DISCLAIMER: I OWN WHAT IS MY OWN.


No Free Ride to Redemption

By Corvus no Genmu

"Run Like the Wind"

Shining emerald eyes glowed brightly, no pupil in sight in their glimmering orbs as they stared down the trio of ninja before it. A long tongue slithered out between gleaming fangs, flowing along hungry chops. The azure quils adorning the monster's back quivered with anticipation as its doglike tail wagged in the air behind it. The tanned fur of its chest puffed up as it took a deep breath of air before unleashing a mighty howl into the night. Its ears cocked to and fro, its quilled head tilting to look up at the rising moon before an answering roar echoed from deep within the shadowed wood. The beast's lips pulled back into a canine smile before it took off into the underbrush, vanishing with a sonic boom in its wake.


Mink coughed and massaged her throat, wincing at the pain. Ardiendo wordlessly handed her a canteen and she took it with a grateful smile and a blush on her face. She leaned back into the tree's trunk and sighed tiredly, wishing there was less room so she'd have opportunity to cuddle with Ardiendo rather than sharing the perch together with room to spare.

The boy in question spared the redhead a small smile before turning his attention back once more to Kodou. "Think that scared the scavengers away?"

Kodou grunted, "I think so… Oi, Ushio? Sense anyone coming this way?"

"That trio from Sound has stopped but I think they're just camping for the night…" Ushio had his eyes closed as he stretched his senses further. He frowned suddenly. "Well that's weird… there's a genin team from Leaf that's splitting up."

Kodou and Ardiendo both exchanged looks. "What's so weird about that?" asked Kodou.

"They might be checking the area over before they set up their camp." Ardiendo suggested.

Ushio shook his head. "Well, why are two of them sticking together and the third one's heading this way?"

Ardiendo frowned at that, "Which way?"

"That's the weird part… he's coming from the opposite way of the tower…" Ushio opened his eyes, scowling angrily. "I think he's the spy we were warned about."

"No shit." Kodou grunted, preparing to jump down to the ground below. "I'm going to sleep, wake me when my turn comes." He started to jump down and paused. "Wake Mana up with me, and I'll shove a shuriken where a shuriken ought not to be shoved." With that final word said, Kodou leapt down to the ground.

Ushio watched him fall, shaking his head. "I think I'm going to go higher up, I don't want to know more than I already do about those two." He grinned suddenly at Ardiendo. "It's a good excuse to leave you two alone too don't you think?"

Ardiendo's eyes narrowed but Ushio was up and away into the forest canopy before he could say anything to disapprove his teammate's words. The ashen-haired genin sighed to himself, looking out into the forest before shooting a discrete glance at the sleeping Mink.

"Hmmm… Ardi-kun…" He glanced down and saw that, while still asleep, Mink was calling for him. "Don't go away again… please… don't go…"

'Aw geez…' Looking about carefully, he shuffled a bit closer to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. 'Idiot will fall off if I don't hold on, yeah that'll work.'

"I'm not going anywhere, Mink," he said. 'Not without you and everyone else in our ragtag family.'

"Mmm… promise of a lifetime…?"

He chuckled, pulling her closer to him. "Promise of a lifetime…"


Dosu cursed himself, he was being too arrogant and gave the pink-headed twit too little credit. Useless and weak she might be, but to have made a trap, false or otherwise, to cover the more dangerous one was nothing short of ingenius. Annoying as hell but ingenius nonetheless. Pressing his gauntlet-covered hand to the trunk and pushing enough chakra into the instrument, Dosu shattered a hole large enough for he and his team to jump through. Of course, by doing this he made it all the more easier for someone else to do the exact same thing. It was like a sudden tornado, a small-scale twister appearing out of nowhere and flying along a horizontal path straight towards the Sound team.

They were slammed into the ground with earth trembling force as their attacker bounced back to stand between them and their target, growling with deep emerald eyes shining brightly in the canopy-shrouded daylight. Sakura stiffened a terrified scream as the creature turned its canine-like head to face her before turning its attentions back to her attackers.

Zaku was glaring at the beast with obvious anger in his eyes though he kept both his hands up in preparation for attack. Dosu was holding up his Melody Arm, though his other arm was held loosely at his side with a grimace of pain. As for the kunoichi, Kin… she was shuffling backwards with wide, terrified eyes as blood drained from her face until she was as pale as the dead. Her shoulders were trembling and she looked close to tears at the sight of the monster, a beast she knew all too well from her old home region.

It was a terrible beast standing taller than all of the genin present but not much more so than a full grown adult at the height of its shoulder. It stood on all four limbs and resembled a terrible fusion between hound, cat, and hedgehog for while it had the typical lean body of a cheetah fused with a greyhound, the beast also had a vast mane of quills running from the top of its canine head down to the tip of its doggy-tail in one long stripe. Its claws were sharp as knives as the gripped the earth and it turned its head this way and that as though taking stocking of the situation in a strangely human manner. Adorning its neck was a golden collar with seven hidden latches covering the true treasure beneath.

Kin felt her insides turn to ice for she knew well of the beast for it was a legend in her old home in the Land of Earth. A creature who ran like lightning over the earth, a beast with pupil-less eyes that shined like fine emeralds and fur like soft azure, a wild and untamed monster who answered to no master, a demonic equal to Konoha's Yellow Flash who earned the name of, "The Azure Wind… Sonikku."

Long ears twitched at the softly spoken words and pure emerald eyes turned to face the kunoichi that spoke them. The monster cocked its head before its lips pulled back in a massive feral grin, revealing a jaw full of nothing but sharp fangs.

"What are you on Kin?" growled Zaku, taking half-a-step back as the Azure Wind's eyes, as best as he could tell, fell back upon him. "It's probably some kind of summons, we can take it easily!"

To her mounting horror, the Azure Wind took no offense to Zaku's stupidity. It did not snarl in anger, it did not move to strike her teammate down like the arrogant idiot that he was, it did something worse.

It laughed.

It was not a terrible sound, not in the least, it was rather like an odd fusion of a bark and huff with a strange sort of snicker at the end. Zaku thought the beast was laughing at him and he'd be only partially right. Dosu thought the creature insane, deranged in its existence and its way of thinking, and he wasn't anywhere on the mark. Kin believed the Azure Wind to be amused, even delighted with the three of them, like a cat with a new ball of yarn to play with.

And she was right.

The Azure Wind crouched low to the ground as though in a bow before it suddenly was curled in a tight ball that spun in place with increasing speed. The ground beneath it tore up as a a massive cloud of dirt formed behind the spinning ball of sharpened quills before it suddenly took off, straight towards Zaku. The stunned genin just barely managed to launch a wind attack against the rushing Sonikku but all he did was send the spinball airborne, something that Kin instantly knew would spell their doom.

Laughing once more, the spinball of spikes began to ricochet from tree to tree until there was not but hazy shades of blue surrounding the Sound Trio as the Azure Wind increased the power behind each bounce until it reached a speed beyond human perception. Once it reached such an excess, it bounced back towards the tree that provided haven for Team 7 during the previous night and ricocheted once more straight towards Team Dosu with force of a wrecking ball.

Ever see what happens to a trio of pins when hit dead center by a bowling ball? Make that bowling ball reach supersonic speeds and you'll have a faint inkling of the damage done to the Sound Trio. Needless to say, Konoha was treated to the phenomenon of daytime stars twinkling out of sight.

The Azure Wind stood calmly, dust and debris falling like snow around it as it gazed upwards in the direction it sent the Sound Trio before looking back at the stunned Sakura. It slowly turned and started walking towards her and her unconscious teammates and, as though waking from a stupor, Sakura quickly grabbed her kunai and held it up in a standard defensive hold. "St-Stay away!"

Sonikku paused for a moment and in the instant that she blinked, the pinkette found herself nose-to-snout with the Azure Wind. She screamed and jerked back, but managed to keep her grip on her kunai though her fearful shivering could no longer be hidden from obvious sight. Sonikku snickered at her reaction and looked down at her two comatose teammates that, to her mounting horror, Sakura had inadvertently placed between herself and the Azure Wind.

The blue beast took note of the steam rising from the burning mark adorning the Uchiha's neck, a frown on its muzzle, before looking to the blonde Uzumaki. Its frown deepened as it lowered its head to sniff at the boy's hair before sitting back on its haunches in confusion. It slowly raised a paw and rested the appendage lightly on the boy's shirt, pushing it up his chest until his navel was exposed. The Azure Wind's eyes gained an ethereal glow as strangely colored chakra gathered in its paw.

It watched in revered silence as an inky black seal painted itself around the boy's bellybutton until, with a sudden flare of purple fire, five new seals appeared like burnt marks around the swirl, like dark sentries that did more harm than good. Emerald eyes widened in shock as the paw pulled back, chakra and seal vanishing with the motion. Sonikku stared in silence for a moment before its eyes narrowed dangerously, a black aura appearing around it as the quills on its back started to darken into a purplish shade at the tips. A kunai came flying at it, bouncing away uselessly against the black aura but the hit was enough to snap Sonikku out of it.

It shook its head suddenly and the aura disappated, the quills fading back to their true blue shade. It looked to a quivering, weaponless Sakura before bobbing its head as a sign of thanks. The Azure Wind looked back down at Naruto and placed a paw on the blonde's shoulder, its head bowed as though in prayer. Sakura blinked in confusion and gasped in shock as the beast was suddenly gone. She hurried over to her teammates, checking first upon Sasuke before her attention at last went to Naruto though it was with hesitation.

Why did that monster have such a strange interest in the idiot blonde? What was that seal that appeared on Naruto's stomach, it wasn't like anything she had ever read about in her old schoolbooks! It looked immensely complicated and she knew that the more complicated a seal, the more powerful it was. So it begged the question, just what did Naruto do to have such a powerful seal placed upon him, a seal that earned the attentions of both a S-ranked missing-nin and a powerful demon at that?

So immersed in her flood of questions and doubts, Sakura never noticed the emergency pack she had placed in the far back of the burrow was now full once more with three extra editions to its weight. A pair of scrolls, one inscribed with the symbol of "earth" and the other the one for "heaven". Last but not least, there was a small golden ring, perfectly carved and smooth like porcelain, too big to be worn but too small to be obtrusive.


Kodou's right eye twitched and he held up a hand. "Wait."

Behind him, Mink blinked. "What is it?" There were in sight of the tower after all and on the second day it was highly unlikely that any other team beside the Sand Trio had made it here before them, even if to just set up an ambush.

"My idiot senses are tingling…" muttered Kodou.

"See it's stuff like that, that makes me think you are related to Yami after all!" Sokudo leapt down from the trees to land before the pair. "Wassup?"

"Is that all you have to say?" snapped Kodou. "You were supposed to meet up with us and Team Zwei at daybreak! What the hell happened?!"

"Stuff mostly… Kicked some butt, nearly got eaten by the local wildlife, met a cute redhead." Sokudo shrugged, ignoring Kodou's growing ire with a laidback grin. He suddenly turned serious as he remembered. "We need to see Lotus-sensei ASAP."

"Lotus-sensei… as in our Lotus-sensei." Kodou asked, disbelief evident in his voice.

"Chaos as my witness there better not be more than one." Sokudo shivered at that thought.

"Why do we need to see Lotus-sensei, Sokudo-kun?" asked Mink. 'Considering she's scares the beejesus out of us!' was left unsaid.

"Something happened to Naruto's team, something big." Sokudo glanced up at the camera hidden in the trunk of a nearby tree and leaned forward. "Furry wise that is."

"Shit…" Kodou cursed. Sighing resignedly to himself he asked, "Did you tell the salamander and his team?"

"Dropped them off before I came to get you guys, yeah." He held out his hands to his teammates. "So, all aboard the Supersonic Express!"

With a pained grimace on their faces, Mink and Kodou did so, pushing as much chakra as they dared into their arms lest Sokudo pull them loose from their sockets as he took off towards the tower at soundbreaking speed. Once was bad enough, four times would be just be embarrassing.


In the lands of the Elemental Countries from the top tiers like Fire or Lightning to the smaller territories like Grass or Snow, there is little to no clear distinction between humanity. That is to say, that appearance meant little to anyone in the Elemental Countries as, in a world so confined as it was, the difference between two people by their skin, their hair, or anything else was of little concern or consequence, unless it was an appearance born by a special bloodline limit, then it was really anyone's guess.

They who possessed powerful bloodline limits were feared and revered for while the average ninja was indeed a powerful adversary, one blessed by the mutagenic gift to ignore the rules of life and make the impossible possible. A bloodline user could do thinks inconceivable except in one's wildest dreams… or darkest nightmares.

Bloodline limits, especially the more powerful ones, almost always come with a physical alteration. Some of these alterations were minute; an odd coloration of the hair or eyes which, in a world where pink hair was perfectly natural, was not much to go on. Some were so obvious it was hard to perceive them as even being human for these differences are as extreme as extra limbs or even the scales and gills of a predatorial fish.

All these strange faces, all these unique people, some feared, some hated, some even revered as godsend, were all human and no matter how some denied it otherwise, that was always the one truth associated with them. No one person, with a bloodline limit or without, was ever truly thought to be anything beyond human even the cursed jinchuuriki are perceived as demons given pure human form and thus as weak as mortal flesh and blood.

In the case of one Lotus Sylvanas… that was most certainly not the case.

Possessing an ethereal beauty that bordered on something beyond mortal possibility, with long hair that flowed like fresh honey down her back, framing a face carved from the finest of porcelain and colored pure ivory. Her choice of drss was strange, foreign beyond measure for the materials were soft as silk yet harder than steel, all colored in forest shades but revealing a generous amount of flesh, particularly around the midriff and thighs. Her feet were bare though they were unmarked from travel as though the dusty roads dared not mark such dainty toes.

At first glance, it was as though an angel had stepped down from heaven to walk amongst mortal men and really how could one be blamed to believe so when Lotus' back was weighed with a small pair of iridescent wings of fine emerald and pearl colored feathers. However, it was her ears that truly gave the idea its merits for her ears with long and pointed, just like the legends told. Of angels bearing long ears to better hear the words of Heaven.

To one who had only just met Lotus, who would only see her as a passerby and to never see her again, they would think her an angel. To those who dealt with her on a daily basis, well, it was bit more simple than that…

"You are one evil bitch." Razin growled, earning a saucy smile from Lotus that, to anyone who didn't know her as Razin did, would seem almost sweet.

"But I'm your bitch." Lotus smirked up at the man who now sported a hand-shaped bruise on his right cheek. That's what he deserved for starting a conversation by pinching her butt as a way to say 'Hello'!

"Sadly yes. OW! For the hoard, woman!" Razin bent down as far as he could as the shorter woman had a firm grip over his ear. "Just what is your problem anyway?!"

"My problem my sweet Serpent King, has something to do with a lost puppy." Lotus sneered. In the privacy of their room in the Forest of Death's lone tower, and with some privacy seals in place, there was no need for her to keep up her sweet and innocent act.

"Well whose fault is that?!" snarled Razin, holding his pointer and middle finger to his nose in a familiar sign. "Didn't you See it coming?"

Lotus released her grip on the jonin's ear and turned away with an angry huff. "I wasn't Looking!" She responded smartly back, mimicking the sign with her own hand, catching a sudden glimpse and her shoulders slowly sagged, slumping down to her knees as she finally allowed herself to relax. "He's okay…" Razin's arms carefully wrapped around her torso and when she didn't hit or yell at him in response to the act, pulled her close to him, resting his head atop her own. She leaned back, feeling the familiar warmth of his body. "I still need to look at what that vampiric pedophile did to him but…"

"He'll be fine." Razin reassured his volatile girlfriend and sensei to Team Saga. That reminded him… he still owed his brats a good training exercise (read: beat the ever-living crap out of them) for leaving their childish partners behind while they went gallivanting through a training ground that rightfully earned the name Forest of Death. "You up to scaring the shit out of our students?"

"Razin!" Lotus spoke as though scandalized before an utterly evil smirk lit on her rosy lips. "You have to ask?"


To Be Continued...


On the next road…

Elimination Proclamation


AN: For a the inspiration behind Sonikku the Azure Wind check out "Built for Speed" by umbra-rockchick on DeviantArt.