Notice: I do not own Naruto, and make no claims of copyright on the
characters who are not my property. Original characters, however, are mine.
Author's Notes: Well, one chapter from the end and I finally pass 100 reviews, not bad. Anyway, this is the first half of the climax. The other half will be posted tomorrow night, and the story will be over.
Thanks to those who reviewed!
Heart of the Dark Storm
Twenty-five kilometers out from Hidden Cloud village the clouds are gathering. They are black and stormy, and heavy with rain. It seems to ordinary eyes to be a storm suddenly blown up from the coast, but to the eyes of a ninja it is something more.
An invitation? Xi wonders as he watches from a treetop afar. Or do you simply prefer to fight in such weather?
Yet it was an invitation he must accept. He knew who called up such a storm, a simple action for his opponent. Black sky or clear, I do not care, I will still kill you. Xi is resolved, and he advanced toward the center of that storm quickly.
Farther away three pairs of eyes saw that storm form, and they knew they must hurry.
For Xi the distance is not far, but he advances carefully. This is not intended to be a fair fight, and Xi would full well expect many traps or minions, and if not he would like the chance to attack with surprise. A single blow will be enough, if you give me the chance.
The dragon ninja traverses from tree to tree, fully aware of those things ahead of him, his senses are attuned to the scent of the Dark Storm's chakra, a vile presence he recalls with perfect clarity, and is hunting.
Then the trees break open onto a sparse hillside, with a few scraggly survivors of the last firestorm standing among crumbling shrubbery. So, it is to be here.
Xi launches himself over the hillside, spinning slowly through the air like a diving bird, and then he sees her, standing atop a small boulder, waiting. She sees him, but makes no moves.
Draci Xi lands some ten feet distant from the Dark Storm, on an exposed rock. She bows as he appears, and grants him a sickening smile.
Xi returns neither gesture, but holds his hands, adorned by the Dragon's Claws, before him.
"Ah, the grim avenger has come at last." The Dark Storm intones majestically as the clouds float by above, and the rain begins to fall. "You look the same as you did that day eight years ago, when we last clashed, though perhaps a bit older and more lined."
Looking at her Xi notices that the Dark Storm looks exactly the same as before, a beautiful woman who could scarcely be more than twenty, even though her age is even greater than his own. It is not genjutsu, the hunter- nin mask would reveal such a simple trick, but something far more vile, and Xi does not rise to the mark.
There is one thing Xi notices about the Dark Storm, and his eyes latch onto it, even as she follows his gaze. The forehead protector she wears to hold back her long midnight blue hair has a coarse line through the symbol of lightning, the mark of a true traitor.
"This?" The Dark Storm taps it. "An souvenir from the Raikage. It is rather obstinate and won't come off, regardless of the forehead protector. Such a wasteful thing."
Heh, a telling blow. Xi thinks. Not bad, soldier. "Do have anything actually important to say?" Xi asks finally.
"To you?" The Dark Storm mimes looking puzzled for a moment. "Not really, I know better than to try and change the mind of such an obstinate man as yourself." She paused for a moment. "I wonder though, Xi, what is the point of this action of yours? Are you simply trying to annoy me?"
Xi gave her a flat look.
"You killed all my servants." The Dark Storm answered for him. "That makes everything so much more difficult. It will take longer to control this country now, but in the end it means nothing. I do not need them. So what is it you hope to accomplish here?"
"You know my purpose very well." Xi replied.
The Dark Storm's eyes narrowed, and she stared into Xi's own. "Well, it seems you are even more deluded than I thought. You honestly believe you can kill me." She giggled, a childish sound that was out of place within the ruthlessness of her gaze. "Foolish dragon ninja, there is not a ninja still living who could accomplish that."
"What of your masters in the Akatsuki?" Xi asked.
"One master only, Dragon ninja." The Dark Storm replied. "I stand second highest among that order, and though one may perhaps surpass me, even he could not destroy me. I have my own reasons for joining my plans to his."
Xi gave the Dark Storm a scathing look. "Whatever you believe, I will kill you."
He attacked.
Black lightning spurted from the Dark Storm's fingertips, and she dashed aside Xi's attack. They flashed back and forth for a moment, no strikes reaching their targets.
Then the Dark Storm flashed backwards. "You are stronger than I thought, far stronger, but it's not enough." The swords of lightning became raging glaives, stretching above and below her hands, as long as a man was tall, and they flashed about. The Dark Storm attacked, whirling toward Xi in a half spin that struck apart trees and set them ablaze.
Xi ducked the assault and kicked up, sending the Dark Storm past him. He slashed his hands through seals. "Tail Lash!" His body flipped forward, and he slid along the ground without friction, held up by a razor thin layer of chakra, kunai held in his hands to cut open the veins of the legs.
A wall of lightning flashed upward from the ground before him.
Xi stabbed down, and flew into the air; he ripped shuriken free of his pouch and hurled them down in a spiral pattern at the Dark Storm.
She blasted tongues of lightning from her every finger, striking the shuriken, causing them to glow white hot and flash back up at Xi.
"Dragon Wind!" Xi blasted the tremendous surge of chakra back at her; sending the missiles back down, hot enough to melt stone from lightning and friction.
The Dark Storm shot upward on a cascade of lightning, dodging the attack and landing some distance away.
Xi came back down and stood upon a fallen tree trunk.
"Impressive Draci Xi." The Dark Storm muttered, breathing normally even as Xi drew in heavy gasps of air. "You have tremendous focus, and are far more dangerous than anyone I've fought in a long time. You would have made the perfect assassin for any target but me."
There was no response from the dragon ninja, except to dash aside and ready another attack.
The Dark Storm came forward to meet him, her glaives raging, blocking all approaches.
Xi spun forward, feeling the edge of that black lightning bite into him, but he had enough momentum to press forward, and though he felt the burning agony, gave no sign. His hands came up to strike the Dark Storm.
"Ah, no." She remarked.
Twin kunai moved of their own accord from her holster and slammed into Xi's side, just where he had been burned. He was stopped inches from her face, all momentum gone. Blood leaked slowly out of his side.
"I thought you wouldn't try anything that stupid, don't you understand magnetism?" She asked questionably.
"You are the one who doesn't understand." Xi gave her a grim half- smile, and the first drops of blood from the kunai punctures dripped onto the Dark Storm's leg. Xi's right hand formed a seal. "Dragon Blood no jutsu!" He hissed.
The Dark Storm screamed, as the blood on her leg turned to virulent acid and ate into her flesh, and for the barest second her glaives of lightning vanished.
Xi's hands remained in reach of her form, and the obstacles had suddenly been removed. "Lightning Element: Thousand Strikes of the Hailstorm!" His hands became a blur of moves, single strikes so fast they barely touched, leaving only a soft stinging pain, so fast the Dark Storm could chose no point to block, no place to put her lightning counters. Xi's hands raced all over her body, striking point after point.
His foe was no inexperienced ninja; she recovered swiftly and struck back.
Great gouts of lightning blasted from her hand and mouth, causing the Dark Storm's hair to fly up behind her like a living thing.
The Dragon ninja was slammed backward, smashed hard into a burnt tree. He grunted in pain as the impact agitated the wounds in his side. For a moment he was bent forward by the pain.
One second later Xi looked up to see the Dark Storm, and for the first time in eight years he truly smiled. "I've killed you."
The Dark Storm cried out in agony as blood burst out everywhere on her body, leaking from the entirety of her skin.
"I smashed every capillary on your body, you will bleed and die." Xi remarked with grim satisfaction.
"Clever!" The Dark Storm roared through a bloody haze. "But not nearly enough. Restoration of the Black Storm's Caress!"
The clouds blasted with lightning above, and all over the Dark Storm's body black lightning swarmed, her blood boiled and burned, but then everything was gone, and she was as before.
"Foolish dragon ninja." She smiled at him. "I told you that no one could kill me. That was good, but too slow."
Xi reeled back in horror and pain. He immediately moved to dodge, but it was too late, he had thought the fight finished.
"Time to die!" The Dark Storm raged, and a storm of lightning encompassed her body, ready to cover any area Xi ran to. "You are not bad Draci Xi, but you are not able to beat me!"
Annihilation rose up over Draci Xi, and he closed his eyes in shame. My best gambit, taking her strikes in return for my own, failed. Even if this continued I have already been defeated. He thought back in sadness. Everything was a waste, eight years of labor, and nothing has been accomplished. Faces flashed before his closed eyes, all those killed by the Dark Storm, and he thought in despair. I am sorry, but I cannot keep my promise.
Lightning crackled over the hillside, a blast to kill everything before it.
"Clawing whirlwind!" Blue chakra spun in through that gout of destruction, spinning forward to slam into the Dark Storm.
"What!" She hissed, as lightning rose up to protect her, and send the attack splashing away.
"Thunder and Lightning Strike!" The cry came from the side, and the Dark Storm blanketed the hill about her in a circle of black lightning, only to watch the attack descend from above.
A shield of lightning materialized to block the kunai, only to be burst apart and be followed by the second stabbing in at her heart. Yet, despite the disruption of her defense, another lightning shield materialized to defend her vulnerabilities, and the attack was blocked. "Impossible!"
It was not over. "Dragon Fang!" A hungry sword, clear and crystalline even beneath the black sky, shot in from the opposite side, vibrating with terrible killing power.
A blade of solid lightning, black as the deepest depths of the sea, formed in the Dark Storm's hands and blocked it, deflecting the charge away.
Xi looked up, and he saw Neji, Shiren, and Dar standing in a half circle around the Dark Storm. Shiren to the left, Dar to the right, and Neji stood between her and Xi.
"What is this?" The Dark Storm hissed.
"The end for you." Neji replied levelly. "I don't know how you managed to block those attacks, but you will not survive here."
"No, Neji." Xi whispered from behind him. "It does not work that way."
"Ha!" The Dark Storm howled. "Those were good tricks, but you are not ready to face me boy. I recognize you; you are the Hyuuga who dares to think he is a dragon ninja, Xi's little pawn. I know these others too, the wretches and outcasts the outcast who leads you has gathered together. You cannot oppose me, the ruler of Lightning."
"Your plans end here." Neji said sternly. "Your comrade, Mehize Kizen, is already dead. We destroyed him, and we will destroy you as well."
"So you killed Kizen." The Dark Storm did not appear at all surprised. "As I thought, he was nothing but a failure. Don't think that makes you ready to fight me boy."
"I am as strong as Xi." Neji replied. "And together we three can defeat you."
"There is strength and there is strength boy." The Dark Storm replied. "You may have one kind, but you do not have the other. I will kill you and teach you a lesson."
I will finish this now. Neji decided. If anyone deserves this, it is you. The dragons brought us here, so they sanction this. Neji focused his chakra, bringing it behind his eyes. For an instant he closed them, and when he opened them again the Byakugan had blended with the red eyes of the dragon, created the fanged red lenses that bored fear past all boundaries. "All Seeing Eyes of the Heavens." That proclamation came forth in a voice not Neji's own, an ancient and lethal force.
That red vision bored outward, projecting its terrible fear at the Dark Storm, Neji took on a look of grim satisfaction, and then he recoiled in absolute horror. The fear struck the Dark Storm, alien power to crush the mind and stop the heart, and then passed through her, doing nothing.
"HAHAHA." The Dark Storm screamed in laughter, a sound that shook the skies and inflicted terror into the Dragon ninja who stood before her. "This? This is the power of the Hyuuga that I sought for so long? This is the best you can do?" She laughed once more. "Idiot boy! I am beyond fear! Look at me with those Hyuuga eyes, and see the idiocy of your ideals.
Lightning burst from her hands, and Neji saw in horror the true nature of the Dark Storm.
No seals. He recognized. She did not form seals, it was not that she made them so fast we could not follow, she did not make seals! She is not molding chakra into lightning, it is her chakra. That black lightning is her chakra? Neji looked deeper, and he saw something strange there. Just as he had seen in Naruto, there was a face within that chakra, a force that looked out at him. Yet this thing, a rumbling face of blackness filled with hatred and all too human contempt, did not merely look at him. It saw, and it howled in glee, and as it did so, its face became that of the Dark Storm. There is no demon sealed within her, Neji learned in shock and denial. She is a demon!
"You're...you're not human." The words crumbled out of his mouth.
"Of course not you fool!" She thundered. "I am beyond humanity, I am one with the storm itself! I am the essence of lightning!"
"You talk too much." Xi was suddenly behind her, the Dragon's Claws moving into her flesh.
Lightning flashed, and she was in the air, droplets of blood leaking from the beginnings of a slash in her back. The Dark Storm settled to the top of a tree. "How bothersome, you can still fight." Her face contorted in anger. "Very well, Draci Xi, for now your little followers have saved you, I have used up too much chakra to kill you all now, I did not plan on four. But know that when we clash next, you will all die."
Then she was gone.
Xi turned, searching, but he could see nothing. He slumped to the ground, holding his side. Swiftly he pulled forth bandages, and wrapped them about the wound.
"Are you alright Xi?" Shiren asked, standing next to him.
"I will be fine." Xi replied. "It is not too deep, within a day it will be gone." Xi turned and stared at Neji. "Why are you here?" He asked bitingly.
"To aid you." Neji replied. "So that the dragon ninja stand together. We finished our mission in Waterfall."
"This task is mine alone!" Xi snapped back. "You cannot help here."
Neji looked away for a moment, wondering if the words were true, if after what he had seen from the Dark Storm they really could do nothing.
"Even if that's true." Neji said slowly. "Even if we cannot help you, we are not going back. I am not your student, you cannot command me to leave, nor Shiren or Dar."
The other two nodded sternly.
"We killed sixty ninja to come here Xi." Neji told him coldly. "After that price, I will not let you walk toward death alone. Even if we cannot help, you have already tried yourself, and failed."
"Do you realize what you are putting yourself against, Neji?" Xi asked coldly.
"She is some form of demon, I saw it." Neji replied.
"Not some form of demon." Xi snapped in return. "She bonded her soul with the essence of all the evils found in the storm. The Dark Storm is her only name, because the one she bore before is not the creature she is now. No lightning can harm her, and she contains limitless powers. She was by far the strongest ninja in Lightning when the war ended nine years ago, but she was not made Raikage because even then her villainy was obvious. She is not something you can expect to face and survive."
"Xi." Shiren said. "We are still going with you."
"Why?" Xi demanded.
"Because we are dragon ninja, and so are you." She answered.
Xi said nothing for a long time. "Fine." He replied at length. "She will fall back, but not so far. Between here and Lightning she waits. Tomorrow we shall go and face her. It will be the last time."
Author's Notes: Well, one chapter from the end and I finally pass 100 reviews, not bad. Anyway, this is the first half of the climax. The other half will be posted tomorrow night, and the story will be over.
Thanks to those who reviewed!
Heart of the Dark Storm
Twenty-five kilometers out from Hidden Cloud village the clouds are gathering. They are black and stormy, and heavy with rain. It seems to ordinary eyes to be a storm suddenly blown up from the coast, but to the eyes of a ninja it is something more.
An invitation? Xi wonders as he watches from a treetop afar. Or do you simply prefer to fight in such weather?
Yet it was an invitation he must accept. He knew who called up such a storm, a simple action for his opponent. Black sky or clear, I do not care, I will still kill you. Xi is resolved, and he advanced toward the center of that storm quickly.
Farther away three pairs of eyes saw that storm form, and they knew they must hurry.
For Xi the distance is not far, but he advances carefully. This is not intended to be a fair fight, and Xi would full well expect many traps or minions, and if not he would like the chance to attack with surprise. A single blow will be enough, if you give me the chance.
The dragon ninja traverses from tree to tree, fully aware of those things ahead of him, his senses are attuned to the scent of the Dark Storm's chakra, a vile presence he recalls with perfect clarity, and is hunting.
Then the trees break open onto a sparse hillside, with a few scraggly survivors of the last firestorm standing among crumbling shrubbery. So, it is to be here.
Xi launches himself over the hillside, spinning slowly through the air like a diving bird, and then he sees her, standing atop a small boulder, waiting. She sees him, but makes no moves.
Draci Xi lands some ten feet distant from the Dark Storm, on an exposed rock. She bows as he appears, and grants him a sickening smile.
Xi returns neither gesture, but holds his hands, adorned by the Dragon's Claws, before him.
"Ah, the grim avenger has come at last." The Dark Storm intones majestically as the clouds float by above, and the rain begins to fall. "You look the same as you did that day eight years ago, when we last clashed, though perhaps a bit older and more lined."
Looking at her Xi notices that the Dark Storm looks exactly the same as before, a beautiful woman who could scarcely be more than twenty, even though her age is even greater than his own. It is not genjutsu, the hunter- nin mask would reveal such a simple trick, but something far more vile, and Xi does not rise to the mark.
There is one thing Xi notices about the Dark Storm, and his eyes latch onto it, even as she follows his gaze. The forehead protector she wears to hold back her long midnight blue hair has a coarse line through the symbol of lightning, the mark of a true traitor.
"This?" The Dark Storm taps it. "An souvenir from the Raikage. It is rather obstinate and won't come off, regardless of the forehead protector. Such a wasteful thing."
Heh, a telling blow. Xi thinks. Not bad, soldier. "Do have anything actually important to say?" Xi asks finally.
"To you?" The Dark Storm mimes looking puzzled for a moment. "Not really, I know better than to try and change the mind of such an obstinate man as yourself." She paused for a moment. "I wonder though, Xi, what is the point of this action of yours? Are you simply trying to annoy me?"
Xi gave her a flat look.
"You killed all my servants." The Dark Storm answered for him. "That makes everything so much more difficult. It will take longer to control this country now, but in the end it means nothing. I do not need them. So what is it you hope to accomplish here?"
"You know my purpose very well." Xi replied.
The Dark Storm's eyes narrowed, and she stared into Xi's own. "Well, it seems you are even more deluded than I thought. You honestly believe you can kill me." She giggled, a childish sound that was out of place within the ruthlessness of her gaze. "Foolish dragon ninja, there is not a ninja still living who could accomplish that."
"What of your masters in the Akatsuki?" Xi asked.
"One master only, Dragon ninja." The Dark Storm replied. "I stand second highest among that order, and though one may perhaps surpass me, even he could not destroy me. I have my own reasons for joining my plans to his."
Xi gave the Dark Storm a scathing look. "Whatever you believe, I will kill you."
He attacked.
Black lightning spurted from the Dark Storm's fingertips, and she dashed aside Xi's attack. They flashed back and forth for a moment, no strikes reaching their targets.
Then the Dark Storm flashed backwards. "You are stronger than I thought, far stronger, but it's not enough." The swords of lightning became raging glaives, stretching above and below her hands, as long as a man was tall, and they flashed about. The Dark Storm attacked, whirling toward Xi in a half spin that struck apart trees and set them ablaze.
Xi ducked the assault and kicked up, sending the Dark Storm past him. He slashed his hands through seals. "Tail Lash!" His body flipped forward, and he slid along the ground without friction, held up by a razor thin layer of chakra, kunai held in his hands to cut open the veins of the legs.
A wall of lightning flashed upward from the ground before him.
Xi stabbed down, and flew into the air; he ripped shuriken free of his pouch and hurled them down in a spiral pattern at the Dark Storm.
She blasted tongues of lightning from her every finger, striking the shuriken, causing them to glow white hot and flash back up at Xi.
"Dragon Wind!" Xi blasted the tremendous surge of chakra back at her; sending the missiles back down, hot enough to melt stone from lightning and friction.
The Dark Storm shot upward on a cascade of lightning, dodging the attack and landing some distance away.
Xi came back down and stood upon a fallen tree trunk.
"Impressive Draci Xi." The Dark Storm muttered, breathing normally even as Xi drew in heavy gasps of air. "You have tremendous focus, and are far more dangerous than anyone I've fought in a long time. You would have made the perfect assassin for any target but me."
There was no response from the dragon ninja, except to dash aside and ready another attack.
The Dark Storm came forward to meet him, her glaives raging, blocking all approaches.
Xi spun forward, feeling the edge of that black lightning bite into him, but he had enough momentum to press forward, and though he felt the burning agony, gave no sign. His hands came up to strike the Dark Storm.
"Ah, no." She remarked.
Twin kunai moved of their own accord from her holster and slammed into Xi's side, just where he had been burned. He was stopped inches from her face, all momentum gone. Blood leaked slowly out of his side.
"I thought you wouldn't try anything that stupid, don't you understand magnetism?" She asked questionably.
"You are the one who doesn't understand." Xi gave her a grim half- smile, and the first drops of blood from the kunai punctures dripped onto the Dark Storm's leg. Xi's right hand formed a seal. "Dragon Blood no jutsu!" He hissed.
The Dark Storm screamed, as the blood on her leg turned to virulent acid and ate into her flesh, and for the barest second her glaives of lightning vanished.
Xi's hands remained in reach of her form, and the obstacles had suddenly been removed. "Lightning Element: Thousand Strikes of the Hailstorm!" His hands became a blur of moves, single strikes so fast they barely touched, leaving only a soft stinging pain, so fast the Dark Storm could chose no point to block, no place to put her lightning counters. Xi's hands raced all over her body, striking point after point.
His foe was no inexperienced ninja; she recovered swiftly and struck back.
Great gouts of lightning blasted from her hand and mouth, causing the Dark Storm's hair to fly up behind her like a living thing.
The Dragon ninja was slammed backward, smashed hard into a burnt tree. He grunted in pain as the impact agitated the wounds in his side. For a moment he was bent forward by the pain.
One second later Xi looked up to see the Dark Storm, and for the first time in eight years he truly smiled. "I've killed you."
The Dark Storm cried out in agony as blood burst out everywhere on her body, leaking from the entirety of her skin.
"I smashed every capillary on your body, you will bleed and die." Xi remarked with grim satisfaction.
"Clever!" The Dark Storm roared through a bloody haze. "But not nearly enough. Restoration of the Black Storm's Caress!"
The clouds blasted with lightning above, and all over the Dark Storm's body black lightning swarmed, her blood boiled and burned, but then everything was gone, and she was as before.
"Foolish dragon ninja." She smiled at him. "I told you that no one could kill me. That was good, but too slow."
Xi reeled back in horror and pain. He immediately moved to dodge, but it was too late, he had thought the fight finished.
"Time to die!" The Dark Storm raged, and a storm of lightning encompassed her body, ready to cover any area Xi ran to. "You are not bad Draci Xi, but you are not able to beat me!"
Annihilation rose up over Draci Xi, and he closed his eyes in shame. My best gambit, taking her strikes in return for my own, failed. Even if this continued I have already been defeated. He thought back in sadness. Everything was a waste, eight years of labor, and nothing has been accomplished. Faces flashed before his closed eyes, all those killed by the Dark Storm, and he thought in despair. I am sorry, but I cannot keep my promise.
Lightning crackled over the hillside, a blast to kill everything before it.
"Clawing whirlwind!" Blue chakra spun in through that gout of destruction, spinning forward to slam into the Dark Storm.
"What!" She hissed, as lightning rose up to protect her, and send the attack splashing away.
"Thunder and Lightning Strike!" The cry came from the side, and the Dark Storm blanketed the hill about her in a circle of black lightning, only to watch the attack descend from above.
A shield of lightning materialized to block the kunai, only to be burst apart and be followed by the second stabbing in at her heart. Yet, despite the disruption of her defense, another lightning shield materialized to defend her vulnerabilities, and the attack was blocked. "Impossible!"
It was not over. "Dragon Fang!" A hungry sword, clear and crystalline even beneath the black sky, shot in from the opposite side, vibrating with terrible killing power.
A blade of solid lightning, black as the deepest depths of the sea, formed in the Dark Storm's hands and blocked it, deflecting the charge away.
Xi looked up, and he saw Neji, Shiren, and Dar standing in a half circle around the Dark Storm. Shiren to the left, Dar to the right, and Neji stood between her and Xi.
"What is this?" The Dark Storm hissed.
"The end for you." Neji replied levelly. "I don't know how you managed to block those attacks, but you will not survive here."
"No, Neji." Xi whispered from behind him. "It does not work that way."
"Ha!" The Dark Storm howled. "Those were good tricks, but you are not ready to face me boy. I recognize you; you are the Hyuuga who dares to think he is a dragon ninja, Xi's little pawn. I know these others too, the wretches and outcasts the outcast who leads you has gathered together. You cannot oppose me, the ruler of Lightning."
"Your plans end here." Neji said sternly. "Your comrade, Mehize Kizen, is already dead. We destroyed him, and we will destroy you as well."
"So you killed Kizen." The Dark Storm did not appear at all surprised. "As I thought, he was nothing but a failure. Don't think that makes you ready to fight me boy."
"I am as strong as Xi." Neji replied. "And together we three can defeat you."
"There is strength and there is strength boy." The Dark Storm replied. "You may have one kind, but you do not have the other. I will kill you and teach you a lesson."
I will finish this now. Neji decided. If anyone deserves this, it is you. The dragons brought us here, so they sanction this. Neji focused his chakra, bringing it behind his eyes. For an instant he closed them, and when he opened them again the Byakugan had blended with the red eyes of the dragon, created the fanged red lenses that bored fear past all boundaries. "All Seeing Eyes of the Heavens." That proclamation came forth in a voice not Neji's own, an ancient and lethal force.
That red vision bored outward, projecting its terrible fear at the Dark Storm, Neji took on a look of grim satisfaction, and then he recoiled in absolute horror. The fear struck the Dark Storm, alien power to crush the mind and stop the heart, and then passed through her, doing nothing.
"HAHAHA." The Dark Storm screamed in laughter, a sound that shook the skies and inflicted terror into the Dragon ninja who stood before her. "This? This is the power of the Hyuuga that I sought for so long? This is the best you can do?" She laughed once more. "Idiot boy! I am beyond fear! Look at me with those Hyuuga eyes, and see the idiocy of your ideals.
Lightning burst from her hands, and Neji saw in horror the true nature of the Dark Storm.
No seals. He recognized. She did not form seals, it was not that she made them so fast we could not follow, she did not make seals! She is not molding chakra into lightning, it is her chakra. That black lightning is her chakra? Neji looked deeper, and he saw something strange there. Just as he had seen in Naruto, there was a face within that chakra, a force that looked out at him. Yet this thing, a rumbling face of blackness filled with hatred and all too human contempt, did not merely look at him. It saw, and it howled in glee, and as it did so, its face became that of the Dark Storm. There is no demon sealed within her, Neji learned in shock and denial. She is a demon!
"You're...you're not human." The words crumbled out of his mouth.
"Of course not you fool!" She thundered. "I am beyond humanity, I am one with the storm itself! I am the essence of lightning!"
"You talk too much." Xi was suddenly behind her, the Dragon's Claws moving into her flesh.
Lightning flashed, and she was in the air, droplets of blood leaking from the beginnings of a slash in her back. The Dark Storm settled to the top of a tree. "How bothersome, you can still fight." Her face contorted in anger. "Very well, Draci Xi, for now your little followers have saved you, I have used up too much chakra to kill you all now, I did not plan on four. But know that when we clash next, you will all die."
Then she was gone.
Xi turned, searching, but he could see nothing. He slumped to the ground, holding his side. Swiftly he pulled forth bandages, and wrapped them about the wound.
"Are you alright Xi?" Shiren asked, standing next to him.
"I will be fine." Xi replied. "It is not too deep, within a day it will be gone." Xi turned and stared at Neji. "Why are you here?" He asked bitingly.
"To aid you." Neji replied. "So that the dragon ninja stand together. We finished our mission in Waterfall."
"This task is mine alone!" Xi snapped back. "You cannot help here."
Neji looked away for a moment, wondering if the words were true, if after what he had seen from the Dark Storm they really could do nothing.
"Even if that's true." Neji said slowly. "Even if we cannot help you, we are not going back. I am not your student, you cannot command me to leave, nor Shiren or Dar."
The other two nodded sternly.
"We killed sixty ninja to come here Xi." Neji told him coldly. "After that price, I will not let you walk toward death alone. Even if we cannot help, you have already tried yourself, and failed."
"Do you realize what you are putting yourself against, Neji?" Xi asked coldly.
"She is some form of demon, I saw it." Neji replied.
"Not some form of demon." Xi snapped in return. "She bonded her soul with the essence of all the evils found in the storm. The Dark Storm is her only name, because the one she bore before is not the creature she is now. No lightning can harm her, and she contains limitless powers. She was by far the strongest ninja in Lightning when the war ended nine years ago, but she was not made Raikage because even then her villainy was obvious. She is not something you can expect to face and survive."
"Xi." Shiren said. "We are still going with you."
"Why?" Xi demanded.
"Because we are dragon ninja, and so are you." She answered.
Xi said nothing for a long time. "Fine." He replied at length. "She will fall back, but not so far. Between here and Lightning she waits. Tomorrow we shall go and face her. It will be the last time."