Naruto no Rei
Ch. 3 – Sunshine and Moonlight
-=-
Naruto sat in the forest, eyeing his new tail. He started growling a little, but didn't stay in that one place much larger. He began sniffing around, trying to search out his next meal. He found it when he made his way to Kyouga town, the last town before Konoha. He would feast today, and attack at midnight.
Though still primal, that new tail did manage to give him the ability to think, even if only in a basic way. However… it was doubtful Naruto would ever be able to think coherently again.
--
"Your Jyuuken won't work on something that's dead. You will each have to temporarily use the usual ninja weapon to fight, he must be physically killed, or else he will continue to fight back." Pakkun instructed, most of the Hyuuga looking ready to protest. "If you don't want to fight, by all means, give Uchiha-san another reason to think himself better than the Hyuuga. If a Sharingan wielder kills Naruto and not a Byakugan-wielder, then Sasuke will never let you forget it."
At this point, Hinata broke out in tears and ran full-speed away from the stadium, all the other Hyuuga too enraged at the thought of Sasuke showing them all up to notice her departure. Hinata ran as quickly as possible to the woods. Once there, she continued to run until she managed to make her way to the wall of Konoha. Thoroughly tired from a run over twenty miles long in the span of ten minutes, Hinata collapsed, breathing heavily, bawling her eyes out in front of the wall.
As she sat there, crying miserably, she thought back through how these things happened. First, the Yondaime put the Kyuubi in Naruto, destroying his chance at a good life. Then, the people of Konoha started to act on it, making Naruto's life as bad as possible at that time. As he grew, they began sabotaging him in the academy. When he became a ninja, it became a whispered rule that no assistance would be given to him.
And now that he had been unfortunately transformed into a monster, rather than try to find a way to help him… they decide to kill him as soon as possible. If she had turned into one of those monsters… would they have killed her too? Of course not, she's the precious Hyuuga heiress. They would've done everything they could to save her. Hell, they probably would've offered some branch member to keep her dead form loyal to them.
Hinata stopped her heavy breathing for a second to pull out a kunai, staring at it. She narrowed her eyes, a small anger festering as she recalled her father's actions toward herself, the small anger growing as she recalled how the village treated Naruto. On an impulse, she cut toward her neck, making a deep stab in her neck. Her eyes watered more at the pain it brought, but she continued to push the small knife deeper into her neck. Soon enough, her body fell, and she found herself standing beside her body, a chain connecting her to her near-dead body by a chain. A few seconds later, the chain broke off from her now-dead body.
She found herself inside of what she could only explain as a room, a dark room. At the center of the room's ceiling, seemingly where the sun would be, was a ring of white light, the only source of light in the room. As she looked at it, she began to get a little worried. In an attempt to calm herself, she activated her Byakugan. What she saw started her slightly.
It was a completely blank landscape, with hundreds of doors all over the place. From the centers of the doors, ribbons could be seen stretching toward her. She saw two doors that stood out, one with a black ribbon, the other with a red ribbon. The door with a red ribbon opened, a woman standing at five feet tall stepping out. She had eyes identical to Hinata's, and her hair was just like Hinata's, only black. Apart from key differences.
This woman wore a black version of everything Hinata wore, her skin was bleach-white, and her scleras were black. She also had a katana at her left side. "Welcome, Hinata-chan."
"Um, h-how do you know my name?" Hinata asked, the woman grinning in an odd way.
"Because, I'm part of you, believe it or not." The woman said, walking toward Hinata. "I've been here this whole time, you just haven't known it."
"W-where exactly a-are we?" Hinata asked, the woman still grinning.
"We're inside your soul. All you're here to do is find your power and choose your path. Of course, if you don't choose quickly enough, then things won't work out." The woman said, Hinata nodding uncertainly. "Now, let's begin with what those ribbons you're seeing are. They're called spirit ribbons. White ones are the ones normal souls have, black ones are the ones hollows have, and red ones are the ones Shinigami have."
"N-Naruto-kun… Naruto-kun is a Hollow… if I became a Hollow… could I be with him?" Hinata asked the woman, the woman still grinning.
"Well, by the way you ended up in here, you don't have a choice but to be at least part Hollow. However… if you keep an open mind, and accept the small amount of power as a Shinigami that has remained dormant in your ancestry, you can become a Shinigami with the powers of a Hollow." The woman said. "But what you would have to do is learn my name, and enter the door with the black ribbon."
"Oh, w-well, w-what is your name, Ma'am?" Hinata asked politely, still shaky from her meek nature.
"Hmm, look around this place. It's dark, yet there is still a light here. More importantly, look at the light source? Does it remind you of anything?" The woman asks Hinata, Hinata deactivating her Byakugan and staring at the ring of light.
"I-It looks, almost like… an eclipse." Hinata said, looking at the woman, whose grin grew. "Your name is… is it Nisshoku?" The woman's grin somehow grew more as she bowed deeply, her sword vanishing and reappearing at Hinata's own left side. Now having an opportunity to inspect it, Hinata pulled the blade out of its bleach-white sheath. She saw how it was a normal katana, but as she recalled the name of the woman before her, she saw the sword and sheath change. The sword changed into a long-sword with two edges that rounds to a point instead of going from straight into a tip. The sharpened edges were white and bright as the sun, while the metal inside it was black as night. The sheath turned into a pitch-black long-sword sheath.
"I block out light, as well as hope. I am indeed Nisshoku (Solar-Eclipse), and you are ready to become one with my other self." Nisshoku said, holding her arm toward the door as she remained bowed in her laid-back fashion. Hinata, feeling more confident than normal, drew the blade, and next thing she knew, she was feeling much like Nisshoku looked. A lot more… energetic and free. "My other self, your Hollow side, is on the other side of that door there. Use my strength to survive, and remember, you only have about an hour before you turn completely into a hollow instead of a mix of Hollow and Shinigami, and trust me, at the rate Hollow-boy's going, you won't be able to keep up with him if you start out as a simple little hollow. So get goin', Hina-chan."
Needing no further encouragement as she became more like Nisshoku, Hinata leapt to the door, opening it before stepping inside calmly. As she did, she found herself in another room, identical to the other apart from two things. One, there was no more than the door she had entered from in here. Two, there wasn't a ring of light showing an eclipsed sun, there was only a bloody-red moon in the sky. She looked around, forsaking her Byakugan in favor of instinct, seeing a figure identical in shape to Nisshoku step into the red light. This woman looked mostly like Nisshoku, but her clothes were white, her hair was white, her sword was the opposite color-scheme of Hinata's, she had black teeth, and her eyes had white scleras with black Hyuuga eyes.
"I take it you're my Hollow-side then?" Hinata asked, the black-eyed woman grinning insanely, laughing crazily all the while.
"Nice deduction there, missy. Yeah, I'm your Hollow-side. Pleased to meet you, Hyuuga Hinata. How's life treating you with that old bastard walkin' all over you?" The woman asked rudely, Hinata smirking.
"Well, if it was going well, would I be here?" Hinata asked, the black-eyed woman laughing insanely.
"You've got a point there! So, why you here? Not enough power outta that sword in your hand? I figured, Nee-chan would be enough for you to handle, whaddaya want me too for?" The woman asked, Hinata's smirk shrinking slightly.
"Well, if you're in my soul, you must know of who I'm in love with, as well as his situation." Hinata said, the woman's grin growing. "Well, I figure, if I'm in love with him, and everyone else is just a good-for-nothing who's put both of us down our whole lives, why the hell shouldn't I take an evil power that'll make me the kind of person who can get revenge and my love's attention?"
The woman's grin became down-right face-splitting as she drew her sword and charged Hinata. Hinata blocked, the woman looking her firmly in the eye with a crazed look.
"Well, well, well, Hina-chan wants a back-bone! Who'd ever think that would happen?! Well, if you want my power, tell me my name! A hollow is a soul, so why the hell can't it also be a Zanpaku-to?!" The woman question loudly and insanely, pressing forward on Hinata.
Hinata pushed her back, taking a slash out at her herself. It was blocked immediately, and the black-eyed woman pushed back on Hinata's attack. Hinata pushed as well, but found that this woman was stronger than her. Hinata analyzed the woman, and noticed that there was a slight red aura around the woman's retinas. Hinata broke the dead-lock, and jumped back into the darkness, out of the light. Hinata jumped around the circle of illuminated ground, picking up speed.
"What's wrong? Afraid to come after me?" Hinata asked, the woman scoffing. "Afraid to leave your bloody light?" Hinata asked, the woman growling slightly with a scowl. "Afraid of the dark?"
The woman lunged into the darkness, anger radiating off her. She tried to slash at where Hinata's voice had been, but only hit air. Hinata, still fighting on instinct, gave a slash to her right, cutting into the woman's shoulder. She then jumped up as hard as she could, aiming to get over the woman. As she made her descent, she slashed in a cork-screw, catching the woman twice in her side.
"Looks like you aren't so tough out of your element." Hinata said, hearing the woman's pained pants. "Outside of the light from this lunar eclipse, you don't have any extraordinary power." Hinata said, catching the woman's name like a slap to the face. "Would your name happen to be Gesshoku (Lunar-Eclipse)?" Almost immediately after she said that, the shadows in the room vanished, showing the woman grinning like a maniac. Hinata felt another sword in a sheath appear on her left side, sheath crossing Nisshoku's sheath. Hinata was about to leave the room when she heard Gesshoku laughing crazily again.
"Well, took you long enough to figure it out. Guess it's time for me and Nee-chan to start giving you the help you seem to need. But remember, you have two of the darkest weapons out there, you're a Shinigami with two different Zanpaku-to, one of which holds the soul of a Hollow, you'd better not tarnish that reputation by losing, or I'll gut you myself and take your power for my own!"
With that said, Hinata felt herself getting pulled into her conscious mind, the worlds before her vanishing back into the darkness.
\-/
Chapter End
Ok, bit of a side thing here, but I figured that it could work out.
The deal with her Hollow side being a second Zanpaku-to, well, why the hell not? Where is it written that a Zanpaku-to can't have the soul of a Hollow?
