Her swords, her constant companions ever since she first laid claim to them, imparted just as much fear in her as they did any opponent foolish enough to fight her.

The Kiba...Legendary swords that moved her from a slight threat to a real power. As much as they promised strength, promised safety, they also promised a life of enough danger where that strength would be nothing less than required to survive. Ringo had learned quite a bit in the time since she first got her hands on the Thunderblades, first and foremost being that she was only right in her life's philosophy, safety in power, to an extent. Strength meant living, but it didn't mean safety. She couldn't walk around Kiri doing whatever she wanted without fear, no, she was more afraid than ever before. She was just better at getting it done now.

But she could never regret picking up these swords. These things were a part of her, and they did make her strong. She'd worked with them, and her life hadn't felt nearly as full before she took them. She'd trained with them for years now, through brutal practice and new tests from every corner, she'd conquered it all with the Kiba in her hands. They belonged to her, and damn anyone who challenged her for them. They were hers. More so than anything before them the Kiba felt natural to her. They fit in her hands like puzzle pieces, connecting open spaces and making her whole.

The day she loses these swords is the day she dies.

It had been about four years since Fuguki first decided she had some promise in her, and they'd gone by quicker than she'd expected. One of the first things that Fuguki did with her was have her meet the other Ninja Swordsmen. As much of an honor as that was, it wasn't an experience she'd been happy to repeat whenever they all got together. Those people were both terrifying and crazy. Unfortunately, being a member herself meant she had to work with them quite often, and some of them quite liked to talk to each other. More than you'd expect, anyways. And, thinking about it...Maybe terrifying and crazy weren't bad descriptors for her anymore either. She certainly wasn't as bad as Jinpachi; anybody who talks that much about blowing up their own family just isn't right in the head. And his buddy Kushimaru? Cruel beyond any other member. Still…

She had definitely learned to enjoy fighting. Maybe, just maybe, a bit too much. There was just something so gratifying about winning. That whoever she fought thought they could beat her, oh, she was giddy to prove them wrong. And she developed a habit...Maybe not the nicest habit, but it was always fun to let them run a bit first. Especially when they were in groups. Three, four people, splitting up in different directions? Hunting them all down, taunting them as she cut them apart one by one, that was an absolute joy. And when she found the last one, thinking they might just get away? Then she could take it slow, take her time and really enjoy...

She liked to play with her food. That was all.

So she fit in with the other Swordsmen. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Besides, she had more than reached their levels at this point. She thrived in this group, like she was born to be a part of it, filling a space in history that was just waiting for her arrival. The Kiba fit her like a glove, and she had mastered them. Her talent and drive to prove herself with them was what had kept a few of the other members from killing her a few times down the line. Saying the Kiba were hers no longer meant that they were in her possession at the moment. It meant they belonged with her. Any other member could attest to that.

She'd grown well in the past four years, in more than just her skill. Short still, yes, perhaps annoyingly so, but more lethal than ever. And she was about nineteen now, nobody could look at her and think her a child. Height aside, her face and build showed her age well enough. Her hair had grown quite long as well. She debated cutting it again, damn whatever people think, but it did give her quite an imposing stance. And the way it whirled along with her when she attacked...It was fine for now. She could leave it.

She had also grown into herself quite a bit; having the strength of a Seven Ninja Swordsmen member let you get away with a few quirks when it came to personality. She knew what she enjoyed. Hunting down an enemy, having a good taunting match before killing someone, having things, taking things...stuff like that. And kids were cute. She could ignore that if she was their age, she'd be cutting them down for stale bread. She could afford a bit of charity for a kid who said please, and could afford to laugh her ass off if a six year old decided it was a smart idea to try to take her on instead of just killing them like any other challenger. She was more than good enough to indulge in a little cuteness. It's not like someone would judge her for having soft spots or liking a few cutesy things when they were stuck on the ends of her blades. And animals...Well, cute as they could be, animals were food, so cutting them up wasn't a problem. Ringo ate animals. She didn't eat kids. She wasn't that far gone.

However, things had...well, things had gone to shit in Kiri the past half year. Not that it was well off before, but things got exponentially worse. Depending on who you asked, of course, but anybody who says things are fine now has half their brain in candyland, because the fourth Mizukage's gone fucking nuts. He'd always been a little out there, ever since he was elected, but lately had just taken the cake. He reinforced academy practices where students had to kill each other to graduate. He let corruption run rampant. He was ruthless when it came to enforcing rules, and more rules were instated every month. People were dying in Kiri faster than ever. It didn't affect her very much, being part of the group she was, but damn, the guy was getting more and more out there with every word he said.

All in all, she didn't have a lot of good things left in Kiri. She never did, but lately even her job didn't seem worth it. Serving that psychopath directly? Not her idea of a good time. Who knows what would happen? People hadn't started defecting yet, many were still clinging on to his decency in the previous years, but the outrage was real and it was the loudest thing in the village anymore. If this kept up, it was just a matter of time before the people would want him lynched.

And there was one thing Ringo had realized in the years she'd been in the Seven Swordsmen...

She was ill. Of course she was ill, disease ran rampant in the dump that is Kirigakure, she was always ill. Practically everyone was. So she'd never thought much of it. Whenever she felt a pinching in her guts, whenever her cough came back, or she had a headache, or a dizzy spell and some breathing trouble, she chalked it up to the fumes of the cesspool, stuck it out, and it would always go away after a night of sleep. It was never anything too bad.

Which is why the symptoms lately worried her. They didn't go away overnight. The pain would persist, and it would get worse here and there. Every once in awhile, it would be debilitating. She'd need to just curl in a ball and clutch her stomach until it calmed down, her vision stopped blurring, and the pain receded. Once that had started, she decided she needed to find a proper doctor and fix it.

To be honest, it wasn't very hard to find doctors in Kiri, since every one of them was visited extensively. Their services were so often required. That said, it was very very difficult to find a doctor that actually knew what the hell they were talking about. Mist wasn't exactly known for its good health practices, any doctor would look good around here telling someone to gulp a cup of sake and tough it out. She needed the best Mist could offer, and the best were pretty damn exclusive. That said...Well, one of the perks of being a member of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen was having a good deal of 'persuasion'. A bit of misbehaving, and she'd have her health with just a slap on the wrist for it.

Just a bit of searching was all it took to find the best of the best around here. A bit of information gathering, a few threats, and she had her man; a doctor located at one of the larger Mist villages outside Kiri proper. Apparently, he's the guy the Mizukage himself would go to if his health declined. That bit of knowledge wasn't the largest confidence booster considering everything she knew about their glorious leader, but the best available was the best available. That said, he wasn't the kind of doctor she could be treated by if she just showed up at his house and asked. But that was fine. People tended to say yes to ninja of her caliber when they were asked 'nicely'.

She found her way to the village without any trouble. The other members of the Seven Swordsmen would be pissed when she came back; she wasn't exactly telling them anything. She would just cut out for a few days and turn up again. People did that sort of thing in a group like this. It would be looked past.

The doctor's building was very average looking, blended seamlessly into the rest of the village, tall, square, and without decoration. It was exactly what she was looking for; every possible entrance besides the front door was trapped to hell, and there was no sign from the outside a man of any kind of importance lived here. But Ringo was one of the greats in Kiri now. This guy couldn't hide from her, and he wouldn't get her to leave without either a good bit of blood let on his end, or the treatment she was coming to him for.

She entered through a trapped window on the side of the building. There wasn't really much of a worry of being spotted, as the night was foggy and proper vision was never an easy thing to have around here. It was easy to force open, and easy enough to dodge the barrage of senbon that came after. And the follow up kunai. Sheesh. Those things stunk to hell and back. Poisoned? Probably poisoned. If this guy knew his stuff, he'd poison them.

The inside of the building...was seriously dark. Pitch black. She was in some room that looked like a large kitchen. She wasn't going to risk opening any of the cupboards to see what he had, this place was dangerous enough without extra snooping. For now, she just had to find him, and wait for the right moment.

A small bit of further skulking around the halls of the building turned up more than enough to show that this guy was, in fact, a medical professional. Stored discretely in various areas of the building were better quality tools and supplies than she'd ever seen in Kiri before. One room in particular was clearly dedicated to treatment, and it looked...just a bit scary. Should healing really involve this many sharp objects? And that chair with the straps looks like something you'd stick somebody into to stop them from running. Spooky.

It was slow going searching every bit of the house, but she had all night, and was reasonably sure the guy was asleep. This was confirmed when she approached the second to last room she had to search, and looked through the cracks of the door. Bedroom. Occupied. Perfect. She wouldn't risk opening this door. Not for a million yen. But she could wait. One moment was all she needed, and morning was fast approaching. She just had to keep herself hidden, and wait for him to pass. It wouldn't be hard, especially since this man wasn't supposed to have any combat training himself. Not that he couldn't kill her terribly if she gave him a chance though, so...It was better safe than sorry. She'd stay ready to pounce all night.

The doctor rose with the sun, and the moment to strike was approaching. Hidden behind a break in the hall, Ringo could hear something in the room shift. A couple minutes passed by in silence, but then the clicks and thuds of disarmed traps and locks spread through the hallway, followed by a slow creak of the door as it was pushed open. She was only going by sound; his shadow was behind him. A pretty stupid design flaw, since she wouldn't be able to hide this easily if her shadow showed clearly in the doorway. Just a few steps down the hall, and then…

Ringo sprung out into the hallway as the man began to pass by, slamming him back with her fists to his chest and turning him so his back hit the wall, the guy giving a deep grunt at the impact. Her swords, having been readied for hours in anticipation of this moment, stabbed cleanly into the wall, one on each side of his neck, catching it between them in an X. Ringo grinned a sharp smile as the man's eyes opened, looking down at her.

"Hey there~"

He didn't respond immediately. He was eyeing her up and down, probably trying to figure out if there was an easy way out of this situation. Poor guy.

"You the doctor?"

He stayed quiet still, but was prompted into talking by a quick pinch of the swords pressing on the sides of his neck.

"I'm a doctor."

"Good boy."

She slowly eased her swords back until they just lifted from his skin, and spoke again.

"I'm in need of your expertise, y'know? Help a girl out?"

He didn't look amused, but he didn't look all that surprised either. Doctors like this must have it pretty tough. Guy was probably expecting something like this to happen eventually. Heck, maybe it had happened before! He just stared her down for a couple seconds longer, closed his eyes, and let a breath out as she smirked at him.

He agreed readily.

This was how she found herself back in the room with the weird torture chair. If doctor man thought he could get her in that thing, he was sorely mistaken. She wasn't that stupid.

Luckily, he didn't try to convince her. Instead, he sat her on a countertop and began through his checkups after being reminded by Ringo that she would be watching his every move, so he better not do anything but check her health. Most of it was boring, just standard stuff and questions. What seems wrong, where's the pain, details details details. At least he was thorough, and seemed to be taking this seriously. That was a good choice. She had to remove a few articles of clothing, let him poke and prod, put em' back on, and it was honestly amusing. If the man didn't have such a stern look plastered across his face, she'd probably make a few jokes about his intentions.

She let out a bit of blood for him (She wasn't letting him draw it. No way. Who knows what his needles are coated with?), and sat back as he tested whatever he was testing.

"Agh…"

That damn cramp...That was the worst thing about whatever this illness was, was the sharp pains in her gut. Sometimes she felt it in her chest too, but the more to her stomach it was, the more it tended to hurt. At least with one type of cramp, she'd know around when to expect it. Throwing another type on top of that wasn't fair. This guy better hurry up with his damn blood tests, because she wanted this to end. And it was taking forever. He kept walking back and forth across the room, checking this, carrying that to there, reading this while holding that. It was getting tedious. She'd been in here the better part of the day now, and there was nothing to do but watch the doctor do doctor things. As ready as she was to cut him up at any moment, she'd even stopped paying attention completely for a while in favor of idle daydreams.

She was drawn back to him when he walked up to her, papers in hand.

"I believe I know what's going on with your health."

Well. Good! He better! Damn! After a moment passed in silence, however, she started to feel a bit of worry well up in her. It didn't show on his face, but he was hesitating, like he was considering whether or not to tell her.

"Yeah? And?"

He sighed, somehow still retaining his neutral look, taking a moment to consider the words he'd use.

"It's very late to be catching this. You've had this for a very long time now. It grows slowly, spreading to different organs, but doesn't become very dangerous until it's had years to cultivate. However, the disease has reached its final stage."

"...Final stage?"

"At this point, it's essentially untreatable."

Untreatable. That isn't a good word. Definitely not something you wanna hear in a doctor's office.

"So...what does that mean? I gotta just live with this? Are you-"

"It means you'll die."

Oh.

Oh, no. No, no, no no no no NO.

A shot of panic tore through her, and her hands felt numb as she stared blankly forward. He was joking. He had to be. She searched his face frantically for any sign that he was fucking with her. A punishment for breaking in, maybe. For threatening him. But he looked...steady. Like he knew what he was saying, what it meant, and was saying it because he had to. Sweat broke out onto her forehead, and, as always when her fear became too much to handle, it gave way to rage.

Her swords were already drawn. It only took a moment to kick the man back, causing him to fall and hit his back against the wall with a heavy thunk and grunt, and point the edge of a sword at the middle of his face.

"You're LYING to me!"

He had to be. Illness? Fucking ILLNESS? Ringo faced DEMONS. Destroyed villages with her own hands! She fought the WORST in Kiri, over and over, and none of it could take her down. Trial after trial, year after year of training, and tests, and combat, and some disease was after her now!?

"Even if this was caught earlier, there isn't any medicine that could cure it. Nothing would've changed."

Nothing would have changed. So that's it!? Untreatable. That's what he said. Incurable, unfixable, nothing he could do. That's what he...

"Stop LYING!"

"I'm telling you the truth. The disease has progressed to its terminal point. You have a bit of time left, but it will get worse quickly. There's nothing anybody could-"

"NOTHING!? There's NOTHING!?"

She needed- she needed something. She needed to do something. All of this energy was building up in her, and she was ready to end something. She could...She could kill this guy. End him where he's sat and burn him up like the LYING PIECE OF GARBAGE HE IS.

No. No, that's a bad idea, a, a bad plan...The Mizukage would have her head when he finds out, if- if that even really matters now.

"...rrrRRAGH!"

Electricity ripped through her arms and out of her swords as she slashed them down into a tray of medical instruments, sparks flying out in every direction as the loud crashes or falling metal filled the room. She had- she had to...She had to get out of here. This room was tiny, it was god damn suffocating, and she was burning up. She had to leave.

She quickly found the window she'd entered from, and leapt out, jumping to the top of the building and pushing off again. She didn't care who saw her right now. She had to get back to Kiri proper, get her thoughts in order. She wasn't thinking clearly.

The run back to the hidden village was...quiet. Her thoughts stopped racing, and gradually disappeared until she wasn't really thinking about anything. In their place was just emptiness, and a feeling like she was falling tight in her stomach.

When she finally got back to the edge of the village, she didn't go in. Instead, she stood on a tree branch for...some amount of time. She lost track. It was already dark when she'd arrived back, all she knew was that it wasn't morning yet. Standing for a minute longer after she realized she had been staring at the village wall for however long, she turned around and started moving again. She knew a spot nearby; one of the few ponds in Water Country that was actually still fresh. It was a spot she went to whenever she got tired of dealing with all the shit in Kiri. The clean water relaxed her.

She found her small pond easily enough in the dark, and it was a fairly clear night tonight anyways. Deciding on a branch overlooking the bit of water, she sat down. Once more, time was passing her by, and she couldn't make heads or tails of everything drifting through her mind. She was...ill. She knew that, but never before had it been anything serious. Just a bit of pain to be toughed out. Another annoyance to deal with. All this time it was the same thing? Every time she felt sick it was this? This...this disease that was taking away EVERYTHING she had WORKED FOR. In an instant, every empty crack in her mind was filled and overflowing with rage. Before she could stop herself, her entire body tensed like a spring, she raised her hand up, and-

*BAM*

Fuck! Ow. Fuck. She punched the fucking tree. Her fist was bleeding. Shit.

She shook her hand off, and squeezed it with the other, pressing it firm against the cloth of her pants. This wasn't...This wasn't how it was supposed to go.

She was one of Kiri's greatest now. She'd finally earned that title. One of the very best, part of an organization thats fame for its skill was growing quickly, and growing far beyond Mist's borders. She was young. She was very young. For a mist ninja, she was more than experienced, but if you're alive around twenty it tends to mean you're here to stay, not to be picked off by some...some damned disease that made a home in your guts. This was supposed to be her beginning. She didn't make it this far for her story to end just as she picked up her pen.

In the space the exerted rage had filled, fear once again filled her.

No. No, she couldn't die here. She didn't...shit. Dammit, there was so much left for her. What the hell happened to all of that? To seeing the rest of the world? What it had to offer? Living how she wanted? She still answered to god damn Fuguki half the time, this wasn't HER life! She wasn't...What about everything she had planned to do!? Travel, become a legend throughout the whole world, not just kiri, take a protege, teach them everything she knew so that she would never disappear entirely from this world. There was...so much...

Someone was moving towards her. The rhythmic taps of sandals on wood gave them away. She didn't even look up; just kept her eyes trained on the still surface of her perfect little pond, reflecting the moonlight back up at her. Whoever it was landed a couple trees to her side with a thump.

"Yo! Was wondering where you got to."

Jūzō. Out of all the people in the Seven Swordsmen, he was probably the easiest to deal with. Easy to please, easy to listen to, easy to make go away. Not as dangerously unhinged as most of the others. But he was still a damn freak, and Ringo was most definitely not feeling like putting up with him right now. And how'd he know she was here, anyways? The privacy of her little pondly paradise...

"So!" the swordsmen barked out, jumping to the same branch as her and sitting next to her with a grunt, arm resting on a leg planted on the branch. "Where ya been, eh? You disappeared yesterday. You uh...You haven't been sittin' here since then, have you?"

"Mm."

That clearly wasn't the response he was looking for. She was rarely her chattiest around the others in the Seven Swordsmen, but she tends to be respectful enough to not brush them off until they get annoying. Then her tongue might be a bit sharp, and a few barbs could fly back and forth. She was never opposed to insulting them, since they all deserved whatever she could dish out anyways. But she's never this noncommittal when one of them tries to talk to her. Jūzō looked a tad lost. The man was too damn stubborn, he never just dropped it. Why the hell did he insist on chatting with everyone else in the group? This wasn't some sappy storybook team preaching about friendship, they're killers that stuck together because they're all good at killing.

"...Soooo...what, this a girl thing?"

"If I said yes, would you leave it alone?"

"Hah! Not after that question I won't! C'mon, out with it."

Ringo sighed. She wasn't getting away from this. She had to give him an answer. Of course, it didn't have to be all of the answer…

"Just thinking. About Mist."

Now that caught Jūzō's attention. It was all too clear by the way he turned to look at her, and cocked his head a bit when he spoke again.

"Oh yeah? Mist, huh? Never seemed to bother you too much before, even when Yagura went a lil," he spun a finger by his head, "y'know."

"Ah... Guess I'm thinking more about myself."

And that was true. She was most definitely thinking about herself. Her companion seemed to know he was getting to the meat of the story now.

"Ahhh...I see, I see. So what's got ya so tied up you spent a whole day starin' at a puddle?"

Ringo breathed out of her nose, sinking down into herself, letting some of the tension in her muscles relax. How long had she been sitting that stiff?

"Nothing for you to know. It all just...got to me a bit. I needed some time."

Yeah, she wouldn't let out any more than that. Jūzō didn't need to know what was going on with her just yet. He'd find out eventually. They all would. But she didn't need him here right now. Lucky for her, the guy seemed to get the gist, grunting in affirmation and pushing off his leg to stand.

"I'll tell the others. Just come back before the sun's up, or Fuguki's gonna be pissed."

"Fuguki can screw himself."

"Hah! I'll tell him you said that for ya."

Ringo managed a smirk, before narrowing her eyes and pointing at him.

"By the way! Don't you dare tell anyone about this pond! It's mine!"

Jūzō looked absolutely stunned for a second before breaking out into that barking laughter of his and waving her off.

"Sure, sure! Keep your privacy puddle, jeez. Later, Ringi."

With that, he jumped back through the trees towards Kiri's walls, the echoes of his jumps quickly disappearing with his image. Once more, she was alone.

Her smile fell from her face as she remembered why she was actually here in the first place. Somehow, she'd almost forgotten...Ugh. She brought her legs onto the branch and rested her back against the trunk properly. What the hell had Kiri ever done for her? What happened to seeing the world? She never had the means to leave, and when she finally did, she never had enough reason to leave those means behind. Now, that lack of reason was suddenly replaced with an urgency so quick and severely it almost didn't feel real.

She knew that the doctor wasn't lying. Every time the stinging came back she could feel the dread of knowing he was right. Every cough of hers, she could feel her lungs protesting, every effort worse than the last. This...this would kill her. And nobody could do anything about it. Ringo's gaze rose from the water to the moon that it reflected, and she laid there staring, one sentence repeating itself over and over in her head, pushing its way from her lips into the cold open night.

"I don't...want to die…"

That was always her goal. It was what she fought for. And now, now that she was strong enough to really start living...This wasn't fair. She had to think. What was going to happen to her? She knew she was right in thinking that the other member's would find out about her little escapade. The Mizukage's personal doctor is assaulted by one of his finest soldiers, only to reveal they had a vicious terminal disease that would quickly end them from here on out. Yeah. That's a story that's going to be reported. That slap on the wrist was turning out to be the end of her.

How much time did she even really have with this illness? Even if she can escape retribution for messing up the Mizukage's doctor, he'd never said how much time was left before she barreled out of the building. Just that it "would get worse quickly". Would she just...keel over tomorrow? No, she had a bit left. It was getting more and more painful, but she had a few months in her at the very least. Maybe a year? It was honestly impossible to tell, but damn her if she kicks the bucket that fast.

So...what could she do? Skip out on Kiri and see the sights before she dropped dead? Somehow that didn't sound as cathartic as she hoped. It was just...It was just sad. Every option that ended with her dying just seemed terrible, no matter what she did with the time she had left. Simply living had been her entire reason for getting this far. She wasn't...She couldn't drop that now.

And suddenly, a determination welled up within her. There was no way she'd let it end this way. She just had to come up with a plan. She had a good track record when it came to plans so far. That doctor was the best in Mist, but there were better out there. Mist had nothing more to offer her. What a shock. Research it herself? Not a chance. There were a lot of reasons that wouldn't work, and if a proper medical worker said "give up and die", she didn't have a chance at finding something. Kumo was strong, but their focus was almost entirely on the military. Suna...Had the monopoly on poisons. This wasn't poison, but it was similar. Slowly killing you from the inside? That sounded like something Suna might like to take a look at...But then there was another name that came to mind. In the last Great War, Suna was awfully pissy about somebody from Leaf, weren't they?

...Tsunade. That was it. The medical genius heralded across the Hidden Villages. She performed more miracles in a single war than most countries collectively did in a century. A miracle worker...but then she thought about Leaf. Leaf didn't like Mist, not really. They looked the other way until now, but they sure as hell didn't like how things were going, especially after mister high and mighty Mizukage decided the kids should kill each other even more. And Ringo was high up in Mist. They would never looked past that. Tsunade was with Leaf...or...actually, or was she? Didn't she get pissed at Konoha after the war? Something happened, she forgot what. But, if Tsunade wasn't in Konoha...She'd still be in Fire country, a true defection would have been reported everywhere. She could be willing to do something...Yeah...Yeah! With enough begging, maybe if Ringo bowed? Maybe enough money. Or a few years of indentured servitude. Whatever the hell it would take, really.

She could find something to live for later, right now living was what she wanted most. She had the Kiba, a bit of cash tucked securely in her clothing, and that's all she really needed. She could find Tsunade. The woman was a celebrity enough to have her name passed around even Kiri when Ringo was a child, somebody had to know where she was.

She stood, shaking off the protesting stings coming from her abdomen. There was more to this world than Mist. If nobody in Kiri could help her, then dammit, she'd find somebody who can! She took a deep breath, grounding herself. Kiri had been home, but it never had anything worth keeping. Maybe she'd come back sometime. Maybe not. She didn't know. Right now she didn't even know if she'd have the chance.

That thought spurred her forward, and she took her first leaps on a path towards the shores that divided Mist from the main continent.

The night was cool and clear. Barely any fog had risen right now, leaving the path to a new life exposed and ready to be traversed.

It was in this night, blanketed by the light of the moon, that Ameyuri Ringo abandoned Hidden Mist.


AN: Hope everyone had a good halloween! Wicked spooky dress up and hella candy. What a good night.

That's it for the opening arc! We're now CURRENT. Stuff's gettin' DONE. Hell yea!

So, I got some news for you! I'm now volunteering at a local LGBT youth shelter, and, because of that, I have a lot less time to write now.
I actually have quite a bit of this story written so far, way beyond this chapter, but editing and rewriting it all takes a surprising amount of time. Add on to that the fact that I now have to work, and that I'm working on another story alongside this one, and the weekly chapters are getting harder and harder. I managed to pump out the whole of the first arc within a month, and that's awesome, but it's not looking too sustainable right now. I'll try to really work on this story specifically this week to have a good enough backlog to keep the weekly updates going, but it may turn bi-weekly after a couple more weeks of this. I'll have to see by then. Let me know if y'all would be ok with that, or if the weekly updates are where its at for you.

And, you CAN expect the second story to get published relatively soon! It's not an Ameyuri story, but it still features one of my favorite characters in the series!
Not sure you'd be able to guess who, but if you know me as an author you can probably guess it's 1: not a main character, and 2: a girl.
Odds are it'll be uploading bi-weekly no matter what, because most of my focus is on Beyond the Mist, but I'm actually really looking forward to releasing it.
S'a real cutesy thing, pretty damn happy in comparison to what this story has been so far :'D

Definitely not the exact same style as this story is, but I hope you all can enjoy it too!
Look forward to the second arc of BTM, and I'll see y'all next week!

Have a good day, yo