Author's Note: I just got back to the US last night and am extremely sick. So sorry for the delay but last night was my first night of real sleep in a week and had been up for 48+ hours… ~KK

Beta'd: Inevitably Insane & Nameless Fable


The Sound of Ice II: Storms of Two Brothers


Because the keys to the kingdom got locked inside . . .
And the angels fly around in there, but we can't see them
And I gotta girl in the war, Paul, I know that they can hear me yell
If they can't find a way to help, they can go to Hell
If they can't find a way to help her, they can go to Hell

Girl in the War


Blood spilled from the wound like water.

Red as roses, soft as velvet, warm as milk…

Kagome's white hands trembled to staunch the flow.

Too fast, too fast… I'm bleeding too fast, too fast…

Kagome's heart soared to her ears eliciting a rioting, frantic beat.

"But not before Kimimaro kills that brat brother of his first."

All thoughts of mercy were chased far, far away.


Kagome's hand shot out like a Death God's vise. Bone white fingers, skeletal wrist, gored knuckles, blasted across Tayuya's vision before she was throttled and her skull rattled against the ice.

"Tell me everything," hissed Kagome's bloodless lips and her eyes were dark, baked sapphires in a volcanic fissure. "Or I skin you alive to be sent back to Konoha, where you will live a very, very long and miserable life."

Tayuya smirked despite Kagome's firm grip on her throat. "There's no way you'll last… that kunai was coated with the most potent anticoagulant Orochimaru-sama was able to develop. Not even you ANBU are immune to it."

Kagome saw spots on the rim of her vision. She didn't have much time. "You have three seconds."

Tayuya spat in the bleeding prodigy's face again.

Kagome's eyes narrowed murderously with a violent haze and with a buzz of chakra, a strip of flesh peeled from Tayuya's cheek and the warm tissue steamed in the chilled air. Tayuya's eyes widened to saucers but her resolve remained true. "You won't."

Another hum of chakra and Tayuya felt a piercing chill glance her forearm. Her eyes darted down to the gleaming muscle and pristine white knob of her wrist bone before it flushed violently with blood.

Kagome's nails scraped at Tayuya's jugular when she released the Flute-player, and the ANBU stood. Kagome stumbled on her feet and her pants were gleaming dark as she stood in a pool of lifeblood. The ANBU's hands went to her thigh, the flow trickled to a halt and the once meaty wound was now a bloodied uncut patch of skin.

"I-Impossible!" Tayuya spat. "Orochimaru-sama told me it was resistant to medical Ninjutsu!"

Kagome grimaced, feeling a thin flame rush under her skin; she may have healed that wound but any contusion she had received earlier would have become affected by the anticoagulant by now. Kagome was hemorrhaging and the internal bleeding was too widespread to pinpoint…

She couldn't heal it.

Tayuya's tanned features twisted into a fearful expression as she did the only thing she could—

She ran.

"Don't even think about it," said the disembodied voice as a slim steel-toed boot came rocketing into Tayuya's vision before crushing her throat.

The Oto-nin crumpled into the snow and into the blood of their wounds as the ANBU loomed above. The sun was the child's halo but did nothing but make her appear faceless to Tayuya and as dark as a shadow.

Kagome's eyes were fixed on the Oto-nin as blood flushed over the girl's teeth and gasping lips. "You might think you cannot speak now, but I'll have you screaming everything you know about Itachi and Sasuke in the next few moments if you don't fess up right. Now."

Tayuya coughed and a rasping noise scraped through her crushed airways.

Kagome did a circling motion in the air with the rimed katana and the far off call of a crow echoed in response. "I'd hurry if I was you." Her signal for Tengu's flames would not go unanswered.

"Uchi…Uchiha Itachi… he was… was ambushed, right?" Tayuya croaked and her face was twisted in a grimace as she spoke.

"A few weeks ago, yes," Kagome growled and caught a dark figure cresting over the mountaintops' skyline. "Was it Orochimaru?"

Tayuya shook her head. "ANBU… they did it. They serve... my master's master's master's master…" she cackled a hysterical laugh and it was a gargled, strangled thing.

"Who?" Kagome pointed Itachi's katana to Tayuya's throat. The damp, bloody column of flesh swelled and then collapsed before the blade. "Who are they all in league with?" Kagome's voice wavered, her eyes welling with hot tears that scorched her cheeks. "Who wants to kill Itachi?"

Itachi was sure to have enemies, even within his own ranks. Admirers and rivals all harbored the same jealousies and resentments to the glorious prodigy. Though, their origins may have different, the ultimate outcome was the same.

Elimination.

Tayuya smiled a sad, genuine smile. "I don't know. I've only…" Tayuya hacked up chunky blood. "—heard them speak to Orochimaru-sama once… even they serve more shadows… no one is safe."

Kagome felt vertigo rush over her like a giant oppressive wave tossing onto the ocean's floor.

Was Tayuya justly speaking the truth? Was there really an entire network of enemies interlaced so deeply and intricately that they were unknown even to each other?

If that was the case, then Konoha was doomed.

"What do they want? How corrupted is ANBU?" Kagome demanded and prodded Tayuya's throat with Itachi's katana. There was justification in defending him with his own weapon.

It was no smudge on his honor.

Tayuya laughed. "Everything. They want everything. Everywhere. They are everywhere."

A piercing cry and Tengu circled the pale sun overhead, ready to make the tundra an inferno on Kagome's signal.

"I need more information," Kagome said solemnly and Itachi's katana sung with Wind chakra.

Tayuya laid back down on the ice with a quiet shush. "I am nothing, girl." Her eyes flicked to Kagome, lingering so. The irises reflected snow, sunlight and the circling shadow marking her death. "If you want to live… run away and never go near Uchiha Itachi ever again." It was the only warning she could give because she loved her master more than she could ever pity this helpless child.

"You know more."

"But I will not tell you," Tayuya replied and turned her eyes back up to the sky. "I hope you… do not listen and stay by the Uchiha's side… burn with the rest of them, witch."

Pity never stemmed hatred and so long as her master told her to, all those who were loyal to the Uchiha were her enemies.

The raven above dove down towards Tayuya in a fluid obsidian movement. The dying Oto-nin watched as the bird shattered and combusted into a thousand, raining flames.

Kagome sliced the air with a graceful arc before whispering, "Ryujia no Mai."

Dance of the Dragon.

"You will suffocate until you speak," Kagome warned as the very air around hissed, took shape and sharpened.

"I've stopped breathing a long time ago." Tayuya simply remained still, watching as the sun's flames rained down and the air she breathed arose into blades. Blood seeped from her side and into the soft fawn of her robes. She cast one last look at the only gift she ever received.

I've failed you, Orochimaru-sama…

The shattered flute was the last thing Tayuya, The Demonic Flute of Otogakure, saw before closing her eyes forever.

A cyclone erupted and caught the blaze eagerly as it churned around the Oto-nin, illuminating her copper hair like the devil's fire.

Wind fed Fire and they both needed air.

Tayuya did not wait, she simply stood and with her flute poised—

A memory came to her mind, in Tayuya's last moments.

Her master standing before a council of shadows, flame-light tosses, murmurs near silence; even they do not know who their true leader is…

If evil ever existed, they embodied it truly.

"They sold their souls to a demon," she betrayed her masters with her final breath.

—pierced her heart before throwing herself into the flames.

Neji's hands were stripped to the bone.

Droplets of blood peppered the glacier like dewdrops as the Hyuuga fell back into his stance.

His opponent stood three meters across the ice and against a backdrop of mountains skimming the glacier's edge. The scintillating lace of blue-green veins swam within the dark granite outcroppings perched in the distance. The Oto-nin's lavender robes hung loose on his frame and his pallid flesh was so pale, it was a near bloodless grey.

His opponent's hair was a flat white, limp and tied in a scarlet twine at either sides of his cheekbones. His eyes were a dull, watery green that reflected Neji's jade crane mask all the more vividly and his only other notable features were his strong jaw line and the twin scarlet disks marked just above his brow line.

The Oto-nin outstretched his hand and his fingertips shed their skin.

Neji reacted instantly.

"Hakkeshō: Kaiten!"

Eight Trigrams: Heavenly Spin.

The Crane danced, his body vanishing in a dome of translucent blue chakra, deflecting the bone bullets and ricocheting them right back at his opponent.

Neji stilled in the next moment, his breath silent but fervent against the porcelain of his mask. His pale, clan-bred eyes darted down to a cluster of bone spears that sprouted seemingly from the glacier's surface. The bone bullets rolled around on the ice like ivory beads.

Apparently, unseen by Neji, the Oto-nin had shot much more than projectile phalanges at him, but rather the occasional ulna was up for grabs as well.

Neji flickered out of sight, into shadow and ice-dust.

The Oto-nin moved his limbs as smooth as if they were boneless, which they were anything but. His spine bended at impossible angles as Neji aimed for his throat with his Gentle Fist and his skin became hard as steel once it contacted with Neji's damaged hands.

Another crisp crack reverberated through Neji's bloodied palm, up his forearm and to his ears. The sobering bite of pain rattled him senseless for an instant.

He didn't have much longer before his hands shattered altogether.

His hands were burning with an unspeakable flame and his bindings were wrapped, rewrapped, thrice-wrapped to act as much as a tourniquet as a façade of the damage done. Throughout their hand-to-hand (more like flesh-to-bone) bout Neji could not tell if calcium deficiency was working in Neji's favor and if it was, he did not notice.

Insufficient bone density, Neji scoffed mentally at Genma's poor calculations. The Oto-nin's bones were unnaturally hard at the moment even after two months of malnutrition. Neji did not want to know how strong they were on a staple diet of milk.

Either way, Neji met the Oto-nin's strikes, hit for hit and used the momentum to his advantage to make up for his much more brittle hands.

The fact that he considered his own hands brittle, his main weapons, was a sobering thought to the Hyuuga as he proceeded to activate another onslaught of his Gentle Fist.

"Hakke Hyaku: Nijūhachi Sho!"

Eight Trigrams One Hundred Twenty-Eight Palms.

Neji's arms spread like wings and he bowed in a forced arch as his legs swiped across the ice. He aimed for the Oto-nin's stomach and kept his stance low and measured.

"Nii!" Neji's voice cut and his two strikes were equally blocked by forearms, followed by a bone-tipped parry that Neji deflected with his vambraces. "Shi!"

Four

Again, his attack was met equally and Neji's footing faltered slightly.

"Hachi!"

Eight

He barely grazed the Oto-nin's wrist and felt his bindings tear to reveal a pink knob of his index knuckle. The skin was sheared completely off. "Juuroku!"

Sixteen

"…"

Thirty Two

"..."

Sixty Four

"…"

One hundred twenty eight

It was a blinding succession of strikes that flared like a pillar of pure lucent blue chakra straight into the Oto-nin's chest. Out of the two hundred and fifty four strikes, Neji only landed seventeen.

The Oto-nin's left arm hung useless and limp in his tattered lavender haori and his breathing became rasping. Neji had managed to get his lung as well as his appendage fully and he was most definitely sure that he had disabled the Oto-nin's kidneys, but that was for another day.

Neji deflected another onslaught of bone spears with his vambrace; as he evaded, he put meters of frost and rock between him and the Oto-nin.

It was after a few moments of matched footwork, with Neji circling in a graceful trounce and the Oto-nin standing eerily still, did a breeze catch on the thin-aired area and rise to a siphoned roar.

Kagome appeared in a silvery whirlwind of pure, undulated Wind chakra and…

Feathers? Neji's eyes were distracted for a mere millisecond and the Oto-nin exploited it—

A strip of steel flashed across Neji's vision before its edge contacted with a column of ivory.

It was a stalemate for a breath's time before the bone splintered and the mottled russet core became visible to Neji for the first time.

Kagome's newly acquired katana sliced through the Oto-nin's bones like they were butter.

Neji's hands curled into bloody, bandaged fists as he sidled up alongside his Captain, who had just sent the bone lance aimed for Neji's heart clattering to the rimed rock beneath their feet in a pile of marrow and white splinters.

The Oto-nin's only functional arm fell limp and the temporary orifice in his palm sealed shut with a brief scab.

"His skin is regenerating at a slower rate," Neji informed Kagome, his mask muffling his voice.

The leering cat mask nodded and in a sharp motion, she reversed her grip on the katana to no longer parry but to be offensive and attack.

It was then Neji noticed a few stray droplets trickling across the already blood spattered ice. "You're bleeding."

"Was," Kagome corrected and disappeared in a flurry of Wind chakra.

Neji's eyes barely registered her chakra structure before it reappeared and struck out at the Oto-nin's neck.

Kagome was fast, almost frantic in her movements. The sword became an extension of her arm as she flittered about her prey in flickering flashes of black feathers.

Neji rushed in and despite his hands' agonizing protests, struck true and strong into the Oto-nin's back, aiming through the protective cage of ribs and into the frenetically beating lump of flesh. A palpitation at best started within the Oto-nin's heart but it was enough to garner his attention and allow Kagome an opening.

Instead, the vertebrae beneath the pale lilac fabric and even paler flesh twisted for a moment's warning before shooting out into a thin spine of bone spikes, harpooning Neji's palms.

The Hyuuga's jaw locked so hard that he was sure his teeth would crack.

"Tsuru! Move!" Kagome called from the Oto-nin's front and he could see her frantic stormy gaze over the shoulders of purple silk and beneath her porcelain eyelets.

He was caught and before he could rip his hands free, the spine retracted back into the Oto-nin's back. The Oto-nin spun around in a blurring motion.

Neji saw a flicker of grey-white dart across his seemingly untouched front. Neji's eyes looked down at his flayed armor, the ripped dark fabric beneath. He groped with punctured hands and felt the distinct warmth of flesh.

Not even a moment later, a lateral stream of hot blood shot forth and across the Oto-nin's pallid cheek.

"Neji!" Kagome's voice called from far, far away because his heartbeat was so very, very close…

A clatter of bone reached his ears and his fair eyes slipped to the ice, where a coil of vertebrae lay, gleaming violently red. Neji followed the column up and saw the whip locked firmly within the vise-like grip of the Oto-nin.

The Oto-nin's wrist flicked and the whip slithered up into the air ready to strike once more—

Neji dodged, not by his own accord but rather by the swift squall of wind that sent him sprawling back several meters.

Kagome flickered by his side, sheathed her katana, crouched and splayed a hand on his chest. Her palm, already caked in a rusty crust came back glossy with vermillion. Neji struggled to get back up, but Kagome's hand was like an iron weight on his ribs. "Lay back," she ordered and her troubled eyes were dark beneath her mask. Kagome tossed a glance over her shoulder to the Oto-nin who was charging at them with a bone polearm in hand.

Kagome idly flicked the air.

"Fuujin no Mai," she whispered.

Dance of the Wind.

A torrent of crescent shaped Wind blades rallied forth and in a cacophony of shattered ice and bone, the Oto-nin disappeared.

"That should give us some time," she muttered to herself before pushing her mask back —Neji saw her bloodless ashen cheeks— and letting a low measure call whistle over her lips.

A scratchy caw was heard and Neji watched as a shadow the size of a horse flew over them and dove in the direction of the Oto-nin. A single feather drifted down; it was long and its spine fanned out green hues over the frayed ebony fibers. Kagome caught it between her fingers, before pulling her mask back down.

"Where's Sasuke?" she demanded and pushed her palm over his lacerated chest. Blood swelled beneath her fingertips and every heartbeat marked Neji's death knell.

"He is not with you?" Neji threw his skull back onto the ice and his rich chestnut brown hair pooled beneath.

"Please don't tell me you just said that," Kagome near groaned and focused her own energies on Neji's nicked aorta. It was geyser of blood surging to escape the artery and Kagome had to concentrate on the pinhole leak. She willed it to close, for the tissue to draw together and knot permanently. A drawing sensation filled her chest and the already chilled air became painful to inhale. "Neji!"

Neji's eyes snapped open, feeling his heart rate soar then level out. "Uchiha went to look for you. I was supposed to hold off the vessel until you both arrived."

Kagome grit her teeth. "Baka, I specifically told him to stay with you." Neji was the only one without a weapon, there were far too many variables to account for when dealing with Orochimaru's vessel and that was specifically why she wanted two on one. Kagome withdrew her hand and her other twirled the ebony feather about. "There, you'll live, Hyuuga. Now stay here while I detain the vessel. Tengu can only hold him off for so long."

Neji's protests were in the form of trying to stand.

Kagome whapped a forearm across his frayed armor. "If you make another hit with those hands of yours, they'll be in pieces across the ice. If you absolutely must help, watch the battle with your Byakugan and signal me his weak points." When Neji made another move to get up, Kagome pinched his carotid artery and watched as his eyes lulled back into his skull. The Hyuuga was unconscious the next moment.

Kagome stood and looked down on Neji's closed eyes beneath his jade striped crane mask. In a fumble of hands and fabric, she dug out a flare, lit it and watched the pinkish-orange light soar up into the sky with a smoky tail.

That was Genma's signal, he would retrieve Neji and now she could pursue the vessel at full force.

Kagome felt her heart rate scale once more as she willed herself to move and take an unsteady step forward. Her legs trembled, they were so weak. Her last onslaught on the vessel had cost her. So had Neji's lacerated aorta and so had the near constant amount of not only healing chakra but her own unnamed source of power rushing through her veins and bleeding out with the rest. She should be dead.

She was a walking corpse, bleeding and bleeding and bleeding…

She should have run out by now…

But it was bleeding and bleeding into her—an immense void which gobbled up anything and everything that was spilt— and it was pure energy running through her veins, willing her heart to beat, her lungs to breathe, her brain to simply be…

Everything that tied her to her body was slipping away. Power that cost her soul was being used for blood.

And she was running out of both.

Kagome ran and didn't stop.

If she did, she knew she would never take another step again.

It resembled a skinned, bedraggled deer.

Sasuke kicked the skull, its jaw crumbled into black-scorched teeth. A few wisps of singed copper hair clung onto bits of charred flesh and the baked bone of the cranium.

Kagome did this.

Sasuke's Sharingan darted across the scene, the rising sun melted the first layers of ice each day to be frozen in the night. At the moment, however, everything resembled a meaty pink slush. Too much blood to be solely the Flute-player, too much carnage for one little girl…

Sasuke unsheathed his chokuto and twirled it about in his grip momentarily.

Kagome did this.

Visions of her small form— the leering mask of the cat, her violent grey eyes—looming over an ANBU who had just done him harm surfaced and it was anything but a breath of fresh air. It left a bitter taste in his mouth, and he thought of Naruto's face smiling wide with the fangs and eyes and claws of a demon. He thought of his brother, lurking in the shadows, pulling the strings of his little marionette.

Kagome did this.

She's changing, Sasuke thought and felt as if he may never forgive them.

"Fuujin no Mai!"

Wind blades shot forth from the little prodigy as if she were a turret. There was no shield against the wind, so the Oto-nin dodged the onslaught with the precision of a contortionist. Kagome flipped and nimbly evaded another lash of the wicked bone whip Orochimaru's vessel wielded.

They were high up in the mountain's cradle, a snowy dale nestled atop the peek. It was eerily quiet and the largest of fauna consisted of a few hares and lemmings scurrying about the snow-laden pines. The sky was choked by a low bearing grey haze and promised snowfall within the hour.

Kagome landed on an outcropping, hands cupping the stone by her heels, she crouched like a cat and surveyed her quarry like a mouse about to be pounced upon.

"Kimimaro," Kagome called in a measured tone.

Said nin tilted his head at his name.

"What's your name?" he asked quietly and his voice was deep, but deceptively kind.

He was beautiful.

He resembled some ethereal being almost incapable of fighting. The pristine landscape melded with the vessel's flesh. His once perfectly parted and tied off white hair was loose, tangled and flecked with blood. Two pits of watery jade stared at her with an unnerving and hauntingly familiar gaze. Though, his stare was not heavy on her shoulders. The soft lilac of his robes was also mottled and the plaited purple rope that acted as his obi was loose and skimming the frozen soil beneath his sandals.

"I asked you a question," Kimimaro said with a lethal finality.

Kagome quirked her head curiously down at him but said nothing.

The rattle of bones was her only warning before the stone beneath her boots detonated. Kagome leapt up and soared over the vessel, only to have her escape thwarted when the whip coiled around her ankle and brought her crashing down.

Kagome let out a strangled cry when she felt her chin collide with the frozen loam and her mask crack and splinter into her mandible. Her vision flashed white as she crumpled against the earth. Her black form was stark against the cold ivory landscape.

Sandals came into view as the spots receded and her head slowed its spinning. "Answer me."

Kagome coughed as the air had been knocked out of her and the knobbed curve of vertebrae coiled before her nose.

"You are too slow," Kimimaro's disembodied voice observed. Kagome felt something prod her stomach. "Bloodless…your skin is grey, little one. How are you able to still breathe, let alone fight?"

Kagome felt a chill crawl under her skin and it wasn't from the snow. It would cost her precious chakra concentration, as she needed it almost solely to keep her heart going, but she had her opening now and was close enough…

With trembling hands, Kagome curled her fingers against the dark frozen earth and formed a very intricate hand seal.

It was potent and strong. She didn't have time for mind games, she needed information and she needed it now.

A fog crept over Kimimaro's vision, chasing away the winter landscape and the child at his feet. The frozen, rimed soil beneath melted into a lukewarm mud; the pines wilted and their snow dripped down to stringy ornaments of moss.

Before Kimimaro could stagger back he was in a humid peat bog standing beneath a far off sun that cast a sultry ochre haze.

Snakes appeared from the mud, slithered and laced themselves over his sandals, coiling around his ankles. His whip transformed into a dappled python, hissing and nipping at his wrists. He dropped it and the serpent flopped to the ground only to curl its thick body around his waist.

"Kimimaro-kun—"

His head snapped up and searched frantically among the mangroves and stagnant waters for that face

That one face he had longed to see for months…

"Orochimaru-sama," his tongue folded over the word greedily.

His Master was just a scant three meters off, standing serenely in the bog and unmarred by the elements.

"You disappoint me, Kimimaro-kun. I needed you when the ANBU went after me…" said his Master's voice, in that same rasped baritone that slithered its way to your ears.

Kimimaro tilted his head with confusion knitting his brow. "No, you did not."

Orochimaru was before him in the next moment. Insipid yellow irises stared down into him. "And why not? You are my vessel, my most trusted subordinate… The plague in Kawa—"

"Was a ruse, Orochimaru-sama," Kimimaro reminded him. "Do you not remember?"

"Of course, of course," hissed the Sannin and he cupped his vessel's cheek. Immobile, Kimimaro stood waist deep in snakes. "I am simply checking if you remember, Kimimaro-kun. Now who was it we were to draw out?"

"Uchiha Itachi's little brother, Master," Kimimaro responded dutifully. "The weasel is too strong to target any longer. He survived that last ambush—"

"Sshh." A cold finger was placed over Kimimaro's lips. "And why did we ambush him, Kimimaro-kun?" The Sannin removed his hand completely from his vessel's face.

"To acquire his Sharingan, of course. Kabuto guarantees the procedure will go smoothly."

"What procedure?" Orochimaru asked anxiously and muscles underneath paper white flesh twitched.

"To transplant his Kekkei Genkai into me, your next vessel, Master," Kimimaro's voice was reverent.

"And his little brother is the next target, yes?"

Kimimaro nodded. "But she is with him… the weasel knows we will not take him if she is near. You know the others would never allow us to and the weasel knows that we are forbidden to."

Orochimaru's face slacked in the most curious of expressions. "Does the name Kage mean anything to you?"

Suddenly Kimimaro's eyes flitted up to meet his Master's gaze—

Orochimaru's eyes were a murky blue.

Kimimaro's hand shot out and hooked around the Sannin's throat like a scythe. "Kai," he uttered the single syllable low and with an unmarked fury.

The wetlands froze over, the thick damp air no longer tasted sweet but wind-chased and thin. Kimimaro blinked and his Master was replaced with a small, gasping ANBU child with a cracked neko mask and frantic eyes. The snakes that had formed serpentine helixes about his waist went still and were simply his knobbed vertebral whip coiled around his person.

The ANBU child struggled in his grip and he lifted her off the ground by the neck, her arms flailing and nails weakly clawing at his wrist.

"You were very foolish to waste your last bit of chakra on that stunt," Kimimaro informed listlessly before dropping her down to the earth. "No one has been able to affect me so strongly with Genjutsu before…"

Kagome was huddled at his feet when Kimimaro unwound his own weapon from himself in a blur and then sent it careening down to the earth just inches away from her nose. The frozen loam cracked and her face split with a nasty gash along her hairline.

"What is your name?" Kimimaro crouched and flipped off her neko mask easily. He hooked a bone white finger under her chin and made her look up to him. He examined her face: she had defiant eyes, ones much too quick for a girl this age. They reminded him of storm vapors withholding lightning and shifted from grey to blue in moments. Her eyes were narrowed slits with thick jet black lashes that touched one another and kissed her bloodless cheeks.

It was at this moment, that a single flake of snow drifted down and flecked the very tip of an eyelash. The contrast was stark, and soon her lashes were peppered white and Kimimaro himself had a thin downy layer on his shoulders.

"Why?" Kagome grit out between the thin white line of her lips. "I'm just the girl who's in the way of you getting your hands on Sasuke!"

Kimimaro tilted his head and he looked almost angelic in his pensiveness. "They talk about you, quite a bit, you know. They say you don't remember a thing… 'a poor defenseless pup.'"

"Who?" Kagome's voice crumpled up in her throat, terrified of the answer.

Kimimaro shrugged and immediately withdrew. "I am nothing. I know little…"

But you know something Kagome jerked her head away from the vessel's cold fingertips. "That's what Tayuya said."

"She is right. We are pawns—tools to serve our masters. I simply wish to know your name. The one the weasel keeps so close and yet so far away…"

"Kagome," she said lowly. "Kagome… My name is Higurashi Kagome!" she yelled fervently and yet not even she could tell you who that was.

The realization was sobering.

Kimimaro rose a brow but continued to stare at her impassively.

Kagome's hand reached out and desperately coiled around Kimimaro's wrist. "Please, tell me everything you know…" she begged and she had tears welling. "I'm so confused all the time. I have no memories of my past. If you know anything… even the smallest thing. Please, I beg you, tell me."

Kimimaro seemed to understand her disparity and in a rare moment, he relented at the very confused small child. "Orochimaru-sama has no interest in you but it is the others that tell him he cannot touch you and…and the Uchiha knows this. That is why you are on Uchiha Sasuke's team, little one, the weasel is using you."

Kagome shook her head. "—it is not like that at all!"

Kimimaro stood and the girl was splayed on her belly. "My Master only wants the Sharingan, whether it comes from the elder or younger Uchiha, it does not matter. Their bloodline limit is the strongest of their clan's. However, your pursuers, little one, are much more lethal—for you have countless…"

Kagome let out a haggard cough. "And yet you say you know nothing," she scoffed and rolled onto her side. Her body broke out in a stream of ceaseless tremors. "You act like they are watching me right now."

"They are," Kimimaro assured and flicked his bone whip back away from the ANBU child. "They are in waiting, little one, it does not matter how much I tell you, your fate is inescapable."

"Waiting…" Kagome gasped for breath, veins visibly blue and swimming up her neck and into the swells of her cheeks. "Waiting for what?"

Kimimaro shrugged. "As I said, I am nothing. I know little but I believe you know already, little one. You must know what they lie in wait for…" He turned away from her, his bone whip recoiling back into the folds of lilac fabric. "You should get far away from the weasel, little one. Just as well, abandon his little brother."

Kagome shook her head. "I can't do that, your master may settle for Sasuke's eyes but I won't give you the opportunity to take Itachi's."

Kimimaro stilled and was quiet for a long moment. "I can respect such… devotion." The vessel cast a look over his shoulder. "So I will warn you. The only one who showed himself had a mask… he called himself Tobi."

Kagome's face twisted and she felt even more rattling questions surface than before. "W-Where are you going?"

"To kill Uchiha Sasuke." Kimimaro continued walking, but just so quietly, he murmured, "Did you forget, little one? We are still enemies."

Kagome's whole body didn't respond, she lay limp and uncurled her fisted hand to reveal a bloodied palm and a frayed, black feather. "No, I never forgot," she whispered hoarsely.

Kimimaro paused mid-step and caught a glimpse of black rush between a cluster of leafless birches silently. Kimimaro turned back around to the ANBU child—

Only to find her gone with the faintest red splash on the frost and a single ebony feather in her absence.

Kimimaro detected movements flittering on his peripheral. "You truly are a marvel, little one," he murmured amongst the snowdrifts and pale peeling birches. "You should be dead, yet your body still functions beyond its limits…"

A horrible crashing noise rioted forth and a huddle of pines toppled over in cloudlets of snowflakes. When everything quieted and the ice-dust settled, there were three figures standing amidst the felled vegetation.

Kimimaro stared placidly at his dead teammates. "Sakon. Jirobo. Kidomaru."

Another dark shadow darted into a throng of trees. Kimimaro kept vigilant and heard a rustle of feathers. It would not long now until she sent that fire-breathing crow on him once more. Snow fell quietly and he remained still, even when the massive Jirobo came bumbling forth, knee deep in snow he sunk like mammoth in a tar pit.

On the wind, there was a whisper, "Shikabane no Mai."

Dance of the Dead.

Kimimaro's head jerked to the right. No one was there, just endless tops of white knolls. "I was told not to kill you by the others, but I serve Orochimaru-sama first and foremost and if you hinder my capture of Uchiha Sasuke then I will not hesitate."

Jirobo roared in response, swiping at his head with the force of a lion. The fat ginger's face was a pale yellow, his eye sockets held a whitish film and his movements were stiff and more brutish than usual.

Kimimaro let a bone javelin slip from beneath his sleeve from his wrist's flesh and deftly leapt onto the undead Oto-nin's chest. With three hurried scores to the neck, mainly directed at the spinal cord—which snapped much too eagerly—Kimimaro decapitated his teammate. However, Jirobo's body moved, despite the fact that his head was rolling down into the snow. He smacked Kimimaro off his chest as if he were an incessant fly.

Kimimaro evaded with a graceful flip, sending his weapon straight into the silent heart of Jirobo. The Oto-nin still proceeded to charge with the tissue of his neck glaring brackish and purple— not bleeding in the slightest.

Kimimaro fended his teammate off easily until he heard the slightest shush of snow. Kidomaru wrapped his four arms around his torso and Sakon leapt up from the snow caked earth and sunk his teeth into Kimimaro's neck with savage utterances. The glower of Sakon's teal lips caught Kimimaro's gaze and the scent of old spider webs reached his senses while Jirobo's headless corpse was sprawling for his throat

Kimimaro let his skin erupt in an outbreak spikes, harpooning his teammates and sending them back. They retracted back into his tattered robes and regenerated flesh to give him leeway to evade.

The triad collapsed in on itself and Kimimaro was panting heavily, his only functioning arm—courtesy of the Hyuuga's Gentle Fist—reached up and groped the wound on the rim of his collarbone. It was bleeding too much for his tastes, and the saliva of a week old corpse could not be sanitary.

Infection was sure to spread and his body was already too weak from the elements to put up much of a fight.

Either way, if he managed to kill the ANBU child he would still die eventually if his Master did not come and collect him from the bottleneck the Konoha-nin had forced him into.

"Why was Tayuya bleeding?"

Kimimaro whirled on his heel and standing light as air on top of the snow was the ANBU child.

"I think you know the answer, little one," he murmured and there was such calmness to him.

"Your bone density is barely hindered in the slightest, despite malnutrition," she accused and walked across the snow as if it was water and the soles of her feet were floating on chakra. "She was scared, she was weak…" Kagome seethed and took another silent, ethereal step forward. "And the others—" her eyes flicked to the pile of blundering corpses of what was once the Sound Four— "were just as well, I imagine."

"I am Orochimaru-sama's next vessel. They are expendable and were never true disciples of Orochimaru-sama because they hesitated in giving me what I needed."

"They went down too easy. They all did..." Kagome muttered and swayed slightly on her feet. "What the hell did you do to them?" she demanded in a merciless voice.

Kimimaro raised a brow and civilly dabbed away at his profusely bleeding neck. "It is a bit unseemly to discuss what one haseatenafter the fact."

They were just kids, just impressionable, lost children and were used for everything they could possibly offer…down to their very bones. Kagome's face twisted in disgust and her eyes became shadowed.

"Kaze no Kizu!"

It was inescapable, the current of wind that enveloped the area and shot forth in a swirling wave of pure, undulated power. The silvery edges tore apart the earth leaving a fractured chasm like a scar.

The Sound Four, or what remained of them, were motionless pieces of fetid flesh at the bottom of the ravine. Kimimaro was gone altogether.

Kagome looked at the destruction before her and the small girl collapsed; she was beyond the point of exhaustion and that last attack was the end of any reserves she had.

Her knees were watery and they trembled before spilling to the split earth along with the rest of her. Kagome watched as a thin string of flame encircled her in a protective ring and the rustle of feathers was heard.

Tengu glided down to her, having observed the entire ordeal and his wings outstretched over her small, frail body. His feathers caught fire and flickered in a tame flame providing her an umbrella of warmth.

Kagome just stared dazedly at the tossing flames. "Find Sasuke," she croaked. "Get him to Genma." She needed him to get out of here. Kimimaro still had yet to unveil his Curse Mark and most definitely would now after using her Wind Scar.

"Sasuke-danna's signature is approaching, he has found our trail despite your efforts."

Kagome felt a heavy fog of extreme weariness weigh on her psyche. "Please, just do what I ask. You cannot fight Kimimaro lest he discovers your eye."

Tengu's single Sharingan stared down at her and blinked. "I cannot," the summon cooed and its head whipped to the sound of rocks tumbling deep within the ravine. "Itachi-danna would never condone such a thing." The crow's body stretched and its blazing wings expanded protectively to a fiery canopy above Kagome.

"If he discovers you have a Sharingan implanted then he'll take yours as a last resort!" Kagome hissed and flinched when the crow began to smother her dangerously with its fiery plume. "Itachi entrusted you with me."

The summon ignored her request. "You have done enough and I cannot be idle any longer. Sasuke-danna will be able to assist you, please allow me to fight until he arrives," Tengu was not requesting. "Now, Kagome-danna, please do not move."

Kagome's stomach flipped at the idea. If Sasuke failed, it was done. Kimimaro would capture him, harvest his Kekkei Genkai and then slit his throat. Even one of Itachi's most powerful summons could only do so much against a Curse Marked nin.

But she didn't have a choice, at the moment, her body was out of chakra completely, the only thing keeping her going or even conscious for that matter was her own unnamed, mysterious energy source.

And even that was starting to waver.

Tengu's wings extinguished back to a glossy black awning of feathers and the air was once again chilled. His single Sharingan stared down at her, transfixed and seeing what could not be seen. "Your body is struggling to keep your heart beating let alone maintain body heat. Hypothermia will ensue unless you keep within this circle of my fire. Please stay while I deal with the Oto-nin. Your chakra… has also completely vanished and has been replaced by some… sort of energy," observed the massive avian creature.

Rocks tumbled with movement within the ravine and Tengu disappeared in a valiant swoop, leaving a single ebony feather to drift down with the snow and land beside her in a ring of fire and ice.

That same moment, an ochre-blazed dragon was spewed from Tengu's throat and sent high into the sky, shifting the thermals and eliciting the rumbles before an impending storm.

Tengu prepared the sky for his Master's little brother and knew the Lightning would respond to his call.

Sasuke slid down into the valley and like a dark puma loping amidst the trees, he was silent as he skimmed the forest's rim. He was nothing but an ephemeral specter on the tree line, vigilant as he crept away from the shadows of the snow laden evergreens and into the more sparsely populated cluster of birches.

The sky rumbled and was no longer a blustery grey but now ominously dark and promised a nasty winter storm uncharacteristic for this region. The firmament more closely resembled Iwa's furious winter climate instead.

It was at the first snap of the lightning that Sasuke halted at the precipice of a gorge, newly scraped out of the earth.

A spine-rattling screech reached his ears and high above was a black shadow diving in and out of the treacherous atmosphere and spewing flaming eddies from its maws. Another figure was running along the tips of trees, dodging the fires and sending little splinters of white at its pursuer with a lethal accuracy.

Sasuke unsheathed his sword, about to join the fray, until he stumbled on the withering ring of hot embers and—

"Kagome," he breathed and nearly dropped his sword at the sight of her.

He rushed to her in quick movements, pulled back his mask and dropped to his knees.

She was asleep.

She was deathly cold, her breaths much too quiet and her skin was grey, bloodless. He roused her gently and she did not stir for a long dangerous moment.

In that moment, all resentments were chased far, far away and Uchiha Sasuke could not hold a grudge with his dying girl.

Her eyelids, fluttered as if they were made of lead, and opened. "…s'cold."

She did not even shiver.

Sasuke then realized the purpose of the embers and in a swift Tiger seal, they ignited once more and warmed the area.

His mind raced. What else could he do?

Sasuke had seen Sakura perform her healing techniques a thousand times and more than once with his Sharingan. He knew how to do it, he had catalogued it like any other technique his Kekkei Genkai had witnessed, but when comparing chakra control with his teammate's, Sakura had the precision of a needle compared to a sword, like Sasuke.

Tengu let out another resonating caw, and his brother's summon seemed to double in size once again in the sky before letting a pillar of flame race forth from its beak. It was ridiculous people even considered Itachi's summon a bird anymore.

It was more like a dragon, in Sasuke's opinion.

Kagome let out a whimper and his attention was snapped back to her.

His mind was made up, and he let his fingertips glow with healing chakra. Sakura's always reminded Sasuke of a glassy emerald, but his was such a deep green it looked almost like a thick smoke wafting over Kagome's torso.

Her pants were scabbed and she reeked of blood.

Cracked ribs, sliced liver, punctured lung, bruising everywhere… Nothing fatal, at least not immediately. No wait. Sasuke felt it, like how one hears the roar of impending rapids on a tranquil river, he detected a disturbance within her arteries. Then he stumbled upon it and the realization was horrifying.

She was bleeding internally.

Everywhere.

"Fuck," Sasuke grit his teeth hard. How was she alive? It was like little pinpricks in a dam and her body was not clotting her blood, just letting it slowly seep out and into her cavities. Her blood pressure was dangerously low, her heart rate was frantic and her blood vessels were desperately constricting. It was too delicate of a procedure, there were too many points to heal and his chakra usage was too rough to bring together the fragile tissues.

He tried, even so.

Only to cause a nick in one of her pulmonary arteries to tear further.

Sasuke immediately ripped his hands away and they were hideous, clumsy things in his eyes.

He stared down at her, a crumpled, pale creature whose silent breaths were turning to gasps. Sasuke was shaking, his heart roaring in his ears and feeling powerless to do anything.

She might die. She might actually die.

Sasuke remained comatose until he heard footsteps.

"Uchiha Sasuke," uttered a serene tenor.

Sasuke looked up with haunted eyes, unable to move from her.

The voice did not match the speaker as before Sasuke was a monster.

His skin was a coarse, leathery brown. Bone pillars sprouted forth from his back and vaulted in an impressive arch of solid, invincible bone. A tail dragged on the snow-messed earth and along its back were a bristle of bones.

Kimimaro flicked his wrist and acting like an extra appendage, was his vertebral whip coiling up and around Tengu's neck who was limp, ruffled and the size of a chicken. Kimimaro flicked it once more and Itachi's summon was tossed before Sasuke's protective flame barrier.

"I will not be taking any hand-me-down Sharingan, I am afraid," mused the Oto-nin and he watched as the flames encircling the ANBU flared more violently. "Uchiha Sasuke, fight me."

The flames died away in an instant and were reduced to a charred smoking ring in which Sasuke was already standing.

Tengu stirred and Sasuke's Sharingan flared to life, never leaving the grotesque Oto-nin. "Tengu," his voice was impossibly devoid of emotion as he sheathed his sword in a fluid motion.

The raven composed itself and regained a more impressive size at Sasuke's call. "Yes, Sasuke-danna?" he hummed, regal despite the crushed right foot and cracked beak.

"Take Kagome and get far away from here," Sasuke informed him and sheathed his sword. The Uchiha's eyes were dull, callous pits of red.

The raven stretched its wings, fanning its dark plume and despite the damage managed to grow to an impressive size, nearly thrice its original form and then once more until Tengu reached his peak and towered over Sasuke and the small ANBU child at his feet.

Gently, oh so gently, he picked her up with the tip of his beak and held her by loose fabric of her fleece. Like a kitten held by the scruff of its neck, Tengu took the girl and in the next moment was gone.

Kimimaro did not interfere. "Unsheathe your sword, Uchiha."

Sasuke's eyes drifted to the horizon where Tengu was but a faint shadow on the mountain's looming ridge. A vein of lightning streaked across, followed by thunder a moment later. "What I am about to do does not require one," he murmured and there was a dark promise in that.

Kimimaro crouched readying for the attack but slacked when he saw the motionless Uchiha's eyes.

He had never thought anyone, other than Orochimaru could make him feel so…

Insignificant. Unworthy to even sully the Uchiha's sword.

The last words Kimimaro heard were—

"I call this Kirin."

Meanwhile in a distant country, a Jinchuuriki and a Hyuuga watched a curtain of rain spill off the rooftops and obscure the world around them.

"Looks like those winter storms are starting," Teuchi commented as he sifted another batch of ramen and observed the sheet of rain slipping over the veranda's lip. "I wouldn't have any customers if it weren't for you, Naruto."

"We, um, brought an umbrella," Hinata blushed and shrunk into her barstool, hands fisting around the purple parasol.

Naruto stared silently at his empty bowl. The Ichiraku chef replaced it with a steaming proxy, complete with leeks, boiled eggs and fried pork. Naruto glumly poked at the noodles with his chopsticks. He then perked up suddenly. "Hinata?"

"Y-yes?" Hinata swiveled in her seat to face the Jinchuuriki.

"Do you hear that?" Naruto quirked his head.

Lightning, metal screaming, moaning and the hissing of chakra…

"Hear… Hear what?" Hinata swallowed. "Naruto-kun?" she observed the Jinchuuriki's suddenly blank expression.

The Jinchuuriki sniffed the air. "Don't you smell that?" Something was burning.

Acrid smoke, old blood, cold sweat…

"—no?"

Naruto's eyes flicked about. "It's… cold…" The hair raised on his arm, the preeminent feeling before a lightning strike.

The scrape of ice, a bitter squall, the shudder of a blade…

And then, that far off sense, hit him hard and the silent fox was screaming—

Naruto felt a pain race through his skull. He clutched his head and grimaced.

"Naruto-kun?" Hinata's delicate yet concerned touch went unnoticed.

Naruto stood, feeling his steps pull him in the direction.

"Kagome…" he barely choked out before racing out into the rain.

He was far off into the storm before anyone could follow.

Kagome dreamed she was at the bottom of the ocean.

Waves rushed above, coursing over and dragging her down into the undulating depths. The sun became a small blot of light, like a distant star before disappearing altogether.

Then Kagome was amongst the darkness and things dragged along her skin, silently. She screamed and water rushed down her throat and spilled into her lungs.

She dreamed of a small light, bright as the distant sun, pink as bloodied snow.

It came closer and closer and she reached out to it—

Kagome awoke to silence and the soft tussle of flames dancing about in her vision.

Just beyond yet another protective barrier of fire to keep her warm was a collapsed and motionless Tengu with wings crumpled and the size of a pigeon. Flames licked at his ebony plume but left it untouched.

The sky was calm. The world was still.

A lacy veil of snow wafted down on her and only then did Kagome notice a heavy weight on her torso preventing her from moving.

A downy layer of white obscured him and his chakra was so depleted, he might as well have been an empty shell.

Sasuke was curled around her, his spiked hair peppered white and resting heavily on her abdomen. Hands fisted under spine and wound taut around her hips, he was unmovable.

She rested a bone-white hand on his skull and softly curled her fingers around the damp, blue-black locks.

He shifted and lifted his face. His eyes were weary, unblinking, haunted. What had he seen?

What had he done?

Her fingers trembled against Sasuke's crown and he radiated warmth.

Kagome coughed, deep in her chest and winced at the countless pains that elicited. "Baka… I told you to stay with Neji."

The light in his eyes trembled, his entire body shook—

He brought himself higher, they were face to face, his breath scathing on her cheeks. His eyes were screaming, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so fucking sorry…

"Shh," she cooed and stroked the sharp incline of his ashen face.

Alive, for another day, her soul hummed against his.

Uchiha Sasuke swore himself to her for the rest of his life.

Itachi looked out into the storming skies, elbowed propped against the stone balustrade and a hand cupping his face. He had spent many hours of the night looking out, waiting for their return. Frost country was so very far away and they were on such very a dangerous mission. "It has been done?"

The couplet of ANBU pushed back their masks. Their hair was wet but their hands and swords were clean. These storms had been conjured to cover their trail. "Hai, Taichou," Taji said reverently with a fluid bow. "Kage's sister is dead."

"If local authorities respond accordingly, the Hokage will be informed of it by day's end."

"Wave country is relatively slow to react, I give it 'til morning," Taji added sharply.

"And how was it done?" Itachi asked absently, the darks of his eyes reflected lightning.

"Arata poisoned the girl, Taichou. She died in her sleep."

Itachi's posture straightened and his words were dark. "I ordered you to leave a scene. To send a message."

"I bled her out, Taichou," Taji piped up, throwing up her hands for her Captain to see. Itachi did not turn around. "It was painless."

"Postmortem bleeding will be evident and will seem… weak," Itachi shook his head. "You two are dismissed."

"But—"

"Dismissed."

"C'mon." Arata yanked Taji into a bow before disappearing into a cloudlet of smoke and leaves.

The rain filled the silence along with the far off roar of thunder.

Yuugao emerged from the shadows a moment after. "You go too hard on them," she whispered sadly and watched as the rain spilled past. It was not a pestering comment, but rather an unfortunate admission. Itachi had been near inhumane these past few days and quite unapproachable.

"They should have extracted information. They forsook my order for pity of their target," Itachi said emotionlessly. "How long until they hesitate in killing altogether? How long until they cost not only their lives but those of others?"

There went his mind again, calculating every possibility and outcome until the slightest of actions set the apocalypse into motion. "Shisui has lost contact with Tenzo's team."

Itachi became utterly still. "Something has happened."

"The last correspondence reported that they had engaged the enemy but a blizzard has started in the mountain pass that borders Shimo, so we will not know the outcome for days."

"How long?"

"Your brother's team engaged Orochimaru's vessel and the last remaining Oto-nin this morning."

A rumble of thunder rolled across the sky and shook the very foundations of Kikyo castle. "I see."

Yuugao laid her bear mask in her lap as she sat on the balustrade. She looked out into the rain and watched as it cast shadows down her Captain's face. It looked as if he were crying. "Will you go after them?"

But her question's answer was postponed as Sai flickered onto the terrace, dripping with rain and huffing breaths. It was the most frazzled she had ever seen him.

"Kurohyo," Itachi greeted and turned to recognize his Second.

Sai pushed back his panther mask to reveal a blanched white complexion. "Taichou, Naruto…" He exhaled a shaky breath to steady himself. "The Jinchuuriki is gone."

"Gone?" Yuugao immediately slipped off the railing. "How can our Jinchuuriki be gone?" Her accusations were soft spoken, but the severity of the situation remained. The Kyuubi no Jinchuuriki had the largest, most distinguishable chakra signature for a reason and that was for all ANBU to absently monitor him. Sai was direct surveillance, however and losing the Jinchuuriki was akin to losing the sun in a cloudless sky.

"I know," Itachi said simply. "His chakra signature disappeared nearly thirteen minutes ago."

"I apologize, Taichou." Sai knelt, his head bowed. "Should I pursue?"

Itachi pinched the bridge of his nose. "The influx of the Bijuu's chakra was too strong the moment he disappeared. You cannot hope to track him, especially with the demon's influence."

Yuugao turned to her Captain. "Something has happened then," she mimicked her Captain's prophecy and the sense of foreboding washed over them. "Will you go after them now, Taichou?" she asked once more.

Itachi turned to the rain, a vein of lightning silently streaked through the sky. "If I were to pursue Naruto-kun now and witness what the Kyuubi has planned for Kagome… I would not be able to control myself." His dark eyes flicked to her and a clap of thunder elicited.

Yuugao was looking into a murderer's eyes, ones with a noxious rage that curdled deep within.

"But for things to progress, I will not kill Naruto-kun."

And he turned back to face the storms, waiting.


Author's Note: Sort of debating if I should leave FFnet or not. I don't have an update schedule. That is all. ~KK