Chapter two: Unknown

"Sharingan." Sasuke breathed.

"Yes." Scorpio blinked and her sharingan was gone. "We all have unique bloodline abilities. We are the eldest and first children of Leo and Aquarius Elementé, and therefore are the first ones to receive gifts. However, only Pisces and I have bloodline abilities out of the three main sisters. Virgo's is something a bit more… exotic, you might put it. I have sharingan, and Pisces has byakugen. We have been trained to use it since we were six years old, Virgo even earlier."

"What does Virgo have?" Chouji asked, feeling left out. He offered Shikamaru a chip.

"I really can't say. She doesn't like to talk about it and only uses it when absolutely necessary. Virgo is different from us, the eldest at sixteen years, ten months exactly in…" She rolled back her sleeve and looked at her watch. The face had the Japanese kanji for 'Scorpion' painted on it. "Five minutes. Virgo was born September second at two thirty six. Today is July second, no? It is. She received her power when she was just three years old and has been trained by Jounin ever since, because that's when our parents died four years after fighting Kyuubi, the nine-tailed fox."

Naruto shivered. He did NOT want to see what Scorpio would do to him if he reminded her he was the seal for the hateful thing.

Sasuke looked at his group. "You go ahead. Scorpio? Can I talk to you?"

Scorpio blushed. Sasuke Uchiha. Wanted to talk to her. "Sure, Sasuke."

Naruto glared Sasuke already got the girl. Sakura liked him. Now even Scorpio liked him. If he was lucky, he could score Virgo and rub it in Sasuke's face.

Neji poked his head through the undergrowth. "Hi. I'm back. Nothing around the south side, Shikamaru."

"Alright. Neji, come on, I'll explain what happened."

They left, leaving Scorpio and Sasuke alone. Scorpio looked at him blankly, waiting for him to say something.

"Virgo has a curse seal from Orochimaru, doesn't she."

Scorpio froze. Sasuke seemed pretty solid. Could she trust him with Virgo's secret?

"Yes. Virgo does have a seal. At level four."

Level four! Sasuke's seal was only level two!

"She's a container, like you. At first, I didn't know Orochimaru would try to go into a girl's body for three years, but then it dawned on me that Orochimaru just needed someone strong, regardless of gender. But Virgo is strong. No matter what power Orochimaru has, Virgo can squash him like a bug with all the power he gave her. It looks like this."

She picked up a twig and drew in the dirt. It was a sort of X, with spirals in between each line. The X's ends were long and curved, somewhat like the seal on Neji's forehead.

Sasuke stared at the curse seal. "What about your other siblings? Do they all have bloodline traits?"

"If you'd been paying attention… Well, yes, some of them do. Cancer can use the chakra bug, like Kiba's friend, Shino. And Capricorn, the fourth oldest of the Elementé children can use Demonic Ice Mirrors and Flying Water Needles." She shrugged. "Somehow our family is linked with all the families our bloodline traits come from. We're not linked with your family in any way, sorry. If we were, Itachi would have killed us by now. Our father's grandfather was from the Hyuuga clan. Our mother's father was from the Aburame clan. And I'm not exactly sure how we are related to Haku and his clan. Libra is probably the fifth strongest of us all. Her eyes enable her to see all the blood and veins in a person, and they can find the thinnest flesh on a person where there is blood. So basically, she can find where a person is most vulnerable to injury.

"The other children just have fancy jutsus, you know, chidori, rasengan, kage bunshin. Virgo can even do your fire ball jutsu."

"That would mean Jiraiya and Kakashi worked with them. Why didn't they ever talk about them before?" Sasuke pressed. He wanted all the information he could get.

"Our family is practically sacred. All of our children graduated from the academy after a year and a half, and they all have special talents. After our parents died, no one really wanted to be near us, as to not provoke the rage and sadness we all had inside. Shikamaru was one of the nice people who actually did interact with us. Well anyway, when Pisces, Virgo and I grew old enough, we moved from the village into the woods. We developed new jutsus, an endless array of skills. Even this."

Reaching down into her shirt, she pulled up a necklace. It was half of the Japanese kanji for 'strength', silver and flat. "Virgo has the other half. The power that is generated when we put these together is unspeakable, unimaginable. We could kill everyone." She dropped the necklace into her shirt. "It is only used in life-and-death situations because it uses so much chakra."

"Your life sounds perfect."

The statement surprised Scorpio.

"You have so much power and strength, you could probably blow away the entire village. Probably even the Hidden Sand village, too, the second strongest of all of the hidden villages. Why do you hide in the forests?"

"Our lives are far from perfect." Scorpio's voice was just as dark as her eyes. "Hiding in the shadows, always feared for our power. Having to keep ourselves under constant control. One false move and everyone is dead. None of the Elementé children are medical ninjas. Last year we all almost died in a fight."

Scorpio turned away. She stared at the sky, which was filling with dark clouds as she spoke. "Never again, Never again…"

Suddenly there was a yelp from the forest, shattering the angst of the situation. "WHAT THE HELL!"

A small smile graced Scorpio's lips. "And you said Kiba wouldn't be frightened."

Let's go back in time for a moment, when Pisces dragged Kiba off to the water.

"Where are you taking me?"

"The river."

"Why?"

"I control water, silly!"

"Mm hm."

Kiba jumped when a thunderbolt plunged into the ground about three hundred yard behind him. A fire flared up where it hit. Pisces snapped and yelled, "DON'T DO IT AGAIN!"

"Lightning?"

"Scorpio. Always Scorpio. What, you think lightning hits in the forest for no reason when the sky is clear of clouds?"

"I never really cared about that."

"Whatever."

They proceeded like this for some time, Sundance and Akamaru following at their heels. Finally Pisces stopped at the edge of a river.

"See? Watch!"

Pisces moved her hands in a number of motions, then the water split before them, leaving a dry trail across the river to a large rock in the middle. Kiba immediately thought of Moses.

"Come on, come on! Let's go to my rock!"

"Alright, alright, I'm coming…"

Once they were on the rock, Pisces let the water slide back into place.

"Neat trick…" Kiba commented. "How do you do it?"

"It's not a trick. You have to be born with it." Pisces scooped some water up in her palm and tossed it into the air, lifting her hands quickly afterward. The water stopped midair. She spun her fingers around in circles, and the drops of water did so to. "You can't learn how to control water. It's a natural talent. Just like you can communicate with Akamaru."

"What about you? Can you talk with Sundance?"

"Yup, yup!" Sundance barked. That's the only word she knew. Yup.

"No, Sundance. Sundance can understand me but I can't understand her."

Pisces smiled and scooped up some more water. She clenched her fist and spread out her fingers, watching happily as a fish flapped into the air. Sundance caught it in her teeth and set it down. "There. Sundance, share with Akamaru."

Sundance and Akamaru dug into the fish. Pisces smiled at Kiba and said, "Well, you're probably bored. You can go back to your mission now, if you want."

"Wait. What did you want to show me?"

Pisces closed her eyes. "Promise you won't be scared?"

"Promise."

"Byakugen!"

"WHAT THE HELL! I thought only Hinata and Neji and the Hyuuga clan had byakugen!"

"So you are scared."

Pisces looked very hurt. "Byakugen is a very frightening thing. I don't blame you."

"I'm not scared, I'm… Startled. The byakugen is a trait of the Hyuuga clan. How are you related?"

"Our father's grandfather was from the Main Branch of the Hyuuga clan…"

Kiba noticed that Pisces was very sad that he was afraid of the byakugen. So…

"How did you meet Shikamaru? And how do you know Akamaru's name? I don't think I said it before you did."

Pisces chuckled. "Water scrying, silly!" She waved her hand over the water. "See? There's you when you first got Akamaru when you were nine. Look how happy you were!"

The Kiba in the water picked up Akamaru and tugged on his sister's sleeve. His sister smiled and looked to her father, who nodded. Kiba jumped up and down smiling, hugging Akamaru as if the dog would disappear any minute. "Your name is Akamaru!" He squealed happily. "AKAMARU!"

Then it skipped all the way up to the Chuunin exams, during the time spent in Area 44. And finally, to the battle with that freak from the West Gate, when Kiba stabbed himself.

"You were very brave in those fights, Kiba. Strategic." Pisces smiled. "You've probably never even TALKED to a girl before, have you?"

"I'm talked to a bunch of girls! There's Sakura, and Ino, and Hinata, and my sister…"

"Never a girl you actually LIKED."

"I don't like you!"

"YOU DON'T LIKE ME?"

"Well, I like you, but not… LOVE like."

In truth, Kiba was going bananas on the inside for saying that. This was the first girl EVER who liked dogs as much as he did.

Pisces stared at him blankly. "Right."

"KIBA! COME ON! WE'RE GOING!" They heard Shikamaru shout.

"Come on Akamaru, we have to go now." Kiba reached over to pick up Akamaru, who was playing with Sundance.

With a yelp, Kiba pulled his hand back. Blood dripped from several small fang marks in his palm. "He bit me! Akamaru never BITES me!"

Akamaru jumped on Sundance and barked happily. Sundance rolled over and they resumed their play.

Pisces looked at Akamaru and Sundance sadly. "They like each other quite a lot."

Kiba noticed the hint of sadness in her tone. "Pisces?"

"What?"

"You sound sad. Is there anything wrong?"

"No." But as she sat it, tears splashed into the water. "I've just never known anyone who understands me before…"

"What do you mean?"

"Byakugen, control over water, some odd number of siblings… I'm just so… DIFFERENT. But not NEARLY as different as Virgo…"