[After leaving Iruka's apartment it doesn't take Masami long to gather what she needs before she leaves. She removes the metal plate with the village's insignia etched onto it from her bag and gets a curious pang from it. Despite that, she understands the need for discretion as she seals it away then closes her bag and heads out toward the Village Hidden in the Grass. As she walks up the gate, Izumo and Kotetsu are chatting about events that occurred at Shushuya the night before, Masami speaks playfully]
"Izumo! I had no idea you love to sing!"
"Well no, not really-"
[Izumo responds as Kotetsu interrupts and ribs him]
"Don't let him fool you Masami! He is a karaoke fool!"
[Izumo is embarrassed as Kotetsu chuckles and Masami soothes the situation]
"That is awesome Izumo! I just adore karaoke and I would love to hear you sing, I bet you're amazing!"
[Masami winks at Izumo and Izumo flushes as Kotetsu gets frustrated because he got the opposite effect of what he wanted from Masami when he was teasing his friend. Izumo asks]
"Do you know when you'll be back?"
"I should return in two weeks or so. We'll have to make plans then"
[The way Masami smiles at Izumo makes him radiate while Kotetsu begins to fume, Masami notices and smiles at him too]
"Don't look so dejected Kotetsu! You're invited too! We'll all have to go out as a large group and have a good time"
[Now both men are smiling as she exits the gates]
"Bye boys! Be good!"
"See you soon Masami!"
[They call out in unison before they start arguing over who is going to see her first when she returns. Masami blinks out of sight as she begins to zip across the land. The sun is hanging low in the sky but hasn't reached the horizon yet as she slows her approach to the gates of the Hidden Grass Village. She settles into an inn and finds some dinner before calling it a night. She thinks about how she's going to structure her time during the mission as she readies herself for bed. She figures she'll spend 3 full days in each village with a day to travel between each and finishing the rest of the time along the northern border of the Land of Rivers. As she lays down after shutting off the lights, she sneezes for no apparent reason]
(Masami thinking) "Hm, somebody must be thinking of me..."
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[The stars sparkle across the sky as Aoba Yamashiro, a tokubetsu jonin specializing in reconnaissance sits at a campfire and glares across it at his teammate. Feeling eyes on him, Kakashi looks up from his book]
"Is there something a matter Aoba?"
"You know, we would be halfway there already if we hadn't wasted so much time this morning waiting for you"
"I already told you I was sorry about that. The time just got away from me"
"It usually does"
[Shibi Aburame looks perplexed as he's communicating with his parasitic insects. He murmurs]
"How strange..."
"What's strange?" Aoba asks
"The beetles are indicating that the female I left with Lady Tsunade has already traveled from the Leaf Village to the Grass Village. It's odd that whoever our fourth team member is, has already moved that far so quickly, especially if they left after we did"
"No, that's really not odd at all" Kakashi responds
[Kakashi stares off into the stars]
(Kakashi thinking) "Not odd at all if you can cover distance like Masami Tachikaze..."
:::::
"Hello Guy, it's nice to see you. Please come on in and relax. How can I help you today?"
[Guy sighs as he lays down on the plush leather chaise lounge. His eyes wander the ceiling for a moment as he tries to gather his thoughts]
"Well, I'm not sure how deal with two people in my life..."
"Okay, please elaborate"
"Well one of them is my girlfriend. She's an absolute knock out and she can be a little domineering but she's an amazing woman and there's no one else I'd rather be with... The other is my best friend, he's a real nice guy and as of late he's been the only person who's been willing just to listen to me. The problem is we all live together and they hate each other."
"I see. Congratulations on your new relationship, I'm sure she's a very special lady. Tell me, how are the living arrangements?"
"Meaning?"
"Where does everyone sleep?"
"Ah... my friend recently moved in so he's been crashing out on the couch while my lady shares my bedroom"
"So you and your partner are intimate then?"
"Yes"
"Well, I imagine some of your friend's tension stems from the fact he doesn't seem to have a private space of his own"
"Yes definitely... I hadn't really considered that until he mentioned it the other night"
"You said your partner is domineering, tell me more about that"
"I find that it's easiest just not to argue with her, so while I don't always agree with her interior decorating decisions or food choices when she prepares dinner I just let it be because I'd rather not have any conflict. She also has a bit of a jealous streak in her and she can be rather destructive if it's aggravated"
"Do you know who or what she's jealous of?"
"Well... I'm not sure..."
"C'mon now Guy, you can be open and honest here. If something irritates your significant other to the point where she is destructive, as you so put it, then I'm sure she has voiced what it is that bothers her"
"Well... It's Masami"
"Guy, I thought we agreed it would best for you to maintain your distance from her"
"We did! It's just my lady knows how I felt about Masami before, and seeing her in town here recently has raised my lady's suspicions."
"And are you doing anything with Masami?"
"No! Of course not! ...she avoids me like the plague..."
"That seems to bother you still?"
"A little perhaps..."
"I believe the important thing to recognize here is that no matter how 'little' it seems to you it's clearly a huge deal to your partner. Everyday you need to continually accept that your severe behaviors in the past have greatly damaged any chance you may have had at even a friendship, much less anything more with Masami. In that same token you should probably do your best to avoid her as well and put more focus on showing affection to your partner so her mind is set more at ease. When you mentioned your best friend you said he's the only one who is listening to you right now. Would I be wrong in guessing that you're venting some if not all of your frustrations about your partner to friend, and thus your friend has had some aggressive words towards your partner?"
"No, you would be correct"
"Well then it would seem to me that the problem is your friend is only seeing that you're committed to a monster and not the outstanding and lovely lady that you see. When you speak to your friend about your partner, you should strive only to say positive and encouraging things about her so then he will understand why you choose to be with her at all. Then perhaps you can help remold his image of her and they can be on better terms."
"Hm, that is some very good advice. Thank you!"
"You're welcome Guy! Just remember stay away from Masami, be affectionate and reassuring to your partner, and only say uplifting things about her to your friend so that you'll foster a more positive relationship between them. I'd love to meet with you again soon to see how things are progressing after today. Please make another appointment with the receptionist on your way out"
"Will do!"
[After Guy sets up a future appointment and leaves the counselor's office, he stops to pick up some flowers and food on the way home. When he enters his apartment, his Masami is sitting at the table reading a magazine per usual. He has a lovely and romantic evening with her, and that night while she lays there in his arms as they fall asleep, he asks her]
"Tell me what you want; I want to make you happy"
"Anything I want?"
"Yes"
"I want you to take me out"
[Guy's eyes shoot wide open, then he asks nervously]
"What do you mean by, out?"
"I mean out in public on a date"
[Guy imagines the ridicule he would face taking a puppet out in public and going on a date with her, he gulps before responding]
"My beloved, I'm not so sure that's the best idea"
"Any why not?"
"Because of your health of course! The outside air will be far too harsh and abrasive for the lining of your lungs, especially in the delicate condition they're in"
"Oh, I suppose your right Guy"
[Masami coughs timidly and Guy squeezes her tight]
"Rest now my love, you know I'll take care of you til the end"
"Yes, I know"
[Holding on closely to his love doll in the dark, Guy accepts that this fantasy is not healthy for him. Before he thought it would make his obsession with Masami easier but now he sees it's only made things for him worse, so be begins to cry as he realizes he has limited time left with his love]
:::::
[A week later, Masami's espionage mission has been going well. Her observations in the hidden villages of the grass and stone have revealed that while there isn't a transfer of tangible goods between them and the Village Hidden by Rain, the respective countries of both the hidden grass and stone villages are often making transactions with the akatsuki to perform missions the other five great shinobi nations would otherwise turn down due to the poorer country's inability to pay the higher price tag. Masami has also found that someone is making allegiances with the local thugs and gangs to an anonymous leader in the hidden rain. She expects the same results when she reaches the Village Hidden by Valleys. Trekking across the Land of Wind is treacherous using supreme speed because the landscape looks so familar, it's easy to get turned around and travel for miles in the wrong direction. Masami carefully proceeds to a large outcropping of rock which initially looked to be smaller than the tip of a fingernail at a distance but after performing her jutsu a few times, it reveals itself to be a natural fortress. She recognizes a sandstorm coming, so she moves quickly to take shelter in a cave. As she's about to settle down and take a drink of water, she hears voices stemming from another part of the cavern. She treads stealthily along the rocks then drops to her belly crawls to the edge of a precipice so she can peer down to the voices she hears below. First she sees a man with glasses and long gray hair pulled into a ponytail, and boy about naruto's age with dark eyes and hair, then she sees the snake man from her dreams. She covers her own mouth so they don't hear her gasp but they don't seem to notice and continue on through their conversation. She backs away silently and retreats to where she initially settled. There she immediately summons the great lord of all owls]
"Lord Fukurou I beg your forgiveness for detaining you from your highly important duties, but I must ask you to seek out Lady Tsunade and tell her I have encountered Orochimaru in the Land of Wind. I am currently trapped by a sandstorm, but I'm going to try to escape due east into the northern territory of the Land of Rivers."
"Yes Masami"
[In a blink he's gone. Masami knows she couldn't summon a regular owl because they wouldn't make it through the storm, but Lord Fukurou with his teleportation abilities would be able to arrive at Tsunade's office in just moments. Back where Orochimaru, Kabuto, and Sasuke were waiting out the storm, they briefly continue speaking]
"Kabuto, did you feel that chakra?"
"Yes Sasuke"
[Orochimaru then hisses]
"It was very... unique. Almost familiar. Come lets go investigate it, but do not harm whoever or whatever it is. At least not yet anyways"
[The trio approach Masami from behind just after Lord Fukurou disappears. Masami turns around and her eyes grow large in surprise. Orochimaru's face conveys a flash of recognition. She tries to supreme speed jutsu as deep into the cavern as she can see but it's not fast enough to escape Orochimaru. He uses his shadow snakes out to spring out and coil around Masami's body then bring her closer to him]
"Come, come now Sayonakidori. That jutsu didn't work before so why would you expect it to work now? You certainly haven't gotten any better at it after all this time"
[Sasuke murmurs over to Kabuto]
"Who is Sayonakidori?"
"I don't know, I haven't encountered her before during my travels with Lord Orochimaru. Now is a time for you to learn how to stand back and listen..."
[Masami speaks venomously to Orochimaru as she futilely struggles against his snake coils]
"What the hell are you talking about, you monster?!"
"You haven't aged a day, impressive!"
[Orochimaru brings her closer to his face so he can inspect her]
"Your eyes Sayonakidori, how could I ever forget those lovely eyes?"
"Quit calling me that! I have no idea who the hell you think I am!"
"But don't you remember all the fun we used to have?"
[Orochimaru chuckles as he examines her more carefully]
"Wait a moment. Your hair. You've done something to it..."
[A small snake emerges from his sleeve then weaves it's way in and out of her hair, pulling out one side of her usual styling]
"That purple color, is chakra! How did you get your body to physically express chakra like that? Wait just a moment..."
[He then leans his head forward and moves under her fallen hair to sniff her neck, then licks her. Masami tries her best to remain rigid but she can't fight her trembling]
"You're not my nightingale, my Sayonakidori at all, are you?"
"How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling me that name!? I have no idea what you're going about!"
"Humor me child, how old are you?"
"Why do you need to know?"
[The snakes begin constricting her tighter]
"I'll let you breathe and tell you about your past, aren't you curious?"
"I'm twenty-two!"
[Masami manages to cough out. Orochimaru relaxes his grip enough to let her breathe, but not enough to set her free. She gives him a piercing stare but now he's sparked a dangerous intrigue in her about the origins of her dreams]
"I told you my age, now speak you snake!"
"My my, just as fiesty as ever! Sayonakidori, I can't believe you tricked me! Very masterfully played! Now child, how would you feel if I told you that you are not actually who you believe you are, but rather a clone of someone from long ago?"
"Quit speaking in riddles! I am in no mood to play games with you!"
"Hm, perhaps if I showed you instead then..."
[Chakra forms out of Orochimaru's head in the form of a snake and jumps directly through Masami's forehead. In her mind she watches it race by as she runs after it. It heads straight to the black and gold gilded door and breaks it wide open.]
[Inside the door, Masami starts seeing visions of another lifetime. There's a man with dark hair and gray eyes and a woman with light brown hair and blue eyes. They're her parents. Her father was from the Land of Lightning and her mother was from the Land of whirlpools. After they met and fell in love they settled along the southern coastline of the Land of Fire, very close to the Land of Waves. They named her Sayonakidori because she was born at night and the sound of her first cries were musical to her parents. She gained her dark hair from her father and her parents believed her violet eyes to be a dilution of the gray and blues of their respective eye colors. Sayonakidori gained her propensity for fuinjutsu from her mother and her father taught her how to do shape transformation in the form of plasma from a combination of his lightning and water chakras. She herself was inclinated to fire chakra, but she had some ability with lightning to enable her to perform the transformation. She had quite a beautiful singing voice and her father would often request she sing to him while he worked as a fisherman, although from time to time he would perform some shinobi tasks for extra money. As she grew into a teenager, her singing caught the attention of a young man named Ryota; they became sweet hearts. Sayonakidori sought to strengthen her plasma technique so her father gifted her with his chakra zanbato. He told her to seek out Monk Isao in the northern mountains of the Land of Earth. Sayonakidori left her sweetheart and her family behind and went to seek her way out into the world.]
[She found Monk Isao and he recognized the chakra zanbato as one he forged himself and gifted to her father. Monk Isao originally helped train her father because her father was exceptional in being very strong in two chakra natures and thus needed special help in mastering them both, together they created the plasma transformation. Another physics bending jutsu Monk Isao and her father had been working on was supreme speed, and she surpassed her father where he had failed at it. Sayonakidori spent a few years training with Monk Isao, he often sent her on missions around the area to help strengthen and train her. She would use the hawks from the aviary to keep in contact with her parents and with Ryota. Sayonakidori loved Ryota and they planned to marry when she returned home. One day while training at the monestary, Sayonakidori stuck her zanbato into the ground and took a break down at the waterfall to cool off and refresh herself. She hadn't realized news of her unusual plasma jutsu had spread and caught the attention of Orochimaru. He had been observing her for awhile and understood the shape transformation took advantage of combining two different natures. He believed perhaps the transformation could be even greater if all five natures could be implemented. Transforming into a giant snake and taking her by surprise, Orochimaru captured Sayonakidori at the waterfall. Monk Isao heard her scuffle and came running to her aid, but he was too late and she was overwhelmed. Monk Isao could only stand sadly by and watch her be carried off by a giant snake.]
[At Orochimaru's laboratory he had already been collecting samples of various shinobi master's dna and tried injecting them directly into Sayonakidori, but with no viable results. He thought about when a human body starts developing their chakra and came to the conclusion it started in the womb when the body is developing everything else. Orochimaru was then stumped because obviously his test subject was well past that range... but what if she wasn't? He then started harvesting her cells and tried to create exact genetic replicas of Sayonakidori and impregnating her with her own clones. The first two trials failed, but the third was a success. He then began injecting the clone in utero with his collection of dna samples. Orochimaru supposed he didn't need to add fire because the host was originally strong in that element so he elected to add the other four elements along with yin and yang, and a sample from an interesting paralysis dojutsu he found. He went out on the search for an exemplary yinyang chakra and even the famous Uchiha sharingan if he could manage it. While he was gone, Sayonakidori escaped by slaying the guards and melting down the entire prison with plasma. Orochimaru immediately began searching for her because of how close she was to giving birth and he still wanted to get as much into the yet born child as possible.]
[Terrified and making a poor decision, Sayonakidori fled back to Monk Isao. By that point she had been kidnapped for nearly two years. He was overjoyed to see her again but surprised at her sickly and pregnant state. She explained all the torturous human experimentation she had been going through and Monk Isao told her about how worried her parents had been. As soon as she had been abducted, he wrote to them explaining what had happened and how over time they slowly communicated back and forth how there was no news of her and everyone had begun to lose hope. She begged Monk Isao to tell her the human combustion jutsu; she said even if she died and left a body there would be material for Orochimaru to play with. After the torture she had been through, she wouldn't let Orochimaru use her anymore. Monk Isao cried and relented. A day later there was a loud rumbling off in the distance as a giant snake began crashing through the forrest. Sayonakidori knew it was Orochimaru after her, and she must do what she could to lead the monster away. Monk Isao called out to her asking if she needed her zanbato and she told him "No, where I'm going I won't need it. Save it for a future generation with more hope." Monk Isao watched her leave and with a single tear running down his face, he wrote to her family to inform them of her final fate. Sayonakidori zipped away across the landscape. She traveled west through the Land of Earth then turned south, outside the borders of the Land of Wind.]
[Sayonakidori was ahead of Orochimaru by a fair distance now, but she couldn't put off her labor anymore and she knew in that time he would catch up to her. She found a valley and gave birth next to the creek that ran through it. There she gave birth to twin girls. One was stillborn and the other looked exactly like Sayonakidori but with purple streaks running through her hair. Sayonakidori wasn't expecting twins but neither was Orochimaru, so she bundled both children and headed into the nearby village as the night began to fall. She strapped the stillborn to her back, under her loose robes and carried the live child in her arms. Sayonakidori's eyes darted back and forth, unsure of where to leave the babe. The sound of a woman crying caught her ear; through an open window she heard a woman mourning over her inability to have a child of her own and Sayonakidori's instinct told her this was a place the baby would be safe. She knocked on the door and the crying stopped. After a moment the door opened and a tall, thin, blonde, couple answered. Sayonakidori offered the child saying "Today is her birthday, the only thing I can give her is to place her with a family that will love and cherish her". Not that the couple needed convincing as they took the baby without hesitation, then Sayonakidori used supreme speed and disappeared.]
[The village was far off in the distance when Orochimaru caught up to her, cradling the stillborn. Sayonakidori had her final confrontation with him before rendering herself and the stillborn to smoldering ash with the human combustion jutsu. Her final thoughts were "Damn... and today was my twenty-fifth birthday too...". Orochimaru removes his mind penetrating chakra snake from her and as Masami realizes she's back in the present again she begins to shake with anger as purple tears begin to roll down her face. Orochimaru glances over at Sasuke before returning his attention to her and speaks]
"Looks like I may have lucked out after all. Sayonakidori, you were a fool for not destroying every piece of you"
[As Masami's tears fall from her face, they begin to melt Orochimaru's snake coils. He realizes her tears aren't tears at all but rather drops of plasma. Soon her whole body erupts in purple flames from all her repressed fire chakra and the snakes begin to crumble away. The flames change state to plasma and she looks like a vaguely humanoid monster made of a flowing solid electricity creating blinding violet light. Orochimaru realizes he can't contain her and he commands for Kabuto and Sasuke to take cover as he does the same. Even though the sandstorm still rages, it has lessened some and Masami blasts her way through the wall of the stone and out into the storm. As the roar of the wind whistles into the now exposed area, Kabuto yells over to his master]
"LORD OROCHIMARU! ARE WE TO FOLLOW HER?"
"NO! YOU TWO REMAIN HERE AND WAIT FOR ME, I SHALL RETRIEVE HER!"
(Orochimaru thinking) "If I can't bring her back in one piece I need to make certain Sasuke remains intact..."
[Overflowing with a lifetime of inhibited chakra, Masami blazes through the storm. She doesn't know how but she is sure she is headed east into the Land of Rivers. Orochimaru can't keep up with her, but he keeps focusing on the light she's emitting and heading towards it. After awhile he hopes if he just keeps heading the same direction he'll catch her]
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