A/N: Okay, eventually Kiora has to fight Fyrentennimar and Kohana. I don't know when that'll happen, but it should be soon now. Everybody keep your fingers crossed for an epic conflict! I'll try my best to keep this story from killing too many more characters.

Help Needed

Kohana changed her mind later that night. Initially, she had planned to find Kiora and kill the girl, but she decided against it. Today, she decided, was a day to relax. She and Fyrentennimar, in his human form, were spending their time in her chamber. She enjoyed being able to screw someone as long as possible without fear of getting pregnant.

She knew Sakura was no longer in the cave, and she intended to punish the woman when she returned. Her intent was to keep the woman in undeath and away from her beloved in the afterlife. She sighed, rolled over, and fell back into her lover.

-----

Natsuko watched as Kiora spread her mother's ashes on the ground in front of her. She pulled out a scroll, opened it, and began flipping through handsigns. She hit the end of the chain and sprinkled several ashes on the scroll. She repeated this several times, until the pile of ashes was depleted and the scroll was completely unfurled. Kiora hit the last sign and the scroll snapped shut, rolling up like a tape measure. She laid it flat in her palm, and it spun, an arrow on the side indicating a direction.

"What'd you do?" Natsuko asked.

"Tracking jutsu," Kiora responded, not really paying attention. "I have to go."

She stood and opened the window. "Wait," Natsuko said. "I'm coming with you."

Kiora started to argue, but Natsuko silenced her with a kiss. "That wasn't a request," she said. Kiora gave a small smile, and nodded. The pair took a leap out the window, landing not far from where Kiora had granted her mother's last wish. Kiora steeled her resolve at the memory, and, following the arrow, the pair headed into the woods.

They worked through the woods, avoided any real conflicts with anything. Kiora took the lead, working around any serious undergrowth, and moving as silently as death. Natsuko crashed through the woods, loud as a bull elephant in a china shop. Kiora finally took pity on Natsuko and they piggybacked until they reached a clearing.

"I need a break," Kiora said. She sat on a fallen log and pulled off her shoe. Dumping out the few rocks inside, she stretched and tried to relax. Natsuko plopped down next to her.

"Why are you resting?" Kiora taunted. "I was doing all the work!"

Natsuko scoffed. "I have been working very hard!" she protested. "I've been trying to get these sandwiches out of your bag without you noticing." She held up a pair of sandwiches. "Hungry?"

"Starved," Kiora answered. She grabbed one of the sandwiches, pulled off the clear plastic wrap, and downed it in two bites. Natsuko stared at her.

"I said I was starved," Kiora said defensively. Natsuko looked at her own sandwich. In the time it took Kiora to finish hers, Natsuko hadn't even pulled off the wrapper to her own. She noticed Kiora eyeing the food.

"Take it," she said, tossing her the sandwich. "I brought my own." She produced a brown paper bag. Kiora scarfed down the offered food, then pointedly looked away as Natsuko ate her own food. For some reason Kiora was still hungry. She chalked it up to the chakra she had spent.

A rustle in the bushes behind her set Kiora on guard again. She spun, launching several shuriken and kunai in the direction of the invader. Melody staggered out of the brush, a kunai buried deep in her thigh and several shuriken embedded in her arms.

"Oops," Kiora offered. She helped Melody into the clearing and began flipping through handsigns for a healing jutsu. Serenity strolled in, off in her own world.

"What happened here?" she asked, eyeing Melody's wounds. Kiora offered a sympathetic smile as she fired off the last seal to the jutsu. Melody's wounds began knitting themselves shut, pushing out the projectiles and looking much better.

"You two should know better than to walk into our camp with Kiora like she is," Natsuko teased. Melody rubbed her forearms, feeling her smooth skin, whole again.

"Thanks," she said. She rose from the log, dusting off her shorts, and pulling a long thin package from her backpack. "My dad told me to give this to you," she said. "He said it belonged to your mother."

Kiora unwrapped the gift, revealing a katana in a jet-black sheath. She drew the blade and watched it glimmer in the sunlight.

"The blade is edged with silver," Serenity said from the edge of the clearing. "And blessed by a shrine elder. It will tear through undead like butter."

Kiora let herself go, focusing her mind on the patriarch gene. She ran through several attack routines with the sword, a mesmerizing dance of death. She sheathed the weapon and turned to regard the twins.

"Tell your dad I said thanks," Kiora said. To Natsuko she added, "We should be going."

The Uchiha twins vanished from the clearing, and Kiora and Natsuko left shortly afterwards. They took to the trees now, leaping from branch to branch as a quieter method of travel. Kiora paused often to re-check her scroll and keep them on the proper heading.

The last time she did this, she popped her head out of the top of the tree to look around. She noticed they were very close to a mountain, where she assumed Kohana lived, but the sun was growing low in the sky.

"It's too late to go on," Kiora said to Natsuko when she came back down to the wide branch they were on. Natsuko gave her a curious look. "It's almost nighttime, where she'll have the advantage," Kiora explained. "We'll sleep in shifts, and go in at dawn."

Natsuko nodded in agreement and leaned against the trunk of the tree. Kiora heard her slight snores and knew she was only feigning sleep. She activated her Byakugan and sat on the branch to keep watch.

-----

Dawn broke on Natsuko's watch. She was incredibly grateful that nothing had happened during the night. She woke Kiora, and the pair made their way to the base of the mountain. Kiora let the scroll spin, coming to a stop pointing nearly vertical. Kiora lined her eye up with the scroll and located a cave halfway up the mountain. She relayed this knowledge to Natsuko and returned her gaze to the climb ahead.

Kiora pulled her newest weapon closer, and began to climb. She carefully picked handholds and footholds that Natsuko could find easily. Kiora glanced back periodically to ensure Natsuko was still keeping up. Almost halfway to the cave, she found a wide ledge, pulling herself up and offering her hand to her lover. Natsuko flopped down next to her, and the pair caught their breath.

-----

Kohana felt the disturbance as someone entered the protective area of her clairaudience spell. She could hear everything they were saying, and identified the speaker to be Kiora. She motioned to Fyrentennimar, and headed toward the exit of the cave. Fyren appeared behind her, returned to his dragon form, a hundred feet from head to tail. Kohana swept into the sunlight, swooping down the mountain.

Fyrentennimar dove behind her, overtaking her almost instantly. He let loose a jet of flame, sweeping across the mountain and leaving a line of destruction and glowing hot rocks in the wake. A quick beat of his wings drew him up short, hovering as Kohana floated down to inspect the damage.

He didn't even sense Kiora until her Chidori blasted trough the thick scales of his neck. She pressed the attack, pulling her arm back and flipping through more handsigns. Fyren twisted in midair, calling upon his innate magical energies. Kiora had reached for a kunai knife, but dropped it as the metal grew red hot. Kiora quickly glanced down to see that all of her metallic items had been affected. She pulled off her belt, avoiding the hot buckle. She tossed it towards the cliff, trusting Natsuko to catch it. Kiora flipped through more handsigns, re-activating the Chidori.

She leapt from the dragon's body, aiming right between the dragon's eyes. She got blindly hit from the side by Fyren's powerful tail, the blow blasting the wind from her lungs and knocking her off course. She fell, heading for the ground three hundred feet below. Fyren mentally called to Kohana, and watched the vampire teleport below the falling figure.

Kiora heard Kohana teleport next to her, and felt another blow land. She accelerated towards the ground, twisting to get her feet below her. She knew her ribs were broken, and felt another dull pain in her upper body. This fall would likely break her legs, so she began flipping through handsigns for a healing jutsu.

She hit the ground, curling her legs to absorb some of the impact, rolling to the side to lose momentum. She hit a tree nearby, and felt the sharp pain in her neck for the first time. Blackness weaved before her, and she felt death's hand on her shoulder.

A/N: Ooh, dramatic ending, huh? Read and review, and I'll try to get the next chapter up quickly.