Author's Notes: So, Ise and Yi have been captured. Allow me to be cruel and leave you all in suspense for a little while now. However, I promised action and action I shall deliver, just action from a different character. Anyway, this is certainly the last pause. What follows will be basically five chapters of finale one after another that I hope are worth waiting for a bit. Anyway, enjoy the this little bit with Saki (who hopefully hasn't been forgotten by readers).
Thanks to reviewers! And I hope speechlessness is good.
Interlude 3 – Child of Darkest Hour
Clang, clang, clang, clang, over and over again the shriek of metal on metal rang out, swifter than the ear could easily follow. The clashes were harsh and intermittent, but they came with a furious rapidity such that the ear was deceived into believing they were continuous. It was more than simply an artistic illusion; if it entrapped you it could mean death.
Twin forms spiraled around each other on an open spur of rock near the ocean surrounding hidden mist. Both forms moved with blinding speed, so that only a skilled ninja could follow their movements, and both were female.
One was a willowy woman, well into her twenties, she wielded a sword of massive size, one strangely curved so that it wrapped around her like a crescent moon. Uncurved that blade might have been nine feet long or more, curled about its wielder with the long edge held outwards as it was, it was still as tall as she. Long white hair flowed down the shoulders of this woman, held into a long ponytail by a tied forehead protector marked with the four waving lines of Mist. Her eyes burned a bright golden color over pale skin, and she smiled with intense concentration as she moved. Moonlight flashed about her with every motion, drawn into a skein about this ninja, the Lunar Lady of Mist. Her name was Tsuki Kendai and she was the sixth member and youngest of the seventh swordsman, and now the weakest, following the death of Momochi Zabuza, whose skills she had closely surpassed. Still, weakest of the seven swordsmen though the Lunar Lady might be, she was the sixth strongest ninja in Mist, and stronger than all but the most elite ninja of other ninja countries.
In this moment the position of sixth strongest was in doubt.
Kendai's opponent was a much smaller woman, really a girl in most respects. She was shorter than her opponent, and compact of body, and wielded no weapon of long reach. Likewise, this challenger was a genin on less than a year's release from the academy, a child who had not yet seen her thirteenth year of life. There should have been no question.
Yet in the minds of those who watched this battle the only question was how long it would take for the Lunar Lady to lose.
The great lunar sword whirled around its mistress with unbelievable swiftness, its curved form and the fluid style developed to wield it allowing for almost complete coverage of any approach at any time. The Lunar Lady slashed about with perfect precision and cutting power, dicing her blade through the air and any other obstacle it came into contact with, everything except her opponent.
A purple, blue blur streaking from outcrop to outcrop to slash in repeatedly at the swirling blade's defense, each time closer and closer to penetrating it, Stomatoa Saki sought to break the guard of the Lunar Lady.
The two fought without reserve, for this battle was no holds barred. It would end only with the declared defeat of one opponent, as measured by the eyes of Mizukage himself, watching intently every movement of the battle.
"Moonbeam's Grasp," Kendai used a momentary opening to call forth a jutsu, bending the moonlight about her to grasp and hold. A grip that could hold demon stuck absolutely in place.
Moonlight bent and weaved, but Saki wove through it, dodging the directions of Kendai faster than the speed of the other's thought, to come up from beneath with a viscous kick to the thigh.
The sickle blade barely made it in time to block.
Connecting, blade slashed through boot solidly, to hit beneath the fabric something else. Something that made a thunk sound with the connection and protected Saki from harm.
No longer was the mantis shrimp girl as vulnerable as another human in battle. Her body had changed, her skin becoming something different, altered. Akai had seen it first, as discolored purple-blue blotches beneath the skin, but things had not stopped so simply. Now, whenever she fought, those blotches expanded into a complete coating of chitin, an arthropodal armor lighter than clothing but strong enough to block a sword. It was not a jutsu, Saki did not summon her armor, it grew out of her, a protection that was part of her being, and took longer and longer to dissipate after each fight, gradually sloughing off with wear and tear. Akai suspected that soon enough Saki would be covered in chitin on at least her arms and legs permanently, and the stuff was beginning to cover her face and torso as well. It was a terrifying transformation, but one that made the already deadly young girl almost unstoppable.
Leg struck blade, and Saki shifted, for the strike had not been a true one, but only a feint. Her knee from that same leg struck the ground and she leveraged that strength through her inhuman muscular arrangement to push her body upward, so she stood atop the Lunar Lady's great sickle sword poised on her left foot.
For the elite jounin there was now only one option, throw the deadly stomatoa off her weapon before a lethal strike came from one of the arms. "Don't push it," she hissed. "Dance of the Raging Tides!" The sword lurched wildly, the metal seeming to warp and bend, waving in the moonlight, unsolid. Saki's balance was disrupted, and a blast of potent force tossed everything in maddening directions, with enough force that anyone touched by the waves of the blade felt as if struck by a mace.
Saki scissored her feet, and her right arm snapped down to block the only surge of energy her body's whipcord reactions had not woven through. The chitin dented, but the four-tined steel weapons strapped to her wrists absorbed most of the blow. That arm continued down to strike a blow of the blade itself, a strike not designed to cause any damage, but simply to direct Saki's flight, so that when the Lunar Lady's spin completed Saki was directly above her, legs pointed down.
Mantis shrimp ninja came streaking in with all the speed and force of a purple ballista bolt.
With a pattern of defensive spirals and shifts so complex it took three years to learn that crescent moon blade came up to defend. "Moonlight's Maze Counter!"
Saki, however, was prepared; she had drawn out her opponent's most effective defense for this specific reason. Performing such a complex pattern required all of Tsuki Kendai's focus and available chakra. Should the move be broken through, then her opponent would be completely vulnerable.
"Thousand legged kick!"
A crustacean has far more than a single pair of legs. It may have unto the dozens, stacked behind each other, and all with claws. Mantis shrimps are no exception, and while their forearms are their most dangerous attribute, one who does not guard themselves against the entire animal can fall victim to this other danger.
Saki's feet appeared to multiply many times, even as they simply moved so fast the human eye could not follow them. It took over a year to learn any weaknesses in the ever-shifting and all-directional Moonlight Maze, and Saki had not learned these. The two ninja had fought many times, and for that reason the Lunar Lady had been granted a substantial handicap in this match, for she knew all Saki's jutsus, while the young Stomatoa knew only a few of the moonlight's tricks, but Saki was not simply a creature of brute strength and speed, she had all the cunning of a ninja raised and trained by some of the most ruthless and skilled ninja ever to walk the world.
Kick to steel, kick to steel, kick to steel, it repeated over and over, a clash so dinful and dreadful the ear rebelled to hear it and simply lost focus in the blur. Every move made by the crescent moon sword was countered by one of the endless kicks of Saki's own technique, and more, every kick came from the same side.
It was a process that took no more than a single intake of breath, but slowed down to the superfast vision of the mantis shrimp, it was a steady and inexorable process, by which the blade was forced aside and a path opened. When that path appeared, a kunai already held in Saki's left hand was propelled downward with all the strength of a mantis shrimp's blows.
Had the kunai hit the target it aimed for it would have penetrated the Lunar Lady's right eye just as her head pointed vertical, driven with full force through the skull, ripped a ragged hole through the brain, and burst free once again.
The kunai was released, and neither the Warlord Akai nor the Mizukage could possibly have reacted swiftly enough to stop it. They could only see the release of the weapon, and know that Tsuki Kendai was a dead woman.
Then a strong yank turned the kunai aside. It glanced harmlessly off the still carving crescent moon blade. Saki had held the kunai to her left glove with a two foot six inch string. It had cut through only a few of the Lunar Lady's eyelashes.
"Death," the mantis shrimp girl said softly as she landed on the rocky ground.
"So it's over," Kendai muttered, collapsing to her knees. "You beat me, Saki, utterly. Only a week since I left, since we last fought. I thought I could have beaten you then. Did you grow that much stronger in that time?"
"No," Saki replied honestly to the kneeling woman. "I simply thoroughly considered how I might defeat you in battle."
"You hadn't before?" the breathless swordswoman asked. "We've fought many times."
"I was not previously given defeating you as a real objective," Saki responded utterly without emotion, her eyes utterly inhuman, ovals of shifting rainbow color, without white, iris, or pupil. A gaze that saw all in focus, and a thousand times and more the colors a human could, all with a speed human eyes' could never match. The eyes of the mantis shrimp, this was another weirdly alien change that came over this girl in battle. "All other matches were for training purposes."
"Really?" the Lunar Lady turned to Akai and Mizukage with a blank expression on her face. As if to say, 'She wasn't serious before?' Then she turned back to Saki, and stared into those endlessly shifting pools of color. "Well, you beat me, in a straight match, with all use of both our powers. Also, it was not luck. You will never lose to me again, I'm certain. I could not overmaster you no matter the circumstances," for a moment she paused, considering, and then spoke again. "Why didn't you kill me?"
"I was ordered to keep you alive if at all possible," Saki answered, still deadpan. Then, with a flicker of something that might be regard. "Also, I would not willfully deprive Mist of a skilled ninja."
"Indeed," Mizukage interposed here, his strong voice drowning out the words of the two women. "Both of you will be needed in times to come, and we could not afford to lose either. Still, this is an important milestone. Saki, Akai's assessment of you was correct, your power matches that of one of the seven swordsmen now. The Lunar Lady's style is actually the one most likely to successfully defeat you of all of us. At this point I believe only Akai and myself could defeat you, and perhaps not even us."
"What does this mean?" Saki asked, sensing more behind the Mizukage's words.
"It means, my student," Akai answered. "That your training is complete. You have mastered all the essential skills and strategies needed to be a weapon for Hidden Mist by this point, and far sooner than anyone expected. Soon, it will be time for your talents to be used."
"What will I do?"
"The specifics are not yet determined," Mizukage replied. "For now you will continue primarily to develop your skills. However, your startling growth has given us an edge. As intelligence improves you will begin to work against the most dangerous enemies of this village, enemies of all ninja, betrayers who have forsaken the most important of a ninja's charges."
"The Akatsuki," Saki filled in, understanding exactly what her leader meant, quickly synthesizing all the information she had been taught. "And Orochimaru."
"Indeed," Akai growled. "You are the first of the weapons we need to be complete to take on the great threat of your time. There are two others. Once they return, we shall seize the momentum and surprise our enemy. They shall not survive our greeting."
"They are to be killed?" Saki asked.
"Yes," Mizukage replied. "The stage is being set. By the time the Akatsuki make their move they will find that they world they have denied has decided as one to destroy them. We must simply keep them believing we have no weapons until we do. If you hold a sword to you enemy's throat he cannot fail to perish on your strike if he does not know it is there, no matter how skilled his own blade."
"Likewise," Saki added. "If his eyes cannot follow the strike."
The Lunar Lady looked at the girl who had so recently defeated her with something resembling horror. This is our weapon, a child deadlier than anything I have ever seen, a child who does not understand the ways of humans, a creature not human at all I think. Looking into Saki's empty face, with its creeping growth of purple-blue chitin and swirling, alien eyes, Tsuki Kendai of the Seven Swordsmen wondered. I think you are a ninja girl. You do not need to be human to be a ninja. If that is true then there is only one question. Is the strongest ninja human, or something else entirely?