Nanami spent only a short moment in her shock before recovering. Once the color had returned to her features, a smile even crept its way across her face. It was coy and knowing—a thought in her mind had put her at ease.
"You say you plan on taking over the family, forcibly assuming your position as High Priestess," Nanami started, her golden eyes locked with Aiko's blues, "but this family does not followed blindly—the Okumura do not chase hazards. Go and declare your news, but you'll find that none will stand beside you."
Aiko was startled, but not for the reason her mother assumed, "You... How stupid do you think I am?"
"Well you clearly didn't think this through all the way—"
"Says who?" Aiko removed her weapon that she still had pressed into the man who continued to groan on the ground and slung it over her shoulder once more, "Do you think that I spent all of my time here with my ears and eyes closed? I know more about the ins and outs of this family than anyone here. I know of secrets so many of you even keep from each other." Aiko smirked at that, "I was quiet, mother, but I learned much."
While not visibly, Nanami was shaken. If what her daughter said was true, then Aiko was even more dangerous. There were many things that she and Karasu kept from the rest of the clan as a way to garner secret power over the others and line their own pockets with greater wealth. There was even an alliance that would shatter their good will with the Hidden Leaf and call for the entire family's execution should it become known...
Aiko read her mother's face like a book, "Yes, I even know about that; your affiliation with—"
"Enough!" Nanami shouted, her face panicked but red with her anger. "You talk big for someone with little influence, Aiko. I will stand for such disrespect no longer!"
However, beside Nanami, Hitomi's face was a mask of confusion. Her granddaughter's words rang no bells for the elderly woman, she had no idea what those last words meant. An affiliation? With who? Nanami had never kept secrets from her before. "What is she going on about—"
"Not now, mother!" Nanami interrupted in agitation. "Karasu—"
"Yes, I know," the older man stood up behind his desk, his expression blank.
At Aiko's feet, the man she had assaulted began to stir. He thought he was being cautious as he inched towards her but Aiko saw it. He stopped as soon as she rammed the toe of her shoe into his gut once more. Newfound pain flared were the old had died and he screamed obscenities at the red head. "Not so fast," Aiko said with a sly grin to her father, "we Okumura have rules." She looked at her mother and grandmother before her eyes met with the chrome gaze of her father. "I challenge you, officially."
The older man halted his movement, eyes narrowing as he looked at his daughter. She couldn't be serious? These sort of things were just formalities—an age old tradition that hadn't been put into practice in over a century. "You... challenge me?" He repeated.
"To the death," Aiko added with defiance.
Karasu thought on this a moment. It was idealistic on either side. Aiko wanted to take over the family and Karasu wanted his daughter dead—this would be the quickest route for them both. But a voice nagged at the older man, and he soon realized it was his wife.
"You can't seriously be considering this!" Nanami yelled at him, "The risk is too great!"
"Send a champion in your stead, then," Hitomi interjected. "If we're bringing up those old texts then we might as well make use of their ancient guidelines."
"I'll give you ten minutes to make up your mind before I start doing this the hard way," Aiko interrupted, expression stoic as she left the room swiftly. She would wait for her opponent out in the courtyard. It didn't matter who she fought, she just needed the entire Okumura Clan to see. They just needed to witness how strong she was to follow her. That was how her family worked.
Strength over weakness.
Whoever she was going to fight, as long as she won, it didn't matter.
.
Aiko breathed in the fresh, outside air deeply. her heart was racing and she felt the adrenaline coursing through her. She hadn't planned on everything turning out like this, she hadn't even wanted to come back, but somehow it felt good to be facing her demons. Aiko had run away from them for so long that it almost felt surreal to be here in her childhood home once more. No—her childhood prison.
Holding her weapon ready, standing vertically on the ground, shut, as she gripped the top, Aiko watched as members of her clan poured out of their homes. They began creating an enclosure around the red head, waiting, watching to see what she would do next. Many of them glared daggers at her; many of them couldn't look at her at all, frightened of the wrath they had seen her bring down on the others. But mostly, they all radiated with abundant eagerness. It had been a long time since there were any meaningful power struggles within the family. And it had been over a century since anyone had challenged the head of the house. There were only a handful of elders who remembered the last coup. It had ended with failure and the death of the challenger. No one had been brave enough to attempt such a move since. Especially when Karasu was so much more merciless and unforgiving than his predecessor.
Aiko heard murmurs as a figure emerged to confront her from the crowd. As she expected, it was not her father. He had sent another in his stead. 'Coward,' she thought to herself.
There was no further time to think as the man charged at her. She didn't recognize his face but when someone shouted "Kill her, Eiji!" she knew of his name. He was the son of one of her aunts: a skilled fighter. He was also known for his exceptional genjutsu. He had a natural gift, and her family put him to use. He was younger than Aiko, fifteen now after all these years, but he was one of the Okumura's best hallucination torturers. Eiji had a perfect success rate for getting the information he wanted, and all it took was his opponent letting their guard down. He just needed a crack to slip into one's mind. His prey just needed to falter a little bit. Aiko had heard of his methods from her family before she had run away. He used memories and loved ones against his victim. If he could get them riled up, play with their emotions, make them believe in something untrue, then he was in. It was the only foothold Eiji needed.
Aiko needed to keep calm.
She dodged Eiji's first series of attacks with ease, not even having to use her fan. But Aiko recognized it for what it was, a ploy. He was playing with her, this wasn't Eiji's full strength. He threw kunai, shuriken, even fumbled through some hand signs to throw earth at her, but it was basic. It was irritating. Aiko didn't have time to play games, she didn't have time to wast on something like this.
Aiko opened her fan, holding the end as she jumped out of the way as a spike of rock stabbed upward through the ground beneath her. She swung her weapon easily and watched as Eiji tumbled away. Then she readied herself once more as she landed on her feet. Her next move would be to kill.
Eiji recovered quickly as he began going though a series of handsigns Aiko recognized. "Poor, Aiko," he said from several paces away. Then he disappeared as the ground swallowed him whole.
Aiko grit her teeth, "So that's how it's going to be."
"Come now, Aiko," a lazy voice echoed around her, "is this any way to welcome your family?"
Aiko twisted around only to realize she was alone. Everyone was gone. There were no onlookers, no buildings, no trees—and the sky was dark. She cursed at herself, she had slipped up. "Show yourself, Eiji!" She shouted, but only a dark laugh wrapped around her in response.
"I can really see what Aunt Nanami meant about you, especially with you so vulnerable like this. Pathetic!"
A kunai shot out from no where, seemingly appearing at Aiko's side, and embedded itself in Aiko's shoulder. She didn't have any time to react. Another came at her. Then another. Aiko crossed her arms in front of her as shuriken and kunai both cut into her skin relentlessly. She bled onto the barren ground and cried out at the horror of it. Her arms looked like pincushions and her legs fared no better by the time the barrage stopped.
"I hear Konoha sent their ANBU after you to bring you back," Eiji's voice was slow, almost distorted, echoing around Aiko somehow even with nothing around for the sound to bounce off of, "How cruel of them to so easily be fooled by our lies and cast you in criminal light. It sounds like they've never really been your friends. Never really cared about you if it was so easy for them to turn on you."
"Shut up!" Aiko screamed.
"And you ran away because of a boy," Eiji continued, amused, "yet he's not here with you."
Aiko then felt a breeze snake around her as if it was alive. It coiled up her body and nearly choked her as it passed over her face, stealing the air from her lungs.
"He must not care about you much either."
Aiko coughed as she sucked in a sharp breath, "I SAID SHUT UP!" She lifted her arm that held her weapon but stopped when she noticed her hand was empty. Both were. Her fan was gone.
"How... e... you must feel." Eiji cooed. His voice was like a loud whisper, caressing Aiko with an icy touch.
She went to pull the shuriken and kunai from her arms but found them bare and her wounds gone. She began shaking. The pain she was experiencing felt so real yet none of it was happening. Aiko laughed at the insanity of it, but she felt as though the sound of her own voice was so far away, as if she wasn't even in her own body. "Well," she began when she had regained her composure, "at least I was always important to this family. Even if everyone hated me, I always got their attention." She grinned, "I hear you were forgotten often, Eiji. The clan only ever comes to you when they need your talents for work. And—" she spread her arms outside as she spun around, "—isn't that what this is?! A work call?! If you manage to kill me, they just cast you aside once more. Forgotten. A waste of their precious time. You're not even worth their passing glances!"
"BE QUIET!" Aiko's surroundings shook with the force of Eiji's rage and large rocks began falling from the sky as if some stone ceiling was crumbling. She dodged the debris as best she could but was eventually pinned down as a heavy piece crushed her leg. She screamed.
But then stopped.
The more she concentrated on her knowing this wasn't real, the more she recognized that her body didn't actually hurt. She was immobile, there was nothing she could do about it, but her body was fine. And then she remembered something Shikamaru had done once during the Chunin Exams. He had been in a similar situation, hadn't he? With a ninja from the Hidden Sound? Aiko smiled with realization as she remembered. She needed real pain.
It took only a breath of a moment.
Aiko forced her thoughts away, she didn't want to jinx herself out of it, and then... she broke her ring finger. It had taken all of her strength to override the signals her brain poured out in protest. It had been her looking away that had finally given her that last push. This time, the pain was very real, but it achieved what the red head had wanted.
The genjutsu was broken.
Aiko's surroundings returned to normal—with the Okumura still gathered around—and she stared in front of her to see a startled Eiji. "Now," Aiko began, picking up her fan with her good hand that had been lying on the ground, "I think it's time we finish this."
Eiji stood defiantly in front of Aiko, a few paces away. He wouldn't be frightened off by her threats. There was nothing she could do to really hurt him. He had felt the power of her fan and it hadn't even left a scratch on him. No, this fight leaned heavily in his favor. He would be the victor!
"Do be so cocky!" Eiji shouted as he kicked off and began running towards Aiko. There was little space separating them but Aiko only needed a moment—it would all be over before anyone blinked.
Holding her fan, open, and pointing at the ground, Aiko saw Eiji kick up dirt behind him in slow motion. She didn't have time to raise her fan for the Tempest, but she did have time for a different move.
Swinging her weapon aslant upwards towards the sky, Aiko put all her strength into the motion. Eiji witnesses as the air between them began to distort with the force of it, as if he was staring into a clear pool of water and something now disturbed the surface. But he had no time to retreat or counter—he had let himself get too close.
A gust of wind erupted, carving forward into Eiji as it shredded into him and tore off one of his arms. Though, the move was not as volatile as the Tempest, and Eiji's body—while carved up—remained relatively intact. Everyone behind the teenage boy moved out of the way quickly. They had more time to react, which saved their lives, but the home that they stood in front of had its front facing wall explode into a rain of wooden shards.
As the wood fell, so too did Eiji as he sputtered and bled onto the ground. Then his last breath escaped him and he was dead. Aiko turned her head as she searched the crowd for her parents. Everyone was in awe of her. Some still had anger in their eyes, but most of them looked on appraisingly.
Then she saw them.
The panic in her mother's, grandmother's, and even her father's eyes now consumed them. They stared at Aiko in terror as Nanami said something quietly to her husband and mother. The nodded at whatever had been said and then Nanami and Karasu both ran in the opposite direction.
Aiko 'tsk'ed' and charged after them.
She wouldn't let them get away.