The only objects of practical reason are therefore those of good and evil.-Kant

Detestable hours elapsed, day at length came, and the iridescent phosphorescence of low clouds gave place to the misty twilight of the eastern world. Vile birds winged menacingly through the cold and silence. Only those remote and impassable peaks, which erected in a distance eyes could not possibly measure, could give any sense of direction, and even they were less clear as the grey twilight waned and the sickly glint of the clouds took its place.

Before the sun could sit upon its throne on the irksome vaults of heaven, the heiress had already found her way back to the Palace, and sat in quiet torpor upon the velvet couch of her room. She awaited for the things unimaginable with a heart afflicted, yet eyes not once deprived from sentience. Her joy now was joy no more, and fear thrilled her whilst she watched the sullen changes of the daylight through the dingy window.

There was a demoniac alteration in the sequence of the hours. The sun's heat lingered fearsomely, and everyone felt that the world and perhaps the universe had passed from the control of known gods to forces that appertained to other gods or forces, which were yet unknown.

She trembled at the thought of pandemonium and gripped the silver pendant of the necklace that softly caressed the skin of her bosom. Upon that action, with a rush, ineradicable pictures of the night returned to her memory and thus a faint blush mantled her pale cheeks.

For a brief moment, her joy returned and fear was fear no more but the recollections of all that was beautiful. She smiled from her heart while her majestically slanted eyes lingered onto her grip. Slowly, her fingers parted and her gaze met the silver pendant that rested within the palm. Never once she received a gift from a man, other than the King, thus such gesture animated dearly her afflicted spirit. She promised him that she would take good care of it, and he promised that he would always find her.

Suddenly, came to her perception some strange rustling of the worn, dirty draperies at the one dingy window, but upon second thought, the idea furthered into one horrible image that someone in the room had gritted his teeth and drawn a very sharp breath. Cold chilled her skin and marble hue shrouded her visage as she, at length rose from the crimson couch and turned slowly around. There was no mistake; she was not alone.

"You look awfully ordinary in this dress. Are you purposely wishing to embarrass me in public?" Spoke he with audacity, as he emerged from a smoke of fright and detestation and stepped into the faint light of the morning sun.

"I am not marrying you, Lord Madara." She replied presently and straightened her posture upon uttering those simple words. Her hand slowly fell back beside her as she let go of the pendant. Her faultless face evinced no emotion, as she stood in front of him like the finest sculpture of Greek craftsmanship.

"Do you honestly believe that it is an option for you?" Madara uplifted his eyes in a leisure movement as he glanced at the young maiden in front of him. Before she could have opened her mouth to reply he stopped but inches away from her, choking the words within her throat. "You have no word in this matter." He added and anchored his fingers amid the silky threads of her golden crown.

"I slept with someone. You cannot marry me." It was at this point she noticed a cessation in the regular, monotonous strokes of his fingers. Cautiously, Tsunade glanced upwards at the General's face to investigate the truth behind the pale skin; he was a man hard to read, and most often one would mistake the stillness of his demeanor and do not assume the pandemonium within his spirit.

At first, Madara could only chuckle. "Do you even know what that means, Tsunade?" Said he sardonically, yet upon the visible sternness of the heiress, he added, vexed. "I believe I heard you wrong." His tone thickened with blooming rage as he provoked affirmance from her; albeit expressionless, his eyes burnt with blazing effulgence of fury. "Say it again." Forthwith, Madara commanded with loathsome superiority whilst his grip held the soft curls menacingly.

Tsunade winced upon her failed attempt to pull away from the General. Nonetheless, she did as she was told. "I said, I slept with someone. You have no right to become a king anymore."

For a brief moment of agitating quietude, he spoke nothing, for words could not fully describe the indescribable. The fist in her hair tightened and forcefully drew her sweet face closer to him; hitherto as if a devastating stroke of lightning, the demon's hand landed on her cheek.

He did not raise his voice. Even when anger mantled his skin and turned flaming red, his demeanor never once betrayed him. In fact, such trait added to his peculiar character even more and at certain point, his brutality could be considered somewhat charming. "Do you know what makes me so damn upset? When little, dumb, and annoying things like you want to rough me up."

He ejaculated on a blood-chilling voice whilst his eyes bathed in the sight of the young, groveling woman in front of him. "Things could have changed peacefully, but you just had to do something about it, hadn't you? You Senju are all damn stupid, running to your deaths so boldly."

Before he could have pulled his sword out of its sheath, she proved faster than he did; Tsunade reached for a letter opener upon the desk closest to her and rose back up on her feet. The object seemed sufficiently well adapted to its new purpose and thus she managed to stall the man's strikes.

She held the blade even, on horizon, the very same way she was taught by her master, Lord Hiruzen. She wielded the short weapon and attacked the General with a perfect aim. He countered the first clash of swords and with a widening smirk, he watched the letter opener shiver beneath the strength of his katana.

Tsunade narrowed her eyes in frustration, whilst tirelessly escaping from the mad blows of unspeakable speed. Her agility amazed and amused the evil lord who took grave pleasure in the swordfight. The picture of weapons clashing, bodies turning and rushing was very vivid for a while, but gradually gave way to a more horrible conception; abruptly, the lord was no more.

Whatever stood in front of the heiress was human no more. The foulest nightmares of secret myths could not have awakened a sight as Madara was. Her footfalls shivered upon the wooden ground as she recoiled, the large hazel eyes wide in terror. The letter opener, by degrees fell from her grip, and little by little the blood curdled in her veins, and shock-stricken she stood, frozen, hypnotized with horror.

He must have been amused by the start of horror she gave, as watching the petite frame bewitched by fright, for his head wabbled violently when fear showed upon her sweet visage. Subsequently he spoke very gently as how human beings might accomplish, while human he was not anymore. "I shall take what is mine, and with that, I shall take all the power you do not deserve to possess, dragon."

At last, she had become visually familiar with the incredible secret concealed by his form; he was the hideously conventionalised figure of a tiger. The expression on its stark features was repellent in the extreme, savouring at once of death, bestiality, and malevolence. It was the morbid perversion of all that blasphemous, all that malign.

Alien it was to all science, the tall, stout body rapidly altered into one gigantic hound whose skin was covered in blood and shreds of alien flesh and hair, and leered sentiently at her with shrunken sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of her inevitable doom. "You are going to die, now." He gave from those grinning jaws a deep, sardonic bay and struck violently at her.

If only she had known how to summon those godly powers instead of calling for them through instinct and waiting for a change to materialize while instinct screamed her to run. Before she could have moved any inch of her body, and could have made haste from the chamber, the black demon shrouded the trembling body in one deadly embrace.

The horrible, sharp, salivating mouth opened, yellow fangs rattled and a hollow scream urged its way through the victim's throat. She cried and pounded at the stark chest convulsively, whilst held in the gory, filthy claws of the unwholesome demon.

"If you keep moving, it will only hurt more." The beast growled against the mangled throat and at last, gradually, she gave in.

The combined shock of the sight and the abrupt command gave her a kind of paralysis, and in her terror, her mind again opened to the impressions of hellish visions. She gasped and cried breathlessly and the pounding on the chest ceased, and strength deserted her. Inelucatbly, as the crimson essence of life oozed from her bleaching veins, she passed into that of an absolute solitude in infinite, sightless, soundless space.

Tsunade dropped onto the ground with a thud of a potato sack. Slow strokes of air escaped through her lungs, as she struggled to breathe one last time. The violet veins whitened, the large orbs shrunk, and glowed uncannily as she forced the ghastly lids to blink. As if added to this, her hands grew tremulous and twitched with the body still convulsing.

The brain rapidly fading, once more became tinged with a certain hellish familiarity of the scene, and the victim kept straining her eyes and racking her memory for clues to where she had seen such creature before, when she had felt such pain.

It was not the recollections of her young years, but the desperate mementos of the dragon within her. The heiress, in that moment, understood its pain and despair, for the immortal was cursed to bear the fate of a mortal body. She let them both die, she was not strong enough.

"I'm full." Madara sighed upon regaining his ordinary form, which called no attention, apart from the ordinary sighs of young maidens'. "Tell Tobirama I said hi. Soon, I am sending the last idiot to rot with you under the ground." He kicked the soft body away and fixing his vestiture, the elegant lord vanished from the chamber. As he promised so, he had one more task to do.

The blurred outlines of the room rapidly faded into unrecognizable shapes and clouds. A quick step came upon her ears, and a loud sound now succeeded. Involuntarily she shivered, the body disconnected from the brain. She still anticipated a second disturbance of the stillness, where only the slowing beats of the heart could be noticed.

With a voice choking in emotion and incoherent words, she moaned quietly when at last her senses were enflamed by perception of touch. She was touched, what is more, she noticed her body being lifted up. She was held, she could yet feel that much. Then came the parting of the lips, the sensation of something soft, drops of something sweet yet unfamiliar to her taste.

"Just go, I will take care of her." There was a reluctant pause and the voice was heard again, its speaker was in no placid temper. "I said go, 'Kashi, she will make it from here!"

The warm liquid of strange, metallic taste ceased and her throat grew dry. The comfort of her savior's embrace was no more, and the cold ground welcomed her body once again. She struggled to open her eyes, to seek the sight of the one saving her. In that moment, her consciousness eclipsed in swoon and darkness descended on her.

Meanwhile...

The general tension has been horrible for weeks. Everyone knew it was a time of political and social upheaval, to which was added a strange and brooding apprehension of hideous physical danger. A danger widespread and all embracing, such a danger as may be imagined only in the most terrible phantasms of the night.

For days now, as if sensing the doom within the cold air, people on the streets went about with pale and worried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies, which no one dared consciously repeat or acknowledge to themselves as they had heard it.

Having perceived at last the hollowness and futility of things he could have done for both his family and nation, Hashirama spent his last days in quiet retirement, and in wistful disjointed memories of his dream-filled youth.

Throwing himself upon a chair, he remained for some time absorbed in meditation. His reflections, be sure, were of no consolatory kind. A thousand vague and lachrymatory fancies took possession of his soul and even the idea of suicide flitted across his brain; but it is a trait in the perversity of human nature to reject the obvious and the ready, for the equivocal.

Thus, he shuddered at self-murder as the most decided of atrocities, for death indeed awaited, but in a different way. Oppressed with a tumult of vague hopes and fears, there at length, from not so far, came noises, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a woman, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman a wailing shriek, half of horror and another half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throat of the dammed in their agony and of the demon that exulted in the damnation.

He looked impatiently around the richly decorated room with the crimson carpet and exposed beams and corner posts, and sighed. The reverberations of a disquieting wail ceased and complete stillness pervaded the room. As if aware of the nightmare outside, and now recovering from his guilt-tinted astonishment, he advanced and laid a hand around the bottle of sake. "This is the last time for you, old man." He smiled with a heavy heart.

Quick yet measured footfalls were suddenly heard upon the marble staircase and a loud knock at the wooden doors rapidly succeeded. He did not haste from the spot he stood, in fact, he patiently awaited for the intruder to welcome himself in the royal chamber. He could recognize those steps from afar, the thought filling him with sweet bitterness.

All those memories, all those dreams and wishes of a world they could never reach. "Madara, brother." Said Hashirama with the smile remained upon his fatigued features and slowly he turned to greet his friend. "Shan't you be preparing for the wedding?"

"There have been some changes in the plan." The General spoke demurely and added as he stepped closer, his features by no means suspicious to mere human eyes. "The heiress did not feel good; I believe we shall wait until she recovers."

"Of course." Hashirama nodded and filled two glasses with the bewitching liquid.

"We are drinking, already?" Madara asked as he approached the King, his stark gaze riveted at the man in front of him. The calmness in his voice vexed him.

"I want sake…Good old-fashioned nepenthe!" Exclaimed Hashirama enthusiastically. "I will tell you, I'm good and tired of water after remembering the merry wars we used to fight in the old days. I cannot recall a memento of those glorious days without watering at the mouth, and it's something a lot stronger than water that my mouth waters for!" Hashirama laughed and upon that false trepidation, he handed Madara one of the glasses.

The General took the strong refreshment but did not drink from goblet; instead, he watched patiently the King who took the first sip from the full chalice.

The monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes came to the King's ears and he opened his mouth to speak, with a never-ending smile softening his warm portraiture. "I can still hear it, the music of bloodshed. Just like 15 years ago." He could not help imagining that the glorious, the voluptuous, the never-dying melodies which pervaded that chamber, as they passed filtered and transmuted through the alchemy of the window-panes, the wailings and the howling of the hopeless and of the damned.

"Are you aware of the doom prepared for you, my friend?" Madara spoke and slowly put down the glass of long poisoned nepenthe. There is no passion in nature so demoniacally impatient, as that of him who thrived for the end of one's life and the beginning of another's, his very own.

There was simply no need to pretend anymore, since the King seemed more than aware of the circumstances he was in; by this time, the village had became a battleground where the Uchiha fought against everyone who denied the rising of the clan and of its leader. Warnings and prophecies, which no one dared consciously repeat, were now screamed in terror and the orchestra of Death played abundantly in the early hours of the day.

"My friend…" Hashirama began with a soft sigh drawn from the back of his throat. "I have been expecting this day to come." He smiled and downed the drink at one gulp. "I hoped, naively, that giving you my dear Tsunade's hand, you could find some peace in the present. This is not the right time for you, Madara. You are too hurt, still. The past is yet too vivid." He spoke to the murderer for whom he bore a fondness since their infancy.

Inelucatbly, Hashirama was growing sick. Sick unto death with that long elapsing agony. He felt that his senses were leaving him as the men stood within the quietude. The sentence… The dread sentence of death had passed and all was read in the eyes of the General. Death. Death was at the doorstep and the large, sinister scythe flitted across his head. He would not die in dignity, it was not the fate bestowed upon him.

As he pondered, there grew into palpability, a shape, far more terrible than any genius or any demon of a tale, and yet it was but a thought, although a fearful one, and one which chilled the very marrow of his bones with the fierceness of the delight of its horror. It was merely the idea of what would be the sensation during the penetration of a sharp edged katana through the flesh, muscles and across the heart. But that was not the fate bestowed upon him. He was to perish by poison, in a quick yet, horribly painful torment.

"After all, you weren't as blind as you seemed. I wonder what made you play by my rules." Madara put down the glass and lifted his eyes back at Hashirama as at length the silence was broken.

"I cherish you more, than to be standing in your way, brother. Besides…" Hashirama too placed his own goblet upon the golden table and took a deep breath before he returned to speaking. "If I had done so, you would have hurt more people than you already had."

"…Cherish, you say?" Madara chuckled, embittered by the sound of the King's voice as he wasted no time and grabbed at the Royal garment. "Your love extended only to one brother, Tobirama! And so did mine, to Izuna!"

"Madara, my friend…You don't know everything about Izuna's death. There are so many things you do not know. Things I made sure to be kept hidden, for your safety."

The expression on the General's face, a face ghastly enough in repose, was beyond description as he listened to the man in front of him.

"If I only had more time…If I only had the strength to tell you…I am sorry I failed you too. I certainly failed everyone I loved." He sighed. Instantaneous and dreadful sickness seized him, a burning thirst that consumed him and his throat grew hollow. The body began to tremble convulsively in every fiber and the sight rapidly blurred. "Why, Ma-Madara?" At length there seemed to pass a violent and sudden shock through his soul, as if of electricity. The words came with the flood of crimson blood that poured through the parted mouth and slowed amidst the teeth.

The agony of suspense grew at length intolerable and he shouted at the man in his grip. "Can you see it? Can you see it? Can you see the past float and flop about you and through you every moment of your life? Can you see the dead what men call the pure air and the blue sky? Have we not succeeded in breaking down the barrier between life and death; have we not seen worlds that no other living men have seen as we battled through the years?"

Hashirama heard him scream through the horrible chaos, and looked at the wild face that thrust so offensively close to his. His eyes were pits of flame, and they glared at him with what he now saw was overwhelming hatred. "You tried to stop me! You discouraged me when I needed every drop of encouragement I could get! You were afraid of the truth, you damned coward, but now I've got you! I will show what this world needs! I will purify it from your kind! All I feel for you is hatred, Hashirama! I have despised you and your family ever since we first encountered!"

Madara's venomous words repelled him horribly, and revolted all his inherited delicacy; but his determination to stick to his life remained with him, and he maintained a bold front and a warm smile. "Madara…Once you will learn the truth…And then you w-will…wi-will know, I was the wa-one by your side. I am so-sorry, it has co-come to this… But I ca-cannot let you win…"

"How will you stop me, huh? How? I have killed every damned one of you! You have no one! Your clan is no more!" Madara shook the dying invalid in his grip and threw him on the ground forcefully. His heart enflamed, he reached down for the King and brought him back to his fist, for the sole reason to watch the once fine features shrunk into lifelessness. "Answer me, bastard!" Upon roaring, he stood upon tiptoe, and seized the King by the throat, and placed his mouth close to his ear.

Finally the tension grew almost unbearable, and this almost made him lose his hold through faintness, but a moment later he was himself again and so he managed to utter a few words, as if not a complete sentence. "My po-powers…The sword…I-I sealed them in-…"

He was preparing to launch forth a new and more decided epithet of fulmination, which should not fail, if ejaculated, to convince the King of his insignificance, when to his extreme horror and astonishment he discovered that he had lost his breath.

To remedy the state he was in, the General's hand fell upon the sheath and pulled out the weapon, only to find it in its ordinary state, devoid of the immortal power once possessing. In that instant, a consciousness of the entire and terrible truth flashed suddenly over his soul.

"You merged them..." Madara's fist clenched as he held him by the edge of his collar. His Sharingan awoke in the deep stark orbs and despair mantled his aristocratic visage. It was upon that moment when he realized he had been tricked. "Your powers…Where are your powers?! Who has the Senju's technique? Who has the dragon's magic?"

"Good bye,… dear brother…"

The Uchiha lord shook the King, endeavored to arouse the sleeper to a sense of the startling intelligence. But Hashirama's limbs grew rigid, his fine lips were livid, his lately beaming eyes were riveted in death. The last Senju king died with a candid curling of mouth, and the lifeless body rested in the arms of his murderer.

In youth, Madara had felt the hidden beauty and ecstasy of things, and had been an artist of wars; but loss and sorrow and exile had turned his gaze in darker directions, and he had thrilled at the imputations of evil in the world around.

After little but two decades, daily life had for him come to be a phantasmagoria of macabre shadow studies; the knowledge for revenge and for power and so he grew lost on the path of life and thus grips loosened and holding hands parted, and those accompanying him towards the light slowly faded with the darkness that embraced the scarred soul.

The room became pandemonium, and his soul screamed and howled in fright at the fate he had aroused. Madara seemed dazed in the confusion, and shrank to the wall with the corpse in his arms. The chamber grew quiet once more. He gazed long and searchingly at the figure in his arms, noting its coldness, and the aristocratic cast of features, which seemed to appear now that the wretched flame of life had flickered out.

"You did the right thing, my lord." Orochimaru spoke as he appeared in front of the two and bowed deeply. Upon rising back in straight posture, he gathered the raven locks behind his ears thus revealing the richly ensanguined vestiture.

"Have you succeeded?" Madara asked in quiet contemplation.

"The village is now under your control. Your coronation shall take place tonight, here in the Palace. The servants have already begun the preparations." The pale demon offered a macabre smile to his leader.

Soon, the guilt-tainted soul was once again ablaze with the vision of glory. Upon conviction, he rose from the ground and dropped the corpse beside his feet. "How about my daughter?" The General's eyes flickered in nervous trepidation and the somnolent beating of his heart grew mad with anxiety. He would see his Hinata again.

"She is in the Hall until the former heiress' room is cleaned. May I ask if you ate the body too?"

"Of course not." Madara grew vexed. "Where is she? She is supposed to be there, dead."

A few days later...

The city was in comparative repose. The sun rose higher over gentle slopes of grove and lawn, and heightened the colors of the thousand flowers that starred each knoll and dingle. A blessed haze lay upon all the region, wherein was held a little more of the sunlight than other places hold, and a little more of the summer's humming music of birds and bees, so that men walked through it as through a fairy place, and felt greater joy and wondered than they ever afterward remembered.

Tsunade arose with a loud gasp from the deep and painful slumber. She gasped convulsively for breath, as if a shudder resembling a fit of the ague agitated every nerve and muscle in her petite frame. Subsequently she felt her eyes starting from their sockets and a horrible nausea overwhelmed her, and at length she burst in tears of panic.

The past had not lost the vividness of the real; such impressions of the abhorrent, of the malign, of the unutterable diabolism shall never leave the mind of the young woman. The picture was blurred but ineradicable and she sobbed with her tremulous hands upon her face.

"Lady Tsunade…"

The voice, if she was to care, might have possibly lured her from the void of crying. Nevertheless, she took interest in nothing. Even the corpses of the battleground seemed a matter in which she had no concern. Volition she had none, but appeared to be impelled into motion, and flitted buoyantly out of the city, retracing the circuitous path afar from the pandemonium.

"Lady Tsunade… Let me help you." The man furthered ever so politely and tilted his head to one side, hoping to be able and steal a glance from the heiress.

Upon a sudden impulse of despair, the young woman's fingers reached upwards for the face not so far from her and drew him closer to her. The vision was blurred as the large hazel orbs were wetted in thick drops of tears. "Kakashi?" She could make out the pale locks of the mortal, the candid features of the face, yet the scent, and the frame were different.

"Ah…No…I'm sorry Lady Tsunade…" Blush mantled the young man's cheeks and slowly he guided himself back to a generous distance. She was the heiress after all, and he was a man with morals. "My name is…My name is Dan. Dan Katou." In a mild and cultivated voice he said and pulled out a handkerchief and offered it to her. "I am relieved you are awake. We have been worried for you."

"We?" Slowly she sat up, her body rigid and exhausted. She appreciated the kind gesture and cleaned her face with the soft cloth. The recollections of the past were too vivid, too stubborn to fade, and visible tears glistened in her eyes as they gushed tirelessly like two tiny fountains of hell.

"Lord Hiruzen, especially."

"Who are you? Where am I? Where is…" She was uncertain what to ask, for the reply might have been the worst nightmare to live. Where were all the people she cherished? The coldness of the ground must have welcomed most of them, if not all; the idea drawing more tears from her wretched soul.

"Kakashi-sama is alive, as far as I know." He began with a heart-warming smile. "The samurai had to retreat to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Lord has Madara taken over the throne, for now."

"What day is it today?" How long she remained in this state it was impossible to say. It must, however, have been no inconsiderable time, for when she partially recovered the sense of existence and woke crying, there was a strange air of change shrouding her consciousness.

Her sensations, however, upon thus recovering, were by no means as replete with agony as might have been anticipated. Indeed, there was much of madness in the heart, when she began to take of her situation.

"It is the Day of Fire[1]. You have been unconscious for five days."

"Five days…" Tsunade repeated to fathom the facts, which she struggled to welcome in her brain. Too many days had passed, she sighed.

Dan looked with respect and abashment at the delicate and spiritual features of her, and slowly he rose from the ground. "I will get you something to eat, and if you want, I will tell you everything I know."

"Thank you…" She nodded quietly and found herself gripping the handkerchief in her hand.

As he left, she drew up to her eyes each of her slender hands, one after the other, and wondered what occurrence could have given rise to the swelling of the veins, and the horrible grayness of the fingernails. She afterwards carefully examined her head, shaking it repeatedly, and feeling it with minute attention, until she succeeded in satisfying herself that it was not, as she had more than half suspected, larger than usually.

It now occurred to her that she had suffered great uneasiness on the right side of her neck, and a dim consciousness of her situation began to glimmer through her mind. Cautiously, her fingers reached upwards to the skin that now dry and merely bruised.

It must have been true, the nightmares within the blankness of the repose being but the last seconds she could remember. For a few more minutes she remained wrapped in the profoundest meditation. She compressed her lips as she pondered, and caught herself squeezing a pendant on her bosom.

"Lady Tsunade." She regained hold over her mind and with a few blinks, she traveled her face to the direction of the deep, calm sound.

"Lord Hiruzen…" She bowed in her posture and beckoned the elder to seat himself anywhere he fancied; it was when she first glanced around and about the whereabouts of herself. She sat in a small, low-pitched room of antique construction, with tattered draperies upon the thin walls and leaden-hue tatami on the floor. Few long curtains hung at the large windows, which gave the chamber an atmosphere together classic and comfortable.

The elder offered a very faint smile and sat at a soft round pillow beside Dan who not long after followed with a bowl of soup in his hand. "You must have a lot of questions…"

"I do." She nodded with a wretched headache, and felt desperately drowsy. She proposed a mental idea that she could not do a wiser thing than just eat a mouthful of supper whilst learning about the frightful events of the village. Perhaps then the headache would pass and rage would soften the stiffened muscles of her brain. "The King… My Uncle is dead, isn't he?"

Hiruzen nodded.

Tsunade held the spoon in her hand as if wishing to bend it with anger. "Did he…Is he in peace now? Is he buried with my father?"

"Madara burnt everything and everyone after his coronation. As if driven by madness, he wanted to make sure nothing would be left behind to impede him from ruling."

"And the swords?"

"Your father's, I have it." He offered a mild smile as he spoke.

"Thank you…" She took a small spoon of the warm nourishment; the liquid rushed down her throat and the sensation of the simple meal made her shudder.

"I suggest you eat and drink well, in order to recover. Dan-sama stayed by your side all this time to make sure you would survive."

Dan's cheeks reddened at the elder's words and riveted his gaze at the ground.

Tsunade smiled at the sight of the man, and with a soft sigh she inquired. "Lord Hiruzen...Could you please tell me where the samurai are? Your son and Kakashi? And Jiraiya?" She poured into the air a flood of nervous questions and awaited impatiently at the answers, no matter how gruesome they were to be; she needed to know.

"My boy brought you here. He said he would go and join some of the group and Kakashi to take the innocents to the shelters. Jiraiya went with them too, I told him to. Hashirama's last wish was to swear loyalty to you and thus avoid becoming rounin. The battle between the clans and the Uchiha was never even, so we did not fight. The samurai made sure the streets wouldn't be flooded by blood and they left to the Land of Iron."

"Will they be back?" She asked agitated.

"When we are strong enough to defeat Madara. It would be unwise to do anything in this state. You were drained and the dragon is yet weak."

She sighed as she slowly ate. "Do we have any allies…? Is the Land of Iron a safe place?"

The elder smiled upon that question and nodded in the affirmative. "General Mifune is Kakashi's grandfather. He is the eldest samurai of the world, and one of the most powerful.

She smiled in relief and slowly reached the bottom of the bowl resting on her lap. "That is good…At least they are all right…" The young woman nodded to herself and the last spoon of soup rushed down with a more delicate warmness than before. Albeit too curious she seemed, for truly she felt worried for the silver-crowned warrior, she asked at last.

"Shuya went with them, did he not? Or he stayed somewhere hidden with his mother?" The times she encountered the child could have easily been counted on one hand as if not on one finger, nonetheless she felt attached to him; he was a bewitching being with all the cheerfulness and joy of life, and the peculiar demeanor added to his cunning character.

The face of the two men in front of her grew sullen that evinced the lurking fear within her bosom; she dared not mention it, she dared not speak of it, dreading the single thought of it being true.

"Tell me… Tell me please." She pleaded in desperate trepidation.

"We do not know much, it is not my business…However…" Lord Hiruzen began on an afflicted voice. "I saw the pale child in the Palace. Madara is sick, Lady Tsunade. Whatever his fever-maddened brain says, no matter how horrible it is, he does it. The state in which I saw that boy might be better by now."

"Be more exact, Lord Hiruzen. Is he alive or not?" Tsunade put down the bowl whilst she stared at the warrior sternly.

"I hope so." He nodded softly.

Upon the upheaval of her erratic heart, she leaped out of bed in an ecstasy, overthrowing all in her way. She drew her body upwards, with a prodigious exertion of muscular force, and she succeeded, at the very first trial. "I am going to find him." She spoke severely as then, dressed herself with a rapidity truly marvelous, and edged closer to the wall until her stability could be regained.

"I suggest you do not, Lady Tsunade." The two rose and Dan betook towards the invalid, as he knew soon she would collapse in exhaustion of both the heart and body.

"I cannot let anyone else die, Lord Hiruzen! I need to do something." She drawled when words struggled to came to her consciousness. "I have to get him back. And I need to be stronger. I need to stop people from dying. He is too young…He hasn't done anything. I must get him back…" The visible chagrin in her voice filled the air with heaviness. Dan helped the heiress away from the wall who was rapidly losing her recruited strength.

"We can talk about it later, Lady Tsunade. First, you need to make sure you stay alive. There is immense work ahead of us if we want to defeat Madara. I understand your desire to save innocents, but it must wait, at least for a couple of days." With a polite bow, the Sarutobi leader decided it would be the wisest policy to leave the young woman for rest and trouble her later with the problems of the village.

"That is too long…" She muttered quietly and her hazel gaze rapidly casted from the elder to the other. Her soft touch reached for the kimono of the pale physician and pulled him backwards toward her frame. "Dan-sama…That is too long." She repeated with eyes leering into his. "Can you help me? Please help me."

"He-help…?" Dan's ivory cheeks flushed in crimson when he found himself closer to her than he had ever surmised so. Carefully, he aided in the motion of sitting down with his hands upon her shoulders.

"Dan-sama, come with me to the village…Once we get him back I will train and-…And I will do whatever Lord Hiruzen tells me to. But I cannot stay here and rest when I know that child is in danger and suffering! He is a really sweet boy, Dan-sama. Please. I cannot lose more people." She pleaded, beseeched, cried tirelessly to convince the man in front her, the nauseating fears of her own mind sickening the weak body.

"All right, all right Lady Tsunade." With a sigh, he nodded in the declarative and answered in his particularly mild tone, worry severing his soft features. "We can leave at sunset. Until then, I ask you to please rest."

"Thank you Dan-sama." She pulled him to her bosom in a grateful embrace. The man wondered when he would lose hold of his consciousness, but with rapidly recruited strength he bowed, upon slowly pulling away.

"You are welcome, Lady Tsunade." At length he made haste from the chamber, leaving the heiress in solitude.

"I will save you, Shuya-kun… Gods will be my witnesses." Her fingers found once more the pendant in her neck, as she quietly uttered those simple syllables. Destiny was ineluctable as long as one did nothing in order to form it. Whatever brooding fear lurked in the darkness, she was to fight it. The hour was no proper for rest, for her heart pounded in ecstatic vigor to change the course of life. Besides, he would come back…And if he did so, she would be the one reassuring him about the well-being of his son.

[1] Tuesday