the large sack from his back. She wasn't blind enough not to see that his apparent increase in reflexes corresponded to the sack he began to wear, removing that should cripple his apparent agility and possible cripple him further as there would be a very real chance he would be reliant on whatever the sack contained.
Slow him down, remove the sack and pray that Asuma would be able to counter Raiga's. A foolish and improbable plan, but not impossible.
Twilight silently signed in frustration, why did it have to become more complicated?
Two Days Later
Not much had happened over the last two days due to Asuma keeping an even closer eye on her than before, a problem to her that occurred as he caught her sneaking back in during the dead of night. She could only just deflect his questions with half-truths and sweet words.
She had Haku stay in the hideout with medicine to help her recovery to accelerate. She had helped Naruto to achieve a semi-efficient form of water walking which she had dubbed Water-Hopping, where he would be constantly moving. Making use of his monster stamina and extreme chakra to move swiftly across the water's surface in unpredictable patterns.
The rest of the Genin had mastered the Tree-Walking but not without complaints from Sasuke and Sakura about how it was either to easy or that Naruto was somehow weak for not finishing the Water-Walking exercise yet… Beside the fact they had yet to even reach the same level yet.
She had spent her time trying to run as many simulations of the possible battle to come, but try as she might she was not as gifted as Shikamaru when it came to these things. Only a few simulations with her current information had ended in their favour.
While she had been performing these simulations, she had been practicing with enhancing her body with her magic. She focused on only letting a small amount of her magic enter her Chakra Network. Which was easy in application, but still ended with rather unpleasant after effects of her muscles tearing with the smallest application.
This lead her to believe that her magic was simply incompatible with this body, kind of like how earth-ponies use magic through their bodies rather than horns or wings. Meaning the she simply didn't have the body that would be able to utilize magic in such a way even if she now had the ability.
But today was the day, the expected time of Zabuza's attack was imminent, and Naruto was unconscious due to fatigue from the water-hopping. Both Kakashi and Asuma had decided that he should be left to rest further, being that he was the proverbial powerhouse in chakra and would join them once he had recharged.
Once they reached the bridge, she and her fellow Genin could barely contain their stomachs at the sight of Tazuna's co-worker dead bodies littering the bridge, thankfully their cause of death appeared to be from sword inflicted wounds and not mutilation. Twilight wasted no time in expanding her Kagura Shingan, searching for any survivors.
She couldn't hold back her gasp as she felt a few lingering, civilian level Chakra signatures within the very ground around the end of the bridge rapidly dissipating.
A thick fog enveloped the area as a crushing weight hit the Genin's shoulders, a primal instinct of fear coursed within them all, with several willing to commit suicide just to escape. The two leaf Jonin having already adjusted to the new pressure began to reassure her comrades and Tazuna of their safety as two figures walked towards them out of the mist.
The first was a tall and noticeably muscular man with pale skin, short spiky black hair, brown eyes, and small eyebrows. He had bandages wrapped around his neck and lover face, like a mask. His forehead protector rested sideways on his head. He wore a sleeveless black shirt and matching pants, complete with a waist-guard, and Kirigakure's striped wrist and leg-warmers. The most striking feature about him though was the massive broadsword shaped like a giant butcher's knife being casually held in his left hand.
The second had blue eyes with a darker ripple around the pupil, waist-length green hair with the top two bangs falling on his cheeks on each side, and having dark, full lips. He wore a dark-brown sleeveless vest falling to his knees with a purple inside, a light brown belt, light grey pants and like his companion he had bandages covering most of his body, his neck down to his chest, including his arms and his shinbones.
On his back was a nest like sack that seemed to hold a child if her Kagura Shingan was right. Though her attention was brought mainly to the twin swords in the man's hands, both blades having an upward-curved bladed prong near the tips with another being in the other side near the base.
Zabuza Momochi and Raiga Kurosuki, the wielders of the Kubikiribōchō and Kiba, the Demon and Thunder of the Hidden Mist.
Zabuza chuckled darkly as he regarded. "Well Kakashi, it appears that you got some back-up. More little children playing ninja." He taunted as he chuckled again.
"Zabuza, I don't see your partner anywhere, the one with the mask, though it seems you got more help anyway. Feeling a little nervous perhaps?" Kakashi retorted as he took out one of his Kunai and grasped the side of his Hitai-ate, preparing to use the Sharingan held beneath.
Zabuza bristled at the jab but he kept a cool head as he replied. "Hardly, my prior tool was defective, she's long dead with that wound I gave her." He said with a barely hidden smirk beneath his bandages.
"This one will do mu- hu!" He said before he had to dodge a bolt of lightning from his partner who didn't look pleased in the slightest as he held one of his blades at Zabuza.
"I am not your tool Zabuza! The only reason I am here is to show others the joy that is a funeral!" The man shouted with a demented grin before he turned his head slightly, as if he were listening to someone just over his shoulder. Before he rapidly began to take leaps to the side to avoid the Kunai being thrown by Asuma.
"You can show them that joy at your own funeral, Raiga Kurosuki!" Asuma shouted as he pulled out his Chakra Blades, coating them in a layer of Chakra for the upcoming fight.
Raiga's face contorted into a disturbing expression before he held his two swords together as a large concentration of lightning arced between them, forming a ball of electrical energy. "Raikyū (Ninja Art: Lightning Ball)!" He shouted as he launched the ball at them at high speeds.
Everyone quickly jumped out of the way of the ball with Chōji tackling Tazuna out of the way. Asuma and Kakashi recovered first and charged at the two Nuke-Nin as fog began to rapidly close in, obscuring the Genin's view as loud clashes of metal could be heard with the occasional flash of lightning.
Twilight twitched form her position protecting Tazuna as she sensed another five Chakra Signatures rapidly approach her and the other Genin.
"Incoming, five Chakra signatures, they have us surrounded." She whispered to her fellow Genin as she launched a shuriken into the fog, where she felt the Chakra Pathway disperse before reforming a few feet to the left.
Expanding her senses again she 'watched' as the pathways got closer, visible silhouettes being seen in the fog. Taking a risk, she threw another two Shuriken, one at the form facing her and another at the one coming at Sakura, she watched in satisfaction as the Chakra Pathways dispersed and reformed, using only a single type of Chakra: Yin.
"There illusions, this Jutsu manipulates a small amount of Chakra in the mist to replicate the Keirakukei (Chakra Network) to form 'Ghosts'." She recited to the Ninja.
"Ino, can you sense what's causing this?" Shikamaru asked as he swiped another 'Ghost' away from him, the silhouettes playing on the other Genin's nerves in the low-visibility. It didn't help they were still suffering from the after-effects of the Killing-Intent.
Forcing her sense further, struggling to peer through the shroud of dense Chakra in the mist she found the Asuma exchanging blows with Raiga, but every hit, thrust or slice appeared to be perfectly counted by the swordsman. But in return most of his Lightning based attacks were countered by Asuma's wind.
After a few moments, she noticed the Chakra signature on Raiga's back, it was flowing in a way the suggested a Jutsu.
"It's hard to tell with this Chakra infused mist. But I think its whoever is in Raiga's back-pack." She replied as another signature appeared on the bridge's rail post heading towards the four Jonin level signatures, one she recognised.
'Haku.' She thought with a smirk. 'Ok, if everything goes smoothly, then we will have the advantage.' She thought with a grin making its way onto her face, one that wasn't missed by Shikamaru.
She couldn't help but privately admit that this was exciting. She had to be feeling what the warriors in the books she used to read as young filly felt, the unspeakable rush that they described when in a life and death situation. Normally she would have hated the idea of fighting, but there wasn't any choice in this matter.
It was life or death. Success or failure, and if it was one thing that Twilight Sparkle prided herself on was the fact she wanted to succeed at everything… that and reading a good book.
Her smirk began to grow as mist began to thin. It dropped the moment after as she finally had a clear picture of what was happening.
"No…" She whispered, but it was drowned out by an anger filled scream.
"RANMARU!"
Wasting no time, she ran while shedding her weights, ignoring the calls from her team to get back as she ran into the mist towards the battle.
Today was the day that Twilight would learn that not every plan made would work. And that there can be dire and painful consequences.
Today's consequences:
The death of a Foal.
Haku: Five Minutes Ago
"When one doesn't understand something, they will make a way for them to understand… Even if it's wrong."
Haku was happy, excited and worried all at once as she jumped through the tree's, heading towards the bridge. This whole situation was straight up weird, she was finally free, and the one who freed her turned out be a magical horse… Just as insane as everything else in her life, at least this time it there was an upside for her.
She didn't know what to think of Twilight, on one hand she saved her and on another she was magical horse turned human. But she still felt that there was something wrong with her, as if not all of Twilight was there. She still didn't understand what Twilight's magic was, the only thing she had was that it could do impossible things and somehow transfer memories.
But then again, Twilight was a part of the Yamanaka clan, a clan that specializes in mind based techniques. And she could control Ice and fuse with it so she couldn't say anything about impossible things.
Maybe her magic is just some new bloodline that made her hallucinate or dream as a child when she couldn't tell the difference between fantasy and reality, and the memory transfer could be caused by the girl's chakra being aligned for such techniques and miss-fired when she hugged her in shock.
Yeah, that sounded much more reasonable and made sense. That had to be it, there was simply no such thing as magic, Ino must have taken her dreams as a child and her bloodline made her see it as reality. She spoke from experience as her own bloodline had a similar effect, at first, she believed that she was an ice fairy trapped in a human body, her mother set her straight and explained what happened.
But Ino chose to hide it, to avoid possible attention to save herself the risk of becoming a baby factory. But in turn never received help and continued to believe that her dreams were reality and her bloodline was proof of that matter.
Her thoughts were halted as she reached the bridge. 'Time to get to work.' She though as she entered the mist and ran along the bridge's railing, heading to the sounds of battle.
The plan was simple, during the Ninja's fights she would use her superior speed and stealth, combined with her experience in using the Kirigakure no Jutsu (Ninja Art: Hidden Mist Technique) to get behind Raiga and remove the sack from his back before using one of her ice mirrors to escape, leaving a weakened and possible reaction crippled Raiga to face down an enemy that can counter him.
Simple, clean and effective. And if Ino's strategy was correct then the two Jonin would easily be able to take Zabuza down together after, allowing her to get her revenge without having to get her hands dirty.
Now she just needed to pull it off.
The sounds of blades clashing and the crackles of lightning grew louder as Haku closed the distance. 'Moment of truth!' She though as she desperately prayed to whatever deity would listen.
The first thing she saw of the two was the Konoha Jonin holding Raiga in a blade lock, neither gaining ground as they stared off. The Kiba crackling with electrical energy while the Jonin's blades glowed a deep blue.
One thing she learnt from her time as Zabuza's forced apprentice was to wait for the opportune moment. So, that is what she would do.
That moment came sooner than expected as Raiga forced the Jonin back before hopping back several steps. The Jonin wasted no time in continuing his pursuit of the rouge ninja, switching his reverse hold on his trench knife in his right hand to right side up as he forced more chakra into it to increase the blades length before charging.
Haku leaped into action, vanishing from view and reappearing behind Raiga in a burst of speed with her hand stretched toward the bag.
"Behind you!" A voice called and Raiga spun in response, his Kiba cutting along Haku's arm, drawing a scream of pain from her. But he was too slow to react to what followed.
Asuma, continued his charge, his opponent distracted providing him with the perfect opportunity. The length of the Chakra blade easily going through the thick bag into Raiga's back with a horizontal slash. "Chakura Tō: Maichimonji (Chakra Blade: Straight Line)!" He called out in triumph.
But more blood than what was originally expected came out… A lot more. It poured like a fountain for a few moments in silence, until that oppressive silence was shattered by a rage filled scream.
"RANMARU!"
Raiga's lightning burst from the sky, knocking back Asuma as Raiga gently, but with haste, took the bag off his back and opened it up, revealing the pain filled visage of a young boy with purple hair and red eyes who coughed in pain, spitting up blood.
Haku's eyes were open in horror, a child? It was a child in the man's sack that let him become untouchable? And it was a child that was currently dying because of her interference. She could see Ino running through the fog to them, but why?
Would she attempt to save the boy? It was their fault he was in this condition, or did she know all along what was inside the bag? No, Ino might be slightly cold to people but she isn't a child murderer.
Asuma too stared in shock, he had killed a kid, a child that looked the same age as his nephew. He was going to be sick, what had he done?
"You bastards!" Raiga screamed as ran and kicked Asuma in the face, hard-enough to break his nose and knock him out. "You don't know how long it took to find my purpose, Ranmaru was the bridge for me to reach that purpose!" He raved with bloodshot, insane eyes. No longer bothered about the wellbeing of the dying boy.
His eyes trained to Haku's form who was moving towards Ranmaru. Moving to comfort the dying child "YOU!" But she was stopped when she was hoisted into the air by her throat. As she tried to form hand-seals her body suddenly went numb as lightning coursed through her body painfully, the electrical energy being transferred from Raiga's right arm, paralysing her.
Twilight was cursing everything; this was not how this was supposed to go. She certainly never wanted the child to die, and based on how his chakra had already dissipated from his core, had already happened.
She was pumping every ounce of chakra she could into her legs, moving faster than her body would tolerate as she tried to think of something, anything that she could use to stop this from going the absolute worst possible way.
The it happened, a sudden burst of movement that she herself wasn't even expecting.
Suddenly she found it very hard to breath as a crushing pain wrapped around her neck suddenly. Only when she forced her eyes open could she finally see what happened.
Twilight didn't know why, but she substituted herself with Haku. Her body and chakra acting on instinct, it acted against every one of her self-preservation instincts, but one instinct won-out and told her that she couldn't stand the idea of Haku getting hurt.
Raiga grinned insanely as he held Twilight by her throat, her legs uselessly kicking the air as she tried to get free. Raiga couldn't care less who it was, one way or another he would be performing a burial today.
Twilight kicked and wailed, unable to pull on her magic due to the pain and not being able to create hand-seals as she desperate tried to pull the mad mans had away from her throat as more precious air was denied access.
Raiga grinned as he dropped the other Kiba blade and thrust his left hand into Twilights stomach from the side of her waist.
He felt his hand go through the blonde Genin's abdomen and somehow go around her intestines until almost his entire forearm was inside her stomach, ignoring the angered and shocked look he got from Haku as he roughly grabbed onto a random organ and pulled with all his might.
Blood burst from the hole as a red lump was held in Raiga's left hand. He looked down at the fresh red organ. His grip suddenly tightened, sending blood flying from between his fingers as the organ was pulverized.
Twilight gasped as her mind registered the pain, her liver was gone.
Why was it gone?
She struggled to move her head as she watched the missing-nin crush the organ in a shower of red. Her mind went blank as her senses were overloaded with pain, her body going strangely numb.
Raiga flippantly threw the remains of the organ to over the side of the bridge. He watched with annoyance as the girl in his hand went limp, her body rapidly losing heat in the cold dense mist. He couldn't give her one of his burial unless she was alive.
"NO INO!" Haku screamed as she pushed herself off the ground and charged at him with hate radiating from her body, freezing the bridge with every step she took. "YOU BASTARD!"
Raiga turned his attention back to Haku and grinned, she was still alive, she could be buried!
He was about throw Twilight's body when to his shock and Haku's, Twilight's left arm shot up and locked around his wrist. Slowly her eyes opened, revealing her glare to the man as blood continued to pour from her stomach. She spat blood as her purple bloodshot eyes bore into his own, her right arm gripping her left shoulder hard enough to tear the skin and draw blood.
"Hone no Ken (Sword of Bone)!" Twilight growled as she ripped out a pure white Chokutō from her left shoulder's bone. Shocking him and Haku, her grip became stronger as she raised the blade of bone above her head…
…And brought it crashing down through the Insane man's right arm. Raiga screamed in pain as he clutched the newly made stump.
Twilight dropped to the ground next to one of the Kiba's as she ripped the bisected arm from her throat. A pool of blood quickly began to form under her as she gasped for air as she spat more blood. The sword vanishing into dust without her chakra to support it.
"You little bitch!" Raiga screamed as he made his back towards her, murder in his eyes. He angrily threw a Kunai into Haku's leg, stopping her charge, before using his left arm to punch the wound he previously made in Twilights stomach.
She let out a low whine of pain, too weak to say anything as her eyes slowly began glazing over. Raiga struck her twice more in anger before lifting her into the air by her throat again, staring into her half-lidded eyes.
"I was going to give you a nice burial!" A demented grin spread across his face as he began to cry. "It would have been beautiful, but I can't do it with a single arm!" He ranted hysterically. "Now I have to- "
"H… hey…" Twilight weakly murmured, interrupting him. "What has… green hair… is a swordsman… and is also… a stick of Dango?" She asked to the angered man's confusion. That was until he looked down to see the tip of a familiar blade pointing right at his neck.
He looked back to Twilight's face to see her weakly smirking. "I win." She muttered before thrusting the Kiba through the man's neck as her vision went black.
Three days later
Twilight was acutely aware or the pain she felt as the swirling lights that blinded her slowly dimmed. Damn did it hurt, gently bringing her left hand to her abdomen, she could feel the slightly uneven stitches going across, sealing the wound closed.
Looking around, she found herself lying in a small carriage, probably in-route back to Konoha. The thing that confused her the most in her current situation was the fact she could feel chakra within her that wasn't hers, right where her liver used to be.
Oh, she remembered what happened perfectly. The problem with an eidetic memory, forgetting something like that was impossible.
She froze, she had done it, taken a life. She was going to be sick, reassuring herself that Raiga was a bad mad who probably deserved it helped none as she was responsible for the death of two, not one.
A child, a poor child had died due to her plans and interference. She couldn't stop the tears as flashes of the boy's pain filled face tore through her psyche, they flowed as she unintended began to picture the Cutie Mark Crusaders in his place. She was glad that her stomach was empty, otherwise she would have been throwing up everything otherwise.
Then she felt it, an unfamiliar weight in her right hand. It was heavy, heavy enough to make her struggle as she unsteadily brought the source of the weight to her sight. Her eyes widened at the sight of one half of the Kiba set locked in her grip with unnatural strength that she did not have, the blade sparking with pinkish-purple lightning.
She could feel her Chakra at an all-time low along with her magic, both energy's being filtered into the fanged blade. The legendary blades of the Kiri no Shinobigatana Shichinin Shū (Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist) were notorious for the high level of skill and sometimes the high level of Chakra needed to wield one. The Kiba's need the wielder to have a high affinity towards Raiton to even wield, to which her magic was being used after the blade had drained her chakra to lethal levels to compensate due to its malleable nature and its desire to protect its host. Should someone run out of Chakra, essentially running out of the physical energy that supports their body and the spiritual energy that supports the soul, they die.
In response to the large drain on her Chakra coils and threat to her life, her magic took its place.
And as her magical talent is magic itself she could technically learn any magic possible. Thanks to this her body was instinctively shifting her magic to try to find a compatible form of magic to the seals embedded deep in the tempered metal.
Slowly dropping her arm, she slowly cut off her Chakra's connection to the blade and slowly began to retract her magic from the sword, the magical lightning slowly vanishing. Her tears had dried on her face as she violently suppressed her guilt and sadness down, those emotions would be nothing but a burden to her in her quest to return home. She could mourn and wallow in that emotion once she had the time.
Pushing herself up, she groaned as her spine and shoulders cracked from their misuse and lack of Chakra. Looking to her left she found the other half to her spoils of war, the second half of the Kiba.
Unsteadily rising to her feet in the rocking carriage, she stumbled over to the blade and grasped it with her left hand, remembering to ensure that none of her chakra leaked out into the blade before she moved to the steadily flapping curtains separating her from the outside world.
Her eyes adjusted to the intense light of the sun quickly, trees native to the Land of Fire greeted her along the edges of the dirt path she first took on her way to Wave.
'We are returning to the Village; things must have gotten better after I passed out. But this chakra, the organ is not mine, that's for certain.' She thought as she sealed the Kiba's into storage seals hidden beneath her elbow warmers, there would be no way she would let them go after the amount of pain that so many others had suffered at their edges. She would claim them as Spoils of Combat, that would stop Konoha from forcing her to give them up.
The "Spoils of Combat" act was put in place after the Second Great Shinobi War and before the Third, as a failed attempt to keep the peace should a Ninja take a noteworthy item from the corpse of another then by claiming it as a Spoil then that Ninja would be responsible for the item. Should this item be important to another village then they would not be allowed to actively attempt to retrieve it without officially approaching the village with an official request for the item.
The problem was that even though all the villages had agreed to this law, they still attempted to retrieve the items through underhand means, making the law basically useless with all the villages ignoring it to the point it was forgotten. This left it still active as a Law that she could exploit should someone ask for the weapons, if no one asked then all the better.
Placing her hand over her stiches, she scowled as she channelled her In'yu Shōmetsu into the wound, watching it steam as the new cells began to seal the wound closed, annoyingly leaving a prominent scar under the black stiches.
That was the annoying thing about her In'yu Shōmetsu; if she had chakra running through her body, she would be in a constant state of healing. That is what allows her body to reduce the damage it receives pre-emptively if it is applied to the afflicted area before receiving the damage. This had the nice bonus of eliminating scar tissue from forming, though that wouldn't work on injury's she had received without the technique being active or her being out of chakra.
Thinking of her Chakra, she focused her senses to her new liver as she ran a basic diagnostic Jutsu. Only half of a liver, whose ever it was, sat inside her. A living donor transplant or a split donation then, the liver fragment she had would grow to a full-sized organ while whoever had the other half would also regrow to its full size.
Then came the question of who's organ it was, her own chakra had already filtered itself through it, being converted into the original owners before being re-introduced into her own system, dramatically increasing its potency, making it hard to determine whose organ it was. But one thing she could feel from it was the fact that it was hot, not hot as in fire-hot, but hot as in acidic like the chemicals she used to handle at her kit lab in her library.
Shaking her head, she hopped down from the back of the carriage and made her way around the side, finding her fellow Genin all walking next to the horses while Kakashi and Asuma sat behind the reigns of the carriage.
"Morning." She called out as she made her way to the Genin, drawing all their eyes. "What did I miss?" She asked lamely as she fished out some bandages to begin wrapping her waist back up, hiding the already sealed wound.
The Genin all looked between one another awkwardly, nervous for some reason or other. Getting slightly annoyed at the lack of response, she turned her head back to Kakashi as she unravelled more of the bandage. "What did I miss Kakashi-Sensei?" she asked before she turned her eyes back to her wrappings.
The silver haired man awkwardly rubbed the back of his head. "Well, after your little stunt I was able to finish off Zabuza with the help of the fake Hunter-Nin. You were the priority at the time so we let him go after he pointed out your injury's." He replied as he watched her wrap her waist up.
Twilight pulled the bandages tight, gasping in pain as the bandages rubbed against her stitches. "What about the child?" She asked as she adjusted herself.
Kakashi's head dropped a little as all the Genin became down cast. "Dead, the strike he received was fatal." He said as Asuma's hands tightened around the horse's reigns, the bags under his eyes being heavy. Guilt heavily set into his features.
Twilight was silent as she crushed her own guilt. "What about his body? Was he buried?" Respecting the dead was truly an important thing for Twilight, working in a Hospital leads to someone gaining a respect for both Life and Death.
"Buried." Naruto answered, a haunted look in his eyes. "We buried him with a view of the ocean, hopefully he would like it." He continued before he glanced back at her. "I finally understand what you meant, all those years ago, during the academy. Shinobi are cruel, we do the dirty work, we fight… and die in the darkness. Nothing more than weapons to be discarded once our edges have dulled, or be destroyed should we turn on our wielders." He calmly ranted as everyone stared at him shock and disbelief.
"How long have I been asleep?" Twilight whispered to Shikamaru.
"Four days… how the hell are you moving with those injury's?" He asked suspiciously as he recovered from Naruto's dark speech.
'Then he's been stewing on this for a while.' She though ignoring Shikamaru's suspicious gaze.
"That's true Naruto." Kakashi said, halting her before she could speak. Drawing shocked looks from everyone.
"However, we are weapons that are used to defend our homes, to protect those we deem precious. Zabuza believed in nothing but strength, which lead to him becoming a missing-nin, ultimately dying as a criminal. Remember what I said when I first began to teach you: 'Those who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their friends are worse than trash.' Zabuza did this and it lead to him dying alone. We may be weapons, but we are weapons with emotions and relationships. If you have these bonds, you won't become a monster as we share our pain with each other. Finding comfort in each other." He finished with an eye smile as the Genin all looked a little better, with Naruto looking as if it was an answer that solved everything. Even Sasuke and Sakura looked intrigued and amazed with the answer.
Twilight however, internally frowned at the speech. It struck very close to home with the idea of her, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy being nothing more than weapons of the Elements of Harmony. To be directed at threats to Equestria. By Kakashi's logic, she wouldn't have been abandoned by her friends and family yet here she was, in a different world that is centred around war and killing.
No, she couldn't believe in such words, such beliefs had already hurt her greatly and led her to her current situation. She would need to harden her resolve further, before her emotions cause her to make a mistake. She couldn't afford to get attached to anyone here, the first chance she gets she would be leaving without looking back. She couldn't- she refused to let them be hurt because of her future actions.
"Hey Ino." Sasuke called out with slightly narrowed eyes, drawing her attention away from the prior conversation. "What happened to those swor-"
"There mine." She interrupted with no hesitation or emotion as she turned her attention back to the road, not bothered by the slightly suspicious or worried looks she was getting. Her stomach began to burn, reminding her of her current predicament. "I have a question." She said, turning the conversation away from the topic Sasuke was trying to start, probably wanting the swords for himself. "Whose liver do I have now?" She asked, making Kakashi chuckle.
"You can thank our Number One Hyperactive, Knucklehead Ninja over here." He said as he pointed at Naruto, who looked away with a blush.
Instantly Twilight's eyes widened, she had Naruto's organ inside of her, an organ that contained the chakra of a Tarturus-damn Bijū. No wonder her body was burning from her own chakra, the corrosive nature of the energy was slowly burning her network, even if diluted from her own energy's.
"Ok, thank you Naruto." She said with a smile, her eyes closed, looking the picture-perfect image of innocent, making Naruto blush at the praise. Then it vanished, her eyes opened into a glare as turned back to Kakashi with her mouth in a viscous scowl. "Who performed the surgery?" She growled out.
Kakashi blinked in mild shock at the sudden change in expression. "A doctor back in Wave along with myself to help connect the chakra network." He said as he watched her expression get worse before she sighed in resignation. Her eyes hardened into a glare before she twitched her head in Naruto's direction before mouthing a word that made Kakashi go cold, she mouthed Kyūbi.
He didn't do anything as she turned back to the road, silently fuming at the silver haired fool's decision. It would take a while, but she would eventually become accustomed to the presence of a Bijū's chakra in her system. She might even be able to get some benefits out of it, with the chakra being so deeply infused into the organ, it would continue to create the demon's chakra, slowly boosting her Chakra reserves and possibly boosting her Jutsu power. The main downside to this would be the fact she would need to train her chakra control again. Then there was the fact she had no idea how the Bijū chakra would react to her magic or her In'yōton.
"How long until we reach Konoha?" She asked as she tried to sooth the burning in her stomach.
Kakashi narrowed his eyes at her, how in Kami's name did she know an S-Class secret? But he did understand her apparent anger, he had failed to consider the possibility of the Tailed Beast energy in the organ or how her own body would react to its presence. And by the way she was wincing and holding herself suggested discomfort, be it from the chakra or the stitching he had helped do, he didn't know.
"How long until we are back?" She asked again as she stored the last of her bandages.
"About a day, we have been moving at a solid pace for a while. Not exactly what you all expected on your first C-rank was it?" Kakashi replied in an upbeat tone, somehow trying to make light of the situation. He only received groans and complaints from the children, his team glared at him for his joke.
Hokage Office – Konoha – 1 Day Later
Twilights face remained impassive as she was forced to stand and wait for Asuma and Kakashi to finish their reports about the mission, the rest of the Genin had already been dismissed while she had been told to stay by Kakashi. She knew perfectly well why, she was responsible for several factors of the mission that the two Jonin commanders had not authorised. Plus, there was also the fact that she had let spill that she knew what Naruto contained, an S-Rank secret of the village.
Should she not choose her words wisely, this could very well be her last few breaths of free air.
"Ino-San." The Hokage called, breaking her of her thoughts. She silently made her way to the front of his desk, bowing before standing to attention next to Kakashi and Asuma.
"Hokage-Sama." She greeted, awaiting the confrontation.
His brown eyes were steel as they cut into her own purple. "Please debrief me on why you know of one of Naruto's secrets?" He asked without his gaze leaving her own. Twilight's left eyebrow raised in slight confusion and intrigue, before it vanished back into her apathetical mask.
'Secrets… Plural…' She thought as she stared back at the Hokage.
"I first noticed an anomaly with Naruto when we were first in the academy together, a person is only ever supposed to have a single Chakra source, yet he has two. At the time, I didn't think much of it but a couple of months after I grew curious and did some digging in the Library and Archives and found the term Jinchūriki connected to people with two chakra sources. 'Power of Human Sacrifice' is such a disgusting term, but I can understand it, especially after I back traced Naruto's birth to the night of the Kyūbi attack. It was at this point that my theory began to take form." She answered without pausing. The Hokage's face didn't change as she explained how she came across this secret, content on just watching and listening.
"For the next few years I delved deeper into this." She continued. "However, the evidence and clues rapidly became thinner and thinner, but I did get enough to test my theory after I had the introductory meeting with Asuma-Sensei. I asked Naruto personally and he confirmed my theory." She finished. She stared into the Hokage's eyes, searching for any indication of his internal thoughts.
The elderly man kept his gaze for a few moments begore sighing and rubbing his eyes. "You are not supposed to know about that, but due to you finding out how you did and had it confirmed by Naruto then I can't punish you as you haven't broken the Law." He explained with a smile, happy that he wouldn't need to punish her, but it quickly turned into a frown as he looked back to her. "I will need to confirm it with Naruto, and should he confirm your claim then I can guarantee no punishment will befall you. For now, I recommend that you go to the hospital and have that transplant checked. You have a week off to rest up and for the following week after you will be limited to D-Rank missions and light work at the hospital." He said as his left hand twitched, instantly she felt a chakra source vanish in a burst.
'Probably gone to retrieve Naruto.' She analysed as she spread her Kagura Shingan out. "If I may Hokage-Sama, I shall head to the Hospital." She said as she bowed and made her exit, heavily aware of the chakra signature following her.
'That was a lot smoother than I imagined, he didn't question me on the topic of Haku and the discrepancy's in the mission so he possibly doesn't realise that it relates back to me.' She thought as she made her way through the bustling streets. Ignorant to the looks she was receiving from a certain Uchiha and Nara.
'This is good, I may be able to float just under the radar for a little while longer.' She continued as she made her way into the hospital, once again ignoring the looks she was receiving from the other medical staff. She had no time for them now, she needed to get the transplant analysed by a second doctor and there was only one she even remotely trusted.
After walking for another five minutes she finally came to her office that she shared with Kabuto. Technically her apprenticeship was over after two years but the medical staff still treated her as a child and simply tried to find ways to get away from her or have her moved away. For this purpose, the current head of the hospital had moved both her and Kabuto to a smaller office that was on one of the less used floors of the Hospital, hoping to have the two of them out of the way and forgotten.
Opening the door, she greeted her two-year sensei and college, Kabuto. "Greetings Kabuto-Sensei." She said formally with a slight bow, making her twitch at the feeling of the stiches beneath the bandages.
"Ah, Ino-Chan, you know you don't have to call me that anymore, we both hold the same position now, no need for formality's when it's just the two of us." He replied as he looked up form some documents. "How was your first mission outside the village?" He asked as he looked at the extra bandages around her waist and stomach, concern layered into his tone.
Twilight sighed. "I need you to have look at something for me, while on the mission I was injured and Kakashi along with a doctor had to perform emergency surgery on me." She explained as she unwrapped the bandages and revealed the pink scar along with the stiches. "I need you to ensure that the Liver that is inside me isn't going to be rejected and the chakra it has isn't going to have any adverse effects on me." She couldn't say whose liver it was otherwise the ANBU watching them would most likely strike, and she was not going take that chance.
She made her way over to one of the two examination tables in the office and laid down on the sterile sheets. Kabuto nodded and made his way over and began to analyse the organ with the Shōsen Jutsu. Twilight's eyes twitched when the chakra signature from the ANBU vanished, probably having received confirmation on her story.
"I see that you're In'yu Shōmetsu is working fine, the organ is working fine and your body actually seems to be integrating it rather well… Hmm… I would need to do some tests but you should be fine. The chakra is… volatile to say the least… but you should be fine with how diluted it is." He said as he helped to re-apply the bandages around her waist and stomach. "Do you not want the stiches removed? We both know that you don't need them." He said as he adjusted his glasses.
Twilight held her emotionless look as she tightened the bandages up. "We both know that we don't want the secret to the In'yu Shōmetsu getting out. Besides I didn't want to explain why I was suddenly injured to well in a matter of a day or two." She said as she finished tying the bandages. "And I better keep the stiches in, it should hopefully stop some questions from being asked, I know that you want this ability to be kept private. Besides, it will look intimidating." She explained with a shrug.
Kabuto blinked widely at that, that was not the answer he was expecting from her at all.
"Kabuto, do you know the passcode to the Konoha Citizen Archives?" Twilight asked as she hopped off the table. Kabuto looked at her in confusion, why would she want to know that?
"Yeah, but why?" He asked as he took out a piece of paper and a pen.
"I just wanted to trace back my family lineage some, I don't know where my purple eyes come from and I am a little curious about it. The Yamanaka libraries don't document eye colour and other details like that." She said as she watched him write the code.
"Well, here you go." He said as he handed her the paper. "Get some rest, you look like you need it." He advised before he turned back to his paper work with a sigh.
Twilight smiled as she walked out the office, a quick glance at the piece of paper was all she needed before she scrunched up the paper and then tore it up.
She made her way down to the basement level of the hospital and inputted the code into the door panel. Her eyes drifted across the few dozens of filing cabinets, lining each wall and spanning all the way to the celling.
Deciding not to waste any time she broke out into a sprint, racing as quickly as she could down the dark corridors. Her eyes rapidly cataloguing and sorting through the labels of each cabinmate she passed, searching for a specific letter.
She skidded to a stop, finally finding the start of the cabinets she needed. Slowly walking by the cabinets, searching for one file, one specific file.
Her eyes and body froze, a single draw bearing the name she was looking for.
"Uzumaki…" She gently whispered as she slowly pulled the container open. She frowned at the heavy lack of documents within. Only three brown folders rested inside. Grunting in annoyance, she pulled all three out and laid them down on a table just a few steps away.
Three names across three documents. Two folders bearing large printed 'C's across the covers, signifying them as copies of the originals while all three held the spiral pattern that was sewn into the Konoha shinobi uniform. Now that was interesting, none of the other files she had ever handled had that symbol. In-fact, the only time she had ever seen this was when she handled clan related documents.
Her curiosity growing, she opened the oldest dated document and found the image of a beautiful woman who had bright red hair and large, pupiless black eyes. A black rhombus imprinted into her forehead.
"Uzumaki Mito." Twilight muttered as she began reading the information found in the documents.
Clan Status: Uzumaki, Senju
D.O.B: May 3
Relationships: Senju Hashirama - Husband
Village Standing: Civilian - Jinchūriki-Nine Tails
Status: Deceased
'Interesting… An actual clan of Uzumaki?' Twilight thought as realised that Naruto might not be such a standard, every day, random orphan selected to be the great demon's host.
Closing the file, she moved to the next. This file was too a copy, but the date was much newer, only being close to 20 years old.
Opening the document greeted her to an image of a child that looked to be of a similar age to herself. The child had a rounded face that when paired with her long red hair gave her a somewhat resemblance to a tomato. Other than that, she had bluish purple eyes and a blue hair clip keeping her hair out of her face.
"Kushina?" Twilight muttered as she scanned the information in the document.
Clan Status: Uzumaki
D.O.B: July 10
Relationships: [Redacted]
Next of Kin: [Redacted]
Village Standing: Kunoichi – Jōnin (10 years active service) - [Redacted]
Status: Deceased (October 10)
Additional Information: Migrated from Uzushiogakure to become the host of the [Redacted] due to Lady Mito's health declining in her age.
Who ever tried to bury this information left way too much available. They only removed the vital information, not the information that relates to it. The simple fact the document states that this girl was brought to become a host along with Mito no longer being able to host whatever it was meant that this girl became a sacrifice, a Jinchūriki. And the only demon in Konoha was the Kyūbi.
While miniscule, this little piece of information was enough for her to begin drawing a conclusion.
Closing the folder, her eyes landed on the last one. The only one that was an original document out of them all.
Opening the file revealed all she needed.
Name: Uzumaki Naruto
Clan Status: Uzumaki
D.O.B: October 10
Parents: Father - [Redacted], Mother - [Redacted]
Village Standing: Shinobi – Genin - [Redacted]
Simply aligning the removed data allowed her to see all the missing data for it truth. Naruto Uzumaki the third Jinchūriki, son of Kushina Uzumaki the second Jinchūriki. A chain in the Uzumaki's apparent fate to become sacrifices to contain the greatest of demons. The only thing missing from the equation was Naruto's Father… That would be quite a bit trickier to find ou-
"What are you doing here?" A voice questioned from behind her, causing her to spin and find herself face to face with a large, imposing figure, a rugged head and face covered with old wounds and scars stared into her purple eyes. his head was covered by his forehead protector and he wore a darker version of the standard uniform of the Intelligence Division, which she had seen her father wear on occasion, along with a black trench coat and gloves.
Twilight broke out into a cold sweat. Morino Ibiki, the head of the Konoha Torture and Interrogation Force, possibly the worst person she could afford to run into.
His black eyes continued to drill into her own. "What are you doing here Ino? You know that you are not allowed here without supervision of a Chūnin." He stated as his face pressed further into her personal space, making her back-up and knock the table, spilling the documents out onto the floor.
Ibiki's attention was instantly draw to the documents. Twilights heart dropped as she saw him move to pick the documents up and sort through them.
His gaze was cold as he stared at the documents. "You should not be viewing these, these are highly classified documents." He almost growled as he slowly began to turn back to her.
Twilight was terrified as she felt his aura encompass her, the familiar feeling of death crawled its way up her neck as she felt his killing intent claw into her.
But something most peculiar happened, her fear turned to calm anger, her trembling ended as her shoulders squared themselves as she felt her magic and chakra force its way around her in a poisonous, purple haze.
The moment Ibiki's eyes met her own, the effect was instantaneous. His face morphed into one of shock and terror as he watched purple cherry blossoms fall around Twilights face, her eye shadowed by her large bang. Her eye was as cold and as sharp as ice that carved into Ibiki's own, two commands were uttered by her stare alone.
Sleep and Forget
His mind became clouded as she held the stare, his vision blurring in the gently falling petals. He dropped to his knees as he tried to call up his chakra, attempting to break the illusion he was feeling but every attempt felt like his own chakra was moving away from him, as if it was playing a game, keeping just out of reach.
His eyes closed as he fell forward on his face, asleep to the world.
Twilight coldly watched the unconscious torturer, her lips and voice acting by themselves as she unknowingly whispered a single word.
"Hakufuku…" She breathed out calmly before she robotically moved to collect the scattered documents and replaced them back into the cabinet in the correct order. Her eyes were blank as she spared one last glance to sleeping man, before teleporting out of the room in a dark purple flash.
Ibiki would later wake with no memory of what had occurred. And though he knew that something was amiss, no matter the method he would take, he could not find a single memory in his own mind that answered his loss of conciseness.
For the next two months' security around the hospital was seven-fold, but nothing ever happened outside the norm, leaving the case cold and dead.
Yamanaka Flower Store – Konoha – 2 Months Later
Twilight sighed as she sat behind the counter of the family's flower shop. The past two months had been hell for her, the hospital had been on high alert after Ibiki had awoken with no memories of what happened. Both she and Kabuto had been questioned about what they were doing during the time he was unconscious. Thankfully, Kabuto had kept quiet about her presence there, but this provided Twilight with two issues.
One: it reaffirmed that Kabuto was not exactly Loyal to Konoha.
And two: she was now in his pocket, she owed him and she knew that he would eventually call in a favour.
Other than that, the past two months were spent with her trying to figure out what she had done to Ibiki. It took several hours of searching her mind to find the memory of the occurrence.
Hakufuku, White Crawl… something about the spell seemed off. And no matter how she tried to replicate it she couldn't. So far it seemed that she would only be able to use the spell when her body is in a state of stress. And this spell seemed to be bordering on dark magic, something inside of her magic had felt corrupted ever since she used it. Whether it be an effect of her magic interacting with the demon chakra or her guilt and sin of being a murderer reflecting into her magic, she didn't know.
Then there was the fact that her body had begun to change. The idea of going through puberty again wasn't something that particularly appealed to her but had accepted it as something that would be happening whether she liked it or not, but those weren't the changes she was concerned with.
What concerned her was the fact that her skin colour was naturally becoming darker and a small part of the roots of her hair had started to become a light pink. The change in her skin colour she could say that it was due to her spending more time outside, caring for her family's plants in the sun for a while. And to hide the changes of her hair she had begun to dye her roots.
This raised so many questions, was her original body being super imposed onto this one? What was happening to her? Would she eventually shift into her original pony form? Or would she become a mix of the two?
Other than those pondering thoughts, she had dedicated the past two months to ensuring that her body correctly integrated Naruto's organ into herself, this led to the discovery that she was actively generating the demon's energy when her chakra entered the organ. Due to this her chakra capacity was steadily beginning to rise in level again, meaning that she needed to dedicate several hours a week to her chakra control.
This was admittedly, a double-edged blade: on one side, her chakra was much stronger than it normally would be, on the other side it was much harder to tame.
On a slightly better note was that her magic seemed to like the demonic energy. The corruptive and mutagenic nature of the energy enhanced her magic, but this also came with the effect of making her magic progressively darker. This effect was what caused the accidental usage of a previously unknown magic spell.
That was how some magic, especially dark magic, worked. You wouldn't learn the spells from books and scrolls, or have it taught by someone else, you would naturally receive them the further you used such magic.
Then there was the fact that a week ago, during training, Asuma had dropped the proverbial bomb on them about a specific event starting soon called the Chūnin Senbatsu Shiken, the Chūnin Selection Exams. An event that would allow her and her team the chance to be promoted from their Genin ranks to Chūnin. To Twilight, it seemed slightly trivial but it would give her the opportunity to gain more experience with other Shinobi from other villages and gain the needed authorisation to access the more restricted library in Konoha. By reaching Chūnin, she would be able to get access to the very basic techniques surrounding Jikūkan (Space-Time) Ninjutsu, one of the viable possibilities needed to allow for her to learn to dimension jump. So, unlike Shikamaru and Chōji, she was motivated to do it. The exams would be starting at the end of the week, something she was looking forward to.
Sighing in boredom, Twilight allowed her Kagura Shingan to encompass the half of the village, her new maximum range. She could sense so many new chakra signatures that she wasn't familiar with, some sharp, some airy, hot, murky or fluid. Then there were a few that felt like strange mixes, she was slowly becoming accustomed to these energy's. Each one that felt different or she wasn't familiar with was normally a Shinobi from another village, so she took her time in analysing everyone, breaking down their energies into their baser elements to learn as much as she could.
Thought something was different, a signature had caught her attention, at first, she assumed it to be Naruto, but that changed when the signature walked through the shop door.
He had fair skin, green eyes, and short red, spiky hair. He lacked any distinctive pupils, like her, or eyebrows. Around his eyes were black rings, like that of a tanuki. He had a red tattoo of kanji for "love" (愛, ai) on the left side of his forehead, just visible through his hair's parting.
He wore a black body suit with an open neck, t-shirt-like sleeves, and almost full-length leggings. He had a white cloth over his right shoulder and the left side of his hips. He had a wide leather band from his left shoulder to his right hip with which he had a large gourd strapped to his back. Attached to the band, a loosely hung forehead protector rested.
'A Suna-Nin? And a Jinchūriki too.' She mussed as she straitened up, a customer was a customer.
"Good day Ninja-San, welcome to the Yamanaka flower shop. How may I help you today?" She greeted with a forced smile. Instantly, the boy's cold green eyes shot to her own indifferent eyes.
Almost no emotions were present on the boy's face, though a form of irritation seemed to be present. "No." He answered coldly and simply.
Twilight's eyebrow rose at the answer, but she simply shrugged it off.
"Are you here for the Chūnin exams?" She asked as she pulled a few empty pots out from under the counter.
He held his cold gaze as she continued to organise the pots. "Yes." He replied, sounding slightly unsure.
Twilight smiled as she poured some soil into the pots. "Well I wish you the best of luck then. I hear that it is a rather hard exam to sit through." She said as she pulled out a few seeds before gouging holes into the dirt.
"I do not care for the exam, I only seek to validate my existence." He drawled out as he turned back to the plants lining the shelves.
Twilight said nothing as she closed the soil up, though her eyebrow rose slightly as she brought her gaze back to him.
"And how do you do that?" She asked, not really expecting to get an honest answer.
"Killing, that is how I validate my life." He replied casually as he turned to the now wide-eyed girl. "I kill because that is all I need, that is what mother has taught me, and all I need." He continued with a twisted grin forming on his face as sand slowly began to gather in the air from his gourd.
Twilight took a cautious step back as she watched the chakra infused sand slowly slither across to her. Slowly, she let her mind's eye encompass the sand.
Instantly, her vision went black as a giant claw made of sand gripped her painfully tight. She began to tear up in fear at the sight of what connected to the arm holding her.
A giant sandy-brown coloured tanuki, with black markings all over its face, body, and tail. It had a jagged, concave of a mouth. Its eyes were yellow with a four-pointed star as its pupils with four black dots surrounding it. The sclera of its eyes was pitch black.
Slowly, the giant monster brought her closer to its great maw. Silence reined as she kept her eyes locked with the great beast's. Its eyes studied her as it began to squeeze her, like a predator, playing with pray it knows has no chance of escape.
Twilight gritted her teeth as felt its grip tighten and constrict painfully, her bound hands desperately clawing at the sand that threatened to crush her.
"And who is this little ningen?" The great beast bellowed its question as it gave an experimental squeeze, making Twilight scream in response. The great monster grinned at the sound, just another pathetic disappointment for it crush!
"I take it that your mother, Ichibi (One-Tail)?" Twilight growled out as she focused her attention through the pain, her fear now being ignored and suppressed by the cold scientist inside.
"Ooohh, the little insect knows about the great Ore-Sama?" The Ichibi replied with a mocking tone of voice, thought Twilight could sense a little bit of intrigue. It was hard to tell, she had never actually had a conversation with a tailed beast so this whole conversation was rather surreal to her, never mind painful.
"How are we talking, I never entered your Jinchūriki's mind?" She asked as she managed to finally get a handful of the sand holding her, the Ichibi never showed any form of pain, so it had no concept of pain at all or its sand is just simple sand.
"The moment you connected your chakra to the Sand I was able to see you." It replied as its gold and black eyes bore into her.
"Then how is it you are causing me physical pain?" She asked as she began to flood her system with her In'yu Shōmetsu, dampening the damage she was receiving as well as reinforcing her bone and muscle structure.
The Ichibi scowled at the feeling of the chakra flooding his plaything's squishy body… it was making her less squishy… and then there was the fact that it felt familiar to something, but for the life of him he couldn't place it.
"My oh so loving son is currently doing the very same thing as me. Pain on two sides, mental and physical! Oh, the beauty of this is magnificent!" It raved at her before it began to laugh insanely at her.
Twilight said nothing as the demon laughed, sweating as she tried to think of an out. If both the Jinchūriki and beast are performing the same act, then in theory she was too. So not only was her mental representation being reinforced by her Shikotsumyaku, but also her real body, normally her physical and mental representations reacted differently from one another. Her real body could be on the brink of death while her mental body would be completely fine, this changes things.
If her mental and physical bodies are currently synchronized, then she could mentally do something she had been dreading and anticipating performing in the real world.
Twilight gritted her teeth in pain, her skin felt like fire was licking away at it, all the while her skin was bulging and shifting under the sand coffin that was slowly began to creep up her neck to encompass her whole body.
Through the pain, she took one final big breath before her whole body was covered.
"HAHAHA! NOW YOU DIE YOU DISAPOINTING PEST!" The great sand tanuki screamed as it violently compacted in a visible shockwave.
He blinked in confusion when nothing happened. No scream, no fountain of lovely blood… Why could he still feel her pathetic heart beat in his grip?!
And as quickly as Twilight had found herself in her mindscape, did she find herself gasping for breath on the floor of her family's shop with sand rapidly retreating from her.
Glancing up through her hacking breath she found the sand ninja holding his head in pain as the sand floated back into the gourd on his back.
She winced in pain as she found several large bumps of protruding bones scattered across her body. With a pain filled cry, she began to retract her chakra from her bones.
Loud cracks echoed through the room as her body began to snap and twist, the bumps of bone clicking under her skin as they slowly began to vanish one by one.
Twilight groaned as she forced herself to stand, bones still popping in her legs, making her wobble. As she hobbled over to the counter.
Grunting, she turned her slightly deformed face, which was clicking back into it normal structure and said. "Get out of my shop, and I won't press charges against you in trying to kill a clan heir of an allied nation." She growled as she glared at the red head who simply looked at her with a crazed expression before it melted back into his cold look. He spared one last glance at the blonde before leaving.
Twilight sighed as she sat on the stool behind the counter. That was interesting to say the least, she would need about an hour to reverse what she had done to herself. To withstand the great amount of compression caused by the sand, she had used her Shikotsumyaku to try and create bone plates of Armor under her skin. But due to her inexperience, she accidently made her body simulate Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva, but even that was enough to save her.
So, for the next hour she sat and waited for her body to slowly heal and return to its original skeletal structure. Once she felt the last bone pop back into place, she closed the shop and used the Shunshin no Jutsu towards Training Ground 3.
A few moments later she reached the field. Walking across the clearing she sat next to the Jōnin she had been searching for.
Kakashi, face forever stuck inside his little orange book. "And how can I help you today Ino-chan? I am fairly certain that you have your own sensei you can talk to." He asked in his usual board voice, his eye never leaving the page.
"What are the laws regarding Jinchūriki from allied nations entering an ally's village?" She asked as she made a tendril of water from the stream dance, something she had found herself doing when stressed as of late.
"Well there are few… But why do you want to know?" He asked with a serious voice. Ever since it was confirmed to how she knew of Naruto's secret, she had become slightly more privileged with information regarding Jinchūriki's. So far, Kakashi was her most reliable contact regarding the info.
"Because one just tried to kill me." She said in complete seriousness as she made the tendril of water form into the very beast that held her life in its grip. "The Ichibi." She finished before her leg lashed out in a violent kick, her anger destroying the water model.
She hated the feeling of being helpless and powerless, that entire situation played on her insecurity's too much. 'I must become stronger, I can't let that ever happen again, I need more power and the means to control it!' She though angrily.
Kakashi snapped his book closed and released a long sigh. What she was insinuating was obviously an incredibly high violation on the small level of trust that the two villages had for one another, but on the other hand it was the time of the Chūnin exams. Meaning that while there were rules to these matters, they were much more lenient with them as to allow privacy amongst the participants.
"Yes, there are rules regarding those matters, however they are not really enforced around events like the Chūnin exams, and you would need to prove that the Jinchūriki has indeed attempted to kill you." He answered as he slowly stood and gazed up into the sky, where he saw a single eagle circle overhead. "Look, don't take this up with anyone else ok, I will tell the Hokage. But without actual proof it could start a war." He warned before he vanished in a flicker of leaves.
Twilight scowled, before her face twisted into a snarl. More red-tape stupidity was working against her, how in Tartarus was she supposed to have proof?!
She frowned as she forced herself to calm down, getting angry would do nothing. With a cold look, she pulled a small sack out of her kunai pouch.
She silently opened the bag and smirked at the small amount of sand inside, still teeming with Bijū Chakra.
"At least it wasn't a complete lose." She muttered to herself as she closed the bad and vanished in a blur of speed away from the training ground, plans forming in her mind as to the upcoming future.
Twilight is changing... for the good, for the bad? I have three damn books planned in my head for all this stuff...
