CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

Uchiha Kyoko

She felt the fire of heat seal on her wrist and it brought her a comfort like no other.

Behind her Kaname moved in such a muffled way that she worried for his approaching collapse. He had told her earlier that he was sane, that his mind was only in this world and its reality but every once in a while his black eyes would glaze over and she would have no idea what he was seeing. It was a Kaname she had never seen before, that much was evident to Sayuri. Something was eating away at him psychologically. Her only question was if that was the goal of the genjutsu, or a side effect. Someone from their clan had attacked him but she had no idea who and he would only grow silent whenever she brought it up.

Tomoyouki had played around with the idea of calling in someone of the Yamanaka clan and swear them to secrecy but he didn't understand the depth of the kekkei genkai. Or perhaps he did but not the same regard she did. Sayuri was still unable to wield the Sharingan to its full power and yet she fully appreciated the significance of the dojutsu and the secret oath she was bound to since birth made it feel inherently wrong for her to expose its deepest secrets to another. It wasn't a matter of trust. The Sharingan was not her secret, it was the clan's.

And it was from that clan that she must escape. Beneath the Naka Shrine Madara had told her of scrolls that could help her understand the power behind the second Sharingan but there was no way that they could access that now. Perhaps through the archives of the Uchiha ruins they would find something.

Kaname could not have gone alone, not in his state; and he trusted no one else. "How are you?" she asked without looking. He was slower, his movements sluggish. "Do you need to rest?"

They were out of Konoha's border now. Her surroundings were familiar: it was more than just trees and dirt and critters. The night could not hide the land from her eyes, and she saw it for its full scope and glory. It brought back memories of travelling with her mother, of silent footsteps bouncing from branch to branch and the slightest ruffling of leaves. Of red eyes glowing in the darkness. "Don't pity me."

I wasn't. But Sayuri thought better of voicing her thoughts. It would only anger him, and that would weaken him. Carrying him wasn't beyond her strength but she did not want to if she could avoid it and she wasn't sure how he would take it to be riding on the back of a wolf. And I doubt Kin would want to be a mule to the likes of him. "We're still sixty two miles away." If Kaname was fine, he would have been there in five hours. Sayuri, six and a half. But at their rate she would would be surprised if they were to reach the hideout by the afternoon twelve hours away.

Sayuri heard him stumble and before she even turned to see, she already knew that he was falling. Racing back, she caught him right before he crashed into the ground. His head spun as he looked at her, blinking. His eyes were glowing red.

He was exerting chakra he did not have. "You idiot."

"I need to see," he only said, breathless. "I need to watch." His eyes could not focus on anything, moving in quick flickers to every direction away from her.

To see? To see more than his normal vision?

He didn't think she was competent. The thought dawned to her quickly as he fought away her help. He thought her unsuitable to lead the way, to protect him. She admitted that she did not know the full extent of what she would do or how far would go to safeguard him should someone attack. Would she be able to kill a foe? Perhaps not. But the insult stung and the bitter whispers of her mind hated him for his idea that a weaker him would still do a better job than her. She pushed that thought away and focused on the objective. He's slowing us down.

With a sigh, Sayuri stood up. He was too weak to even sit up on his own so he let himself fall and covered his face with a lazily swung arm.

Kaname. "You are annoying."

He moved his arm, surprise at her tone even in his condition. But before he could respond, Sayuri held his face in her hands. He could not escape the red and white, and the twirling tomoes. Her Sharingan stared into his until he was left spinning into a listless darkness and the last thing he heard was another frustrated sigh.

xxx

Tobirama had too much to do.

On his way to the Hyuga clan he was still reading the customs of the ceremony. They were modified from the tradition, of course, since there had been no role like the Hokage in the past but the Hyugas did not withhold on the oaths that they wanted him to swear — most about allowing their power over the clan to remain as it was, which included the hierarchy of social status. There were a bunch of other oaths, but underlying it was all the same: their clan will remain their clan. They had no plan to assimilate.

They see what Konoha has done to the Senjus and Sarutobis, he thought. He admitted that there was a sort of...regret in it, to see his clan dissolve or at least beginning to. Surnames did not mean as it used to. But surnames would often lead to death. He convinced himself that it was a good thing. After all, as family names began to drop, the identification of Konoha-nins increased. But he couldn't say that about everyone.

The Uchiha clan still held their distinction, but their power was in decline. Tobirama thought it was because their leader was no renowned shinobi like Madara. Hideharu was skilled, and he was seasoned, but he did not instill the same extent of fear as his predecessor. The Hyugas were holding on tight to all that encompassed their plan and Tobirama saw no reason to disrupt it — except one troubling fact. Serving branches.

But I cannot do anything about it, I cannot take apart their customs. Not like this. Not now.

In ten minutes Tobirama was concealing his frown as he donned on their garments. In another hour, he was making oaths with plenty of witnesses as they inaugurate the heir. And I, Tobirama of the Senju clan, Lord of Konohagakure the Leaf Village, the Hokage of the Land of Fire and Head of the Senju clan will hereby recognize Hyuga Natsuho as the heir to the noble Hyuga clan of Konohagakure.

That was the central oath, and from that all other promises formed. He would give them complete power over their clan as long as it abide the laws of Konoha. He would recognize them as a noble clan, and give them an option of vetoing in certain matters excluding war. He gave them a place on the inner council. He swore a bunch of other promises until Tobirama no longer had to do anything but nod solemnly every once in a while as his mind wandered elsewhere.

It wandered to Sayuri. He thought where she was, what she was doing. If she was safe. If she was alive.

That thought led him to difficulties maintaining a stoic expression, a slight change that did not go unnoticed. He changed his thoughts.

Still Sayuri, but about the halcyon weeks. Twenty three days of having a life staged for Konoha where he did his duties as the Hokage, and his life in the shy hours of morning where Sayuri would sit in his office and go over her material. He thought about the way she impatiently pushed back her short hair as it fell towards her face, or the way she tapped a quill against a table and mull over students. For a significant amount she would grow distracted and end up leaning over his shoulder or opposite him towards his papers in interest.

On more than one occasion she had fallen asleep. He always say the early signs of it, beyond the yawning: the motionless, the tired eyelids, the slurred speech, the nonsensical conclusions.

And then Nari wants to drop out of genjutsu lessons and I think it's because she couldn't light the candles? What candles? he had asked. Oh you know, the ones over there. In the lessons.

"Lord Hokage?"

He looked up, met the pale eyes, and nodded. They seem satisfied. The little boy seated near the front was quiet, docile. Bored. Tobirama retreated back into his mind.

He remembered once when Itama and Hashirama had found a squirrel with a broken hind leg. Their father didn't allow any pets. Summoning creatures, perhaps, but it wasn't something the Senju clan placed too much emphasis on. They wanted to rely on their own powers, not a companion as their father would have put it. But his brothers wanted to help the squirrel and Hashirama thought he could use the opportunity to practice his medical ninjutsu but the brown furry critter tried in vain to escape but couldn't go anywhere with its leg shattered and Hashirama and Itama were both too soft to help it by force.

Instead the two had sit there with the squirrel. They studied around it, trained around it, ate dinner around it and fed it.

Itama died before the squirrel finally came around. Its leg had healed by then, and the squirrel became a fast companion of Hashirama. It would scurry up his arm onto his shoulder, and nestle near him when he slept even if Hashirama had moulded something out of his wood-style for it.

Tobirama felt like that squirrel. Sayuri had been around him patiently for months as her life carried on around him until he grew familiar with her presence, and then missed it when she was not there. Now she was gone for nine hours and he was thinking about her incessantly.

"Lord Hokage."

Tobirama had all eyes on him. He had a feeling that he should not simply nod this time around. "I apologize, my lords." Only two true lord sat in that room: the Head of the Hyugas, and himself but flattery never hurt. "What is it that you require of me?" Hyuga Hikaru was not perturbed, and Tobirama could sense that he had grown tired of the ceremony as well.

"In honour of your presence and the formal alliance between the Hyuga clan and the village of Konoha, I speak for my son and clan with a wish that you should conclude the inauguration for us."

To conclude?

He had no idea how to do that. "An honour I do not deserve. I will not do it justice, I'm afraid," he said, hoping that it would sound more humble than it did unwilling. The inactive Byakugans turned away from him without any hint of scorn. They were glad. Good.

The ceremony ended with afternoon tea. Mito was invited as the former Hokage's wife, along with Sasuke's wife and Hiruzen's mother. To invite her husband would mean to invite the Sarutobi clan, and that would only have a collateral effect as other clans wonder what had happened to their invitation.

Lady Mito and Lady Rize seated next to him, thankfully, and close to the table of honour where the head family sat. The Sarutobi, after glancing around, closed her eyes and took a sip of the tea thoughtfully. "Notes of jasmine," she said with a smile. It was clear that she was thinking about something else entirely. Why am I here? her brown eyes asked.

"Excellent tea. Tomoyouki should be here, he would be ecstatic." Mito smiled into her clay teacup.

Ecstatic would not be the right word. Suspicious, more like it. And he didn't have Rize's graces to conceal it. "A shame that he was busy," Tobirama said with the same falseness his company was speaking with.

Tomoyouki was digging around, asking scattered questions that made no sense unlike the intention was known. "That tea shop of his is quite prosperous, however. I hear that the success of Konoha is no more evident than it is there," Rize said with a hint of a smile as if there was a double meaning. He's pulling people together.

"The old men crowd around for a game of shogi, no doubt," Tobirama agreed. "It keeps them sharp." And ready.

"If only I could keep Tsuna away," Mito said with a sigh. The two looked up at her with mildly confused expression but Rize's face softened. She broods over those children of hers, the noblewoman's face clearly thought.

"When are you expecting?" Rize asked as she gestured towards the last of Hashirama's line. Mito caressed her stomach with a careful yet fond expression.

"Soon." A flicker of worry crossed her face. "But this is no place to talk about such a thing," she said with a laugh that hid her concern. Her trust in the Hyugas was not questioned, Tobirama knew, but she was wary of speaking about the birth everywhere and anywhere she went. She worried for the seal.

And if his memory of the ninetails were as vivid as he recalled, she had every right to.

xxx

Kaname sometimes forget that Sayuri was raised a kunoichi.

Clothed in the Uchiha gear that was more familiar than skin to him, running for hours at a time and with a hand over her weapons, not balled up in a meek fist — Sayuri wasn't a dainty girl. She needed protection from many of those that were leagues stronger than her, but she had not been raised a lady.

She was what Kaname saw as he laid over the back of a giant white wolf as if he was an animal prize that Sayuri was carrying home. He shook violently as the muscles of the wolf moved beneath him, but his hands were tied around the wolf's neck to secure him there. He could slip off its back, but not too far. Meanwhile Sayuri raced ahead. By each growing minute she grew more distant until he could no longer trace her but Kin did not seem to have the same problem. The girl summoned a wolf. How? Most of his clan signed contracts with winged creatures — falcons and eagles and ravens and crows. "Where...is she?" he asked between pants.

Dizzied, Kaname could only open his eyes for moments at a time and each time was more disorientating than the last. Bordered by white fur, he saw darkness. He saw dark leaves and branches and dirt but he could not find Sayuri. How long had I lost consciousness this time? He thought it had only been seconds ago when he last saw her.

But he also sensed no other shinobi and that was reassuring enough to discard Sayuri's absence. "A couple miles ahead." A low guttural sound vibrated from its throat, an odd sensation that even his wrist felt. "We're still hours from this hideout I've been hearing about."

You shouldn't have heard anything. Who was this beast to her? What was this beast to her that she would allow it to enter the century old base of their clan?

His eyes drooped, shut again but he threw it open immediately. His thoughts plagued him. If he were unconscious for too long, he would go back to the Tsukuyomi — he didn't know why he knew that but he could feel its lingering threat to pull him back to the wasteland of Kyoko's making.

Where are you Kyoko? Why am I still alive?

And he was fading back again into unconsciousness. I need to keep my eyes open. He was depleted, void of chakra completely and yet the familiar burn of chakra surging through his body reawakened his Sharingan and he was alert again, everything crisp and clear.

He saw Sayuri several miles ahead, her cloak fluttering in the wind as she raced ahead. If it wasn't for him, she would have been at the hideout by early morning but even as he had support from Kin, the wolf could not risk allowing him to fall. Again. "Let me go."

The wolf barked a laugh. "And drop into the ground? I don't think so."

His jaw tightened and he struggled to get up so that his legs were on either side of the wolf, riding him as opposed to being carried. He could feel its discomfort — anger — of being ridden already. "I am not weak," Kaname snapped. He didn't need to be treated like an inferior by a summoning creature, nor did he need to be a hindrance on a girl who had been no more than the weakling, the quite waste of his clan's kekkei genkai. Yet despite his protest the moment he got up his sight was covered in dark spots and blinding light all at once and he collapsed backwards and off the wolf.

This time, Kin let him fall.

xxx

The blonde princess sat on the bed as Misama studied the latest report. It was written up by one of Misama's student, Seiko, and there were so many gaps in the details of the body she examined that Misama had a headache trying to understand the follow up. She couldn't remember who recommended the fourteen year old kunoichi to begin training in the medical arts but it sure wasn't Sayuri. She would never had suggested someone who lacked so much competence.

"Watcha doing?" Tsunade asked. Misama couldn't remember when the girl had open her mouth and not asked that.

"Still reading the report, Tsuna."

"Hmph." Her gold eyes — truly gold, unlike Misama's yellow hazel eyes — scanned the room. "What's taking so long?"

"This report wasn't done well," Misama admitted. "If you ever decide to start training in medical ninjutsu, I hope you'll never submit anything like this to me."

Her head tilted, her eyes widened. "Like what?"

Misama simply shook her head as she held up the scroll. Tsunade couldn't read yet, but she recognized familiar words here and there. "Surface injury," Misama read out loud. "Used ninjutsu to repair skin, followed by oils to soothe and bandages to conceal."

"What did the ninjutsu do?" Tsunade asked with a frown.

"Exactly!" Misama pointed out. "What is the surface injury? An abrasion? Laceration? Was it caused by a weapon or was it from a ninjutsu? Were there signs of infection? She used ninjutsu to repair the skin, but how about any soft tissue? Was the injury restrained to just soft tissue or were there issues in the chakra flow? What oils? Soothe what? When you write a report, you must answer any and all questions another medic may ask."

Tsunade gaped." Um," she said confused. "What ninjutsu?"

Misama laughed. She supposed it was too early to start talking about nursing to the three year old princess, even if her father had been the master of medical ninjutsu. "Medics use certain ninjutsu different than other shinobi. It's very advance, and basically it speeds up the body's natural healing process by sending our chakra to the site of injury."

She squinted again. When her lady mother told her that she would be busy with the Hyuga ceremony and Umeko had to quickly go to Uzushiogakure, it was Tsunade's idea to go to Misa. At first she had regretted it when Misa ignored her but now her interest grew as the medic spoke about her actual job past the paperwork. "How does it do that?" she asked as she went on her knees and peered down report as if it would tell her now.

"It's a bit tricky. You have to match your chakra perfectly, so it requires precise control and even some medical-nins are unable to use it. I'm trying to teach it to —"

"How?" Tsunade repeated.

Misama laughed again. She appreciated the child's enthusiasm, and wouldn't be surprised if Tsuna herself became a medical-nin once she grew up. Misama held up her own hands and focused the chakra, allowing it to flicker and turn what was once invincible to a translucent golden green. "We concentrate an excess amount of chakra into our hands. Keep in mind, princess, that chakra runs everywhere — it is interwoven into the flesh and nerves and blood. When there's an injury, the chakra suffers as well and with our technique, we replace the lost chakra and add extra, so to speak, so that we could encourage regeneration of the flesh it inhabits."

"How?" she asked again but there was a faint spark of understanding in her eyes that impressed Misama.

"The cells duplicate. Cells form tissue like skin and muscle." She tried to keep it as simple as possible.

"But what happens if you make too much cell?"

Misama stopped. "Well...it could be dangerous. But that wouldn't happen. Even if it did, the cells will die eventually." She could see Tsunade's frustration at the answer.

"What if the cell doesn't die? What if it lives longer? Can it survive even if it gets damage?"

Questions of a child. "The cell can't survive. We're made of flesh, my princess. Not stone. If the cells are damage, it is best to allow it to die. We focus on faster regeneration, not maintaining the cells."

Tsunade looked as if she was hoping for a certain answer. "And how long can a cell stay alive if there's no damage?"

"It varies with the function," Misama explained. The territory that they were approaching was something Misama did not know too much of herself. What she did know, it was from the Rinha clan. "It is said that the cells of our skin dies and replaces itself every couple weeks. Our blood cells regenerate naturally every couple months — but there's such a multitude that it is constantly being replaced."

This time, Tsunade did not look as if she was keeping up. Still the questions continue. "What if we make the cells live longer? Then what?"

Misama opened her mouth, ready to answer as always but words did not come to her. If we make cells live longer? If it maintains its functions...chakra could sustain it but...

"I don't know," Misama admitted. She stared at Tsunade, and the pretty face all scrunched up in dissatisfaction. There was no doubt that the girl was Hashirama's daughter and that she would one day make a great — no, Great, with a capital — medical nin. Her eyes were bright, her intelligence obvious. But Misama was faltering.

What if we make cells live longer?

"I don't know," she repeated.

xxx

Sayuri sighed.

Kin was far from gentle as his jaws took Kaname's collar and dragged him past the forest and into a slab of stone that sat behind the entrance. Dust greeted them and she coughed into her arm as her eyes, with the Sharingan activated, swept the former stronghold.

The sun had risen enough over the tall, ancient trees to shine behind her into the entrance, allowing her to see just barely more than she could have without its light. Scanning for the most miniscule of marks, Sayuri found nothing. There was no sign of trespass for a quite a while. Dust settled in an even layer over every surface and Kin made a face at the site. The air had a stale odour to it, and there was a sense of vastness to it that she could feel in the pitch of her stomach. "So this is where the Uchihas run back to with their tails between their legs." He didn't seem impressed. "What is that you think you'd find here anyway?"

"I don't know," she admitted. She felt oddly isolated from the world. It felt like civilization was miles away — and that was true. No one could help her here but the hideout hadn't been like that when she last visited. It was suppose to be a retreat from the battlefield. Whenever she came there, it was usually with people of her clan streaming into each room and over the property as they fortify it for a stay of whenever Kyoko deemed appropriate.

Kyoko.

Suddenly she felt more than alone. She felt cold. Someone was there.

Nobody had been there in that room but someone was in the hideout. Sayuri thinned out her chakra, allowing it to seep and spread.

Kin nipped at Kaname, sniffing him apprehensively. Then his head lifted and his gold eyes seemed to brighten as it narrowed into the dark corridor. "Someone is here," he said, echoing her thoughts.

"Someone had always been here. They're just making their presence known now." The chakra she moulded found something — someone. And Sayuri had a sickening, sinking feeling of who it was. She felt like she wanted to hurl. No, it felt like she was drowning. Something was crawling over her skin and inside her body and stretching out and polluting her and although she had a faint idea that it was chakra — a genjutsu — but she could not be certain. Whatever it was, she wanted to claw her way out and abandon the hideout and abandon Kaname and run off with Kin.

But she didn't. She couldn't.

"Shall we investigate?" she asked. The wolf stalking by her side gave her confidence as she remembered the way his stiff fur felt beneath and between her fingers. His eyes seemed to gleam in the early morning light. Kin has never been the prey. He is the predator, he is the hunter, she thought with an eerie feeling she could not place. Kin didn't look as if he had ever been on the losing side and she told herself that she would not be the losing side. She left the entry and walked through the corridor, listening to the steady pats of Kin's paws against the ground.

Suddenly the wolf's fur bristled and his claws dug into the ground as he lowered his massive body, tensing. Before Sayuri could respond he pounced and raced ahead into one of the rooms. The old walls crumbled in his wake, dust exploding and Sayuri coughing, as the wolf disappeared. She ran after him a second too late and nearly crashed into him when he abruptly stopped at the door to —

to the throne room.

It was the council room but seated on the dais was a tall throne, simple and elegant yet there was something distinctly cruel about the sharp ivory features. Or perhaps the seat was not cruel at all. Just the person sitting on it. She was half covered in shadows, and surrounded by the grey stones and banners of the clan she so loved.

Kyoko slanted over the seat, her legs crossed and her arms bent to prop her chin over her softly curved hand. She seemed calm, almost peaceful as her silk robes flowed from beneath her and draped around her foot. She was dressed in black and navy, and the symbol of the Uchiha clan stood as bright as blood encrusted on her ring. Sayuri's own hand curled, as if to make sure she could feel the Konoha band around her fingers. "Sayuri."

What is going on?

"Why are you here, Lady Kyoko?"

"I wonder when is it exactly that you gained the authority to ask me questions," she murmured. Her eyes are closed, Sayuri realized. She fell back warily. Something was wrong. Something was horribly wrong.

At the very moment she touched the pouch at her back, a needle whizzed through the air.

And into Kin's collar.

The wolf fell without a sound, his massive body collapsing into the old stone and the dust flew away at the impact. Only the crook of his neck told her that he had felt it coming but even the wolf was too slow to react. Suddenly she was tiny again. Vulnerable. Easily killed. Depressed, weak and with no control of her body. All her instincts and nerves screamed at her to get out, get out now but her body paid no attention to those thoughts. For what felt like hours but had been the very moment the wind of the needle passed by Kin's fur, she stood there as her eyes and chakra swept the room and —

And Kaname was behind him, straightening after he threw the needle.

At Kin.

At her.

xxx

"I can't find her."

Tobirama looked up, grimaced. "What do you mean you can't find her?"

Twenty two hours had passed since Sayuri had left and he had not slept once. At one point he had so carelessly reviewed the letters Sasuke wrote that if it began and end in pleasantries, Tobirama placed his stamp and approved it out for it to be carried. He could not remember what else had happened in that span of time except that he had called for more ink twice and there were many sighs at his lack of appetite.

Fifteen seconds was too slow when he was conscious of waiting but twenty two hours flew by and he could not remember the fifth or ninth or twelfth or twentieth hour that had just passed. He thought he remembered the clanging of bells, but that could have just been his imagination.

"It means that I, Senju Tomoyouki, cannot locate the woman called Uchiha Kyoko," the old man responded gruffly. "I did some snooping around and I can tell you that she disappeared the same time around has her grandson but where? I don't know. Why? I don't know. How, who helped her — I don't know either." He stopped with a shrug and then scratched the side of his head with a face not quite like defeat but far from determination. "The only reason why I knew that she must have disappeared around the same time was because the last person who had seen her told me as much."

"And who was this?" If it's Hideharu, then...

"Uchiha Kagami."

xxx

Lady Kyoko was still seated when Sayuri spun around to catch the needle. Her eyes were fast, but her hands were not enough. She saw Kaname reached for his second and he moved with the same sluggish, half-awake manner but it was faster than she was by a split second. She drew a kunai from her waist but the needle skidded to the hilt then into her palm. It burned each nerve and she shouted as her hand burst into heat and dropped the kunai.

Kaname flung another at her and she ducked to her left —

She felt Kyoko behind her and for the second time she was too slow. When the first shuriken flew into her waist, Sayuri had just enough in her to pry it out and used it to deflect the second one that whipped at her neck. But as the two metal stars collided, a third was thrown and found its place deep into her back.

xxx

Kagami ran into his office.

"Lord Hokage!" he called out, stumbling over his words. He bowed. "I told your councillor —"

"Why was Kyoko talking to you?"

His body tensed, but his eyes remained focused and stared at him with a detached respect. Tobirama did not forget how he had last treated the boy — abandoning him with nothing more than a hastily done direction back to Konoha as he raced ahead with an unconscious Sayuri in his arms. But she had regarded Kagami well enough to invite him into her home and he liked her enough to be the wall that was between Tobirama and her.

"Kyoko likes to check our progress," the boy told him. He was the same age as Sarutobi, Tobirama recalled. "It was the usual talk: remember your clan, remember who trained you, where you belong..." His words trailed off and Tobirama could sense his discomfort at exposing the words that went between a noble woman of his clan and he, who was on thin ice. Kagami was active in his squad with the Shimura and Akimichi boy and there was little doubt of his loyalty in that respect but...

"And this was?"

"Early in the morning two days ago?" He didn't look too sure but his story remained the same. Tomoyouki reported the equivalent, and Tobirama had the sense that the boy was telling the truth.

Now he just had to decide if he trusted the boy well enough to send him to the Uchiha hideout. His black eyes, so much like Sayuri's, stared at him with a certain resolution and optimism only a young person's could have. There was no weariness, no suspicion. By eight, Tobirama had lost those eyes. A different time, he told himself. It was an era where there was silence between clansmen, where nobody could be truly trusted but the immediate family and even then, there were secrets. An era where he made no friends because they were weak and would die. He only had his brother, and yet, once Tobirama turned on him. On Hashirama. He had failed Itama, Kawarma, his brother, his mother...

He led people, but he did not depend on them. There was always a back up plan, and it was always him. There was no trust.

He needed to trust Kagami on this. Someone.

"I have a mission for you."

The boy's eyes shone.

"You will not like it," Tobirama began slowly. He did not look at him. His eyes stared at the letter in front of him, but the ink was just scrawls on a piece of paper he could not decipher. "If your clan is questioning you now, you will never be able to provide them with answers. They will make assumptions, and you must not tell them anything."

A flicker of worry passed his eyes but when he spoke, he spoke with decisiveness. "I understand."

Sayuri trusts him. "This is a B-rank mission." Already the boy knew the scope of what awaited him. "It may be an A-rank. You, Danzo, and Torifu will be accompanied by Senju Tomoyouki. You will investigate the whereabouts of Uchiha Kyoko and —"

Tobirama stopped. Froze.

His breath left him, and there was a sudden pain in his back that radiated to his heart. The bones of his chest weakened and slacked, and then an outpour of warmth swelled before it was cut by the cold sting of metal.

He sucked in air, shut his eyes, raked his fingers over his chest.

Something is wrong.

It was the seal. It was the seal and something was wrong and Sayuri. His thoughts raced from one to another as the chakra that had imprinted itself onto Sayuri's wrist formed a message that shrieked of danger. Something was wrong. The seal was being activated to tell him that something was wrong.

And then he was shouting. "Leave now."

Kagami stared at him, frightened.

"To the Uchiha hideout," he growled through his teeth. He felt dizzy. The darkness and stars behind his eyelids blinded him even when he was staring at the boy with his eyes on fire. "Now."

As the boy ran off, Tobirama wondered what the hell was happening — to Sayuri, to him.

xxx

Her mouth was open against the stone floor. She felt crumbs of stone and dirt on her tongue, and her nose breathed in dust but she could not move.

But she could listen; yet she did not want to hear.

"You brought her to me."

xxx

"Get her up."

Kaname moved without thinking why. He had done it. He had knocked out Sayuri — he had seen in the Tsukuyomi he would, and now he was. She was limp on the floor and not too far away was a wolf that could not return to its dimension. Her chakra binds him here. But she was out cold — there was not a stir beneath her eyelids, and her muscles were as still as death.

He obeyed Kyoko as she went back to her throne and slumped.

She was weak. No, she was weakening. One eye hazed with an approaching blindness, an eye that did not belong to her. He had seen that. Grandfather had died before father was even born...he had the Mangekyo, and Kyoko didn't. But now she does. She's had it since grandfather died. His thoughts circled but he could not understand it. A part of him was still in that dimension, and that part of him shouted at him to stop moving. And yet it was his arms that propped Sayuri up against a wall.

"If you care about her, I suggest you make sure she is thoroughly unconsciously or the exchange will hurt."

He had no control over his mouth. He had no control over his thoughts. Whenever he tried to observe his surroundings, he was drawn back into the world of Kyoko's making and he would see himself touching Sayuri's wrist and then throat and then he was no longer in that world but in reality but he was still touching her wrist and throat.

"I want those eyes. Get me her eyes."

He was doing it. He was reaching for her eyes. He felt the curve of it beneath his fingertips —

"Not like that, you idiot. Get a glass. There are preservatives in the other room."

You idiot.

Somewhere, he was angry. But it did not feel real as all his senses were turned towards Kyoko's desires.

Her voice was tired and her patience was weaning. Her fingers curled over the armrest of the throne, but aside from that she did not move. A part of him knew that she was weakening as her stolen Mangekyo expended chakra and kept him under the Tsukuyomi and her genjutsu. But it's still working. I'm still there. I'm not here. Even as she weakens, I can't...

His legs straightened. He walked to a room that he did not know existed, all the while the side of him that was enraged and protested against her control was confined to the Tsukuyomi. He was shouting and yelling again and again over there in the world washed in blood and shadows but Kaname of the present felt disconnected to it. He could not control his movements, but he was aware that they were not his.

It was the same illusion as before: he saw the hall, then he was in the hall. He heard Kyoko demanding him to bring Sayuri down there, and he obeyed. He saw himself carry Sayuri down to the cellar, and then he was carrying her down to the cellar. He saw empty glass jars, and then they were in front of him. He saw himself take one, and then he was taking one.

And Kyoko was still in the throne room, her eyes closed, waiting.

Hurry, she seemed to whisper.

He hurried but even when he saw his fingers dig into the girl's sockets and tear out her eyes, he froze when his hand reached out to her face. He touched it, he pried open her eyelids. The blind eye stared at him as if Sayuri was a corpse. It dropped back shut. She did not seem to want to die with her eyes open.

But she would die.

Because he would kill her afterward. It was more than the fact that he saw it, but because Kaname could not fathom how he was going to get out of this with clean hands.

xxx

Kyoko was old but chakra had no age.

Her eyes, on the other hand, were fading. No, not hers. Her eyes was somewhere in the vaults of the Uchiha clan. The eyes that was implanted into her skull belonged to her husband, long forgotten.

It had been an old tradition to remove the eyes of the Uchiha clan. There were many shinobi who would go through corpses of others to seek out traces of ninjutsu, and to find the Sharingan was a treasure unheard of — because the high council took them. Some Sharingans were destroyed and unusable, but every so often, there would be eyes that the users did not destroy themselves.

Her husband had died before her eyes, and then his eyes were hers before his soul had left her body. But that was a long, long time ago. Three quarters of her life had passed since then, and his Mangekyo had been preserved but just barely. She knew that it was a miracle that her eyes — his eyes — lasted as long as it did. But in the years between, only Madara and his brother had awaken the Mangekyo and the latter had his taken while he was on his death bed. Since then, there had been none.

But Sayuri. Kyoko needed her eyes. One was blind, but that did not stop her.

All the useless Sharingans...and only one Mangekyo.

She did not want to wait.

She got up with regal grace, her silk robes being drawn like the wings of a black raven. She walked slowly down the stoney dais, her steps echoing in a room that once held the famous Uchihas over the century. Uchiha Indra once sat on that very throne as he declared his successor, but that was the only time it had happened. Since then, the head of the clan had been a position fought over.

The silence surrounded her like air, and the darkness veiled her like a cloak. She breathed in the scent of a stronghold once standing and now abandoned, and felt the presence of each and every single living thing in the fortress. She felt the dwindling chakra of a beast unable to wake up nor leave. She felt the chakra of her flesh and blood, a grandson too arrogant and too weak despite all his advantages. She felt each and every insect crawling in the corners and crevices of the stronghold of her childhood.

And she felt Sayuri. She felt the violet, fiery chakra of her Mangekyo Sharingan, waiting for a host that was able to use it to its entirety.

She stepped into the cellar where floating Sharingans rolled around aimlessly yet she still felt the piercing red on her. She willed Kaname to remain focus as he placed the metal to keep one eye of the girl's open.

"Get her on the bed," she told him. She felt unrelentingly exhausted. She was using too much chakra keeping everything control but if she lapsed even once...if Kaname were able to break through the genjutsu...

Kyoko had been awaiting this day for too long.

Sayuri had to die, Kaname had to forget. Should he remember, it would not matter. The boy had no reason to turn on his grandmother and would gain nothing if he would expose what had gone on. He would make the Uchiha clan fear her, turn on her, but then what? They could speculate about cutting ties with Kyoko, but the council needed her. Without Kyoko, the Uchiha clan would have no figurehead. As much as they may hide or disguise it, she knew that they wanted someone with a feared title. They wanted a Madara, but he was too passionate. He could not control them in times of peace but Kyoko...

"Kaname."

He was still fidgeting with the piece of metal over her eye. It would not stay open. Kyoko grew restless.

"Move," she snapped. "Unfortunately it seems like the best of you is locked away in my Tsukuyomi while I am left with the fool." Kyoko could never understand how Kaname had lived to see his adulthood. From the very moment Hideharu taught the four year old child how to hold a kunai, he had instilled in him an arrogance that should have gotten the boy killed. Kyoko had scorned her son for years for ruining Kaname's childhood with the incessant hours he spent with him. By the time Kaname was an adolescent — somehow still alive — he was conceited and foolish and brutal and unable to think. He did not have the mindset of first asking himself how his actions would affect his clan. The boy had always thought of himself in the immediate setting, never the future.

He stopped.

She felt a gentle spark of protest in his chakra as it flared beneath her chakra that suppressed his will.

The moment she recognized it she controlled the chakra with an inescapable grip. It thickened threefold and Kaname's body slackened but he was still frozen over Sayuri with his hands hovering around her eyes. She could not see the girl.

Kaname was blocking her. Intentionally.

She had anticipated as much. One of the possible outcomes of all her actions was that Kaname would turn on her to protect Sayuri. It had once been a slim possibility with his outright dislike and a stronger sense of inferiority towards her would have guaranteed a life bent towards allowing Sayuri to fall through the cracks but Kyoko made plans just in case.

Kaname was useless. He should have died a long time ago.

Kyoko took back some of her chakra, just slightly. It was an amount small enough to keep Kaname docile but to replenish her weak and old muscles to allow her to move with the speed of her youth.

The very moment her chakra left him, Kaname moved. Not that she was surprised.

So arrogant, so slow.

Kaname dove to get away from her line of sight, making clumsy hand signs but the moment he inhaled a breath to power the element transformation, Kyoko had attacked like a viper. He was down and shrieking with his wrist twisted and arm bent beneath his back before the fire could be called anything more than a spark. But Kyoko did not hear him shriek. Something deafened her and it took her one stunned moment until she joined the mayhem with a cry of pain she had not felt since the wars of her prime years. It was a familiar pain. It was searing through her skin, lighting each blood vessel, filling each organ with an excruciating heat that bit her like ice. Each little nerve screamed. They were burning.

She was on fire. Doused in black flame.

And Sayuri was sitting there back against the wall with one drooping hazy eye held open by a metal wire but staring irrefutably at her with the Mangekyo that was burning Kyoko alive.

Time escaped me, it really did. What with work and minor travelling, I didn't have time to write up this chapter and when I did I decided to combine it (it had originally been two chapters) and then I realize it has been over two weeks so...an extra long chapter (: I hope you enjoyed.

P.S. Sayuri's amaterasu isn't the end-all. I know I used it before as a means to allow her to survive (cheap mans) but because of the way I segmented the three chapters into two chapters, the ending breaks off and picks right back up in the next chapter. So again: please don't think I pulled a Mary Sue and killed Kyoko, who has been praised, with a little (figuratively speaking) jutsu.

Back to regular updating schedule. With five weeks left, I doubt I can finish this as I planned but that still does not mean I'll abandon it!

Thanks for reading! Reviews would be lovely (: