Thought I'd have to split this one in a few parts, guess the dialogue made it look longer than it was. Meh, couldn't think of a better title. >_>
Kabuto touched his face, more of a gentle rub than anything. It felt scalier now, and as he looked in the mirror, he could see that it was practically bleached. His hair had grown longer; more than a few strands of it going over his eyes. He felt like he’d grown taller, as well.
Every day, for the past few years, he had begun to look more and more like...
He turned his head quickly, hearing the doorknob turn. He was in his usual quarters as leader of Otogakure. A rather small room in his rather large, though smaller and less ‘magnificent’ than the mansions of the actual kages, manor. This was the only building found in this area, Otogakure being more of a bunch of hideouts scattered around than an actual village. Underground there could be found a labyrinth, where all of Kabuto’s, as well as past experiments of Orochimaru’s, experiments could be found.
And Kabuto’s restless army.
When the door opened, a woman entered. Older than Kabuto, but still fairly young, she was considerably tall, with long, dark brown hair. She had a fair face, Kabuto himself had commented that she was quite attractive more than once, actually, with almost constantly narrowed, not squinted, but narrowed, dark brown eyes. She had become Kabuto’s lieutenant in quite a short time, his right-hand man... or right-hand lady rather, by name she was known as May.
When she came in, she said simply, “The letters have been sent.”
Kabuto looked back at the mirror and nodded slowly, and she continued, walking up closer to him, “He’s taking over, isn’t he?” she asked quietly, putting a hand on his shoulder.
Kabuto stared at the mirror for a while longer, frowning as he did so, and then turned and left the room, “Come, we have preparations to make.”
~
“A black coat, eh?” Tenzu asked, curiously.
Now back at the hideout, all of their prisoners now in their cells, though likely still unconscious, Riku had just finished explaining everything that happened after they split up, but after that, he suddenly recalled the man that he saw on that ship. They were in the war room, their leader apparently having some sort of announcement to make, sitting in front the large, circular, table, made of some of the clearest obsidian Riku had ever seen, a definite statement considering that the only other obsidian he had ever seen was found in the tunnel linking his old home to the Lightning Country. There was no one else in the room; apparently the only prominent members in the entire castle were Riku, Tenzu, and their leader, who had yet to come.
Riku nodded, not looking at Tenzu though, but rather looking straight ahead with his elbow on the table and one hand cupped around his chin as he tried to recall the entire thing, “I couldn’t see his face, just the black coat; his face was covered by a hood, and his head was tilted down. He didn’t want me to know who he was.”
“And what did he do?” Tenzu pressed after a long pause as if he were trying to recall some memory his self, as if this whole thing sounded familiar to him.
“I attacked him and he beat me without hardly any effort. No weapons, no jutsu, just his hands. He was too fast; I could barely even see him when he moved. One second I was charging towards him and the next I was on the floor...”
“And then?”
“He said something about us meeting again in a place more... familiar or something. And then he just... disappeared. It wasn’t like your teleportation thing; it was more like he just... faded from existence,” Riku said, his voice barely a whisper, talking more to himself and thinking about how little sense it all made than explaining it to Tenzu, “And then I left,” he added.
Tenzu stared hard at him, “There’s a certain prisoner who you’ll probably want to talk with after this,” he said, noting that their leader was beginning to enter.
The leader of Akatsuki, as usually, simply had his hood over his head, he and Tenzu seeming to enjoy concealing their faces. Riku still felt slightly awkward when referring to him as the leader; as he had a solid guess to his true identity, but at the same time... though he didn’t exactly know the man who he would guess that had taken on the identity of an indiscrete Akatski leader, he at the same time had a feeling like this wasn’t the same person. If it really had been L-...
Riku’s thoughts were completely scattered when the leader began speak, “It seems that we’ve had a traitor among us—Kabuto.”
Riku was slightly taken aback by that, though he guessed that he should’ve seen it coming. He recalled his encounter with Kabuto a little over a year earlier. He hadn’t seen the man since then, it certainly shouldn’t have taken him that long just to conquer the Sound Country.
“Ok...” Riku started, “So what’s the big deal? Send Tenzu or someone to take care of him and we’re done.”
“The big deal is that Kabuto’s a little smarter than to betray us without having made preparations. He was the maker of all of the “experiments” that you’ve seen, the monstrous beasts that guard the tower,” Tenzu replied in place of their leader, “But... I thought that they had been bound by a seal to serve under you?”
“They have, but over the last year, it seems that Kabuto has been using Orochimaru’s old hideout to make a new, possibly larger, group than we have now. I’m willing to bet that he also found a few of the old sannin’s ‘leftovers.’ The entire Sound Country is likely answering to him by now, it’ll take more than just sending Tenzu out. The only safe approach would be to recall every member in Akatsuki to go to and defeat the Sound Country...”
“But that would mean leaving us open to attacks from Konoha and whatever other place wants to attack, right?” Riku asked, voicing what all three people in the room were thinking.
Both of the people in the room with Riku nodded, and Tenzu was the first to reply, “So it’s a gamble, then. If nothing in the letter hinted at attacking anyone or anything else...” he paused and looked toward their leader who confirmed that nothing else was hinted at with a nod and then continued, “Then there’s only a chance that the Leaf Village needs to respond to him and go to the Sound Country as well. Kabuto may be launching a full-on attack on the world, in which case Konoha may very well be having the same discussion that we are now, or he may just want to attack us, in which case all groups opposing us would use this as a chance to attack. Basically, either our situation will be very easy with Konoha assisting us by fighting Kabuto as well, or very difficult with us attacking Kabuto while trying to protect our own home.”
Riku did shift a bit at the reference to this dreary and dark place as ‘our home.’
The leader of Akatsuki picked up, “I’ll be staying here, of course, but it’s still a bit of a risk.”
Riku shrugged, “The thing is; we don’t quite have a choice. If we let Kabuto advance, then he’ll only make for a much more difficult opponent, and we’ll be in an even more difficult situation than we are in now if he manages to form an alliance with a place such as the Leaf Village, whose top priority at this moment is taking down us.”
Tenzu nodded, “So it’s agreed then.”
The leader of Akatsuki nodded, “Tomorrow marks the beginning of a certainly long and grueling battle.”
Riku said one more thing before they parted ways, though, “Although... you may have to spare one member and a prisoner; just for a bit.”
~
The next day, Riku was the only person in the Akatsuki tower, the only real member, anyway. Tenzu and their leader had left earlier, and Riku had managed to convince him to let him stay after explaining the whole situation with the man in the black coat. The same glimmer of recognition that had been found in Tenzu’s face found its way into their leader as well, but it was a much larger recognition; as if they did know something about this man, or perhaps this group.
Stalking through sinister-looking halls that had cells with, for the most part, half-dead prisoners in them on both sides, Riku looked both ways for a specific prisoner. He had surely seen him before; a man with short, blonde, almost white, hair and a small mustache that connected around his mouth with his beard. He also had multiple earrings in each ear. They had described him as ‘one of the few prisoners that not only retained his sanity, but remained completely calm at all times.’
After a few minutes, Riku came upon who was undoubtedly him; matching the description perfectly. Though, his hair, described to be somewhere between white and very light yellow, was darker now from the dirt-filled cell and matted down and damp from water that would leak through the cells when it rained, as it did often here. He was just… sitting there. Apathetically. He seemed to be looking at something, and as Riku advanced he could see that he was holding a card in his hand, flipping it around his fingers, more absently than as if he were examining it. It was almost as if he was somewhere waiting for someone or to be called upon for something.
Riku dropped down to one knee when he was in front of the cell and put one hand on one of the bars in front of him, and the man turned as the crooked smile he had already been wearing widened, “Would you, perhaps, be looking for something?”
Riku began immediately, “I hear that you have information, information that I want.”
The man looked forward towards the card, putting his head back to rest on the wall behind him, “Maybe… maybe not. Fifty-fifty shot.”
Taking in a deep breath, Riku pressed, “I don’t have time for wordplay. What do you know of a man who wears a black coat?”
“Him? Or them?” he asked simply.
“Whichever one you have answers to.”
“And if I have answers to both?”
“Then voice them now.”
The man laughed slightly, “For a child, you’re quite the serious one. Ok then, I’ll let you in on a bit…” he started, and then he added, “If you win.”
Riku’s eyebrow perched up, “Win?”
“It wouldn’t be any fun if I just gave you the answer, would it?” the man teased.
Laughing and helplessly shaking his head, Riku went on, “I don’t think that you understand. I’m not here to play games. If you’re not going to give me the answers that I need then there’s no reason for you to remain alive.”
“And to kill me, you would have to release me from this cell, would you not?” the man asked.
“No, I would not,” Riku said, as he stood up and made a single hand seal.
The jutsu was meant to speed up the process of chakra draining that happened to anyone trapped in the cell. It was generally a slow process by itself, meant only to keep the prisoner weak should they ever be temporarily released, but with this jutsu, all chakra could be drained within a matter of seconds. It was mainly meant as a torture technique. Riku had seen prisoners fall on the floor, groveling for the torturer to cease. He had seen prisoners claw at the side of the wall and clutch their stomachs from the pain that was brought along with the draining. He had seen prisoners bend over and retch from the nauseating feeling that they would get.
This prisoner, though, did none of those things.
Growing frustrated, Riku focused more, but still, his target seemed to feel nothing, only offering a simple reply: “Are you quite done?”
Riku stopped slowly, taking one step back, “What… What are you?
Riku’s question was replied to with a slight, apathetic shrug and an indirect answer, “If you play along, you may find out.”
“Wait… you mean you’re with them or something?”
“If you play along, you may find out,” he repeated.
Riku sighed; there was really no other option, “So what is this… game I have to win?”
The blonde prisoner moved his fingers in a way that the one card spanned out to reveal that there were actually three, the two others that were behind the one card flashing out on either side of it, “These cards…” he said holding the cards so that the backs of all of them faced Riku, each having an odd insignia on it, like some kind of disfigured, upside-down heart, though Riku had little time to examine it before the man began speaking again, “all have something different on the other side of them. Which you choose, determines what I will allow you to figure out. Perhaps you will learn everything, perhaps you will learn nothing, and perhaps you will learn just enough to make for a million more questions,” he explained, and then ended with, “Pick a card.”
Riku cocked an eyebrow. He’d never heard of something so… so pointless. If this man was one of them, then why would he risk giving Riku, a possible enemy, all of their information? Or if he was on Riku’s side, then why wouldn’t he just tell him everything in the first place? It all seemed so meaningless, so unreasonable, so… odd.
With no other choice, though, Riku complied and pointed to the card on the far left, and the man took the other two into his other hand and held the one that Riku had selected to the perplexed boy.
Before he turned it around, though, to see what was on it, there was a quick flash of light that radiated from the entire card. Nothing long, nothing extravagant, but certainly noticeable. Riku flinched when it happened, looked warily to the grinning man in front of him, and slowly turned the card over. On it he saw a picture. It was a decently sized house, and besides that all that was visible were a trail and green pastures that could be seen on the edge of the card. The house looked very… familiar to Riku, as if he had seen it before.
Right when Riku had finished examining it and was about to ask a question, light radiated from the card again. This time, though, it engulfed Riku. He was blinded by the light; unable to see anything, and all he could hear was a high-pitched ringing sound.
And then he was… somewhere else.
It was the place in the picture. He was standing on a trail that led up to the house, and there were two other trails that led to two smaller places, though still of decent size. Riku turned around, and looked down the trail, and when he turned he realized that the grassy, leveled plains turned into a hill; it sloped down in the direction that he was looking towards now. At the base of the hill, which seemed pretty far off, as if this place were somehow isolated from everything near it, there was a small village. He couldn’t make out much more aside from a palisade gate and a few buildings.
Riku turned his head to the side as he heard a sound. There was someone across the plains. No, two people. The sound that he had heard was the ringing of metal against metal and the sound of blades, punches, and kicks swishing through the air. The two people were fighting. But it wasn’t a violent battle. It was like they were just doing it for fun. Sparring, perhaps.
Riku smiled. Fighting for fun. Quite an ironic concept for him. It was a concept that had at once been the only reason why he fought at all, the only reason why he thought he would ever have to fight, and now he had so many reasons to fight that “fighting for fun” was nonexistent. He thought back hard to the last time that he had fought for fun. With Thane? No… he had fun when he fought the erratic and enthusiastic swordsman but the reason boiled down to training. The last time that he had fought for the sole purpose of having fun was probably with…
That’s when it struck him. His eyes widened quickly. This man, this prisoner, this… whatever he was, was hinting at location, the place where he would find his answers. That much had become apparent to him now and he knew now where to look. But as Riku thought on the matter more, there was something else… something bigger, something more surprising. But it couldn’t be. Perhaps it was farfetched, perhaps it was a crazy thought, but could it be that...
Riku’s thoughts were abruptly caught short, as dark plumes of smoke formed at his feet and swirled around him quickly, until he was completely engulfed in a dark cloud. The cloud swirled around him for a long while, though Riku could see nothing. When the cloud receded, the smoke slowly fading out of existence, the young member of Akatsuki found himself back in front of the man’s cell.
But when he looked up, nobody was in there.
Riku looked back down at the card, and then turned it over, examining the odd insignia on the back of it. As he had noticed before, it was like a white, upside-down heart at the bottom, and from that extended a spike that went out to the top. Near the middle of the spike that went out to the top, where it was more of a line, two other spikes extended out of either side of it. It was a very odd thing, and when Riku looked at the card more, he could see something at the very top of the card. It was a word, or a name of some sort. It was faded, as if it weren’t supposed to be in the card and it was something that was scratched in as a message to someone, as if the man had one last thing to tell him:
Luxord
~
Kakashi rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he read through the same letter for the seventh time that day. It was good and bad. The good part was that Kabuto was apparently no longer a part of Akatsuki due to this.
The bad part was that he is apparently declaring war on the entire Ninja World.
Sitting on the other side of the Hokage’s desk, Yamato broke the silence that had been running on for at least a half an hour by now, “So what’s our decision?”
Kakashi thought for a while longer, and then spoke, speaking more to himself than Yamato, “Kabuto is an immediate threat. If we don’t come to him, he’ll come to us.”
“Akatsuki is an immediate threat as well,” Yamato pointed out.
“But Akatsuki is also being attacked,” Kakashi countered, looking up from the letter, “They won’t dare attack us if it leaves them open to Kabuto, no doubt he has quite the army if he’s willing to take on… well… the entire Ninja World. Akatsuki will be focusing their forces on Kabuto. If we fight them, then it will be in the Sound Village, not by a surprise attack here.”
Yamato shrugged, “So we’re going to the Sound Village, then?”
Kakashi nodded, “Looks like it, get together the top ninja that we have here, whoever you think is up to the challenge, and have them report here.”
Yamato nodded, and then disappeared, moving as quickly as possible; the sooner that he could gather everyone, the sooner this could all be done with.
~
Yamato returned a few hours later, and following him were at least thirty of Konoha’s best. Kakashi scanned them over, there were plenty who he had expected: Naruto Uzumaki, Lee, Gai, Neji Hyuuga, Shikamaru Nara, Sakura Haruno, Tenten, Choji and Choza Akamichi, Raiden, Deirous, Shino Aburame, Reina, Sora, a ninja whom Yamato had just recently told Kakashi about after Yamato received the mission report from Raiden, and a few more. There were plenty of shinobi who he recognized but could not immediately name, and quite a few masked members of the Anbu. He scanned the group for a while longer, looking over their determined faces, Yamato had told Kakashi that they had all been thoroughly explained of their mission, and liking what he saw. He saw resolve; all of them knew what they had come to do and were ready to do whatever it took to get it done.
“We leave for the Sound Village tomorrow,” Kakashi said, cutting to the chase as opposed to some grand speech, something that he had never exactly favored, “I thank all of you for deciding to come. You will be split into groups by the time this day ends. Now, if you would all go to the war room where we may discuss how we plan to go about the battle itself.”
The crowd began to move through the doorway, with Reina, as Kakashi had hoped, being the last to leave. Before she did so, he grabbed her arm, “We need to talk for a bit.”
She looked up at him, and then backed back into the room, Kakashi backing up as well and sitting on top of his desk, “Look…” he started, “I’m happy that you came, and as I said, I’m thankful that you are willing to help, but… I think that it would be best if you stayed out of this.”
“What…?” Reina asked, taken aback by the statement, “Why?”
Kakashi took in a deep breath and then breathed out, “Akatsuki is going to be involved in this. And chances are, we’ll be seeing them there. Yamato told me about the report that you gave in your last mission. If Akatsuki is going to be there… then Riku will probably be there too.”
“What’s the problem, then?” she pressed.
“You know the problem,” Kakashi stated, “You just won’t admit to it. If things boil down to a fight with Riku, and if you’re even anywhere near him when it happens, then you’ll do something to try and stop whoever’s fighting from finishing it. You know it, too. We can’t risk remorse on a mission like this. There is a chance that we can possibly pick off at least one member of Akatsuki while on this mission. Remorse is something that we cannot afford at a time like this.”
Reina looked down; it was true, of course. Sora, Raiden, and Deirous might do the same thing, though, and that’s when she realized the other half of the reason, looking back up quickly to face Kakashi, “There’s more to it, though. It’s not just that you don’t think I’ll be able to hurt Riku, or let anyone else do it. You don’t think I can handle it,” she observed.
Kakashi looked down as she looked back up, “You’re not strong enough to handle Akatsuki or Kabuto… yet,” he said, adding ‘yet’ to give her a bit of hope—a failed attempt at doing so.
Kakashi got off of the desk after saying that, and walked past Reina so that he could get to the war room as she just stood there, pondering the statement.
And she couldn’t deny the truth of it.
~
Riku walked casually, now, a nice change of pace after the quick running and jumping that he had done all the way here. He walked up a sloped path, vast grassy plains surrounding him on either side. He walked up for only a while longer before he came to a spot where the hill stopped completely and smoothed out. In front of him was the same house that he had seen in the experience with the card, he didn’t know what else to call the event. Off to the side, slightly behind it and far off to the left was another small house, and far behind the original house, and far to the right as well, was another house. Riku had realized that, in the experience with the card, he had misinterpreted the size of the other house. It wasn’t smaller, it was just further away. Riku had done well to avoid the village at the bottom of the hill, going out wide around it to avoid any conflict.
Now standing in front of the house, Riku took in a deep breath and turned the doorknob, walking into his old dwelling.
There was a long hallway, with many doors scattered around and at the very end it turned to the side into another hallway. This long hallway, Riku remembered, outlined the kitchen which could be entered from several of the doors to his left side, and to his right were most of the actual rooms. Riku knew what room he was looking for, though. He had spent much too long in this place to not know it inside and out. He walked down the hallway and turned to the right, slowly opening the door.
It was just as he remembered.
It had been so long since he was last here… so very long. Or perhaps it just felt that way. It had been about a year, maybe a year and two or three months. But it felt like a lifetime. He had changed so much since he was last in this room. His room. The room that he had stayed in when he was with Shinru—his mentor… his… father. The room, though, remained the same. It remained as a reminder that everything was once completely different. There was one bed in the fairly sized room, at the far back corner of the room, placed right under a window. In the opposite side of the room, somewhere in the middle but still against the wall, was a dresser. Nothing was on it; nothing had ever been on it, except for one picture. A picture of him and Shinru, of course. He had forgotten about it when he left the village to run from Tenzu.
Something compelled him to reach into the side of the picture frame and take the photo. Holding it closer and examining it.
It was funny, really. When he was younger, he had actually hoped that Shinru was his own father. Riku had always known that he was adopted by his father back in his original village, and so he had wished that, somehow, his father was Shinru. But he never actually got around to asking. And now, when he knew the truth, that Shinru was, indeed, his blood father, he didn’t want it to be true. He loathed the fact. Perhaps not so much being Shinru’s son, but more-so what had been done to him as the man’s son.
Riku shook his head, abandoning the thoughts, and then focused on what he was looking for. He reached through the collar of his shirt and, from a pocket in the shirt that he was wearing under it; he produced the card, while putting the photo in that very same pocket, examining it for some clue as to where around here he should focus. The picture’s focal point was the very house that he was in now, and so this was where he should be looking, that much he had decided on the way there. But if it wasn’t in Riku’s old room, then there was only one other option.
Pushing open the door, Riku stalked down the hallway again, going further down the hallway, turning, and then going even farther down until he reached the room at the very end of it, the very last door. Shinru’s room. He could hear mumbling through the door.
Riku grabbed the doorknob cautiously and then opened it.
Riku almost fell over at what he saw.
There was the man, or one of the men, based on the possibilities that that prisoner had proposed, in the black coat, standing there. He wasn’t looking towards Riku, though, he was looking down, at what Riku knew before even looking was Shinru’s bed in front of him. Riku followed his eyes, or the direction of his hood to be more precise, and looked down. It didn’t take him long to discern what he was looking at.
The man sitting on the bed, the two apparently having a conversation, was dressed in some sort of armor, more heavily armored than most ninja, but it still seemed light enough to move around pretty easily. All parts of the armor itself were white, seeming somewhat like a robe, but each part, such as the shoulder pads and the chest plate, were trimmed with deep blue. Next to the man, leaning on the bed, was a long spear.
Riku looked back to the man and couldn’t believe who it was. He was more cleanly cut than before, having cut his light brown hair shorter from the shaggy state it had attained after being in an Akatsuki cell for so long. Riku had seen small tufts of a beard at that time, as well, which was now gone. But the last time had seen this man… this… whatever he was that could possibly survive after what happened… he was plummeting from the top of a spire.
“Shinru…” Riku whispered, and the duo of the man in the black coat and his former master seemed to notice him, turning abruptly as Shinru stared closely at him.
The man in the black coat laughed, putting his sleeve up to his face, which was still completely out of sight from Riku. As he laughed, a black mist swirled around his feet, and then upwards to engulf him, drawing Shinru’s attention back to him as well as Riku. When the mist slowly receded, the man had disappeared, much similarly, Riku noted, to the way he had disappeared when he… went inside of the card.
But he didn’t have time to worry about that. Here he was… right in front of him. But… he couldn’t be. He died. He fell from hundreds of thousands of feet to the ground. And even if he survived the fall, there were Kabuto’s experiments that had been at the base of the spire. And yet here he was, sitting there, staring up at his former apprentice.
Shinru laughed and looked down, “That cloak looks about as bad on you as it did on me.”
Riku’s hand shifted towards Soul Eater’s hilt, “It’s… really you,” he said, and then in a flash, Soul Eater was out, in his hands.
Shinru sighed and stood up, grabbing his spear but still holding it so that the tip was plunged into the ground, “I had hoped to forgo a battle and get right to the explanation part, but I can already tell that you don’t intend to help me out there, huh?” he asked, and as quickly as Riku unsheathed Soul Eater, Odyssey, the name of the older, and by far more experienced, ninja’s spear, appeared in Shinru’s hands. One hand was somewhere near the middle of the spear while the other was a few inches away from the tip. “Well then, let’s get on with it.”
A Card's Assistance
Kabuto touched his face, more of a gentle rub than anything. It felt scalier now, and as he looked in the mirror, he could see that it was practically bleached. His hair had grown longer; more than a few strands of it going over his eyes. He felt like he’d grown taller, as well.
Every day, for the past few years, he had begun to look more and more like...
He turned his head quickly, hearing the doorknob turn. He was in his usual quarters as leader of Otogakure. A rather small room in his rather large, though smaller and less ‘magnificent’ than the mansions of the actual kages, manor. This was the only building found in this area, Otogakure being more of a bunch of hideouts scattered around than an actual village. Underground there could be found a labyrinth, where all of Kabuto’s, as well as past experiments of Orochimaru’s, experiments could be found.
And Kabuto’s restless army.
When the door opened, a woman entered. Older than Kabuto, but still fairly young, she was considerably tall, with long, dark brown hair. She had a fair face, Kabuto himself had commented that she was quite attractive more than once, actually, with almost constantly narrowed, not squinted, but narrowed, dark brown eyes. She had become Kabuto’s lieutenant in quite a short time, his right-hand man... or right-hand lady rather, by name she was known as May.
When she came in, she said simply, “The letters have been sent.”
Kabuto looked back at the mirror and nodded slowly, and she continued, walking up closer to him, “He’s taking over, isn’t he?” she asked quietly, putting a hand on his shoulder.
Kabuto stared at the mirror for a while longer, frowning as he did so, and then turned and left the room, “Come, we have preparations to make.”
~
“A black coat, eh?” Tenzu asked, curiously.
Now back at the hideout, all of their prisoners now in their cells, though likely still unconscious, Riku had just finished explaining everything that happened after they split up, but after that, he suddenly recalled the man that he saw on that ship. They were in the war room, their leader apparently having some sort of announcement to make, sitting in front the large, circular, table, made of some of the clearest obsidian Riku had ever seen, a definite statement considering that the only other obsidian he had ever seen was found in the tunnel linking his old home to the Lightning Country. There was no one else in the room; apparently the only prominent members in the entire castle were Riku, Tenzu, and their leader, who had yet to come.
Riku nodded, not looking at Tenzu though, but rather looking straight ahead with his elbow on the table and one hand cupped around his chin as he tried to recall the entire thing, “I couldn’t see his face, just the black coat; his face was covered by a hood, and his head was tilted down. He didn’t want me to know who he was.”
“And what did he do?” Tenzu pressed after a long pause as if he were trying to recall some memory his self, as if this whole thing sounded familiar to him.
“I attacked him and he beat me without hardly any effort. No weapons, no jutsu, just his hands. He was too fast; I could barely even see him when he moved. One second I was charging towards him and the next I was on the floor...”
“And then?”
“He said something about us meeting again in a place more... familiar or something. And then he just... disappeared. It wasn’t like your teleportation thing; it was more like he just... faded from existence,” Riku said, his voice barely a whisper, talking more to himself and thinking about how little sense it all made than explaining it to Tenzu, “And then I left,” he added.
Tenzu stared hard at him, “There’s a certain prisoner who you’ll probably want to talk with after this,” he said, noting that their leader was beginning to enter.
The leader of Akatsuki, as usually, simply had his hood over his head, he and Tenzu seeming to enjoy concealing their faces. Riku still felt slightly awkward when referring to him as the leader; as he had a solid guess to his true identity, but at the same time... though he didn’t exactly know the man who he would guess that had taken on the identity of an indiscrete Akatski leader, he at the same time had a feeling like this wasn’t the same person. If it really had been L-...
Riku’s thoughts were completely scattered when the leader began speak, “It seems that we’ve had a traitor among us—Kabuto.”
Riku was slightly taken aback by that, though he guessed that he should’ve seen it coming. He recalled his encounter with Kabuto a little over a year earlier. He hadn’t seen the man since then, it certainly shouldn’t have taken him that long just to conquer the Sound Country.
“Ok...” Riku started, “So what’s the big deal? Send Tenzu or someone to take care of him and we’re done.”
“The big deal is that Kabuto’s a little smarter than to betray us without having made preparations. He was the maker of all of the “experiments” that you’ve seen, the monstrous beasts that guard the tower,” Tenzu replied in place of their leader, “But... I thought that they had been bound by a seal to serve under you?”
“They have, but over the last year, it seems that Kabuto has been using Orochimaru’s old hideout to make a new, possibly larger, group than we have now. I’m willing to bet that he also found a few of the old sannin’s ‘leftovers.’ The entire Sound Country is likely answering to him by now, it’ll take more than just sending Tenzu out. The only safe approach would be to recall every member in Akatsuki to go to and defeat the Sound Country...”
“But that would mean leaving us open to attacks from Konoha and whatever other place wants to attack, right?” Riku asked, voicing what all three people in the room were thinking.
Both of the people in the room with Riku nodded, and Tenzu was the first to reply, “So it’s a gamble, then. If nothing in the letter hinted at attacking anyone or anything else...” he paused and looked toward their leader who confirmed that nothing else was hinted at with a nod and then continued, “Then there’s only a chance that the Leaf Village needs to respond to him and go to the Sound Country as well. Kabuto may be launching a full-on attack on the world, in which case Konoha may very well be having the same discussion that we are now, or he may just want to attack us, in which case all groups opposing us would use this as a chance to attack. Basically, either our situation will be very easy with Konoha assisting us by fighting Kabuto as well, or very difficult with us attacking Kabuto while trying to protect our own home.”
Riku did shift a bit at the reference to this dreary and dark place as ‘our home.’
The leader of Akatsuki picked up, “I’ll be staying here, of course, but it’s still a bit of a risk.”
Riku shrugged, “The thing is; we don’t quite have a choice. If we let Kabuto advance, then he’ll only make for a much more difficult opponent, and we’ll be in an even more difficult situation than we are in now if he manages to form an alliance with a place such as the Leaf Village, whose top priority at this moment is taking down us.”
Tenzu nodded, “So it’s agreed then.”
The leader of Akatsuki nodded, “Tomorrow marks the beginning of a certainly long and grueling battle.”
Riku said one more thing before they parted ways, though, “Although... you may have to spare one member and a prisoner; just for a bit.”
~
The next day, Riku was the only person in the Akatsuki tower, the only real member, anyway. Tenzu and their leader had left earlier, and Riku had managed to convince him to let him stay after explaining the whole situation with the man in the black coat. The same glimmer of recognition that had been found in Tenzu’s face found its way into their leader as well, but it was a much larger recognition; as if they did know something about this man, or perhaps this group.
Stalking through sinister-looking halls that had cells with, for the most part, half-dead prisoners in them on both sides, Riku looked both ways for a specific prisoner. He had surely seen him before; a man with short, blonde, almost white, hair and a small mustache that connected around his mouth with his beard. He also had multiple earrings in each ear. They had described him as ‘one of the few prisoners that not only retained his sanity, but remained completely calm at all times.’
After a few minutes, Riku came upon who was undoubtedly him; matching the description perfectly. Though, his hair, described to be somewhere between white and very light yellow, was darker now from the dirt-filled cell and matted down and damp from water that would leak through the cells when it rained, as it did often here. He was just… sitting there. Apathetically. He seemed to be looking at something, and as Riku advanced he could see that he was holding a card in his hand, flipping it around his fingers, more absently than as if he were examining it. It was almost as if he was somewhere waiting for someone or to be called upon for something.
Riku dropped down to one knee when he was in front of the cell and put one hand on one of the bars in front of him, and the man turned as the crooked smile he had already been wearing widened, “Would you, perhaps, be looking for something?”
Riku began immediately, “I hear that you have information, information that I want.”
The man looked forward towards the card, putting his head back to rest on the wall behind him, “Maybe… maybe not. Fifty-fifty shot.”
Taking in a deep breath, Riku pressed, “I don’t have time for wordplay. What do you know of a man who wears a black coat?”
“Him? Or them?” he asked simply.
“Whichever one you have answers to.”
“And if I have answers to both?”
“Then voice them now.”
The man laughed slightly, “For a child, you’re quite the serious one. Ok then, I’ll let you in on a bit…” he started, and then he added, “If you win.”
Riku’s eyebrow perched up, “Win?”
“It wouldn’t be any fun if I just gave you the answer, would it?” the man teased.
Laughing and helplessly shaking his head, Riku went on, “I don’t think that you understand. I’m not here to play games. If you’re not going to give me the answers that I need then there’s no reason for you to remain alive.”
“And to kill me, you would have to release me from this cell, would you not?” the man asked.
“No, I would not,” Riku said, as he stood up and made a single hand seal.
The jutsu was meant to speed up the process of chakra draining that happened to anyone trapped in the cell. It was generally a slow process by itself, meant only to keep the prisoner weak should they ever be temporarily released, but with this jutsu, all chakra could be drained within a matter of seconds. It was mainly meant as a torture technique. Riku had seen prisoners fall on the floor, groveling for the torturer to cease. He had seen prisoners claw at the side of the wall and clutch their stomachs from the pain that was brought along with the draining. He had seen prisoners bend over and retch from the nauseating feeling that they would get.
This prisoner, though, did none of those things.
Growing frustrated, Riku focused more, but still, his target seemed to feel nothing, only offering a simple reply: “Are you quite done?”
Riku stopped slowly, taking one step back, “What… What are you?
Riku’s question was replied to with a slight, apathetic shrug and an indirect answer, “If you play along, you may find out.”
“Wait… you mean you’re with them or something?”
“If you play along, you may find out,” he repeated.
Riku sighed; there was really no other option, “So what is this… game I have to win?”
The blonde prisoner moved his fingers in a way that the one card spanned out to reveal that there were actually three, the two others that were behind the one card flashing out on either side of it, “These cards…” he said holding the cards so that the backs of all of them faced Riku, each having an odd insignia on it, like some kind of disfigured, upside-down heart, though Riku had little time to examine it before the man began speaking again, “all have something different on the other side of them. Which you choose, determines what I will allow you to figure out. Perhaps you will learn everything, perhaps you will learn nothing, and perhaps you will learn just enough to make for a million more questions,” he explained, and then ended with, “Pick a card.”
Riku cocked an eyebrow. He’d never heard of something so… so pointless. If this man was one of them, then why would he risk giving Riku, a possible enemy, all of their information? Or if he was on Riku’s side, then why wouldn’t he just tell him everything in the first place? It all seemed so meaningless, so unreasonable, so… odd.
With no other choice, though, Riku complied and pointed to the card on the far left, and the man took the other two into his other hand and held the one that Riku had selected to the perplexed boy.
Before he turned it around, though, to see what was on it, there was a quick flash of light that radiated from the entire card. Nothing long, nothing extravagant, but certainly noticeable. Riku flinched when it happened, looked warily to the grinning man in front of him, and slowly turned the card over. On it he saw a picture. It was a decently sized house, and besides that all that was visible were a trail and green pastures that could be seen on the edge of the card. The house looked very… familiar to Riku, as if he had seen it before.
Right when Riku had finished examining it and was about to ask a question, light radiated from the card again. This time, though, it engulfed Riku. He was blinded by the light; unable to see anything, and all he could hear was a high-pitched ringing sound.
And then he was… somewhere else.
It was the place in the picture. He was standing on a trail that led up to the house, and there were two other trails that led to two smaller places, though still of decent size. Riku turned around, and looked down the trail, and when he turned he realized that the grassy, leveled plains turned into a hill; it sloped down in the direction that he was looking towards now. At the base of the hill, which seemed pretty far off, as if this place were somehow isolated from everything near it, there was a small village. He couldn’t make out much more aside from a palisade gate and a few buildings.
Riku turned his head to the side as he heard a sound. There was someone across the plains. No, two people. The sound that he had heard was the ringing of metal against metal and the sound of blades, punches, and kicks swishing through the air. The two people were fighting. But it wasn’t a violent battle. It was like they were just doing it for fun. Sparring, perhaps.
Riku smiled. Fighting for fun. Quite an ironic concept for him. It was a concept that had at once been the only reason why he fought at all, the only reason why he thought he would ever have to fight, and now he had so many reasons to fight that “fighting for fun” was nonexistent. He thought back hard to the last time that he had fought for fun. With Thane? No… he had fun when he fought the erratic and enthusiastic swordsman but the reason boiled down to training. The last time that he had fought for the sole purpose of having fun was probably with…
That’s when it struck him. His eyes widened quickly. This man, this prisoner, this… whatever he was, was hinting at location, the place where he would find his answers. That much had become apparent to him now and he knew now where to look. But as Riku thought on the matter more, there was something else… something bigger, something more surprising. But it couldn’t be. Perhaps it was farfetched, perhaps it was a crazy thought, but could it be that...
Riku’s thoughts were abruptly caught short, as dark plumes of smoke formed at his feet and swirled around him quickly, until he was completely engulfed in a dark cloud. The cloud swirled around him for a long while, though Riku could see nothing. When the cloud receded, the smoke slowly fading out of existence, the young member of Akatsuki found himself back in front of the man’s cell.
But when he looked up, nobody was in there.
Riku looked back down at the card, and then turned it over, examining the odd insignia on the back of it. As he had noticed before, it was like a white, upside-down heart at the bottom, and from that extended a spike that went out to the top. Near the middle of the spike that went out to the top, where it was more of a line, two other spikes extended out of either side of it. It was a very odd thing, and when Riku looked at the card more, he could see something at the very top of the card. It was a word, or a name of some sort. It was faded, as if it weren’t supposed to be in the card and it was something that was scratched in as a message to someone, as if the man had one last thing to tell him:
Luxord
~
Kakashi rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he read through the same letter for the seventh time that day. It was good and bad. The good part was that Kabuto was apparently no longer a part of Akatsuki due to this.
The bad part was that he is apparently declaring war on the entire Ninja World.
Sitting on the other side of the Hokage’s desk, Yamato broke the silence that had been running on for at least a half an hour by now, “So what’s our decision?”
Kakashi thought for a while longer, and then spoke, speaking more to himself than Yamato, “Kabuto is an immediate threat. If we don’t come to him, he’ll come to us.”
“Akatsuki is an immediate threat as well,” Yamato pointed out.
“But Akatsuki is also being attacked,” Kakashi countered, looking up from the letter, “They won’t dare attack us if it leaves them open to Kabuto, no doubt he has quite the army if he’s willing to take on… well… the entire Ninja World. Akatsuki will be focusing their forces on Kabuto. If we fight them, then it will be in the Sound Village, not by a surprise attack here.”
Yamato shrugged, “So we’re going to the Sound Village, then?”
Kakashi nodded, “Looks like it, get together the top ninja that we have here, whoever you think is up to the challenge, and have them report here.”
Yamato nodded, and then disappeared, moving as quickly as possible; the sooner that he could gather everyone, the sooner this could all be done with.
~
Yamato returned a few hours later, and following him were at least thirty of Konoha’s best. Kakashi scanned them over, there were plenty who he had expected: Naruto Uzumaki, Lee, Gai, Neji Hyuuga, Shikamaru Nara, Sakura Haruno, Tenten, Choji and Choza Akamichi, Raiden, Deirous, Shino Aburame, Reina, Sora, a ninja whom Yamato had just recently told Kakashi about after Yamato received the mission report from Raiden, and a few more. There were plenty of shinobi who he recognized but could not immediately name, and quite a few masked members of the Anbu. He scanned the group for a while longer, looking over their determined faces, Yamato had told Kakashi that they had all been thoroughly explained of their mission, and liking what he saw. He saw resolve; all of them knew what they had come to do and were ready to do whatever it took to get it done.
“We leave for the Sound Village tomorrow,” Kakashi said, cutting to the chase as opposed to some grand speech, something that he had never exactly favored, “I thank all of you for deciding to come. You will be split into groups by the time this day ends. Now, if you would all go to the war room where we may discuss how we plan to go about the battle itself.”
The crowd began to move through the doorway, with Reina, as Kakashi had hoped, being the last to leave. Before she did so, he grabbed her arm, “We need to talk for a bit.”
She looked up at him, and then backed back into the room, Kakashi backing up as well and sitting on top of his desk, “Look…” he started, “I’m happy that you came, and as I said, I’m thankful that you are willing to help, but… I think that it would be best if you stayed out of this.”
“What…?” Reina asked, taken aback by the statement, “Why?”
Kakashi took in a deep breath and then breathed out, “Akatsuki is going to be involved in this. And chances are, we’ll be seeing them there. Yamato told me about the report that you gave in your last mission. If Akatsuki is going to be there… then Riku will probably be there too.”
“What’s the problem, then?” she pressed.
“You know the problem,” Kakashi stated, “You just won’t admit to it. If things boil down to a fight with Riku, and if you’re even anywhere near him when it happens, then you’ll do something to try and stop whoever’s fighting from finishing it. You know it, too. We can’t risk remorse on a mission like this. There is a chance that we can possibly pick off at least one member of Akatsuki while on this mission. Remorse is something that we cannot afford at a time like this.”
Reina looked down; it was true, of course. Sora, Raiden, and Deirous might do the same thing, though, and that’s when she realized the other half of the reason, looking back up quickly to face Kakashi, “There’s more to it, though. It’s not just that you don’t think I’ll be able to hurt Riku, or let anyone else do it. You don’t think I can handle it,” she observed.
Kakashi looked down as she looked back up, “You’re not strong enough to handle Akatsuki or Kabuto… yet,” he said, adding ‘yet’ to give her a bit of hope—a failed attempt at doing so.
Kakashi got off of the desk after saying that, and walked past Reina so that he could get to the war room as she just stood there, pondering the statement.
And she couldn’t deny the truth of it.
~
Riku walked casually, now, a nice change of pace after the quick running and jumping that he had done all the way here. He walked up a sloped path, vast grassy plains surrounding him on either side. He walked up for only a while longer before he came to a spot where the hill stopped completely and smoothed out. In front of him was the same house that he had seen in the experience with the card, he didn’t know what else to call the event. Off to the side, slightly behind it and far off to the left was another small house, and far behind the original house, and far to the right as well, was another house. Riku had realized that, in the experience with the card, he had misinterpreted the size of the other house. It wasn’t smaller, it was just further away. Riku had done well to avoid the village at the bottom of the hill, going out wide around it to avoid any conflict.
Now standing in front of the house, Riku took in a deep breath and turned the doorknob, walking into his old dwelling.
There was a long hallway, with many doors scattered around and at the very end it turned to the side into another hallway. This long hallway, Riku remembered, outlined the kitchen which could be entered from several of the doors to his left side, and to his right were most of the actual rooms. Riku knew what room he was looking for, though. He had spent much too long in this place to not know it inside and out. He walked down the hallway and turned to the right, slowly opening the door.
It was just as he remembered.
It had been so long since he was last here… so very long. Or perhaps it just felt that way. It had been about a year, maybe a year and two or three months. But it felt like a lifetime. He had changed so much since he was last in this room. His room. The room that he had stayed in when he was with Shinru—his mentor… his… father. The room, though, remained the same. It remained as a reminder that everything was once completely different. There was one bed in the fairly sized room, at the far back corner of the room, placed right under a window. In the opposite side of the room, somewhere in the middle but still against the wall, was a dresser. Nothing was on it; nothing had ever been on it, except for one picture. A picture of him and Shinru, of course. He had forgotten about it when he left the village to run from Tenzu.
Something compelled him to reach into the side of the picture frame and take the photo. Holding it closer and examining it.
It was funny, really. When he was younger, he had actually hoped that Shinru was his own father. Riku had always known that he was adopted by his father back in his original village, and so he had wished that, somehow, his father was Shinru. But he never actually got around to asking. And now, when he knew the truth, that Shinru was, indeed, his blood father, he didn’t want it to be true. He loathed the fact. Perhaps not so much being Shinru’s son, but more-so what had been done to him as the man’s son.
Riku shook his head, abandoning the thoughts, and then focused on what he was looking for. He reached through the collar of his shirt and, from a pocket in the shirt that he was wearing under it; he produced the card, while putting the photo in that very same pocket, examining it for some clue as to where around here he should focus. The picture’s focal point was the very house that he was in now, and so this was where he should be looking, that much he had decided on the way there. But if it wasn’t in Riku’s old room, then there was only one other option.
Pushing open the door, Riku stalked down the hallway again, going further down the hallway, turning, and then going even farther down until he reached the room at the very end of it, the very last door. Shinru’s room. He could hear mumbling through the door.
Riku grabbed the doorknob cautiously and then opened it.
Riku almost fell over at what he saw.
There was the man, or one of the men, based on the possibilities that that prisoner had proposed, in the black coat, standing there. He wasn’t looking towards Riku, though, he was looking down, at what Riku knew before even looking was Shinru’s bed in front of him. Riku followed his eyes, or the direction of his hood to be more precise, and looked down. It didn’t take him long to discern what he was looking at.
The man sitting on the bed, the two apparently having a conversation, was dressed in some sort of armor, more heavily armored than most ninja, but it still seemed light enough to move around pretty easily. All parts of the armor itself were white, seeming somewhat like a robe, but each part, such as the shoulder pads and the chest plate, were trimmed with deep blue. Next to the man, leaning on the bed, was a long spear.
Riku looked back to the man and couldn’t believe who it was. He was more cleanly cut than before, having cut his light brown hair shorter from the shaggy state it had attained after being in an Akatsuki cell for so long. Riku had seen small tufts of a beard at that time, as well, which was now gone. But the last time had seen this man… this… whatever he was that could possibly survive after what happened… he was plummeting from the top of a spire.
“Shinru…” Riku whispered, and the duo of the man in the black coat and his former master seemed to notice him, turning abruptly as Shinru stared closely at him.
The man in the black coat laughed, putting his sleeve up to his face, which was still completely out of sight from Riku. As he laughed, a black mist swirled around his feet, and then upwards to engulf him, drawing Shinru’s attention back to him as well as Riku. When the mist slowly receded, the man had disappeared, much similarly, Riku noted, to the way he had disappeared when he… went inside of the card.
But he didn’t have time to worry about that. Here he was… right in front of him. But… he couldn’t be. He died. He fell from hundreds of thousands of feet to the ground. And even if he survived the fall, there were Kabuto’s experiments that had been at the base of the spire. And yet here he was, sitting there, staring up at his former apprentice.
Shinru laughed and looked down, “That cloak looks about as bad on you as it did on me.”
Riku’s hand shifted towards Soul Eater’s hilt, “It’s… really you,” he said, and then in a flash, Soul Eater was out, in his hands.
Shinru sighed and stood up, grabbing his spear but still holding it so that the tip was plunged into the ground, “I had hoped to forgo a battle and get right to the explanation part, but I can already tell that you don’t intend to help me out there, huh?” he asked, and as quickly as Riku unsheathed Soul Eater, Odyssey, the name of the older, and by far more experienced, ninja’s spear, appeared in Shinru’s hands. One hand was somewhere near the middle of the spear while the other was a few inches away from the tip. “Well then, let’s get on with it.”
