A/N: Song (c) Sakamoto Ma'aya, Iwasato Youho, Youko Kanno - (Poketto wo Kara ni Shite - Empty the Pocket. English trans. from Escaflowne)


"Why..." she whispered after sitting there for many long minutes. "Why are you still here?"

Akisu was indeed, still standing a few feet off, having not said anything for a long time. The sun was slowly slipping behind the horizon, and the hill was the last part of Konoha to be illuminated, Raine still curled up against the silhouetted tree in the red-orange light. After another few moments of silence, she jumped slightly as he leaned against the tree on the opposite side from where she was curled up.

"Because you're still mad at me, aren't you," he said after a few moments. She lifted her tearstained face and wiped at it, trying in vain to free it from the tears that were still freely running from it. She pulled her headphones off for a moment in order to brush her hair from her face, but ended up leaving them off anyways. They simply sat in silence for a long time, perhaps almost an hour, until it was well past sunset. She finally stood, shouldering her bag. Her eyes were dry and her face was no longer tearstained as she looked up at the stars. She felt no better inside, but she would not cry around another like that, it wasn't her way of doing things. She didn't want to cry in the first place.

"I'm leaving tomorrow," she stated simply, her voice toneless, with no hint of emotion.

"Where are you going, then?" He asked quie

"Don't know, don't really care. Away from here, away from everything. I'll keep walking until I come across a village I have never been before, loot it, and continue on."

"Loot it?" he asked, a hint of suprise audible in his voice.

"It's the way I live. I fight, steal, sell and live on, it's the only way I can survive in this world."

"Sounds like... fun," he said slowly. She turned her head slightly to her left, eyeing him, or the tree since he was on the opposite side.

"You're the first person to tell me that."

"Well," he said, a smile creeping into his deep voice. "It is, isn't it?"

"Che," she said, a smile on her own face, "obviously."

"Is that all you do, then? Wander from town to town, loot them and sell it for money?"

"Hn..." she was gazing up at the stars, lost in thought. Her mind was still in shock from recalling the death of her mother, but that was not what was bothering her.

"Why are you leaving tomorrow? Or do you never stay in one place for a long time?"

"This is considered a long time. I haven't been here for four years, and this will probably be my last time here. I'm forced to move around like this." That was another thing nagging at her constantly. Being in a village meant you were in one place, yes, but it also meant that there was more protection being sided with one country. Safety in numbers.

"Ne? Why?"

So many questions, she thought, narrowing her eyes slightly in annoyance. "People want to kill me. Or capture me. Or steal what I have. Like I said, it's the only way I can survive in this world.

"Same with me, then."

It was Raine's turn to be suprised. "What do you mean?"

"My father is an S-ranked missing-nin, and my mother is the same. She is a part of a dangerous group of missing-nin. That group is after me. And my father... he is waiting for me to become stronger before he, too, will be after me. This village is my only protection, and I hate that, I do."

She was silent for awhile, before turning back to the stars. "Is that what it's like to live in a village then? I've never know what its like to have a home, to be bound to a country. I lived in the Cloud until I was eight, but I was not bound to it as one usually is. My father was from the Leaf, so I did not belong to either."

"I wasn't bound to this village before either, I was part of the Sand, but I never travelled, so eventually became part of Konoha."

"But..." she paused, thinking about it for the first time. Maybe she didn't want to join a village afterall. "...Doesn't it bother you that you are unable to leave the Fire Country without becoming a Missing-nin? I don't think I could live like that."

When she got no reply on his part, she turned around fully and was suprised to see that he was now leaning on the other side of the tree, facing her. She had not even heard him move, she had heard nothing at all. Fast, she thought, narrowing her eyes.

"I'm leaving, I need to get ready to head out tomorrow," she said curtly, brushing past him.

"Matte kudasai," he said. She stopped and turned.

"What do you want now?"

"What's your name?" he asked. She turned away and started walking again. After she was further from him, she finally stopped, forcing herself to smile and look slightly less mundane.

"Jaa, ne!' she said in a falsely happy voice. A yellow orb appeared in front of her and a gust of air swirled around her thin frame, kicking up a number of leaves as she vanished into the moonless night, not leaving the slightest trace she had been there.


"Fifty for all of it?" she asked slowly, eyeing the owner of the pawnshop. It was as high as he would go. "Fine," she said finally, pushing the jewelery towards him. He handed her the money and she left without even a 'goodbye'. It was not even light out yet, the sun had not risen, and it was fairly cold out. She stepped out from the pawnshop and turned right, heading down the empty streets slowly, back towards the corner store.

She automatically went towards the small fridge in the back to reach for a coke, when she froze, frowing and dropping her hand. There was none left. The fridge beside this was for pepsi products only. And she was a loyal supporter of coke, she would never drink pepsi products. Ever.

"Aiya," she muttered, opening the door to the coke fridge and grabbing a Sprite. She noticed a single can of coke resting on it's side at the bottom, and she automatically scooped it up and pocketed it, slipping it into her bag with incredible speed and moving to the counter. The clerk had apperently not noticed as she paid and left the store casually, opening the sprite. She could feel her bag weighed down from what she had stocked up on, mainly batteries, but the can of coke, money, food (mostly junk food) and her few original belongings.

After a moment's thought, she headed towards the bath house, pushing through the doors and looking around. She pulled a small, rolled up towel from her bag and put it to the side as she undressed, wrapping it around her body when she was finished. Before leaving her bag in one of the lockers, she removed a small necklace, slipping it around her neck and stepping through the doors of the woman's bath.

She bathed quickly, washing out her hair several times. It was much longer when wet, reaching to her shoulders, and even wet it lost none of it's silkiness. When other women began coming in, she decided she had spent long enough relaxing and got out to get dressed. She used the washroom and grabbed her bag, slinging it over her shoulder and hitting the road again. On her way, she stopped to get some breakfast, ramen again, where she got an unpleasant suprise. The same, loud gennin was sitting and devouring ramen as he spoke between mouthfuls to the woman. She cringed slightly as a bit of noodle flew in her general direction, before moving a few more seats down. I can't believe I'm related to him, she thought, glancing at her half-brother. He had no clue that she even existed, and didn't even know the Fourth was his father. And she had no plans on getting close enough to tell him.

"Beef ramen," she ordered as the woman came up to her. A few moments later, a steaming bowl of ramen was placed before her, and she broke the chopsticks quickly, finishing the ramen by the time the boy had finished three more bowls. She payed and stood, stretching and heading back out onto the streets. By now it was mid-morning, and while there were still few people on the streets, their numbers were steadily growing. She changed directions and began heading towards the edge of town.

She quickly jumped the wall and landed silently in the forest below, yawning and stretching again before stepping back onto the road. Her headphones were still over her ears, the music bouncing through her brain as she became lost in her usual train of thoughts. She would probably head back to the Cloud for awhile, but if not, she would just wander until she hit a village. There were too many questions pounding through her head at the moment to even begin sorting them out, so she didn't bother, instead falling into her usual, mindless wanderings.

Her mind suddenly went blank, flashing in a white light before a vision broke into it. She could still see where she was going, and kept moving forwards, but she could see inside her mind at the same time. Dark blue wings and showers of feathers, blood covering her hands, a voice that did not belong to her, long, flowing black hair, black armour, red eyes, black helmet, inhuman speed, she immediately knew what had triggered the sudden image to appear in her mind, and she knew well what it was. It was the memory of the first time she had released the Aohane, the demon sealed inside of her. It usually didn't bother her, often keeping quiet in the back of her mind and not trying to force out of her body. The Aohane was a compact package of pure energy, a dangerous weapon that was the result of an experiment of her mothers. The Raikage had experimented on a woman known to be one of the most powerful female shinobi in existance. She had mysteriously vanished, and although people searched, she was far from her home in the Hidden Stone. The Raikage had gone too far however, and had turned her into a demon, an uncontrollable monster with a mind of its own. It had loosed itself from its bindings on the night the Raikage had gone into labour with Raine, and she had ordered one of the Jounin to seal it within her child. The Jounin died in the process, using the four-seasons seal on the child, the same seal used to seal the nine-tails within Naruto.

What is it? she thought as the stirring suddenly stopped. She removed her headphones and paused, listening to the silent forest. There was no sound whatsoever, nop snapping twigs or rustling leaves, and she could sense no chakra. But then again, where had all the birds gone? She was down in a flash, dashing silently into the bushes to her right and crouching in complete silence, her body fully hidden. It was hot out, and as she remained hidden for countless miutes, she finally shifted slightly, removing her long-sleeved, black jacket and tying it tightly around her waist, which left her in her dark red tanktop. She fell silent once more, crouching low, her eyes darting everywhere. A twig snapped and her eyes darted back in the direction she had come.

Akisu!? What's he doing here!? Akisu was walking slowly with his head down and a bag slung over his shoulder. He seemed to not care if he made noise, and although he was fairly silent, twigs still snapped under his feet as he trudged through the forest. She watched in complete silence, unknown to him where she remained crouched in the underbrush, out of sight. As he came nearer, the hairs on the back of her neck tingled. Her eyes darted back to where he had come from as she sensed a large amount of chakra. Her eyes darted back to Akisu where he had not noticed, and then back to the source of the chakra.

She cursed silently at what she was about to do. Leaping from her cover, she charged silently towards Akisu, catching his attention and running into him.

"What are you-"

"Damare!" she hissed, pinning him to the ground. They were hidden in the underbrush fairly well, and she could sense the chakra approaching closer. She knew exactly what it was. Pressing her right hand over Akisu's mouth and using her left arm to support her slightly, her eyes slid back to the path, widened in anticipation. Her hair hung in her face, obscuring her visions slightly as her blue eyes scanned the forest. It didn't take long for the sources of the chakra to appear.

They were two men, dressed in black trenchcoats that had red, curling cloud designs lined in white, both moving with incredible silence although they did not seem to be trying. Her eyes widened farther as she scanned them quickly, noticing each had a red ring on the ring finger of their right hand. The smaller one, on the left, had raven black hair and blood red eyes that seemed to be rivited on a place that was faroff in front of him. He had a strange necklace around his neck and his trenchcoat was open, allowing his hand to rest between the folds of fabric as he walked. The other had a slitted face and small, beady eyes that made him look like a shark when combines with his sickly blueish skin. he had spiked, dark-blue hair that poked out above headgear that was mounted with a Mist template. He had an oversized sword heavily wrapped in bandages strapped securely across his back. The smaller had a Leaf protector around his forehead, and both had deep gashes going through the emblem of their country, signifying what they were. Akatsuki, she thought, tensing up slightly. They've found out my location already? Akisu's eyes had also darted towards them, and he tensed as well as they walked slowly towards them.

As they came within feet of them, Raine lowered herself further, her hair hanging in Akisu's face as she did her best to make them invisible, biting her lip and hoping there would be no confrontation. The two Akatsuki made no noise as they passed by them, and not even a breeze was stirred by their passing. She remained perfectly still, not turning her head to see when they had left, but simply remaining frozen for several minutes. Akisu suddenly tensed, and she turned her head ever so slightly, freezing instantly.

There were two pairs of feet directly beside them.

She moved with incredible speed, shifting her right hand from Akisu's mouth, she grabbed the collar of his dark blue t-shirt. In one motion, she spun him up and behind her while flipping up and twisting akwardly, landing a few feet away as twent-four orbs appeared around her protectively. She could not joke around with people like these, they were dangerous, and if she let her guard down, they would easily kill her.

"What are you doing in the Leaf?" asked the shorter of the two. His blood red eyes bored into hers as they faced eachother.

"Avoiding you. Isn't that why you're here?"

"No," he said simply, giving away no other information.

"But it's a bonus to find you here," said the shark-faced man. "Give us the Ikichi."

"...What?" she said dumbly, relaxing slightly. "Last time you wanted to kill me, now you want the Ikichi? Which one is it?"

"Both. If you don't give it to us, we'll kill you and take it fr- Hello, what's this?" said the taller man, looking behind her as if noticing Akisu for the first time. "It's the Oyabun's brat," he said, grinning widely to reveal sharp, shark-like teeth.

"Akisu?" said the other, eyeing the boy behind her.

"Now what!?" she nearly shouted, her mind racing to find an escape route. The shark man suddenly moved, pulling out the sword from across his back and cocking it in their direction. She took a few steps back, arms thrown out on each side protectively, but the smaller one was suddenly behind her, a kunai at her throat. Akisu seemed frozen as the giant, bandaged sword was held in front of his own neck, the bandages tearing slightly to reveal hundreds of tooth-like points that covered the sword.

"Stay still," warned the one behind her.

"Keh," she scoffed. "Yeah right."

Raine's body was suddenly swept away in the breeze, replaced by leaves that blew away. The Akatsuki that had been behind her slowly dropped the hand with the kunai as a dagger was placed at his throat.

"Let him go," she ordered, several of her orbs drifting towards where the shark man was still holding the sword to Akisu's throat. There was silence. Another Raine appeared from nowhere, charging the red eyed Akatsuki as the dagger left his throat and the real Raine dashed towards the shark man. An olive-green orb darted in front of her and the branches of the surrounding trees shot forth, heading directly towards the Akatsuki. He was forced to release Akisu in order to rip the branches apart, the remainder of the bandages on his sword coming off to reveal a sword covered in numerous, scaley spikes.

"Run, Akisu!" she shouted angrily as the other Akatsuki grabbed her from behind. Her hand slipped into his pocket as she dropped to the ground, her thin body simply sliding from between his arms. She saw the giant sword heading directly for Akisu and dashed between them, taking a small blow to her left shoulder. But even that small blow, coming from such a sword, completely shredded it. The branches of the surrounding trees shot out again, forming a tightly-woven, thick wall as she dashed away with a small wallet in her hand still, and her bag somehow still hanging on her shredded left shoulder. She needed no second prompting to get the hell away from there as fast as she could run. The Akatsuki were a dangerous group, and she could not properly deal with more than one at a time, let alone two of their stronger members. She had been aquainted with each of their ten, now nine, members at least once, and none of them had been easy to deal with.

Her left arm was limp at her side, throbbing painfully. She shoved the wallet into her bag and moved her hand to her shoulder, wincing as she staunched the flow with her fingers. The cuts were deep, the muscle completely shredded, and blood was leaving a clear trail for them to follow had they wanted to. But she knew they would not, they had not fought seriously before, which meant that she was not their top priority at the moment. They were after something else.

After many long minutes of running, Akisu finally slowed and stopped, landing in a small clearing far from Konoha. She landed a few feet away as he turned to face her.

"Are you alright?" he asked, looking over her shoulder and upper arm. The blood was dripping thickly from it and her other hand was stained red.

"Yes. Yes I am," she said sarcastically. She turned to face him fully and lifted her other hand, shaking some of the blood off before catching him off guard and punching him hard in the face.

"Baka!" she shouted. "What the hell were you doing following me? Are you TRYING to get killed!?"

"Itai..." he muttered, holding his bleeding nose. "Sorry. Please don't get mad..."

"Keh," she scoffed, flopping down into the grass and rummaging in her bag with her good hand. She pulled out her small towel and a number of bandages, cleaning the wound as best she could before bandaging it and using her teeth to tie it tightly. After she realized she couldn't move it, she made a small sling to support it, shoving the remainders of the bandages into her bag and carelessly throwing the towel aside. She stood and slung the bag over her shoulder, taking a step forwards before realizing she needed to rest, where she slumped back up against a tree, still glaring angrily at Akisu who was trying to staunch his nosebleed.

"No really," she said after a few more moments. "Why the hell were you following me!?"

"You never told me your name," he said simply, holding his head up to stop the bloodflow.

"Huh...?" she cocked an eyebrow. "You followed me because... you wanted to know... my name...?"

"Not only that... but yes, I suppose," he said. She noticed he seemed to be speaking alot more than the last time they had met, and she realized how he seemed timid and polite, a highly contrasting personality compared to the dark and silent boy she had first assumed him to be.

"If you want to know that much...." she said slowly, wondering why he would follow her out here to ask her name. "It's Raine, or Tsukimi, or Mitsuji, Ayase, and about fifteen other names."

"Wh-what? Which one is it, then?"

"The Leaf calls me Raine, the Cloud calls me Tsukimi, the Stone calls me Mitsuji, the Sand calls me Ayase.... Whichever you like best."

"Well... What would you like me to call you, then?"

"Dunno... Make up your own name if you want."

"You want me to... name you then?"

"Sure... name me something short so I'll remember."

There was a long pause as Akisu thought hard, still plugging his nose as he tried to stop the bleeding. "What about.... Aya, or Rei? They are short enough, ne?"

"I like Rei better," she stated, thinking for a moment. "Why did you follow me? It wasn't just to ask my name."

"I no longer wanted to stay in the Leaf, so I followed you out here..."

"What?" she asked sharply, still annoyed with the older boy. "You wanna join me?" She hadn't expected her guess to be so close.

"If you would let me."

"Huh...?" she said, her usual response. "You're... serious? You want to live life as a thief?"

"Don't underestimate me, I wasn't named Akisu for nothing, you know."

"Higure is 'twilight' Akisu is 'thief'. So... Your name means Thief of the Twilight? But how does that prove to me what you can do?"

"It doesn't. This does, ne?" He held up another wallet, almost identical to the one she had slipped into her bag.

"Was that from the other man?" He nodded and opened it, dumping the coins onto the forest floor and counting them.

"Who exactly are you?" she asked suddenly, recalling what the Akatsuki had said about him.

"I could ask you the same thing, I could," he said. This guy speaks oddly, she thought.

"Well, no one's ever wanted to come with me before, and being alone is part of the reason why I wander. To get some privacy, escape reality," she replied after a moment of staring strangely at the older boy. "If you travelled with me, you would need to be very strong; there are several dangerous people after me, along with a few groups."

"I am more powerful than you think, probably. I have many things going for me: a bloodline, two stores of chakra - one from something sealed inside of me and the other a gift from my father- and my contract with the snakes. I can summon them whenever I want..."

There is definitely something strange about that kid's eyes, she thought, not really listening to what he was saying. His eyes creeped her out- they were bright yellow-green with slits for pupils and stood out because of way they slanted and were faintly outlined in black.

"If you travel any further with me you will be classified as a missing-nin. Once you become a part of a village, you cannot leave. Do you really want that? Hunter-nin chasing after you for your entire life?"

"I can deal with Hunter-nin, I suppose. But I do not want to be stuck in the same village, not at all. So, will you let me travel with you, then?"

"I..." she had never been asked something like this before. "But... If I start travelling with someone right now, I will begin to depend on them. Travelling by myself I'm forced to come out alive, forced to be alert, forced to be resourceful in order to survive. If there's someone watching my back, I'll start to depend on them. If I get badly hurt, instead of dying by myself, they will be there to heal me, to cheat my death. If I travel with someone, they will be there to warn me of things that are approaching. And, if that someone disappears one day, either killed or runs off on their own, then I will be left vulnerable. I won't be used to stivking up for myself, I won't be used to getting hurt, and there will be no one to step in at the last second to save me from getting killed. And if that happens, I won't live two seconds in this world."

"But it's safer to travel with someone else, ne? You don't need to trust me or depend on me, that's for you to decide, it is. If you refuse, that's fine with me. I'm not going back to Konoha anyways. If you refuse, I will still take the same path, but instead of being with another person, I'll walk it alone. But trust me, it would be much more safer to travel together, ne?"

"I..." she paused to think, but her shoulder was throbbing too painfully to think properly. "I guess you could travel with me for a little while, and if you're trustworthy enough, I guess you could stay."

Akisu's nose had stopped bleeding by now, and there was a bloody cloth at his feet that he had used to clean it up. He was gently feeling his nose to make sure nothing was broken.

"You sure punch hard, ne?" he said slowly, timidly poking at his nose.

"Heh," she said nervously, rubbing the back of her head. "Sorry, I didn't think it would be that hard. But you should watch where you're going. Couldn't you sense the Akatsuki behind you?"

"I thought about it for a few minutes, yes, but I waved it off after awhile, I did. At least we got away, ne?"

"Yeah, and I didn't break my record either. I still managed to steal something from that red-eyed guy. I think his name is Itachi. I've fought him before, and I know he wasn't being serious in that fight, otherwise we'd both be dead or captured. When he fought me seriously once, he was alone, and I ended up unconcious at the bottom of a cliff for a few days. He has that thing... that bloodline. The Sharingan I think. If you look him in the eye when he activated the highest level, you're finished. I was just lucky there was a cliff behind me, it broke my arm, but it saved my life when he didn't follow."

"Sounds like fun," he said, smiling and falling back into the grass.

"Yeah, it was kinda. I stole his precious necklace, but the next time he confronted me, he had a new one. That necklace was worth quite a bit as well."

He said nothing, simply folding his hands behind his head and staring up into the branches of the trees. She replaced her headphones and leaned back, forgetting the pain in her arm as she became lost in her usual state of mind with her music pulsing through her mind. She doubted she would be going any further today, she was too tired to move and her arm was pulsing painfully. The muscle was shredded close to the skin, and she knew that it would scar for sure, there was no questioning that. She closed her eyes and let her mind wander as she usually did, wondering not where she was heading, but about Akisu and what it would be like to travel with another. She had always travelled solo, with no one to watch out for her, but this would be interesting, seeing how this would turn out. She smiled slightly as Akisu complained quietly about his nose which had apperently started bleeding again. It actually felt good to have some company instead of being alone all the time.

If only the wind would change
Along my path, it would probably
Get a little better.

"Wealth will
ruin you," they say.
That's somethin' I wouldn't know about.
There shouldn't be rules or anything like that,
For dreams anywhere.

Come on, let's go on a journey, emptying our pockets.
We don't have a purpose or anything, but...
Soon...

Come on, let's go on a journey, emptying out pockets,
Carrying our indescent feelings along with us.

Lying down in a grassy field,
I looked up at
The topsy-turvey stardust.
I found a shooting star!
But what to wish for?
I don't know.

People love,
live, die.

Come on, let's go on a journey, emptying our pockets.
We don't have a purpose or anything, but...
Soon...

Come on, let's go on a journey, emptying our pockets,
Carrying our indescent feelings with us.

Na na na na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na na
Na na na na na

Come on, let's go on a journey, emptying our pockets,
We don't have a purpose or anything, but...
Soon...

Come on, let's go on a journey, emptying our pockets,
Carrying our indescent feelings with us.

Destroying such a fanciful destiny,
We set off on
A journey for tomorrow,
Leaving the tin-plated town behind.

Lift that flag high.
Brandish it.
Brandish it.


A/N: Meanings (Off the top of my head. Just in case.):

Matte kudasai- polite way of saying wait. "Please wait!"

Jaa, ne!- "See you later!" Kakashi says this alot I think.

Ne/Ne? - (Akisu will be using this constantly in his weird dialect that sounds kinda like Kenshin's "gozaru na") Kind of like saying 'hey' when used at the beginning of sentances, but is more like "blahblahblah yadayada, yes?/right?" when used at the end of sentances.

Damare- "Shut up!"

Baka- "Idiot/stupid/dumbass/asshole" etc...

Itai- "Owww" or "Ouch". More of a sound than a word that can be translated literally.