She didn't have a name like other people had, but she had a purpose nonetheless. A task that was expressed by the name her master gave her: Ni - Two. She was the barrier in the middle. The wall that would hold back any approaching tide. Master Hiruko claimed the Shinobi world for himself and Ni would do everything she can to serve him and his goals; even if it costs her her life.
Two Fates - The Story of Ni
Purpose
"Didn't I say we've been waiting!? Quit talking and fight!" - Ni
It was not a short distance that Ni and San had to travel before they finally reached their destination. Despite the high speed of the dog-like mount they had been riding on, which carried them through forest and steppe, as well as Ni's decent riding skills, they arrived when the sky had already begun to darken.
"This is the place," Ni said. "The description of the area fits."
In front of them stretched a comparatively open landscape, only interrupted here and there by steep, pointed rock formations. In contrast to the vegetation that the two had seen in this country so far, this region was noticeably dry.
"I agree," San confirmed.
The man, who was a head taller than his comrade and was still sitting behind her, looked relieved. Ni, who could feel her companion's sensations inside her, looked behind.
"Did you think we wouldn't find this place?"
"No, it's not that."
"What is it then?"
"I'm just glad we're finally here."
Ni frowned – clearly confused by San's statement.
"Now I can finally get off this beast," he clarified after he jumped off Ni's pet.
Only now did the woman realize that her companion had enjoyed the long ride much less than she had; San looked relieved. Actually, due to the mysterious connection that existed between them and through which they were able to sense each other's well-being, she should have felt this too, but her attention was probably elsewhere in the last few hours, which is why she had not noticed his feelings.
"This 'beast'?" Ni asked with a slightly irritated tone.
San looked up at the rider, who was still sitting on her dog.
"How do you prefer I call them?"
Ni hesitated; It hadn't occurred to her once before to give the two dog-like creatures a name. She knew others did. It was not uncommon for pet owners to give their four-legged companions a name as an expression of their affection and emotional connection to the creature. But she herself felt nothing of the sort. To Ni, her two beasts were just that; Beasts. Creatures bred and trained to serve their mistress. Well, she had referred to them as "her beloved servants" several times by now, but this term was more an expression of their role and function as bestial executors of her master's orders and less what people usually understood as a "name". . Nonetheless, Ni didn't like San's derogatory reference to her dogs as „beasts".
"That 'beast' brought your ungrateful ass here while you were allowed to rest on its back," she replied angrily - not answering his question.
"That is in fact true," San admitted. "It was created for that purpose though."
"What?"
"These creatures - your dogs, as well as the winged beast assigned to me by our master - were created solely to serve us, so that we in turn could better serve Master Hiruko. This is why THEY exist. This is why WE exist; to serve – and for no other reason."
Ni looked at her companion in silence for a moment. San returned her perplexed look with a blank expression of his. What he said was actually completely correct. However, a chill still ran down her spine because the way he phrased and spoke his words suggested that he was determined to do anything to fulfill the supposed purpose of his existence - regardless of what it meant for him, or his comrades. For Ni, the fact that Hiruko entrusted her with part of his genius was also an expression of his trust. However, San seemed to look at things more soberly.
"We shouldn't waste any more time. The longer we wait, the more likely this Ichi is dead." Ni noted - breaking off the previous topic of their conversation.
"And you yourself said that he could still be of value for our master - despite his obvious incompetence."
The beast lay down on its stomach and Ni sat down too. It breathed deeply and quickly in and out as it looked at its mistress with its tongue outstretched. Despite the exhaustion, it seemed happy and also expectant - apparently the animal was hoping for some kind of reward. Instead, Ni swung her whip at the tired four-legged companian who wanted to rest.
"Get up again, you lazy mutt!" she ordered in an imperious tone. "We're not done here yet."
The animal immediately jumped back to its feet. There was a soft, sad whimper as the creature realized that it wouldn't hear a word of praise or a gesture of affection from its mistress this time. Ni acknowledged the expenses of her animal servants, but if she wanted to prove her own worth to Hiruko, she would demand a lot more from the two dogs, artificially created to serve - just like herself.
"Do you have an idea how we're supposed to enter the hide..."
When Ni turned around to finish her question, she found that San had already set off alone. She stared at him offended for a moment before deciding to follow him. Her two dogs also started moving - one animal on each side, so that Ni walked right between the two armored animals and was protected from both sides. The area on which they were moving was completely unspectacular. There was nothing to suggest that beneath the layers of rock and earth, beneath their feet would be a vast underground labyrinth - which was probably and logically what the designers of this hideout had intended. Her eyes fell on San, who was walking some meters ahead of her; alone and unprotected. If they were caught in some sort of ambush, her comrade would probably be the first to perish. Not that she would mind... Or maybe she did? She would know when the time came. Now wasn't the time to think about her feelings, Ni realized. Suddenly San stopped and looked down.
"Did you find anything?" Ni asked with a loud voice. The rain had already stopped, but the wind was still blowing strongly, as if the storm was trying to decide whether it wanted to return or not.
"Yes," came the answer shortly. "The entrance."
Ni stood next to San and also looked down; a pithole stretched beneath them. The small pit was several tenants deep, but some of the rocks in it were clearly not of natural origin; The shapes that were carved on the rocks were far too uniform and far too flat on one side. Clearly evidence that these boulders were once part of a wall. Ni's dogs also joined in, looking down as their saliva dripped drop by drop from their outstretched tongues.
"I don't see any entrance," Ni remarked before jumping down, leaving her companion alone with her two dogs. One could almost think she did it on purpose to emulate and take revenge on him. Completely unimpressed - or simply completely unaware of the possible intention of her act - San also went down. Ni's dogs, however, whined - unwilling to jump down as well. Ni looked up at her animals.
"Stay where you are," ordered the gray-brown-haired woman. "You're of no use down here anyway."
Ni and San looked around. It seemed obvious that this conspicuous pit was not intended as the entrance to the hideout. Just like with the now destroyed Tenchi Bridge, there appears to have been a lethal dispute here too. It was almost certain that this hideout had been abandoned as a result of that very fight.
"Did our master tell you what happened here?" asked San.
"He didn't tell me any more than he told you," Ni replied.
"But it seems like it was a tough fight," she added, then ran along the pit wall, her hand brushing against the rock.
"Apparently."
"You probably saw the huge crater too - right after we crossed the river."
"Yes."
"I've been wondering the whole way here what kind of... being could cause such destruction."
Ni noticed that there were pieces of stone lying close together in two opposite parts of the pit. It looked as if they had been placed there intentionally.
"Here."
The woman with long, twisted hair pointed to the masses of rock behind which she assumed the entrance to the hiding place was.
"It seens that someone wants to keep uninvited guests out," San procluded.
"Hmph – a few stones won't stop us."
After that statement, she looked back at her dog-like servants, who seemed to have just been waiting for the woman to give them another order. Ni and San moved away from the boulder. No further direction or instruction were needed from her two-legged mistress; Ni's dogs seemed to have the intelligence necessary to understand for themselves what their mistress wanted them to do. Their spears, attached on their backs, shot out from their holders and then sank deep into the rock. Dust kicked up as some rocks were crushed by the impact. The two animals then retracted their spears. As the stone mist receded and was blown away by the evening wind, the entrance was exposed. Ni's servants had done a good job again, and again the woman refused them a word of gratitude; they simply served their purpose, just as she now intended to do. The entrance to the hideout looked anything but inviting; It was pitch black, but this didn't deter the two of them; They were used to darkness and they had a job to do. Nevertheless, caution was advised, which is why this time they entered the darkness together - side by side. Her dogs whimpered in concern as their harsh owner disappeared from their sight, but Ni didn't care.
"Do you know what exactly we're looking for here?" she asked.
"I was hoping you could tell me."
"Why me?"
"Because you've been talking to our master a lot lately and you might have a more concrete idea of what might be of value to him here, or what he could use for his experiments."
"You noticed that?"
"Of course."
The further they moved away from the entrance, the darker it became until Ni and San could no longer see anything except an overwhelming black that surrounded them on all sides. But then another source of light lit up; a white orb that floated above Ni's hand, illuminating her surroundings. Ni smiled at her comrade; The white cone of light that hit her face from below and illuminated it in a strange way almost made a ghostly impression on San.
"Are you jealous?"
"Don't be ridiculous," San replied annoyed and led the way again, apparently getting tired of her company again.
The corridor they walked through seemed almost endless. It took a long time until they reached a turn.
"And now?" Ni asked as she caught up with San, who hadn't exchanged a single word with her in the last few minutes - which Ni interpreted as confirmation that he did dislike the time Ni spent alone with Hiruko and the attention she had received from their master, which was mainly given; despite his feigned indifference to it.
"I think it would be best if we split up."
Ni looked at him briefly, as if weighing his suggestion. She then nodded in confirmation. Splitting up made perfect sense, and she didn't think San would use the idea to project his personal resentment onto the mission. Without exchanging another word, they separated from each other. Ni kept running. Her footsteps echoed through the halls until she noticed that the rhythm of her steps was increasingly changing, becoming faster as the distance she covered increased; There seemed to be nothing here except for a maze of halls and corridors that all looked the same. She became increasingly frustrated by the monotony of the place and eventually lost her patience. Frustrated and angry, she tightened her fist and her face and forced herself to stop.
"There is nothing here! What kind of place is this?!" she cursed.
In contrast to their own hideout, which was relatively small, this one seemed gigantic. But it was an empty infinity. Every step she took seemed completely pointless. There was no end in sight and no destination at all.
Suddenly she felt a deep unease. This feeling that came out of nowhere suddenly pushed aside all other sensations and thoughts and dominated her mind was definetely not hers, but it felt like it was affecting her too - or at least some part of her. That unease then turned to sheer panic, and Ni's eyes widened in fear.
"San!"
Something had happened, and Ni now had a clear goal in mind. She knew where to go instinctively, as if a voice in her head was whispering to her the right way. She ran down the countless, indistinguishable corridors until she reached a place that was aesthetically distinct from the rest of this hidden underworld; a huge room, at the end of which two fiery eyes stood out from the shadows - the eyes of a huge serpent. Ni shuddered for a moment, but realizing that the giant reptile was made of stone and could not harm her, she ventured further. Her eyes saw the silhouettes of two figures lying flat on the ground just in front of the snake made of stone. She knew who these people were; They were their comrades, Ichi and San. Apparently they were unconscious or incapacitated, but still alive. She reached for her whip: it seemed clear to her that the three of them were not alone whatsoever. She deactivated her Ball of Light Technique and cocked her gray whip as she walked forward with careful steps. When she finally reached her defeated comrades, she wanted to make sure whether and how badly they were injured, but then one of them suddenly moved; at first Ni couldn't tell if it was Ichi or San; She noticed that the two had a almost identical stature and the same face. Only the purple markings on his face and his straighter hairstyle told her that this was not the man with whom she had traveled together and arrived at this place. Unlike San, there were not three bars on Ichi's forehead, but only one.
One - Ichi; Two - Ni; Three - San. Hiruko's Three-Man Team.
She couldn't help but think of Hiruko's laboratory and the capsules with experiments that were in there, all of which bore a resemblance to San. Was there a connection between Ichi, San and the others? A connection with herself too? The man leaned on his elbows on the floor and stammered some sentence. Ni couldn't understand his words. She then knelt down next to him and bent over.
"What?"
"Behind... you!"
Ni turned around in surprise, at the same moment raising her whip above her head and swinging it at the shadows. She hit whatever was hiding in the darkness, but this didn't really prove to be an advantage; The figure grabbed and pulled on her whip with such force that Ni was knocked off her feets and crashed belly over onto the ground. She immediately tried to get back up, but then froze as her gray-brown eyes saw who or what they were dealing with; a misshapen creature stared down at her from above. Three meters tall, at least. It had the general body shape of a human, but long bones protruded from its skin, as if its skeleton were trying to break free from its cage of flesh. It also had a long, muscular tail from which bones stuck out like small thorns. The monster looked down at Ni with its dark green eyes surrounded by black. Then the monster in turn swung its whip - in the form of its thick tail - at the woman, who was still kneeling on the ground. Ni managed to push back her fear and roll her body to the side so that the tail hit the cold ground instead of her warm flesh - shattering it. She then rolled backwards and then stood up again.
"What kind of thing is that?" Ni asked incredulously, taking advantage of the distance from the monster and the quick break that was offered to her at that short moment.
"One... of Orochi... maru's experi... ments..." Ichi answered her in fragments and with a trembling voice. "I believe."
An... experiment?
An experiment, just like herself? Left behind here, in this dark, forgotten place by its master when it was no longer of any use to him?
Ni gritted her teeth. No - that would not be her fate as well!
The bony figure turned back to her. Apparently he was in no hurry to finish off his opponent. A sinister smile played on his lips, and his eyebrows - also made of bone, the ends of which jutted out from the sides of his face - were drawn together. The creature seems to have been confident of victory. Apparently the muscular beast even wanted to savor his triumph and feast on the woman's hopelessness and desperation, while she realized that she supposedly had no chance and that there was no escape.
San was on the ground, and Ichi seemed to have been unable to assist her anytime soon as well. Ni looked at her whip, which the monster had torn from her hands. He threw it away like a flimsy, useless rope that was no longer of any use before marching menacingly towards her with long, slow steps. Ni seemed completely defenseless and helpless. Her two loyal animal companions, who could have helped her, protected her and fought for her, were out of reach. But instead of despairing, she suddenly grinned. Surprised by Ni's reaction, the monster stopped - unsettled for a split moment. At the same time, San regained consciousness. He followed the suprised gaze of his comrade, who was lying next to him and looked as if someone had copied his face and attached it onto another person - or vice versa. He seemed like a clone. And he seemed just as surprised as Orochimaru's unsettled experiment at that moment.
"What is she up to?"
San widened his eyes in anticipation as Ni first extended her arms and then suddenly clapped her hands together – making a finger sign:
"Summoning!"
A huge veil of thick smoke suddenly erupted from where Ni had just been. Neither Ichi nor San could make out anything through the fog that immediately enveloped them and then, within a very short time, enveloped the entire room. Then suddenly there was a crash from the ceiling, and rocks were hitting the ground around them. More dust emerged. However, neither Ichi nor San could move; Sans's calf was bleeding and Ichi was too exhausted to avoid even one lump of rock in time. Then, a loud, dull bang directly above them, and the boulder falling towards them might have crushed the two subordinates if one of Ni's dogs hadn't suddenly appeared and pushed it away with his head before it could crush them. Instead, the redirected rock crashed into the large stature, decapitating the serpent. The mist was then carried away by the wind, and San's eyes saw the night sky with the moon suddenly stretching far above their heads. Another crater was created, similar to the one through which they had entered Orochimaru's hideout. And he saw Ni standing on a huge beast. But when he looked closer, San realized that she wasn't standing, but rather... being one with the creature. Her legs were fused into that beast. Judging by its outside appearance, it was clearly a chimera beast. One of Hiruko's creations, like his chimera bird or Ni's dogs, but it was bigger, much bigger. It had a spiky shell similar to that of a giant turtle, the head of some kind of lion, and it wore a mane of greenish fur around its neck. The woman fused with the beast stood right in front of Orochimaru's large monster, which suddenly looked tiny and pitiful, especially after what happened next...
"Take this!" Ni screamed, her long, swirly greyish hair flapping in the air.
Any attempted escape now would've been in vain. Ni's lion-turtle expelled steam from its large nostrils before a blast of hot fire and raging flames erupted from the beast's mouth, turning Orochimaru's abandoned creature into ash after it screamed out in pain.