Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I do not own Legend of the Five Rings. No financial gain is made from this. This is for entertainment purposes only.
She had been waiting in the street to his apartment block. While she waited, to soothe her nerves, she wondered how she had known that address. Was it a buried memory from her childhood? Had she ever been brought here and she was too little to remember? Had she told him in one of those conversations where her mind would drift off to dangerous thoughts, such as what his face looked under the mask, or how his eyes were just the right shape, or how... She shook her head, trying to look casual as she paced up and down.
But time ticked by and night befell upon her. She hugged her jacket to her body and sighed when a shadow crossed the corner of her eye. She focused as Orochimaru had taught them and found the source of chakra flying over the roofs and without a second thought she followed. She knew this aura.
He was moving slower, trying to go undetected, when he noticed he was being followed.
"Sumi?" he whispered, as he let her reach him over a balcony. "Sumi, I am busy. Not now."
"Are you on a mission?" she asked, staring at the beautiful dog mask. A mask over a mask, how well it described him!
He paused. "Yes. I won't be around for a while. Please don't follow." He saw the disappointment; she was getting worse at hiding it. "I will visit you when I can, I promise."
"It's okay. I understand." She nodded. "Be careful," she whispered a second after he disappeared in the night, headed to the Hokage's manor in a treacherous quest for truth.
She went back home, jumping over the fallen archway that had not been remade yet, feeling unreasonable. Was she late again? Kakashi had already climbed up again the shinobi ladder and she was merely a chūnin. She would need to train harder, to aim higher.
After several restless nights where old ghosts chased her aspirations and she could not name the heavy feeling that weighed on her chest, she met her team for a training day in which she was quite absent. In her mind, she could only repeat the words, the sentences she had secretly rehearsed for days now.
'Orochimaru-sama, please train me' or 'I think I am ready to become a jōnin' or 'I will train harder, please help me to become a good shinobi', even 'What can I do to join the ANBU?'
She waited that her companions left, promising to meet them later, before to approach the man that she would never admit scared her. She tried to not flinch under his yellow eyes when he turned with a cold smile.
"Sumi, I wanted to speak with you," he said.
"Wh-what? Me?"
He nodded. "I have been thinking and I would gladly propose your name to be upgraded to the rank of jōnin. Have you thought about it?"
He circled her as a predator and she felt exposed. Was this the power of the sennin? Could they all read minds? "I-I would love so."
"But," he raised a finger, "I still feel like you miss a strong technique, something to add to your plight."
She nodded. "I will work on it, I will come back with a new idea, or... or an improvement." Her enthusiasm was laced by insecurity.
He shook his head slowly. "I am afraid there is no time for that. But don't worry; I think I have an idea."
"Yes, anything."
He smirked. "I have heard lately of your family's technique..."
"I am trying my best to master Matsu's technique. If you think it can help I can introduce you Mastu Airi sensei, she has been teaching me for... almost two years now, I think. She is-"
He raised a hand. "No, I mean your real family."
Her eyes widened in understanding. "The Ikoma..."
He put a hand in her shoulder. "Ikoma Sumi, have you forgotten who you are?" Good question, she thought. Had she? She was wordless. "Let's go."
"Where?" she asked as she struggled to keep up with his longer strides.
"First, I need you to show me that infamous technique said to bring back the dead from their eternal slumber."
And with those words, a naive shiver ran down her spine.
They walked through the village, master and student, casually. Bystanders were completely unaware of the complexity of their conversation as Sumi tried to explain the ritual that allowed her to communicate with her deceased ancestors, with her father... How she missed him!
"So you need some kind of remains from the person you wish to bring back?" Orochimaru concluded.
Sumi nodded. They were now in the Matsu district, staring from a distance at the workers fix the first stones that would serve as walls to the Matsu shrine. The area had been cleared and now only two candles and a vase with a purple flower remained in a simple altar in front of a lion mask. "Usually the ashes of the person are placed inside their sculpture. Or so I have heard..."
"Interesting." She waited expectantly. If one of the great sennin could not help her, nobody could. He turned on his heels. "Be early tomorrow morning. We will need to move to the right place before to start the experiments."
"Experiments, sensei?"
He laughed. "Of course, to achieve your new technique."
She bowed at his retreating back. "Thank you, sensei."
With trepidation, she left home the next morning a bit before the Sun rise; she just could not wait, could no longer contain the animation that made her legs kick in the air as she waited her master sitting on a bench. She had just been imagining, fantasizing about what kind of technique her teacher had in mind. With the genius of a sennin, it must be something spectacular. She imagined Kakashi's face when she mastered it, or the proud pat that Kibo would gift her head. She would even maybe make her clan proud again, bring the hero she was back. The attention, the love... Maybe even her mother would see her again for the daughter she was.
The lazy Sun made an appearance and so did her teacher.
"Ready?" He asked.
She just beamed.
The trek was long, full of twists and back and forth. She could have sworn they passed twice by the same clearing and she wondered if he was trying to get them lost in the forest. But the smell of nature and the happy ideas made it pleasant.
"It's here," he said, waving a hand at the small bunker entrance. It looked old and dirty. "I tend to come here to investigate new techniques. It is peaceful," he reassured her.
Orochimaru guided the little girl down dimly lit corridors, feeling her discomfort. What for him were unimportant details, such as the smell of chloroform and blood, the trickling of liquids in tubes, the asphyxiating humidity, the coldness... for Sumi it was disturbing and she had a fleeting thought to run away. Why did it feel like she was entering the wolf's den? She missed Haruki by her side, and she involuntarily scratched her leg, where the tattoo was hidden by her short pants.
"Here," he instructed and she entered a small room with a tiny altar and a table. Lines - no, not lines, characters - had been drawn all around the table in a complex seal. "Well?"
She blinked at him. "This is..."
He stepped in confidently. "This is where we are going to make a breakthrough, you and me. A new jutsu, all for you." He circled the table. "We are going to use your family's technique to cross to the other side and from there... imagine the implications." A well-timed smile. "You could be the perfect spy, the best infiltrator, or maybe become intangible... what a great defense. Or maybe... yes, it may be even possible to bring back the dead to our world." She gasped. He placed his hands on the table. "We won't know until you cross to the other side."
"If never... nobody has ever..." she started to say.
He chuckled. "Well, people that don't try never do."
"But how?"
"With this seal," he pointed at the symbols. "I made it myself. It is a perfect reproduction of the seal under Matsu's shrine that the Kyuubi attack exposed. I made sure to check later in your family's shrine, the same seal exists at its foundation. It seems it is vital to this ritual and I studied it in detail. If you think it, we have then everything necessary to open the door. The candles, the key; the physical remains - your body - the door. The rest is up to you."
Sumi gulped. Then, with heavy steps she walked to the table and used her arms to jump up. With a sigh she laid on it. Her braid was in the way, so she pulled it off, keeping the barrette and the ring between her long fingers.
"Perfect," Orochimaru smirked. "I will start now the ritual." He moved to the candles and with seriousness, he lighted them one after the other. The flame was steady in the buried room. "Now, relax, think of how you do when you call your father, feel the door open, only that this time, cross it." Sumi tried to follow his instructions. She could feel that energy in the room, that familiar energy enveloping them. And something scary behind it. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw the candles flicker and the deadly shine of a kunai. Orochimaru loomed over her now, weapon at the ready. A shriek traveled from her lungs to her throat, but died there before it reached her half-open lips. Orochimaru took her hand and slashed it open. She winced. "A little boost to your trip," he said.
She felt the chakra flowing strong through her body, the rage that pulled her forward and backwards at the same time, in a second and in an eternity at the same time as she traveled to another plane. She stood up, but saw in horror how she existed in two places at the same time. Her body was still on the table, eyes closed, as she stared down to it. She touched her body and it was solid. She touched the girl in the table, but her hand passed through.
"This is amazing," she heard Orochimaru speak.
"You can see me?" she asked, confused.
"I do," he smiled. "I knew this would work."
She felt like puking, but the adrenaline of her new state prevented her from doing anything else than laughing hysterically. "Now what?"
"Well, now you try out new things," Orochimaru said, as he started taking notes. "This is your breakthrough."
Sumi was shy at first, not daring to test the limits of this fantasy, scared it might disappoint her, but a childish playfulness soon overtook her and she started touching everything around the room, even risking a poke at Orochimaru that passed through. Feeling adventurous, she left the room and skipped happily down the corridor.
"Madam?" a high-pitched voice called at the end of the corridor, belonging to a little shape.
Her blood ran suddenly cold and Sumi advanced towards it despite herself. A kid no more than four years old hugged a teddy bear to his dirty hospital robe.
Sumi knew the truth behind the poor soul, something deep in her knew, but she decided to ignore it. Maybe it was that thing in us that watches over to keep us safe, that hides the monsters of the world away from our consciousness. "Are you lost?"
"Did you see my mom?" the child asked.
"Your mom? Where is your mother?"
"I don't know," the kid whined and tears clouded his light blue eyes.
"Where did you see her last?"
"In the market."
"We will-"
Her sentence was cut by a shriek of horror, a sound only possible in a nightmare and she quickly threw her body over the kid to protect him from the flash that ran down the corridor. A man, his decency barely covered by the tattered robe had just sprinted pass them, his arms flailing and his scream painful to their ears. Sumi checked that the kid was alright before turning her sight on the weird man, who stopped a mere second, as if to remember where he was, before running back up the corridor in the same fashion he arrived.
Fearing an impact and trying to avoid the conflict, Sumi took the child by the hand and opened the door next to them, pushed them both inside. She rested her back against the door, her eyes closed as she tried to catch her breath, trying to erase the upsetting image. But a chorus of whimpers and whispered non-sense made her open them wide.
She screamed. All around her, in a viscous room, men of all ages wriggled in the torture of their afterlife. They all wore different states of tattered clothes, some clasped tightly their heads, some stared absently a non-existing point, some tried to hurt themselves, some cried over the bodies hanging on the walls, some fought each other...
And in a corner, she saw a tattered teddy bear, a confirmation of her terrors. As possessed by a primal instinct, she stormed off, running down the corridor, yelling in fear.
She reached the room where she had left her body, the light of the candles warming her cold skin, a bright lighthouse in this crazed maze. Orochimaru scribbled the last of his notes and saw her enter with a smirk.
"Well, the experiment has been a complete success," he said as she walked to her body. "With this I will be able to finish my life work, a jutsu to defeat death." He took the two steps that separated him from the altar. Sumi looked at him from the other side of the table, her sleeping form in the middle, as a safety barrier. "Thank you," he said softly and before she could react, he blew off the candles.
"No... no, no...," she started repeating as a deadly chill took power over her body and the world around her suddenly became darker, its colors lost their vibrant, as a leave withering under the arrival of the winter. She touched her body, but her hands passed through it. She looked at her hands, they looked solid to her, but as much as she tried to hug her own self, they seem to not exist. A desperate sob was born in her throat and it grew to become a loud weeping.
Orochimaru left, laughing, knowing her lost; a loose end dealt with. He knew the Hokage would be soon knocking at his door, so he was satisfied he had made enough progress to leave Konoha.
Sumi felt her tears like ice falling down her cold cheeks. She let herself down to the floor. How had she been so stupid? Would somebody realize her demise? Her disappearance? Would they make an empty tombstone to remind her? Would Kakashi also bring her flowers and share his thoughts, those he kept for the dead?
A small hand pulled at her shirt and she looked at her side to the teddy bear offered. She dried her tears and ruffled the young boy's curly brown hair.
Her stubbornness had blinded her and she had worked hard to win her cruel fate.