When Hinata received the news from Anko, she literally jumped in joy. They rushed to her residence and finished getting prepared. Immediately after, they ran out of the village with none the wiser, evading every patrol there was. Getting in range of the Fire Temple was just as easy. Believing who they were up against was not.
"Skull face turned into what now?" Anko questioned.
"A sentient body of darkness," Hinata reiterated. "It's like that Hozuki and water." Her veiny eyes narrowed. "There's something different about her chakra I think taking this form does."
She hummed. "If she really is like a Hozuki, she might be turning her entire being into Yin chakra." Her mouth gaped at a realization. "Yang-Yin Release… Creation to nothingness."
"Anko-sensei?"
"Who the fuck is this bitch?!" All Hinata and Torune ever saw her do was sit absent-mindedly in her room. "If she could do this, why the hell was sh—" She grit her teeth in frustration.
"Should we attack?" Their Root tagalong asked.
Turning to her, she scoffed. "Do you have any ideas on how to kill a living shadow?"
"I can drain her chakra until she dies," Hinata suggested, receiving a very affectionate head rub in response.
"That's my girl." She tilted hers. "Others still on standby?"
She nodded. "It seems they're not used to fighting alongside each other or perhaps they're planning to divert forces to the farthest grave to better move on the rest, maybe both." More head rubs nearly distracted her from the one she was most concerned about.
"Would explain why they're not just going all in on one." Weighing their options, she hummed.
"Shikamaru can't hold her for long, if he's holding her at all." Hinata stared intently at the vibrations coming from the darkness, incapable of reading non existent lips. "Maybe something about Orochimaru since he brought it up?" Ryota, the long haired ronin, kept his eyes on where the senior shinobi among them all was while his twin was too unnerved by the sudden development. "The samurai are going to kill them if she doesn't."
"Our mission was to stop whoever's digging up Limelight." Anko wrapped her arms around her and pulled her close. "If we come in, they'll report back an unknown anbu squad helped them out."
"Putting Lord Danzo under scrutiny," the root agent finished.
She cooed next to Hinata's covered ear. "I can't have anyone come take you away from me either." She grinned beneath her mask. "You wouldn't want that, would you?"
The girl sighed dreamily. "No, Anko-sensei." Her body shifted a little to the left and right. "...Can I make a request?"
"Name it."
She stiffened. "I want to kill that disgusting whore." If it wasn't for Anko's presence, she would've run off to the moment she caught sight of her.
"Of course you can." Her grin widened. "Take your time if you want."
They were of little consequence if they couldn't survive on their own. It was tragic but teenagers and children died all the time. Only the best were mourned by more than their family, though even that wasn't guaranteed if they made a big enough mistake. All would see.
It was the second time Dosu was regulated to maintain communication between squads on a major mission. Really, he didn't mind it, especially after the last one. His chakra control improved, but it still wasn't anywhere near the level of his teammates. Being an odd type of sensor, informing others, and gathering information was his forte. The exact scenario occurring at that moment was made for him.
"What the hell is that?" He asked Shikamaru.
"One of the enemy shinobi is a living shadow!"
"I am the darkness that mingles with light." Her voice sang. "I am the moon that eclipses the sun." The flat manifestation of herself coiled around him. "I am the woman that lays with the man."
"Hey!" Ino and Sayuri yelled.
Dosu's eyebrow rose. "Uh, you need backup?"
"What do you think!?" He tried again to force his shadows to impale the twins to no avail. "Dammit!"
"Could Misao always do this?" The passive of the two asked.
Ryota kept his focus on the Leaf ninja and horrified monks. "Did you expect a shinobi to reveal every trump card they had?"
Living darkness eased. "You've given me much, Nara." Retaking her human form while dispelling his spikes, she simply walked away. "I must understand the path." Her thoughts were too jumbled to fight, and there was something far greater she had to uncover.
The twin twitched. "Are y—" He moved in that moment to strike for his brother to stop him by the shoulder.
"Wait." It was the precise moment they regained their bearings did he tighten his hand. "Now!" A flurry of blazing slices from his sword lit the forest around them on fire, minimizing the shadows as much as possible.
All sprung to action. Sayuri finished the hand signs for the Fireball jutsu, Ino used her Mind Disturbance jutsu, Ferret dug underground, and Shikamaru formed more spikes albeit far less speedily. The monks, having orders to keep clear unless necessary, readied their weapons. It would've been perfect had their enemies been anyone else.
Ryota and his twin split, evading the fireball. He was hit by the Mind Disturbance jutsu however. Before Shikamaru could skewer him, he wrestled control back through sheer willpower and leaped toward him, recognizing the danger he posed more than any other there. Ferret grabbing his brother's feet from the corner of his vision drew his attention away though. A slash of pure chakra from his sword split the ground and the masked man's head in half.
Sayuri, seeing the strike for him coming, tackled him down. It took a second for her to realize she was far too slow to pick him up and run, but the killing strike never came. Looking back, she saw him casually evade strikes, shuriken, and the occasional stray jutsu without attacking in return. Her partner's words about powerful shinobi came to mind, except he didn't fight like any ninja she knew of.
Having failed with the more active twin, Ino tweaked the nervous system of the other one, who'd been halted for at least a moment by Ferret's short-lived actions. She grabbed poison-tipped needles from one of her pouches, threw them into vital points of his defenseless neck, and topped it off with a kunai straight to his carotid artery. The monks went into him after, literally tearing him apart with their weapons. For a moment, she looked away but realized that was a mistake while one was still alive.
The remaining ronin shook his head, still evading any and all attacks against him. "You would die to a woman, Gorou." Neither sadness nor anger was in his voice. "Dishonor, dishonor, dishonor after dishonor." He was far too weary. "Will it ever end?"
Ino blinked at the heavy melancholic feeling of his chakra. "I know this sounds weird coming from me, but are you okay?" She flinched at the looks she could feel behind her remaining allies' masks.
"I am honorbound to kill you but to harm a woman goes against my vows, thus further slighting my honor," he explained. "I would've killed him myself long ago if it would not mark me a kinslayer. Nevertheless, I just failed to defend my brother according to my honor on a task to rob a grave, which is also against my honor." Twitching, he sighed, very more annoyed with his internal conflict than the external one threatening to kill him.
"Were you going along with this for him?" Sayuri, back on her feet alongside her partner, gaped. "Why?!"
"I don't expect a woman, much less a kunoichi, to understand." He turned to the forest, the monks around him realizing it was pointless to attack. "I have no idea why that one wanted to come with us, but I understand why she left: none of this or you are worth the time." A stray kunai from her missed him by centimeters.
Her eyes widened at the brief mistake before the hilt of his sword flung into her face, perfectly shattering her mask without hurting anything underneath. Shikamaru brought his hands together for him to grab his arm with one hand and fling him at Ino's feet while catching his sheathed blade before it could hit the ground with the other. Just standing over her, she truly realized what Shikamaru meant back in Kareha. There were exceptionally strong people like jonin, and then there were absolute absurdities like him.
"Find a good man, be a good woman, raise good children, and live a good life." With those well-meaning words, he sprinted off in the darkness.
Eyes fixated on his direction, she didn't notice Asuma and Chiriku drop down from the branches that weren't on fire to join them. "Who..the fuck was that guy?!" Face scarlet, her cheeks puffed up as she crossed her arms. "Telling me to be a good woman! Telling me to get pregnant!" She covered herself with her hands at Shikamaru and Ino squinting, regretting that her mask was broken. "That's just…" A growl of frustration left her.
Shikamaru, focusing back on the matter at hand, raised an eyebrow at their perplexed reinforcements. "I know this i–" His eyes widened. "This was a diversion! We need to go back to your position now!"
"Can confirm." Dosu looked out into the darkness and hummed. "It sounds like they're actually…" He leaped off the wall, formed hand signs, and blew himself away before earth spikes could rip him apart.
"Either they're attacking the temple itself or they're just aiming to take out Dosu." Following his sensei towards the grave, he grit his teeth. "If you can still hear us, confirm you're alive as soon as possible."
Asuma furrowed his brow. "I'd tell you to stay, but that shadow shinobi could come back." However odd it was following the orders of his student, he was thinking over the situation better.
Meanwhile, Dosu was practicing his very underdeveloped flying, really propelling himself with the force of his Wind Style jutsu, skills. He tried landing but more spikes rose to skewer him. As the monks reported, it wasn't ordinary Earth Style. What he really wondered was what kind of method was needed to strike at a target the user couldn't see with their eyes, if they weren't some type of sensor ninja. Even great sensory abilities couldn't justify the range.
Their formation was broken.
When the first temple grave was defiled, many monks rose to its defense. One in particular was more frenzied and fervent than the others, a shame in their eyes. They weren't surprised though. He did such things often ever since he was a boy. Few thought he'd amount to much, and he had yet to display anything they found notable that wasn't spoiled by something else..
He saw the shinobi posted by them driven away. Readying his claw, he waited until the growing amber where darkness should've been drew him to the top of the walls. The sight of the fire destroying their beautiful surroundings made him grit his teeth, but them morphing and shaping into an unrecognizable labyrinth of rocks, hills, and caverns was utterly mystifying.
"Amazing, right?"
Jumping away from the voice, he stared down an old man shaking his head. "Who are you?!" He squinted at the staff in his hand. "A pilgrim at this time?" Scoffing, he readied the claw, concentrating his chakra into the blades. "You're an enemy!"
"Am I?" The same voice said behind him.
He spinned with his Wind Style slash, dispelling the clone, only for his pivoting leg to be kicked out. A knee to the chin stopped him from regaining his balance with his hand and the bottom of the staff ramming into his gut ensured he wouldn't stand. Even so, he grabbed the staff while bracing his claw. The oddly warm smile on the stranger's face was far too irritating.
A small hint of pride shined in his eyes. "You really grew up into a fighter, Sora."
Those words made him freeze. "..How do y—" A stomp to his clawed arm cut his words off.
"I'm afraid I didn't come all this way for smalltalk though." He sighed, almost disappointed. "Let's just say I held you when you were a baby for now."
"What the..hell are you…" He struggled to talk as he drove his foot deeper.
Kazuma shook his head at his futile remarks. "I knew your father, and I know you have a great gift." His lips thinned into a line at the look of shame on his face. "Don't be ashamed of who you are: there is nothing you did to deserve whatever you think you did." Bringing his hand back, five separate patterns burned on to his fingertips. "You may want to grit your teeth."
Sora tried to say something before the feeling of something tearing open his chest overwhelmed his entire being. It was the heaviest and hottest thing he'd ever experienced. Even stranger, there was seething hatred of everyone and everything. He screamed, but it wouldn't stop. The man who summoned it forth from his being leaped off the second his fingers made contact.
A surprising number of people would recognize the chakra. There was nothing quite like it in the entire world, even though it had eight siblings. Much like them, it was timeless and primordial. Forgotten ancient tales spoke of those who disturbed its owner's mountain and met its wrath.
Sleeping on a snowy ship deck was a horrible idea. The vast majority of human beings would freeze to death overnight, lacking important natural protections. Predictably, after their foray into narcotics, the four lost wanderers went to sleep in the captain's cabin, not wanting to share spaces with complete strangers. A weight felt removed from most of their shoulders, so they slumbered almost immediately. One's was short-lived.
Naruto's upper body shot off the bed. "H-Hey." Grabbing his stomach, he grit his teeth. 'What the hell is going on?!'
In the depths of his mind, Kurama growled. "Ginkaku and Kinkaku!" Its growl only grew. "No, they died back when I was in Miko, so who is it now?"
'Explain, dammit!' Sweat sleeked his skin. 'I feel like someone is cutting out one of my kidneys.'
"Someone stole my chakra." It thrashed its head against the cage bars. "Kill them!" Snarling, Kurama rolled around like a feral animal, biting and scratching at the mental depiction of the seal. "Kill them! Kill them! Kill them! Kill them!"
His features took on its influence. 'Calm down!' A pained breath left his lips.
"It's a mockery of me!" It lay on its back, teeth still clenched. "It thinks it's me. It is me. It isn't me." Biting empty space, it hated everything about their predicament. "This damn seal…" Its slit red eyes widened. "Oh, that accursed creature." Kurama returned to its proper position, shaking its vibrant orange fur for good measure. "It's painful because it bound my entire existence to you."
'And you're..just chakra.'
"Yes, a weaker, malformed imitation of my glorious being exists."
Taking deep breaths, he did his best to calm down. 'The seal is pulling, but it's too far away.' His brow furrowed as he closed his eyes, getting a feeling for his erratic chakra network. 'It's like I'm trying to fill something I don't have anymore.'
Kurama looked down at its own reflection. "You're hurting because of me again."
'Huh?' His heavy breathing only worsened and blurred his vision. 'I..I..' A starry sky replaced the wooden roof of the cabin, fire and smoke on the brim. 'Where…am I?' It immediately registered he wasn't there, but he was connected to who was. 'Why do you feel so familiar?'
"Well, what do you think?" A voice he knew and didn't know asked.
He looked up to the old man he recognized and didn't recognize. "Who are you?" Closing his eyes, he observed the foreign network utterly overwhelmed by his chakra and shook the stranger's head. "Doesn't matter."
"Not in the wa–" He used his staff to block a kicking foot but couldn't bring it back, chakra keeping it attached.
Naruto, other foot attached to the ground, propped himself up by his foreign hands, dropping the claw blade, to wrench the staff away and kick at the man in a spin. Predicting his jump back, he flung the staff back at him to properly position his feet on the ground. The second he caught it, he sprung and punched him straight in the face, forcing him ragdolling back. He pointed a finger but stopped when he noticed its scales.
Laughing, the stranger rose from the ground and wiped the blood streaming down his nose on his sleeve. "That was good!" He wavered and frowned. "A little too good."
He closed his eyes again, focusing on his inner world. When he opened them, he was back in his real body within an unfamiliar sparkling void. There was no need to look around to tell who was there. A stranger he didn't know yet knew was collapsed off to the side, suffocated by his existence.
"Who…are you?"
"I could ask the same thing." He looked to his malformed arm, the flesh attempting to take a form he vaguely recognized. Crouching down, he patted the misshapen Kurama. "Do you recognize me?"
"..Huh?"
He stared straight into a slit red-eye opening in the mass. "Do you?" Sighing, he frowned at it glaring. "Feels like shit being the helpless one for once, doesn't it"
"I…" He closed his eyes. "I don't understand!"
When they opened, he was back in that cabin staring at the ceiling. None around him were disturbed, so he wasn't moving around while piloting the stranger, and he wasn't piloting him. The pain was gone, as if it never existed to begin with. Everything felt right, but he knew it would happen again. He wondered why it hadn't occurred earlier since he'd never noticed his chakra being extracted once in his life.
"What was that?"
'I possessed the guy who had your stolen chakra when he tried using it.' He groaned. 'You weren't just bound to me: I was bound to you too.'
"Who was it?" It grumbled. "Why didn't you kill them?" Rolling on to its back, it bit at the bars. "Next time, make sure they die!"
He relaxed on the captain's bed, nuzzling the man's pillow. 'Easy.' Closing his eyes, he yawned. 'Just relax; he was fighting someone more powerful than him by the looks of it.' A frown formed on his lips. 'Did you ever get your chakra back from those two you brought up? What were their names again?'
Kurama growled. "Ginkaku and Kinkaku: two Cloud ninja I devoured one day that survived off eating my insides."
"Holy shit," Naruto whispered.
"If I did regain it, I hardly noticed, though I can tell when someone else has enough of mine." It grimaced. "Imagine having two heads except one is brain-damaged beyond belief and completely separate from your actual body." Snarling, it nearly fell into a fit again. "The muddled garbage of its thoughts are complete nonsense when it has them. And its experiences make little sense. My consciousness requires far much more chakra than the abysmal amount almost all your kind can handle. If I only noticed it now, it must have been sealed."
He brought a hand to his chin, thinking it over. 'Maybe me and this other guy are the same?' Shaking his head, he thumped a fist against his temple. 'He wouldn't need a seal as strong as mine. Our connection is one-sided: I get pulled to your flawed manifestation, but I'm practically a Tailed Beast, so with chakra being what it is and him having no seal for me…' It was the only adequate explanation of what just occurred and experienced for himself.
"Just cut his head off the next time you're in his body. That should kill it."
Naruto parted his lips to say something but stopped himself. 'Did I piss you off with my virtue talk?'
"You will do what you will do, Naruto." It snorted. "Besides, you were under the influence."
'I'm pretty sure I wasn't.' He raised an eyebrow. 'Did you get high too?' The almost mocking laugh made him regret asking.
He could never know it was rolling around in its cage thinking of how wonderful he was but sad it didn't know how to make him happier. "How would that even be possible for me?!" As long as he never wondered why it referred to the hair color of his mother in such a manner, he wouldn't.
'...I can't live life on my knees, but it doesn't feel right to go swinging my dick in everyone else's faces.' He would've laughed at the time he literally did that in the Land of Lightning if he hadn't been at his absolute worst so far. 'Sure, they're all mostly pathetic and deserve it.' Of course, he was upset more about his state of mind than anything vulgar he did. 'I'm going to hurt people I care about and actual good people if I keep doing things like this.' A grave frown formed from his lips. 'I left them all to die as some kind of test, and I barely think anything of it.'
"That's good!" Kurama grit its teeth. "Everyone around you is going to die one day regardless!"
His face scrunched. 'I'm going to die too.' Complete silence made him blink. '...A ton of stuff just started making sense to me.'
It was very grateful he couldn't see the sad fox look on its adorable face. "Look." Kurama snapped out of it before he could even think of going to check in himself. "Humans rot. In mind if not their body. You nearly rotted away not long ago but now you're...a lesser you again." Laying down, it looked into its reflection again. "Do you think those you left behind are the same people you thought they were then? Because you shouldn't. These three and everyone you think has virtue are the same."
Naruto stared off in silence before grabbing his head. 'Oh fuck.' He buried his face into the pillow. 'Oh fuck!'
"Why did I say anything?" Making him think of that person brought him nothing but agony.
He wouldn't fall back asleep. It wasn't just the thought but honest consideration of what Kurama said. Even if he had no ill intentions, his actions had to have ruined her life, regardless of her own support of them. She was either dead or changed because of him. And there was a far more deep-seated fear he never thought he'd feel courtesy of his drug use, something he wished to avoid vastly more than her resentment.
Then the ship crossed outside the realm of reason.
What happened was utterly impossible. Almost all the real ninja guarding the graves felt the explosion of vile chakra and recognized it. One saw what happened after and couldn't believe her all-seeing eyes. His chakra, the way he fought, and even his body language. It was unmistakable with her years of observing him from afar.
Kazuma caught himself before he could drop to the floor. "Damn, son." The blood from his nose wouldn't stop. "How does the Nine Tails' chakra make you fight better?"
The two kunoichi he kept in reserve flickered to his sides. Both kept their eyes on the boy from sheer surprise and out of caution. In truth, they would've ran the moment they felt it, but he had a friend that could vastly alter the landscape. Still, she needed their sensor coworkers' assistance, who happened to dislike them.
"So the graves were a misdirection the entire time," Aya said.
"Guess you can say that." He steadied himself before wobbly walking toward his collapsed body. "They're still incredibly valuable." Reaching Sora, he laughed. "Just not as much as him."
A girl jumped up from the wall onto it, landing between him and the women in the middle of sighing at the idea of picking both men up. In the darkness of night, the torch posts illuminated her lithe form. Her kitsune mask told them what she was, but her outfit suggested something else. The complete lack of any information about her existence beforehand screamed danger.
Not one to shy away from it, Kazuma allowed himself to smile. "I'm afraid the nearest red-light di–" A reverse spinning heel kick faster than any other shinobi present could ever perform to the jaw knocked him down and the world seemingly went with it from his perspective.
Reina and Aya were barely at the beginning of forming hand seals when her stance shifted back to neutral. She let them finish, recognizing the jutsu they ascribed to. A fireball enhanced and directed by wind swept over but didn't get past to scorch the other two. Most jutsu were just varying levels of manipulated energy forms. When confronted by a greater or negating energy, it would cancel out or overtake at an appropriate cost. Absorbing the energy and dispersing it through extreme control of the primary energy, chakra, were vastly more efficient maneuvers.
The girl's form strolled through the flames, hands in her dark blue jacket's pockets, with not so much as a singe on her fishnet leggings. Her kitsune mask stared blankly at their terrified forms. It was as she desired, which she was approved to indulge. Even if they were more powerful, she wouldn't care. One's presence walked over a deep wound that just reopened.
"Where is Fuen!?" Aya grit her teeth and scowled, not noticing Reina jump and run to the roof. "This little whore shouldn't have been able to even get to the steps here!"
"You touched him," she hissed, voice muffled and not hers. "You..wanted to defile him." Hands clenching into fists, she stomped toward her. "Dirty, rotten bitch…" Lightning sparked all across her body. "Naruto is mine."
"And who—" Her eyes widened, realizing the girl before her had to have crawled out one of the bleakest holes in anbu circles that would act against daimyo. "...It was you!" Anger contorted her beautiful face. "Do you have any idea what I had to endure!" She swept a hand through the air, rage far exceeding her reason. "A meathead who thinks he's a philosopher, two whiny little shits, Misao finally opening her mouth just to ramble cryptic nonsense, Ryota's samurai bullshit, his pathetic wannabe brother, a dyke bitch who thinks she's prettier than me, and nothing warm and precious to lay next to at night!" Her screaming rant left her heaving.
A sinister smile laid beneath the girl's kitsune mask. "I'm going to make you think that was heaven and wish you could go to hell." It twisted into a frown as she dispersed a wind slash from the man behind her's pewter staff.
Quickly putting together his skillset was useless against her, Kazuma knew he couldn't stay to fight her.. He was already winded from his son's extremely well-landed Nine-Tails enhanced punch. The heel kick she gave made it difficult to even be on his knees. Retreating was his best option, and he couldn't take Sora with him, no matter how much he wanted to.
Aya scoffed at him going over the wall. "Fine." She glared at the girl. "I'll handle you myself."
Jelly like water spurted from overhead towards her enemy. "I've got your back, bestie!"
"We're not…" She blinked. "Oh dammit, we are."
The anbu didn't say a word. A great deal of their arsenal was already known to her. In terms of ability, she was better than both combined. Even her mindset, however twisted, surpassed theirs.
She moved out of the way over dispersing, knowing it would splatter over her and slow her down. Aya was on her third hand seal to a jutsu unfamiliar to her when the viscous clumps splattered about jumped to their target. Not having time to evade and attack, she formed a giant lion chakra head on one of her hands and shot it straight into her before she could complete it, sending her flying back. In exchange, she was enveloped in a suffocating constricting liquid.
"I caught yoooou,"Reina sang, jumping down to observe. "It feels so gross, doesn't it?" She shuddered at the thought. "When I learned this, I thought it was for perverts, but it's really more for sadists." Eyes narrowing, a sweet smile adorned her cute face. "Crushing and choking you while making you want to puke, if you haven't already." She gagged. "I mean, seriously, wh—"
The constricting blob burst outward, covering the entire section of the battlement walkway. Before they could converge again, their target already grabbed their maker by the throat. She reached for her kunai pouch while chakra concentrated around it. A second after a loud crunch resounded through the night air and the sludge-like balls returned to water. If there were any monks still around or conscious, they would hear the dull eek of something dragged alongside odd cracking.
Pulling herself out of a hole in the battlement wall, Aya coughed blood. She tried to steady herself but collapsed. Her vision blurred as the girl approached, a harrowing sound following. The vibrant lion head surrounding her limp comrade's throat illuminated their surroundings far more than the dull torch fires. It grew and crushed Reina's off, splattering them with red.
The pitter patter of droplets hitting the ground gave the impression of sprinkling rain. Sizzling torches in the background added on. A splash of red across her jacket, she was dripping wet. Inhuman gurgling resounded from remains it did no good for the faint-hearted to acknowledge. Her distorted senses painted a horrid world that was painfully based in reality.
"Who… Who are you?!"
It was the absolute worst question to ask a shinobi.
AN: There were so many interesting things introduced during the Twelve Guardian Shinobi filler and so many stupid things too. You have interesting concepts like random ninja capable of never before seen jutsu. And then you have using lightning to power up graves to revive their occupants, like it's Frankenstein. Anyway, things will be different, ect.
Naruto isn't going to hijack Sora's role in the Leaf half of this arc. Just something I thought of from the one scene of him shown to have some kind of connection to him in the original filler. Also something to play into a totally original direction I want to go with regarding certain cosmological aspects that aren't explored at all. You'll see. At best, there might be a few early reunions.
It's ridiculous how powerful the Hyuga would actually be if, you know, they actually got any screen time. One of the Itachi light novels, despite being badly written for the most part (Kid Itachi using Tsunade's absurd chakra control strength is some next level ridiculous bullshit wank and you think black ops for one of the richest villages would pay better than the most backwards great), pointed out how useful just having one Byakugan would be as long as it came with their natural ability to emit chakra from all their tenketsu. A part of me regrets killing off Neji because I could explore two entirely different move sets stemming from the same base with him and Hinata both being alive. Oh well.
Say hello to the newest member of deontology (Ryota). Really, you can throw canon filler (never thought I'd use this term) Kazuma into there. Nothing says beacon of morality like turning your child into a weapon, intentionally and without any real personal sacrifice in this case.
I know some people probably wonder why I include a lot of sexual subtext. The answer is grittiness. We're all desensitized to the idea of barely teens killing each other and dying or getting mutilated. Bring up they're going through puberty or anything of that sort might want to be done to them and people suddenly realize something wrong is happening. It's ridiculous. 'Misao's' line is more about what Yin actually is in Chinese philosophy/cosmology, but you get what I mean.
Feel free to leave your thoughts in the form of a review or PM.