Shattered Destiny:
Chapter 24: The Land of Water
"How can a sealed beast be dead and still use its power!?" Zabuza stutters.
I simply shrug and let my hands return to normal. The shift in my bones feels so strange that I can't help but shake my hands in an attempt to shake it off.
The feeling ends when the shifting is done. "W-what else did you pick up?"
"I don't remember anything, Zabuza." I level with him. "Do you know what happened to me?" I interlock my fingers and rest them on my lap.
Zabuza turns to the door. "Satu-chan?" He calls out.
After a few heartbeats my teammate appears at the door, but doesn't enter, hiding partly behind the door frame. "Y-y-yes?" Shaky doesn't begin to describe how she is.
Both of us hesitate, and then Sensei's grunt snaps us out of our reprieve. I feel absolutely horrible. "What happened?" Zabuza asks, for multiple reasons.
"H-he's a Jinchuuriki." She points at me.
"What did I do?" My voice shakes as I look down at Sensei.
"If he's a jinchuuriki, then he wasn't in control, right?" Zabuza says trying to see the bright side, but that's the problem. I wasn't in control, I don't even remember what happened!
"It called itself Alduin." Satu-chan says and I flinch, expecting the Dragon to suddenly wash over me, wiping me from existence just like last time, but it doesn't.
"Alduin?" Zabuza wonders aloud. "Goro-sensei didn't mention an 'Alduin' when he told me about the Bijuu." Another name I despise.
"That's because he's not a Bijuu, he's a ryū." I interject solemnly.
"A ryū?" Zabuza's attention snaps back to me. "How do you-"
We're cut off as Sensei coughs softly.
"How do you know?"
I don't look away from Sensei's unconscious form. "Whenever he takes over, I get some of his memories." Even now I can feel Alduin within me, nowhere near as complete as when he is called, but I can feel him.
Waiting, as if in a coma.
"T-that must be horrible." Satu-chan mumbles.
I nod, the only reply I can muster. If only they could feel what I felt.
Zabuza whistles, scratching at the cast. "So eh… can you control when it comes out?"
"All I have to do is say his name, then he takes over."
"Wait, just saying his name summons him?" Zabuza sputters.
Again my only response is a nod.
"All it takes to summon a creature on par with the Bijuu… is to say his name?" Zabuza says skeptically. "Alduin."
I flinch and freeze upon hearing the dragon's name. "I-I have to be the one to call him." I stare daggers at him.
"Sorry!" He throws his hands up in surrender.
"You want him raging loose in a hospital!?" I demand.
"It was hard to believe okay?" Zabuza says apologetically.
Sensei coughs again, and then her eyes flutter open. "Zabuza-kun? Keiki-kun?" Her voice is weak, I have to strain myself to hear her.
"Sensei!" Zabuza-san leans closer to hear her better.
"Where's… Satu-kun?"
"Satu-chan?" Zabuza turns towards our teammate.
"Y-yes?" She enters the room and kneels next to Sensei's bed.
"Team Four…" Sensei lets out a hollow chuckle that dissolves into a coughing fit. "Our first mission and look at us." She gives a hollow grin. "I might have to retire, Zabuza's leg is messed up and Keiki… is Keiki."
I grimace. "Sensei, you'll be on your feet before you know it." I say reassuringly.
"Not the same as before, where's my files?" She looks around.
"With the Mizukage, don't worry Koi-sama." A doctor enters the room.
Sensei lets out a sigh of relief, but clearly in pain from the act. "That's good."
"You should be resting, Koi-sama." The doctor walks into the room and takes a look at the medical report. "You'll be red ridden for a long time."
"Is my life as a shinobi over?" Sensei asks him.
"Sensei." I say softly.
"It's almost certain, you're missing an arm and a leg."
"I see." Another coughing fit. "How many casualties were there?"
"The tally is still being counted, we were lucky their jinchuuriki wasn't here."
Zabuza-san and Satu-chan look at me. "What?" I look between the two. Wait, did Sensei get hurt protecting me from the Jinchuuriki that came to fight Alduin?
Guilt settles on my soul, I put myself in danger again and got others hurt for it. When will I change?
No, it wasn't me that was put in danger.
It was Him.
I look from the Doctor to Sensei, if this is the price of power.
Then I want nothing to do with it.
Sensei went back to sleep and Zabuza and I were escorted back to our rooms, where my parents came storming in shortly after.
"Are you alright!?" My mother asks between relieved tears.
"Mmhph!" I say while being crushed in her embrace.
"Let the poor boy go, Yuri." Papa chuckles.
"Fine." With a pout mama lets go of me.
"Gah." I pull in a deep breath. "Ahgk!" And then get crushed in my father's embrace.
"You're the one crushing him now!" Mama scowls.
He lets go before any lasting damage can be done. "Any broken bones? Bruises or-"
"I'm fine." I chuckle nervously. Do not mention that I had my arm chopped off and I'll avoid the worst of it.
"We came as soon as we heard you were in the hospital." Mama says in tears. "The receptionist told us to expect to not see our child the same way ever again so I thought…"
"I'm sorry, mama." My eyes are drawn to my feet, I made them worry over nothing.
"We were told there was a skirmish you were caught in, is this true?" Papa asks me, looking me in the eye inquisitively.
What do I tell them? That we intentionally assaulted a Land of Lightning War Camp? "There was a raid yes, I panicked and people got hurt."
"You're just a baby, I'm glad you aren't dead." Mama gives me another hug.
Baby?
"I heard from a friend that Sujiang was almost entirely destroyed." Papa tells me.
"What?" The village just north of Kiri?
"You weren't there?" Mama asks gratefully.
"N-no, we were- uh, north of Sujiang." I say, it's technically true. "My team was the first to see them."
"Did you manage to stay hidden?" Papa asks.
"I remember being really scared, but." I shake my head.
"At least you're safe." Mama says with absolute absolvation.
"Ma...ma… You're... squishing me… again" I inhale deeply as I'm released.
"You look fine to me." Papa says after a few moments. "I think we can go home."
"C-can we?" I ask.
"I don't see why not."
The door opens. "I'm afraid that will have to wait, the Mizukage wants to see Team Four." Katsura Narumi enters the room.
"Is Team Four-"
"My team? Yes."
There is a brief silence. "Come home the moment you can, okay?" Mama begs and my heart sinks.
"Okay mama." We leave and I follow the jonin down the hall, I glance over my shoulder at my parents, Papa has his arm around Mama's shoulder as they walk towards the entrance.
I'm happy they visited, but I'm sad that I didn't get to go with.
Sensei is the only one absent from the Mizukage's office, Zabuza is using two chairs, Satu and I are sitting on either side of him. The tension is thick in the air, and I'm probably the source of it all.
The Mizukage materializes into the room, blink and miss it. "Mission report." He sits down at his desk and faces us, his face obscured by a cloth mask leaving his eyes exposed. His eyes look of death, not towards us, but from what he's witnessed. I don't want to know what he's seen or done.
"Uh." I begin. "W-we were tasked with going to the Land of Frost and obtaining a scout report from agents watching the Land of Lightning war effort in water." My voice catches in my throat and I sputter.
"Slow down, there's no rush." The mizukage says in a monotone.
"While enroute we were spotted by Hot Water shinobi as we crossed the border to Frost, we couldn't go back the way we came without risk of capture." Zabuza says what I cannot. "While in Frost we discovered ruins of interest-"
The Mizukage pulls out a scroll and with a puff of smoke a tome appears. "-And recovered several relics to be studied." Zabuza finishes.
"And of interest they are." The Mizukage says opening the tome. "This is written in a language no one can begin to decipher, and the coins you've brought back are engraven with the same imagery."
"I-I might be able to tell what it is." I raise my hand.
"Oh?" The Mizukage leans forward, chin resting on his hands.
I gulp, Zabuza and Satu look at me, knowing. "It's… tied to my Bloodline, sir." I can still remember the eye of Alduin, staring at me with unbridled rage.
No, not at me.
Through me.
"That is quite interesting, Keiki-san." He lifts the tome and hold it out to me, the constellation on the front is the same as I remember.
The Constellation of Destruction. I take the book from the Mizukage with reverence.
Jutsu book of Firestorm. Would you like to learn Firestorm? Warning, learning a Jutsu in this way will destroy the book.
"Well?" The Mizukage pulls me out of my reprieve.
"Jutsu book of Firestorm." I snap back to attention, I was hoping Tutorial would have told me more, but that would have been hoping for too much.
"You got that just from holding the book?" The Mizukage sounds impressed. "Anything else?"
"No, I'm only told the name… and that by destroying the book I can learn the Jutsu." I say and the Mizukage leans back, thinking his options over.
It's an uncomfortable silence. "Show me." He eventually says.
"Sir?"
"Show me."
Yes, I'll learn the jutsu.
The book bursts into flames, merging with the flames on my hands.
You have learned Firestorm.
"And done." I inform the others.
"Just like that? I was expecting more from a jutsu called 'firestorm'." The mizukage says as I let the flames on my hands die out.
"Mhm."
"You are an interesting shinobi, Sekine-san." The Mizukage pulls a file out of the pile and places it on the desk in front of him. "What do you know about these ruins?" The Mizukage doesn't look up from the files.
They're our files. "Keiki would know the most about them." Zabuza says tapping my shoulder.
"Would you mind divulging? While this talks about the ruins in question, I'd rather hear it from the horse's mouth, if you will." The Mizukage waves the file in question for us to see clearly.
And so I do, I talk about Wulfgar and what he told me, of how they come from the world of Skyrim, minus the bit about Alduin The World Eater being within me.
"What happened to this 'spirit'?" The Mizukage asks.
"I don't really know, I blacked out and once I came to the room was a wreck and Wulfgar dead… again." It's not a lie, I really don't know what happened in that room, but I do know who was the cause.
We spent some more time talking about Frost, the ruins we found in Frost and Lightning and what we found. The Mizukage had Zabuza's sword brought in for closer examination but we didn't dwell on it for too long as nobody knows why it has the power of frost and Tutorial won't tell me anything about it.
Thankfully what happened at the Lightning war camp wasn't brought up, only that we went to disrupt their supply lines and ended up drawing their jinchuuriki to defend. The Mizukage was excited to hear that fresh graduates from Water were able to draw the attention of a Jinchuuriki from the main assault.
If The tailed Beast was able to join the main assault, Kiri might not have come out on top. "Dismissed, and please tell Team Two that they can come in."
"Y-yes sir!" Satu helps Zabuza to his feet and the three of us hurry out of the room.
On the other side of the door is the entirety of Team Two. "Hey Mei-chan." I greet her.
"I didn't know you were here, Keiki-san." She greets, one of her arms is darker than the other, is it darker than when I last saw? Did I hurt my countrymen as much as I hurt Lightning? Guilt fills me.
"The Mizukage wanted to talk to us, and now he wants to talk to you guys."
"Finally!" Yamakage blurts.
Katsura nods her thanks and ushers her team into the room.
They were there when I called Alduin, they know his name and that I turned into him… Unless Ichiyo never told them, I can only hope. "I'm going back home, how about you two?" I ask my teammates, trying to keep my mind off of the possibility.
"I-I was going to go visit sensei." Satu-chan.
"Yeah, same here." Zabuza-san agrees. "See how she's holding up."
I just nod understandingly. "W-what about you?" Satu-chan asks me.
"I was going to go home, spend some time with my parents." I wonder if they forgot that I had a family waiting for me?
"Oh, right." The tone in Satu's voice is all I need to hear.
"See you guys tomorrow?" Hopefully we can get some rest, and we won't be having those disgusting pills!
"I dont think I'll be allowed to leave the hospital." Zabuza taps his cast.
"It'll be fine." I wave it off. "My papa broke an arm once, he had it in a cast, in a sling and was out fishing the next day." I say with pride.
The two orphans fall silent, did I say something wrong? "Okay, talk to you later."
"Okay." We split, Zabuza and Satu heading for the Hospital and I'm going home.
"I'm back!" I call as I open the door. Eerie silence. Where are my parents? They said they'd be here waiting for me.
I don't like how- there is a crash from elsewhere in the building and my arms erupt into Chakra, just like when I lost my arm and Alduin replaced it. Tiny spines are protruding from my arms as wisps of wild chakra leak from my skin.
The door closes silently behind me, I ready a claw for any sudden assault and make my way farther into my home.
Sounds coming from the kitchen. I jump into the kitchen with arms raised for combat and…
…
An otter? My arms revert and I just stare at the scavenging creature, how'd it get in? "H-hello?"
The otter turns its head towards me and gives me a curious look. "You can't be Yoritomo-san." It tilts its head at the name, does it recognize the name? "Do you know Yoritomo-san?" I ask and it lets out a squeak.
And then I squeak, it's so cute! It flattened it's ears at the sound I made. "I'm sorry!" I say as calmly as I can manage, last thing I need is a wild animal running amok in my home.
"Gin!" Yoritomo leaps and I can see him in the window, and then he drops below the window. "Gin!" He hops up again.
I open the window and help the Otter in. "You can help, you know?"
"Instinct." He says as if he were proud of it. "Gin, I told you to not run off!"
Gin squeaks.
"That's no excuse, why here of all places?" Yoritomo fusses about Gin.
"Is this your… uh…"
"Son, yes." Yoritomo stops momentarily to look at me before returning to his fussing.
Gin squeaks.
Yoritomo squeaks.
Gin squeaks again.
I sit in a chair.
Yoritomo squeaks.
I fiddle with my thumbs.
Yoritomo squeaks again.
Gin nods.
"Why you of all people." Yoritomo shakes his head sadly.
"What's wrong?"
"The Elder tasked him with finding new summoner's to replace the ones lost at Frost."
"What happened to them?!" I panic.
"Lightning didn't take too kindly to the fact that Frost was secretly helping Water in the war, and have been attacked and are preparing for another attack." Yoritomo explains. "My mate told me everything."
"Who's your mate?"
"You've met."
"Sakue-chan!?"
"The very one."
Gin hops onto my lap and looks me in the eye. "Uh… hi?"
"He wants you to meet the Elder."
"Eh?!"
Authors Notes: It feels strange to go from two waring beasts(Kinda) to recovery time… But I'm happy with this. I hope this wasn't too boring to read XD While writing I've been doing more research into the 3rd shinobi ninja war and deciding how much the world will change what with the injection of Skyrim into the world, I hope this won't affect how long it takes to get chapters out but there's no promises, they come out when they come out.