Chapter 26:The End of the Beginning

The Last Before Dawn

If you the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result for a hundred battles...

If you know yourself, but not the enemy. For every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat...

If you know neither the enemy or yourself; you will succumb in every battle...

Jubei and Scarz worked their way forward, following the tracks that Kagemiya had left behind, to had become more sure that they would be able to catch up now when they had fresh tracks to follow. However Jubei that was the more alert one, signaled to Scarz that something was heading their way. In just matters of a seconds, probably half a minute something in the distant grew and grew, at first Jubei weren't sure of what it could be, it looked like a small bird on the Horizon.

But it grew and grew, for every second it looked further and further away from a regular sized bird, the lines became more serpent like, and the head which was not from a serpent, looked more like a crossbred of an toad or frog with a longer type of nose, that easily could have looked like an mouth or nose part from a crocodile, The flaps of its leathery wings sounded like an storm coming.

Jubei wasn't sure he was in some sort of Genjutsu so he made a Kai seal and nothing happened to his surprise, then he heard an roar he was sure he never heard before, it sounded as if a mountain crumbled with a shed of thunder slowly after. Whatever it was it closed in on them fast and Jubei and Scarz simultaneously reacted as if it was an Invading army on it's run towards them.

Jubei Made his hand seals and the ground in front of him opened and flames started to engulfing the trees that was around it. Out from the gigantic pit Molten lava streamed and formed into gigantic humanoids, The three of them rose up and with a weird Grunt they started to walk towards the gigantic flying lizard. After a little while he started to make hand seals, while he looked towards Scarz that only Nodded back to him and hurled himself towards what kind of creature they now where facing, of course question was hanging in their minds, questions of what it came from and what it was. Jubei thought that this was Gerards doing and that whatever it was, he must be with it.

On top of the dragon Enil stood, gazing endlessly through the sky when she noticed a forest suddenly bursting into flames and three weird creatures started to walk among the blazing forest.

A small smirk crossed her lips, though she was curious of what it was, and almost instantly the dragon reacted to her swifting emotions and took up speed towards them, when she came closer she noticed a man running towards her, and the smirk suddenly turned into a malicious grin.

"Interesting this fellow dare to attack us, and it seems that those creatures are his..." she said to herself as she jumped of the dragon that continued towards the three creatures.

She appeared just before Scarz that had noticed her on top of the dragons head.

The clothes she wore, weren't exactly todays fashion, if it ever had been a fashion.

He stopped about thirty feet from this young woman, though he was still prepared to close the distant and attack her if needed.

Her eyes studied the male that appeared before her, to her he was a particular creature, she could easily see he wasn't an ordinary man, and that peeked her interests more. Her serpent like pupils retracted and the moonlight made it look like they sparkled, showing signs of interests not that you usually see in the eyes of an enemy, and this made Scarz take a step backward, it literally took him off guard. Here a girl probably not older than twenty to twenty two stood, and checked him out.

Suddenly the roar echoed again as the dragon attacked the magma Humanoids and a fierce battle started, Enil turned one eye towards the battle to see how it looked like to see what type of strength the creature had against her own Dragon, She then looked straight back at Scarz, who hadn't even bothered looking into the direction the battle was. He was focused on her, and the questions he had before seeing her was only stronger, almost tearing his mind apart, on top of that new questions had been bored when he saw her, how she acted and everything about her.

Inside himself his mind was talking trying to answer these questions without actually asking her.

"Is she an Enemy? How old is she and what the hell is that thing, Why did she look like she wanted to suddenly jump me and drag me away?... She probably are working for Gerard, which means she must be very strong and definitely an enemy..." and so his mind went on and on trying to find answers within himself. He became so engulfed by his own thoughts and questions that he didn't notice her having her face only inches away from his, and that one of her long and slender hands was holding the hand which held and kunai gently pushing it downwards. He only realized when her yellow colored eyes looked into his, these anticipating eyes did not show any signs of any ill meaning, nor did they show any restraint, as if she was fearless and curious, like a newborn constantly and focused studying all the surroundings of itself. This however sent the alarm clock within Scarz and instantly he jumped further backwards readying himself for battle, but he hadn't comprehend what this young and beautiful girl was capable of, Nothing in his life actually had prepared him from what he was about to witness. Her eyes slimed as if she just had been insulted, this girl with dark waist long hair, yellow serpent like eyes, the leather top and the skirt with open sides for her legs. The weird golden jewelry on her left ankle and right hand.

She looked more like something out of an tale...

She laid her left hand on her waist and stared right at the man that refused her, to her it was an insult, she the princess, a god underneath the sky. Her temper started to get a hold of her, her eyes darkened.

"So you refuse me, You dare to insult me... Well then I won't have any use for you, and things you do not have use for, you throw into the fire to set it's soul lose..." she said with her melodic sounding voice, if Scarz wouldn't have understood her it almost would have sounded as if it was no ill meaning to it at all. But he brazed himself and for the first time in a long time spoke with a rash but asking voice.

"Who are you girl? Are you working with Gerard?" He stared at her as he studied her body language to see if she would try to lie herself out of this.

She looked at him and shook her head.

"Gerard, the child? No he is dead, I had no further use for him" was her reply.

It only took him a moment to realize that Gerard wasn't the real threat, she was the one pulling the strings and that he now himself was up against a person that had slayed Gerard.

He immediately understood the danger he now was entangled in, and that he would have to fight for his life.

He launched himself towards her, firmly and quickly let his hand form the necessary seals, only a split second was needed before a barrage of spiked form ice crashed to the ground where she stood, piercing through the body, ripping it to shreds by the constant barrage of spikes of cold ice, the area was filled with cold frosty mist. Scarz knew that it was far from over this was merely to get her soften up, he awaited the counter attack, and let his eyes roll from side to side and upwards searching for where the attack would come from. Then he felt something ripping through his skin, piercing it and ripping in his legs, the pain was burning hot and went through his nerve system like an bolt of lightning cleaves a tree in half, the immense pain then gradually grew, felt like it was battering ram pounding him from within bit by bit, knock after knock.

He jumped backwards letting a new hail of ice bombard where he had been standing, but from the ground he saw it was two serpents that had come up from within the ground, bitting his two legs.

The mist where Enil had been standing cleared and she was standing there, with serpents laying around her, impaled by the ice, she was unscathed, not a single mark on her beautiful white skin, not even the smallest of injury. She slowly started to walk towards him, who constantly made new barrages of ice hail upon her, he started to think he need to do something worse than this, he need to interrupt her just as much so that he can get in close and finish it quickly.

The thinking didn't take long before a pillar of water flowed through the air and surrounding her, then as fast as he could he hailed snow and ice on her once again. Putting in more effort into it. Trying to suffocate her by lowering the temperature around her, hoping that the water would create a wall that also hailed ice spikes onto her.

But he didn't finish there. Even before the last spikes had dropped he rushed forward, towards her, making new hand seals and let the ice on the ground to form spears that launched themselves into the already bombarded area. And lastly he made some hand seals and molded chakra for a couple of seconds, grabbed his Katana and swung it three times into the air, shooting out scalpel sharp crescent shaped wind, diagonally,horizontal they tiered through the ice wall, spear and spikes like it was nothing but butter, he breathed hard since this took a lot of chakra, but he didn't want it to be a prolonged battle since he was already at a disadvantage if she was as strong as Gerard and if she was stronger he definitely didn't want to experience and see how strong she was, a quick death was also more honorable for such a young girl to get than a prolonged battle that would be more like a torture.

However on his lips he suddenly felt something warm, something wet, something he hadn't felt since before the second ninja war... A kiss...afterwards there was only pain and a slight whisper that echoed through out his right ear.

"it's sad, you where very cute, I would have loved to have you, but maybe in your next life..." the voice didn't sound like it wanted to kill him, more as if it pitied him, as if she was sad like she just lost something very important to her... his eyes became teary...and so like a video it flashed before his eyes, or so he believed... hearing a voices echoing within himself... happy voices, sad voices, screams of fear and terror. Sweet whisperings. Even smell and touches, pain and emotion all came to him at once, slowly revealing his harsh past.

"Hey Scarz! I also passed the test!" The voice said happily...

"Yeah, I've also passed" Scarz replied, with a smile.

"We are now officially Ninjas, lets aim to become kages" The boy said still ecstatic about the fact they both had passed the academy test and become genins.

" Why aim to be just kages, lets aim to become stronger than anyone in history" Scarz happily replied, locking his arm around the boys neck.

"Yeah, The Jubei and Scarz duo will take this life time with a storm, lets land ourself as the strongest Ninjas thats ever been written about and will be written about in the history books."

Scarz laughed "haha I agree, lets both have several books only about what we both achieve"

and both of them walked away together into the setting sun, happily and eagerly waiting to start the next day as real ninjas...

"Scarz are you ready?" The male voice said

"Yes judge, I'm ready" Scarz replied with a stoic tone in his voice.

"What about you Jubei, are you ready to start the finals?" the Male judge asked Jubei.

"Yes, I'm also ready to start whenever you give the signal." he replied maturely.

And suddenly a voice echoed through the arena.

"Please both of you, don't hurt each other to much, I love you both so please don't bring that into the finals..." A girls voice screamed pleading them

"Jubei, you are my friend, but I will not give up the girl I love, not even to you who has been my friend since birth." he said with a strict and angry tone.

"Likewise,lets prove who has the right of us to be with her..." Jubei replied back with the same poisoned tone.

"The Chuunin exams begins, Start" the male judge said and swung his arm downwards, showing the two contestants that they could start but also the people in the arena that where watching.

Inside of Scarz he still felt somewhat conscious, but when he was suppose to see the young girl and the battlefield they where on, it was instead old memories that surfaced, old feelings of love, jealousy, hate and happiness. Old pictures of people happy and sad, returning before him.

A sudden blast of heat struck his face, his vision became somewhat blurry and the person in front of him suddenly grabbed him, pulling himself up from the ground, the long blond hair sparkled, when the light over and over again hit it. As his vision grew more steady and back his eyes widened... not this memory was all that struck his mind, he desperately tried to make it go away, stop the body from moving... it didn't respond...

He stood up and the lips on the tear felling woman formed the words he didn't want to see.

" I- Lo-ve-yo-u" and then when he was on his feet the girl pushed him back so hard that he flew a couple of feet's backwards, as she stood up and stretched her arms out, with her head turned towards him, shedding tears, as I giant ball of fire struck her and exploded, sending his already somewhat airborne body flying several yards away having some body parts landing on him, the one he noticed had the same golden ring with a red stone set in a white gold snow flower and then pain struck his right shoulder, as the world around him all went black.

The next thing he saw was Jubei standing over him with a couple of medic ninjas, he couldn't hear him or even focus that much, all he saw was a screaming Jubei, fire all over, he leaned his head towards the right, and saw a bit of iron about two inches thick that was forged into a concrete house had went right through his shoulder...

Suddenly he felt something, like he was getting pulled up, also a high pitch roar echoed, he blinked twice and before him, some yards away the young girl with serpent eyes stood, looking more annoyed than before... he looked surprised, and after the roar he only heard one thing

"Get your shit together Scarz... this is the fourth time I save your ass" the voice of Jubei could be heard behind him.

He only Nodded and quickly stood up looking at her. " Your a real mood killer you know that, ugly hat man" the Girl said with a quick and almost lethal tone.

"Well you know girls has to be passed by the friends before they even can be considered a potential girl" he said a bit proud of himself but sarcastically since there wasn't really a time for chit chats nor the time to make bad jokes.

Her eyes became wide filled with anger showing that this was probably the greatest insult she had ever received. Instantly she went from have been passive almost bored in her so called fighting into an all out offensive type, starting with swiftly appearing before them, making seals so fast that they almost wouldn't seen that they even moved, and with the same lightning fast speed she struck her chakra glowing hands towards them, If Jubei hadn't pushed Scarz to the side the both of them would have been hit, now only his robe got hit, and instantly it started to weathered.

He himself made hand seals, summoning a pillar of flames from the ground, but she easily avoided them over and over again by stepping quickly to the side, evading everyone of them, as she hurled her strikes towards Jubei once again.

He easily avoided most of them, some continued to scratch his robe and one heavy blow did hit his hat all weathered in seconds. He tossed of the robe and hat as he moved backwards avoiding any other strikes, until she became bombarded by ice once again from Scarz, the only thing that could be seen within the raining spikes was a body that slowly moved towards where he was... and her yellow glowing serpent like eyes firmly glued on him, moments later all went so fast, he got a hard blow in the stomach once, twice or so it felt, but in reality it where more blows than that, he coughed blood from the impacts, and and Axe kick shattered his right arm making it unable to move,he managed to land on his feet but she where nowhere close to him, she was fighting Jubei with Taijutsu as Jubei pulled out jutsu after jutsu which only damaged him more in the process due to it tiring him out, making his movements more predictable and less accurate.

Jubei was pushed further and further back, this girl was a fighter he acknowledged that, She was most likely better than him since he clearly saw she wasn't using all of her power, so far she had been fighting them both with just her hand and some close range technique, it did cross his mind that she might be a Taijutsu user, However he had never been so wrong in all his life, as a gigantic bolt of lightning appeared in her hands getting hurled towards Scarz at an incredible speed, He reacted as any friend would and got in the way of it...

Scarz saw a bright light coming against him, and suddenly realized that he wouldn't be able to move, the pain in his legs had made them feel like they where made of steel, then not even a fraction of a second something repeated itself, something he constantly had been telling himself was his fault, someone dear to him allowed him to cheat death by giving away his or her own.

The silhouette of Jubei vanished in the white flash that resembled a photo flash, so bright he almost couldn't see, except the girl standing with wide stretched arms now in between him and where Jubei had been hit, all resembling the day when his soon to be wife perished in the same type of light, the sound was strikingly like the one on that day, only one thing was different, the girl he had loved all his life vanished, and now in the same type of setting, the same type of danger to the village his best friend also got engulfed by the light of death.

When the smoke from the impact became clear and the girl was only inches away from him, the Dragon landed beside them, towering up far above the tree tops calmly looking them, The girl put one hand on it, and one of the bigger wings was lowered so that she could climb onto the dragon and get risen to the head, He heard her speaking to him.

"This has been fun, but I'm a bit tired you see, Maybe we both can spend the night together next time cutey, if your friend over there learns not to disturb to people that are about to commit a lovely act, so please tell him that when he wakes up. Oh and I forgot the poison in you should start to wear off in a little while." she said with a happy voice making it sound as if they had been on a date and gotten disturbed or found out on the couch in a friends apartment...

all this was to weird for him but he was happy that Jubei had survived... he then watched her leaving in the opposite direction of where Glacier was, making him sigh out of relief that at least this time the village was safe.

And just as she said the poison wore off and the legs felt movable again, he went and picked up Jubei that was breathing hard and cursing due to the pain. Whatever had hit him didn't hurt him on the outside but it burned on the inside making walking hard as it hurt when he moved, but he bared with it until them both came back to the village.

As soon as they came to the are where Mayumi last was, the medic team had finished up and taken all the bodies even those that didn't make it friend or foes back to Glacier, after a while of walking a team of Anbus appeared out from the trees, landing beside Jubei and Scarz, kneeling then immediately helping Scarz carrying Jubei, it took 4 hours to reach back to the village and once they walked into the gates a medic team pulled out stretchers and took them both to the hospital, Along with the Anbu that accompanied them. The anbu waited outside the hospital room where both of them where put, Then they for some reason sent out the doctors and nurses out from the room...

"Kage-sama, we have dire news to tell you... Curretian Shinobis have crossed the borders and are heading towards the village, We need orders how to approach this." The masked man said with a serious voice.

Jubei almost jumped out of his bed but was calmly put back by the Anbu commander.

Jubei sighed as he clenched his fist and struck the side of the hospital bed.

"I will put you In charge, Defend the village until we have healed and we shall aid you." Jubei said with a sad yet annoyed tone in his voice, he then turned his head and looked out the window watching the snow flakes slowly fall towards the ground, releasing a small sigh...

A while after the dragon had vanished with the girl the group moved back to where the temple once stood, now there where only some parts of it here and there and most of it had collapsed, the explosion had sent the whole roof flying far across the open space and the big bricks had created many holes where just parts of the stones was above ground.

Kansei was the one that stumbled on the body of Quinton and actually managed to notice that he was alive, but barely.

"Quinton is alive! Hurry, we need to help him" He shouted towards the others that made their way down dodging the rocks and crumbled walls.

Siyah started to heal him slowly with the small medical knowledge she had.

"There is about twenty percent chance that he will survive, but i'll do what I can. All of you need to gather wood and other things so we can set up a temporary camp either till he dies or are good enough so he can walk, hopefully not killing us. I also need to further tend to Hanazawas and Marus wounds and while im healing Quinton I do not want the as much feel that you two are going to try to be at each others throats again. Do I make myself clear!." She said with a strict tone with enough hint of caring that the boys did what they where told.

When the Camp was set up they all started to eat a deer Kansei had literally kicked the head, which instantaneously killed it. Siyah didn't eat for a another four hours and managed to save Quinton so at least he wouldn't die now.

"Will he live" Kansei asked wondering...

"We will see if he survives the night, if so fate has a meaning for him and he hasn't for filled whatever that thing is" She replied tired.

Kansei only halfhearted nodded, he knew that Quinton was a bad guy or at least that was what the villages thought. The group only stayed up for a little while, still waiting for Siyah to start talking about what the hell just happened and how she knew all this...

She leaned forward from the bed made of moss and other things that would keep a body warm, letting the flickering light slightly catch her face, as she looked at the boys, noticing their wondering stares, she let out a sigh.

"Now is not the time for me to answer any of you what happened today, Neither do we have the time for it, if I was the one deciding things we would have left already, however this also brings something good with it" She paused a bit and gazed at the dancing fire. " all I can tell you is that we have two things to do, first and mainly we need to find three other persons. Only then I can tell you all, and the second is that while we are searching for them, I will prepare you all for the uncertain future you all together are entwined into by fate. Each of the six of you that are alive will need to learn to work together no matter what, each of you all are important for the tasks at hand in the future. So start working as a team, friends and family... for I will be your teacher,sister and mother, care taker and the one who is counting on you all the most... You are all a single individual, yet the same person, you all are different, but share many common things. Together you are a unity that hopefully will end this before it gets out of hand. So before we leave you will all find a pendant, and take it, and keep it close... and the one that doesn't find his pendant will not get food or sleep next to me for two days." She said first with a serious tone, but last to ease the boys up, then she somehow managed to get them all to go to bed as if she actually was their mother, while she in appearance wasn't much older then them, she sure sounded like it.

Only one thing went through Hanazawas mind as he slowly was dragged into the lands of dreams

" I will prepare you all for the uncertain future you all together are entwined into by fate" the sentence echoed in his mind until it fully had driven away into a place where it wouldn't comeback for hours...

A/N: And that my friends was the last chapter of The first Book.

I hope that everyone so far have liked this story, and that you all have bared with me and my slow updates.

But good news is that I have already started brainstorming the full content for Book 2 and the first chapter should be out pretty soon (I set no timeframe since I know it can take a while, but i'll try to hurry Asap).

And thanks to everyone that has contributed to this story, characters,ideas and of course the fans and readers. You are all precious to me.

Now all of you that has an account on this site can send a mail here and describe your own character,background and so on. If I like it I might take it in since Book 2 will need some new faces.

Once again Thanks for reading

Sincere Rick "Hanazawa" Palm