Frantically, Aiko searched her surroundings. Nanami and Karasu couldn't have gotten far. The sun was setting, already hidden below the treetops, and it was becoming hard to see. The warm yellow glow of the dying day offered little to Aiko's eyes. Light cast in streaming ribbons hardly pierced through the dense trees, everything was bathed in shadow.
She hated herself for letting her parents slip away. She had only torn her eyes from them for a moment, to check if Naruto had followed her instruction and told Sasuke to follow her. The Uchiha was nowhere to be seen, though. But, if all went well, he should at least be catching up soon. At least, she hoped.
Hours had passed since leaving the Okumura compound. Aiko knew Nanami and Karasu must be tiring—she was feeling the early stages of fatigue as well—so they had to be nearby. They wouldn't keep running after managing to give her the slip. They would be resting, catching their breath. So it was a game of hide and seek now. Only with much greater consequences.
Aiko relied on her acute senses, slowing her breathing and willing her racing heart to still. She tuned out the breeze, ignored the chirping of crickets; all that was ordinary was forgotten as Aiko listened and felt for anything out of place.
There.
A twig snapped in the distance, echoing off the trees with vague direction, but just as Aiko took a step to move closer, she heard a faint whistling and narrowly dodged a kunai that had been aimed at her head. It thudded sharply into a tree, but then a faint hiss followed. Aiko stared at the weapon only a moment before seeing the spark of the paper bomb and hastily running away, diving behind a trunk just as the explosion went off.
Biting her cheek to hold in her cry of pain, Aiko's knee smarted where she knocked it against one of the trunk's sprawling, spidering roots. She didn't have time to think about that though. The paper bomb-kunai was a cheap trick but also a foolish one. Aiko now had a direction.
She traced back where the kunai originated from, pinpointing a general arena where her parents might be hiding. They had to still be there, or at least close to it. They could have moved in the confusion but not very far, and any noise they made now would draw Aiko's attention.
The Okumura girl's mind raced as she thought of her next move. If she could just get a good vantage of the area, she could plan her retaliation. There was no way to do that, though. The terrain was flat; no hills to look down from, nothing that would get her up high without being seen...
A light went off in Aiko's mind.
Turning around, focusing her chakra across her shins and the palms of her hands, Aiko began climbing the tree she hid behind. She went as fast as she dared, making as little sound as possible, eyeing her surroundings for any signs of danger.
The sun was gone completely now and darkness consumed the forest. Aiko needed to act quickly. Her senses told her that her parents were still nearby, but any moment now they could chose to slip away instead of confronting their daughter and evade capture.
Time wasn't on Aiko's side.
Stopping halfway up the tree, hiding within the leaves that encased a thick branch, Aiko's eyes became searchlights. Any movement now, even the slightest of motion, she would see. She might not have Sharingan like Sasuke, or Byakugan like the Hyugas, but Aiko had trained herself to have keen senses—and her sight was as good as any normal form of vision could be.
There.
It was ever so slight, just the brushing of a few leaves, but Aiko caught a glimpse of her father's grey kimono as it slipped back behind cover. Then, a moment later, close to the same spot, a flash of red and a shimmer of gold from her mother. Aiko wanted to laugh, how disadvantageous Nanami's and Karasu's excessive style had become. What once had swathed her parents in beauty and elegance now would prove to be the harbinger of their downfall. How ironic to be betrayed by the very material things they coveted.
With the aid of chakra, Aiko put to use her long practiced ability to cross short distances in the blink of an eye. It was a jutsu she had seen many ninja perform, often coupled with substitution to get away from an attacker. But she just needed it to get closer.
Her landing had been silent as she appeared behind the two crouched figures of her parents, their silver and golden eyes scanning for their daughter. Her presence behind them alerted some sixth sense, however, and their heads turned just as Aiko unstrapped her fan.
They meant to jump into the trees and sprint away, but Aiko swung out her weapon to open it and slammed it down much too quickly. The muscles in her arms screamed in protest at such a hasty maneuver, clenching as she put all her strength behind the attack with no moment to prepare for the swing. Nanami and Karasu were caught in the storm of violent, turbulent air that erupted. It hadn't been enough to evoke any of Aiko's more dangerous attacks, but it was enough to get the gale twisting with a few sharp edges. Like two, large, formless blades tumbling, Karasu and Nanami suffered several deep gashes and cuts on their bodies and limbs as they were thrown backwards into a large tree. Karasu was the first to recover as he unsheathed his thin sword from his hip and sprung towards his daughter. Aiko had never seen her father without that cruel blade; not once did his weapon ever leave his side. Often, members of their clan used to jibe that he loved his sword more than his wife. If only they knew how true their words were.
There was a breath of space between Aiko and her parents as she watched her father kick off his first step—but it was just enough. Aiko swung her fan up and kicked off her own feet. She pushed herself backwards with all her might to give her just a little bit more time as she put all of her strength and weight behind her next attack.
It was just like that time up on that mountain: the air was eerily still as Aiko stopped her fan's motion just a hair's width before it crashed into the ground after her swing. The Tempest she had so carefully created screamed in its birth as it fought against the stillness of the night. Twisting and turning with violent abandon, the gale carved into the ground and shot forward all within the blink of an eye. Karasu's momentum prevented him from having enough time to get out of the way and Nanami, behind him, was too disoriented from hitting her head after Aiko's last attack to save herself either.
They were torn asunder.
Just as Aiko had watched Jun and those ninja around him shred into ribbons mixed with red rain, she now watched her parents' same fate. The Tempest ripped them to pieces, dropping their torn flesh to the ground in wet plops as the storm died away the further it went. Trees and foliage were ripped and pulled from their resting places in the process. A thick line of fifty feet now laid bare to the moon that glared down in their absence. Aiko was bathed in the soft, white light that poured in from the hole in the forest.
Then the bodily remains disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
In their place, two logs appeared, shattering into millions of pieces. Aiko stared at them only a second before realizing it was substitution. Behind her, leaves rustled frantically as the red head turned around to see Nanami and Karasu running away. They were limping badly, their bodies a bloody mess with torn clothes. Aiko didn't think as she ran after them.
Thirty meters of distance yawned between the older couple and their daughter, but Aiko was faster—uninjured. She was gaining. They wouldn't get away any more. Their luck had run out. Nanami and Karasu panted heavily as they ran for their lives, hobbling against the pain. They halted, however, as they came face to face with the figure of Sasuke Uchiha. A new obstacle in their plans for escape.
Immediately, Nanami spoke in hysterics, "Sasuke! Help us, please! Our daughter is trying to murder us! She's gone insane!" Words spilled out of the older woman like a flood, but Sasuke was more focused on Karasu as he was lunging forward, holding his sword in both hands as he aimed the tip for the younger man's heart. The attack was feeble, Sasuke easily deflected it as he plunged his own blade into the man's gut. Karasu's eyes widened as he sputtered, blood trickling from his mouth. He stared at Sasuke in quiet rage as he slipped from the blade and collapsed to the ground. Nanami screamed.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" She was shaking as she fell to her knees before her husband. Her golden eyes were frantic as insanity consumed her. Aiko was then standing feet away, watching as her mother gripped at the top of Karasu's red-stained kimono and shook him in vain.
"Surrender, mother," Aiko spoke, "and I will show you mercy."
Dead, golden eyes snapped over to the red head and shook with an all consuming fury, "DO NOT SPEAK TO ME WRETCH."
It all happened so fast, Aiko wasn't sure if she imagined it, but Nanami came at her with Karasu's discarded blade. The older woman didn't know how to hold the weapon properly as she thrust it towards her daughter and Aiko easily slapped it out of the way with the flat side of her kunai as she then plunged the small weapon's tip into Nanami's heart.
Aiko held her mother a moment—one hand holding the kunai in place, pushing it deeper, her other hand wrapped around Nanami's back, pulling her closer. The older woman's chin rested on Aiko's shoulder as her body became weak and started to slump.
"I've... always... hated you..." Nanami sputtered, spitting blood onto her daughter's clothes. "There... was... never even... one day... that I loved you..."
"I know..." Aiko said softly, quietly, as her mother died in her arms. As she loosened her grip, the body fell away from her in its dead weight. Somehow, Nanami's words hurt more than any of the fighting.
Aiko found herself crying, despite being relieved that her parents were now dead. She dropped the bloody kunai from her hand and felt Sasuke's arms wrap around her. How she had missed such warmth.
Without hesitation, several other ninja emerged from the foliage behind Sasuke. Aiko recognized the masks of the ANBU and asked why they hadn't helped her. It was so startling, after everything, to see them there. Why had they been hiding in the bushes?
"We just got here," their team leader informed her, correcting Aiko's assumption, as they began gathering up Nanami and Karasu's bodies to be placed next to each other so they could be disposed of together.
"Naruto came to me first," Sasuke added, "I was leaving the Hokage building when he came yelling at me. They he ran off just as quickly to talk to Kakashi." The Uchiha's mouth twitched with a faint smile, "Idiot."
"The Hokage sent us after Sasuke as backup, but mainly to dispose of the bodies of any dead. The Okumura might be their own clan, but they still hold valuable secrets of the Hidden Leaf."
Aiko nodded as she watched the ANBU perform their Body Elimination Jutsu, leaving behind no trace of Nanami or Karasu behind. She shivered as she thought over how, if she had died instead, they would have done the same to her. It seemed almost surreal that it was all over, after years of torture and fighting, and Aiko found herself feeling empty. She imagined this was how Sasuke felt after killing his brother.
She was free.
But now she was left having to find a new direction. Aiko didn't want to be on the road anymore, didn't want to feel like she was on the run, escaping from her problems. Perhaps now was the time for her to fix her broken family. With her parents dead, she had the chance to truly take over and assumed her role as High Priestess. Maybe she could make difference.
Maybe now, everything wouldn't be so bad.