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Without further ado...enjoy!

Chapter 26: History

"Dark is the dawn in winter,

The sun obscured by snow;

Long is the night in December,

When the stars coldly glow."

~The First Book of Akash, Verse XIII

Akemi settled back in her chair, her gray eyes soft, and sad. "If I am going to start at the beginning, Yuki, I am going to start at the very beginning—to the times before Konoha's founding."

Akemi eyed her stunned granddaughter for a moment before continuing. "At that time, the Uchiha were simply a mercenary tribe, who were hired to attack a village underneath the shadow of the Akash mountain range. The Uchiha warriors, led by Uchiha Madara and his son, Uchiha Ayumu, led the fray."

Yuki eyed Akemi inquisitively, for she had never heard of anyone named Uchiha Ayumu, but she did not interrupt. Akemi pressed on, "It was a harsh battle, for the warriors of the valley were strong, and numerous; though the Uchiha were victorious in the end, many of their warriors had fallen. Uchiha Ayuma also fell in this battle, his sharingan utterly spent. But before his body could be recovered by his clansmen, another battalion of warriors came in, and drove the Uchiha out.

"But Ayumu was not dead. When his eyes opened, his wounds were being tended by a woman he did not know—a woman from the village that the Uchiha had just razed." Akemi paused in her tale to withdraw a scroll from her apron pocket. She read aloud:

"I was left for dead on the battlefield,

During the first, so called, great war;

My lifeblood pooling in the earth,

My eyes broken and dark.

She came striding through the carnage,

Like an angel draped in black;

When she saw my labored breathing,

She carried me on her back

Saying 'All my kin lay fallen,

My village is ash, smoldering in rain;

But your life I can save with my hands,

And the herb called Angel of the Mountain.'

I awoke the next morning,

Her brother's eyes where once were mine;

And gasping with my newfound sight,

Realized she hailed from the enemy's side."

"What are you reading, baachan?" Yuki asked, confused. "And why would anyone rescue an enemy?"

Akemi smiled and rolled up the scroll. "I'm simply reading from Ayumu's book—these are his words, about what happened after the battle. According to him, a woman saved him because she was sick of death; because she didn't want anyone else to die."

"But that's crazy!" Yuki protested.

Akemi shook her head from side-to-side. "It might sound crazy, but the woman, Aiko, had a special jutsu that could see through time and space. She saw that Ayumu's family had also been killed in the war—that he was like her.

"When Ayumu recovered, she traveled with him to his village, and as she had said, everyone had been killed—his wife, his children, and many of his closest friends. And so Ayumu and Aiko went up into the Akash mountain ranges to escape the horrors wrought by the First Ninja War—they were the first to defect from the Uchiha clan."

Yuki massaged her temples, lost in thought. Finally, she ventured, "You said that they were the first to defect from the Uchiha clan—does that mean there were others who joined them?"

Akemi chuckled at that. "Indeed. Sharp as a tack, as always, my Yuki-san. About five years after the war, there was a faction of Uchiha that did not want to follow Uchiha Madara, for his policies had become violent, and evil. There was a great battle among the Uchiha and many died; the surviving members of the dissenting branch family escaped into the Akash mountain range, and there they met with Ayumu and Aiko.

"Aiko at the time was heavy with child, and when she heard Uchiha Madara's name, she saw a vision. What she saw was so horrifying, however, that she started to undergo the pangs of childbirth. It was a long, hard labor, and though the child was born healthy, Aiko bled to death. She called Ayumu over and transferred her jutsu—the power to see through things and beyond things—to him before she died. With her dying breath, she named her youngest son Aiseki; and Aiseki was my own grandfather," said Akemi with a sigh, her voice hoarse.

Yuki unhooked her canteen from her belt and handed it to Akemi. As Akemi drank deeply, Yuki asked, "So—you mean to tell me that other Uchiha still exist?"

The old woman nodded and replied, "The story does not end, yet, Yuki-chan—listen carefully. The branch family, along with Ayumu and his children, decided to become a nomadic mountain tribe in order to evade discovery. And ever since, the People of the Hill have wandered the Akash mountain range, living peaceful lives far outside the reach of politics and war.

"Now Ayumu, who was the founder of the Hill Folk, was an expert sharingan wielder. He found that his doujutsu, combined with his wife's powers of perception, allowed him to deepen his use of the sharingan. One of the techniques he perfected was traveling interdimensionally, something that traditionally only a few wielders of the mangekyo sharingan could achieve. And with this new found power, he trained the rest of his tribe in this kind of jutsu, so that they could evade all of their pursuers."

"Akemi-baachan? Why—how did you get here? If you are—you know, one of them," Yuki asked with trepidation, "then why are you here, in Konoha?"

Akemi nodded solemnly before continuing, "I was sent to Konoha to live as a spy, for we had seen strange portents regarding the main house. I posed as a craftsperson and moved into a cheap apartment in the Uchiha district, and I learned that the Uchiha were planning a coup d'etat. But before I could relay the information to my elders, the massacre happened. I remember it so clearly, when Itachi slithered through my window..." Akemi broke off and wiped at her eyes.

Akemi took a deep breath before continuing. "Thankfully, Madara was not with him, otherwise I wouldn't be here today. But Itachi wasn't familiar with branch family jutsu, and I was able to transport myself to another dimension while casting a genjutsu to cover my tracks. While traveling between the worlds, I received orders from my father to continue on in Konoha as a spy.

"Afterwards, I returned to Konoha and married a very sweet and dear man. I told him that I had been out of town while the massacre had taken place, and he took pity on me. I moved my shop to the main street on Konoha and continued to sell my wares, all the while relaying messages back to my people—"

"You—you're a traitor?" Yuki stood and pointed to Akemi with a shaking hand.

"Yuki-san, sit," Akemi quietly insisted. As though transfixed, Yuki stilled and sat back down. "My people are not a warring tribe; we were gathering information for our own safety, nothing more. We had reason to believe that we, too, would have been targeted if we had been discovered. As you know, the Uchiha massacre was organized by Konoha itself."

Yuki nodded; she had learned that this was so in the academy. "Well," Akemi continued, "during my work observing Konoha, I saw that the danger was not over for the Uchiha. Have you ever thought of what happened to the Uchiha who were out on missions, or who were simply out of town, at the time of the massacre?"

Yuki shook her head.

"No one talks about this," Akemi muttered, "but these individuals were brutally hunted down and slaughtered by Konoha's Root. I was able to warn a few of these souls and guide them to our safe-haven in Akash. Although there were many I could not save..."

Here, Akemi paused and wrung her hands in her lap. Yuki stared at her tiny grandmother, and wondered how it was that the little old lady had been so bad-ass. But Yuki had little time to wonder, for Akemi recovered herself and continued her tale.

"Thus, the third wave of Uchiha refuges made their way to the mountains," Akemi said softly, her gray eyes still cloudy with sorrow. "Unfortunately, Madara learned of our existence at this time, though he was so preoccupied with the Akatsuki, and accumulating the tailed beasts, that the peoples of Akash were left unharmed—until now." Akemi paused and leaned heavily against the back of her chair, as if weary, while Yuki bit her lower lip in anxiety. Whatever was going to come next, it was not going to be good.

"After the Fourth Ninja War," Akemi pressed on, "Madara didn't die—but he wasn't quite alive, either. He roamed the earth as a hungry ghost, feeding like a spider off of the souls of his victims. He started off by sucking the life out of plants and animals, but after about a decade, he had enough strength to go after humans."

"Just like a vampire," Yuki said with a shudder. It had been Uzumaki Ryuu who had believed in all sorts of supernatural beasts, like werewolves and ghosts; Yuki had always ridiculed him for it. But now she saw there was some truth to these dark mythological creatures: if anyone was a vampire, it was Madara.

Akemi nodded thoughtfully at Yuki's comparison. "Yes. Madara would suck his victims' chakra right out of their bodies—disgusting man," she spat with a shake of her head. "And that is when Madara came to Akash and started killing off my kinsman. My granddaughter Aya managed to fend him off in the end, but not before he had already taken a fair number of my people.

"Now dearie, here is the pivotal thing you must know: when Madara tapped out their vital essence, his victims did not die. Instead, they became soulless, animated corpses completely under Madara's control. Not only is Madara rejuvenating himself, but he is amassing an inhuman army in a manner similar—but more terrifying—than edo tensei."

"Edo tensei—like in the last ninja war? When Kabuto revived the bodies of dead shinobi?" Yuki replied in horror, recalling the examples from her textbooks.

Akemi nodded. "Yes. It's a similar jutsu, but even more deadly. When Madara sucks the life essence out of his victims, a small part of Madara's energy goes into the dead body. This process doesn't require a sacrifice, and it's all too easy for him to perform. Worst of all, our enemy has figured out how to infuse his own essence into a poison-like substance that sucks out his victims chakra and eventually makes them part of his soulless army. He doesn't need to personally attack his victims anymore, but instead has his minions do it for him. Do you remember your mission?"

Yuki paled and replied, "You mean—that poison on Yajirushi's arrows turns people into zombies? And Yajirushi—was he a zombie himself? What the fuck!"

"I don't know how he does it," Akemi replied evenly as she ignored Yuki's expletive, "but the poison has a parasitical quality—"

"That's it!" Yuki broke in, rising from her seat. "The poison feeds not only on the physical body, but on the chakra system. That was the darkness I saw around sensei's body when I healed him—it was Madara's chakra transferring places with sensei's!"

"That seems plausible, indeed. As I said, I'm not sure exactly how the jutsu works; my granddaughter, Aya, is more of an expert. But in any event, with each victim, Madara gets stronger in body, while simultaneously he amasses a huge army. But that's not the worst of our worries."

Yuki's eyes grew wide—what could possibly be worse than the return of Madara and the rising of another zombie army? She sank down into her seat and gripped the bench underneath her with white fingers, looking at her grandmother expectantly.

Akemi closed her eyes and spoke. "Yuki-san. Madara is at the point where he is looking for a host body. You see, he lost his physical form in the last war when he was defeated by your father. But now, he's amassed enough chakra that he can steal a physical form." Akemi opened her eyes and looked straight at Yuki. "And he's coming to take your body."

Yuki blanched and almost fell out of her seat. "W-what?"

"Madara is coming to steal your very body. And he's going to be here within three days."

"Tsunade-sama!"

Tsunade looked up from her stack of papers to regard the ANBU black ops with a cicada mask. "Shino-san. Any news?" she barked.

Shino bowed, his features impassive even in the face of Tsunade's impatience. "No, my lady," he buzzed. "We scoured the Akash range, but were unable to find the Hill People of which Hokage-sama spoke."

Tsunade grunted and resisted the urge to swear or to break Naruto's office furniture. "I feared as much," Tsunade muttered as she reached for a flask of sake and took a long, long drink.

"My apologies, Tsunade-sama," Shino replied, his voice inflectionless.

"Please," Tsunade grumbled, slamming down her flask of sake on the desk and reclining back in her seat. "It wasn't your fault. I shouldn't have let Naruto-kun go off on his own..." Tsunade trailed off and exhaled hotly. It was no surprise that these so called "Hill People" hadn't been located; after all, they had had fair warning of Konoha's interest in tracking them, courtesy of Sasuke's medical emergency.

"Shino-san," Tsunade barked, "bring me Naruto. I need to speak with him. And while you're at it, bring Sasuke here, too."

"Yes ma'am, Tsunade-sama," Shino replied quietly. He bowed once more before he disappeared in a cloud of hissing insects.

What the fuck do I do now? Tsunade thought wearily as she clutched her it all, she was supposed to be retired! And Naruto still had to go over the new medical data that Karin had gathered on Gomakashi's animated corpse, as well as the new intel from the border. Although, much to her chagrin, nothing conclusive had been gleaned from the information as of yet...

Just as Tsunade was lost in her hopeless musings, Naruto and Sasuke entered the office. Tsunade was about to speak, but when she saw Sasuke, her mouth parted open and a strangled croak came out.

"Oi, baachan, sorry I didn't tell you about this—" Naruto gestured towards Sasuke, but he was interrupted by Tsunade, who had recovered herself.

"Uchiha—are you wearing purple contacts? Tell me you're just wearing purple contacts!" Tsunade shouted, standing up abruptly and glowering at Sasuke.

"Baachan, he has some weird, awesome mix between a sharingan and a rinnegan!" Naruto yelled. Next to him, Sasuke flinched.

Tsunade's hand clenched her sake flask as Naruto detailed Sasuke's newly found ocular powers. Her gaze traveled between Naruto and Sasuke, the former looking like the cat who had swallowed the canary, the latter looking more like the canary.

Finally, Tsunade sank back down in her chair and cleared her throat. "Well, that's interesting, to say the least," Tsunade grumbled. She rubbed her aching forehead and muttered, "If Naruto believes in this new jutsu, then I believe in it, too. But for now, Uchiha-san, perhaps you should wear some sunglasses?"

Tsunade shook her head from side to side. It would be disastrous if the village learned about Sasuke's new jutsu at this juncture—there were many who didn't trust the Uchiha in the first place, and with everything going on right now, Tsunade didn't want to give anyone fuel for the fire.

She cleared her throat as Sasuke took out a pair of shades from his pocket. "Naruto-kun? Have you told Hiashi-sama...?"

"It is a recent development, Tsunade-sama," Sasuke replied instead. "We were not aware of my capabilities until this afternoon,"

"You do realize that the only reason Hiashi didn't protest the eye transplant was because, ostensibly, Ryuu didn't have the byakugan?" Tsunade snapped. She saw Naruto's face fall and instantly regretted her cold tone.

"I'll tell him tonight, baachan," Naruto murmured. "What is done is done. But I agree, otherwise we should keep our new secret weapon under wraps."

Sasuke winced at Naruto's phrasing; Naruto caught Sasuke's expression and shrugged. "Sorry Sasuke, but I have a feeling you are going to come in handy."

Tsunade clucked her tongue; there was no time, no time for any of this! She gestured for the pair to come closer. "Naruto-kun, Sasuke, I have some new information I want you to look over."

As the two settled down on either side of the Godaime, Tsunade suppressed a sigh. Things were already complicated enough; Sasuke's new ocular development, she feared, was only going to complicate things even more. Hopefully Hiashi won't freak out about the byakugan (or whatever it is!) being given to a non-clan member—and to an Uchiha at that.

She leaned her aching head into her hand. Well, guess I'll just have to bet on Naruto, as always. He hasn't let me down yet. She spared a smile for the blond man and began going over the intel.

Yuki's normally stoic face was lined with worry. "So. It really was true...the dream..." Yuki held her head in her hands, feeling dizzy. "And I need to leave—?"

Akemi nodded. "We should leave as soon as possible."

"Can't I think about it?" Yuki squeaked. She didn't know what to think. She needed time to mull things over, to be objective; wasn't that what her father was always telling her, to think important things over with a clear head? That was the Uchiha way, after all.

Akemi murmured, "Take a day to digest what I've said, but you need to come back tomorrow, at midnight. That's when we'll make our way to Akash." At her words, a soft mewing sound came from the archway leading to the house. "Ah, Tobias. Come forward, dear, and introduce yourself!"

From the shadows of the gray stone archway, an equally gray cat padded forward. "Yuki-san," Akemi murmured, "this is Tobias-san. He's been a long time friend of mine."

Tobias bowed his head to Yuki and said, "Akemi-san, you'll grow weary if you hold up the barrier any longer; it's not safe to use it for extended periods of time. If they catch you—"

Akemi shook her head. "I'm a hundred and four years old. What do I have to fear?" Regardless, she shooed the nin cat back to the shadows, and then dissolved the silverly substance that had enclosed the garden space. "Well dear, I do hope you'll come back tomorrow!" Akemi offered to Yuki with false brightness.

Yuki nodded but otherwise remained silent as she made her way to the garden gate. Akemi followed her and gave her a kiss on her forehead. "Don't forget now, dearest."

"Yes, Akemi-baachan," Yuki whispered. In a daze, she opened the gate and let herself out. On the street, thick with swarms of passersby, everything looked different, although nothing had changed but Yuki herself.

Why had she never learned about the branch family in the academy? At this thought, Yuki smiled sardonically. I'm such an idiot. If these are ninja adept at concealing themselves, then of course no one in Konoha would really know about them. Because besides that weird interdimensional jutsu that Yuki didn't fully understand, the Uchiha were also skilled in genjutsu; she was sure that this was part of the branch family's ability to conceal themselves. I wonder if that silver barrier baachan used was some kind of genjutsu? Yuki shook her head; how could she think about jutsu at a time like this?

After all, she had just found out that her clan was still alive, yet hunted by the spectral figure of Madara. And worst of all, Madara was coming to steal her body—she still didn't believe it. It seemed absurd, too terrifying and bizarre to be real. Why her? She was only ten, for fuck's sake!

But then, Yuki thought back to her battle with Yajirushi. She had assumed that Yajirushi had come to steal her eyes, but now, she wasn't so sure. If Yajirushi had in fact been an agent of Madara, was robbing her of her sharingan truly his main objective?

Yuki continued to ponder as she made her way home, her brows furrowed in furious thought, and it was in this reeling state of consciousness that Tadashi found her on the main street.

"Yuki."

Yuki blinked and looked up at the source of the gruff voice, and was surprised to see Tadashi; she was perturbed by the fact that he had omitted the honorific after her name.

"Tadashi...san," she replied cautiously.

"Yuki. Fight me. Right now," the younger ninja called, his vehemence crackling in the air between them.

Yuki blinked in confusion. "You want to fight me right here?"

Tadashi shook his head. "Follow me—jerk."

Yuki shook her head, then followed the retreating form of Tadashi heading towards the training grounds. She grinned. Perhaps beating Tadashi into a bloody pulp was just the therapy she needed after a day like today...

The fading twilight colored their skin and clothing, shades of gray covered in a thin wash of cadmium. Yuki could feel the build up of stress in her body buzzing in her extremities, as if aching for release.

Tadashi faced her, his expressionless face lit on one side with eerie shades of carmine, the other shadowed in ultramarine. His white, pupiless eyes held hatred and fury as he stood, silently appraising his opponent for a moment, before he spoke.

"What you did to me is absolutely unforgivable. That puerile prank—whereupon a bird defecated on my head—was unacceptable. Absolutely unacceptable," Tadashi spat. He crouched low in a fighting stance. "Let's settle this—right here, right now."

Yuki tilted her chin up and smiled, hints of feral violence glinting off of her white teeth. "What I did to you, you deserved for insulting myself and Ryuu-kun. And I'll make you pay for it again, right now," she retorted hotly as she cracked her knuckles. "Let's go all out, Tadashi."

They started off by throwing a few feints at each other—a round-house kick which Tadashi blocked, a few shuriken which Yuki dodged with ease—but Yuki soon grew tired of their dance. Not wanting to hold back any longer, she formed familiar hand-signs after she threw distracting kunai at Tadashi's head.

"Fire style: fire ball jutsu!" A plume of fire left her lips, casting the previously low-lit clearing into high relief; luminescent orange and red lit the forest with hellish light. Yuki stood back, hoping that she had scored a hit on her opponent, but much to her disappointment, Tadashi emerged from the smoke, completely unscathed.

"I'm afraid attacks like that won't work on me, Yuki-chan," Tadashi taunted. "I've been training quite extensively with eight-trigrams-palms-revolving-heaven, and I've even surpassed my father at the jutsu."

"Well, aren't you the prodigy," Yuki mocked as she bit her finger in order to call her summons. However, halfway between slamming her hand down to the ground and funneling chakra into her arm, she stopped. I can't summon Tama—the Hokage would have my head! Damn!

Tadashi took the opening and came at her with his gentle fist style. She dodged the attacks, but Tadashi was fast, and soon a sheen of sweat wet her forehead. Yuki began thinking furiously of a plan. Tadashi is a close range fighter—I need to get out of range and hit him with a long range attack. As she dodged his next punch, she chucked a smoke bomb at his feet and leapt away.

Yuki found a hiding place in a nearby tree and breathed softly. If Tadashi could deflect even an elemental attack with his gentle fist style, then he really was a damned prodigy. But then again, so was she; she was not going to lose to this twerp.

I need to distract him with an attack while hitting him from a side he's not expecting. But just as she formed her plan, a swarm of weapons flew by her hiding spot. Yuki ducked just in time as a well-placed shuriken cut the upper portion of her tree in half. Sweet Kami—he could have decapitated me! Yuki thought as she fell to the ground, momentarily stunned at her opponent's audacity.

Tadashi laughed, and called out to her, "Oh, and did I mention I have a whole slew of long range attacks in these scrolls!" The boy patted a fat wad of scrolls on his back.

Yuki thought bitterly, Those must have been a graduation present from his okaasan—what a little brat. But Yuki herself wasn't the daughter of two geniuses for nothing. With a snarl, she gathered chakra into her fist and slammed it down onto the ground. A fissure in the earth instantly formed, heading straight for Tadashi. As the earth lurched and boy attempted to regain his footing, Yuki blended back into the shadows of the forest.

Just as she was weaving a rather complicated genjutsu— an illusion so powerful that even Tadashi's byakugan would have been fooled— Tadashi called, "That's it, Yuki! Run away, just like your traitor of a father, Uchiha Sasuke!"

Yuki paused mid hand-sign and gritted her teeth. Don't answer him, she thought. He's just trying to get a rise out of you!

But Tadashi continued, "That's right, your father is nothing but a dirty traitor. He ran off and joined Orochimaru; then, the back-stabber killed his sensei, murdered his own brother, and then joined forces with Madara and the Akatsuki."

Yuki closed her eyes briefly before weaving her hand-signs again. The particular illusion she wanted to cast was somewhat complicated, and she really had to concentrate to pull it off. But Yuki wasn't worried or upset; Tadashi had only told her what she already had gleaned from her father. And in any event, otousan repented for everything by saving Hokage-sama's life, and defeating Madara, in the last war.

Unfortunately, Tadashi broke into her thoughts once more. "Of course, I bet you didn't know that your precious otousan tried to kill your own mother, and multiple times at that! Not to mention his attempts on our Hokage's life," he spat. "I broke into the Hyuga history vaults, and from my research, it seems like your father tried to murder Hokage-sama more times than I can count."

Yuki's hands froze, unable to make hand-signs anymore. "That's not true!" Yuki shouted. She marched out from her hiding spot and pointed to Tadashi accusingly. "That's not fucking true!"

"Whether you believe me or not, it's true," Tadashi countered with a shrug. "You should go to the restricted section of the library—it's all there." With that, Tadashi unraveled a long scroll, and a barrage of kunai flew directly towards Yuki. Yuki clenched her teeth and punched the earth with her fist, dislodging a chunk of ground and using it as a shield. After the last kunai sunk into the displaced earth, Yuki tossed it towards Tadashi who leapt over the mound and stood close to Yuki.

"Eight trigrams, sixty-four palms!" he called triumphantly. Yuki strained her sharingan to its limits, dodging the Hyuga's lightening-fast attacks. But her defense was not solid enough, and Tadashi hit a sensitive point on her shoulder—the same shoulder which she had injured in her mission against the arrow-wielding servant of Madara. She hissed and leapt back as the attack ended and funneled healing chakra into her aching shoulder; despite her efforts, the old wound remained opened, oozing blood.

Yuki was panting heavily, limp from pain and exhaustion. Her vision swam red, and all she could see were volleys of arrows and Ryuu's bleeding, punctured body lying prone on the earth. As her shoulder continued to weep blood, it seemed like Yuki's heart was also punctured, welling up with terrible waves of pain: guilt, sorrow, and loss made her lungs shudder with each breath and her shoulder ache twice as painfully. Yuki closed her eyes and grimaced, for her eyes, too, seemed to throb with unbearable, lashing pain.

Yuki could no longer stand the weight of it; she collapsed onto her knees.

"Of course," the young Hyuga prodigy drawled, impervious to Yuki's suffering, "your father also managed to kill scores of innocent people. But did you know that Sasuke also murdered Cho's grandfather in the last war?"

"W-what?" she hissed through clenched teeth. "You—you're lying. You're lying!"

"The Uchiha were originally massacred by Itachi, but it was Konoha who ordered their eradication. Do you know why, Yuki-chan?"

Yuki clenched her free hand tighter around her shoulder and glared up at Tadashi, though it made the pain in her eyes redouble. "Shut up!" she shrieked. "Shut up, you stupid brat! You have no idea—"

"Oh, but I do have an idea," he interjected, a smug smile on his face. "The Uchiha were killed because they were trying to overthrow the government. Originally, the Uchiha were formed as a genetic experiment, a derivation of the Hyuga. But they proved to be faulty experiments and needed to be purged. Itachi should have finished the job and killed your father too; after all, Sasuke ended up being a good-for-nothing war criminal—"

"I said, shut the fuck up! Don't talk shit about my father!" Yuki roared as she came to her feet, her chakra fluctuating wildly. Tadashi took this opening and, with a chakra enhanced fist, aimed straight for Yuki's heart—

But Yuki's sharingan was whirling frenetically, and when Tadashi met her eyes, he froze, then dropped down to the ground in an ungraceful heap before his deadly jutsu could meet her chest.

Yuki panted as she clutched her right eye. "Well. It's nice my sharingan can whip out a genjutsu under duress. You fucking piece of shit," Yuki snarled. "I hope whatever genjutsu my eyes just placed you under, it's fucking hell."

Yuki breathed heavily for a moment, her vision blurry in her right eye, the world lurching under her feet. But slowly, slowly, in the silent clearing that had grown monolithic and ultramarine with the growing shadows of night, she collected herself and made her way to the library.

a/n thanks for reading:) Please review:)