Disclaimer: Hi! What am I doing? I'm not owning Naruto, that's what I'm doing.
A/N: I'm ssssooooo sorry about the long update…it's been a week right? Again, things are happening in my life that are a bit stressful. Enjoy this chapter though!
Chapter 18: Shinobi Secrets
"Don't touch the ring!"
Kina paused and Naruto used the opportunity to pick her up and place her next to Gaara with a speed that rivaled Lee's.
"Why not?" Jocelyn asked, blocking another attack from the enraged girl.
"We got new information about the rings," Kakashi answered, interested in the strange one-eyed Suna kunoichi. "The jewels are attuned to demon chakra. It causes anyone with a drop of demon blood to gain at least ten times the chakra from before. And for someone with a demon inside them…well, they go berserk."
"So if one of us touch it…" Gaara concluded, gesturing to Kina, Jocelyn, and Naruto.
"You'll become as crazy as your daughter," Kakashi finished.
"So it's up to us to stop her," Shino stated.
"Alright!" Kiba yelled, pumping his fist. Beside him, Akamaru half growled, half whimpered. After all, he was a dog; Lilith was a cat demon. It was the demon part of Lilith that worried the canine.
"Don't hurt her too badly," Kina warned. "Or you can kiss any chances of having puppies goodbye."
Sasuke stood from his crouched position near the remains of Gaara's bookcase and looked over at his foster sister. She gasped when he revealed his fierce red Sharingan.
"Sasuke-kun…" she whispered.
"Trust me, Kina-chan," he said.
"Come on!" Naruto tugged on the sleeves of both Kina and Gaara. "I'll teach you the seals for my barrier. We can't have Suna destroyed over this. Jocelyn, you're coming too."
"Lead the way, fox boy," she said, slinging another one of Lilith's attacks back at her and placing an arm around his waist.
Lilith was sick and tired of being ignored by her parents and their friends. Akakuro was interested in the kitsune before her and raged at the hawk demon's familiar contact with the blonde. She scooped up the ring with the yellow stone and ran at the couple, screaming.
"Tsuuga!" (Piercing Fang)
The deranged three turned twenty-year old slammed into the wall when Kiba hit her with his attack. She fell to her knees and snapped her head to look at the man. He stood a few meters from her with a smug grin on his face. Next to him stood a large white dog.
Dog…Akakuro finally, totally, lost it.
"Kamaitachi no Jutsu!" (Slashing Wind Technique)
She swept her tail in front of her and yowled at her enemies. Lilith didn't notice the absence of her parents, all she saw was the white coat of the dog in front of her. The redhead was happy when the man and dog got hit by her attack and forced back to the other end of the room. She stood up and took a step toward the fallen man. She was in the center of the room when she saw a shadow creeping toward her.
"Nice try, Shikamaru-niichan," she laughed. Lilith performed a series of seals and held out her hands.
"Kokuangyo no Jutsu!" (Bringer-Of-Darkness Technique)
She smirked as pitch black, darkness enveloped the room. Her eyes could see her enemies perfectly. Her mind recognized the faces and placed names to the people who threatened her existence. Shikamaru couldn't use shadows if there was no light. Now she just had to deal with her other enemies.
Kiba, the man with the dog, was still knocked out at the other end of the room. Akamaru stood in front of his master, protecting him from the demon.
Sakura and Sasuke were to her right. The Uchiha hand his hand on Sakura's arm and was tracing something onto her skin. She nodded and moved cautiously towards the bank of windows.
Shino stood to her left, his bugs floating in the air around him, but was unfazed by the total darkness. Shikamaru stood with Neji by the door, the latter had his Byakuugan activated and stared straight at her.
The Hyuuga first, Akakuro hissed in her mind. He's too dangerous.
Lilith nodded and ran at the two men by the door. Her fist connected with Neji's stomach, but his fingers hit a spot on her shoulder. She vaguely heard him whisper "Jyuuken" when he hit her. Luckily, her instincts and reflexes kicked in and she backflipped away from him before he could hit any other pressure points.
"What the hell?" she wondered when her jutsu began to lighten around them. She turned back to the Hyuuga and remembered that he could attack her chakra circulatory system.
How the hell could you forget that? Akakuro growled.
Shut up, you're acting like a bitch. You know that? Lilith replied, already going through several hand seals. She ignored her demon's insulted hiss at being compared to a dog.
"Oni Kiai: Kaze no Yaiba!" (Demon Scream: Blade of Wind)
Lilith yelled once more at Neji and ran forward. Shikamaru stopped his seal sequence to brace himself for the onslaught, instinct causing him to forget the plan. Neji smirked and got into his Jyuuken stance once more. He underestimated the power of Lilith's wind blade and ducked a second too late. The blade stabbed through his shoulder, right where Kidomaru's arrow struck when he was a teenager.
The redhead smiled when she scented the blood in the air and prepared to slash through the rest of the man, but another wind blade forced her back.
"Kaze no Yaiba!" Sasuke yelled. The darkness jutsu let up enough that he could vaguely see where everyone was and his red eyes glowed in the gloom. He saw Sakura nod to him and barely nodded back. He hoped she would get the timing down on this attack; otherwise she'd be hurt as well.
"Doton: Doryu Taiga!" (Earth Element: Earth Flow River)
"Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu!" (Fire Element: Grand Fireball Technique)
Lilith's eyes widened as Sakura's jutsu caused the floor beneath her to become mud and slowly felt herself sinking into the pit. Sasuke's attack followed before she could react and all she could do was brace herself as the flames covered her body. She smelled burning hair and fur and growled low in her throat. Blindly, she shot a blast of wind in Sasuke's direction.
"Oni Kiai!" (Demon Scream)
She placed her hands on the floor and tried to escape from the dried mud she was trapped in. Sasuke's attack baked the wet earth until it molded to the girl's legs. She felt strong arms place her in a headlock and cover her mouth. Bugs she didn't notice before crawled out of her clothing and onto her arms. She felt her chakra weaken as the jutsu finally disappeared and light returned to the room.
Sasuke knelt in front of his goddaughter and shook his head. The girl was struggling, but with Sakura's strength holding her as well as Shikamaru's shadow bind technique, she wasn't going anywhere.
"Tend to Kiba and Neji," he told Shino. He turned toward the man who sat calmly in the corner. "Kakashi thank you for protecting me and Sakura from the worst of that darkness jutsu. I need your help for this next part though."
Kakashi stood up and stared at the girl/woman/demon before them. Her hands clenched into fists and made taking the ring difficult. He knew what Sasuke was going to ask him, but he had to decline.
"I can't hypnotize her," he admitted. "Even with my Mangekyou Sharingan, I'm not powerful enough to do it."
"I wasn't going to ask you to do it," Sasuke said, still staring at his niece. "Watch my chakra levels for me, sensei."
That was all the warning the Copy-Nin had before the Uchiha activated Jocelyn's gift to him and grabbed Lilith's chin to force her gaze to his. Purple eyes met bloody red as the dark pinwheels in Sasuke's eyes began to spin.
"Tsukuyoumi." (Moon Reader)
"Mangekyou…Sharingan," Lilith managed to whisper before she fell under the genjutsu.
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Lilith found herself in an empty black space. She could see the outline of her body in white and looked up to find a dark gray sky and bright red moon. She heard of the Mangekyou Sharingan; or rather, she overheard people talking about it. The girl was still in her half-demon form, which meant that she was in a twenty-year-old body instead of her true three-year-old one.
"Will you give me the ring, Lilith-chan?" a deep voice echoed through the space.
Lilith's hair spun around her as she tried to find the owner of the voice. She vowed to find the owner and force him to get her out of the genjutsu and back to her body.
"It's mine!" she shouted into the oblivion. "The ring is mine!"
"No it is not, Lilith-chan," Sasuke stated. "You know full well that it is not yours." He allowed the words to echo once more and smirked at his goddaughter's reaction. He was going easy on her. He knew her weaknesses and fears. With such ammunition, he could easily break the girl. But Lilith was his goddaughter and he would never harm her.
Unless she harmed their family first, that is.
"Where did you get the ring, Lilith?" he asked, dropping the –chan. The girl shivered at the omission. Even with her demon possessing most of her thoughts and actions, she felt the disapproval and disappointment that prompted the lack of the term of affection.
"Daddy's desk," she answered, using her original voice—the voice of a three-year-old girl.
"It was in a glass box," Sasuke described. "Covered in seals and protected by a jutsu that shocks anyone who touches the box without permission." As he spoke, Gaara's desk appeared in the blank space in front of Lilith. The box containing the Akatsuki rings glowed a dull red on the black desk.
"Yes," she answered. She raised her hand to touch the box, but when she came within touching distance, the desk flew back several feet.
"You're a smart girl, Lilith," Sasuke continued. It felt awkward calling her that name without adding the suffix, but she needed to give him the ring and she needed to do it without him damaging too much of her psyche.
"You know that the things on your father's desk are off limits. Those things are shinobi business."
"But they were so pretty."
Lilith looked around her, still looking for the voice, unaware that Akakuro retreated back into her mind and that she was now in her normal body. Sasuke noticed though and immediately created some new clothes for the girl.
"Do you tell others about the things you hear in the Mansion, Lilith?"
"No."
"And why not?"
"Because shinobi secrets stay between the shinobi who share them," she answered using the sentence so often repeated to her.
Sasuke nodded from his hiding place above the girl. He delved into her mind and pulled out the memory of the day Lilith told the entire Sabaku family something she overheard Sakura talking about. It was best that he use this memory rather than a more serious one. Compared to the others in the girl's mind, he could havechosen one more violent or one with a sadder outcome, but again, he didn't want to unduly damage her psyche.
Sasuke grimaced and then smiled ruefully at the reminder of how the three-year-old blurted out the pink-haired kunoichi's plans to finally rid herself of her virginity with a partner who definitely was not Sasuke. Lilith practically put everyone in a comatose state that day—everyone except Kankuro, that is. But then again, Kankuro was a very unique individual.
It seemed so long ago, but only seven months had passed since that day.
Lilith's eyes widened as the drawing room of the Mansion appeared before her. She saw her Aunt Temari sitting on the couch and noticed a small girl standing near the door. She gasped when the illusions began to talk.
"Lilith," Temari began. "Sit next to me." She waited until Lilith sat next to her on the couch and sighed. "Do you remember the time when you heard me and your Mama talking about the man from the Mist?"
Lilith nodded solemnly. "You said I should try to forget everything you said and if anyone asked me, I should say that I don't know."
Temari nodded and smiled. "Do you remember why we told you to say that?"
"You're shinobi of Suna," Lilith answered dutifully. "Shinobi secrets stay between the shinobi who share them."
"That's right. Now, what are Sakura and Tenten besides your honorary aunties?"
"Um…Shinobi of Konoha—like Shikamaru-niichan."
"And what were you supposed to be doing while they were talking?"
Lilith looked down. "Napping."
"So when they were talking, it was like they were sharing a secret," Temari explained. "What shinobi say to each other has to stay between them, Lilith. Or else missions might fail and people might die. If you heard something between your Mama and Daddy and repeated it to the wrong person, one or both of them could be hurt. They could die because a person said something to someone they shouldn't have."
Lilith shook at the possibility that either of her parents could be hurt and laid her head down in her aunt's lap. Temari stroked the hair that was so much like her dear brother's and sighed. She hated using that example, but the 3-year-old was too much like her father—meaning that she was almost too smart for her own good.
She needed to know the importance of keeping secrets until she was old enough to use her mind to determine which secrets needed to be kept and which needed to be told.
"Do you understand that, Lilith?"
"Yes, Auntie Temeki."
The scene changed into the one that just occurred in her father's office. Lilith's jaw dropped as she saw herself in her half-demon form. Tears ran down her face when she watched her father fly through the wall and saw the small trickle of blood that came from his mouth. She began to sob when she witnessed Neji get stabbed by her own wind blade.
"This is what happens when you don't follow orders, Lilith," Sasuke stated. He hardened his heart against the girl's tears. She needed to know the importance of her actions. It didn't matter if she was three-years-old or fifty. As the daughter of the strongest shinobi in her village she had to understand the rules.
"I didn't have any orders," she sobbed.
"Shinobi secrets…" he started the edict once more.
"Stay between the shinobi who share them," she finished.
She stared at the ring on her thumb and felt Akakuro purr at the pretty stone. Lilith shouted at her demon and replayed the vision she saw for the cat demon. She felt Akakuro shudder in her mind at the reminder of when Shukaku and Tsubakiri snarled at her during the fight—they sounded as if they hated her.
"Your father is the Kazekage, Lilith. Everything in his office is a shinobi secret until he shares it with you," Sasuke repeated. "And he will share some of them with you when you become one yourself."
"But how will they let me become a ninja now?" Lilith cried into her hands. She fell onto her knees and felt warm arms surround her. "They'll never let me be a ninja now."
"Shh…" a soft, familiar voice soothed. Tanned hands ran over the girl's hair and the scent of clovers and mint drifted down to reach her sensitive nose. "Don't worry, Lilith-chan. You'll still be a ninja."
"Temeki-neechan," Lilith whispered. She raised her head and met the familiar face of her aunt. She shook with relief and threw herself at the woman. "Where were you? They said that you would be killed and might become a missing nin."
Sasuke laughed in Temeki's body and the sound echoed like bells in the dark world of the genjutsu. Sasuke wouldn't admit it to anyone except Sakura, but it felt good to be in his female body, even if it was only in an illusion.
"And who said that, imp?" she asked.
Lilith hiccupped and smiled into her aunt's neck. "I can't tell you that, Temeki-neechan," she answered. "Those are shinobi secrets."
Temeki nodded and took Liltih's hand. "Lilith-chan, will you give me the ring now?"
"Yes."
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"They've been under for a full minute now," Kina worried. "It's not supposed to take this long."
Jocelyn placed a soothing hand on her cousin's shoulder. "Chicken-butt is new to this, coz," she soothed. Naruto snorted at the apt description of Sasuke's hairstyle.
Kina nodded, but clutched her husband closer to her body. All four demon vessels felt the moment Sasuke took Lilith into the genjutsu and came running from various positions of the protective barrier they created. Jocelyn and Sakura administered first aid to Neji and Kiba, while Gaara and Kina looked over their daughter and foster brother with fear in their eyes.
"His chakra isn't effected much and Lilith's body is back to normal. They'll come out of it soon," Naruto added. Inside his mind, Kyuubi was laughing behind his cage.
Chicken-butt…Kyuubi no Kitsune sighed, wiping the tears from his eyes. Good one. I like Tsubakikan's vessel. She's easy on the eyes and was checking your ass out earlier. Let's—
NO! Naruto interrupted his demon's sentence. We're with Hinata now. Remember her?
Kyuubi licked his lips. You mean flexible girl? Oh, yeah…
Naruto shook his head and smiled, discreetly wiping at a small trickle of blood that formed on his upper lip thanks to his memories of Hinata. He growled at the demon fox when Kyuubi added a few scenes that definitely did not play into the couple's first night together.
He never let on that Kyuubi was more perverted than Kakashi, Ero-sennin, and old man Sarutobi combined. The blonde felt it was his duty to thwart the combined influences of all of his teachers and be as anti-perverted as possible. But sometimes…
"They're waking up," Kakashi said, pulling everyone from of their thoughts.
Sasuke woke up first and quickly took the Akatsuki ring from Lilith's thumb. He noticed that she was holding Deidara's topaz Akatsuki ring and took that one as well. He gave them both to Kakashi, who placed them back into the glass box they were sealed in along with the other two they found in the rubble.
Gaara waited impatiently for the Uchiha to remove the rings before he scooped up his daughter and held her close in his arms. Kina's arms ran over Lilith, looking for major injuries. When she smiled softly, the tension melted from the Kazekage's body and he slid to the floor, taking Kina and Lilith with him.
"Daddy?" Lilith asked in a small voice.
"Lilith-chan," Kina exclaimed in relief. "You scared us. You probably shortened our lives by twenty years. Don't do that ever, ever again."
Gaara buried his face in his daughter's hair and smiled against her ear. "You're probably going to frighten us again and again considering your temper and the fact that we're your parents," he whispered gently. "But at least try not to scare your mother and refrain from letting Akakuro out to play until you become a genin, huh?"
"You'll let me be a ninja and fight for Suna?" Lilith asked, wide-eyed. "Even after this?"
"You won't believe the things I did when I was younger," Gaara chuckled and kissed her ear. "When you're older, I'll tell you all about it."
Kina heard every word of the exchange, but pretended not to. She wouldn't object to Lilith becoming a shinobi if that's what the child wanted, but that didn't make the sharp stab of fear leave her stomach. No matter what, a mother will always worry for her child.
A/N:
I can't say that I'm entirely happy about how this chapter is written. Everything I've written this week has been utter crap…even my reports for school.
All I can say is I'm sorry…I might fix it later, but then again, I might not.
The story's still not finished by the way.