Toshida Gaiden Part 5: The Sleep

Kunashiro awakens from a long and restless slumber in under the vigil of Yuna and Shobu. The two seem excited to see that he has woken up, but Kunashiro's mind remains in a daze and he is unable to understand any of the words that are coming out of their mouths. His senses are confused, his vision blurred and hearing unreliable. His body feels weak and drained of all chakra, and his hands and feet feel numb and almost frostbitten. As Kunashiro's mind begins to clear, his thoughts become focused and he rises quickly from his horizontal position, and rises up in his ever familiar hospital-like recovery bed.

"Kunashiro what the hell happened?" Shobu asks as he tries to get the young shinobi's attention. "When an hour passed and you hadn't returned from the surface I went back out to look for you and you were gone. I had to organize a search party as soon as possible to go out looking for you. What happened out there?"

Kunashiro does not answer as he simply stares blankly into nothingness. "What happened?" Kunashiro asks himself. "Did it work? Did I summon the demon? I don't feel any different though . . . I actually feel weaker then before. Why am I so drained?"

Yuna stands in front of Kunashiro and kneels down so that her eyes connect directly with Kunashiro's, drawing his attention toward her. "What happened out there? Please talk to us Kunashiro, we've been so worried these last four days."

"Four days!" Kunashiro exclaims aloud. "I was out for four days? But how? Why?"

"We were hoping you could tell us." Shobu adds. "When the search party found you, you were in a deep sleep with a smoldering circle still smoking around you. If it wasn't for the smoke, we probably would never have found you." Shobu moves to Kunashiro's bedside and helps Kunashiro out of bed. "When we got you back here, I looked over your condition and it appeared to be that you were simply sleeping. Exhausted and drained of chakra."

"Drained of chakra?" Kunashiro asks.

"Yes! Now what the hell were you doing out there?"

Kunashiro thinks to himself about his plan to summon the demon into himself. "I cannot believe that my plan failed. This does not make any sense. The seals should have worked! Dammit, this can't be happening!" Kunashiro bites down on his bottom lip, fuming with frustration at his failed experiment. "Either way, it is better that these people don't know what I attempted."

Kunashiro looks to Shobu and fakes a look of bewilderment. "I-I don't remember what happened."

And that explanation was all that the village people needed to let that day rest in the back of their memories. My father would be hindered from that point on with a reduced chakra capacity, severed almost by half as the beast fed on his energy to sustain itself as it attempted to regain its strength from transition. What had really happened was the dragon was indeed summoned into my father, but the transition left the beast so weak, that it had to become a parasite to my fathers' chakra in order to stay alive. My father was only a temporary vessel anyway. The dragon could not be made manifest in a body that had been completely human for years and years. It had to start from scratch and mold its latest container from birth into resurrecting its original body. Otherwise, the demon would be still trying to convert my father into itself many years after my fathers' death. So for the time being, the beast was stuck in my fathers body with no way to get out.

Meanwhile, my father would be haunted with feelings of frustration at the fact that his master plan was a complete failure. He continued training as best he could, and tried finding some new scheme to get revenge on the Raikage for what happened to him. His efforts however, were always quashed when the limits of his chakra capacity become more prevalent. After awhile, he began to settle down and take a more active role in the colony. He continued in helping to build the colony further, and basically upgrade the quality of life in that godforsaken wasteland. He would eventually begin courting Yuna, and the two developed into a romantic relationship. Eventually the two would consummate their relationship . . .

Kunashiro lay in bed asleep next to Yuna, her arm draped over his scared chest and her hair covering most of her face. The room is silent and the entire colony is asleep and sleeping soundly . . . except Kunashiro. Kunashiro is restless, his face covered with sweat as he is suffering from serious nightmares. He moans and groans echo in the room, but are not loud enough to wake Yuna.

Kunashiro envisions a dark cave in his nightmare with an eternal fire burning around him with no end to the flame in sight. He can hear screaming coming from all around him. Men, woman and children all sounding as if they are being burned alive in the heat of the fire. Kunashiro shouts out to try and help them, but no one replies. He can then hear the clanging of metal against metal as the familiar sound of a heated battle becomes louder and louder. The screaming ensues and the battle sounds become more furious. Kunashiro drops to his knees and covers his ears, having succumbed to the intense noise, and just as it seemed that it could not get any louder, the sound stops and an enormous shadow looms over Kunashiro. The shadow moves along over the fire and all of a sudden the screams begin louder then ever before, but as quickly as the screams restarted they stopped yet again. The enormous shadow then stops in front of Kunashiro and Kunashiro finds himself paralyzed by the only things visible on the shadow . . . a pair of piercing green eyes.

The shadow swirls in front of Kunashiro and the shadow begins to change into a silhouette that takes the form of an enormous dragon. Its snake like body coils over and over again and its enormous wings spread out in all directions. Kunashiro reaches for a kunai and readies himself to fight the beast. The shadowy beast then begins to change before Kunashiro's eyes. The shadow reduces in size and takes the form of a small child like figure. Once again the only thing that can be made out is the bright green eyes. The child's eyes flash with a brilliant flash of light, abruptly waking Kunashiro from his nightmare.

Kunashiro awakens in a cold sweat, his breathing heavily labored and all the muscles in his body tensing up and refusing to move. Yuna wakes up next to Kunashiro and attempts to comfort him.

"What's wrong?" Yuna asks, "You have been restless all night and now you're sweating when it is cold in here? Are you ok?"

"I don't . . . I don't know . . . It was just some horrible nightmare." Kunashiro rubs the sweat from his brow with the back of his only hand, and then stops to look at his palm.

Kunashiro finds his palm covered in blood and he lets out a startled shout before shaking his head in an effort to regain his senses.

"What the hell is going on here. Why am I so freaked out?" Kunashiro tries his best to regain his composure, but the haunting thoughts and images of his nightmare remain etched into his mind.

"You are starting to scare me Kunashiro." Yuna says with a concerned tone. "Do you need anything? Is there anything I can get you?"

"N-no Yuna . . . it's ok." Kunashiro responds, "I will be fine. Just go back to sleep . . . I will join you shortly."

"Ok then." Yuna says as she lays back down beside Kunashiro. "I hope you aren't getting sick or anything because now that I think about it, I am not feeling too well either."

As Yuna begins to fall asleep, Kunashiro finally manages to regain his senses and he too lays down in bed. "Whatever that was, I can't help but feel that this is some kind of omen. Either way . . . I'm tired, and I will deal with it all tomorrow."

Early the next morning Kunashiro wakes up alone. He looks around the room and notices Yuna is no where to be found. He thinks nothing of it and begins to wander around the colony, first stopping off at the reservoir to grab something to drink. Something however, is not right. As Kunashiro advances throughout the colony, he notices that in fact, no one is around. The colony appears to be vacant, with no signs of anyone.

As Kunashiro's curiosity begins to grow, he quickly makes his way to the cave opening, and the only entrance and exit from the colony. As he draws closer and closer to the opening, he begins hearing the voices of the colony members all in a group conversing about something.

"How did it happen?"

"What's going on?"

"Is this a good omen?"

Kunashiro is only able to make out selective sections of the colonists' conversations as he begins to increase his speed toward the opening. Another thing appears to wrong as Kunashiro notices that instead of the subtle and dank darkness of the caves and the colony itself cast upon him, the shadows of the colonists cover every inch of his figure, as if a bright light were shining in front of them.

As Kunashiro reaches the cluster of colonists at the top of the cave shaft he finds himself at a loss for words as the sun shines across his face for the first time in months offering the long awaited warmth that both he and many of the other colonists have yearned for since their incarceration.

"Th-this is impossible . . . there isn't a cloud in the sky . . . the storms have stopped!"

(Authors Note: Once again sorry for the length of time in between updates but like I stated, things have been hectic lately. I also apologize for the really short chapter compared to my normal work, but I figured I would rather just post quick chapters more often then force everyone to wait so long in between the chapters. Anyway I have moved the back stories into their own section and I will update it as often as possible but in the meantime I am going to do try and update the main fic as well because I have no problems with ideas for that section, and in fact the rough work of it all is actually finished. Anyway if anyone has any comments or questions that they would like to ask you can email me at Thank you all for continuing to read the fic and I will do what I can to make sure you all don't have to wait much longer for the rest of the fic. BTW April 15 is my last day of classes and then most of my time becomes free time in which to focus on writing! Thanks for reading and see you later!)