J3F\ \ \ Journey of the Three Failures
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Hey! Not too much to say this time since I updated yesterday... With that in mind,
NOTICE! The chapters 27-30 are being released much more quickly than usual! If you just hit the 'latest chapter' button or what not, be sure you're aware of this and that you've read the previous chapters first! Wouldn't want anyone to accidentally skip one and be lost :P
Thanks for reviewing, mundanebeast, LordofDrow, Guywithafish, and Cuervo Blanco! Your reading speed is impressive - more so than mine, for certain. If you didn't get a chance to review in the 24 hours between these chapters' release, don't worry about it! Though you can feel free to review chapters besides the lastest if you would like to - as always, all feedback is appreciated :)
So, now presenting the originally-planned-second-half-of-chapter-28: Chapter 29! As I mentioned yesterday, I'm planning to put two artworks relevant to this chapter on my dA on December 27th. I'll add links to my profile when I do, but you'll definitely want to finish reading this chapter before looking at them! After that, expect a third picture on the 29th, and Chapter 30 on the 31st.
Chapter songs: Wolf Blood by Adrian von Ziegler, Final Reckoning by q-factory, and Earth Rising by Two Steps from Hell. Oh, that's another thing - I might put a link to my youtube playlist that has the chapter songs for 27-30 pretty soon.
Disclaimer: I don't own NARUTO!
Journey of the Three Failures
Chapter Twenty-Nine: As Beasts
Part One: Howl
Naruto ナルト
"This shape he's assumed…" old man Hiryuu murmured, astonished. "I fought him once in the earlier stages of his curse, but this… Just what kind of monster…?"
"It's the fullmoon state, alright," I said, and Lee nodded. My eyes narrowed as Neji growled and snarled, terribly, at the summoner and familiar, strings of drool stretching between his fangs; he was too wild to remain intimidated for long. "But by the look in his eyes, and how much trouble he had activating it, he doesn't take that form very often."
Even saying it, I knew it made little sense. What did he do every month, afflicted with that curse? I doubted he had the control to suppress the change by sheer force of will; even Hinata, though having predicted it might be possible, couldn't do that. Not that she would often like to…
"Nee-chan's… form? It looks a bit less formidable…"
I turned my head at the soft voice of the kid in Hiryuu's arms, curiously feeble but watching all the same. I studied her as I spoke.
"A half-demon – that's what your sister is now. Her full power is too potent for it to be desirable to channel nonstop, so she typically restricts most of its influence. What we're seeing now is the appearance her body takes when she breaks that forced restriction, and her youki is allowed to run at full force."
"Even so," Lee noted, "this true han'you state is only equivalent in power to the third or fourth ring of her own Blood Seal, at best. She will not match Neji in physical strength right now, and given the further enhancement of his remaining senses, he will probably not be impaired by his blindness any longer. Furthermore, if he is anything like Hinata-san was with the fullmoon state so long ago, he will be fighting purely on instinct…"
Hanabi shivered as another cutting roar hit the air. She looked to her sister on the battlefield, who took the brunt of the threatening, fiendish vocalizations without so much as flinching. "If she c-can take that shape as well, why isn't she? Can she match him this way?"
I grimaced. "The curse tends to turn its user feral, more so the further it's allowed to progress. While she is fairly good with controlling herself now, there's no guarantee that the curse second state, generating the amount of power, stimulation, and impulse that it does, might not cause her to slip and kill her opponent in the heat of an intense battle.
"But," I added as Hanabi's face grew uncertain, "that doesn't mean she's putting herself in jeopardy here, y'know? The youki release is her happy medium… and the state in which she can most effectively synergize with that big blazing dog over there."
"You still believe in her, do you not?" Lee asked the girl.
"Of course!" she replied. "Brute force isn't everything…"
I smirked. "Unlike Neji, using her curse won't corrode Hinata's soul or sanity because hers doesn't run on darkness. She worked to see to that end. And it's only because of her pure spirit's fortitude that she can control and command a fair amount of demonic power while resisting corruption. She won't shame her way – or her beneficiaries – by losing to an out-of-control monster."
On the field, Neji snarled, his head down. He opened his mouth, a droplet of energy rolling to life between his fangs, emitting an ominous glow.
He lifted his head, launching a blast of frothing liquid toward them like a cannonball. The liquid bullet curved in the air, expanding as it flew; Hinata and Kurogiba leapt apart, letting the speeding projectile shoot between them and explode a ways on with a thunderous crack.
And Neji was blurring in at Hinata's back. Her eyes widened, and claws nicked her arm as she whirled and slipped away. He lunged, and she leapt and twisted over a wild slash, rapping the side of his neck with a backfist as she passed; he staggered on forward, more angry than harmed, and turned to receive a solid two-foot jump kick to the chest. Using her tail for leverage, Hinata landed easily on her feet as Neji was knocked to the ground. He rose straight into the path of a bolt of flame sent streaming toward his side from Kurogiba's maw.
A twitch of his ears, and Neji jerked backwards, so that the blast just barely singed his front. Hinata was already attacking the moment the fire missile passed him, and her claws tore into his shoulder.
His claws tore into her side. He hadn't flinched, hadn't defended – only returned attack.
Hinata ducked under the following swing, and dived into a roll as the fire bolt Neji had dodged, taking form, halted and returned in its flight, shaping into Kurogiba in time to nail Neji in the side with a fierce headbutt.
He transferred mediums? I wondered, as the now-orange flames that had been left in his prior location faded.
Neji, having been bent awkwardly around the wolf's smashing skull, turned grimace to snarl as he was thrown, and fired a buffeting screech toward the beast. The ground buckled, and Kurogiba grunted as invisible force tore against his form. Neji had passed the wolf in the next moment, a blur, claws drawn back so far his body was twisted as he closed toward Hinata with a yell.
She leapt, and his strike shattered earth; his idly sprawling legs snapped around above him, a foot smashing into her gut before she could leave his range.
Hinata hardly showed she was shaken as she tumbled to her feet and crossed her forearms, one eye snapping shut as Neji promptly materialized bludgeoning a full-body blow into her defense. Sent sliding rapidly back on her feet, she spat a spurt of flame, which he dodged effortlessly as he closed in again.
He slashed her blocking arms, deep.
As he drew back again, Kurogiba's body was lightening, Hinata's dodged flame attack behind Neji was darkening – and Hinata vanished, replaced in a puff of smoke by a log with her top-layer sweater around its middle.
Neji slashed the log with a snarl, grabbing it by the sweater and slamming it down with enough force to smash it to pieces.
…Still blind, I observed with a half-grimace as he threw another slash before being snagged in Kurogiba's jaws. The wolf of fire raised him up, slammed him down, and whipped his head around to cast him strongly aside.
With a pop, Hinata Fire Flickered to Kurogiba's side, light feet tapping to the ground. The wolf shut one eye.
"You're actually letting this imbecile beat you up," he noted in annoyance, looking at the blood that dripped from her arms. Her kawarimi had been a tad slow after all…
"He's quick," she pointed out, shaking drops of blood from her fingers – fresh blood, from wounds that were already near to healed. "And in that state, he can summon a lot more power than either of us."
"Sis. He fell for a log wearing a sweater."
Hinata ignored this. "That being said, we won't be able to do much damage until we can force him to change back. But to do that, we need to be able to keep up with him."
"In that case…" He smirked, in spite of himself. "The next level of Ookami taijutsu…"
I watched, curious, as the aura around her fluctuated, stirred. Neji growled, flexing his claws as he gauged his foes.
Hinata's smile just barely showed her fangs.
"If I'm fighting alongside Ani-ue, it's the Kurotsumeken!"
Hinata ヒナタ
"This isn't… the Berserkergang?" Naruto wondered aloud, as I held my seal.
No… I thought, as my youki flow was roused to its upper limits. My exposed teeth crackled quietly as fangs lengthened; my hair was growing messy. While this is also a combination limited to a summoner and familiar who have mastered a perfectly balanced Soul Link and its accompanying trust, it's not the Berserkergang…
I could feel everything about Kurogiba, about the being he was, as we synchronized. His strength, his smug pride, his wisdom and determination – and more than anything else, his trust. Our minds merged comfortably, meshing together with the smooth ease of practice. I didn't need to see Kurogiba smirk as he eyed our anxiously watching foe.
'The Senju boys developed this style after being with their partners for years. The two of us must be pretty damned good, considering…'
'I've become a han'you,' I pointed out. 'I've hunted with you; I've learned your arts, and your way of life. I won't mess up, Ani-ue.'
He scoffed. 'I know that, fool! I am your partner, which means we will overcome our enemies together. My claw is yours…'
'And mine, yours,' I finished, nodding in sincere appreciation. 'I'm ready. Shall we?'
'Let's. With the technique the weaklings Hyuuga Hinata and Fifth Grand Ookami Kurogiba not only mastered, but perfected!'
He shed his medium, allowing the relinquished flames to slip formless into the air, and vanish. I felt his presence swirling through the space about me before he lanced, as a bolt of activated spiritual power, clean into my heart.
I lifted my head, inhaling slowly as a calm swept over me. It was a wonderful thing, every time. With his strength infusing my form, stabilizing my power, and his mind and soul still in free contact with mine, the two of us were as close as a summoner and familiar could be. No – we were more than close.
This is it…
"Two as one! Kurotsumeken – Black Claw Fist!"
The connection was solidified not a moment too soon. Neji leapt toward us with a feral shout, claws drawn back. A cocky smirk curled the corner of my lips, courtesy of Kurogiba's mental scoff.
Neji struck – and staggered out of a slash that passed through an ethereal, evaporating form. With great speed I had landed ten yards from his back, the balls of my feet tapping lightly to the earth and sliding a few inches with a light bounce. Kurogiba's spirit swept to rejoin me as Neji glared about and rounded on us again, too angry to be baffled.
He lunged for us again. With no conscious thoughts between us, with immediate consensus, the part of me that was Kurogiba and the part of me that was Hinata split apart, slipping to either side of our passing foe. Even if Neji could not see it, a confident grin played darkly upon the face of the spectral, smoky form across from me – a warrior beast that had roughly adopted my shape, my appearance, and most importantly, half of my physical substance.
We saw for a moment the widening of Neji's eyes, the flaring of his nostrils and the alert twitch of his ears as he tried to interpret the information his senses provided him. Then he had passed between us, having heard and smelled the same person slipping by on either side of him – and at his back our hands met and passed through each other as Kurogiba and I remerged. In a flash we were one, and with full solidity I was lashing strong claws across Neji's back, throwing him forward.
He wheeled to face us, slashing with a wild bellow of indignation. Our strong body was light as we blurred from his strikes, ducking, stepping, leaning, backpedalling from each violent move. Dividing and shifting our attributes this way produced an effect not unlike that of the Domain of Demons on Kurogiba; commanding a half-solid, half-ethereal state effectively allowed an increase in swiftness with no sacrifice in power. We had made ourselves into a pair of vessels at our disposal for the shifting, siphoning, and conducting of the sum of our traits, and our minds a cohesive unit for the efficient apportioning of our resources.
Kurogiba lunged from me, low, clinging to the lingering property of solidity as he left me. The swing of Neji's claws passed through my head, or the semblance of the head assumed by my spiritual form; Kurogiba, with borrowed solidity, drove my body's shoulder into our adversary's gut, hurling him upward and away. I darted back into my body, propelling us into a strong step forward and a leap for our landing foe.
Neji slipped outside my punch, and Kurogiba's spiritual arm, slipping from about my shoulder, rapidly drew a portion of solidity to strike in my wake, hacking Neji's shoulder. I whirled, striking in a backhand chop that was blocked successfully, and Neji gripped my arm and prepared to strike. This time I slipped backwards, in spirit form, drawing enough substance from Kurogiba for him to make the captured hand phantasmal, and slip it free. He absorbed some substance back, blocking the strike and seizing Neji's wrist firmly, while Kurogiba's other hand clasped mine behind him.
Kurogiba's throw and my leap swung my near weightless form swiftly over him; in the arc I whirled into a dropping shin kick as my substance and Kurogiba's spirit coursed back into me, solidifying me in the instant before the kick crashed down upon the white fur of blocking arms. But Kurogiba's spirit in my semblance tumbled smoothly from me with the impact; nimbly he gathered himself on the ground before our foe, arm drawn back, before he rose and we made the exchange. Neji's arms were rising against my abruptly weightless leg when Kurogiba's whirling, uppercut-like slash went screwing from hip to shoulder, flicking black blood through the air.
I gravitated back into my flesh, and Kurogiba's spirit-form broke away, passing clear through Neji as the enraged young man lunged. I had been left as Kurogiba had been, facing away from our foe, but only turned my head, watching the oncoming attack as I lost enough substance for Neji to stumble through me.
His sightless black-and-white eyes snapped to the 'other' me as he turned, sniffing the air. Neji attacked in a flash, blurring past me – and fell through Kurogiba's spectral form as I solidified. He rolled to his feet, firing a blast of water my way, and I didn't bother to move, instead lending Kurogiba's spirit substance. Again we gravitated to a neutral, half-and-half balance after the attack passed ineffectually; then my solidity jumped, letting Neji now pounce through a chortling Kurogiba. He landed on all fours and slid to a halt, head swiveling between us as he twitched in fury and confusion, steam rolling from his fangs on a low growl.
The two of us smiled. "You're wondering which is the real one, right?" we said from either side of him, in flawless unison. "That's just it – you can't distinguish it because my "body" right now can be whichever one of us it needs to be. By entrusting my substance to my companion, I can transfer my body between two locations in an instant."
This was one challenge of the Kurotsumeken – the perfect and complete union of two minds, allowing the coordination to determine decisively at any given point in time which of our vessels should carry the burden of substance to protect it from harm, or the gift of substance to attack.
The part of my mind that was Kurogiba mused that sharing was good for something after all. A mental groan was offered in return.
Neji tore toward me, passed through, and whirled to strike blindly for me from behind. Kurogiba gave me all the substance, allowing his spirit to leap to me in a heartbeat – before his two hands sprang from my once more insubstantial back, latching onto Neji's arms as I slipped away and turned. Neither of us would have lasted long in a contest of brute force against my cousin the way he was now, but Kurogiba didn't need to hold him still for long: I lunged freely through Kurogiba's back, stealing substance as I passed, and smashed a knee into Neji's gut, followed by a whirling leap into a lateral kick from the other foot.
The second strike sent him sailing; he rolled to his feet and faced us as we tore forward, paths cutting wickedly side-to-side, crossing each other and trading solidity rapidly between us as we ran. Neji's ears angled this way and that, frantic; while he could perhaps hear us both, he could smell only the tangible one – whose position was changing none too scarcely, when even altogether in one place.
Here was another challenge, from the heart of Ookami style taijutsu itself – combining wildness and control, and fighting like a beast within the confines of human skin. But by practicing until our fighting styles matched, and joining in mind and mentality, Kurogiba had learned to fight to the utmost efficiency in the shape of a human while I'd learned to fight with the full ferocity of the beast blood in my veins. Thus we had learned from each other – synergized, redoubled our effectiveness, and created a combination surpassing the sum of its own parts.
Closing with twin snarls as we merged, I slashed sharply to the left. Neji actually managed to detect and block my strike, but not Kurogiba's simultaneously slashing to the right along the same path and, as our foe had chosen which strike to defend from, gaining form to gouge at Neji's ribs. I ducked back from one retaliatory slash, blocking another two in quick succession – and an ethereal arm of Kurogiba's sprang from my sternum, gained substance long enough to seize Neji's neck and yank him toward us, and faded back into me as I leveled a strong headbutt into Neji's skull.
Kurogiba was slipping out behind me from the moment he'd released Neji's neck, and I dropped an arm back for him to grasp in both hands; I heaved him laterally around as he solidified, two strikes of his feet sharply clipping across Neji's face. Not giving him the few instants he'd need to recover, I swept forward, took form, and stepped to strike with a hook punch. Kurogiba's returning spirit sprang from me and through Neji, faster than the reeling youth had been thrown; behind him he leapt into a wickedly tight spin, carving clawed toes in a curved slash across Neji's shoulder blades. Landing, he rammed in a low elbow strike to knock him toward me again; before I took substance Kurogiba nicked our shoulder with his claws, causing the minor cut to bite into my own still-spiritual form's shoulder as well.
I spun, and as I solidified was raising a foot, plunging a heel kick back into Neji's gut. I hopped curtly toward him, claws raised, and he might have gathered his wits in time to counter if not for the distraction of an arc of dark energy slamming down across the backs of his ankles. His bestial yell was cut short by my clawed hand batting with a solid crack down across his skull as I landed, before my other hand lashed up across the other side of his face to whip his head back again.
Then I jumped in place, turning, and both of my feet snapped forward to slam against his chest before he could fall. He was tossed back to Kurogiba, who jumped to heave a kick around at the level of Neji's head; as he staggered aside Kurogiba lent me solidity to sharpen the speed of his agile moves, and once before the toppling Neji again, hands rolling to the ground, drew substance to kick his feet back hard into Neji's jaw, throwing him into the air.
I blurred into his path, and Kurogiba joined me – and together, in a furious exchange, we flurried a storm of quick but savage kicks down into our airborne foe. Kurogiba flowed into being above me as I pushed off of Neji, turning in the air. With the substance divided evenly, I kicked off of the arms Kurogiba had crossed for me, and slammed a crushing palm down into our adversary's back.
Neji met ground with a crash beneath me, and I landed and hopped away. Kurogiba landed on his other side; the wolf gave my face a stern look.
"You thrash about randomly," we remarked, "like an overgrown pup who's never seen a proper hunt. But your strength, while undoubtedly formidable to the weak, isn't enough here. Swiftness, and coordination – these are the means by which we fell even the most immense of foes. Physical power does not remove one from the domain of 'prey,' Hyuuga Neji – nor does apparent weakness undermine a true hunter."
Neji groaned, pushing his bruised face from the earth.
I blinked as something registered softly on Kurogiba's hearing. Then bolts of black energy burst from the earth at our feet, ten split between the two of us – darkness in the shape of snakes, coiling swiftly about our ankles.
He knows such a skill? we observed, noticing the line of small holes bored into the earth where Neji's claws had been; his nails dripped black, seeming for a moment liquid before solidifying as he rose.
Either Kurogiba or I could have held my substance and then traded it over, letting us escape our snares one at a time, but we'd been caught off-balance; before we could do a thing Neji had leaped toward Kurogiba with overwhelming speed, spinning to fling a scythe of darkness back toward me before he swept into a wild kick.
The attacks would have landed at once, but their threat, at least, was unequal.
WHAM!
Stars were flashing over my sight, a bruise flaring across the cheek of my ethereal form even as a blast of darkness passed harmlessly through me. I toppled aside and to my knees, head throbbing with shared pain as Kurogiba was thrown twenty yards. As soon as half of our substance returned to me, blood was dripping from my lips. I hacked.
Neji's ears stirred. He could not have seen it clearly, but he must have smelled blood and gathered that he'd done something effective. He grinned maliciously.
I scowled with Kurogiba. "Look at him," we said, and the wolf's spirit faded to merge with me. We stood up together. "All the trouble we went through to slash him up, and he's nearly healed already…"
But that is the purpose of the curse's second state – to enable its wielder to fight to victory or death. Even if we can match him, outfight him, we won't outlast him. We need him to change back…
Then… to step it up a notch…
We took up our stance, lifting clawed hands to about shoulder height and shifting onto the balls of my feet, prepared to attack or defend. "I didn't want to do this… but I'm running out of options. So, as Hyuuga, as shinobi, and now as youkai, I shall defeat you here!"
He snarled in scorn. Creative, I noted dryly as Neji advanced to slash at us. His moves were dangerous, but with enough focus we could evade them, shifting and shunting the savage strikes aside. Kurogiba continued to fight as an overlay of me, a shadow variably matching, mirroring, or complementing my moves, and we landed a few boxing jabs and claw cuffs, each one pushing our foe's temper even further, and weathering his focus as they did.
Kurogiba's arms split from mine, knocking two strikes aside before I planted solid palm heel strikes on Neji's jaw and chest. Knocked back, he pounced to clear the newly created distance again – and I turned to dip and plunge with great suddenness into a sideways roll, passing beneath his leaping feet. I rose as he landed, and was prepared to ram a shoulder successfully into his gut the moment Neji had faced us. Even thrown by the blow, he wouldn't buckle so easily, and spat a water bullet our way. But we rolled swiftly forward, under the ranged attack, and rose driving the other shoulder square into his gut. He flicked darkness from his claws as he staggered, and we leapt this time, from our left foot – tail lashing as our body turned to the left and rotated into the air, passing laterally over the flashing scythe of power.
We'd spun swiftly, more than once, before we touched down just before our staggered foe – left hand slipping to the ground, followed closely by right hand and left foot, before our right foot touched lightly down upon the left.
Our teeth flashed as we glared up into Neji's eyes. Then…
"HYAH!"
We surged upward upon all the great strength coiled in our body, to drive our right foot with a crash clean into Neji's jaw.
"A-augh…!" he grunted, blood flecking skyward from his teeth as he began to sail upward and back, launched by the fierce kick. The focus of his black-and-white eyes faltered.
NOW!
My upraised right foot was allowed to fall as my left dropped back – and kicked against the earth. My arms crossed, claws nipping into my shoulders as I launched toward him, snapping into another rapid spin.
"Yomikiri…!"
My claws slipped free, beginning to stream burning, dark energy as they were poised: splayed right claws drawn strongly back, left ones half-outstretched in front of me with claws turned outward. I was before him, knees bent.
Chakra flared from a number of my tenketsu in a controlled manner, one short burst that kicked my quick rotations to at least triple in speed as I met his unguarded body in a storm of flashing obsidian claws, tracking his direction by scent and battering him with slashes made devilishly sharp by the energy of the Underworld Slicer.
I fell, meeting the ground for but a moment with light but firm hands and feet, and sprang myself into a spin and barrage with similar explosive intensity. One more landing – and, relentless, I flung myself once more, battering him with slashes from a third wild, chakra-expulsion propelled spin. Throughout each frenzied burst, Kurogiba had kept roughly a half-rotation off, shadowing my heavy strikes with his own; and as each of the three savage flurries of hits were connected in succession, the three parts of a name were barked, snarled out in two overlaid tones.
"Sou–Zen–Zan!"
Claw Spiral Cut!
The final slice, of my right hand crashing down and left, was dealt with enough blunt force to knock him away as I maneuvered adroitly to land upright on my feet, my stance low and arm extended from the strike as I spun smoothly out to a halt. Neji crashed down and slid far on his back; with a bounce, he staggered to his feet, yelling out madly as blood fell from his wounds.
We've got him off-balance – he's cornered!
He faltered, with a shaky snarl of warning, his fur bristled as could be; then, roaring in outrage, he tore toward us in heavy, powerful strides. Attacking on his last legs – this would be it.
"Come on!" I roared, reading his moves to meet him with a palm plowed into his cheek. He grunted, strong neck straining as his momentum was broken; my feet slid back an inch and were grounded again as my right palm drove in for his torso.
Kurogiba's chakra network and spiritual energy infused my right arm, and we dealt a solid blow, with a blast of screeching chakra, to Neji's middle.
His eyes were wide as he slid back on his feet, a spatter of darkness breaking from his lips. I leaped sharply, landing with my knee a solid shot to his face as my hands held the sign of the Wolf. I couldn't allow him the time to recover…
I ducked under a furious slash as I landed – and rammed a shoulder into contact with his side. He jerked, unsteady, and was staggering as my right hand was charged with heavy black power.
"Juuho!" I growled, lunging toward him with the strike of a palm shrouded in black. From the concentrated, roiling youki, streaming against air as it was thrust forward, emerged the dark and skeletal likeness or a roaring wolf's skull.
Neji rushed in, desperate, and diverted my wrist whilst lunging inside my guard. The blast was fired, sent lancing past him.
And Kurogiba, having left the spirit form of a right arm behind when he'd split off unnoticed in the form of a wraith, materialized behind Neji to catch the thrown attack. The youki missile met his left palm, its wild features smoothly inverting, reversed at the command of his matching energy to snap into shape upon his hand.
I lifted my drawn-back left hand, which had been channeling and collecting youki in the shadow of the right's distraction, to reveal the separate, lupine shroud of energy that had engulfed it. I thrust my arm forward. Kurogiba lunged, doing the same.
"Twin Jigokugaken!" we shouted, as our palms slammed directly into Neji's stomach and back. The piercing bolts of demonic energy, passing with the slightest offset, gravitated, spiraling violently about each other within him. Neji's mouth stretched open wide in a howl until the twin blasts of Hell's Fanged Fist burst in darkness, blowing away shattered earth at our feet and whipping back my hair with the sudden expulsion and scattering of black energy from his form.
Suspended droplets of dark light faded from the air around us. Stunned, Neji choked out a gargling wheeze. Kurogiba dematerialized behind him, flowing back into me, and we darted aside in a smoky, phantasmal blur as Neji's rigid form toppled.
Lee リー
"Sugoi," I wondered. "That the two of them could completely shut down the power of his curse's second state, without resorting to Hinata-san's own…"
Naruto chuckled. "Have a little more faith! Hinata-chan might be smaller or weaker than an enemy, but stuff like that won't stop her – especially not against this guy…"
"Is…" Hanabi's voice was tentative, uncertain. "Is it over?"
My brow furrowed. "Not quite yet… So long as Neji is still in that state, he might quickly heal any damage he receives."
That being said, the blow struck to him had clearly been a severe one. Neji tried to rise, to little avail. Their combined attack had shaken him, which spoke volumes for its power – and for the extent to which he had been injured, to be rendered immobile even in that monstrous state. But if he would simply recover…
"She's planned something," Naruto asserted confidently, sensing my doubt. He crossed his arms. "There's no way she wouldn't have thought of a means to fully counter his strongest form, knowing if the need arose, it would be at a critical point."
Hinata stepped up before Neji again, reaching down to grasp the neck of his shirt.
"It would be dangerous," she noted, "for me to leave myself exposed to such a powerful opponent in my regular state. But if you're weakened, and the time is minimized, I should be all right…"
She had lifted him up, though with their height difference and her knees bent the roofs of his feet still lay easily on the ground. He grimaced, twitching but unable to move as she drew back her left palm. A doppelganger-like form – Kurogiba, I supposed – slipped from her back, ghostly, insubstantial, and calm. Hinata's hair regained its normal bluish tone; markings faded from her skin.
"Nee-chan's chakra," Hanabi remarked. "The strange component it had mixed in before is gone – it's all in that spirit standing behind her. Right now, her chakra – it's purely chakra…"
So Kurogiba-san is holding all of their youki… separating off, and taking even Hinata-san's beast chakra with him? Then why is he not preparing to attack?
My eyebrows jumped as it fell into place. Of course… the chakra of Hyuuga Hinata…
Her palm shot forward.
A chakra that was like fire to demons, and that could by curious affinity sear out evil…
Neji's eyes grew, an instant before her hand met his chest with a thud and a burst of soft white light, knocking him into the air.
"Purifying Strike!"
His mouth hung open as he sailed backwards from her outstretched palm. Before our eyes he began to transform – limbs shifting and jerking, claws retracting, teeth whitening, fur vanishing. The air seemed to momentarily distort around him as his weakened aura trailed and faded. I blinked in amazement at the sight, and by the time Neji landed, flat on his back, his form was human.
Brilliant…!
The spirit behind Hinata gave a 'hmph.' "In part, the same move I've had to use on you before…"
Hinata nodded. "When I'd gone mad with the curse, you would bring me back…" Her gaze returned fully to Neji's groaning form. "I'm sorry for forcing a soul connection, but striking your body wouldn't have been enough. I needed to hit your spirit as well."
"Y-you were inside my head…?"
"I'm sorry," she repeated sincerely. "I didn't want to invade. But your mind is yours again, right? I'm glad… creating a Soul Link with you wouldn't have been possible if we weren't connected in some way – even if that way might be in love and hatred. What matters is that it worked."
"Why, you…!"
Hinata flashed her teeth in a wolfish grin as Kurogiba seemed to fade, and the signs of the youki release returned to her. "What will you do now, Neji-nii-san? That was your most powerful state, wasn't it?"
In answer he leapt sharply toward her, cursing as he struck his fist into her face.
Hinata blinked – unaffected. "The Fullmoon State healed you up pretty well, all the same, huh?" she noted, as he glared back with wide eyes. "But your chakra's too depleted for you to fight much longer."
He withdrew the fist shuddering against her cheek and swung another blow for her gut. His knuckles halted against her abdominals with a thud, but his force was not enough to make her flinch.
She'd winced, very slightly. "Still trying to fight me like an animal? But…"
"Hyaaagh!" With a furious yell he raised his foot and swung his leg in a violent kick, smashing the crook of his straightened ankle cleanly into the side of her neck. He panted as he held the position, eyes vehement on his immobile foe; Hinata's eyes were in shadow.
"Oi," she murmured, meeting his glower dangerously. "Didn't I tell you that if we fight this way I'll win?"
Her arm on the same side as his kick whacked out against the inner side of his shin, knocking the leg aside. His foot could not reach the ground before her own snapped up, in blurring-quick succession jabbing four hits harshly against his gut, his ribs, his gut, his jaw – before her other foot sprang as she turned, its kick arcing cleanly into his cheek to blast him off his feet. He whirled into the air and crashed down as she landed lightly, slipping into her same position as if she had never moved at all.
"I won't let you win, Neji. That's a promise."
He was spitting on the ground, still half-dazed. He shook, shutting his eyes and steadying himself. "U-unnatural creature," he snarled, breaths frantic through his stained lips. "To attain those powers… you've lowered yourself to the level of beasts!"
"I've done what I had to do," she said. "And right now, as we stand, I'm more than you can handle."
He recoiled, lip curling in a wary snarl of defiance. Then, suddenly, he leapt aside – grasping his fallen bow from the earth, rolling, and rising to one knee with a summoned arrow already at a full draw.
Hinata was calm under his furtive eye and steady aim.
"You think to kill me with that?" asked the girl – and, in unison, the double who suddenly stood an equal distance from Neji's back. He tensed, sweat dripping down his bruised face, but he did not turn to face the duplicate. The two continued. "You can sense our energy, but you can't tell which of us is solid, especially not if you can't see. And in the time it takes you to turn one hundred and eighty degrees, we can easily transfer our substance to the one you're not facing."
They circled, both twenty yards away from him; Neji tracked one with his aim, occasionally turning to switch to the other, nervousness radiating from his form and from his unblinking, sightless eyes.
"So, will you shoot? Take your pick!" they challenged, and an arrow whizzed freely through a phantom body.
He shot in earnest, summoning arrows and drawing with striking fluidity to whirl and shoot at one and then the other, to no effect. He lunged from the path of a bolt of flame, firing an arrow for the attacker, and whirled back in evasion as he shot at the other, who had thrown a vertical Yomikiri scythe. Trading arrows with flames and crescents of dark power, he danced from their ranged assault, ducking and rolling and leaping. Flipping through the air after firing one leaping shot, he was upside-down when, as a blast of flame nearly grazed his shin, he loosed a final arrow.
He landed in a crouch, facing neither of the two, one knee down, bow lowered in a neutral position. The two had dodged or nullified every shot of the eight that had been split between them.
"He is quite the archer…" I observed. "But against their technique there is not much one bow can do, no matter how superb."
Shoulders rising and falling with his labored breath, Neji swept his attention to one of the doubles, and then the other, his eyes moving instinctively. He clenched his teeth, head lowered. "Filthy beasts," he ground out, shaking, before he summoned another arrow.
But he grasped this one differently, his hand wrapping around it with thumb toward its fletching – and lifted it high before slamming its head into his left hand. His lips parted as his head jerked back, eyelids opening wide over a gaze that edged skyward. With a yell he yanked the arrow tip free again, scattering blood to the air and the ground before him.
"A blood sacrifice?" Hinata gasped.
"Impossible!" Hanabi cried beside me, eyes intent on the scene as Neji notched the dripping arrow. "How much power can he summon?!"
"What is this?" I asked as Neji chortled unevenly, shivering as he swept his eyes about. He began to lift the bow, to draw the arrow, as blood streamed down from his hand and along his arm. "A Hyuuga clan technique?"
"He can't know it!" Hanabi said. "Even if he did, even if it acknowledged him, the chakra required – he'll kill himself this way!"
"Acknowledged?" Naruto echoed, baffled.
No, I thought as Neji reached a full draw, feet spread, straightened left arm holding the bow above him, right hand drawn back on an arrow that pointed skyward. If it is a matter of chakra, then… with sheer willpower…
The air began to glow about him, concentrating on the poised arrow. Stepping back, Hinata hastily took up a defensive stance; Kurogiba followed suit.
Eyes mad with bloodlust, Neji parted viciously bared teeth. His voice was low and deliberate.
"Eight Trigrams Secret Technique…!"
The air around him thrashed, disturbed, and magnified his voice. He clenched the bow so hard his knuckles popped with a crunch, expelling a small spurt of blood from his wound. His shaking stopped; his stance was strong. He drew a deep breath.
Twenty-Nine, Part Two: Wings of Night
Hinata ヒナタ
"Hachiman!"
With his mighty bellow of invocation the arrow was launched, the projectile itself lost in its own bursting, streaming spirals of golden-white light as it sailed impossibly high. It pierced the grey clouds, casting their shapes and textures into stunning contrast; all the while, a bright ribbon of blood pursued the projectile, drawn steadily from Neji's pale, shuddering hand. Then, when the bolt was but a swelling dot of golden light in the sky above its master, it sharply sprouted eight straight, evenly spaced branches of light, casting its radial pattern far across the heavens.
"You're in RANGE!" Neji snarled harshly, the veins of his neck protruding as he dropped his bleeding hand toward me.
And a heavy pillar of light plunged from the heavens, in the blink of an eye striking with a boom into the earth where I stood. It landed with cataclysmic force, sending enormous chunks of earth sailing like so many pebbles from a dust cloud that was blown into existence, swirled, and scattered. Amid the flying dust I emerged, an arm shielding my eyes from debris as I sailed from a leap of evasion.
'We have to dodge them!' I thought, as I landed and took to racing on all fours. 'The strength of Hachiman might strike down even a spirit!'
While my path was more angled aside, Kurogiba, also on all fours, had lit straight toward Neji from behind. Flickering tatters of red still dripped rapidly upward from the young man's hand, in a thin strand stretching skyward, as he turned his head to glare murderously at the nearing spirit; ten yards from him, Kurogiba gathered himself to a halt, reversing his momentum with a sharp backwards leap as I flicked myself to the left in one of my strides, and two more bolts of light smashed down where we'd been.
Agile though we were, Kurogiba was left slightly off-balance from the haste of his evasion, and after another two rapid strides I took his solidity even while I flung to the right. With the speed of a ghost he backflipped and escaped the range of the blast falling toward him – and, barely missing the one that came simultaneously for me, I was blown aside, sent careening with my momentum and the sheer weight of destructive force that lanced, explosive, into the ground beside me.
Nearly deafened anew, I struck ground with a yell and rolled, flopping to a halt on my back. I noticed with a grimace the spot of light in the sky above me, and my eyes grew as it plunged, filling my sight.
Then I was insubstantial, and drawn into Kurogiba and our body – my eyes seeing with his the blast that hammered into the earth where I'd lain, as I seamlessly joined him halfway into the act of lunging safely from the blast that had targeted him.
Neji flung his hand back toward us, turning to glare as we charged, two as one, and we ducked narrowly, midstride, from the crashing path of the eighth and final dropping pillar of light to launch ourself towards him, blown forward by the explosion of the blast at our back.
Take all of the solidity from the right arm, alone, and transfer it to yours…!
Having discarded the bow, Neji's hands flashed together. We swung toward him a momentous Leaf Hurricane kick, and he shoved into a forward roll, passing narrowly under its path. We landed, sliding to a halt in a crouch whilst whirling to fluidly assume a particular stance.
Work in conjunction, by seeing – and striking – based on my knowledge and the shared sensory perception of my Byakugan, and we can do it! This time, he won't be able to recover!
Completing a string of seals, Neji reared back, cheeks swelling, and bent to spew a gush of water onto the ground, creating a pool that began to expand at his feet. We dashed toward him, began to whirl; whatever his plan, we wouldn't let him enact it.
"Eight Trigrams: Sixty-Four Palms–!"
Claws nicking his shoulders, he dropped a foot back, and kicked into a spin.
"Giant Torrential Rotation!" he yelled, and the first pair of jabs was barely deflected before we were fronted by a wall of chakra, battered by the cyclonic currents of rapidly spinning chakra, water, and flung blades of dark energy as we were carried back by the sharply expanding dome of power.
I screamed as we were thrashed by the cutting vortex. I could barely wonder why it seemed to burn so fiercely before the answer struck, a deduction from Kurogiba's knowledge: the nature of the Hi no Ookami's spirit was adversely impacting the body's tolerance to Suiton.
And almost immediately I was Hyuuga Hinata – solely Hinata, as Kurogiba decisively split his soul from mine. Getting a grip, I blinked as I went sailing backwards and flipped to land on my feet.
Nearby Kurogiba crashed down – still in my shape but ethereal, smoky and dark, trailing energy as he bounced and tumbled by before sprawling on his back.
"P-pup," he sputtered in pain, wide eyes focusing briefly on me, hand reaching out in concern, before he began to regain his shape and dispelled in a burst of black flames that faded to orange and vanished.
Ani-ue! I thought, teeth clenched – and I turned my head at the sound of a snarl to receive a blast of sound and energy dead-on. My arms, which had instinctively jumped before me in defense, were peppered with slashes torn in by the nearly invisible force. Back angled forward, arms spread, Neji prepared and loosed a stronger blast with a maddened yowl. I flung into a Kaiten, and its power was distorted around me, setting my feet slipping until the shield of chakra shattered and the ground was rent to pieces about me.
Planting my feet, I lurched into a roar of retaliation that hit squarely and blasted Neji back – and his thrown body broke into the form of water, splattering across the ground.
Kuso! I thought, and had only begun to turn my head before his weight crashed against my back – and his fangs seized hungrily upon my neck.
"Ack!"
The effect was frighteningly strong. A sensation of wellbeing pervaded my mind as he drank greedily, arms tense around me and hands grasping at my jaw, my shirt. My whimper faded into a groan, eyes snapping upward in the haze as he bit harder; his breath fell rapidly against my flushed skin. I barely felt the pain…
"O-off!" I snapped, elbowing him so hard under the ribs that he sputtered. Released, I jammed a heel against his shin and whirled to crack a backhand across his bewildered face, throwing him aside. Scowling, I rubbed my neck, pressing my thumb against a deep crescent of red.
"H-how?" he whimpered, rising to his hands and knees. "How could you resist it?!"
I quirked an eyebrow in disdain, ears low. "So you know that your Demon's Bite can induce a high? I was affected, but I have more demon blood than you do; you were more a victim to savoring my blood than I was to enjoying your Bite. You succumbed more completely. There's no way you would have kept sway over me for long."
He cringed. "Your blood's… s-stronger?" His bloody teeth were bared.
I shook my head. He was deathly pale, his left hand trembling from having lost too much blood too quickly in payment for the power of Hachiman; his too-rapid breath shook with a mixture of consummate fatigue and a franticness stimulated by the taste of another's blood.
"The power you managed to squeeze out was impressive," I said honestly, noting the eight impact craters that had been blown into the field, the strewn debris, and the jagged slabs and pillars of stone that protruded haphazardly from the earth around them. A circle of flattened, compressed earth was imprinted at a thirty meter radius of where he'd used the Giant Rotation. The field had suffered more damage in a few minutes than it had in the remaining majority of the fight. "Even nearly spent, you altered the terrain so dramatically… But these were testaments to your defiance in the throes of defeat, weren't they? Most shinobi would be lucky to just be unconscious, with their chakra as thoroughly exhausted as yours is now."
He growled, angrily baring his teeth, but the threat was empty as his dark, fatigued eyes. I let my youki settle, causing the prime han'you state to slip away; I was tired as well, and there was no need to look so intimidating now.
"It's why you tried to steal my blood, to recover your strength or boost your healing rate. But your condition is critical. With essentially no chakra to intensify to regenerate or help replenish your blood, and your mind and body too exhausted to start restoring your chakra, you won't regain any strength. So, please… surrender."
He stiffened; his scowl was one of loathing, and disgust. "N-never… never w-will I…!"
His mouth moved, twitched, but his words had caught short. He blinked.
His chest shuddered in a harsh spasm, and he pressed his hands to the ground, grimacing. "N-nani?" he croaked, a hand promptly jumping to seize at his stomach. His face was contorted in pain; he looked up suddenly, sightless eyes bloodshot and maddened against my bewildered gaze. "Wh-what is this?!" he wheezed, and let out a strangled, nameless sound as he writhed and curled, bringing a hand to his face, covering his mouth.
Another trick? No… it's…
"M…my blood," I breathed, shocked. For it to be affecting him this way… "Even if not pure, you drank a demon's blood. It was too powerful for you!"
"Y-your blood – is n-not! Stronger!" he yowled, a red froth of drool spilling from a corner of his mouth.
"That's not what I'm saying – but my blood is different! The amount you drank will destroy you if you don't tame it!" My heart was racing; my hand slipped into my tool pouch, pausing on a blank paper tag, a bottle of ink. No – given his condition, trying to seal any bit of the strength he had left would kill him. "Fight to control it! Just calm down, and you can suppress it! Neji? Are you listening?!"
He screeched in pain, clawing at his face – nearly slashing his own eye, without seeming to notice. The wounds he left steamed, mending; his Blood Seal glowed an angry color as energy crackled intermittently over his skin, searing him where it danced. Something – I had to do something. Knock him unconscious – would he fall unconscious? – but the rules of the duel would still require me to kill him. Could genjutsu sedate him? "Surrender, Neji! Dammit!"
"I…?" There was fear in his eyes – but in a flash it was gone, buried by rage as he shuddered and spewed blood on a low chuckle. "I – r-really hate you, H-Hinata, you know…?" he drawled, voice high as he seemed to begin to topple back and clawed deeply at his shoulders, his chest, in the process tearing away what little remained of his tattered shirt. Lurching, he slammed his hands down before him again, yelling in pain as his body shook, harder and harder.
"Give up!" I cried. "Just say you give up, and I can try to help you! What are you trying to prove, suffering like this?!"
His head snapped up – eyes wide and enraged, feral, but for one moment lucid. He grasped Orochimaru's mark with a grunt as his body twisted randomly, sharp, pushing the limits of its motion. His voice rumbled from his throat in a menacing growl.
"Never…
"NEVER will I fall to you!" he bellowed, as new energy rushed from his form in waves, flattening the grass. As he straightened his spine his grimace was wild, tugging down his mouth and seeming to bare nearly all of his teeth as dark light went splitting between the fingers at his neck. His throat shook out a husky growl. "Release…
"APOCALYPSE!"
The power that burst from him in all directions was enough to send my feet sliding back several meters; my hair whipped, my arms half-shielding my face as I glared without blinking, eyes wide. "Nejiiiii!" I shouted, barely hearing the yell over the chaos that churned and crackled in the air.
My cousin's snarling teeth were sharpening once more, his claws lengthening; his hair darkened to black, from roots to ends. His back hunched, his neck and throat tensing as if with something suppressed. Then, all hesitation eradicated, he threw back his head to unleash a long, wolflike howl, low but piercing, fired cleanly into the sky as spiraling darkness consumed him.
My Byakugan couldn't pierce the shell of energy to ascertain precisely what occurred within it, but one thing grew wonderfully, horrifyingly clear.
He wasn't dying.
He was transforming.
A cyclone of darkness, having stretched skyward from the site of this transformation, dwindled and sank to pool and heap its whorling, winding rings around its subject again. The energy shaped itself into a massive orb of night before snapping inward, contracting to a size that seemed scarcely able to contain a human, sparking and shuddering – and with a jolt, a foot-deep crater had sprung into being beneath and around it. And then, finally…
Two large, raven-feathered wings surged from the thick shell of dark light, dragging some clinging, mucousy energy with them. In the next moment the orb was dispelled, banished completely by the strong outward thrash of two wiry, muscled white arms and two thickly black-furred, powerful legs that were neither completely like those of a man nor those of a wolf. The wings flapped, filling with air to slow the short few feet he drifted to the earth; his head was down, long, jet black hair falling past two neat, slender lupine ears to hang half before him, half over his shoulders and upper back, and his arms were angled up and out behind him, hands with gangly fingers splayed to boast the long, deadly sharp and sturdy curved claws of a raptor.
His form sported a curious blend of attributes; his shoulders and upper back were coated in a pattern of greyish, feathery scales that dipped to partially blanket his chest, and as he straightened, I saw that the texture extended upward along the sides of his neck. A face framed with tapering stripes of black and the rest of his upper body were bare, unmarred bleach-white skin, while his lower body had the form and fur of a beast, black as the wings that stretched elegantly from his back. A thin, almost reptilian black tail swayed behind him, its wiry length curving lazily but audibly through the air.
Long, straight nose pointed almost skyward, he let a purred sigh slip between the sharp black teeth and prominent fangs of his open mouth before his furred ears twitched – his eyes, underscored by inky black, opened on dark sclera, and with another twitch blank and pure white irises rolled down to reveal themselves. He stood over six feet tall, his imperious frame slender but strongly built. But perhaps disconcertingly as any of this transformation was the particular chakra mixed in with the youki-like power he exuded in force.
O-Orochimaru's…?
I tensed as he chuckled from low in his chest, eyes shut in delight. He was powerful – that was simple to gather. His state of mind, his faculties for reason… the conditions of these were more difficult to gauge. I dared direct my wide eyes toward Naruto-kun and Lee-kun, and their equally shocked faces. Just how strong was the beast now facing me, that he laughed in the mirth of his own glory? If he turned out to be a berserker and attacked at random, would those two be able to protect the rest of the witnesses?
As his laughter petered out, I turned my attention back to Neji. His nostrils flared, and his sightless eyes fixed me with a lofty glare before he'd bothered to so much as turn his head. He breathed in, and faced me fully to blast a resounding shriek through the air, his eyes wide with excitement and foully intent. I fought not to buckle, holding my stance as my stomach shook and the screech hammered against my ears until they ached. A bead of sweat rolled down my face as he ticked up a corner of his mouth in a predatory sneer.
Inwardly I swore. He can… smell fear…!
His gaze shifted to his claws. His demonic, commanding voice seemed to shake my bones, sharper than razors whilst colder and heavier than steel. "Marvelous," he mused. "By evolving beyond that state, I even retain the power of speech…"
I gulped quietly. Talking – not a bad sign. Talking meant some extent of rational thought, intelligence. But the course or content of those thoughts were anyone's guess. "You have a form like this, then…"
"I'd never managed to trigger the change before," he remarked. "But I knew of it. Did you?"
A nod. "I wondered why, while the full manifestation of Heaven Curse Seals produced such diverse forms among individual users, the Cursed Mark of Blood's full moon transformation imparts on us all nearly identical changes and features. But the Blood Seal's complete manifestation isn't the fullmoon state at all. Rather, the existence of a certain reaction born of crossing a curse mark's twisted power and the enigmatic chakra of a tailed beast can potentially yield something even greater… or worse."
"That's right," he sang. "Curse Seal Level… Three."
His wings unfurled fully, angelic and black, rising with a mesmerizing flourish to either side of his tall and monstrous form; the transformed youth was a strangely dazzling sight, at once terrible and majestic. Then the earth buckled at his thickly clawed, padded feet, and I started in decided horror.
I can't fight that! I thought as his aura visibly raged. Not a chakra that huge–!
He charged with a yell, wings beating back against the hapless air. I realized I had drawn the bow from my back, and two charmed arrows, and drew just quickly enough to launch them at once, sending them into the ground before me.
The barrier sprang up, triggered just as he would have crossed them; I saw him in the instant he was jolted by the collision, just five yards before me, tongue lolling out, eyes wide and furious, and the force of his strong body, moving limbs, and a slicing set of claws denting the upraised screen of power – before the brightening barrier reversed his force, flinging him back but cleanly shattering itself under the immense strain of the feat.
I staggered from the backlash of the foiled barrier's explosion, nearly gawking in disbelief. My pulse was racing. S-such a strong light barrier… could barely even stand up?!
Neji had been burned, ignited on his contact with the wall. He landed on his feet; with a snort of contempt for an evidently trifling attack, he flared his suppressed aura, and the white flames clinging to his front were smothered, and swept aside. "A cute trick," he chuckled.
I formed the Sign of the Wolf, fighting through weariness to rouse my youki. My best chance is to–
THWAK!
"HUARGH–!"
I hadn't seen him coming before I found I was being lifted high from the earth, folded in two around the colossal uppercut lodged beneath my ribs. Eyes stretched wide as a shockwave of compacting force throbbed through my body, I retched hard and was only vaguely aware of the crimson that went streaking toward the grass below, and the burning in my throat and nose. My eyebrows had jumped inward, and any changes that had begun were fading as his fist fell away, and I dropped right back down and crashed flat to the earth, cleanly subdued.
"Hmm? You're so weak now, Hinata. I'd just decided I was fine with fighting you just the way you are, but perhaps I should have let you change…"
I wheezed fruitlessly through a gaping mouth, unable to blink with the shock and pain as I trembled, curled up on my knees and hugging my middle, forehead resting in the dirt.
He was laughing above me. "Come on, what's this? One hit and the mighty han'you Kurouga can't even move? You're just a little girl after all…"
"Ugh…" This is bad, I thought, shakily beginning to push my face from the ground. How much better would even Han'you Mode fare? I coughed, dislodging more blood from my throat as I got to my knees, one arm still folded around me. I tensed.
I turned my head toward him, looking up at his amused face and calm, predatory sneer as he towered haughtily over me. Is he… waiting for me to stand up? To come up with a plan? My teeth clenched bitterly at the steady throbbing in my gut. When I stood up, what would I do?
"I won't give you all day," he chided, and I yelped as something tightened about my ankle. The tip of one wing had extended slyly, narrowing, and snaked securely around it.
"Sh-shimatta!" I cried, lashing my claws toward the bind – and falling short as it pulled, sharply lifting me from the ground. He whirled to swing me over him in an arc, and slam me down. The ground rushed to meet me, crackling against my ribs, my face and my nose. I could barely register the crushing pain before he whipped me up and over him again, and with devastating speed the earth smashed now against my skull, shoulders, and back. My mouth jumped open, eyes squeezing sickly shut against the sight of fractured earth buckling upward around me.
"Come on!" he demanded, lifting me up high again and beginning to turn to his left. My ankle was released, but his left wing snagged my wrist, plucking me from the air. "Can't you fight back?! At least TRY to entertain me!" He spun more than once, and I yelled, arm straining as I was accelerated in the rapid loops before he halted, furled wing lashing straight to release me.
I went like a bullet through a distant pillar of stone before a second one met my back flat. My body bounced an inch away from the slab of stone that had been instantly starred with splayed cracks; behind me my fingers twitched at the end of sprawled arms, my spasming eyes frozen wide until I slumped against it again and slid to the ground with a groan. My shoulders were trembling without pause. Numerous patches of broken skin and pounded muscle on my back were gushing blood, gluing down my shirt. Blood ran from my hairline to my chin, dripping steadily. I gasped for air, helpless with shock.
My body… isn't strong enough…
'You think that, but you've yet to unleash the power at your disposal.'
Okaa-sama…?
'You know what to do. Come. Are you so averse to fusing your power with mine?'
I hunched on my hands and knees, biting back a growl at the waves of compulsion in her tone. Y-you stay out of this!
'Bloody fool!'
I looked up sharply – and rolled aside as Neji hurled down a hunk of stone so easily lifted in one hand. With a yell I leapt toward him, claws drawn back.
He blinked dispassionately at my bewildered eyes as my claws sparked against the grey, feathery scales on his chest, and were repelled, barely leaving a scratch.
Armor?
His hand smashed into my face and held firm, palm above my nose, long, splayed fingers stretching past my temples and forehead. A blinding punch was deep in my gut and gone before he shoved my cheek against his knee with a crack, blasting my vision white.
I blinked dizzily; sent sprawling onto my back, I resumed a struggle for rapid, shallow breaths.
'You doom yourself with hesitation. That one? He does not hesitate.'
Choking, I writhed onto my side, my front – spat out a thick mouthful of blood.
'Do what he's done… Give him the fight he bays for, and show him a blood Ookami's strength!'
I know you want me to kill him – I won't do that! I've seen the consequences! Lurching, I shut my eyes and coughed.
'It's the only way…'
I shook my head and looked back to Neji, panting for breath. He scrutinized me. "Do you fear for your life?" he rumbled. His eyes brightened with excitement. "Do you fear me?"
My brow began to wrinkle, and I quickly turned my face away, suppressing my fear.
There was a hellish roar of indignation, and an icy grip on my neck; so quickly, he'd closed the distance between us again. I cringed as he lifted me roughly, bringing my face to within an inescapable centimeter of his as his weakened eyes determinedly searched and scoured my features, barely focused. His lips were drawn back from his fangs, revealing two neat rows of sharp obsidian teeth that gnashed in the air as he spoke. "You think you can turn away from me, scum? Huh?!" he growled, as I kept determinedly silent, teeth tightly shut, and bore the intensity of his look with wincing eyes. With a yell he raised his free hand, ran his claws in a violent flash across my torso. I withheld a scream as he let me fall, but let slip a stifled cry as I landed and thrashed, pressing my hands against the searing flesh beneath my tattered shirt.
'Pup!'
I'm fine! I thought, trying to rise, to heal, to do something other than start sympathizing with the Gobi's voice in my head. I was half on my feet when Neji gripped my tail tightly in his hand. Its endangerment sparked the retaliation reflex, setting me lashing around on a spike of activated power.
In a quick, precise move, Neji ducked his head back – just beyond the fiercely whistling path of my backfist.
Kuso… I thought, strength evaporating as his grip held firm, and I toppled with suffocating weakness. A pained grimace twisted my jaw as he lifted me by the tail, letting me hang powerless for a moment before flinging me aside.
He'd tossed me at the tree in the middle of the field; I hit it shoulder-first, and he was there, grasping my wrists and pinning my back against the trunk.
"You can tell me if you're afraid," he coaxed, his smile a gloating one as he loomed over me and leaned down, putting us almost nose to nose. "I want you to fear me, Hinata – to hate me! Why don't you fight back anymore?"
I blinked slowly. Beneath his frenzied expression, there was his long face, the same subtle curve of his cheekbones. There were his smooth features, familiar beneath markings and the foul contortion of his fanged snarl; there were his silver-white eyes. "How am I to hate you?" I murmured, dazed. "No matter how much you change, a-all I can see is my Neji-nii-san's face…"
"What's wrong with you?" he hissed, threatening. "Are you too stupid to resent your tormentor?!"
The pass of his talon-like claws snipped open my shoulder, trailing pain and flinging a ribbon of scarlet from his nails. I stumbled aside, trying to get some distance as he released me, but he appeared at my side, and drove a knee into my midriff. I crossed my forearms before me and was sent staggering back, bones rattling from another fearsome blow. I looked up only for my eyes to catch a fading afterimage.
I whirled as he appeared at my back, and the sharp edge of a thrust wing impacted my face with a wicked sting, more gashing my cheek than slicing it, like a razor striking dead on with enough concussive force to hurl me well into the air. He launched himself with a jump in fluid conjunction with one flap of his wings before angling them to loop neatly backwards, and rising to strike me upward again with another blinding smack, spinning me. He flapped strongly once and whirled to chain a rapid barrage of cutting wings strikes as he rose – spinning, assailing me with the sharp edges of feathers like scores of fine blades – before he caught me in one wing's fold to half-hurl, half-bat me to the earth.
The world flashed as I struck down, and too much earth gave too quickly beneath me before the ground about me erupted in disarray. I coughed sickly on blood that mixed with dust inhaled from the air. M-my ribs!
'He's killing you, Koinu. You don't stand a chance!'
I grunted, eyes opening on the heavens as I lay stunned.
"I have become something greater than Hyuuga Neji," my cousin said, landing lightly right next to me, within my line of sight. "I was willing to sacrifice myself to a greater purpose, and this is the power I've obtained through my sins, wrought from the shrieking, howling depths of my soul. Look at me!" he boomed, one wing lengthening rapidly to draw back and snap in, lashing across my face and back again. "I am a transcendent being. Can you tell me you still see the Hyuuga Neji who was bound to a destiny of submission?!"
But even if you say that… No matter how you see yourself, you're the same Neji-nii-san… who looked at the stars with me when we were small…
No matter how much your mind and body might change… you're still you… Ah–
We've both changed, then, haven't we?
You can't even… pretend w-we haven't…
"Uhn…"
He held me with one hand by the ankle, so that I hung upside-down in the air – limp, eyes shut, blood dripping from my gaping mouth.
'You fail because you hesitate, Hyuuga Hinata. If nothing else, his is a being that has forgone all hesitation. But you are both pitiful.'
"Can you feel my hatred?" came his voice, above me. "I want you to feel it all. I want you to learn it with your body… until you comprehend the weight of my fury, and understand that I am greater than you. I'll have you learn it until you cry and beg me to stop, and I'll teach you even MORE!"
He tossed me like I weighed nothing to him. I wound up on my back.
"But why…" I said, as he stalked toward me again. "Your hatred… why would you want me to reciprocate it?"
"Why, indeed?" he snorted, stepping on my shin and testing it, shifting his weight between his feet. "Were you not listening?"
My lips parted. "For… comprehension?"
He grinned like a vengeful spirit, a prince of fiends. His foot rose, and fell like a piston.
KA-SNAP!
I screamed through locked teeth. Blood was rushing to my skull. H-his strength – enough to snap it in the middle?! I latched my fangs onto my own hand, mindless in pain. I couldn't let him hear me scream.
"Hate me, like I hate you, and it won't be difficult to imagine doing things like this to me. When you seek to relish in another human's suffering – when you accept that in your own heart that the world's 'cruelty' is your 'justice,' even imposed upon one you would claim to love – will you have any right to call me depraved?"
His foot left my shin, thick sole settling now on my other knee. N-no!
CRUNCH!
My howl was muffled by my hand. I bit it, hard, before pulling my hand free to gasp for air. I can't walk… I can't walk…
Shimmering sight began to cloud over. I might have stopped blinking. My pulse was a nearly solid string of feverish beats, my breath racing, mind racing, overloaded with stimuli as he ground his foot down into the ruined joint. My mouth stretched wide, sight straining upward as I shuddered, shuddered, in the throbbing, twisting pain…
Pleasant warmth, amid the cold air and the icy fire of broken bones. I swallowed in reflex, and my eyes focused on a hand that seemed so high above my prone form, a clawed hand that had pierced itself. A drop of black blood fell from the pad of his thumb, falling warmly between my parted lips. I blinked, meeting Neji's cool gaze as slipping consciousness returned and ingrained itself firmly.
"No falling asleep," he chided bluntly. "I'm not ready to kill you just yet."
And he steadied a foot upon my hipbone. My face went cold as I felt the pressure lift away.
I saw stars; I heard a roar of destruction, and suspected tearing earth or billowing flames until the surreal realization that such a primal sound was tearing from my throat and chest in the shadow of my scream. His force hadn't merely broken; it had crushed. I screamed until I was out of breath, and gasped to scream unevenly again.
"What a nice sound," he sighed in gratification, openly fascinated – almost pleased. I lay sprawled, chest heaving, eyes unable to remain focused, but the taste of blood had produced his desired effect: I didn't start to black out again.
Moments passed in a haze as he lifted me, set me on my feet to watch me topple, broken. Blind with pain, I gave a wordless cry of protest. The injuries would only twist or jar under my weight. I couldn't stand. I couldn't fight.
'You NEED me…'
I grunted, blinking as my head clouded and cleared. My arms…
"Whatever your limit is, we'll find it. I intend to have you curse me with your final breaths, Hinata. This wish will not be denied…!"
Though he probably could have done it at will, he chose to draw it out, prolonging my torment to the greatest effect. So I was on my spread knees as he stood behind me, pulling outward on my straight arms and against the one heavy foot he pressed between my shoulder blades, high against my forward-angled back.
"D-does it hurt…? Hinata?!" he laughed, madly. I grunted as he reaffirmed his grip.
Of course it hurts…! I thought, gasping through parting teeth. It's a nightmare… but this time, there's no waking up…
I cracked a smile in spite of myself, feebly, even though my eyes were wide and pained. "Are you punishing me, Brother? Have you taken up that hellish guise to humble me, for thinking that I could stand up to the centuries' countless generations' worth of hatred you bear?" I yelped as he pulled harder, threatening to tear me apart right there. He scoffed.
"I was able to defeat you – to reduce you to this pitiful state, without even trying. 'Apocalypse' – this is the great gift Lord Orochimaru has given me, a power I've filthied my own hands to attain. It is the power to lend our hatred, our outrage, physical form. It is our retribution for the legacy of sins that you inherit, manifest!"
"Aah!" I cried as he strengthened the torturous hold. I felt my shoulders could tear at any moment now.
You said you failed him, Father… we both failed our brothers, then, didn't we? Should I have recognized an act of mercy to be done, in destroying a loved one fallen beyond salvation? A person whose existence is a betrayal to his former self? I was blind; I forfeited my opportunities to carry out even that small, cruel kindness. But still…
Looking skyward, I gasped.
That's right… Whatever my intentions, it's true that I'm a Hyuuga of the Main House. If I kill him, a beloved leader of the Branch… I will be seen as that alone in the grand scheme of things, and our clan will be sundered beyond all hope of repair. Not in my lifetime… not for many lifetimes would there arise another chance for harmony to be sought.
I bit back a whimper as he tugged slightly harder, intent on torturing me into submission. S-so I said I would be the special one… the one to settle this, my own way. Said I would never give in to being the Main House Hyuuga who quashes all opposition with an iron fist. And here my stubbornness has brought me all the same…!
"Hate me."
'Hate me,' he says. Seeking comprehension, and justification…
But could some small part of you… seek the freedom of your own destruction?
I dropped my head. "No…"
The groaning of muscle and sinew under high tension creaked into the air, causing me to cringe, hard.
A small voice cried my name. Dully I met Hanabi's horrified eyes among the others', her freely shed tears, and offered an apologetic look. Then I lost focus, yelling out as my arms were forced further. I howled aloud, seizing breath only for it to twist free and escape in croaking cries.
Not even the flesh and bones of a demon can withstand this abuse…
Creaking, cracking, beginning to tear…
I-I guess this is it…!
I'm–sorry!
CRAK–!
Snow.
Why… How was I lying in snow?
My ears twitched in the softly howling wind that swept heavy flurries, scampering, by.
"You… are an extraordinary fool, Hinata."
I groaned, sitting up, my weight on my hands pressing prints into the powder dust blanketing this world. I paused. "My body…?"
"Your arms were just broken, in reality. You're in the middle of screaming quite pathetically, and he's prepared to tear them off. Whether you could regenerate even one limb from scratch, even at full strength, is anyone's guess. I don't believe either of us would be keen on having need to find out what you could manage just now, assuming that swine would give you the time…"
I looked up with half-shut eyes at the menacing visage of the beast towering above me. The Gobi's chilled blue eyes were intense and scornful, her snout wrinkled with fury. The enormous wolf stood tall, the long, striped white fur that shrouded her form dancing freely in the gusts of the storm, flickering wispily against the dark sky at her back even as the sheer mass of her body remained sturdy and unswayed. Her head, still high, cocked slightly aside, shaking a bit with agitation, hot breath steaming from the darkness of her fangs on the chaste, beginning warnings of a growl as she continued to glower down at me. The upper half of her face was cast with slight shadow.
My face was glum, dispassionate. "A fool I am. I'm sorry to have frustrated you to this extent…"
The widening of her eyes was the only warning before her skull lurched forward and down in a rushing flash of speed, halting inches before me to blast a long and tremendous roar in my face. I remained on my knees, hands folded in my lap as my whipping hair stretched back behind me, and I gazed into the great wolf's massive, fang-lined maw, at her rolling wet tongue, as saliva went streaming by on her booming, crackling breath.
The demon's fangs shut with a snap, more than near enough for me to feel distinctly the quail of the air at their force. She snarled above me, meeting my eyes as closely as she could without touching me with her black nose. I blinked.
"…I've just experienced, with vivid clarity, the shattering of a shin, a knee, and a hip. My ribs are in bad shape, most of my internal organs are probably ruptured, and my arms are about to be removed… messily. Forgive me if I'm not quite in a state of mind to react to the intimidation of your projection into a dream."
"WHY did you let it come to that?!" she demanded.
"I can't help it, but that's the kind of fool I am," I said, bowing my head.
"This stubbornness will be the death of you," she hissed, hackles still raised. "Filthy, hapless child – I took you in as my own pup, and this is how you speak to me?!"
I met her gaze again. "We both know why I'm here, Okaa-sama. On with it. Go ahead and try to convince me some more."
The line of her mouth twitched – and with some effort, smoothed. Her stern look remained fiercely disapproving, even if she had calmed. "I will give you the power – to kill him. Our guidance managed to salvage you, to groom you into an acceptable form, but he is an abomination who turns his face from the moon. He must be purged. This is your task." She regarded me coolly. "You are the more experienced beast; you must outmaneuver him, and slit his throat at your first opportunity."
"No, I'm not doing that," I deadpanned, earning a spark of bafflement from her eyes. I sat as straight as I could. "I will fight with your power, because it is the only choice I have now, but I will not strike him down. Not until I've… seen to something, myself."
"What is this, suddenly?" she growled, suspicious – disbelieving, as realization crept into her piercing eyes. "At such a time, you seek to appeal…?"
My eyes were carefully blank. "At such a time as you've been desperate enough to call me here, will you turn me down?"
Her mighty jaws fell open, parting her teeth to the slightest degree. Her eyes grew, and the immense being's snout fell in one moment three yards back, from the few inches' distance she'd maintained.
I held her eyes, dangerously cold. "My will stays my own. Try to sway me or seduce me, and I will reject the power along with your mind… your mind, which you're now finding is unable to supplant my own." I gave the barest hint of a smirk at her scowl, and felt her shock in the moment before her attempts broke short. "I can tell," I provided, "and I can lock you out. My will stays my own," I reiterated, firm. "The fact that we're still having this discussion is a testament to as much."
"Oh?" she said, nose wrinkling as she sneered and leveled her eyes with mine, scrutinous. "So what I thought to be sheer hesitation was something more, but you so calculatedly showed me only what I expected to see, even when I was within your mind… even while you were being mashed to a pulp. You needed to make a deal, and to ensure it would be heard seriously… What a frightening, devious little creature you are."
"I'm your own pup, aren't I?"
She barked a laugh. "Enough cheek, Koinu," she intoned, drawing out the word. "You've stated your terms. But I… I gave you that confidence. I know it well – that a beast knows not how to be timid, doubtful, or meek. A proper beast knows no fear, knows only to survive, and refuses to be tamed. This is the very heart of the boldness with which you now seek to defy me…"
I frowned, and she laughed again.
"Where would you be now, without me?" she challenged. "Without that mark's paltry simulacrum of my strength, without the summoning contract I allowed you to sign, without my blackest blood pumping strong through your veins… with your sickly, fragile human body, would a creature so unsightly and gentle have ever survived this long? No. You would have perished at latest in the land called Wave, if by some miracle you lived to reach it at all."
I lowered my head for a moment. "Earning a place among beasts might have helped me learn to be strong… but I must disagree if you would claim that I owe everything to you, Houkou-sama. A beast will never be all that I am."
"Are you so sure? You would like to think you do not need me. But see how you cling to the vice of drink, to crippling extents, in times of anxiety and weakness, to blunt and erase the lingering sorrows and fears of a human… You're no good at dealing with things on your own, truly. You depend on me to free you from your inborn limitations… Hm?" she growled, as I shook my head.
"No. It's true that I'm small, and quiet, and soft. I'm just a kid. My strong body might be so robust thanks to you; even my nindo is owed to another."
She waited, watching as I took up a grin. I lifted my eyes again, certain of my words.
"But I was born Hyuuga Hinata, daughter of Hyuuga Hiashi and Hyuuga Hikari, as a human with a strong heart and pure spirit. My birth says that I was a human; my flaws are a sign that I am human; my pain keeps me human. That much is all my own, and will never change!"
She studied my smile, ears twitching as she did. In a moment she seemed to regard me anew. "So your sense of identity is firm after all…"
"It is!"
"That may be so…" she sighed. "You want the power, and nothing else. You seek to use it to your own naïve, idealist ends. But do you really believe a mortal, a mere human, has the power to bend demonic energy to her will? It's not only by swaying you that I might indeed have my way. You think this black, primal force, inherently corrupt, can be wielded for 'good'?"
"Kurogiba is a demon, and he is not evil."
"Any true demon, given sufficient faculties for reason, can make his decisions freely… but you are a different matter entirely, as you've just gone to great lengths to profess. Nothing will be obtained for free, Hinata – nothing. Why else would you suppose that every human to ever bear the burden of demonic power with his own flesh has driven himself to an end in darkness, isolation, and pain? Your human brother is far gone down that path…"
"I'll save him from it. I'll get him, without fail."
"Hmm?" she purred, lying down but keeping her head high as she fixed me with a decidedly curious glare. She gave a wolfish grin. "I said that nothing can be obtained for free. Do you perhaps plan to save his soul by sacrificing your own?" Her powerful voice was sultry, sleek, and her cool blue eyes aglow with dark fascination. "To save him from the darkness… will you yourself embrace it…?"
"Yes… because I'll be able to escape it again."
"Hahahaa…" The laugh was low; she settled her head on crossed paws, eyes narrowed as black teeth flickered in her long, content grin. "We shall see, then, Koinu," she said, contented. She turned her head so that she could place one colossal, bright eye within a yard of my face. I could see every detail, every visceral band of the iris's multifaceted blue, as her pupil sharply dilated, paused, and shrank down again, suddenly steady. Her fangs gleamed with her words. "And of your own accord, you may yet become the claw that rends the flesh of my enemies, the fang that tears at their throats…"
"Don't have too much faith in me," I said, smiling amicably as her eye flashed with intent.
Like Neji-nii-san…
…Beneath that smooth, sly exterior… is this a creature that lusts for chaos?
The being before me stretched a single, great claw forward.
"Be grateful, my darling Koinu. For it is with a mother's most irrevocable love for her pup, and a healthy appreciation for the precision of her willful deviousness and deception… that I do not leave you to further suffer until you die, out of spite for your defiance."
She tapped my heart, and pierced it.
I was still in the midst of a scream – a raw howl, at the pain of tearing muscle and freshly cracked bones.
The hands on my arms were tightening, preparing to wrench, when a dark power rose to my skin and flung itself thinly outwards, in an expanding sphere of force, to blast Neji away in one clean pulse.
I'd heard him yell in surprise at the surge of power, but didn't waste any time to glance his way or see how swiftly he was recovering. Weary and wild-eyed, more than a bit dazed, I flung a half-healed leg forward, shoving from a foot that nearly twisted from under me and shambling forward at a stagger. My arms hung limp, their weight seeming to produce sickening pain at each lilting step. Back hunched, I ignored the pain with a snarl, shoving on to gain some distance before turning back. A foot slipped over the grass, and clumsily planted; moving had ruined some of the minor progress of my mending bones. My hands shook; my legs tensed, quivering to support me.
Neji, righting himself, was rising into a crouch on all fours, his long tail idly swaying as he studied me. He frowned in confusion. "You're…?"
My face was cold as I wheezed for air.
Blood was pooling heavily on my shirt, spreading out from above my heart.
You know, Okaa-sama… I have nightmares when I sleep.
'You don't say…?'
Neji watched, uncertain, as blood burst from my mouth. One eye shut, I sputtered and held his cold gaze, deathly determined.
I'm afraid of the Darkness, what it can do to people… and the pain it can bring about. But…
I shivered steadily, gasping. Dark clouds grumbled overhead.
But I've got my weapons against the fear, all sharpened up by faith. Determination, resolve, and courage. I-I've…
With a stifled whimper I gritted my teeth, eyes shutting tight.
…I've got my ninja way.
"What do you plan to do?" Neji hissed.
I smiled meekly, an air of acceptance about me as I spoke, breathless. "I'll walk into Hell right alongside you."
Just one more try. Here at the end of it all, I had enough left in me for one last try; if it failed, I would kill him myself.
And this wretch would die, by a hand that could not have saved him.
That was the price now, and a price I would accept. For I had seen two futures that must not come to pass, and I had sworn to make this the final day, the final fight, in which Hyuuga spilled their own blood.
So if I failed and we truly could not both live… I would see to it here, that he and I both…
No. Focus.
First I had one more effort to give, so I would give it everything I had.
I grunted and lifted my head, gaze flung skyward and eyes intent. Even through the clouded sky I could sense what I sought, plainly as I felt the sacrificial blood run dangerously from my heart. My lips parted in supplication – a prayer for the compromising of my soul.
"Moonlight, claim me."
In my line of sight the clouds were parted – a circular gap bursting wispily through, lit brightly along the edges, to just barely reveal a moon surrounded by startlingly dark sky.
I saw ghostly white light intensifying rapidly before a beam of it met me. The called blast had come lancing from the heavens in the blink of an eye, and on contact my senses were assailed with blinding pain as it swatted me cleanly off my feet. I was sent tumbling, thrown like a ragdoll, somehow rising and sliding on my feet even as white-hot power consumed me. My teeth were parted in shock at the sheer strength of it as my body temperature soared, and lingering white flames clung to me, phantasmal and dancing upon their offered vessel, having been ignited upon and throughout my flesh and soul. The pain in my heart was immense. But even more than that…
A-already, this power – it's maddening! But I knew that if I tried to curb or inhibit it, in any way, it wouldn't trigger at all. S-so heavy… Th-this is what it f-feels like, to hold it on my own?!
'You're doing fine,' the Gobi said, communicating and nothing more. 'It was unwise of the boy to feed you his blood; you should have all the fuel that igniting the transformation will require. Now, just let the infusion consume you…'
Another shockwave burst from my form, flinging lines and shreds of blinding black and white energy in all directions. My teeth snapped shut, breath catching as my body jerked.
'Accept my youki directly into your body!'
I staggered, fell, and caught myself in a convulsive movement as the sharpening pressure in my heart vanished – the fatal wound healed, my heart restored, at the cost of scattering its agony throughout the remainder of my body.
My elbow snapped the wrong way.
Neck searing violently, I screamed as the other elbow followed with a bang, and then the first arm's wrist; spreading thumb and fingers ensued, joint by spasming joint. Splintering powers of destruction and creation tore through every fibre of my being to wreak their transformation upon me, ravaging and restructuring my body, the vessel I offered, to their liking.
My fingers lengthened, claws thickening. The changes swept through, breaking me with their jolting, jarring force, reshaping me, strengthening every component, and healing again. White fur sprang to coat one side of my burning body, and the outbreak crept to continue to spread. A shoulder crunched into its socket, set, even as my collarbone cracked. My hands met the earth. I was bleeding heavily, causeless wounds splitting my flesh seemingly at random. I brought a large hand to my face, tearing at my hair, as I found Neji's shocked expression with one steaming eye, and drilled him with a fervent glare.
"I'm bringing you into the Light," I said, my voice warped by power, twisted and resounding and monstrous as a line of pain broke across my face. "You hear me, Brother? Even if I must dive into Darkness and drag you back WITH me–!"
My jaw cracked, and I felt in helpless amazement as it began to jut and protrude forward behind my hand, along with my broadening nose. My body was molten with ease by the vile youki flooding my system, youki that worked me over more easily than crafting clay. There was no looking back now. Power thickened in the air around me, tearing at and disintegrating the earth; the roiling energies held me together as my bones broke themselves apart. My head fell, back hunching. Clawed hands spasming on the ground before my face, I watched unblinking as the black stripes patterning my lengthening fur expanded and grew wilder still, until they overtook me.
Then I shuddered and threw my head back, scream solidifying into a brutish roar as writhing limbs swelled with hard muscle that stretched and expanded upon shifting bones, bursting sleeves and pants legs just before my body tore through what remained with a jolt. A stabbing sensation pierced my hip, and faded.
Awaken–, my mind howled, BEHEMOTH!
The bones that had broken themselves apart snapped as surely back into place, tissue to sinew to ligament and bone, mending and healing as the agonizing change was completed. Then power shattered through the air around me, and settled to cling lightly to my solid form.
I blinked slowly – my being strong and sharp and so strikingly, vividly, excessively alive – and with a twitch of my ears lowered my head with a soft growl whose tones shook on the air. And I saw, flying rapidly toward me at the level of the ground, a snarling fiend who spread talon-like claws to strike.
I rocked to gather my weight to full height, set my feet, and slammed my foe's face with a claw levered around powerfully enough to shoot him backwards.
My jaws opened to unleash a great and guttural cry of war.
In deepest darkness, in horror… whatever it took. I would fight to the gates of Hell, and beyond.
A battle of demons had commenced.
ナルト / リー / ヒナタ \ ハナビ \ ネジ
End Chapter Twenty-Nine
Naruto: Your Neji has evolved into Mega Neji!
(-static-)
GA-REI ZERO: Will you kill someone you love, because of love?
(-static-)
Neji: You know what fills me with holiday cheer?
Hinata: ...
Neji: Transforming into a demonbeast and roflstomping!
Hanabi: That doesn't even remotely... oh, forget it.
(-static-)
Lee: Now it really is a DragonBall Z battle...
Hiryuu: No; neither of their transformations required fifteen minutes of powerup yelling.
Lee: True...
(static-)
Naruto: They're fighting this way, stripped of all pretenses, to determine once and for all who is stronger. Test the fortitude of your ideals, with the power of a strong body and nothing else... Is this really okay?
Lee: The fateful duel for the Hyuuga Clan draws to a close. In the wake of the events that transpire, old and new faces approach the scene. What intentions lie on the agendas of the forces that have been lying in wait for this moment?
Hanabi: The decisive moment is upon us. Be ready for Chapter Thirty: At the Gates of Hell.
Woohoo, festive Christmas demon battle- yeah, no XD If I were actually religious, I might have considered this too 'evil' to post this on Christmas. Apocalypse form certainly looks hellish; my oldest sister took one glance at my drawing a while back and refused to look at it again, lol.
You can probably guess what those two chapter-relevant drawings are now :P The description of Behemoth form is early next chapter, but you might have guessed the general idea of it. Either way, both digitally colored drawings should be on my dA around the 27th.
End Chapter songs: Waltz with Vampires by Fired Earth Music, for Hinata's chat with Gobi. I guess Earth Rising would actually follow then. And remember how Neji's character song was A Demon's Fate by Within Temptation?
Jutsu, Techniques, Powers:
Youkai Hou: Soul Link: Cooperative demon Art allowing a demon and another individual (such as a summoner), multiple demons, or even a half-demon and another individual to join minds. Difficulty in mastering results from the complete trust needed to open one's mind and leave it completely vulnerable to another. A powerful enough mind can 'force' a one-way Soul Link with a weaker one, but in doing so will cause pain to the victim.
Element Cannon: high-level curse ability to concentrate chakra into an energized, spherical projectile of the element of the cursed one's affinity.
Firebreather: a demon art, presumably also possible for a fire user at a high level of the curse as well. Essentially, permits simple fire breathing without handseals.
Kawarimi no Jutsu: Substitution Technique
Ookami Style Taijutsu
Kurotsumeken (黒爪拳): Black Claw Fist; derived from Soul Link and Ookami Style taijutsu. Notable for adding the transfer of attributes. A member of the combination in spirit form, while unable to attack physically, can use priorly spilt blood for Yomikiri and other blood powers.
Snake Hand Dark Binding: a unique curse power that funnels energy from claws into the ground, forming "snakes" that can bind the opponent's feet.
Yomikiri Souzenzan (黄泉切爪旋斬): Underworld Slicing Claw Spiral Cut/Underworld Slicing Claw Spiraling Murder; derived from Yomikiri/Underworld Slice, and potentially twice as powerful in conjunction with Kurotsumeken than when used alone. (The initiating strike of this technique, the kick into the air, was the last move Hinata used against Ikemi in her street fight in sand in ch17)
Juuho Soujigokugaken (柔歩双地獄牙拳): Gentle Step Twin Hell's Fanged Fist; derived from Jigokugaken (derived from Youki Release) in combination with Kurotsumeken's transfer capabilities to enable either a twin thrust from seemingly one person's two palms or an attack from both sides. Fires two spectral wolf skulls of concentrated demonic power.
Purifying Strike: Derived from Soul Link and Juuken, to strike the mind and body simultaneously
Hakke Hiden: Hachiman (八卦秘伝・八幡): Eight Trigrams Secret Technique: Hachiman; Eight Trigrams Secret Technique: God of the Eight Banners. (Hachiman being the god of archery, war/warriors, and agriculture, whose symbol is the dove).
True Sixty-Four Palms: Derived from Kurotsumeken and Sixty-Four Palms; Hinata, in conjunction with Kurogiba, can deliver an effective equivalent of the traditional 64 Palms.
Giant Torrential Rotation: Derived from Rotation and a Suiton, which is probably needed to provide a water source unless the user is fortunate enough to be fighting on top of a lake.
Youkai no Kamitsuki (妖怪の噛付): Curse/demon power allowing one to draw strength and vitality from another's blood ("the essence of life and death"), eliciting a daze meant to subdue the victim.
Apocalypse: Derived from Cursed Seal of Blood. Using Orochimaru's chakra, creates a form that 'rebels' against the wolf influence. It is not clear whether this should be considered a Curse Seal Level 3 or an unusually powerful Curse Seal Level 2, following the intermediate fullmoon state.
Behemoth: Derived from Cursed Seal of Blood. Uses the Gobi's youki, creating a form that 'rebels' against Orochimaru's influence on the mark and embraces the form of a beast. It is not clear whether this should be considered a Curse Seal Level 3 or an unusually powerful Curse Seal Level 2, following the intermediate fullmoon state.
As always, how was the chapter? The Kurotsumeken concept? I feel like that part dragged a bit, honestly. The Jigokugaken, as an opposite to the Tengaken? The great ranged technique Hachiman? Kurogiba is dispelled, and Neji captures Hinata in a Demon's Bite, which she breaks easily. However, her blood proves too powerful for Neji, but he refuses to give in and triggers the Apocalypse transformation. Thoughts on his form, and its new powers? He's able to overwhelm Hinata effortlessly, but she continues to resist the Gobi's power until Gobi pulls her into a dream; with her refusal to be controlled, Hinata reveals as well her trickery and true intention. How was their interaction, and the Gobi's characterization? The Gobi, apparently appreciating the insane ploy and gamble, finally accepts Hinata's demands and helps her trigger her own ultimate state. How about her transformation, or the line of thought throughout?
What are your thoughts? Please review!
-Hinata0321
