Ch. 6

Whispers of the Past

They spoke more on her world and the policies in place to keep their fighting forces in top shape. Hiruzen seemed to jot down a few notes as they talked, and Jiraiya could see that this young woman would probably be contributing to the political scene as a voice of logic and reason.

He could almost see it, her having a seat at the Clan council as the head of the Uzumaki Clan as they discussed village policy, her manner easy but firm in matters of importance. She had been training to take a leadership position after all, as well as one of front-line combat. Only her open line was high in the sky with the clouds, going so fast a ninja could never hope to match it. She wasn't a seasoned killer, however, like most ninjas were by the time they were adults. He wondered if she would have the stomach to take lives when her own was secured. Maybe she wouldn't have to, he thought with a grimace, thinking back to what the Hokage had said about the Creature being her protector since she was a child.

"So, how did you meet the, uh, Shadow?" he asked, after a lull in the conversation. She tilted her head to the side, looking thoughtful.

"I was very young. Maybe four? I was playing by the lake when something dragged me under. Suddenly, this huge shadow lifted me out of the water cradling me to its chest. He said he was a Shadow and took me to the shore. He began to pick fruit off the little tree that grew on our island and gave it to me. I ate till I was full and fell asleep. When I woke up it was dark, and my father was looking for me. He could tell from my clothes that I had been drenched and was very worried about me." She said with a sad smile as Jiraiya processed her words. He could see a tiny child in his mind's eye being rescued by the Shadow. He frowned.

"Your mother left you outside when you lived on an island?" he asked. He could see something sad and resigned in those eyes before they looked away and she gave a shrug.

"After that, Shadow would take care of me. He would give me little trinkets to play with or scrolls for us to read through though they were in Japanese. He made sure I got something to eat every day and always pulled me back when something tried to pull me into the lake. He always called me his little tree. I remember there was this one year, the fruit was so plentiful I was full every day. Next year though, there was barely anything on the tree and he began to disappear for a few days at a time. The tree seemed to get a boost after that, and I was never hungry again. While he was gone, I would work on homework or practice throwing the little knives or stars he gave me, or practice katas outside. There was this one time I almost got pulled into the lake but somehow managed to get away. After that, when he found out he dove under the water and did something, and after that, it never happened again. Until it finally managed to pull me through," she said giving a wistful smile. She suddenly grinned.

"What were you guys doing? Throwing knives and stars through the lake or something?" she asked before giggling, "I had so many of them I had a little mountain of them by the tree at home." Jiraiya could feel his face go white as Hiruzen tensed. Picking up on the shift in mood her face fell and grew thoughtful.

"Would you like to meet him?" she asked as both the Hokage and Jiraiya jerked in their seats. Hiruzen's smile was forced.

"No need Moriko-san I'm sure he's a lovely, uh, person," he said hastily as her face grew suspicious. She straightened in her seat.

"Shadow? Can you come here?" she called as the two men froze.

Her shadow seemed to waver and both men's eyes went wide in horror. She frowned in confusion before following their line of sight. Her eyebrows rose in surprise before she grinned kindly as the creature rose from it.

"Neat! I've never seen you do that before," she said with a grin before returning her attention to the two petrified men before her. Seeing their chalk-white faces she frowned, expression becoming suspicious again.

"So, they do know you." She stated before turning to the being for an explanation.

"Yes." the being whispered into their souls. The men nearly fainted. At her incredulous expression, the Shadow hesitantly continued.

"I was born as their first leader was born. The last fruit of the tree was plucked, and the remains of this world's tree began to wither and die as the fruit was fed to the pregnant Senju 80 years ago in this world. As it began to kill my tree, I was born out of the will to halt the process any way I could. That was 353 years ago in our world." Her eyes bugged as she registered the being's age.

"353 years?" she squeaked. The being nodded.

"In my 200th year, I seemed to start gaining sentience beyond my purpose and I stopped doing the lake's bidding."

"You mean the lake that's been causing people to disappear since forever?" she demanded as the being nodded. Jiraiya registered that the disappearances had been a well-known fact and that the girl's mother had been leaving her daughter outside every day. The implications made his stomach clench as the sad eyes and hunger she described suddenly started to make more sense. He couldn't help but feel the well of pity that rose for her or the understanding of why she had attached so strongly to Naruto another child cast away to die.

"So the lake started doing it itself," she muttered as she tapped her chin with a long finger.

"Yes."

"But why? You always said this world was greedy, that it devoured all. Why pull those people through?" she muttered with a frown. Hiruzen cleared his throat before speaking.

"Unlike yourself, most people don't survive their transformation. They instead turn into massive amounts of chakra that disperse after their deaths," he said quietly as the young woman's face when white.

"Then why didn't I-" she froze before slowly turning to Shadow.

"It was the fruit, wasn't it? That's why you always fed it to me?" she said, clearly shocked. The being nodded.

"I saw your mother eating it before you were even born. I could see you go to the tree for food since before you could fully speak. You were so much like my little tree, struggling to grow in a lifeless place, an infertile land. When I made the decision to deny the lake you, I ensured that if you should ever be called through, that you would be prepared and that you would live. The tree itself is mutated, a broken remnant of what it used to be, thanks to this world leeching everything from it. I did everything I could to halt it's dying."

"How did you halt it?" she asked slowly, eyes now grave.

"Our world still had the life force needed and I had no sentience when I was first born. I did the lake's bidding and it seemed to slow the process. No conscious, nor guilt. I fed the tree on this side life until life began to dwindle in our world," her eyes closed in understanding as she swallowed uneasily.

"And when it faded?" she whispered as she grasped her hand painfully in her lap. The being hesitated and she took in the stony white faces of the ninja in the room. Her eyes went wide with sudden realization as she turned to face Hiruzen.

"Y-you knew people were coming out. There was a base built up around the lake! People could speak English!" she breathed in realization as she looked at the quiet and grave Hokage. He finally met her eyes.

"The people that came through the lake were a mystery for such a long time. Books came through intact because the waters of the lake repel anything made of wood. With the knowledge gained from the lake, we had an invaluable asset of information. We learned technology and languages. Most people that came through were willing to help us learn your different tongues and what we gained has been enough to keep us on top in the past three ninja wars. Eventually, it was decided that we would send elite teams through to see what was on the other side. None ever returned alive. The few bodies we got back seemed to have died from heart failure and toxins. Your world's gravity and atmosphere were too much and we stopped sending people through." Her eyes moved from side to side as she registered what was being said.

"The people from this world had life force from living here, a life force that had been drained from our world. And you what?! During the lean year you started disappearing! They are terrified of you! They had alarms at the base and they didn't start going off until you started to come through! They knew you! Oh my god," she gasped as she slapped her hand over her mouth as she began to turn green.

"I ate people?!" she finally shrieked and Hiruzen was thankful the privacy seals he had were the best. Jiraiya winced from both the noise and sympathy. If he found out Hiruzen had been feeding him people to keep him from starving, he would be upset too.

"The tree feeds on life force, not bone and muscle." The being finally said. Jiraiya couldn't help the relief that washed through him at the words as her eyes squeezed shut, the young woman clearly upset.

"So, you've been coming here and taking people to feed to our tree?!" she yelped clearly aghast.

" I could not leave the vicinity of the lake to bring you food. I… had no other food to give." It finally whispered into their souls.

"Promise me you won't do this anymore Shadow," she whispered as she finally looked up, face anguished. It gently patted her head.

"I knew one day this world would try to take the last thing I held dear. I promise I will no longer, for it is no longer needed. My little tree is safe." She broke down into tears and Jiraiya watched, feeling overwhelmed as the much taller being gently pulled her into an unwilling embrace that she eventually succumbed to clearly needing the familiar comfort.

He could see why the Hokage was so stressed out. Child of the Creature indeed. Messing with that girl was a surefire way of leveling a village. Messing with the girl's child was a surefire way of leveling another, and the Creature itself was untouchable. They had tried many times.

As he thought of this Jiraiya slowly frowned as his brain pulled a niggling memory to the forefront of his mind.

"You said her mother ate the fruit," he suddenly demanded. The girl stopped crying though anger, pain, and longing lit her watery red-rimmed eyes.

"Yes," answered the being.

"Was she pulled through the lake?" Jiraiya demanded sharing a look of understanding with his leader as Hiruzen's face went white. Jiraiya turned his attention to the girl who looked down, her expression riddled with anger and guilt that caused the seasoned veteran's stomach to drop.

"Deadly neglect eventually turned to resentful violence. I would abide the woman's harm no longer, no matter how my little tree pleaded. It grew to a head, and I made sure that monster crossed through the water myself." Jiraiya sat back in his chair, mind reeling.

"Is it what I think it is?" Hiruzen asked as Jiraiya thought back to a time when his teammate actually talked with him.

"I had a teammate once that defected from the village. He was our top mind in research and medical advancement right after Tsunade, my other teammate. The two of them revolutionized medicine using books and asking the people from your world along with our own chakra advanced practices. He was working to find a solution to stopping your people from dying when they came to this world. There was so much information that we weren't able to learn in time before they died, and we had just finished the second ninja war. Adding such physically hearty and educated people to the population would have been a tremendous boost to a war-riddled population." Jiraiya said slowly as the old Hokage sighed, face defeated.

"I made his research on your people a priority and gave him full reign. Near the end of his time in the village, there was a woman that came through the lake. For some reason when she went through metamorphosis, she lived for more than two years. During that time people started disappearing from the surrounding villages. It eventually came out that he was experimenting on civilians, our people in a quest to find immortality. If what you say about the fruit is true, then it must have been…" his voice trailed off as the girl's face when ashen, no words needing to be said.

Her mother. The fruit. Why Shadow knew she would survive, despite all others.

"What happened to her?" she finally whispered. Hiruzen looked at his hands clearly finding his resolve.

"After her third year, she began to exhibit the same signs that others of your world do. His experimentation reached a level that alarmed even the staff when he talked of bringing a tailed beast into the experimentation, among other disturbing things. It was what tipped us off that he was the culprit of the disappearances. It's how we found his secret labs, and it was why, in the end, I could not bring myself to kill him when faced with the truth. It was my fault that he went down this path and lost the rest of his humanity." The old Hokage confessed. The young woman's face twisted with both pain and rage as she looked down.

"He recently went back to the lake. He broke into the base and he took people from it." Jiraiya muttered to himself frowning, trying to figure out why out of all time's there would be a resurgence of Orochimaru's interest in the lake's inhabitants. The young woman's face went white.

"Who did he take?" she demanded as the men shot her looks of surprise before looking at one another.

"A young woman and a mother and child, why?" Hiruzen demanded as the young woman looked down.

"My cousin went camping on the other side of the lake a month ago in my world. That would be a week in your time. I told her not to go, that it wasn't safe! She said that if I had lived there for years and not disappeared that she would be fine. I told her! I made her promise! The day before I was taken, they had filed a missing person report." She said as her silent Shadow slowly seemed to get larger as tendrils of smoke began coming off of him more than normal. Hiruzen and Jiraiya shot each other with surprised looks of alarm.

"Is this the cousin that looks like they could be your twin?" asked the Shadow as the young woman nodded shakily.

"My mother... must have told him that I ate the fruit. He broke in looking for me," she breathed horrified. Hiruzen's jaw clenched as he stood.

"It also means we have a spy in our midst," he hissed moving to leave the room. He would have every memory of this girl sealed; every bit of evidence erased. If only it wasn't too late. But either way, he would have his spy.

And if both Orochimaru and Danzo knew of her existence, Hiruzen would be damn sure to get rid of Danzo too. Danzo would topple this carefully balanced situation into all-out murder and chaos if given half a chance.

And he would not abide traitors in his village. Looking back at the shadowy being that was flared protectively over its little tree, he knew the creature would not suffer traitors anymore than he would.

AN: Thank you guys for the reviews and for sticking with the story! They always give me a huge serotonin boost whenever I see one~! ^_^