The air was so still and silent that she could hear the beating of her heart, a steady thumping that only made her anxiety increase. Miho bit her lip, wringing her shaking hands. It didn't feel right to take out a bag of cookies. Not with what lay before her. The stillness of the air in that cavern set her teeth on edge.
From calmest weather, cub, arise the fiercest storms. Grandfather Ha once told her.
Shinrin sat on her haunches at her side, surveying the sight outside of the door… and the bodies that lay scattered about it. Ten or maybe fifteen. Dead where they fell with no burial. Those closest still had their Kumogakure forehead protectors and kunai in their hands. Not too far from them, backed into a corner, two bodies wrapped in fine material, possibly once kimonos, and a skeleton that seemed too small. Too little.
The air that came into her lungs seemed thinner and thinner until Miho felt her hands begin to tingle.
"My Lady Miho, you must breathe."
Turning away from the bodies, Miho moved until her face was pressed against Shinrin's fur. She squeezed her eyes shut and grinded her teeth.
Steady. Steady. Steady.
In through the nose, out through the mouth.
In and out, in and out, in and out.
"I am sorry, my Lady Miho."
Until now, everything had seemed…like a story. Not a reality. Now that reality was burnt into her mind, into her very soul. Those skeletons…were her family. Pulling in a deep breath, Miho pushed away from the Shinrin's shoulder and straightened her back, meeting Shinrin's concerned eyes before looking away toward the closest of the bodies.
"My father was here before me?"
"He was, my Lady."
Miho stared down at the skeletons. How did he leave them like this? When he found the summoning scroll, how did he just leave them like this? He knew them. How could he've endured this? How did Sasuke live in the Uchiha district for so long? Miho wrung her hands, looking down at the fine silk of what was once a kimono.
"While we're here… I want to bury them."
Shinrin's head nodded, eyes sad. "Of course, my Lady Miho."
Decision made, Miho took her first few steps away from the doorway and over the bones. "They must've come here for cover." Her eyes flickered toward the etching in the granite. "Or to escape."
The summoning room was a gigantic cavern in the mountainside, etched with the seal array for summoning. A relic of times long passed. Large enough for even the largest of Bears to be summoned. Gigantic old stalagmites reached from floor to ceiling. The cavern was only accessible to summoners or the summoned. Lord Ki told her that it was a relationship unique to the Bears and the Okuda. Only those with blood contracts could enter.
"They must not have had time to unlock the seal." Shinrin explained. Miho could hear the despair in her trembling voice, though she was trying hard to hide it. "By the time we learned of the intensity of Kumogakure's attack, it was too late." That failure to protect their own haunted the Bears. Miho could hear that hurt every time Lord Ki or Grandfather Ha spoke of it. "Their enemy was upon them. Only a few Bears arrived. They never returned to Center Mountain." There would be the bodies of Bears mixed among the people.
Miho felt sick.
Miho watched as the walls transitioned from granite to wood. The fortress built into the mountainside."Look up there."
The incline within the mountain tapered off and the stone floors became wooden and level floor. It was dusty, with the only light from the far end of the tunnel providing any guidance. They moved and the tunnel became more house-like. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling overhead and, just before the open doorway to the outside, the charred wood fell into the path, large, blackened beams crossing the floor. Miho could see some intricate painting on the beams, like they'd once been brightly decorated. Much like Center Mountain's intricate designs.
The summoning hall was a dead-end.
Her family members ran into a dead-end, a last ditch effort for sanctuary. They must have been desperate enough to risk it.
Miho shook as she stepped out into the sunlight, shielding her eyes with her hand. As her eyes adjusted to the bright sunlight, she could see a crumbling embattlement, burnt and black. The roof was partially collapsed, sunken into the building below. There were skeletons on the far side of the open training ground. One with a spear still stuck through their ribs.
Miho swallowed back the bile, stepping out further into the training ground.
There were still-mounted bullseyes at the far end, one crooked and hanging from a single nail. A single shuriken was still implanted there, slightly off-center. Miho could imagine a little child practicing there, just before the attack began. Her father had smiled at her every throw, even if she missed.
When she arrived to the middle of the training ground, Miho turned to look at the main building.
The breath seemed to be pulled from her lungs.
She could picture it as it once was, as Lord Ki had described it. A purple and gray fortress settled among the clouds. The tiles were dark gray that seemed to shine a bluish-black in the sun. The bridges between one building and the next, a dark, deep red. Now, the paints were sun-faded and other parts burnt. The tiles were falling in piles into the training ground. A huge hole was gaping in the central building where the roof had collapsed.
This fortress had been the Okuda stronghold for over a thousand years.
Miho drew in a breath, following a cloud that floated over the top of the mountain.
The only remaining corner ornament on the tiled roof was a bear. Its head was thrown back in a roar. Miho wondered if the others had been blown off by jutsu or had crashed into the buildings below as the buildings decayed.
"Shinrin?"
"My Lady?"
"How many people lived here?"
"Just over two hundred."
"How many were ninja?"
"Only seventy or so, my Lady."
Swallowing thickly, Miho nodded and steeled herself. Her attention fell back to Shinrin, whose eyes were fastened on a shape situated ledge nearly one hundred feet up the mountain side. Pushing chakra into her legs, Miho leapt up, focusing on the movement of the wind and not her own nerves.
A bear skull. A large one.
"Great Uncle Kūsho. He was…" Shinrin trailed off as Miho's eyes fell on a skeleton that might've once been leaning against the mountainside wall. A fur cloak lay against the rocks, similar to the fur around her neck. Carefully, Miho knelt down to look closer at the pile. Her heart ached. This man died trying to protect his people. And his summon died to protect him. "He was the personal summon of Okuda Yori. We knew he died in this battle. Against the Second Raikage."
Okuda Yori. His forehead protector was missing. Miho wondered if he'd taken it off when he realized what was happening. Or maybe he didn't wear it when he was off duty. Or maybe he was retired. The scorch marks on the mountain wall behind him spoke of his death. The strength of the Second Raikage's lightning jutsu was well-known even so many years later. This could have been from the bastardized Storm Release.
Drawing in a breath, Miho looked up again.
At the mountain summit. That's where she'd find what she needed. The entrance was hidden there. Sealed by blood. Miho lowered her eyes again, reaching a shaking hand out to brush through the cool, dirty fur.
"Okuda Yori was a young man when he died. Twenty-one." Shinrin said. Miho looked over to where Shinrin's paw gently rested on the skull of her uncle. "He was the younger brother of Okuda Ryosuke."
Okuda Ryosuke – her grandfather.
The meant that this…
Miho fisted her hand, drawing it back. She pulled the cloak's fur lining away a bit. She could see the typical single strap of the Kumogakure flak jacket then, under the remnants of leather and fur. This was her great uncle. The nausea that struck her was strong enough to have her hand pressing against her mouth in an effort to contain it. This was…
"How old was my grandfather when—"
Shinrin walked away from her uncle's body, moving to press her snout into Miho's shoulder. "Twenty-five."
Miho squeezed her eyes shut.
Orochimaru's words floated into her mind, describing her grandfather's arrival to Konoha after his battle with the Raikage and his escape. His skin was seared away, melting off of his body. Miho tried not to see it, in her imagination. She didn't want to think about the kind of desperation her grandfather felt carrying his son all the way to Konoha with such injuries. Knowing his whole clan had been…
"Lord Ki said that I could find the scrolls up at the summit?"
"I cannot go there with you, my Lady. It is a journey that you must undertake alone."
Miho nodded, looking upward as Shinrin's head moved away. "What do you plan to do while I'm up there?"
Shinrin settled on her haunches. "I…I believe I shall collect my clan." Miho reached out and wound a hand into Shinrin's fur. "They have been away from Center Mountain for too long. I would like to return them home." Her eyes met Miho's as the kunoichi stood. "My Lady Miho, do you know what it is you're looking for?"
Miho pushed her lips together, forcing away the frustration. Even Lord Ki and Grandfather Ha were uncertain of the exact access point. It'd been lost with time, and with her father.
"I'll…I'll know it when I see it."
Leaping up, up, and up, Miho entered the shelf of clouds. When she was a child, she couldn't have imagined climbing to such a height. Yet, she didn't feel tired now. In fact, the brush of cool, damp air on her arms seemed to push energy into her skin. The air seemed to buzz with it. The clouds themselves felt charged as they raced upward and around the mountain.
As the cloud shelf thinned, she could see the plateaued summit.
Miho landed at the edge, across from a purple door embedded in an outcropped rock shelf that made up the true mountaintop.
Two bear shisa guarded the door, mouths gaping and teeth bared.
Her heart raced.
The air was so thin here that it felt as if barely any was entering her lungs. Her breaths were quicker. Swallowing, Miho focused on controlling her body's reaction to the altitude. Years of training at Center Mountain was all that kept her conscious.
Squaring her feet and shoulders to the door, Miho looked around.
No burn marks.
No bodies.
Nothing.
Just the door and two bear guardians.
"You've protected this well, huh?" Miho asked them. "No one has gotten past you, even after all this time. No one, but my father."
Taking a step forward, she watched for anything out of place. Any movement. Anything that might be a trap. It wasn't until she was a few feet before the guardians that she stopped, eyes falling to a symbol on the ground just before them.
It was larger than she was around.
A symbol she'd never seen before, etched into the granite, clouds swirling.
An echo of a story rumbled through her mind.
Kneeling down, Miho brushed a hand over the ridges to remove some of the dirt and bits of gravel. Reaching to her thigh, she drew out a kunai. It was one that her parents had given her when she first became a kunoichi. Tetsuya had sharpened it last, needing to keep his hands busy.
She had long-since stopped flinching at the slice of the kunai on her thumb. Holding it out over the symbol, Miho wondered vaguely if anything would happen if her hunch was wrong. If this symbol wasn't the seal and the real gateway to the Okuda archives.
A droplet of blood clung to her skin for a moment before falling to the top of one of the cloud ridges.
When it slid down into the fissure, Miho felt a vibration. Following her instincts, she reached down and settled a hand onto the drop of blood, pushing chakra into it.
Purple chakra glowed from the symbol, lighting up the etched ridges of the clouds. Out of the etched clouds, two handles rose, as if their hidden panels had been unlocked by her blood.
The Okuda were strong.
Miho, for the first time since arriving, felt herself smile.
Feet hip-width apart, Miho bent over and gripped the handles. The grips were wider that her shoulders. Not perfect, but she could manage. Bending her knees, she kept her back straight and tightened her stomach. She could lift more than any of her peers, save perhaps her brother. She could lift this. She was strong enough. Miho pushed her weight down and pulled, barely hearing the crack of the rock beneath her feet as she growled.
It budged, moving upward just a bit.
She reaffirmed her stance and pushed chakra into her muscles, noticing that the sun was getting dimmer. The tenpenchii was crackling, coursing through her muscles and writhing as she let it flow. Through her muscles, through her fat.
Physical strength and…
The stone rose from the ground and Miho nearly screamed with the effort of it.
Instead, she pushed air out of her nose and focused on drawing on her fat to power the final lift. It finally moved, Up, up, up, until it was free from the hole where it'd been resting.
When she sat it down a few feet away a moment later, Miho fell onto her backside and laid on the cold, hard granite.
The swirling clouds overhead were still spinning, but they thinned as the tenpenchii's swell abated.
In the back of her mind, Miho could hear Shinrin's voice telling her a story about the First Okuda. Before she was taken. Before everything fell apart. When she first began to use Okuda weight training methods.
"When the Sage walked the Earth, the Okuda were lifting mountains and shifting lands. The Sage met the first Okuda. 'Okuda,' he said, 'how did you become so strong?' And the First Okuda said, 'I draw my power from the storm.' So, the Sage called the First Okuda 'The Storm Lifter.' And so, it was."
"The Storm Lifter," Miho murmured to herself as she rolled herself upright, staring at where the gigantic stone slab once rested.
Only an Okuda could lift that seal. A seal etched with a storm. The blood seal plus the weight made sure of that. At one time, her father must have stood where she stood and lifted that weight himself. A smile pulled at her lips. They always said he was strong. Now, she was on her way to becoming just as strong. She could feel it.
Pushing herself to kneel at the edge of the now-open hole in the top of the mountain, Miho peered down into the darkness.
Lord Ki said that the mountain was the ancestral home of the Okuda. That the secrets of her clan lay within its depths. Her left hand fisted while her right sought out a cookie in her hip pack. She popped it into her mouth and chewed, looking down into the entrance. Somewhere below, she could see a shimmering. It was so far down that she wondered if it was below the mountain itself. Just the faintest purple glimmer.
No clan stood beside her here. The clan long-dead and the one that lived.
No Naruto.
No Chōji. No Ino or Shikamaru. No Lee. No Fū.
No Genma-sensei. No Team Five.
You will—
Miho felt something settle into place in her chest. Her eyes narrowed, teeth gritting. There was a reason why she had to take this journey alone. Maybe that was part of what she was meant to learn. If she wanted any of them to survive, she had to do this herself. She had to conquer this herself, for herself. This time, she was going the darkness willingly. And it was was terrifying.
Her arms felt numb. He legs felt numb.
Without thinking, Miho's fingers went to the place where her bracelet sat against the skin of her wrist. She rolled the beads between the pads of her thumb and index finger.
"Okay." There was no sense in waiting. "Let's get it."
She pushed off the edge and jumped into the depths below.
He unfolded the picture. It was worn, frayed at the edges and the color faded at the fold lines. He never did put it in a frame like he'd meant to. A frame was difficult to carry on the road, and he couldn't leave the picture at home. Home. He smiled back at the faces that smiled up at him. His father, his mother and Miho's parents. He wondered if she'd grown to look more like her mom or her dad since he'd left.
When he wasn't chasing women, the old lech said that he looked like his father. He'd taken to growing his hair out a bit to growing his hair out some. The old man said it more often now.
Naruto was sure he looked like his mother too. Sometimes, he wondered what he'd look like with her pretty red hair.
He pushed the folded picture behind another picture, this one Miho'd sent him just a few months ago. A dinner that they'd all gone to, to celebrate their promotion to chūnin. All of his friends gathered in one place, save the jerk. The jerk who was still hiding in ANBU. Naruto was going to destroy the snake creep. He was never going to get his hands on Sasuke!
On the back of the picture, in Miho's messy scrawl, were the words that he kept reading over and over and over:
Wish you were here! We miss you!
"You gonna stare at that thing all day or are you gonna help me pack up?" Pervy Sage questioned with a bite of amusement. "We're only two days out from Konoha. Keep staring wistfully at that picture and it'll be months!"
"No way, old man. We're getting to Konoha in a day! I want ramen. Six bowls! No, maybe ten bowls. And I can get Iruka-sensei to buy! To welcome me back!" He turned and started stuffing his gear into the backpack. "You sure about the…intel?"
Pervy Sage's smile faded a bit and then melted away completely as he moved to sit on one of the other logs. "The intel's good. If it wasn't, we wouldn't be heading back." The old man huffed, crossing his arms. "We gotta get this to the Hokage. Then, we're finishing up your training at Mount Myōboku."
The set of his master's shoulders echoed something that he'd sensed for a while. Pervy Sage was keeping something from him. Something important. Over the years, he'd learned to read his teacher's moods, his tells. Now, it was more obvious than ever before. "What's the deal, Pervy Sage? You pushed me to get add the wind chakra to my rasengan. I did it. You had me doing speed exercises so much that I might as well be a damn Swift Release. And my sealing! And now, Sage training? Is this about whatever you've gotta tell Granny?"
The conflict in the old man's eyes didn't match the nonchalant smile on his face. "You complaining about my training, kid? Didn't get enough of it? I thought you wanted to be the strongest in the village? More kickass? To protect the people you want to protect and to be Hokage means you gotta get powerful."
Naruto knew that he would've risen to the bait when he was younger. He might've flown off the handle at the ribbing. Instead, Naruto lifted his brows, crossed his arms, and gave his teacher an unimpressed stare.
Pervy Sage always said that particular expression reminded him of Uzumaki Kushina. Naruto did it pretty often after Pervy Sage told him that.
"Okay, kid! Hypothetical situation time."
Rolling his eyes, Naruto went back to packing up his things. Every time there was something his master didn't want to discuss, he'd do this. Throw some kind of weird situation at him, telling him that it was training for when he became Hokage. Years ago, he didn't know what "hypothetical" meant. Now, he knew that most of Pervy Sage's stories came from real events.
Sometimes, it was conflict between the nations. Sometimes, it was dealing with stupidly complicated politics. Sometimes, Naruto didn't know the answer.
When he'd first been asked for his opinion, Naruto remembered complaining, throwing a fit that his teacher didn't want to spar that day. Deep down though, he was grateful. Grateful that his teacher listened. He remembered when his opinion didn't matter, so being encouraged to have one and voice it meant more than Naruto could ever say.
Travelling around the nations…
Learning…Learning as much as he could.
"A clan heir is kidnapped. That clan supplies a majority of the metal needed for weapons manufacturing in the village. The source materials can't be accessed anywhere else. If the clan withdraws their supplies, the village will be in a really bad situation." Naruto's hands paused inside his pack, head jerking up to stare at Jiraiya across the camp. His teacher ignored him. "The clan thinks the village isn't moving fast enough to recover their heir, so the Clan Head threatens to withhold materials until the heir is found. What do you do?"
"How much?"
"How much, what?"
"How much of the supplies are made with this clan's stuff?"
"Fifty one percent."
"Who took the clan heir?"
Jiraiya snorted, shaking his head. "That's not the question, kid."
"Yeah, it is." Naruto shrugged, trying to seem uninterested. "If the heir was taken by a shadow organization within the village that wasn't handled from the moment leadership knew about it, then it's the fault of the village. Of course, the clan doesn't trust the village to handle it. They don't trust the village, you know?"
Naruto knew what this was about. He stared back at Jiraiya, not backing down from his words. He could remember Shikamaru's face: "You really think the Akimichis would let Konoha do nothing?" He remembered Genma-sensei's quiet words in the shadows of Miho and Tetsuya's quiet hospital room. Naruto had held Miho's hand and asked. He hadn't backed down from getting an explanation. It wasn't in Naruto to back down.
It never was.
Jiraiya laughed a bit, but there was no humor in it. "So, you know that much, huh?"
"I swore I'd kick the ass of whoever did it. Then, I found out he was dead."
"Found out from who?"
"He told me that I should know. Said it was important that I know. Stopped me when I almost charged out of that hospital to chase down those jerks." Naruto shook his head. It didn't matter anymore. "Genma-sensei."
"Shiranui Genma, huh? Pretty loose lipped of a former ANBU, but I guess that's to be expected. It was his kid paying the price after all. My former teacher did a lot of things right, but he also did some things wrong. Because of that, he lost the loyalty of a good ninja." Jiraiya smiled, lifting his attention up to stare at the blue sky overhead. There was some real amusement there. Naruto watched, waiting for the other shoe to drop. "Any idea why he told you about Danzō? Did he tell you anything else about it all?"
"Just that, when I become Hokage, I shouldn't let something like that happen again. That I should do everything I can to keep the roots healthy. That Danzō was responsible for a lot more than I knew. That, one day, we might all pay the price for it." Naruto shrugged. "It was Tetsuya told me about the sanctions. Shikamaru said before the retrieval mission that the Akimichi made Konoha do it. I know what Uncle Chōza did."
"And you agree with it?"
Naruto didn't respond.
"A food shortage would have left the village vulnerable. It would have affected the civilians, too. In that moment, Chōza put his daughter before the village." Naruto laced his fingers together in the backpack, pulling at them. "Before that, what if the Hokage intended to sacrifice the girl— to ignore the problems in the roots for just a bit longer? Let the organization continue its work. Benefit from it."
"Ignore it?"
"It's been done before."
Naruto gritted his teeth. "What's the big idea putting it like that? She's an actual person, ya know! And Granny wouldn't do something like that!"
"You didn't answer my question. As Hokage, you'll have to make hard calls like that. Who is sacrificed? Who dies? Politically-speaking, what Akimichi Chōza did was about one of the dumbest moves I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot of dumb moves."
Naruto felt his patience running out. Pervy Sage didn't understand. Unable to look at the man, he lowered his eyes to stare into his backpack. Uncle Chōza had to get Miho back.
And he was willing to sacrifice the village to do it.
Naruto frowned.
It shouldn't be like that.
He shouldn't have had to make that decision.
"If it were you, and I had no other choice, I can't say that I wouldn't have done the same."
Naruto jerked his head up, staring as Jiraiya shrugged.
"All of us are just people, kid. We do the best we can. Sacrificing one, sacrificing hundreds? Where does the cycle stop? Starving in Konoha could have led to another wayward shinobi determined to do whatever it takes to stop another family from going through what their family suffered— hunger, desperation, fear. Determined to make changes, the shinobi starts a shadow organization with fanatical devotion to Konoha to make sure that never happens again. Until that shinobi think he is Konoha. Is that the answer?"
"Sacrificing Miho for that isn't the answer either!" Naruto responded immediately. There had to be another way. No one needed to suffer. "Danzō needed to be stopped."
Pervy Sage nodded. "You're right. He did. The damage he did to the village… I wonder if it's irreparable." Slapping his hands on his knees, he stood up and Naruto, even with the height he'd gained, still felt like Jiraiya was so tall. "We're going home, Naruto. I don't know exactly what lies ahead, but I've got the feeling…It's not going to be good, kid. Going back to Konoha, we're going to face it. Head on."
Naruto felt the questions bubbling up, but he instead followed his teacher's lead. "I never back down."
"No," Pervy Sage smiled. He looked so proud. Naruto found himself wishing that he could always keep that look on his Jiraiya's face. "No, neither of us, we'll never back down." With a booming laugh, he held up a thumb. "'Cause that's our ninja way."
Still, Naruto couldn't shake it.
The feeling that something was going to happen.
Glancing down, Naruto saw that he was still holding the pictures in his hand.
The torchlight flickered on the walls of the tunnel. Veins of white quartz trailed on the ceiling above. It had to have been carved hundreds of years ago. Clearly hewn by hand, there were still places where the chipping of tools was clear. The effort must have taken decades or a century. Miho carefully moved forward, holding the flames out before her. She was sure she was moving in circles, slowly downhill. The only sound besides the shift of dirt beneath her shoes, her breathing, and her heartbeat was the faintest sound of wind whistling through the tunnel. Miho could feel the brush of it through her hair.
Fear and anxiety gnawed at her stomach, making it feel sour. Like she'd eaten too much. It turned and twisted. If it came to it that she'd have to dig, Miho wasn't sure how she would manage. She was barely keeping it bridled. Long tunnels inside a mountain fortress, a familiar aesthetic. Miho's fingers went to the beaded edge of her yukata sleeve.
Steady.
The wind was growing stronger. Now pulling the hair away from her face. Her ears popped as the pressure changed.
Something was shifting. There was…chakra ahead. She could sense it.
Miho forced her anxiety to the back of her mind. There was no time for it.
The wind began to push against her body now, making the flame of her torch dance about violently. Miho was sure that it wouldn't last. It wouldn't be able to fight the growing gale for much longer.
There was a prickle of chakra in the air. It…felt chaotic. Like the chakra that swirled around Center Mountain. Miho's breath caught, buffeted away by the strengthening wind. The torch's flame flickered out, plunging Miho and the tunnel into pitch black.
"Everyone, it's okay! It's okay. We're okay. We're good. We're good."
"Mommy!"
"I'm right here, baby."
"Shh…Shh…"
"Stay calm. It's okay. We'll be okay, everyone. We'll be okay!"
The rush of wind was so deafening that Miho couldn't hear anything else. Just the wind and the screaming. Underneath the underneath. People screaming, people praying, people holding onto each other in the darkness. People shielding strangers. Miho thought she felt herself fall to her knees. She was there among them, bracing herself over someone's body. She tried to yell over the wind. She tried to be heard over the collapsing building and the screeching metal.
"Hold on!"
When it hit, the sound was deafening. Miho was sure it was the loudest sound she'd ever heard.
She held on, trying to keep her body braced over the person under her. A person she didn't know. That person held a child in her lap, eyes squeezed shut. Miho felt things hitting her back, debris. Large chunks of concrete and boxes of something heavy. There was nowhere else to move. All of their bodies were so tightly packed in that storage room.
"Hold on!"
Stumbling against the wall, Miho braced herself against the wind.
One foot after another, Miho pushed forward against the force of the wind. She was no stranger to the biting strength of wind. It'd killed her in another life. Now…
Miho gritted her teeth and took another step forward. Then, another.
Pain started to build as the wind lashed harder and the weight grew heavier. In that other life, she couldn't shoulder the weight anymore. The wall that fell on her back and shoulders was too much. She couldn't shield them from the chaos or the winds any longer. The weight fell as somewhere a support collapsed. She could feel the ache in her shoulders. Her whole body hurt. There was screaming. And crying. Somewhere nearby, she could hear her father's voice. Superman. There was no more wind, but instead the shifting of rocks. The weight was coming off her shoulders. The people under her were crying.
They were alive.
"Hold on! Hold on! I'm coming! Hold on!"
Then, the wind was gone.
Miho stumbled forward as the wind abruptly stopped. The wall of the tunnel disappeared.
She could see a yawning cavern spread out around her. The space was large, carved into a room that could fit the entire of the Hokage tower. Realizing that there was light coming from somewhere, Miho looked up. There was a large disc of what had to be purple glass at the top of the cavernous room. Purple clouds swirled on the glass, casting a violet glow into the cavern. Miho's eyes traced along carved lightning strikes that cascaded down the walls to the floor. There were swirling clouds on the floor and along the walls, carvings that had to be ancient.
The clouds cut a pathway across the chamber to a shrine built into the rock.
In the dim purple light, Miho could see the purple, silver, and red paint and the dark gray tiles. Bears roared at the shrine's entrance, one with an open mouth, the other with its mouth closed.
Shifting one foot forward, Miho felt the world tilt.
Her eyes fell to the floor, where the carved lines of the swirling clouds lit with chakra.
Instinct had her naginata unsealed from her arm guard and in her hand in a moment. She swept it around, eyes searching for the other presence.
It was impossible that someone else was in that cave.
There was only one entrance.
The purple glow of the chakra seals and the light from the glass above made the entire room lighter than before. She could see the shrine.
And the figure that stepped from behind one of the shrine's pillars.
"No…"
In the purple tinted darkness, she could see no expression on his face as he moved forward. His steps seemed to reverberate around the cavern. Miho felt her breath catch, nausea threatening to take her to her knees. His eyes seemed to burn gold in the purple shadows. Instinct had Miho stepping back, heart racing at the sight of him. Her hands shook. The grit from holding the tunnel walls felt too familiar on her fingertips.
"It's been quite a while… Hasn't it, Akimichi Miho?"
Her arms were tingling. She couldn't seem to draw a breath. "Th-This isn't possible. This isn't real."
Yamanaka Fū stepped in front of the shrine, arms open to either side. "Yes, you wouldn't know real from not-real, would you?"
Miho took another step back. Terror lancing through her chest.
It wasn't him. It was a ghost of him. A chakra construct, and nothing more. Miho shifted her weight, straightening her shoulders. The 'Yamanaka' looked on, eyes just as dead in their stare as they'd been all those years ago. How often did she see those eyes in her nightmares? Too often, even now. Miho shuddered, reaffirming her hold on her weapon.
"You're not Yamanaka Fū."
The chakra construct nodded in acceptance, lowering his hands to his sides. "You fear what he represents."
"He doesn't represent anything. He didn't defeat me then. He won't now."
There was a hum. "You did not defeat him either. Yamanaka Ino did. In a sense."
Miho looked around the space, keeping him very carefully within her field of vision. There had to be a point to this. "Is this a test?" The chakra glow was constant, dancing through the etched clouds. "Face my past and earn the legacy? Is that what this is about?"
"Something like that. So often, I am thought to be 'fear' rather than 'past.' An interesting distinction. Often, the two are so tightly intertwined." The construct moved further from the shrine, walking toward her with deceptive ease. Miho saw a slight pulse in the purple chakra of the cavern with his every step. "The last to come here faced another man. The Second Raikage."
Her father faced a look-alike of the man who massacred his family.
Her heart ached for him.
Straightening her stance and centering her weight, Miho looked across the space. Okuda Keisuke came here without the Bear contract. Without her knowledge. Without knowing that someone else had come before her. He came to the place where his family had been killed. To take up what sealed their fate. Lifting her chin, Miho gritted her teeth and took a step forward. The chakra construct watched, eyes still dull and dead. If Okuda Keisuke could do it, then she could too.
This Yamanaka haunted her nightmares. But this was not him.
And this echo would not frighten her.
She wouldn't give it that kind of power.
"What is this test? What must I do to take up the Okuda legacy?"
"Why do you seek power here?"
Miho pulled in a deep breath, ignoring the roar of hunger in her stomach. She hadn't eaten since she'd arrived to the stronghold. Soon, her body would demand food. The copy of Yamanaka Fū lifted his brows, as if it could hear the sound. "I need to protect my friends and family. This is my best course for doing that. I want to earn that strength." Miho shifted her feet and lowered her center of gravity, bracing the naginata in front of her body. "I will not lose."
"The last who came to this shrine said the same…"
Miho's ears popped as if the pressure of the room had lowered drastically. Something strange seemed to push the purple chakra around the room. It formed clouds that hung above the carved floor and thickened toward the ceiling. Miho pulled in a breath. Wind, like what she'd felt in the tunnel before, whipped into a frenzy. It crackled through the cavern like a tempest. Miho bore down with more strength. This trap didn't know, didn't understand or sense, that this was...like a part of herself. The tenpenchii resonated. Miho shivered.
It started slowly at first.
Then, the circulation built and built and built.
Miho remained where she stood, braced against the wind. She would not be moved.
Gold eyes sparked with a life that didn't belong to that face. "We shall see if you can weather the storm."
A/N: Thank you for the reviews, favorites, and follows!