Two weeks passed.
They woke next to each other. Maia had developed the unconscious habit of clinging to the grey haired jounin in her sleep. This morning, she found her arm on his chest, her hand on his heart. He was half sitting up propped on his pillow. He looked back at her fondly and smiled.
"Good morning, Maia."
"Good morning, baby." He turned over on his side and they kissed warmly. It felt so good to be held by a man who she loved and to be loved in return. It felt like he was her only sense of security in her unstable life. He was her rock and she loved that they needed each other.
"I have business with the Hokage today. I'll be back later this evening."
"I'm going to spend the day training and getting up my strength."
"That's my girl. If you're still out there this evening I'll help train you again. Do you remember when I had you fight me in combat?" She chuckled.
"I still don't understand why you did. I used to think it was as you said, you wanted to test me to see if I was ready to move into genjutsu training. I thought you were hoping I'd develop my jutsu to compensate for my frailty. But it never really made sense. Then I thought that maybe you were testing me to see if I could go on missions with you. But then Kurenai wouldn't have been relevant. So why?" He gave a fond smirk.
" You were right. I did want to make sure it would be safe to invite you on missions with me. I wanted to spend more time with you, even if it was just training you. And I guess you could say I wanted to flirt and show off a little in the maintime." His voice rose at his last confession. Maia chuckled again at that.
"Well I'm glad you did. And I'd love the help."
They got up and hugged their goodbye before Maia headed home. There was a feeling inside her she couldn't shake. Something important was going to happen today. Up in her room, she began to pack her ninja gear as well as her crystal when she turned to look at the scroll she had been given two weeks ago. She opened it and just then, to her amazement, black ink appeared on the paper, in his handwriting.
"Orochimaru has requested you come to visit today if you are not on a mission. If this time is inconvenient, we would like you to send a blood sample with the summoning you arrived here on the last time. We look forward to hearing from you."
The message remained on the page for a few minutes and then faded away as she looked at it in shock.
He wants a blood sample? Is Orochimaru really so interested that he wants to genetically verify that we are family? He's truly convinced that that's a possibility?
Yet a huge grin formed on her face and tears formed at her eyes. Hastily, she grabbed the pen and scrolled down her reply.
"I'm coming immediately."
I'm here.
Within only a few minutes, Kabuto appeared outside the cave, grinning. It felt a little like coming home in a way she couldn't explain. Maia waved and walked over to him, wondering if it was socially acceptable to wrap him in a bear hug yet. She decided that while in the den of a man who could elongate his neck to ungodly lengths and take his own face off, she wouldn't care much about social norms. She ran up and wrapped her arms around him tightly.
"I've missed you." His eyes grew wide with surprise, but quickly softened and became tender as he let his guard down. He gave a slanted smile.
"I missed you too."
Orochimaru lead them down the identical hallways hastily.
"I've already set up the testing equipment we need. All I need is to collect some of your blood and then Kabuto and I will analyze." Maia worriedly glanced at Kabuto. He gave a cute comforting smile in return.
"Don't worry. I'll only take a little bit. I've already sterilized all of my needles so you have nothing to worry about."
The testing lab was small. Kabuto instructed her to hop up on a testing table next to a wheelchair while he extracted his own blood. She happily complied. Being part of a science experiment would be fun. Kabuto washed off her arm under her elbow with alcohol and after a warning, quickly extracted a small amount of her blood. He bandaged her up and gave the vials to Orochimaru, who began to run the tests. They were both beaming.
"No matter what happens, even if we're not related, I still believe I know you from somewhere," He said, looking excited and nervous. Maia took his hand in hers for comfort.
"I feel the same. And even if we're not family, I still want to see you more. We can still work together to retrieve some of our memories, no matter what. We'll figure out what we are to each other at the very least."
"It looks like that won't be nescecary," the snake man interjected. They looked towards him and at the data presented on the screen. "The two of are fraternal twin brother and sister. There's no need to look any more." For a minute it felt like time froze. The two lost ninja looked at each other in surprise.
"You're…my twin sister?"
"You're my twin brother?" Both grinned widely.
"THAT'S GREAT!" In less than a second they were both wrapped in each other's arms. Happy tears were leaking from Maia's eyes. They had an answer. A truth. It was going to be okay. They were going to find their past together. Orochimaru looked at his right hand man and the girl and smirked, folding his arms across his chest.
'If they share a blood bond, I can use Maia more than I originally thought. This seems like a wonderful opportunity. Yet something is missing. I can't see any family resemblance. Even fraternal twins share some similar features. Blonde hair, blue eyes… wait.. yes.. her eyes. There's something wrong with her eyes. Something unnatural must have happened to her to change her appearances. But for now, I'll keep that knowledge to myself.'
"Did you see anything else, Lord Orochimaru?"
"With this test I can map both of your entire genomes. You know that Kabuto. Come here. There's something I want to show you." They rose to look at the computer screen. "It seems as if you have a hidden ability that you haven't nurtured yet, Kabuto. Maia has it too. You both posses unexpressed chakra natures that are quite rare- Yin and Yang.
"Yin and Yang? Can we combine the chakra natures together?!"
"That would be highly unlikely. Yin and Yang chakra natures are uncommon enough on their own. It would be hard enough to learn techniques using either of the forms by themselves. If you would like to try to harness that chakra, however, I would be interested to see the results." They looked at each other.
"Well it's worth a try," They concluded.
Orochimaru allowed them to depart while he stayed to analyze their results a little longer. The two long lost siblings walked through the halls happily talking hand in hand until they heard slow footsteps coming from around the hall. Before the figure even turned the corner, Maia identified the chakra and felt the feather marking on her side appear. It was Sasuke. When they were in the same hall, she grinned.
"Long time no see again, Sasuke." His eyes opened a little wider when he noticed they were holding hands.
"Maia, what the heck are you doing here again? Wait a minute. Don't tell me you two are dating." The two looked at each other and abruptly talked over each other in a stream of denials.
"She came in to give some blood for a DNA analysis. The results are in."
"We're twins!" Maia grinned wider.
"You're brother and sister? Hmph." He began to walk past them. "I don't see the resemblance."
"Fraternal twins, Sasuke."
"Am I supposed to care?" Sasuke continued walking off. Maia's heart sank. In the leaf village it had been different. She thought of herself as one of the only people he had ever opened up to. They had mutually respected each other and shared a small bond from the lack of a family and a shared desire to settle their pasts. Now his walls had been built back up. But Maia knew this was an opportunity for Itachi and herself she couldn't pass up.
"Hey where are you going?"
"I'm off to look for Orochimaru. We were supposed to train." Kabuto interjected.
"Lord Orochimaru changed his plans. He's still in the testing room analyzing our DNA." Sasuke looked irritated and swore. Maia took her opportunity.
"If you're looking to train, I'd be happy to help." At first it seemed as if he'd decline. But Maia knew him. "It's been a long time since we last fought, and if I'm not mistaken, last time I literally brought you to your knees. Don't you want to see who's stronger? Let's settle the score." He stopped walking and paused to think. But she could tell he was still on the fence. "You do want to kill your brother, don't you? How can you kill him if you can't take me down?" He sighed.
"Fine. I'll show you where we train in here." He put his hands in his pockets and walked back in the direction he came. Kabuto's heart sank. He felt a little betrayed. He had wanted to spend as much time as he could with her. Maia felt his emotions and smiled at him.
"Don't worry, I have all day to spend here."
Sasuke stood across from Maia in a gigantic hall made in the same way the rest of the hideout was. However, the floor was made of a different kind of stone that she presumed was more resistant to cracking from jutsu. She could tell by the slight burn she felt on her side that Itachi was still in touch. Kabuto stood by the wall to her right, hands crossed and ready to see her fight.
"I still won't use my sharingan on you. I won't need to." Maia smirked. He always was one to think highly of himself.
"How can you be so sure?"
"Last time we fought you were almost out of stamina. You don't have what it takes to fight someone with sharingan." Maia tried her best to hide a smile, thinking of Itachi. She tried to imagine the look he would have on his face if she told him how she was working and training with the very man he was trying to kill. She started giggling at the thought. Laughing giddily.
"What's so funny?" He surely thought what many in the village thought. She was a little odd.
"If you had any idea the training I've done with sharingan, you would eat those words." He looked at her, waiting for an explanation. Maia realized, of course, that she just risked letting out too much and ruining everything. Itachi was probably livid, but it took a split second for her to come up with an easy fix.
"I'm not dating Kabuto, I'm in a relationship with Kakashi Hatake!" This time he did look impacted.
"You're what?"
"I want you to fight me just as you'd fight your older brother. Don't hold back!" He shook off the shock and got into his fighting stance. Maybe this fight would be harder than he thought.
"When I knock you to the ground just remember that you asked for it." Maia shook her head and Kabuto began the countdown.
"Three, two, one, go." He signaled the start.
Sasuke's eyes turned crimson and he gathered chidori in his hand. Maia disliked fighting against lighting style, but luckily she was very used to chidori. Luckily, they were in a cave in the forest, and the air was relatively moist. He ran towards her and Maia took care not to make eye contact while she let him close the distance. However, as he approached her his jutsu changed from its normal shape to a long blade or spear.
'He changed it to a midrange attack. That's new. Clever.'
As his blade approached, she put up a water wall to deflect his attack. But the blade was still partially able to pierce through. She dodged behind the wall just in time. Then she manipulated the shape of the water turning it into a wave, sending the ionized liquid towards him. He had seen this before of course, and wasn't in the mood to be crippled. He quickly dodged, letting the water splash over the ground, and sent a fireball her way to evaporate the remaining threat. Maia used Kakashi's technique and hid underground, making her way towards him. He would expect her to pop out of course, but that wasn't her plan. Instead, she took a pill to immunize herself, and used earth style to let a single tiny flower emerge from the ground. Lighting was strong against earth, but if he didn't notice the flowers while he was preoccupied looking for her, he might fall into her trap.
'Thanks for the jutsu, Kurenai', she thought to herself.
Normally, the flower was supposed to emit a hallucinogenic pollen, but Maia had altered it to be linked to her vocal ninjutsu and genjutsu as well. The flower emitted a high pitched sound inaudible to the human ear in addition to the pollen. Even with Sasuke's sharingan, which could see through some genjutsu, the pollen would take a physical effect on him.
He began to feel dizzy.
'I have my sharingan activated, which should stop anything but the highest level genjutsu. Then how come I can't see straight? Could she have gotten to this level in such a short time? '
"Show yourself. Or are you too afraid to fight me head on?" Maia snickered to herself quietly.
Sasuke Pov:
Maia emerged slowly from underground, chuckling.
"I'm guessing you learned that cheap trick from Kakashi, am I right?"
"You think that your sharingan makes you invulnerable to all genjutsu. Yet here you are, dizzy, nauseous, and what's that? A buzzing in your ear? You're probably wondering why. You think you know everything about sharingan."
What had she learned? Was there more to the sharingan than he, an heir, had learned? Sasuke scowled.
"Tell me," He demanded, drawing a kunai. This girl was a mystery. But she had answers and he was determined to get them.
"If you want to know, you'll have to come over here and fight me!" He obligued, and in a split second, they were engaged in hand to hand combat. There was still no question, he was much stronger physically, and Maia was at a great disadvantage considering she didn't want to make eye contact. He hit her with a particularly hard blow and was a split second away from finishing the match with a kunai to her neck when all of the sudden…
He was in the ground.
Two more Maias emerged from the ground and all three were cackling and holding their stomachs. The sight of him buried in the ground, with nothing but his head sticking up was priceless.
"Grrr… how could I have fallen for that lame trick again!?" Maia was still in hysterics. She pointed a finger at him.
"You clever little turnip!" she managed. When she finally calmed down, she explained herself.
"I lied to you. The sharingan can see through all but the highest level genjutsu." She held out her hand and put the tiny flower up to his face. "It's a hallucinogenic earth style jutsu that produces similar sensations to those you would feel if you were under a normal genjutsu. The sensations are physiological, so you can't disrupt it using your sharingan. I used it to trick you into thinking you were under a high level genjutsu, when in reality, we weren't inside your mind. There's nothing about sharingan that I know that you don't." He scowled.
"You little…"
"Remember, winning a battle isn't just about strength, it's about wit. Words hold power in a fight. And genjutsu isn't the only kind of illusion."
"Yeah whatever. I want a rematch." Maia helped him out of the ground and together they walked over to Kabuto, who was smirking.
"Not until you get stronger! Next time I visit, we'll fight again." Sasuke gave a hmph of approval. Just as her side was getting so hot that it started sapping her strength, Maia felt the feather on her side fade away.
"Hey, you're good," Kabuto complimented.
"Thank you," Maia smiled. "Maybe next time we could train together, you and me."
"You read my mind." He smiled.
"Hey Maia," Sasuke said with a slight smirk. "Good match." That made her happy. She had earned his respect back a little.
"Good match. Oh, and the effects of that plant should go away within an hour or so." Fondly, she gave him three quick pats on the head. He protested, and they went their separate ways. As Kabuto and Maia turned the corner, Kabuto whispered into her ear.
"What was that hallucinogen anyways?" Maia whispered back, and Kabuto's eyes went wide. "No kidding."
It was only the evening, and the two of them spent the rest of the night talking and catching up. When it grew late, Kabuto offered to house her for the night, uneager to let her leave. Maia was happy to stay, remembering that she had told Anko to let Kakashi know she would be busy the rest of the night before she left. Minimal risk was involved in staying. There were few rooms in the hideout. He found an unoccupied guest room that had five beds for a group of people. He provided bedthings and eventually they said goodnight.
"Kabuto?" Maia asked just as he was about to shut the door.
"Yeah?" Maia looked bashful.
"Would you stay with me?" He thought for a minute. The situation was highly unordinary, but they were family after all.
"Yeah. I'll be back in a bit."
When he arrived with a cover and a pillow for himself, his sister looked contemplative. He inquired if anything was wrong.
"If I told you a dark secret, would you judge me?" He blinked at her for a moment.
"You're my sister. I'm here for you. What is it?" He made his bed and sat down on it, waiting for her to find the lease intimidating words.
"Well… sometimes.. when I'm alone at night.. I hear this voice. It's in my head. It used to happen in the daytime too, when I'd least expect it. But lately, it mostly comes at night. I guess that's one of the reasons I didn't want to be alone. I'm sorry if that's weird. I don't mean to worry you." He gave her a look of surprise and concern.
"Do you think it's schizophrenia? Because if it's schizophrenia and we're fraternal twins, it means there's a fifteen to twenty three percent chance that I-"
"Kabuto, no. I don't think so. I used to work in the interrogation facilities with Ibiki morino, and in order to work there, I had to go through a psychological screening. They didn't detect any signs of mental illness. Whoever this voice is, it sounds vaguely familiar. I don't know."
"Well, luckily we still have the results from your DNA screening. It's not at all my forte, but I can look through to see if I can find any genetic influences that might contribute to schizophrenia. If I find anything, I'll tell you." She thanked him and they got into their beds to sleep.
Quietly, as they drifted off, Kabuto mumbled "What does the voice sound like? What does it say?" Maia pulled her covers close to her, uneasy. It couldn't be her mind. It seemed so real. And she was still scared.
"The voice is low. Dark. He says he's the answer to all of my questions. He's the reason I lost my memories. Why I found myself in the leaf village. And that one day, he will come find me, and hurt me." Kabuto was undeniably concerned. Silently, he held out his hand. Still wrapped tightly in her blankets, she reached out and grabbed it.
"I'm not going to let that happen." He said softly, peacefully falling asleep.
Brother. Maia had a brother, a family, and he wasn't going to let her get hurt. Silently, a tear fell down her face.
"Thank you."
"Goodnight, sister." Kabuto said, realizing that he loved her in a family sort of way.
"Goodnight brother," Maia said, realizing that she truly loved him too.
