Two chapters in what I'm going to call twenty-four hours, because sleep has to get in there somewhere. We don't make no goddamn sense anymore.
Review response:
1. Noahendless: It's definitely "a" Shinigami, though "the" Shinigami is going to briefly get involved here. As for why the Crusader didn't kill him...well, let's say it involves the idea that someone has to have that job, and WTSIG Naruto wasn't interested in being a bystander. How badass will Ayame be? Hopefully at least a 9/10, but given my track record of writing that focuses on Naruto, I'm worried I'll make that badassitude suffer by accident. As for demonification...well, it's a faster process for some than others.
2. TigrezzTail: Oh, we are definitely getting more on that later. I may not do eldritch horror any justice as a genre, but it's probably influenced me a little too much. And Tsunade, at least as far as this story is concerned, made it easier to work that in. How much later will it become relevant? Probably a while. Will it absolutely become relevant? Yes.
Let's get this trainwreck moving.
Only Yuurei's preternatural speed kept him from the Shinigami's icy grasp, and the brutal steel clutched desperately in the alabaster monster's right hand. Without having to be told, Yuurei was perfectly aware that the reaper's tanto meant death; the simple act of drawing blood would be enough to seal his fate. He had to be absolutely perfect. Knowing as much, the Shinigami had pressed itself into a blistering offensive—Yuurei had time to dodge, slowly twisting across the small mountaintop, but nothing else. Quietly, the demon was impressed.
[Move so that I'm always between you and the Shinigami,] Yuurei ordered, communicating telepathically with Mei through the Mark of the Beast imprinted on her brain.
[You don't want us to leave?] Mei asked, confused. [I'd think escaping to lower ground, and waiting for you, is...]
[I need his attention focused on me, and I need to keep you in a position where I can always defend you.] Yuurei's response was matter-of-fact, leaving no room for argument. He didn't trust that the Shinigami wouldn't attack Mei, Tayuya, or Fu, if the opportunity to do so arose; the trio had no access to their chakra, leaving them almost entirely defenseless. For their safety, they needed to play monkey-in-the-middle, with Yuurei as the monkey.
There was a joke to be made there, if Yuurei thought about it long enough, but he was momentarily indisposed.
Unfortunately for the Shinigami, whose rapid attacks struck nothing but empty air, Yuurei was in possession of a Sharingan; the infamous mirroring eye allowed Yuurei to anticipate every move the pale-faced monster made. Like this, even if he was still pressed into a continuous cycle of ducking and dodging, he was never in too much danger. Rather, the blond was patiently waiting for his time to strike—and at the first opportunity, he made his counterattack.
Sneaking his way inside of the Shinigami's guard, the pale reaper's dominant arm was severed at the elbow. Black blood flew from a meaty stump, and Yuurei tore the monster's deadly tanto from its fallen hand as he retreated. The Shinigami's wild howl of pain shook its entire body, and its quartet of prey watched as pristine bone and pale muscle extended from its cut arm—Yuurei's corrosive youki had no effect on the reaper's flesh. The torn sleeve showed the exact line where Yuurei's sandworm tooth had cut through the Shinigami's arm, moving with such fluidity that the new edge seemed machined.
The Shinigami made a grabbing motion with its restored hand, as if it was trying to psychically tear its tanto away from Yuurei. Though the blond demon held firm, the knife in his left hand trembled; as Yuurei was staring at that tanto, his Sharingan began to rotate faster. Unbidden, a long-lost vision resurfaced from the depths of the eye's memory. As Yuurei continued to fight, deftly dodging the now-feral monster's slashing fingernails and beastly teeth, a scene he'd never seen played out before him.
In the vision, a blond man and a redheaded woman were linked by blood and chakra chains. Behind them, a silent newborn was failing to move. In front of them, an orange-masked man stood atop Yuurei's predecessor—Kurama, the almighty Kyuubi no Kitsune. And lastly, as Kakashi's enduring memory struggled to perceive it, an invisible force seemed to hover in the air above the couple. How could Yuurei fail to recognize his human parents, the heroic Yondaime Hokage and his fearsome wife? This was the scene from the night of his birth...and the night of his creation.
The invisible force above them radiated a cold aura of death, and the wind from its movements carried the scent of steel as it continued to move. With his latest experience, Yuurei knew the truth: this was the Shinigami, summoned to bring an end to this gruesome calamity. As Uzumaki Kushina bound Kurama's feet with chains made of chakra, Namikaze Minato held his wife tightly with one arm. The other arm held his infamous three-pronged kunai, scrawling with deadly Fuinjutsu, which had sealed the fates of his many enemies. Without reservation, the kunai was thrown, and the husband-and-wife duo soon reappeared on the crown of Kurama's skull.
The fox demon's red eyes were wide in fear and rage as he tried, and failed, to thrash his way to freedom. The man in the orange mask delivered a mocking salute before disappearing into the void. As Yuurei watched Kakashi's memories, the silent and invisible wave of death came down upon Minato and Kushina. An irrepressible fear bubbled up from the heart of the vision—the same kind of emotion that had gripped Yuurei's stony heart in the short moments before Zabuza had finished beheading Yugito. Placing one hand each on Kurama's body, Minato and Kushina matched their hands perfectly to create their necessary hand seals.
"No!" Kurama bellowed his protest, only for the Shinigami's tanto to pierce the place where his brain should be. "As long as the sun still rides on the northern sphere, I will never die! I swear it on the blood of my father, and on the grave of my mother! I swear on the rotting wings of the Great Darkness, this son of the maelstrom will live on! Do you hear me, Shinigami? Your blade may have touched this kitsune, but your doom will come by my hand!"
Kurama burst into streams of pure light, but as Minato and Kushina reached the ground, their hand-prints forged a bloody seal atop Konoha's foundation. Many of those lights flew into the fresh seal, proving the completion of the Shiki Fuin as the Kyuubi's essence was drawn into the very earth. Still more of those lights, however, twisted out of the seal's control. With malicious intentions, that cluster of youki flooded into a stillborn baby's prone body. Horrified, the Yondaime Hokage and his wife struggled to crawl toward their son; without remorse, the Shinigami's blade came down to claim Uzumaki Kushina's life.
Still, Minato struggled onward. Reaching out to his young son's body—Naruto, they'd decided to name him—he lacked the ability to avoid the Shinigami's killing blow. Just before he died, however, he saw Naruto open his eyes. His blood-red, bloodshot eyes, that craved death above all else. Though Kurama had been trapped and killed, with his soul and his power sealed in the ground beneath Konoha, his power had brought life back from the Shinigami's grasp. Unbidden, a great seal was emblazoned on Naruto's young torso before it faded out of sight.
Death could not kill one who made their house inside its home; for Naruto, who had already tasted death once, the Shinigami would never be able to bring its blade to bear against him. Only a higher power, or a lower one, could do that.
The sandworm tooth in Yuurei's hand split a perfect line through the Shinigami's throat, causing more of its dark blood to fall. The fresh second smile gurgled profusely, failing to form words as it gurgled on its own viscera. Tormented, the Shinigami finally landed a blow on Yuurei's shoulder; as the monster's painted nails dug into his shoulder's flesh, a sense of doom overcame Yuurei's conscious mind. Only the strength of his conviction, and the fact that he had a free hand, kept the demon from panicking.
A dark, cruel energy radiated from the Shinigami's hand, trying to paralyze Yuurei. In that moment, the demon was rooted; try as he might, he couldn't avoid the reaper's fearsome fangs from crashing down around his skull.
"No!" Tayuya shouted, unable to do anything but watch. She wanted to move, to help, to do something, but Mei's grip on her wrist forced her to stay still. That hold wasn't strong, and could even be considered gentle, but Tayuya found herself unable to resist Mei's silent request. In the next instant, that patience was rewarded.
Yuurei knew that his physique was intrepid, even compared to ninja whose secret techniques involved hardening their skin and strengthening their bones. What he hadn't understood, before now, was just how fearsome his flesh had become since the day his throat was scarred by the Demon Brothers. After consuming the life energy, Primordial Yin, and Formative Yang of so many hundreds and thousands of humans, only the most exceptional attacks would be able to pierce his skin. The Shinigami's teeth broke apart as they met with his scalp and his chin, its strength clearly not up to par; Yuurei refused to waste this chance.
An ugly expression dominated the reaper's face, one filled with grief and unwillingness. Without mercy, Yuurei slammed the Shinigami into the ground, slicing its arms off and surrounding the stumps with his corrosive youki; while he may not have been able to erode the pale monster's flesh, the malevolent energy would act as a barrier that prevented the Shinigami from regenerating its limbs. Like a primitive savage, Yuurei stabbed his sandworm tooth through the Shinigami's mouth to hold it still—and with all the joy of a demon consumed by bloodlust, Yuurei put the flat of the Shinigami's tanto to its neck. As he began to saw away at the black-blooded monster's neck, using nothing but the point of the tanto and his own unnatural strength, Yuurei caught an earful of the Shinigami's wild screams.
The reaper's white robes were stained with its blood. It had no arms to flail, and the sandworm tooth in its mouth had paralyzed it from the neck down. Under ordinary circumstances, that effect would be temporary; these were not ordinary circumstances. Fearing for its life, but unable to do anything, the Shinigami's lone hope was that it could make enough noise to disturb Yuurei into pausing his actions. As the blond demon tore through its jugular vein—spraying blood in a fountain that coated Yuurei's exposed torso—the Shinigami's dying screams began to slow. After reaching the halfway point, Yuurei's jagged method of beheading tore through the Shinigami's upper spine, causing the monster to jerk involuntarily. Only after he had completed the brutal decapitation did Yuurei look up, seeing a short stone pathway extending out from the ledge of the mountain's flat peak.
At the end of that stone pathway was a set of imposing double doors, ornately carved with ancient symbols that none of the four travelers could understand. These doors seemed to extend all the way up to the heavens, and if it were possible to see them from the side, anyone from the small group would know that these doors were thicker than all their heights combined. Yuurei shivered as he stood, his youki seeming to contract around him before it receded; a thin double-helix of black-and-white energy, pure yin and yang, sank into his body.
Mei, Fu, and Tayuya soon gathered around him, and Tayuya carried Yugito's body in her arms. Causing his sandworm tooth to disappear with a single thought, Yuurei lifted the Shinigami's butchered head by its hair, and moved to open the doors that now stood before him. He was absolutely keeping that trophy, and nobody was going to stop him.
"My lady Kazekage, you've received a letter from the Hokage." One of the Kazekage's aides spoke plainly, quietly enjoying the cool weather brought on by the late winter's presence in the desert. She was a plain-looking woman, and had been one of the more vocal opponents of allowing Yuurei to stay in such close contact with Temari during his stay in Suna.
"And?" Temari asked, under no illusions that anything sent by a non-emergency bird would be unread before she was informed.
"He wants Suna to host a joint set of Chunin Exams with Konoha, in the hopes of burying the incident last fall. As Kirigakure's rebellion has deposed their previous Mizukage, he sent the same offer to them," the aide reported.
"Kirigakure..." Temari mused, having long ago heard the rumors that Yuurei had fought heroically to turn the tide of Kiri's civil war. Those rumors were bound to be false, of course—Temari had seen the extent of the red-eyed demon's boundless fury, and there was no heroism to be found in the oily iridescence of his youki.
That was why she'd trusted him with her revenge.
"My lady?" The aide asked, confused by Temari's thoughtful expression. "Would Kirigakure's participation be a problem?"
"Not at all. I'll write a response telling him that I'll accept his proposition...if we have the resources to carry it out?" Temari responded, tacking on her own question. "If everything goes well, it would bring an economic windfall."
"Also, lady Kazekage...if you don't mind me asking, when did you get that ring? It looks beautiful," the aide praised, looking to Temari's left hand.
Several thin, matte bands of gold, black, and red were layered against one another; their edges blended into one another until it was difficult to know where individual bands began or ended. This was the sign of the Oathkeeper's ultimate seal, the Mark of the Beast, that allowed him to be aware of her presence at all times. When his chakra had invaded her bloodstream, the ring had formed.
"About four months ago," the Kazekage said, not bothering to hide her hand now that the tattoo-like ring had been noticed.
"I see. Well, that was everything...I'll take my leave now, my lady." The aide was perfectly capable of knowing what that timeframe entailed. Frankly, she still didn't approve of the idea that her Kazekage would socialize with such a horrifying man as Yuurei, but what was she to do—openly criticize her commander?
As the middle-aged woman left her office, Temari silently studied the ring that had faded into the background of her awareness; she'd simply grown used to its presence, just as she'd slowly begun adjusting to the silence of her family's house without Gaara in it. Neither she nor Kankuro had gone in their youngest brother's room since his death. Frankly, she doubted either of them ever would, until some far-off day when the next generation of the Sabaku clan filled the mansion's halls.
If. If a next generation filled the mansion's halls. Temari still considered herself too young to think about the idea of children, let alone the idea of raising a family while upholding the mantle of the Kazekage. Of course, the cherry on top was that she'd committed to giving herself to Yuurei; he would never have asked her to name such a price, but in the heat of the moment, she'd thought it was only fair. And even if she didn't truly love him, nor he her, Temari wouldn't deny an attraction to the blond demon.
All this, of course, only led to the conclusion that Kankuro needed to become a much better pick-up artist if he wanted their family tree to continue for another generation. And that was...well, it was asking a lot. Frankly, Temari was amazed that her little brother managed to stay alive without leaving his room more than twice a day. She could only imagine the horror show that would have been his tenure as the Kazekage.
Returning her focus to the ring-that-wasn't, and to Yuurei, Temari felt her thoughts drift once more. How were they doing, she wondered? It was the third of March; she hadn't seen Yuurei, Yugito, or Tayuya in four and a half months. Though they'd only spent six weeks together, that had been long enough for her to grow familiar with them—and the loneliness she felt in their absence was a small wound that continued to deepen. She hoped they were okay.
"You've come at last, little demon," a deep voice, unearthly in its origins, boomed. The giant doors behind Yuurei's quartet swung shut without impetus, effectively trapping them.
In this great hall, dozens—if not hundreds—of Shinigami lined the sides of a walkway that stretched from the doors to a massive throne. Upon that throne was a gigantic Shinigami, whose lilac skin and silver hair differentiated it from its smaller kin. Unlike the white-robed monster that Yuurei had fought for long enough that two days passed in the waking world, this purple-skinned reaper wore nothing but a black sheepskin kilt. And instead of a tanto, a mighty bone-white spear was loosely gripped in its right hand.
To gaze upon that spear was to gaze upon the fate of worlds!
"I've come," Yuurei agreed. "I've seen, I've slaughtered. Who are you?"
"I am...heheh...I believe the closest term for it, in your language, is 'Speargod.' I am the arbiter of life and death for humans, monsters, gods and demons alike. Save for those whose lives you absorb, little Oathkeeper, all of the spirits of the dead find their way to my hall, whether from your world or another. And what do you think might happen, little demon, if you were to absorb all of those souls? All of their strength?" The Speargod asked that question with an amused smile on his face.
Yuurei didn't answer, and didn't need to. The question was rhetorical.
"I only want one soul, and I want it put back in its body. Then, we'll leave." Yuurei demanded.
The crowd of Shinigami cheered in mockery, and even the sight of their dead brethren's severed head wouldn't deter them. The very idea was lunacy—could anyone be said to have reclaimed a departed soul from the Speargod? In billions upon billions of years, there had never been such an occurrence. And yet, as the crowd of milk-white monsters quieted, they noticed that their lord seemed to be thinking the idea over. Could he really be thinking of shirking his eternal duty? Once the dead were claimed, they were claimed forever—even the indomitable Crusader, whose black falx had shattered the highest of heavens and butchered innumerable universes, had failed to move the Speargod! What could make Yuurei so special?
"Little demon, little Oathkeeper...heheh...let us make a deal!" The Speargod's thunderous voice boomed, shaking the crowd of Shinigami to their cores. "A soul for a soul. Deliver unto me the living essence of Kurama, the Kyuubi no Kitsune, and I will return that woman's life! Accept, and I will send you back to your world!"
Instantly, the Shinigami snickered. How could they not see their wise lord's ploy? Yuurei had become the newest incarnation of the Kyuubi, so he had clearly inherited Kurama's living essence. If he didn't agree, he would leave empty handed; if he agreed, he wouldn't just fail to steal a chicken, but would lose his rice in the process! But what these Shinigami didn't know, that Yuurei now did, was that Kurama's life had continued to persist. In the rich earth beneath Konoha, the nine-tailed fox's presence was well-hidden—so much so that, for more than sixteen years, it had been presumed dead.
The Speargod and his legions of Shinigami all expected a trace of doubt to creep into Yuurei's expression, but were shocked by the magnanimous smile that stretched his mouth wide.
"I accept!" The demon roared his reply.
A coarse beam of yellow light erupted from the foot of the Speargod's throne. This light connected with Yugito's forehead, and the blonde woman slowly began to stir; when nothing happened to Yuurei, the Shinigami all recoiled, as if they'd been deceived. Instantly, their raucous voices seethed with rage, and a thick murderous intent filled the air.
"When I recover Kurama's soul," Yuurei said, "I won't consume it. I'll use this dead thing's knife to send him to you."
In the next instant, the mighty doors of the Speargod's hall were blown open, and the four women behind Yuurei were thrown out of the room. Lifting the Shinigami's disembodied head with his right hand, Yuurei placed the dead monster's tanto in his mouth before delivering a mocking farewell salute with his left. Only a moment later, the blond demon was sent flying after his female companions.
"Well...you can't win them all, I suppose," the lilac monster mused.
