Erm...sorry everyone, I think this story is going to slow down considerably.
I haven't gotten writer's block or anything, I just have stuff happening which is distracting me from writing, mostly just real life commitments =P. I do again want to bring up that I have a pat reon , and would appreciate suggestions for donation rewards, since I really suck at thinking of any good rewards.
The next chapter will probably be later than three days away, especially since I finished the last 1.5k words and saved the final version of this chapter a mere 22 minutes before 5PM on the day of uploading...sorry in advance!
As it turned out, for once in her life, fixing what had happened to Harry was remarkably easy.
She simply brought up that there was Dark Magic residing in his scar that she needed to remove to Sirius, and he convinced the boy to let her take a look. Apparently his animosity only stretched to her, not to others like Sirius, or this would have probably gone far worse. With that, it was a simple matter of pulling the soul fragment out of his head using the Human Path then feeding it to the Naraka Path. She didn't hold out too much hope for it, but was still disappointed when he was still visibly unhappy being in her presence, even if it made sense. After all, for at bare minimum two months now his head was being fucked with, it wasn't going to be fixed by her waving a magic wand and declaring him all better. But at least she could reason that over time he'd come to trust her again.
It was one Horcrux destroyed at least, and she had two more essentially held hostage, so it was now even more likely Voldemort would be forced to reason with her. Lucius and Mordecai both agreeing to try and get the man to see reason in regards to Akari and Harry also helped, though from how he'd acted when Akari had revealed she knew about him didn't really make that seem likely. Still, she said she'd try, so she was giving him one more chance.
Just one.
The next few weeks were honestly a bit...distracting.
Akari had gotten it into her head that having a Patronus would be a fun experiment, which then led on to what her Animagus form would be. Since she was a bit hasty about things sometimes, she decided to do both at once, meaning she had to use Shadow Clones to cover for the fact that from that full moon all the way until the next she wasn't able to speak properly thanks to the Mandrake leaf she was holding in her mouth.
While she was doing this, she was practising with her Patronus. Rather than taking a full damn month though, conjuring a corporeal Patronus only took a week thanks to her Sharingan helping her perfectly picture one of her happiest moments, the day when she'd given her brother his eye-sight back. What sprouted from her wand and bounded across the ground before turning to face her however surprised her greatly. She expected a wolf, maybe a panda, perhaps even a bear or a fox or something.
But instead, what had emerged was an ethereal Thestral. When she thought about it, it really made a lot of sense. Akari was a rather prolific killer after all, in her life she'd certainly killed more than a thousand enemy nin. Because of her past, she knew extremely well what it meant to take a life, to watch the light drift out of someone's eyes as she tore her blade out of their body.
Just because she'd managed to summon a Patronus though didn't mean she stopped practising, for the three other weeks until her Mandrake leaf was ready she still practised casting the Patronus Charm, each time getting more and more used to picturing that moment when Sei had hugged her so protectively, and using that to spawn her Patronus, until she could pretty much do it in her sleep.
Even not able to actually do anything, she did still attend the Care for Magical Creatures lesson, she was just invisible and watching the lesson passively while her clone taught. The biggest problem with the whole Animagus thing was eating. Akari had basically just decided that after the first day, she was just going to make her own food rather than try to find things the House-Elves had made which could be eaten without risking accidentally swallowing the Mandrake Leaf.
When she absolutely had to converse with people, Akari just used a Henge to essentially paint illusionary words onto any parchment she could find in her inventory and then showed it to people who asked her stuff, though she spent most of her spare time lounging around in her room messing with her seals. One of her clones had come up with the idea of directly naturing one of the lower layers of her Shadow Arm, that way when the top layers were broken it would suddenly be exposed and activate, allowing for a sudden blast of lightning or fire or whatever else.
The problem was that...it was kinda pointless. Akari doubted that it'd do anything worthwhile, especially since Akari could push out way more Chakra manually, meaning there really wasn't a reason to do it, plus there was the risk of accidental discharge hurting an ally close to her. So, a fun idea in practice, but benched in favour of working on other seals, which they themselves were then benched, just trying to find fun projects to work on while she was effectively mute.
It certainly made her bi-weekly meet-up with Narcissa a little bit one-sided. Akari did try to converse a little, but when the leaf nearly slipped out of her mouth she decided to simply use her Henge strategy, which worked well enough, if a little irritating, before giving up entirely and spawning a Shadow Clone to talk for her. She didn't do that around the school because only a few people even knew she could make Shadow Clones, but she was fine with letting Narcissa know.
She was sure the Malfoys wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of any knowledge they could get their hands on, but the two of them both understood that Akari was not exactly someone who could be bought, beaten, blackmailed or broken, not before she broke the Malfoy's backs over their betrayal. Thus, she wasn't afraid of revealing a few tricks to them.
Plus, Narcissa liked the cakes Akari sometimes brought along, so there was that as well.
When the end of the month came along, Akari was outside of her cave glaring up at the sky.
It was cloudy. Now, normally this would be a 'bad luck, try again next month' scenario, but Akari was impatient, and decided to say fuck the rules, spawning a Shadow Clone who formed a few hand seals and then used Fuuton: Daitoppa (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough) to form an overwhelmingly powerful blast of wind. Akari watched as the Jutsu roared up into the sky and blasted all the nearby cloud cover away, revealing the moon in its full glory.
With a smirk, Akari leaned down and spat the month-old and rather disgusting leaf into a phial. "Thanks." She chirped, plucking out a hair and dropping it in, then taking out a small jar of dew, pouring in a single teaspoon before recapping the jar and putting it away. Finally, and quite possibly the rarest item on the list, the chrysalis of a 'Death's-head Hawk Moth'.
That wasn't to say she didn't get it easily, she did, it was just apparently quite rare. Of course, that was why she had 'friends' like Mordecai, who could get their hands on that sort of thing. The man himself wasn't around, but Lucius was a good enough substitute, asking no questions but re-directing her to a shop in Knockturn Alley where she was able to discreetly purchase it for a scant few galleons.
The reason they were so difficult to obtain was because the Ministry kept a very close eye on them, that way they could track all who became Animagi. Akari didn't care if they tracked her, but she did care if they were going to be demanding to know what kind of animal she was. That sort of thing was private, at least to her. After all, an Animagus would take the form of the animal that suited them best. Since her Patronus gave away the fact she was extremely well-acquainted with death, she had no idea what her Animagus form would give away about her.
Akari gave the phial of Animagus 'potion' to her clone, then realized with a laugh that the potion she'd just made was quite possibly the first one she had actually ever made herself. The clone gave her a curious look before shrugging and disappearing towards the cave, where the potion would be stored until..."Hang on a minute." The clone stopped and turned. "I'm not the only idiot any more. It has to be drunk during a lightning storm, right?" The clone raised an eyebrow, but after a few moments of silence her head slumped.
"Oh...yeah, we're idiots." The clone gave the potion back to Akari, then flipped her hands through a few hand seals. This was quite possibly one of the only Jutsus Akari hadn't used, since she had no idea how it was going to react with her red lightning. "Raiton: Raiu! (Lightning Release: Thunderstorm!)" Her clone finished, thrusting her palms upwards together. A single bolt of red shot out from between her hands, heading up into the sky which had become cloudy again and disappearing. After approximately ten seconds, they saw the first flash of red lightning inside of the clouds suddenly crash downwards to the ground. "Better get a move on, I only had enough Chakra for thirty seconds of the storm."
Nodding, Akari took out her wand and pointed it at her throat. "This feels so dumb, but whatever, one final time I guess. 'Amato Animo Animato Animagus.'" Lowering her wand, Akari thumbed off the lid of the phial and raised it. With a quick gulp, she drank the entire thing, resisting the urge to shudder at the absolutely barbaric taste, making her wish she was allowed to add anything, even chilli powder, to make it taste less horrid.
As a final action, Akari quickly created another Shadow Clone with several days worth of Chakra to observe then deactivated her Kage no Ude seals before her eyes closed, the transformation taking hold. She couldn't see anything that was going on since her eyes weren't exactly out of her head, but she knew that she'd be able to see the entire transformation through the eyes of her clones soon anyway, so it didn't matter.
With a final crack of her back, Akari felt the transformation stop. She opened her mouth to try and speak, before shaking her head. Of course she couldn't speak, she was...what the fuck was she? She'd gotten smaller, but she expected that since a lot of the animals she expected to become were smaller than humans. She could hear exceptionally well, even for her, the sound of repeating footfalls from the clones in the cave endlessly performing katas clear to her ears. She could also smell...a deer somewhere behind her, the stench of smoke coming from another direction, and her clones, well, they didn't have smells, since while she wasn't in Konoha any more, Akari had been detected by scent more than enough times to take care in minimizing her own smell, just by habit.
She narrowed her eyes when one of the clones went down on one knee and looked closely at her. "Well, not unexpected, but a bit boring. Personally I was hoping you'd turn into a Honey Badger." Akari rolled her eyes, sitting on her haunches as she waited for her clone to tell her what the hell she was. "Oh alright, you've become a cheetah." Blinking, Akari twisted her head to look at herself, the spotted pattern making sense to her when she saw it. It was honestly a debate between Cheetah and Leopard when she looked at herself.
With a grin, Akari looked around before tensing up. "Akari, wai-" Before the clone could finish, Akari was bolting off, feeling her new legs pumping under her as she sprinted...before she grazed her side on a tree, the action in turn spinning her around and throwing her side-first straight into a bush. Whining, she pulled herself out of the bush, slumping down with a grumble. The entire point of a cheetah was they were supposed to be super fast, but she'd already run faster than them. Plus, in her Animagus form she couldn't use her Rinnegan or Sharingan, meaning she couldn't easily control herself.
Shaking herself off, she began trundling back towards the cave. "Tried to warn ya." She half-heartedly snapped her jaws at the clone, sitting down and looking out over the area. While her speed was useless, she had to look on the bright side. She could now hear exceptionally well, as well as her sense of smell going into overdrive. While the Cheetah had great eye-sight, that had absolutely nothing on the Mangekyo Sharingan, nor the Rinnegan. But she had no Jutsu that made her able to smell or hear much better than normal, so it had its advantages.
She saw no point wasting her time trying to control her speed, since it was way slower than even a casual run for Akari in her human form, though the increase to her other senses made her Animagus form worth the month-worth of effort. Akari wasn't worried about how long the Animagus transformation would take to wear off, the two clones at Hogwarts each had familiar seals attached to them, so they'd last forever anyway.
All in all, a tiny bit disappointing about the speed being inferior to her own by a massive margin, but still a very useful transformation.
Stretching out her arm, Akari watched the newly-named Nyoka as he coiled around her, his tongue flicking out to brush her cheek.
The baby basilisk seemed perfectly content with his current life being fed by Akari and mostly looked after by a Shadow Clone, though what was weird was that he seemed able to tell the difference between Akari and a Shadow Clone, perhaps his sense of smell was obscenely powerful and he could detect the faint scent differences or something? Whatever the case was, every time she entered the room he somehow knew whether it was her or a Shadow Clone and came slithering over, climbing her leg if she didn't pick him up already. As if she could resist a cute snake though, the only time she hadn't picked him up was because she was just the tiniest bit distracted at the time, which was when he'd climbed her leg and torso, ending up coiled around her and with his head resting on her shoulder.
"Really? Another snake Akari-sensei?" Tachiko asked with a smirk. The African sun had done her well, the teen coming back with a glowing tan and far lighter eyes than she'd left with. Akari was very bad at doing the whole aftermath thing, so having Tachiko learn how to handle what had happened to her wasn't something she could really help with, all she could do was support her in whatever she did.
Though maybe that was a bad idea, if the new 'boyfriend' Tachiko had introduced her to was any indication. "You're one to talk. Just because I pick up people like stray cats doesn't mean you can go do it yourself." She said with a chuckle, rolling her arm around when Nyoka tried to lean out to investigate the two newcomers, giving him the extra reach to flick his tongue at Tachiko.
"Awh, hello." She said with a grin, extending an arm for the basilisk to coil around, though Nyoka merely brushed his head against her arm before returning to Akari's arm. "So, not quite as friendly as Monty then?" Shrugging, Akari placed the Basilisk on her lap, cracking her back.
"Not quite, seeing as for some utterly unknown reason he sees me as 'mommy'. Laugh and I tell your new boyfriend here about that time you sucked your thu-mph." Akari was stopped when Tachiko sprinted over and clamped a hand over Akari's mouth. She wasn't actually going to say anything too bad, but Akari had plenty of fuel to use if Tachiko began getting into an embarrassment war. "So, what's your plan then?"
Tachiko rubbed her neck, eventually clasping her hands together and dipping her head. "Please let him come back to Konoha with me?" She blurted out all at once. Looking over at Tachiko's new boyfriend, Akari raised an eyebrow, to which he shrugged.
"Tachiko, have you even explained where we came from to him?" When she shook her head, Akari growled. "Look, Tachiko, you have to tell him why Konoha isn't a place he'd have ever heard of. You can't spring this sort of thing on him. Though, I guess you'ver got it easy since you already know magic, don't you Dakarai?" She addressed him by name, watching his eyes widen before they narrowed. "Don't worry, before today I didn't even know you existed, I can just sense who does and doesn't have a magical core. Back home it isn't called that, but...I'll let Tachiko explain, since this is a mess she made."
The girl slumped her shoulders. "I wanted it to be a surprise for him. But...I guess you're right sensei. I'll tell him about Konoha, but...if he agrees, will you let him come back home with me?"
"If he's happy with it, I don't really care either way. if you wanted, you could stay here with him, or you could go back home with him, I don't mind. But if he or you ever wanted to come back, you'd have to tell Kushina or Minato, and if you can't find them just tell Sei and he'll tell me, since I can't detect a thrown Hiraishin across...well, the gap." She alluded, clueing Tachiko in without giving anything away. Akari stood up and stretched, heading for the door. "Best of luck then. You can talk to him in here, I'll ask the house-elves to not enter for a while, not that they often do anyway." Waving her arm casually, Akari left the room, giving Nyoka a quick nuzzle, who tipped his head to look back at the door, tilting his head to the side curiously.
"Yeah, I know boo, she's like me."
Akari sent Tachiko and Dakarai back to Konoha after extracting a verbal promise that she would keep his origins low-key.
It wasn't like it mattered too much to her if it got out that she could dimension-hop, especially since with her reputation back home, nobody would be stupid enough to try and demand her take them with her, but it could cause problems in that her family, friends and acquaintances could be used against her, which wouldn't be fun to deal with.
Returning from Konoha as soon as her fast-travel had finished its cooldown, Akari immediately got hit by the memories of a dispersed clone informing her that a rather old-fashioned boy was currently inhabiting the cell that the prisoner was in, the same one who was writing in the diary. Said prisoner was currently unconscious on the floor and seemingly dying if his lowering heart-rate was any indication.
With a flash, she Hiraishin'd to the cave, heading over for the little excavated area and peering into the crudely-made cell. She immediately spotted the boy stood within wearing old-fashioned robes with the Slytherin House insignia sewn onto it. "Going to take a shot in the dark and assume you're a young apparition of Tom Riddle then?" The boy's dark eyes snapped to her face.
When no answer was forthcoming, Akari sighed, leaning against the door. "Let's see how well you react to certain events then, since I really don't have a hand for interrogation beside torture. First Wizarding War. Harry Potter. Prophecies. Horcruxes. Hmm...interesting." Out of the things she'd said, young Tom had barely reacted, save for Horcruxes, where his eyes widened slightly in surprise. Everything else he kept under wraps, though because he didn't know or was trying to hide his knowledge was not something Akari knew.
"You've got two choices here then, Tom. Either you actually work with me here, or you continue being obstinate and I finish you off permanently. I already killed what I believe was your primary soul fragment, but I don't know if it'll re-emerge, or even if I'm talking to it right now somehow, but in any case, you either spill the beans, or..." Akari thumbed across her throat, though the raven-haired boy seemed to show little care for her actions.
"I have a counter offer. You can join my Death Eaters, or you will be the one dying today. You cannot kill my soul anyway, not without destroying my Horcruxes. Which means that right now, all you've done is given me form by feeding this man's entire being to me, and the only way to be rid of me would be to destroy my diary, which is a far harder venture than you'd believe."
Humming Akari brushed a hand against her chin. "Yes, I suppose that would be rather difficult. Fortunately enough for me, dear old Dumbledore was happy enough to tell me exactly how a Horcrux goes about being destroyed. A perfect example is Basilisk venom as it can't be protected against with magical means, meaning no matter how many protections you place on your precious Horcruxes, they can always be destroyed with venom." Akari withdrew the Gaunt Family Ring from her inventory, holding it up for him to see with a grin. "Recognize this? Because I certainly do. Oh, and would you look at that, it appears that Nyoka wants to say hello."
Akari stretched an arm towards the clone who was holding the Basilisk, enjoying the widening of Riddle's eyes as the snake slithered up her arm and coiled up to rest his head on her shoulder. "I don't think you quite understand that even with destroying two of my Horcruxes, it won't be enough, not with how safely the others have been placed." Akari rolled her eyes at the boy.
"Three actually. I've already destroyed one, I have your diary in easy reach for number two, and this makes number three, so there's only four more to destroy before it's bye bye Tommy-boy. Anyway, I promised Mordecai and Lucius I'd give you a chance, but you seem as unrepentant and asshole-ish as your older self, so without further ado..." Akari brushed her hand against the underside of Nyoka's mouth, holding the ring up. "Bite this please." She spoke softly to the snake, who hissed softly before snapping his jaws out and biting deeply in the metal, the entire object disintegrating from the power of his venom.
Akari dropped it before the venom could start affecting her, watching as the magic inbued in the object was feasted upon until with a sudden blast of darkness the shredded fragment of soul was ripped out of the metal and disintegrated into nothingness. "Now then, number three is next." Slamming the heel of her boot against the door to force it open, young Tom found himself unable to stop Akari as she snatched up his diary and had Nyoka bite into it.
As she did this, Tom tried to grab her throat and strangle her, but merely phased through her, his form not being corporeal enough to touch anything yet. "You'll pay for this." He hissed at her, his visage becoming spectral for a few moments as he lost his form before fading from vision entirely, leaving the room empty. Akari drew a Senbon and tossed it nonchalantly at the head of the unconscious murderer and rapist, wandering out of the room with her hands in her vest, Nyoka having returned his head to her shoulder.
"Nah, I don't think I will."
It was a shame that Voldemort still seemed content trying to murder her for no real reason, but alas, she merely went about her life as usual.
Lucius wasn't too happy to hear that his master had seemingly gone insane and wouldn't listen to reason regarding Akari, but while he did still say he wished to speak to the Dark Lord himself to ascertain whether he could be swayed, he acknowledged that Akari would be destroying Horcruxes if and when she found them, even helpfully pointing out that if anybody was in possession of one, it would be his most trusted lieutenant, Bellatrix.
With the insane woman unfortunately suffering from a case of broken brow syndrome, an extremely dangerous affliction involving her skull meeting Akari's fist in a very fatal way, Akari couldn't just force the answers out of her. But, quite usefully, Akari had access to a certain Black who would certainly be amicable to screwing over his sister. "Well, I can think of three places Bella would hide a...Horcrux." The man was still getting over just what the Dark Lord had done, though in Akari's eyes, it wasn't really that surprising. "Either in Grimmauld Place, Gringotts or in one of the isolated Black properties, the one out in the Hebrides perhaps."
Akari palmed her chin in thought, going over the options. Grimmauld Place was somewhere Sirius could search just fine on his own, Gringotts sounded like a fun excursion, especially with how it was touted as impenetrable, and going out to the Hebrides to find a building sounded kinda boring, plus something else Sirius could handle. "Okay, you handle Grimmauld and the Hebrides, I'll go hunt down Bellatrix's vault in Gringotts and see whether there's a Horcrux in there."
For a moment, Sirius laughed, probably assuming she was joking, but when she affixed him with a deadpan look, his mouth opened to argue, only to stop and consider it. "I guess...you did manage to break into Azkaban. But this will be different, as Gringotts is right in the middle of Diagon Alley, there's no sneaking in there. Azkaban is more because it's nigh unfindable, Gringotts is more about tried and true security, so how do you plan to breach it?" Akari shrugged.
"I have absolutely no idea, but I'm sure it'll be fun."
Shrouded in invisibility and also using her very old 'Kara' disguise seal, Akari rose from her knelt-down position atop a building adjacent to Gringotts.
She'd picked late afternoon for her incursion, less chance of bumping into people, but not so late that the building was going to close while she was inside, since getting back out would probably get annoying if the doors and whatnot were all locked up. There was a ward, or perhaps several wards, surrounding the building, so presumably they had a way to detect everyone who entered or exited the bank, immediately informing them of an unseen intruder.
Despite this 'security', Akari simply walked up to the ward and used the Preta Path to tear a human-sized hole in the wards and slip through, which closed behind her again just as silently. To anyone watching, the air shimmered just slightly from the ward being breached then fixed, and to those watching the anchor-point for the wards would have seen a momentary dip in energy before things returned to normal, the ward repairing itself as they were supposed to, but since it wasn't breached, just drained a little, it wouldn't set an alarm off.
Now inside of the wards, Akari then entered the building, walking straight up the wall just on the inside of the door up to the ceiling. No point risking getting bumped into after all. The biggest problem was that Akari had no idea where Bellatrix had her vault, since Sirius had confirmed that there certainly wasn't a Horcrux in the Black Family Vault, meaning it was either a personal vault, or perhaps the vault of the family she married into, the Lestranges.
She knew vaguely where that one was thanks to Lucius, ever helpful, but she didn't know if Bellatrix had her own vault, so Akari decided she'd pay a little visit to the little bitch of a goblin who tried to fleece her of her money, he would either know whether Bellatrix had a personal vault, or would direct her to someone who did. Staying on the ceiling the entire time, Akari followed Kurama's directions to find his office, having gotten lost only a few turns in. It was a few years ago, so it was expected for her to forget, especially for someone who forgot things seconds after they were told to her sometimes, but it was still a bit irritating how her memory failed her so often.
Before long she reached a door she vaguely recognized, the 'Hammerfist' plaque reminding her of the goblin's name, which she'd forgotten. Akari walked down from the ceiling to stand just above the door, kneeling on the wall and peering through the gap, spotting the goblin working away at something. Akari placed a seal which stopped sound from escaping the room before kicking the door open.
...Okay, maybe she used a little too much force and sent the door flying into the room, slamming against Hammerfist's desk, but...it was totally planned, she just wanted to intimidate him, yeah. "Hello there Hammerfist, how've you been, how's the thievery?" She said with a grin, exposing her teeth at the goblin as he growled and touched something beneath his desk. "Oh, you shouldn't have done that."
Lunging forwards, Akari snatched his throat, leaving the room as quickly as she entered, hauling the goblin along and punching him in the face when he tried to squirm out of her grip. "Stay put now, we've got a little destination to get to you see, and you're going to help me." With that, she hid herself in the Kiri-Woka no Jutsu, walking up onto the ceiling before frowning. "Oops."
Akari might have slightly forgotten that while she didn't turn to stone from enshrouding herself in natural Chakra, other beings weren't so durable, as evidenced from the fact that Hammerfist's throat had turned to stone, and it was spreading fast. He tried to say something, but, well, with stone replacing his throat, all that came out was a gasp of air. "Damn."
Summoning the Naraka Path, Akari tossed Hammerfist inside, waiting a few moments then snatching the newly-healed Goblin. "Well, that plan is out, and the vaults are on the other side of the main hall, damn." Tapping her foot against the ceiling, Akari spotted a squad of Gringotts guards come rushing around the corner. "Fuck sake." Dropping from the roof, Akari formed a single hand seal, slamming her palm against the ground. "Doton: Doryuheki! (Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!)"
Sprouting from the ground, a wall of earth rose to seal the entire corridor, giving Akari a few seconds as the guards on the other side threw blasting curses at it. A few seconds was all she needed to forcibly slam a body-sealing tag onto Hammerfist, then snatch the filled tag and bolt away down the corridor, turning a corner just as the wall was breached. Akari turned another corner but set an earth wall on the opposite hallway, giving the guards a false trail to follow, while she herself went down the unblocked path.
With Hammerfist sealed, Akari could have just dropped back into the Kiri-Woka, but she was feeling excited now, so decided that this would be a fun way to blow off some steam. No permanent injuries, they were just doing their jobs after all, but she wasn't above some hunting, humiliation and harassment. Following Kurama's estimations and directions, Akari found herself looped back onto the hallways she'd come from before capturing Hammerfist, quickly following them back to the main hall, which was still operating just fine, though the instant she stepped inside all of the guards focused on her, the tellers retreating out of the room at the sight of her.
Growling lowly, Akari dodged the first spells fired at her, ignoring their yells that she surrender as she withdrew her old Bowie Knives. A Kunai or Senbon would possibly be tied back to her, but using her knives wouldn't be attributable to Akari, since she never really used them anyway. When the next spells encroached upon her position, she smirked before leaping over it all, flying towards the nearest guard faster than could be seen, her knife reversed and the end of the grip slamming into his head, knocking him out cold.
No permanent injuries, but some pain and humiliation wasn't out of the question. She avoided more spells, the guards having to now be wary not to hit the fallen guard, before using the Shunshin to flash behind the furthest guard and knock him out in an instant, following that up by knocking out a handful of other guards, all before the sound of the initial guard being struck reached the ears of any other guard. Akari stole a wand off of one of them and whipped it around, casting an Aqua Eructo which flooded the room with water, absolutely drenching everybody within as it crashed over the teller stands, ruining thousands of sheets of paperwork.
Smirking, she then cast a Baubillious Charm, electrifying the water, though unfortunately it wasn't strong enough to even knock anyone out, just give them all a shock. Akari was stood atop the water, sidestepping when one particularly tenacious guard threw a Bombarda Maxima at her, exploding the wall behind her violently and making one of the fragments plink off the back of her head.
"Alright, enough fun and games." Akari narrowed her eyes at the female guard, flicking the stolen wand. "Deprimo!" Akari demolished the floor beneath the guards feet, the woman barely having enough time to widen her eyes before she dropped into the water. Akari cast a Descendo Charm on her, forcing her underneath the water as it flooded into the newly-made hole. With a wide sweep she then cast an overcharged Depulso across the entire room, blasting all the remaining guards and hiding goblins away from herself with a tidal wave of water following them.
She cast a hot-air charm on herself to dry her clothes of any stray water, tossing the stolen wand into her inventory for later use. The room had been blasted apart by the spellfire, and then doused in water before her final spell had unearthed the teller stands with sheer force. Nodding, she turned and exited the room towards the vaults, rolling her eyes at the Bone-breaking Curse which narrowly missed her. "You want to drown then?" Akari said as she turned, drawing the wand and whipping it down as she leaned back over herself, the action avoiding the second curse and leaving her target open for her second Descendo to hit her, forcing her down to the very bottom of the water-filled hole.
Akari didn't bother checking to see whether or not she'd swim up to the surface before she lost consciousness, the woman tried to use a curse on her, so she responded in kind with potentially lethal force, though if the woman was fit enough she'd be able to breach the surface. Sealing up the way she left with a Doton Jutsu, Akari made her way towards where Lucius had told her the vaults were, her ears ringing a little from the incessant security alarm that had been going off since the first spells were flung.
She'd ignored it before, but now it was getting on her nerves a little. Alas, she didn't know where it was, nor did she think cutting off all sound was worth, well, not being able to hear anything, so she just dealt with it. Before too long, Akari saw the minecart which was meant for getting to the various vaults. With the current security alert, it probably wouldn't work or would kill anyone who tried to use it, so she didn't bother.
No, instead she hopped straight onto the minecart track, attaching herself with Chakra similarly to the wall-walking exercise. This trick however was a little different, as it allowed for her to slide without letting go, meaning that with a little propulsion from a clone using a Fuuton Jutsu every so often, Akari was blasted along the tracks at high speed. During the downhill slopes she couldn't help herself from grinning, it was seriously like riding the most dangerous rollercoaster in the world, with how far down it was to the ground, the fact that the tracks went upside down several times, and that she was the only thing between herself and a very, very long drop.
She came up on one of the stopping points for a bank of 'Low-Sec' vaults, the ones which were barely protected compared to others, and withdrew the sealing scroll containing Hammerfist, tossing it as she forced a little Chakra into the seal, making the goblin appear in a puff of smoke. "Alright chucklefuck, here's the deal. You tell me where the vault io Bellatrix Lestrange can be found, and in return, I don't separate your head from your shoulders after forcing the answer out of you. And I'd highly recommend you don't say you don't know, or I'll just kill you and find it myself."
The goblin blanched, looking around and realizing exactly where they were. "How did you-ACK!" Akari closed her fist around his throat, glaring into his beady eyes, giving him all the incentive he needed to tell her that Bellatrix Lestrange did not own an individual vault, instead she had access to the Black and Lestrange Family Vaults before her demise, which meant all items within were automatically claimed by the vault, passing ownership to the Black and Lestrange families respectively, before then telling her where the two vaults could be found.
Nodding, Akari forced the goblin back into the seal, tucking it away in her inventory and re-mounting the track, sliding all the way down to the Black vault and hopping off. Akari didn't need to break into the vault, but considering her question, it'd draw unneeded suspicion on Sirius if Akari didn't break into it, so she tore away the wards protecting the door then cast a Bombarda Maxima at the now-unwarded door, a shriek pealing out as the metal was rent aside and leaving a gaping hole where the once-daunting door stood.
With a smirk, she hopped inside, kicking at a few piles of Galleons and having a little wander around, even casting an Accio just to cement the idea that she was looking for something but couldn't find it, then left again, sliding straight back onto the minecart rails. She went through a waterfall at one point, using a quick Fuuton Jutsu to blast away the water so it didn't soak her, but aside from that, the ride was uneventful, right up until she saw it.
The vault she was heading towards was inside of the upcoming area of doors, and...there was a dragon protecting it. Akari hid herself in the Kiri-Woka no Jutsu as she approached, no point antagonizing it, though as she got closer and saw just what a state it was in...needless to say, Akari didn't feel too bad about what she was doing any more.
Sat sleeping there, she got a clear view of the tightly-wound chain around its neck, tight enough to have already scraped away the scales and exposed the rubbed-raw flesh beneath. There was scarring on its nose, the flesh around its law and even around its eyes was also visibly scarred and damaged. Slowing to a stop, Akari hopped off the minecart track, sneaking closer to the dragon utterly silently.
As she got closer, the dragon lifted its head, its bloodshot and hazy eyes looking around carefully before it lowered its head again, eyes still carefully watching the tracks. Akari snuck closer still, until she was close enough to reach out and grasp ahold of the chain around its neck, breathing a quiet sigh to herself. The dragon heard this of course, but by then Akari had already gotten her hand fisted around the metal, using the Preta Path to leech out the magic holding the chains together, then with a clench of her fist she utterly crushed the metal, her anger lending itself quite nicely to her strength.
Letting out a surprised growl the dragon stood up, twisting itself around as it realized its sudden freedom, whilst at the same time Akari activated her Naraka Path, using her strength to allow her to all of a sudden quite literally shove the massive dragon into the mouth of the King of Hell. She then dropped the Kiri-Woka no Jutsu and sighed, wiping her arm against her head. A few moments later, the same dragon appeared from the Naraka Path, devoid of scars, and his brilliant crimson eyes locked onto her own instantly in surprise, anger and fear. Thanks to her Animal Tamer perk, it didn't attack, but it was obviously absurdly mistrustful of humans, goblins and whatever else led to its imprisonment.
"I swear I'm going to kick some goblin ass for them doing this to you." She said solemnly, smiling when the dragon cocked his head at her words before lowering to look more closely at her, accidentally mirroring Kurama when he had to look at her closely. She presumed that the poor thing was probably trying to figure out why it didn't want to attack her. "If you want I can take you out of here, though I don't know if I could hide you, you're pretty big after all." Akari thought aloud, eyes widening when she saw the dragon actually nose forwards, sniffing at her.
With a slow hand, she reached out and touched the nose of the dragon, giving him some scratches which he obviously enjoyed. "Well aren't you just a big old softy, yes you are." She spoke gleefully, taking a step forwards and to the side to get better access to scratch the big dragon. "Oh that just settles it, you're coming to live with me, maybe Sirius would give me that place in the Hebrides...though you'd probably prefer somewhere more like home in Ukraine, wouldn't you?" The dragon rumbled wordlessly at her, though she guessed it was a nonchalant response.
She couldn't tell when he was so badly injured, but when healed his species became obvious, he was a Ukrainian Ironbelly, which meant he probably wasn't too happy living in England. to be fair though, he probably wasn't happy in general, not being in the middle of Gringotts. "I wonder...that Ron kid said he had a brother who worked with dragons, so maybe I could get you to safety using him?" While she mused, she kept scratching the big dragons scales, cooing despite herself when, after she sat down, he laid his head across her lap. He did completely dwarf her, but with her strength and other stats he didn't so much as cause an inconvenience for her.
"Well, whatever, I'll figure it out as I go along." Akari said, gently pushing the dragons head off her legs and standing up, giving the dragon as big a hug as she could manage before making her way to the vault that Hammerfist told he was the Lestrange vault, repeating her actions with the Black Vault and ripping away the wards, giving a solid kick to the door which smashed it open just as easily, now devoid of its protective enchantments.
The sound of metal being shorn drew the Longbelly's attention, but she merely gave a shallow wave behind herself before stepping inside, immediately sighing at the mound of treasure. Cracking her fingers, Akari spawned a dozen Shadow Clones, each one knowing her plan. "Right, let's find us a Horcrux." She then hummed, tilting her head before a feral grin came across her lips.
"But if there's something you think we'd like, well, we are thieves right now after all."
I swear I don't make her pick up strays on purpose.
There's just no way Akari could see that big, sweet, heavily-scarred dragon and not want to protect the big cutie. Seriously. Now that she has Animal Tamer, even the most dangerous, 5-X-classed beasts don't threaten her, and since we know that the Gringotts Dragon wasn't Imperio'd nor a familiar, it means her Animal Tamer would make him totally non-hostile to her.
She won't keep picking up animals though, I promise, she has too many already.