Let's get this trainwreck moving.


While Yuurei was out in the middle of the desert with Yugito and Tayuya, Mei sat across from Uchiha Itachi in one of Sunagakure's premier restaurants. Isolated from the outside world by a silencing seal that allowed them to speak privately, their drinks barely had time to rest on the table before Itachi began to speak.

"Would you mind explaining why a ninja from Konoha was accompanying you when you entered Suna?" The question seemed innocuous enough, especially when paired with the soft tone of the Hokage's voice, but Mei wasn't naive enough to take his words at face value; the only person he could be talking about was Yuurei.

"The last time I looked at him, he wasn't wearing an identifying headband," Mei replied. Her passive-aggressive words were as civil a warning as she could allow herself to give, telling her mainland counterpart to mind his language.

"Hitai-ate are lost, damaged, or destroyed more often than most ninja care to admit," Itachi said. "Would you like me to cite his shinobi registry identification number? His grades from his time in the academy? The reason he was at least three years older than any of the other members of his graduating class? How he lived in gutters, sewers, alleys, and abandoned buildings before a random act of kindness gave him access to his inheritance? The murder he was allowed to commit before officially becoming a member of Konoha's military?"

"That would require my attention, and to pretend that I care." Mei had been aware of how this conversation might play out when Itachi had contacted her for a private meeting, but she was mildly bitter about being correct. "In your eyes, he may be a nukenin, but in my village he's revered as the one who swung the balance of our civil war."

"The son of the Yondaime Hokage is much more than a nukenin, madam Mizukage," Itachi said, a tinge of anger suddenly in his voice as he stared at Mei's single visible eye. To her credit, the two-toned redhead's facial expression didn't change. "Uzumaki Naruto is-"

"Uzumaki Naruto is dead. He died in Nami no Kuni with his sensei, assailed by the agents of Kirigakure that my predecessor had placed there," Mei said. Her visible eye was open wider, with more than one blood vessel straining to keep from bursting as she leveled a sharp glare at the Hokage. Though she'd trained with beguiling techniques for the majority of her life in order to disguise her kekkai genkai during Kiri's infamous bloodline purges, she was disgusted at the idea of trying to charm the man sitting across from her—never mind that the attempt would likely fail.

"On a mission that the Sandaime Hokage never should have sent his team on, yes. Officially. But the fact remains that he walked into this city with you, and his failure to return to Konoha is a grave offense, no matter how heroically your countrymen might view him," Itachi said, sneering imperiously.

"Are you sure that it's not you who shouldn't risk offending him?" Mei asked, standing up to leave. "If this is really what you brought me out to talk about, then we're finished here. Whatever information you're looking for, I don't have it, and I suggest you keep your hands to yourself."

Before the Mizukage could exit the private booth that they'd been seated at, however, a flash of black and red caught her eye; in an instant, the world transitioned to a black-and-white wasteland. Mei's arms and legs were bound, and she was powerless to resist Itachi as he slowly strode towards her.

"This is the Tsukuyomi," Itachi said, calm and impassive in the world that he ruled. "Time has no meaning here, and I can take as long as I need to get the information I want. The human mind is a fragile thing, and the backlash of temporal dissonance shouldn't be taken lightly. Hopefully, you can be cooperative."

Mei briefly struggled against her bonds before closing her eyes, not daring to open them again for fear of seeing what waited for her. In total darkness, her panic and agitation spiked—and then, with a white-hot flash of pain in her abdomen, they vanished.

"Do you think you can escape with those kinds of techniques? I know what you're trying to do. It won't work," Itachi threatened.

In the next instant, the world returned to normal, and Mei's open eyes saw the kunai in the air. Her mind was still reeling, incapable of spurring her body into action, and a sense of true dread crept into her mind. Then, before it could reach her, the Hokage had activated his Tsukuyomi once again. Returned to that liminal space where black eternity was only broken up by white lines of shape and form, she had no explanation for the third eye that suddenly opened on Itachi's forehead.

"I did tell you it wouldn't work," he said, briefly chuckling as he looked at the distraught redhead. "Now, let's get started with what I want to find out."


As soon as he stepped back into Sunagakure, Yuurei knew that something was wrong. A dark, heavy scent filled his nostrils, pointing him in the direction of the desert city's upscale district—the area where the foreign guests from Konoha and Kiri were being hosted. Overwhelmed by the ominous feeling that began to cloud his senses, a faint cry echoed in his mind.

[Yuurei...] Mei's weak thought reached out to her master, but he couldn't tell if she was resigned or begging.

Quickening his pace, the blond demon didn't bother looking behind himself to see if Tayuya and Yugito were keeping up with him. Tracing the Mizukage's position through the Mark of the Beast, he entered into a particular restaurant; a brief outburst of his iridescent youki stunned the man who'd been approaching him, and Yuurei stalked forward until he reached a private booth. A redheaded woman was sitting with her arm on the table, and her head resting on her arm. A kunai was caught in her throat, deep enough to cut her vocal cords without risking killing her. It was Mei.

[Who did this to you?] He needed to know.

[...Hokage.] Mei's response was listless.

Unnatural darkness began to replace the afternoon sky above Sunagakure, in the minds of those who lived there, and neither sun nor cloud nor wind could pierce its veil. An overbearing sense of dread washed over those nearby; even Yugito and Tayuya, who had caught up to their master and who were the most acclimated to his oppressive aura, felt their knees and shoulders shake in nameless fear. Only the fact that Mei was still alive, because he could still sense her through the blood-seal he'd implanted in her brain, kept Yuurei from beginning a wanton slaughter.

"Itachi..." He growled, shuddering as wordless rage consumed his sense of self.

Wordlessly, he activated the technique that erased his presence from the minds of those who could otherwise see him quite clearly. A Kage Bunshin soon took his place, doing what needed to be done: taking Mei out of the building, getting her to the safety of the Kazekage's mansion, and redirecting his two companions to leave him be. While that was going on, he would do what should be done: an act of retribution.

He waited for hours, searching for the Hokage's location and biding his time. After the world had transitioned from afternoon to evening, and evening to night, the nine-tailed demon began to move once more. Under the cover of his unnatural darkness, forcing the people of the world to avert their eyes from him, Yuurei let hate fill his heart. Whether it was the Raikage's elder son, Yagura, the Yondaime Kazekage, or anybody else...they never learned until it was too late.

For someone in possession of his brand of Fuinjutsu, entering into the Hokage's private suite was hardly a challenge. The silencing seal he placed on the door, before he blew it to smithereens, was strong enough to silence an earthquake. And then, staring at the sleeping Hokage and his wife, Yuurei had a final chance to renege on his course of action. He didn't know the circumstances behind Mei's condition, or the reasons Itachi might have taken such an aggressive action. He didn't care.

Uchiha Izumi's death was painless, a mercy granted by Yuurei for her innocence in this brief and private war. After her passing was confirmed by the lights that the blond demon had become accustomed to seeing, he was shocked at the scope of the strength he gained from it. She was the first person he had killed since finishing his descent into demonhood, and in spite of her weakness relative to many of Yuurei's opponents in the last year, he absorbed more power from her than anyone else he'd killed. Setting that aside, though, he unsealed the tanto of the Shinigami he'd slain in the Blessed Lands.

Since Izumi was already a corpse, there was no need to worry about the Speargod reaching across time and space to drag her decomposed soul from Yuurei's body. Accordingly, the reaper's knife was now "safe" for a demon like him to use. The tanto cut through the skin of Izumi's flesh with a calligrapher's precision, chunks of cooling flesh excised as he left his name in blood. Replacing the dead Shinigami's knife and withdrawing its head, Yuurei curled two fingers inside of its respiratory tract to coat them in the reaper's black blood. Slowly and gently, he painted Izumi's exposed organs an unnatural color. When that was done, the blond demon took out a kunai and wedged it inside of her tightening throat, just like the one he'd found in Mei.

Walking like the shadow of a ghost, he juggled four objects in his left hand; through the soft-lit streets of Sunagakure's night, Yuurei bounced and balanced two eyes and two ears on his fingertips. He hoped his message was clear enough: hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Though he had no real use for any of the removed body parts, Yuurei stored them away in the seal on his wrist as he approached the Kazekage's mansion.

If he were to think about it, the Hokage's behavior went far beyond any human explanation. There was the demon in his mind, not quite a second personality so much as a separate soul that had infested his body, but that wouldn't explain Mei's condition. It didn't make sense for him to instigate a war. To be that brazen, he would need to believe that he could kill the Mizukage and all the Jounin accompanying her. Even for someone skilled enough to be the Hokage, that kind of hubris was suicidal. He would need incredibly competent help, and there was only one person Yuurei could think of for that: Sai, and the Ne corps that he commanded. What Itachi didn't know, though, was that Sai was nowhere near Suna. In fact, it was possible that he was nowhere near Konoha, either—Yuurei didn't know how far Kurama's corrupting youki had spread, but he doubted that it would be contained by something as arbitrary as city walls.

The streets Yuurei walked through were deserted, the populace indoors or unconsciously rerouting their paths. His final road quickly dead-ended into the Kazekage's mansion, and he didn't wait to enter; the Mark of the Beast implanted in Temari and Mei pointed to the same location, not far from the entrance, and he forced himself to slow down. Pushing darker thoughts out of his mind, the tall demon gently opened the door of the room, and three pairs of eyes moved to greet him. Tayuya, Yugito, and Temari all looked up at their master with varying degrees of fear and worry, but relaxed slightly when they saw that most of his anger was already gone.

"Do you trust me?" He asked the three women. Silence greeted his question, the trio of women taken aback by it. Unwilling to speak, as if she was worried that she might say the wrong word, Tayuya nodded. Of the women present, she was the closest to Mei—partly because of, and partly in spite of, the verbal spats that the redheaded pair had gone through. In short order, Yugito and Temari nodded along with her. "Then don't interrupt me."

Kneeling down in front of Mei, whose unconscious body laid resting on the only bed in the room, Yuurei raised his wrist to his mouth. With a savage jerk, he tore the soft underside with one of his canines, and blood began to collect on the surface of his skin. Parting Mei's lips and teeth with his other hand, he twisted his injured wrist so that the blood could flow down the Mizukage's throat. The redhead convulsed, as though she found the taste repulsive, but still silently began to swallow Yuurei's blood. As time wore on, each of the women in the room felt a burning sensation at the place where Yuurei's seals were on their bodies. He withdrew his wrist from Mei's mouth and cupped her neck with both hands, with his thumbs on either side of the distinctive cut from Itachi's kunai. From within her body, he directed his blood through the soft flesh of her esophagus, until it began to bubble up to the surface.

Yuurei's iridescent youki roiled inside of his body, his control internally wavering in spite of his precise application to Mei's body. He hadn't attempted a sealing since his full transformation into a demon, much less something like this. His youki gently molded the blood in Mei's cut into a series of sigils that his audience would have found incomprehensible if they could see them. In truth, Yuurei wasn't certain that he understood what each stroke, symbol, or character meant in every situation. All he knew was that the ancient Kage Bunshin had told him a universal truth in the City of the Dead: the concept of Fuinjutsu was intent. All emotion bled out of his body at that memory, and he regained full control of his strength.

Filled with clarity of purpose, he unsealed the disembodied head of the Shinigami for a second time that night, and black blood quickly mixed with the rich red in the basin of Mei's cut throat. Her skin began to pale, transitioning from a rich creamy shade into a color more comparable to porcelain or jade. The Mizukage's visible eye suddenly opened when he resealed the severed head, though she made no sound and didn't struggle, and Yuurei saw that her iris displayed the same red outer ring that was present Tayuya's eyes. The blood on Mei's throat began to dry before wearing away in front of the onlookers' eyes, leaving perfectly smooth skin behind as Mei's eyelids closed once again.

Letting out a breath that he didn't realize he'd been holding, Yuurei fell back from his kneeling position, only to be caught on either side by Temari and Yugito. Tayuya, in contrast, moved closer to Mei and held her unconscious hand. The warmth in it seemed to reassure her, and her troubled expression quietly faded away. With the sense of crisis abating, the three women could focus on other things now—like where Yuurei had gone when he could have handled this situation immediately after it happened.

"You did something bad, didn't you?" Yugito asked, though her tone lacked any judgement. Though she was easily the most jealous and possessive of the women Yuurei had gathered around himself, she knew how hard he tried to protect them all. Even if he rarely showed that he cared with his actions or his words, he did care...and that protective nature had given way to homicidal rampages on more than one occasion.

"I made a mistake," Yuurei admitted, "and I would do it again. Ten times. A hundred times. He dared-"

"I know," Yugito interrupted to reassure him, holding his left hand in her right.

"You don't need to justify yourself," Tayuya said, her gaze shifting from Mei's face to Yuurei's. "As soon as he touched her, he opened himself up to retaliation. I don't care what you did, you should have done more."

Temari's mind had been racing for the last several hours, considering the implications of what had happened. Itachi had reached out to her with the idea of these Chunin Exams, a proverbial olive branch to set aside any enmity from the assault they were forced to commit to by her father. He'd then invited Kirigakure, heavily weakened from casualties on both sides of its civil war—and to her surprise, Kirigakure had actually come. Then, in a betrayal that might have been comical in the eyes of Iwa or Kumo, Itachi had attacked the Mizukage with enough force to render her comatose; for all intents and purposes, that was an open declaration of war. Thinking about it for a moment, the Kazekage decided that Tayuya was right: whatever Yuurei did to Itachi, it was justifiable. Nations and hidden villages had terms of engagement and rules for war, passed down through four generations to prevent the rise of a new Warring Clans Era.

Depending on who was being asked, Yuurei and his two primary companions were either nukenin or ronin—not to mention demons, or demons in the making. There were no rules about how outlaws should conduct themselves in war. Even if there were, Yuurei would ignore them.

Demons did not abide by human laws.


Though Yugito had been brought back from true death, Tayuya had been the first to awaken her hellish powers, and Temari was the original recipient of her master's Mark of the Beast, Mei ceremonially became the first Demon Queen on the night that her blood was mixed with Yuurei's. Her transcendence of humanity, or descension from it, happened so smoothly that it practically seemed preordained. What was a Sanjiyan's occular magic, weakest among the skills in its repertoire, in comparison to the Oathkeeper's binding seals in blood? Though the shadow of her invisible scars would never fully vanish from Mei's mind, even centuries after the War of Corruption had ended, she hadn't struggled to find solace in her new role. The deconstruction of her human self was a small price to pay for the opportunity to break her mortal shackles and climb out of the darkness that blanketed her mind in the late spring of her twenty-eighth year.

It was an existence like hers that had caused the Drowned God to fear for his life before he died.