"Not chakra?!" Suigetsu shouted, flabbergasted at Karin's insinuation. "Well if it's not chakra, then what the fuck is it?!"
"I don't know!" Karin screamed. "I've never sensed anything like this… I suppose I'd be able to figure it out if we got closer and I had more time to analyze it, but…"
"Then that's what we're doing." Sasuke said. "We'll slowly move through the passage in front of us to give Karin time and proximity to this mysterious energy so she can study it, while also making it seem like we're approaching it in earnest… just in case the source of this energy is intelligent. Butsuma, set the couch down at the opposite corner of the room; it was blocking the passage too."
At the order, Butsuma walked across the diagonal of the room to the opposite corner, spun the couch 180 degrees clockwise in midair, and then gently placed the couch back on the floor.
Sasuke and Suigetsu entered the secret hallway first, with Karin close behind them, and Butsuma in the rear. The tunnel stretched on for quite a ways, longer than Taka first expected when they discovered it, but they didn't mind since it worked to their advantage; Karin would have more time to study the strange energy she sensed. Thankfully, the source of the energy did not seem to notice them as it remained stationary, which gave Karin some security despite her dread. This allowed her to analyze the energy fairly quickly:
"I found something! … This energy might not be chakra, but on closer inspection its composition is actually quite similar…" Karin said, breaking the pattern of footstep sounds.
"How do you figure that?" Sasuke asked as he slowed his pace, still moving towards the energy but giving Karin time to explain.
"Well, chakra is the combination of physical and spiritual energy, the two ingredients necessary for an organism to live. And it can be enhanced with the natural energy that composes the world, becoming Sage chakra with three ingredients, right?"
Suigetsu shrugged. "Yeah. So what?"
"This energy also has three components." Karin continued, raising everyone else's eyebrows. "One of them I can identify. The other two I can't…"
"What's the one you can?" Sasuke asked.
"That would be physical energy. Whatever the source is, it definitely has a body that can interact with us through the basic five senses. Whether it's intelligent or not... I don't know."
"Because it lacks any spiritual energy that is usually the source of one's mind, but has two unknown energies that might be able to substitute for it…" Butsuma inferred.
"Pretty much. And out of those two energies, one of them is completely alien to me… The other, while I can't tell exactly what it is, I can tell that it's… evil."
Suigetsu raised an eyebrow. "Even though it doesn't know we're here?"
"Yeah… even despite that. It's very weird… Maybe coming off as evil is just an ordinary quality of this foreign energy, regardless of the intentions of its source… Anyway, the only time I've ever sensed energy anywhere near this evil was…"
"… From your mother's killer." Sasuke concluded.
Karin silently nodded.
"It might very well be that the Jashinism Immortality Ritual involves combining one's chakra with this third evil energy…" the Uchiha continued.
"Regardless, that means this freak of nature we're headed towards might be Twin Gods of Death!" Suigetsu declared.
Sasuke sighed. "It's a possibility, but we won't know for sure until we meet it face to face. Let's keep going."
And so Taka and Butsuma continued down the Southern Hideout's secret tunnel and descended the stairwell at the end. At the bottom of the stairs there was a single iron double-door locked shut.
"There's another door we got to open?!" Suigetsu protested, tapping his foot impatiently.
"You have any idea where the key might be?" Sasuke asked Karin. "You were the warden here…"
"I don't think a key exists in the first place, at least not anymore. For one thing, I've seen every key to every cell in this hideout several times, and they aren't the types that match with this kind of lock. But more importantly…" Karin adjusted her glasses intently, "… I have this suspicion Orochimaru wanted me in particular to open this door."
"With the unbreakable lock pick you usually have on hand." Sasuke inferred. "Anyone from the Uzumaki clan might have been able to dispel the barrier, so Orochimaru made one more precaution, a fail-safe to make sure not just any Uzumaki made their way through to the other side. This lock right here is proof of your hypothesis, Karin… For whatever reason, Orochimaru designed this hideout so that you and you alone would be able to reach its deepest chamber."
"But my lock pick was destroyed during the battle with Yoshitsune… It might have never broken through overuse, but that didn't stop it from being torn to pieces when exposed to gale force winds…"
"There might still be a way to open this door." Butsuma grinned as he raised a fist. "Stand aside."
Taka moved out of the way, Sasuke to the right and Karin and Suigetsu to the left, and Butsuma calmly walked to the centre of the door, winding his right arm back. He released his arm, punching straight through the lock and the door behind it. The force of the blow knocked the two doors wide open, slamming into the walls on the inside of the room just ahead of him, and blasting the lock irreparably apart. Taka resumed their initial position and they entered the deepest room of the Southern Hideout.
On the other side of the now-open doors was a man sitting down cross-legged with their head facing Taka's direction. There was nothing else in the small cubic room except for several candles on the walls and a partially used set of matches, half of the candles currently lit. From what little light the candles provided, Karin could see some features of this man. He was wearing a tattered white long robe with sleeves covering his entire arms save his hands. The robe was kept together by a black obi tied at the waist, and underneath the robe's pant legs, the man was wearing black pants with a few rips in them, and was bear-foot. But what caught Karin's eye more than anything was the man's hair; it was red, roughly neck-length, and spiked… just like the right side of her own hair. The man turned his head up when he heard the door burst open, and upon examining the group for a moment, looked at Karin and asked the most bizarre question:
"Kagura… darling, is that really you?"
At that moment, Karin could see the man's face. He had icy blue eyes and a thick moustache bordering on mutton chops, with stress lines between his nose and cheeks. She didn't think about the man's face, however, because Karin was just as confused as the man, wondering just who would mistake her aged appearance for her mother – or the ancestor she was named after – and also call her darling.
Without letting Karin or anyone else provide an answer, the man continued to ramble. "The years have been great to you! You'd have to be almost fifty by now and yet you don't look much older than when we parted ways… But I suppose your age showed itself another way, since you never needed glasses when I knew you… That reminds me… how is our child doing? Are they a boy or a girl? Or are they… dead? And who are those people with you, dear? One of them looks like an Uchiha with the Rinnegan… is he the second coming of the Sage of the Six Paths? -"
"Just stop it, please!" Karin interrupted with narrow eyes. "I'm not Kagura! That was my mother's name, and she's been dead for eleven years! My name is Karin! I might look like a full-grown adult, but I'm only eighteen! I performed a dangerous technique that made me age a lot… but my mind didn't age along with my body…" she started crying herself to silence.
"That explains things then…" the man stood up and made a wide smile. Karin noticed the man was incredibly tall, easily taller than Sasuke and possibly as tall as Jugo.
"Karin would be the name of Kagura's and my child if they were born a girl…" he continued. "Yes… it's in your hair… the left side comes from your mother, while your right side comes from me…"
"So you're my…"
Karin was unable to finish her question, overwhelmed by too many emotions to count. She started feeling weak and tipped over, Suigetsu catching her before she fell, helping her up.
"Yes, my dear daughter, Karin… I am your father, Kagemaru Uzumaki." the man said softly as he slowly yet happily walked toward Taka, reaching to hold Karin's face in his hand. It was then that Karin saw red Uzumaki symbols on both of Kagemaru's shoulders.
However, Sasuke quickly stood between the man claiming to be Karin's father and Karin. At the same time, Suigetsu turned his body so he was holding Karin away from her supposed father.
"Why do you two interfere? I've been longing to see my beloved daughter for nineteen years now… Would you truly keep a girl from meeting her father, one she's been separated from since before she was born?" Kagemaru's tone turned sour.
"We don't know for sure if you're even Karin's father or not." Sasuke said, his hand on his sword, ready to counter-attack at a moment's notice.
"Yeah!" Suigetsu added. "Can you tell if this Kagemaru guy is lying, Karin?"
Karin shook her head. "No, I can't… The energy coming off him is so alien to me that I don't know what disturbances mean he's lying… And it's unstable as it is anyway, so a fluctuation might mean nothing…"
"You truly are your mother's daughter, Karin…" Kagemaru commended. "To master the Mind's Eye of the Kagura technique to such a degree you could figure that out… I'm so proud of you, my daughter… You may have even surpassed your mother in the art…"
"Don't go pulling the sentimental crap yet, old man!" Suigetsu retorted, Kagemaru taken aback. "How the hell does Karin being your daughter even work from the hair?! People don't split their hairstyles down the middle based on their parents like that!"
"Actually, there is a precedent for this." Butsuma objected from behind them, causing Sasuke and Suigetsu to look back. "I had a third son, Itama. Half his hair was dark like mine, and half of it was white like my wife's. He died while he was a child, so he never made a name for himself like my first two children did… Karin's hair may be a similar case to Itama's. I'm just as suspicious of this man as you are, Suigetsu, but we must concede his point about the hair is valid, if not necessarily true."
"Damn…" Suigetsu turned his attention back on Kagemaru.
"So Kagemaru… it's clear you didn't know Karin's gender until today." Sasuke said. "Let's assume you were the father. What would Karin's name be if she were born a boy?" he asked, knowing that only himself, Karin, and Karin's parents would know the answer.
"That would be… Kamina!" Kagemaru excitedly stated. "Yes, I would have named my son Kamina. Kagura was named after the creator of the Mind's Eye of the Kagura technique. Her children ought to be named after the first Kagura's children… and Kamina was the first Kagura's son… I was the one who came up with the idea, actually…"
"You're right…" Karin sighed, doubt leaving her mind. "Even the reason is the same… Then it's true, you really are my father!"
Karin broke out of Suigetsu's hold and tried to run for Kagemaru to hug her father for the first time, but Sasuke stopped her despite the evidence pointing to their relation, putting his arm in the path Karin was taking.
"What's wrong, Sasuke?! You know as well as I do what that answer means!" Karin protested.
"Even so…" Sasuke shook his head then focused his attention back on Kagemaru. "Even if Kagemaru is your father, Karin, that doesn't change the fact that Orochimaru thought that this man was so dangerous that he tried to make sure that only you, his daughter, could speak to him, and he even kept that part a secret from the world. On top of that, there's the strange energy you sensed in him… and its similarity to that tragedy…"
"Tragedy?" Kagemaru interjected, an eyebrow raised. "What tragedy befell my daughter in my absence?"
"We're the ones asking the questions, daddy!" Suigetsu retorted. "As it so happens, Mama Kagura was killed eleven years ago, and Karin sensed her killer! That weird energy coming from you right now… it's got the same brand of evil as that killer!"
Kagemaru looked away. "So the one who killed my wife was one of those, then…"
"What do you mean, one of those?!" Karin asked frantically. "What do you know about Mom's killer?! And how does your energy have the same evil properties as them?!"
"It all goes back to nineteen years ago, to the day the Hidden Whirlpool Village was destroyed. It was during the Third Ninja World War… The Hidden Cloud gave us an ultimatum six days beforehand: hand over the three-months-pregnant Head Ninja Kagura Uzumaki, or be destroyed in seven days. Naturally, we assumed the attempt to remove Kagura from the village was just a trap to take away our best sensor and they would try to destroy us either way, so we refused, and also sent a messenger bird to the Hidden Leaf to provide reinforcements one day before the scheduled attack."
That does sound like something the Hidden Cloud would do, knowing what happened with Hinata and Fuzai's father… Sasuke thought.
"The numbers don't add up." Butsuma objected. "You said the ultimatum was given six days before the attack, but you were warned the attack would happen seven days later."
"Obviously the Hidden Cloud attacked one day earlier than they said they would!" Suigetsu remarked.
"That's not quite true, actually…" Kagemaru refuted. "The ones that attacked us first… were the Hidden Mist."
Suigetsu gasped. "What?!"
"Looking back, the invasion was likely a team effort from the Hidden Mist and Hidden Cloud from the very beginning. Only five days after the ultimatum, Kagura sensed the Three-Tails and the Six-Tails approaching the village from underwater. The plan was probably to catch us off-guard with an underwater attack, wearing us down before the Hidden Cloud finished things from above. But thankfully Kagura was able to sense them coming and prepare us before we evacuated her the following morning, and we easily foiled their plan after that, pulling both Tailed Beasts up to the surface and restraining them with our Adamantine Sealing Chains… or at least, that's what we thought."
"How can that be possible? Tailed Beasts planning a pre-emptive strike like that… it's too smart for them, isn't it?" Butsuma thought aloud.
Sasuke shook his head. "No, it isn't. While they might have seemed feral to you, the Tailed Beasts are actually just as intelligent as us. The only reason they appeared to be walking natural disasters is because they tended to lash out against humankind for centuries of neglect, and in this particular case, the Tailed Beasts would have had a very good reason to do so: Mito Uzumaki."
"Oh yeah… Mito was the first Jinchuriki since the Sage of the Six Paths!" Suigetsu recalled.
"Exactly," Sasuke confirmed. "The Tailed Beasts as a whole probably blamed the Uzumaki clan for bringing the concept of a Jinchuriki back into human memory, so it wouldn't be much of a stretch for them to join forces in order to take that clan down, as a collective act of revenge."
"That doesn't mesh with what happened next." Kagemaru objected. "Because what really took us off guard was that after we restrained both beasts, the Six-Tails was hit with a large ball made of extremely dense chakra. The resulting explosion destroyed the centre of the village, the Three-Tails was injured beyond repair, and the Six-Tails was obliterated outright… I looked in the direction the ball came flying in from, and on the horizon I saw a giant cat of blue flame with two tails."
"The Two-Tails fired a Bijuudama at its own brethren…" Karin inferred with horror.
"The Two-Tails' Jinchuriki probably had remarkable control over their Tailed Beast." Sasuke said. "That's what the Hidden Cloud was counting on; they could destroy the Hidden Whirlpool Village and the Hidden Mist's Tailed Beasts in one fell swoop with a Bijuudama, crippling the former for good and forcing the latter to comply with their demands… like setting up combined Chunin Exams where the Cloud has a distinct advantage in the eyes of their allied lesser nations after the war."
Suigetsu's eyes widened. "No way… So the Hidden Mist and Hidden Cloud villages decided to take their Chunin Exams together… and everything that led to… was the result of the Hidden Cloud getting a leg on the Mist by killing one of its Tailed Beasts and crippling the other during their planned invasion of the Hidden Whirlpool Village…"
"So your brother's death… and the fates of my parents… they were connected all this time…" Karin concluded.
"It had a hand in the fate of my clan as well." Sasuke added, startling everyone in the room. "The Two-Tails' Bijuudama: it was strong enough to kill the Six-Tails, who was hit with it full blast, but not the Three-Tails, who didn't take the full brunt of it but still needed a new host to recover from the damage. Because of that, the Hidden Mist was pressured into finding a new Jinchuriki as soon as possible, and within one year they did… Rin Nohara, who's becoming the Three-Tails Jinchuriki resulted in her death… and everything that led to…"
Karin, Suigetsu, and Butsuma went quiet, understanding everything Rin's death caused thanks to Sasuke relaying to them Rise and Fall of the Moon Eye Plan.
Kagemaru, on the other hand, wasn't fazed and went right back to his story:
"At any rate, the Two-Tails began to charge up another 'Bijuudama' as you call it, planning to destroy the whole country, no doubt… We got desperate, and one of our more cowardly Uzumaki put on the Shinigami Mask, summoning the Shinigami and releasing… Jashin the Second… My memory of the next bit is somewhat hazy, but… I think Jashin the Second possessed the body of the guy in the mask… caught the Bijuudama with his Adamantine Sealing Chains… and threw it back at the Two-Tails, forcing the Cloud to retreat… Then I passed out… and when I woke up… the Shinigami Mask was destroyed… and I was the only one left alive in the country…except the Three-Tails of course…"
"The only one left alive?" Karin asked.
"Yes… I think that once Jashin the Second was done with the one in the mask… they possessed me,and used my body to… massacre the Land of Whirlpools."
Karin was horrified into silence.
"I think that's why my chakra seems so evil; it must be a remnant of Jashin the Second…" Kagemaru continued. "The monster probably just saved the village so he could have the satisfaction of destroying it himself… Fearing that he might still be inside me somewhere, I turned myself in to the Leaf Ninja that soon arrived as reinforcements, and I demanded that he imprison me where no one would find me… for the world's safety."
"That was Orochimaru…" Karin inferred. "He found you and imprisoned you here at your own behest… You're not a monster like Jashin the Second was… You're my father, Kagemaru Uzumaki!"
Karin smiled and tried running up to her father again, but once more Sasuke stopped her.
"Again, Sasuke?! How much more do you need before you're convinced?!"
"This man… is someone I'm never going to trust, Karin."
"Why not, Sasuke?!" Suigetsu asked. "I'm our resident cynic and even I'm convinced this guy's legit!"
"Of course you would be, since a lot of what he says backs up what we already know… it's clear he's mostly speaking the truth. But that doesn't absolve him of trying to manipulate the facts. Remember what I said about Orochimaru?"
"The truth is a more effective weapon than any lie…" Butsuma recalled.
"Then tell me, Uchiha… why do you think I'm trying to deceive you?" Kagemaru asked.
"Oh, there's plenty." Sasuke put up his hand and raised four fingers. "I've got this many problems with your interpretation of events!"
"Four, Sasuke?" said Karin.
"Yeah… My first problem was right at the beginning. Kamina. When you said that name, you got excited all of a sudden. For most of your story, you were calm, sad, or relieved… all your emotions were subdued. But that one name made you jump. That's strange, especially for a man who claims that's what he would call his son if he ever had one. Despite the respect that naming your child implies… it's almost as if you have reason to dislike it."
The notion made Kagemaru's eyebrows spring up in shock. "And your second problem?" he replied, trying to maintain his composure.
"That's farther down the line, and it might not mean as much, but… you called the Uzumaki that put on the Shinigami Mask a coward. The one who put on the mask risked their soul being taken by the Shinigami for eternity in order to save what was left of the village. Scared they might have been, but to call an act as self-sacrificing as that cowardly? It's practically unthinkable."
"And the third problem?"
"This one is the most damning of all." Sasuke said as he placed his arm around Karin's back and pulled her close to him. "This prison… you claim it's to protect the world from yourself, but 'Kagemaru'… the one person who could open your cage is the one person you should protect above all else; your daughter!"
That is odd, come to think of it… Why could Dad's prison be opened by me in the first place? … If he wanted to protect me, then it should have been made to keep me out, not lure me in … Karin thought.
"It could be just because Orochimaru tends to screw with people's expectations of him, but Karin's worth too much to him to play with her life like that." Sasuke continued. "Karin was an expert healer and the only living pure-blooded member of the Uzumaki clan he had any means of controlling when he recruited her. So he wouldn't do anything to risk her being put in danger unless his hand was being forced… which makes me think that Karin being the only one who could free you was your idea, 'Father', not Orochimaru's!"
"My idea, you say?" Kagemaru was taken aback, unable to respond further to Sasuke's accusation.
"But that would mean…" Suigetsu looked intently at Kagemaru, brows furrowed.
"… Kagemaru deliberately put Karin in danger." Butsuma finished Suigetsu's sentence, growing stiff.
"That's why it's so damning." Sasuke added. "No parent worth their salt would ever let their child come to harm!"
"All of that together… you don't think that man is my father at all, do you, Sasuke?" Karin deduced.
"No, I don't… your father wouldn't do everything I just outlined. The body might belong to your father, but the mind certainly doesn't. What's letting him think isn't even human Spiritual energy…"
The comment made Kagemaru turn away and shake in something resembling fear. "… There's still one more problem…" he pointed out.
"Yes. It's not nearly as significant as the last one, but it's causing me doubt all the same." Sasuke released his grip from Karin and pointed to just behind Kagemaru. "I've kept quiet about it so far, but you can sense the cross right behind him. Right, Karin?"
Karin tilted her head in confusion. "What are you talking about, Sasuke? I can sense the energy coming from inside Kagemaru, but there's nothing right behind him…"
"That's really strange…" Sasuke stroked his chin. "If you're not sensing it, then what could I possibly be seeing? Because I see a cross made with some intense blueish-white flames right behind Kagemaru's body…"
The observation made the older red-head snap back forward and look Sasuke dead in the eyes, his expression turning bitter:
"You're clearly a bad influence. I will not allow your filthy eyes to deceive my pure, perfect daughter any longer… Disappear."
The next instant, Sasuke witnessed just a hint of a chain emerging from Kagemaru's chest before it shot out at incredible speeds, spinning to increase its piercing power. The spinning chain was headed straight for Sasuke's heart, but before it could reach its destination, Sasuke's midsection got wet and the chain was stopped in its tracks by Suigetsu clasping his hands together as if to stop a blade from impaling him, having liquefied to get in between Sasuke and Kagemaru's chain before the attack could connect.
"Suigetsu…" Sasuke and Karin said in unison.
Suigetsu smirked. "Leave fighting this one to me! These chains can't do a thing since I can turn into wa-"
The Hozuki's boasting unceremoniously halted. Horrified by the sudden stop in his friend's speech, Sasuke looked from Suigetsu's body up the chain and saw that the chain was electrified, the sound of the charge having been muted by Suigetsu's own words.
"Lightning Style…" Sasuke and Karin bit their lips in apprehension.
The next instant, however, their apprehension warped into despair; Sasuke saw a blue puff of smoke travel up Kagemaru's chain into the cross, and Karin sensed Suigetsu's chakra disappear. Before either of them realized it, Suigetsu's lifeless body collapsed on to the stone floor beneath them.
"SUIGETSU!" Karin cried out in terror, dropping down to her knees and cradling her late lover in her arms. Sasuke, meanwhile, turned his attention to his comrade's killer, silent with fury over Suigetsu's passing as Kagemaru's chain returned to his body.
"You should be focusing on my daughter, Uchiha, not me." Kagemaru said with just a hint of sarcasm. "After all… the last person one thinks about should be the one they love the most… and you're about to die. Fall to the might of Kagemaru Uzumaki!"
Then he shot another spinning, electrified chain at Sasuke. The Uchiha drew his sword and parried the chain with his own electrified weapon.
"Cut the bullshit, you monster…" Sasuke said.
No matter how many times you call yourself by that name, you can't hide the truth from these eyes, Twin Gods of Death… Jashin Uzumaki the Second!