Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or any portion thereof, and make no claims on its copyright. However, all original characters and events are my own property.
Chapter 6- The Formless HalfShiro's broken body lay on a cloth cot. The young ninja's form was wretched, his body barely moved, only the nearly imperceptible rise and fall of his chest as he drew shallow, wheezing breaths indicated he was still alive. Looking upon him was a trial, his body coated in livid burns; his chest and sides all but burned away, his arms ravaged. The boy's lips were gone, as were his eyes, leaving him blind, and without his outer ears, nearly deaf as well. Only his legs had been even partly spared, and they were still dotted with cruel blotches of dead flesh, where single drops of burning water had done cruel work. It was a testament to the power of Mizuho, so deadly that even a single drop of what could burn completely through a limb, causing death.
Even now Shiro clung to life only by the thinnest of margins, and that would not last long.
"I have done my best to heal him, brother," Yuki's sister told the head of her clan in clipped tones. "But no ninja, not even the brilliant Tsunade, could heal damage like this. That child is a walking corpse, why do you prolong his suffering?"
Yuki faced his sister with a countenance carved from stone. He was beyond feelings of guilt or horror, but even he could not suppress a twinge of emotion at the young man's suffering. "I have a reason, a very good one in fact, sister." Yuki told her. "Yet if you have not healed him enough, he will indeed die with nothing but prolonged suffering." He looked past her, to where Shiro's broken body lay. "Now, tell me, can he be awakened? Will he hear me if I speak to him?"
"Wakened?" his sister was incredulous. It was ridiculous, the idea of awakening this boy who had mere hours to live at best. "If you awaken him he might hear you, but he would not live for more than an hour past that, it is madness."
Ignoring his sister's last words utterly, Yuki gave an absolute command, in a tone that brooked no dissent. "Wake him."
His sister knew it was futile, but dared anyway, "But-"
"But nothing!" Yuki shouted, his voice trembling with rage. "He must be aware for what I am to do! Now wake him!"
"Yes, my lord," she obeyed.
Shiro came to wakefulness with a cough, it was the only sign he could give. His shattered body did not feel pain, there was nothing left to feel with, and his mind, schooled by medical jutsus, was clear. He remembered what had happened. Yi burned me. I am dying. He knew this to be the case. His eyes were gone. It was obvious enough, and it explained the blackness before him. He could recall that was of burning spray coming toward him, the instant of searing pain as all his nerves cried out in livid agony, and then were silent, burned away to nothing. Why am I alive? Shiro wondered, I cannot live long, why have I not been killed? He felt suddenly cheated. He had done his duty, he had tried to bring Yi back, but he had failed. She had refused to come back, had struck out at him when he tried to stop her. For an instant Shiro felt a stab of betrayal at that action. She refused me! Then it was gone, melting away with great speed into a sea of quiet regret, and he knew it would never return. He could not stay angry with Yi; her actions had not been her fault. Her freedom was worth more than my friendship, Shiro recognized. As well it should be, besides I was trying to cheat fate, she would be gone regardless. I could never have stopped her. Now he did feel betrayal, betrayal by the others who had given him an impossible duty. Why do I live, I have done my duty and died for it, is that not enough, why do I survive?
The answer was not long in coming. "Shiro," a voice, one the stricken ninja recognized as his lord's, Mizain Yuki, spoke to him. "Can you hear my words?" It asked. "Do not try to speak, but if you can hear, move you head to the side once."
Shiro did as he had been commanded, shifting his head to the side slightly, then bringing it back.
"Good," Yuki's voice continued, its tone even, unhurried, lacking emotion. "I suspect you wonder why you still live, given your state of existence." It was not truly a question. "You believe you cannot be useful any further, a reasonable belief, given your injuries. Indeed, you shall die soon, a matter of hours at most, perhaps minutes. Nothing can stop this." There was almost an echo of satisfaction in Yuki's words, a satisfaction in this demonstration of his bloodline's power. "However, your belief is wrong, you are not useless, there is still a way you can be useful. There is indeed a way, but it will require great sacrifice, and you must choose this way yourself. Therefore, listen very carefully."
Shiro heard the admonishment, and strained his broken body to hear the words of Mizain Yuki, and to make certain he understood.
"There is a jutsu I know," Yuki told him. "It can save you. It will not heal your body, but it will freeze the damage to it, so that you will not die. Indeed, you will be fully functional again, able to move freely, and use all your senses to the fullest. In fact, this jutsu will make you very powerful, far more powerful than you could have ever hoped to be normally. However, this jutsu is not without costs, gave and terrible costs, so great that even I do not undertake this lightly. I would not even consider it save that you are dying, and this jutsu cannot be used upon you without your consent. The costs are these, though you will not die, and will be endowed with great powers, it will not truly be you who does these things, but your shadow. You see Shiro, this technique will sacrifice your soul, leaving your body to be controlled by your shadow. It will have great power at its disposal, for the shadow reflects all the power you possessed, ever would have possessed, or could have possessed during the course of your life, but it can only use this power once, for the shadow is a temporary thing, always fluid, and once it solidifies it fades away to nothing. This jutsu will give your body to your shadow, and it will undertake one task, and when that is done, it will fade away, and there will be nothing left of you, for your soul will have been sacrificed to the nether place from whence your shadow essence comes. You may take solace in only one thing, your shadow is a reflection of your nature, and while it controls your body, though it will not be you, it will act in all ways, as you would have. That is the nature of the jutsu I would perform upon you."
"Why should I allow this?" Shiro asked, his voice was cracked and broken, his lips gone and tongue barely functional, so that Yuki had greatly difficulty gauging the words, but the question was obvious.
"My daughter, Yi, has gone," Yuki answered. "She has left us for the outside world. It was not as I had planned it, but it has happened and there is no turning back. Yet, she has proven strong, stronger than I anticipated, and willful. She will not go quietly to the Mist as I would have wished, and her powers will attract attention. There will be great danger for her, danger that may find its way back to us. So, I need someone to follow her, to watch, and to insure she finds her way to where she needs go. I cannot send any of my people, I will need them all, but I can send you, if you agree to this jutsu. You will be sent to watch her, my agent to insure all goes as it must, and Yi's unseen protector."
Shiro could hear the words, he digested them slowly, even though he was conscious of how little time he had. He could feel his death coming, the slow loss of portions of himself as it faded away against the fires that were even now burning inside him. Yi has gone, he told himself, and he knew that, he would trust Mizain Yuki that far. As for the rest, he could not know, would his lord lie to him? Certainly, Shiro knew that was the truth. He could sense he was being manipulated, Yuki had a purpose behind this action, a purpose far beyond Yi's welfare, but Shiro decided that didn't matter. Give up my soul for one chance to save her, that is my choice? Is it worthwhile? He wondered. What is my soul worth anyway, what does it matter? My life has served no purpose till now, except for Yi. If I can do something for her, even after this, then I must make the sacrifice. It is the only reason for my existence to continue.
So Shiro resolved, but a single question remained. "Yi is gone, how will I find her?"
Yuki smiled, knowing now his success, the boy would accept. "That is easy, Shiro, your mission will be to insure Yi goes to Mist as she was meant to go, your shadow will always know where it needs to be to complete that mission."
It was a satisfactory answer for Shiro. "I accept, my lord." He spoke if the remnants of his voice.
"Good," Yuki replied. "I will begin now." He turned away from the cot. "Sister, bring me a needle, and a knife. We must cut this boy's clothes away from his burnt body. Also a bowl, the cleanest we have, to hold the blood."
His sister blanched, for she knew the nature of this technique, she alone of the other Mizain understood what Yuki was about to do. Though she could never have done it herself.
A technique forbidden so long as the histories went back, but never forgotten, Shadow Soul Sealing, the power to take the freely offered soul of a ninja to the nothingness, and have their shadow govern their body forever after. It was the among the greatest sacrifices that could be made, to forsake whatever came after death, and cast the remnants of life away for a single mission, a single moment of purpose. It had long been practiced in secret on the terribly wounded and crippled, ninja who had given everything, but were asked for still more. In desperate times of war the shadow-souled might be created to fight in a single battle defending their homes. It was a terrible solution, but it worked. The shadow had great power when given command of the body, if only for a moment, and so the jutsu had been remembered. How Yuki had learned it having been only ten years old, a secret that none living were supposed to know was unknowable. Now he was to use it for the first time, to transform a boy who had been of no consequence mere hours before into a creature who could serve his design.
Yi has run away, blindly into a world she does not know, Yuki thought as he pricked Shiro's fingers and began to trace seals across the ninja's broken body with his greatly depleted blood. She will not understand what is happening, and will use her powers. The pattern took shape, intricate but fluid, never holding a single form before the eyes. Yuki's sister cut away Shiro's clothing as the seals continued to be traced, thin and wan the blood now, but the pattern would cover every inch of his skin, and the charred flesh where it had been burned away. The Mist will find her, Yuki knew, he was certain of it, but so will others, those who should not have our power. Should the wrong ones find her first, it will be a disaster. You will be my insurance boy, her shadowy guardian, to insure the right ones find her. When that is done, you will fade away, and no one will ever know of my designs. Yuki smiled as he traced the last symbols, over the burnt and scarred holes where there had once been Shiro's eyes.
Then he took the stone bowl, soaking with Shiro's last blood, and poured it over the boy's face.
Swiftly now Yuki's hands went through a complex, and ever shifting pattern of seals, supplied by his nearly perfect memory, again and again, seal after seal his hands flashed, a sequence corresponding precisely to the pattern drawn on Shiro's form. As his hands moved the Mizain leader's voice spoke in choppy speech, a counterpoint pattern to the own his hands made, a chant completely different, unlocking the power of shadowy reflection. He moved in perfect sequence, every pause to draw breath, every blink, all precisely timed for a single effect.
Yuki's sister watched in awe at her brother's work, shaping the energies of the extremely complex jutsu, taking Shiro's chakra from within his dying body and molding it, forming an invisible bridge to the shadow that even now clung to him beneath the cot in the dim lit of this room. The chakra moved and slid, caressing Shiro's body, touching every point of that symbolic pattern, and as Yuki chanted forming an invisible bridge, the blue chakra of living beings turning black, slowly, as the form completed.
Without warning Yuki fell silent, and his hands stopped. He separated them slowly, and stood. The chakra form over Shiro was completely black, and there were no gaps.
"Is it done?" His sister asked in awe.
"My part, yes," Yuki replied uncertainly. "I have not done this before, but I understand the boy must meet his shadow now, and let it take his soul. When his eyes open he will receive my command, and when he agrees, it will be done."
Words had rushed past Shiro in endless sequence, coupled to sensations he could still feel in some parts of his body not completely deadened. They cast a pall over him, clouding his senses, and he lost track of what was happening.
Then there came silence.
It was an absolute silence; no sound at all, not even the background noises of existence below the range of normal hearing that never faded. All sound was gone.
Shiro discovered he could see again. It did not come as a surprise. Somehow he had expected this. He found himself standing in an empty place, a blank plane without color. There was not light, but he could still see, there was no color, but forms existed.
"Where is this place?" Shiro asked aloud.
Sound rumbled through the world with great power, and Shiro discovered he could again hear.
"It is nowhere," his own voice answered.
Shiro discovered his reflection standing before him. He blinked, and saw it was not his reflection, for it appeared as he had before Yi had burned him, a whole person, a black haired, mild-skinned ninja who was in all ways average wearing an all black suit and carrying a simple sword bound to his back.
"Who are you?" Shiro asked the apparition.
"I'm you," this false Shiro replied in his own voice. "That is the nature of this place, between both our worlds."
Now Shiro recalled the words of Mizain Yuki, and began to understand. "You're my shadow." He spoke.
"That's one way of looking at it," his shadow replied. "But by coming here I'm not your shadow anymore, since the two worlds have been linked. We are somewhere inside your mind, but also in the shadowy world beyond existence where I exist."
"What are we doing here?" Shiro asked.
"Well," his shadow chuckled. "I've been summoned here, and your mind has made a place for me within it. It's a temporary place certainly, this state can't continue for very long. But that doesn't matter," the shadow continued. "As I understand it, you were offering to trade places with me?"
"Yes, yes," Shiro muttered. "That was what Yuki said would happen."
"Exactly, we trade places, you go onto my world, where something happens to your soul, something bad I imagine, since it was never meant to go there, and I get your body. Of course, I only get it temporarily, since you get to specify a time for me to reveal myself and use all the powers of my world, which will send me tumbling back once its done." The shadow looked deep into Shiro with his own eyes, a gaze more piecing than anything imaginable. "Frankly, its not a good deal for either of us."
"There are no good deals among the ninja," Shiro answered calmly. "But I am prepared to accept this one."
"Really?" the shadow shrugged, then reached behind his back, and pulled out the sword Shiro bore there. A sharp simple weapon, this blade, a straight-bladed ninja sword, two feet of sharp and deadly steal, to stab or cut an enemy. The shadow took the sword in one hand, and held the blade parallel to the ground, the point facing directly at Shiro's heart. "You would give up your soul to my world? To do that, I will plunge this blade into your chest. Be very certain of your decision, for what you could give away is worth far more than your life."
"Is it?" Shiro wondered aloud to his shadow. "If my soul is not my life, then it must be the sum of my experiences and my memories, and those are worth little, since so far my existence has been meaningless. If I die today there will have been no importance of use to of Mizain, no, not Mizain, I don't belong to that name, but simply Shiro. There will have be no reason for Shiro to have existed in the first place."
His shadow shrugged again. "Don't expect me to disagree, I am you, after all. The decision is entirely yours to make, do not let outside interests sway you, duty, honor, such things mean nothing here, as you are considering giving up your very nature, something far more precious. You must decide if the completion of one single task is worth that much."
"I believe it is more that I must decide if it is worth anything at all, since I don't give my soul any value, but it should not be given up for nothing," Shiro spoke aloud, but he was speaking to himself, his shadow had no need to respond. It would have said the same things he would have. "Yi, this is for her, nothing else. To insure that she lives, not simply that she saves the Mizain from discovery as her father wishes, but to save her as her own person. I have been linked to her for most of my short life; my only reason for existence, to be her friend, her guardian. Yuki will find another messenger, that task was meaningless. But do I give up myself to defend her from a single peril, one task only? Will that be enough to matter?" Shiro wondered at that, he had no easy answers, and in this world of shadow, clear lines were hard to find. Thoughts blurred as if cast about in a pervading wind, and even the black figure of himself as he was but hours before provided little focus. One thing Shiro did know, he bore Yi no ill will for what she had done, he considered her blameless, indeed he considered everyone blameless. He was a ninja and that had been his purpose.
"All ninja must have a reason to be a ninja," Shiro quoted, it was part of the histories. "We are not ninja simply because we are born to it, or because a task falls upon us, we chose the path of shadow and blood for ourselves. If that's true, then why am I a ninja?" The answer to that question, even in these depths of his mind, was clear. "For Yi's sake."
It all crystallized then, and with a suddenness that defied reality, the sky of shadow stopped movement. If I have not lived a lie to this day, if I am still a ninja, I must do this, Shiro decided. There was no more hesitation, only stony resolve. He turned to his shadow, staring into those eyes that he no longer possessed. "I agree to this."
It was done.
The shadow did not step forward, he was simply there, in front of Shiro, and the sword came plunging in.
Without pain the strike broke skin, penetrated flesh, and pierced the heart. No transition. All stopped.
Shiro awakened in the cot.
Shiro, and not Shiro. He could see again, and hear with perfect clarity. Likewise his sense of touch, burned away to nothing, had returned. Everything was as if he had never been wounded, and yet it was not at all. The first trigger was the memory of being wounded, it was not like a normal memory, but something seen from far off, a stranger's memory, as were all the memories, even those only seconds old. I am Shiro, but he is dead, Shiro recognized. The ritual is complete.
He sat up.
Twin gasps greeted him.
Shiro noticed Mizain Yuki and his sister standing over him. Yuki's composure returned almost instantly, while his sister remained terribly horrified. Shiro would have smiled, but recognized that action as meaningless since he had no lips. It's not everyday you see a ghost sit up, he almost chuckled inside, but it was, of course, not at all funny.
"So, it seems the jutsu was successful, you are now a shadow-souled ninja," Yuki spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. "Well then, I charge you, Shiro shadow-souled, to follow my daughter, Mizain Yi, and insure she reaches the Hidden Mist ninja safely."
As Yuki spoke Shiro became aware of another sensation, a presence, far beyond him. Yi, he recognized immediately. His sense was not of where she was, but of where he must go to get there, and he knew then he would never lose track of her. "I will undertake this task, Mizai Yuki, but for my own reasons, not yours." Shiro told his former lord. Former indeed, no one is my master now; there is only the task to obey.
Spoken as normal speech of a fifteen year boy from a mouth charred and lipless, beneath a face burned black and with naught but shriveled and terrible pits where the eyes should be, Shiro's countenance unnerved even Yuki's carefully trained presence. "It doesn't matter," Yuki replied far too flippantly.
"Yes, it does," Shiro replied firmly, and Yuki felt a sliver of doubt in his mind regarding this course of action, but pushed it away quickly. Whatever Shiro's reasons, he could not help but complete the task now. Shiro was not done, "I will need new clothes, and a ninja's gear," He told them matter-of-factly. "Once I have those, and my sword, I will leave."
"Like that?" Yuki's sister could not hold back her outcry.
"This body will not heal, but neither will it falter, while my task remains." Shiro answered.
"You will have your equipment," Yuki told him. "Sister, gather what he needs." She left the room hurriedly. "I suppose you need nothing else?"
"No."
"Good," Yuki smiled coldly. "Then I will leave you. No one will prevent you from leaving the compound. I am certain you shall never return here."
"You are correct."
Yuki departed, confident now he had made a masterful move. The perfect watchdog for my daughter, made at the cost of one unimportant boy, a small price to pay for insurance of our secrecy.
Yuki's sister deposited the clothing and gear at the door, not wanting to enter the room with Shiro without he brother there. The realization dawned upon Shiro that he was now intimidating, for the first time in his life. It is the eyelessness, more than anything else, he recognized as he wrapped black ninja garments around his body. The garb of the ninja will conceal everything else, but the lack of eyes will remain. I must remember its power. He slid kunai into holsters and shuriken into their pouches, concealing all properly along the folds of his night garb. At last he strapped the sword to his back. An excellent weapon, Shiro decided, after all, it killed me.
His last action before departing the Mizain compound, Shiro wound that cloth of his black mask over his ruined face, covering his hairless skull and destroyed mouth, leaving only the eyeless void about a shattered nose. Then the shadow departed upon his appointed task.