Chapter Twenty-Seven - A Blade Reforged
Aiko drummed her fingers impatiently on the cold stone, blue eyes assessing the dimensional space which seemed to consist of nothing but square platforms. Her lip twitched as she wondered if she should suggest Madara get someone to 'jazz the place up a bit'. As per his word, the man himself had explained Akatsuki's true goals; the use of the nine Tailed Beasts to cause complete destruction of the Elemental Nations. Like a phoenix, peace would rise from the ashes. For only when people knew pain could true peace be possible.
In all honesty, she didn't care how oji-san achieved his so-called peace. From now, Aiko would only think about her own version. Protecting everyone she held dear and making sure that no one could threaten their lives again. To do so, she would become strong, and it was this strength that she asked of Madara, the fulfillment of her oji-san's goals being the path to her own.
"Took you long enough," Aiko scoffed as Madara shifted into the dimensional space, prompting her to pick herself up from the floor and lift a single eyebrow towards him. "What took you so long? Couldn't find anyone to help you cross the street, old man?"
Beneath his mask, Madara's eye twitched.
"Contrary to what you might believe, legendary swords are rather hard to come by," the masked man replied coolly. "Especially when you refuse possession of the easiest one to locate."
"What can I say?" Aiko shrugged, nonchalant. "Kubikiribocho isn't suited to my fighting style."
"Then perhaps you will find this more suitable," Madara announced, producing a scroll from the inner lining of his cloak to offer out to her.
Aiko accepted the scroll, kneeling to unfurl it on the ground and activate it with chakra, revealing its contents with eager anticipation. Aiko blinked at the presented sword in front of her, or rather, what was left of it.
"What the hell is this?" she demanded, shifted her glare from the fragmented remnants of a sword to Madara. "I asked for a Legendary Sword of the Mist. Have you gone so senile that you can't even see that this sword is broken let alone not one of the Seven. I wanted the thunderswords Kiba or the blastsword Shibuki. Hell, even the glorified sewing needle that is Nuibari would have been acceptable."
"You told me that the lightning blade would be the most complimentary to your fighting style. What you see before you are the fragments of the Raijin no Ken that once belonged to the Second Hokage, Senju Tobirama, himself."
"Well excuse me for not wanting your brother-in-laws broken sword, old man," Aiko scoffed, incurring another twitch behind the orange mask. "Even intact I would think twice wielding some pathetic blade of a Konohagakure shinobi."
"I would have thought you'd have more sense than that," Madara chastised the pouting child before him. "This blade is one of the most powerful lightning blades in existence, well on par with Kiba, and given your unique abilities, I suspect you are the only person who could make it whole and bring it to the level it once was, or perhaps beyond. Your paper techniques can absorb the concentrated lightning chakra within, not only forging the sword anew, but making it your own."
Aiko hummed in acknowledgement, accessing the fragments once more.
"And you're sure you can't locate Kiba, or literally any other Sword of the Mist?" she clarified.
"No, Aiko," Madara dead-panned, resisting the urge to strangle the sword-obsessed girl where she stood.
"Fine," she grumbled, followed by a string of unintelligible mutterings about the stubbornness of the elderly. "I suppose I better see what I can make from your 'legendary sword' then, shouldn't I, Madara-ji?"
"Call me that again and I might use my generous gift to relieve you of your tongue," Madara warned.
With a roll of her eyes Aiko set to work, seeing what she could do with the 'gift' she wished she had never received.
Aiko flew high above the Land of Fire amongst a flurry of paper, following the lead of a blue tinted butterfly that guided her over an extensive forest. She felt a growing sense of anticipation as she spotted Kisame, perched on a pillar, just as he was about to reach for Samehada's handle upon his back, his cloaked opponent reacting similarly.
"Suigetsu, look out!"
Aiko landed on the rooftop with a flourish, her paper circling like a violent tornado before condensing into her solid form.
"Way to ruin a good entrance, Red," Aiko scowled towards the girl with glasses who had announced her arrival, earning herself a piercing glare in return, before looking between Kisame and Suigetsu. "I suppose I can forgive you though, since I'm just in time for the funeral."
"Stay out of this, origami," Suigetsu scoffed, his violet orbs narrowing on Kisame. "I'm not interested in fighting you."
"The feeling is mutual, Snowdrop."
"You're making me blush," Kisame grinned, looking between the two with amusement. "Tell you what, kiddos, why don't you both come at me? Maybe then, you might be able to manage a scratch."
"So be it," Aiko declared, causing the shark to lift an eyebrow as she lifted her hand into the air, that which seemed to hum with power as her paper sword was crafted into being. "If you want to swat at a fly whilst I determine my level of power then that's your mistake."
Kisame considered his student carefully. Gone was the playful taunts and cocky grin, leaving behind a stern expression as her eyes pinned to her target like a hunter-nin.
"Alright kid, let's see what you've got."
Suigetsu gritted his teeth, a small puff of steam rising above his head as the two readied their blades and sized each other up.
"Let's see you try to ignore me when I cut your damn head off!" he raged, similarly taking Kubikiribocho from his back and gripping it with both hands.
"I'm sorry, did you say something?" Karin breezed, arms crossed as she turned her head to her fellow member of Hebi.
Suigetsu scowled as he lifted the hilt of his sword and charged, violet eyes pinned on the shark. Their blades clashed successively, a metal twang ringing in the air before the white-haired Swordsman saw a blur of movement at the corner of his eye. Suigetsu ducked under the next sweep of Samehada, using his upward momentum to meet Aiko's 'Kirie', that which first contact sent him flying back like he had hit some sort of forcefield instead of a blade. He rolled across the floor as the girl followed, her blade cutting through the floor of where he had been moments before. Suigetsu pushed himself off the ground to right himself, grinning as her sword passed through his watery form. He realised his mistake when the air began to crackle, searing lightning conducting through his entire body.
Aiko watched as Suigetsu slumped to the floor, his eyes rolling into the back of his head and steamy vapours rising from his form. Her sword crackled as she turned back to her true opponent, the stray static dancing up her arms, ignoring the large orange-haired man dragging Suigetsu from her reach.
"I'm impressed, sparky. Looks like Kirie has become strong," Kisame admitted before cracking out into a shit-eating grin, "not that it will help you against Samehada."
"I've come a long way from the child too scared to pick up a sword, Kisame-senpai," she murmured, Kisame's eyes narrowing as the paper of Kirie's blade began to peel away, reshaping itself to nothing but a hilt that ended in an empty crescent moon. "Lesson time is over. Come forth... RAIJIN NO KIRIE!"
Kisame's eyebrows shot upward as a blade of pure lightning burst from the crescent moon of the paper hilt. His sharpened teeth emerged as she transversed the distance between them in the blink of an eye. Her Raijin no Kirie arched forward in a sweeping motion, the shark mimicking the movement with Samehada and breaking out into a full out grin as their swords clashed with the sound of thunder. Or rather, his Samehada clashed with a bolt of lightning that hung mid-air, preventing his sword from sucking away the current of chakra maintaining the sword's form. Eardrum-shattering booms followed up that first strike, Kisame's grin stretching as instinct drove his blade, the girl leaving no time to think with her furious assault. Right until the point where even instinct wasn't fast enough. Kisame directed Samehada to flick her blade away and felt the sting at his shoulder before kicking the girl away with a foot to her torso.
Kisame admired the scratch at his shoulder. It was approximately four centimetres long and barely half a centimeter deep, before looking towards the panting girl. She was crouched, ready to spring into action at a moment's notice, but utilising as much time as she could to recover from the effort of pushing her speed to the limits at that last moment.
"How did you get so strong?" Kisame mused, revelling in how his opponents body tensed as he strolled across the ground, casually closing the distance between them.
"Tobi."
"Yeah right," Kisame snorted, eyes narrowing as he went on the offensive.
Each swing of his sword seemed off, and as Aiko dodged and blocked he soon realised why. That tiny little scratch that didn't even draw enough blood to drip had numbed his arm. Kisame wasn't sure if he was pissed off, or proud. He pressed her harder, meeting her lightning bolts with increasing strength placed into his swings, the final of which cut through the bolt and clashed with the sword of pure lightning, making Samehada sing as the two Swordsmen were sent flying back from the lightning sphere that exploded from the sword.
Aiko grimaced. She couldn't afford to let that happen again. More than half her chakra had been expended with a moment of contact. A lowly chuckle escaped from Kisame, drawing the lavender hair girl's narrowed gaze.
"There's no holding back now," Kisame grinned. "Not when Samehada's got a taste of that sword. What'd you do? Use yourself as a lightning rod?"
"I told you. Tobi gave it to me," the girl huffed, gritting her teeth as a single look passed between the senpai-student pairing.
That which signified the battle was coming to an end.
Aiko bellowed, thrusting her sword forward to cause lightning to strike outward in an attempt at a wide and long range attack. Kisame cut through the bolts, swinging Samehada to clear the path, grinning as the sword itself cut through it's bandages with anticipation. As the sentient sword set to strike, Aiko used a burst of lightning-infused speed to dodge, lifting her Raijin no Kirie to assault Kisame with rings of lightning, causing him to grit his teeth as his muscles twitched, his body numbed, and his nerve endings screamed. But such intense and tortuous pain was an old friend to Kisame. Aiko's eyes widened as the shark let out a roar, Samehada lifted high above his head as his body protested every movement, but her blue eyes quickly hardened as she thrusted her sword forward with a feral scream.
Blood squelched as a sword of pure lightning was driven through flesh. Aiko's eyes rolled into the back of her head as Samehada thirsted on her chakra, held by a single hand in Kisame's grip, the other having been used to deflect her Raijin no Kirie from his vitals to a spot just below his shoulder. The same hand that was used to catch the girl before she hit the floor, the lightning blade cutting out and the papers being used to construct her sword's hilt fluttering to the ground.
Replacing Samehada at his back, ignoring the freed spikes that dug into his skin, Kisame picked the girl up so that she lay sprawled out in his arms. He studied her for a moment, before lifting his eyes to Hozuki Suigetsu who was still lying on the ground whilst the man known as Jugo aided him to sit upright.
"You've got a long way to go, kid."
"Whatever, I'll slice you up one day, old man, and then your sword is going to be mine," he huffed, flicking his violet eyes to the side.
"Only if Aiko let's you have it," Kisame chuckled, making the young Swordsman bare his teeth at him.
Kisame's eyes flicked to the ground as it became distorted, the mouth of a venus fly trap sprouting from the ground to reveal Zetsu.
"It's all over, Kisame," the half-and-half plant creature revealed as he looked up at the shark. "Sasuke won… and Itachi is dead."
"Alright! I knew Sasuke could do it!" Karin squealed, growing rosy cheeked as she grasped her clenched fists to her chest.
The red-head cut off her fangirling with a flinch as Kisame's gaze flicked to her, like she was a bug on its back, struggling to right itself.
"Of course, he's half dead from the effort. If you want to find him, I suggest you head east and move fast. A group of Konohagakure shinobi is heading this way," Zetsu informed Hebi, turning to Kisame as the Swordsman turned away, disappearing into the distance with a shushin, the lavender-haired girl still sprawled out in his arms.
"What's up with him? Call from the Dragon King of the Sea, Ryujin, or a call of nature?" White Zetsu snickered.
"More like our shark has lost his bite," the black half scowled.
"Okay, does anyone else find that, like, seriously weird?" Karin asked aloud, watching as the plant-face-thing talked to itself.
"Ignore it," Jugo commanded, hiking Suigetsu up to his shoulders so that he could carry him. "We need to move, Karin. We'll head east until you can pick up on Sasuke's chakra signature."
"Right," Karin nodded, shivering as the plant thing disappeared back into the ground.
That thing was just wrong.
A/N: I would like to thank Arclight001 (such a dedicated reader) for suggesting many chapters ago to give her the 2nd Hokage's sword - I always planned for Aiko to get an upgrade of her Kirie and as soon as you suggested that I considered ignoring the anime and the fact the sword had been shattered. Then I realised she's very skilled at absorbing foreign chakra and Raijin no Kirie was born! Hope you guys like the sword (and Aiko's sass to 'Madara') - let me know what you think :D