1Chapter Eight: Fighting and Home

The chuunin exams were not going the way that they were supposed to be going. Everything had been fine up until the sand genin's fight with Uchiha Sasuke. That had apparently been the signal for the combined forces of the Sand village and the Sound village to attack the exam's host village and every Konoha nin was fighting one or more enemies, now including the hokage himself. Sarutobi stood on the roof across from his old student Orochimaru, who had just summoned the souls and bodies of the first and second hokages. Four of Orochimaru's Sound nins were surrounding them, obviously about to do something to keep anyone from helping the hokage and then a large archway had appeared out of nowhere and was now beginning to glow.

Wait a second. Archway?

Sarutobi looked at the archway curiously, knowing that his wayward student was doing the same and both were shocked into immobility when a series of sixteen men ran through it, not being able to stop until they were beyond the four Sound nins.

"What the-"

One of the running men turned quickly and stared at the portal while another hurried up beside him.

"Where is she Jocobo?"

"I don't know Chief."

"She'd better hurry. Those things are gonna go off right-"

A sound similar to that of rolling thunder in the distance came from the portal and both men paled.

"Now. Shit, she's got to get out of there!"

While the two were concerned with their own thing and the four kages watched curiously, the Sound four erected their barrier. Just as another body fairly flew through the portal, followed closely by what looked like a pinkish green whip. The body saw the barrier snap into place and immediately the person flipped over, making sure to hit with their back. Orochimaru watched in glee, waiting for the person to show everyone why this barrier was impenetrable. The person hit and a flash of bright pink light came from where their back hit the shield, but instead of disintegrating like the snake sannin thought they would, they merely fell to the ground, barely getting their feet beneath them.

"Son of a bitch that hurts!"

The person's voice was rough, but what shocked them was what happened next. The person shook their head and stumbled before freezing. It was like they'd heard something that seemed threatening and were trying to figure it out. They cocked their head to one side before whipping their head around to look at Sarutobi, acknowledged him and then snapped their head aroudn to glare at Orochinaru. The voice he now used was a hissing, almost serpentine tone.

"Necromancy? Am I sensing that correctly? You dare to do this...this...abomination?"

Orochimaru smirked and turned to the dead hokages, having already placed them under his control.

"Kill him. Leave the old man to me."

Hikari was pissed at the thought that anyone could resort to necromancy for anything. She knew the theories and the rituals, but she had never been able to force herself to delve that far into the darker energies of the universe. She was far too bright and using that kind of energy would have dulled her spirit and called to her until she was addicted like a street whore to illicit drugs. She shuddered as she fell into a loose stance and gripped the fans folded and strapped to her back, grateful that they had survived her collision with the barrier where a lot of her armor had not. She winced as the air agitated the muscles now exposed on her back where the armor was disintegrated and took the skin with it and vowed to hurt every single one of the little pricks holding that barrier. She braced herself as the man that she recognized from Gai's descriptions as the first hokage ran straight at her, but she didn't get to do anything because right at that moment a lizard type leapt through the portal and his barbed tongue wrapped around Hikari's throat as his clawed hands grabbed her hips. She hollered as the poisoned barbs tore into her neck and the claws sank past her armor and into her hipbone.

"Urgn grol farshana."

Hikari twisted out of the grip of his claws and grabbed the tongue, violet hues surrounding the hand.

"No. You're the one who's dead. Illirna!"

There was a flash of violet lightning and then violet fire raced up the thing's tongue and soon it was nothing but ash, its dying screams echoing across the tile roof they'd landed on. The wounds on Hikari's neck began to bleed in earnest, but nothing too serious. The poison was slowed immensely by the fact that Hikari was mostly immune to it, but she knew that she would regret not noticing the lizard earlier. She turned to the two dead hokages and her eyes practically glowed. Jocobo smiled gleefully and whooped.

"Whoo-hoo! Sarge's pissed now!"

The ANBU and most of the jounin that were in the stadium watched as Hikari was surrounded by a violet haze and they could see her eyes glowing behind the visor that blocked her eyes from view. The dead hokages didn't even get the chance to prepare as she vanished and reappeared in front of them, hooking her right leg around and into the side of Shodaime's head, spinning and putting a fist in Nidaime's gut. The Nidaime stumbled, but kept his feet and threw a heavy blast of water at Hikari while the Shodaime recovered his feet. Hikari almost panicked when a thick group of vines crawled quickly up her body and bound her hands to her sides, lifting her into the air. She grinned viciously, though no one could see it, and her aura caught fire and burned away the vines, vaporizing the water that had been thrown at her again. She placed her hands into 'c' shapes and spun, flinging her arms out once they started to glow a dull red. The resulting mage shackles clamped down onto the two Hokages' arms and legs, fully preenting them from moving. They watched as she pulled a knife from her belt and sliced at those glowing eyes, pulling the knife out from behind the visor to show that there was blood on it.

"By the blood of sight."

She brought the knife down to slice at the wounds in her sides, pulling a small amount of blood from her lungs as the hokages struggled to their feet.

"By the blood of Life."

The Chief watched, stunned, as his leader began a ritual that no one thought she could, or would, even attempt. He turned to Jocobo, who also looked stunned.

"I thought you said that the boss couldn't do any necromantic rituals!"

"It wasn't that she couldn't, but that she didn't want to. She didn't want to delve that deeply into the one art that depended almost soley on dark energies."

"So what do you call that?" Chief gestured wildly at Hikari, who was now bringing the knife to her hand. Jocobo shrugged as he watched her slice deeply into her own hand.

"Something new."

"By the blood of touch."

Hikari brought the knife up to her chest. She had to get this part exactly right or she ran the risk of truly killing herself. Hikari was not happy about using a necromantic ritual, it was something that she'd sworn she'd never do if she ever had the choice, but...well she didn't have a choice on this one. She couldn't eliminate the abominations because she didn't know what the controller mechanism was, so the only other option was a full resurrection. She knew that she was skating the line between the 'grey arts' and the 'black arts', but she figured that since she hadn't actually raised them, nor had she pulled their souls from wherever they were that she would be okay. Especially since she wasn't actually using a true sacrifice. She raised the knife over her head, aimed carefully and clenched her eyes shut as she rammed the thin blade into her own heart.

The pain was incredible.

Hikari gasped for breath and tried to block out the pain, but it was unlike anything she had ever felt. More even then being tortured, but she knew that it only meant that she'd hit the only part of the heart that she could without killing herself. She'd sliced just to the right of her heart, nicking the muscle and just barely gathering blood from within on the blade. It was not life threatening for her. She pulled the knife out and stared straight into the eyes of the dead, which looked shocked even through the control the snake man had over them, and smirked.

"By the blood of sacrifice. I call the souls of the dead to remember. Remember what you created. Remember what you lived for, protected and nurtured," she crouched, wincing at the pain in her hips at the motion, and stabbed the blade into the ground.

"Remember what you died for!"

Jocobo let out a yell of horror as he watched his little sister stab herself in the chest, the Chief echoed the sound and the ninja around them were just as shocked.

"What the hell is boss doing? Huh Chief?"

The Chief turned to Danno, one of his best demo guys, and shrugged, still stunned.

"I don't know, but I don't like it."

A flash of light drew their attention back to the barrier and all were shocked to see that the two men she'd been set to fight against were shaking their heads, looking around in a confused manner before realization dawned in their eyes and they both hurried to the soldier, who had finally gone down due to pain and exhaustion. Both ran toward the barrier, not giving a damn about the consequences, but both were stopped by ANBU, one with a raven mask and one with a cat mask.

"You can't do that. The barrier will kill you."

"Then take it down!"

"We've been trying, but even if we did have it down you wouldn't be allowed near the fight."

Jocobo glared at the cat mask ANBU and actually growled. He towered over the diminutive ANBU, but she wasn't backing down.

"That is my little sister in there! The hell I won't go in!"

The ANBU looked from Jocobo and the Chief to Hikari, now being protected by the two hokages while Orochimaru fought the third.

"Sister?"

Hikari had never actually fainted due to pain before, so waking up was a novel experience. She blinked rapidly and found herself staring at the Sandaime hokage, just as Orochimauru was approaching for the death blow, Kusanagi coming out of his mouth. Shodaime and Nidaime knew that they could never get to their old friend in time and could do nothing but watch as his death approached. Hikari was not so burdened.

"Anchor two, Blood Ward!"

The leather and blood ruby wrist band that Sarutobi had taken to wearing began to glow before a shield burst to life in front of him, just in time for Orochimaru to slam face first into it. Kusanagi shattered in the impact with the impenetrable ward and Hikari found herself in a quandary. To laugh at the misfortune of your enemy, or not to laugh. How much would it hurt her to laugh? Hikari grinned. To hell with it. She let loose and the field froze at the sound of raspy, yet delicate laughter. Orochimaru glared at the soldier and growled before turning to the now two hokages facing off against him. The Nidaime had joined the Sandaime while the Shodaime protected Hikari.

"This is far from over Sarutobi-sensei! I will raze Konoha to the ground and you will die by my hand!"

Before anyone could react he and the four barrier holders took off, finally ending the invasion of Konoha. Hikari looked on after them, frustrated at not being able to hunt them down, as Jocobo and the others ran toward her to make sure she was okay. Only the Shodaime heard her response, it was far too quiet.

"And we will be ready and waiting snake. The dragon will be here and you will lose."

With this Hikari once again passed into the realm of unconsciousness.

I am having a little trouble with chapter ten and on, so please bare with me as I try to hash out the ideas running around in my head. If you have any suggestions as to what you want to happen, please tell me and I'll give it considerable consideration. Thanks.