Blades of glass brushed against her face as the wolf gently crept through the brush of the cursed forest. A lone deer with six-point antlers grazed just outside of the tree line, his black eyes darting up and looking around as he continued to bite and tear at the grass the predator laid in. The wolf was unnoticed in its entirety, the soft gray and white fur blending in with the stones and snow that surrounded the mountain forest as if just another bank of fresh powder. The deer took a step to its right, towards the forest, and was suddenly within range. Without a moment’s hesitation the wolf dug her back paws into the dirt and snarled a battle cry, tearing through the snow and ground before lunging at the deer’s throat. It never stood a chance. Her teeth slid into the neck like daggers and with a violent jerk of her head, pulled muscle from bone as she landed back into the white snow now tainted with death and warm fluids. The deer, barely able to understand what just happened, hobbled forward a single step before falling over.
Other wolves began to pour out of the forest around the bloodied hunter that had laid the buck low. Of varying sizes the canines of a feral intent dove into the fresh meal, snarling, snapping at each other, and tearing away parts of the herbivore to be feasted on in peace between the trees behind them. As the main huntress went to pick her piece of meal she noticed her own pup having trouble pulling at a leg. The huntress placed a heavy paw down to help the child, and cub looked up with a grin, blood smeared around her face,
“Thanks, Mom,” said Sumika.
Rei sat up with a gasp, her heart beating had enough to feel like she was having an attack. The lithe woman grabbed at her chest, clawing at it almost and feeling her breasts to make sure she was once again human. A cold thick sweat had covered her body once more, making it feel like she had ran a marathon; based on the state of her disheveled bed, it was hard to argue against that feeling. With a flop the Sennin fell back into her pillows and stared up at the ceiling with matted green hair sticking to her scalp. Her red-colored irises shook, wide-awake, and an obvious fear showed within them. The wolf inside was not dead.
Just a little over six-months ago, one of the terrible diseases running rampant in Lightning bit her. Normally a soldier with high levels of chakra such as herself couldn’t be infected by the bite like those of a lesser nature, but the caveat in this was that she had already expended nearly all her energy trying to kill the animorphic disease that had produced the bite. Lycans, wolf/humanoid hybrid that was the result of a rampant virus was a left over scar from a rebellion nearly a year ago. The fast paced disease had done enough terrorizing of the country to be considered a kill-on-sight. Yet, due to the way they spread, the creature was becoming a true menace. It was showing itself heartier than the medical had hoped for, and even someone who could manipulate reality, at least to an extent, was still having problems controlling the creature that resided within.
Rei gripped the bedsheets in frustration. She hadn’t had a proper sleep since Konohagakure, as something about the mountain air seemed to really trigger the wolf sleeping in her genes. The engineer had tried it all - aromatherapy, tea, medication; the latter of which nearly saw her kill someone when the beast inside her caused a sleep-walking episode. Golden rays began to spike over the horizon and play against the drawn shades of the wide window in her master bedroom. They streaked across the dark room and landed her her cheek, the warmth of the sun cutting through the naturally cold state of her home. The rays slowly slipped down her cheek until it landed on a spot on her collarbone before being cut off by the blinds to be replaced by another ray on her cheek as the sun rose. The Ryuu clan head was down to a final option that she had been loathed to even think of…but there was literally nothing left. She couldn’t figure out the Lycan gene sequence. The 1000-Layer Dragon Seal was only just holding everything back while also keeping them as one creature. The Leaf Village had nothing she could find that would further the goals of either science, medical, or chakra theory to aid in her condition.
Which left her with legends, and the only people she knew hid away legendary crap were her own - the Ryuu Elders.
Closing her eyes against the rising light, Rei sighed in frustration before rolling out of her king-sized bed and dragging the sheet with her. With the sudden snap of her left grasping arm forward, then back, the sheet flew out off of the bed and then suddenly around her skinny frame as chakra leaked from her pores to cause the linen to transform into clothing. Unlike her usual attire of business casual, this time she was dressed in a stately kimono worthy of a clan leader; but kept it “sporty” to adhere to her sudden shinobi movements. With a flicker the Sennin vanished and reappeared in the kitchen before grabbing two…no, three, slices of raw bacon to devoured them whole in a few bites before vanishing again. The green haired leader of Kumogakure’s image flickered right outside the front door as the cold morning winds blew down on her form. Without even considering it conciously, the scientist’s systems began to circulate a fire-edged chakra through her body to naturally warm it against the mountain cold. She turned left of the front door and out into the snow to trek around on top of it until she was on the side of her house where the living room's bay window faced the cursed forest. Slowly, the soldier moved towards it.
As she reached the threshold of the frosted pins, the bloody mess of something that had been eaten by the local carnivores the previous night caught Rei’s eye. It caused her to picked up the pace.
The Ryuu Elders were an eclectic bunch. Four old men and one shriveled up hag that had managed to outlive their entire bloodlines, sat isolated from the rest of the Ryuu Clan. Past the accursed forest and up into the mountain range resided an old temple dedicated to the old gods of Lightning, but it had long ago been abandoned due to the deadly forest surrounding it. Shortly after arriving in the country on their retreat from The Dishonored One, the five elder Ryuu passed down to the small remnants of the clan a method in which to farm cabbage and then absconded into the mountains. They never came back down. Someone from the Ryuu holdings would bring up supplies once a month, and even in that rare occasion they remained mostly reclusive. A fact which irked the current Head of the clan on many levels.
The biggest problem in their ways was that they held important secrets. When a new Clan Head was selected from the rabble, they had to tenure under the Elder 5 for at least three months - and damned any other duties in that time period. During her tutelage, the elders and the young woman never saw eye to eye; not once. All of the Ryuu clan’s important history was completely oral - meaning not a single bit of it was written anywhere, and whoever lead the clan was forced to get along with ancient mummies. The new Head was given only the most basic of this secret knowledge, and the rest was taught based on how much they "liked", their new candidate. A great many important secrets were being withheld from the clan's newest leader, she could feel it, but there was little the Sennin could do to fight it. After the curse Tengokai placed upon their clan when he abused forbidden knowledge, even Rei's stubborn personality could understand their reasoning.
Ice and dead leaves crunched beneath the weight of the shinobi as she hopped from branch to branch, avoiding the common rabble below that was the forests’ more evil denizens. Her presence was mostly cloaked by a sheen coat of chakra anyways, making the fast movements soft blurs for anything trying to pay attention. The woman’s invisible form burst from the canopy and over an open break in the trees. She reached out and grabbed the air itself, and gave it a tug to send her body rocketing towards the rock face some good distance away from the shaded wooded edge. In an instant, Rei crossed the space and landed just shy of the mountain surface on top of a snow bank. From there she carefully squeezed through the small dark spaces in the rock face until emerging on the other side where a dilapidated temple of Raiden sat in a hovel.
As the Sennin slowly crossed the threshold into the Elder’s domain an ill-seated motion dropped into her stomach. The faint waft of death crossed her senses and her body went turbo. Something bad had happened. Her eyes narrowed as she flickered from outside-to-inside within a blink. This grand entrance was met with grisly carnage before her eyes. Cold air circulated the now overwhelming smell as she saw bits and pieces of all five ancient minds strewn across the main meeting room. A panic began to rise within the leader, at the thought of how much knowledge had just been sundered from the world as she stepped forward.
Rei’s feet fell between the blood and gore like droplets off rain as she hopped through the room to survey the carnage and get a footing to investigate what had preformed this heinous deed. As she moved through, her leg caught on something invisible causing the well practiced shinobi to fall to the ground unceremoniously; following her fall was a loud, “Oof!”, said a voice not her own.
Her eyes narrowed once more before standing back up with her arms spread wide.
“Oh shit,” a gruff voice in a corner whispered before the Sennin clapped her hands together and mumbled something. The stone floor where she stood suddenly became spotless in a perfect circle around the Sennin. As Rei drew her arms back out to spread the cleanliness out and over the entire room - floor to ceiling - uneasy shuffling on the floor quickly caught her attention. Lights were re-lit, furniture replaced, and once everything had been put back into order it was then that Ryuu leader could see the old fools laying around in gray garments meant to hide them.
“…is she still there? She sees us, doesn’t she?” another voice spoke, with somewhat of a wheeze.
“Yes, Hikaro…she sees us,” the gruff voice from the corner spoke before standing up and letting the gray cloth fall away. Rei kicked at the elder closest to her and the old man cried out before scurrying away clearly unharmed. It was next to impossible to actually hurt any of the Ryuu’s Elders due to their extensive forbidden knowledge; which only made her angrier in the realization they had almost tricked her.
“The nine hells do you want, woman,” one hissed, still beneath his blankets as the Sennin moved back to sit on her knees close to the entrance. It was the proper place one would sit to ask the Ryuu Elders a question, and it didn’t go unnoticed that the most uncouth of leaders was finally following protocol. Three of the five shuffled onto their pillows - an old man with no hair and a beard to make up for the lack of it. Another with head hair that covered his face in a bushy mess, with skin so thin it wrapped his bones. The final, he who hissed, was a rat-faced man with beady eyes to match, greasy mop of a hair, and a face clearly untrimmed on purpose to perhaps compete with the first in vain. The other two, so far, were missing.
“Well, go on then,” the gruff spoke up.
“I…am ill, deathly so…” Rei let that sink in for a moment but the old men didn’t seem very phased by the prospect, “A little over six-months ago I was bitten by the Lycans that are infesting Lightning while I was weakened. It infected me immediately. Through nothing short of a miracle, I preformed the 1000-Layer Dragon Seal by myself to restructure-“
“You, WHAT?” one cried.
“Rei, you were taught that technique in secret to be preformed with select members of the clan, not by yourself! Had something gone awry it could have destroyed the entire village!”
“It is a forbidden technique with clear, cut, rules for a reason, you child!”
“I had no choice!” she cried back, knowing the moment she did it was cementing them against her, “If I didn’t preform the rite, and transformed into a beast, I might have destroyed Kumogakure anyways!”
“The Raikage would have handled you if you had done so, child, that is no excuse. Once again you have let your passion get before your head - that is NOT our way!”
“This is why we pretended to be dead on your arrival! We knew you would only come up here looking for something, never to finish the training you sorely lack! There is no point in this meeting. I move that we remove the Ryuu from the holdings and back to her village. All say I?”
“I.”
“I.”
“No, wait,” croaked the voice of an old woman. The three men stiffened suddenly, the one in the center quickly getting up and shuffling towards an end seat. A part of the wall in the back of the room split away and opened up to reveal a brightly lit room glowing a soft pink. Jasmine and fresh cut citrus wafted over them all, cutting out the stale air and replacing it with a scent that relaxed even Rei. From within a tiny old woman hobbled out leaning against the gnarled root of a white tree that was easily twice her size. Helping her along was the last of the Elder 5, her husband, who stood up proudly with a clean-cut look to him that clearly denoted his superior status over the other three men. Once the old lady had settled onto her cushion, her husband took his seat beside the curly-haired elder with a snarl at his appearance.
“What- it was for a thing!” he snapped in defense to the glare.
“Rei of the Ryuu,” the old woman spoke up, cutting through the air with an authority and power that belayed her appearance, “13th leader of our clan, and keeper of the small. She has come in honesty to seek out answers, as we’re supposed to oblige,” her sharp tongue cutting the souls of the others.
“Speak, child, tell us what ails you.”
With a respectful tone and with words far more benign to their age than she would usually produce, the Sennin explained everything she could about the virus itself. From how it effected shinobi, to how it had touched her, what it had the potential to do, and what it was still trying to do despite her best efforts. She apologized with a deep bow that all but made her want to puke, for the use of the Dragon Seal, and it showed in her ridged form; but the offer was accepted.
“Rise, no apology is necessary. You have shown great restraint in not coming to us first, and we should honor that.”
“Despite our misgivings,” the gruff voice once again complained.
“Not every leader of the Ryuu can be you, Teo. Tengokai was the first in eleven generations to betray the trust we gave the Keeper, and Rei has given us no reason to mistrust her despite their clear, distrust in our systems,” the old woman once again replied, quelling any dissent that was brewing right there.
“The answer you seek is not one that will be easily gained,”
“Nor it is one we all willingly relinquish,”
“…but, the more you spoke of this Lycan problem, the clearer the solution became. Close your eyes.”
Her red irises darted to look at all five, resting on the woman in the center before sighing softly and doing as told. The Elders preformed synchronized handseals before appearing suddenly around the Sennin and placing their hands on her. Knowledge suddenly exploded into her mind as something that could not be spoken of was relayed from their memories into her own. The process brought a pain that she didn’t know was possible, and her hands clutched at the pillow she sat on tight enough to drain the blood away from her palms.
“Seventy-Two leagues away from our temple to the North sits a golden sword. Buried beyond ice, rock, and an ancient seal placed by our elders, it is a weapon capable of ending the world if given to the wrong hands. Like the weapon Tengokai was after, the Shiva Blade, this weapon contains the spirit of some otherworldly creature that can bequeath its powers to whoever swings it. Many speculate what resides in the weapon - an angel, a Kami, an ascendant monk who was placed into the weapon to maintain his immortality once his original shell could no longer contain his soul…we don't know for sure. What is known, are the powers it has to grant life with each swing, making it a progenitor weapon from an age long lost to man. We can’t say for certain that this blade will cure you, or if it will lead to our ruin, but we all agree that it is the only chance you will have to make things right. Good luck, Rei of the Ryuu, and may the dragons’ claw carve out your road.”
She was lifted out of the temple and through the rough as if her corporal form no longer existed. From there she felt the wind rushing by her face, cutting her flesh as she was thrown at inconperhensible speeds from the temple, to a deserted frozen island in the middle of the North Sea. The woman could not stop her decent, slow it down, or even mold chakra to lessen the impact as she felt the ground rush up to meet her face.
Rei gasped, sitting straight up in bed once more. Her hair was a mess, a cold layer of sweat stuck to her body, and once again the sheets were in disarray. Snatching the phone off the bed-stand to her right she flipped open the case and powered on the screen to see that it was still the same day she had decided to seek out the elders. The time was the exact same as when she had awoken, her stomach was empty, and the fleeting memories of her haunting nightmare continued to coil around her memory. Had the Elders preformed a temporal jutsu? With another frustrated sigh, the engineer rolled back out of bed and moved towards the shower.
A week later the Sennin had finally gathered enough resources and time to make the journey. During that week the spy master thrown a handful of agents into the great north to do some much needed recon. Of the five she sent, only three returned. They spoke of great perils awaiting anyone who would dare make the trek that far in the form of not just the natural state of the weather, but the creatures as well. Some deadly serpent resided between the two land masses, hiding beneath the thin ice patiently. It attacked their icebreaker ship half-way between, killing one spy instantly by snapping the ship in half with its jaws. The other one died from exposure on the way to the island. The remaining three shinobi made landfall to find a large pine forest that couldn’t be entered. Snow melted at the touch, and it gave off a heated shock to anyone who tried to move through it. Metti, the barrier expert the Sennin slipped in on purpose, claimed that even a shinobi of her skill would need twelve others just like her to bring it down; that, and three weeks of constant chanting.
It was an old seal, nothing like Metti had seen before. The language used to put the barrier up was unrecognizable and carved into twelve stones that circled the island. Each one appeared to be their own anchor, meaning the barrier had at least as many layers to it not including whatever was potentially protecting the super obvious cave that was a straight shot through a line in the trees. The docket this information had come from stuffed to the brim with pages detailing the expidition that the survivors had gathered for her, and along with it was two resignations from the military. The latter made Rei wince. It was unlike her to do things this way, but it was what she had to accept in trade for such a high rank. Clearly it wasn’t a mission she could continue to reconnaissance. Just as disappointing was her condition, in which she didn’t think was going to continue being just nightmares for much longer. The engineer had to make a choice that she had never once gave a thought to. For the safety of Kumogakure, she would need to disappear for awhile.
As to not leave her office, a spy agency, in complete disarray, the military general put in orders to be effective immediately in naming her most trusted adviser as the next spy leader. Once this was all done with, Rei would be returning to Kumogakure as the Main Branch Sennin, and nothing else. She had shouldered far too much in this job, and it showed now in the worst of ways. It caused an excuse to begin open conflict with another branch of the military that was just as important; problems she couldn’t be neutral towards when they’d inevitably pop up. The day the orders were to go into effect, Ryuu Rei vanished from the village in the dead of the night without any trace as to which way she left. The handful of people who might have known pretended to be just as flabbergasted by her moves, and for the next week the loyalty of the Ryuu Clan’s Head would be put into question.
The journey to the frozen sea was made entirely on foot, and with the aid of chakra she was able to burst through miles and miles of territory without being noticed. The only thing that marked her presence were the small claps of thunder when she broke the sound barrier to blink past farm towns. Once her feet crunched into the snow in the last three-hundred yards to her target is when the super-sonic woman finally slowed down; coming to a complete stop at the sea’s beach of shattered ice.
Rei stood shaking, her hands heavy against her knees as the sea-leaden air made it difficult to catch her breath after such a sprint. A minute of wheezing, hacking, and wind-down stretches, and the lithe figure finally caught back up with herself. The idea to cross now was tempting just to cut her journey down, if nothing else, but the weather had begun to turn for the worst. Waves were beaking through the thin ice in the distance and the wind began to pick up throwing snow every which way. Before the blizzard could set in fully, a quick glance found a littoral cave some way down the beach that was still open while the tide was out. In a blink Rei warped reality to glide her form over to the entrance and ducked in to climb further back.
The sea cave itself was a spacious opening where the floor raised itself back above sea level. It had clearly been home to travelers many times with the usual marks of human comfort was spread throughout. A shoddy hearth in the back of the cave, prepped with dry sticks ready to become fuel for fire. Roughly made chairs crafted from beach wood rested just in front of the hearth while the far right side of the cave held an insect infested animal fur - bear, from the looks of it - that was stuffed with bits of hay to make a bed. Clapping her hands together and kneeling down, Rei pulled the palms apart and gently touched the ground. The act circulated her chakra in a manor that manipulated its reality shaping properties to the maximum potential. When her palms were placed against a surface she could restructure it as anything, and with enough strength could even make a cabin appear from thin air. Yet, for the innate need for secrecy in this delicate matter and her previous work out, it suited the Ryuu far more to spruce up the littoral home.
“Secret Art: Room.”
Tiles crystallized from her palms before flipping off of each other until the floor was no longer dirt. As they hit the furniture, the stone turned into raw power that consumed the objects before leaping towards the wall like a rabid blob. In her chakra’s wake the cave slowly transformed from a hovel and into a tiny cabin-like space. The chairs became shaped into something an artisan would spend months creating, the bed a full frame and down mattress. The hearth turned into a full fireplace with a chimney that broke just through the hill next to the sea. Over the logs turned form sticks hung a cast-iron pot from a metal hook complete with wooden utensils that themselves hung on pegs driven into the stone wall beside. Rei stared at the white tiles for a moment before stomping her foot to flip them into wooden planks instead, giving the room a much more rustic feel truer to its natural state. She nodded, pleased with her creation.
The soldier hunted down her meal that evening, despite the weather. A rabbit that she turned into a simple stew using water from a near-by creek fed by the area's local spring. Despite the simplicity and lacking herbs she would normally have for a meal, it was still delicious. Perhaps it was the pride in having taken down the meal herself from start to finish that made the meal better. The weight of the meal settled down her mood for sleep almost immediately as the impact of using her chakra to bolt from Kumo to the North Sea in under ten minutes finally took its toll. Kicking off her shoes she climbed into bed and immediately fell asleep. The rest wasn’t peaceful, though, as predicted. The nightmares of being a wolf haunted her still, and when she regained full consciousness from her dreams the woman found herself in the hovel’s corner, nude, and scratching at the wooden floor. The wounds and splinters sticking out from under her finger nails did little to phase Rei as much as the act itself did. A flex of the chakra coil’s core muscles and those wounds were healed, but the haunting act did not flitter away from her mind so easily. After eating the rest of the rabbit stew for breakfast and waiting for the tide to slide back out in full, the Kumo leader decided it was time to get this over with before she killed someone.
Sliding out of the hole and back into the cold was a surprising shock considering how used to the this kind of weather she was. Fresh blankets of snow from last night's blizzard mixed in with the beache's dirty sand as ice crashed against the shore. Further beyond the ice was still. Something about the the cold of the beach cut through even her normal resistance, and as her booted foot touched the surface of the water leading onto the thin ice she could feel it crawl further down her back. It quickly occurred to the engineer that the cold feeling wasn't the weather - her chakra could stop that. It was a gigantic seal that her people had managed to enchant over the entire section of water, as she began to recognize the shivers weren’t from the cold but from the raw power she was standing over; her body acclimated after a mile. While slowly traversing over the ice a giant shadow loomed beneath her feet multiple times but never made a move to break through. At one point she felt like it stopped to stare at her, and when Rei turned her head to look back in ferocity the serpent quickly darted away.
“Coward. I owe you two, don’t think I won’t eventually come back for your head, snake,” the Ryuu threatened the beast below. It didn’t show itself again for the rest of her trip.
The moment her foot touched shore to the far north island a heavy weight hit her back. Something pushed the woman forward instantly, before she could consider what was happening, and found her body being hurled through the twelve barriers without harming a single hair. The mysterious force stopped the Sennin just short of the cave’s entrance and Rei stood there wary, crouched down and prepared for an ambush. Turning around she tried to leave only to walk right into an invisible wall that caused the ninja to drop onto her butt like an unbalanced Academy Student; which was odd. She slowly stood back up and tried to make use of her chakra only to find it…muted. Concerning when the reflexive nature that she used for combat was completely nerfed, but it seemed like there was no point in worrying over it. Nothing could get in, she couldn't get out, and unless there was some terrible demon guarding the sword beyond she had no reason to be anxious. No doubt the island recognized either the seal on her back, or whatever the Elders did to mark her as the current Clan Head. At least...that's what her head told her, but something else beyond that felt like it was all a ruse. The primal canine within was pulling at it's leash, trying to talk her out of walking into the cave but, stuck within, she decided there was no choice but to move foward.
Carefully stepping inside she found the cave to be pleasantly warm compared to the sharp cold the twelve barriers did nothing against outside despite the heat they gave off. Two small torches lit up a small shrine within that was covered in grass, flowers, and other fauna that shouldn’t be able to grow there. It grew ever thicker towards a wooden alter that contained a golden katana held up by two prongs made from the same alter. It was unmarred by the elements and had no handle - just a blade and tang. Rei slowly closed the small gap between her and the sword before tentatively reaching out to grab it. The moment her hands clasped down on the metal completely, a shock surged through her entire body...but that was it.
The shinobi lifted it and swung it a few times. It was impossibly light, but also impossible to use for combat. The lack of a good grip told her immediately that it would be useless in a real fight. She dragged the edge against some stone still exposed through the grass and moss grew in the weapon's wake - cutting through the stone as if it was butter. It was indeed impressive, but the Clan Head couldn’t imagine how it was supposed to help her condition. She considered that it had only been two days since her disappearance, it would be easy to slip back into the shinobi village to lie, and say she had been there the whole time just working on something. There Rei could access Kumo’s technology to unravel the golden katana's mystery.
As she turned to leave, a vine reached out and snagged her ankle. Due to the muted nature of her chakra beneath the twelve layers of sealing, the Sennin once again tripped and fell as any normal human would. The bottom bit of the tang slammed against the ground causing the weapon to slip from her hands, fly into the air, and fall back against her; point down. It slipped right into her flesh painlessly and pinned her to ground, connecting the blade, shinobi, and world into one figure that the creature within the katana tried to take over. Just like the Shiva Blade before it, the Hubris of Truth was a weapon containing a mythical being that could grant the wielder of the weapon immense power in trade for something. For Tengokai, the trade was his sanity. For the last user of the Hubris, it had been their vanity as they traded looks for raw power.
For Rei of the Ryuu, nothing needed to be offered.
The connection the blade had made between the human and the world overwhelmed the creature within, and the hungry chakra that piloted Rei’s body sprung to attack without hesitation. The seals may have reduced her ability to use her powers, but there was another creature in control of that chakra besides the shinobi, and the wolf didn’t hesitate to strike down a prey that was trying to take its body away. However instead of consuming the creature, and using the planet itself as a medium, the 1000 Layer Dragon Seal activated in the presence of the life-giving powers within the golden weapon, causing Rei to fuse with all three in a single moment. The transformation of Rei, the lycan, whatever resided within the katana, and the world, revealed itself to the Lightning Country as a distant calamity.
From Kumogakure it would appear to be like an atomic bomb. A great sphere of hot-white energy consumed the island and a greater part of the sea around it before imploding back into a single point then exploding even further beyond in a single blast that shook the windows of the shinobi village. The sea serpent that had killed 2 of Rei’s soldiers did not make it out alive, either. In the middle of the sea, unfrozen now from the blast floated a naked woman with long white hair that stared up at the gray skies that continued to drop snow gently only to melt against the salty water. Rei smiled and waved her hand to clear away the clouds as if it was simple smoke, and a miracle occurred; the weather cleared up instantly.
Another six days passed before Rei showed back up at the gates with her usual green hair and a business casual outfit. Something about her had changed, which was immediately noticeable, but no one could figure it out. The Sennin took back over her job, but only after debriefing Kitsune on why she had to leave so suddenly in the first place. The Raikage was also the only person she confided into about what had happened, and even from her best friend, Rei withheld the entire end result. The katana was gone, the spirit consumed, and Rei thought of something she had never considered in her life before.
Could man become a living god?
Other wolves began to pour out of the forest around the bloodied hunter that had laid the buck low. Of varying sizes the canines of a feral intent dove into the fresh meal, snarling, snapping at each other, and tearing away parts of the herbivore to be feasted on in peace between the trees behind them. As the main huntress went to pick her piece of meal she noticed her own pup having trouble pulling at a leg. The huntress placed a heavy paw down to help the child, and cub looked up with a grin, blood smeared around her face,
“Thanks, Mom,” said Sumika.
Rei sat up with a gasp, her heart beating had enough to feel like she was having an attack. The lithe woman grabbed at her chest, clawing at it almost and feeling her breasts to make sure she was once again human. A cold thick sweat had covered her body once more, making it feel like she had ran a marathon; based on the state of her disheveled bed, it was hard to argue against that feeling. With a flop the Sennin fell back into her pillows and stared up at the ceiling with matted green hair sticking to her scalp. Her red-colored irises shook, wide-awake, and an obvious fear showed within them. The wolf inside was not dead.
Just a little over six-months ago, one of the terrible diseases running rampant in Lightning bit her. Normally a soldier with high levels of chakra such as herself couldn’t be infected by the bite like those of a lesser nature, but the caveat in this was that she had already expended nearly all her energy trying to kill the animorphic disease that had produced the bite. Lycans, wolf/humanoid hybrid that was the result of a rampant virus was a left over scar from a rebellion nearly a year ago. The fast paced disease had done enough terrorizing of the country to be considered a kill-on-sight. Yet, due to the way they spread, the creature was becoming a true menace. It was showing itself heartier than the medical had hoped for, and even someone who could manipulate reality, at least to an extent, was still having problems controlling the creature that resided within.
Rei gripped the bedsheets in frustration. She hadn’t had a proper sleep since Konohagakure, as something about the mountain air seemed to really trigger the wolf sleeping in her genes. The engineer had tried it all - aromatherapy, tea, medication; the latter of which nearly saw her kill someone when the beast inside her caused a sleep-walking episode. Golden rays began to spike over the horizon and play against the drawn shades of the wide window in her master bedroom. They streaked across the dark room and landed her her cheek, the warmth of the sun cutting through the naturally cold state of her home. The rays slowly slipped down her cheek until it landed on a spot on her collarbone before being cut off by the blinds to be replaced by another ray on her cheek as the sun rose. The Ryuu clan head was down to a final option that she had been loathed to even think of…but there was literally nothing left. She couldn’t figure out the Lycan gene sequence. The 1000-Layer Dragon Seal was only just holding everything back while also keeping them as one creature. The Leaf Village had nothing she could find that would further the goals of either science, medical, or chakra theory to aid in her condition.
Which left her with legends, and the only people she knew hid away legendary crap were her own - the Ryuu Elders.
Closing her eyes against the rising light, Rei sighed in frustration before rolling out of her king-sized bed and dragging the sheet with her. With the sudden snap of her left grasping arm forward, then back, the sheet flew out off of the bed and then suddenly around her skinny frame as chakra leaked from her pores to cause the linen to transform into clothing. Unlike her usual attire of business casual, this time she was dressed in a stately kimono worthy of a clan leader; but kept it “sporty” to adhere to her sudden shinobi movements. With a flicker the Sennin vanished and reappeared in the kitchen before grabbing two…no, three, slices of raw bacon to devoured them whole in a few bites before vanishing again. The green haired leader of Kumogakure’s image flickered right outside the front door as the cold morning winds blew down on her form. Without even considering it conciously, the scientist’s systems began to circulate a fire-edged chakra through her body to naturally warm it against the mountain cold. She turned left of the front door and out into the snow to trek around on top of it until she was on the side of her house where the living room's bay window faced the cursed forest. Slowly, the soldier moved towards it.
As she reached the threshold of the frosted pins, the bloody mess of something that had been eaten by the local carnivores the previous night caught Rei’s eye. It caused her to picked up the pace.
The Ryuu Elders were an eclectic bunch. Four old men and one shriveled up hag that had managed to outlive their entire bloodlines, sat isolated from the rest of the Ryuu Clan. Past the accursed forest and up into the mountain range resided an old temple dedicated to the old gods of Lightning, but it had long ago been abandoned due to the deadly forest surrounding it. Shortly after arriving in the country on their retreat from The Dishonored One, the five elder Ryuu passed down to the small remnants of the clan a method in which to farm cabbage and then absconded into the mountains. They never came back down. Someone from the Ryuu holdings would bring up supplies once a month, and even in that rare occasion they remained mostly reclusive. A fact which irked the current Head of the clan on many levels.
The biggest problem in their ways was that they held important secrets. When a new Clan Head was selected from the rabble, they had to tenure under the Elder 5 for at least three months - and damned any other duties in that time period. During her tutelage, the elders and the young woman never saw eye to eye; not once. All of the Ryuu clan’s important history was completely oral - meaning not a single bit of it was written anywhere, and whoever lead the clan was forced to get along with ancient mummies. The new Head was given only the most basic of this secret knowledge, and the rest was taught based on how much they "liked", their new candidate. A great many important secrets were being withheld from the clan's newest leader, she could feel it, but there was little the Sennin could do to fight it. After the curse Tengokai placed upon their clan when he abused forbidden knowledge, even Rei's stubborn personality could understand their reasoning.
Ice and dead leaves crunched beneath the weight of the shinobi as she hopped from branch to branch, avoiding the common rabble below that was the forests’ more evil denizens. Her presence was mostly cloaked by a sheen coat of chakra anyways, making the fast movements soft blurs for anything trying to pay attention. The woman’s invisible form burst from the canopy and over an open break in the trees. She reached out and grabbed the air itself, and gave it a tug to send her body rocketing towards the rock face some good distance away from the shaded wooded edge. In an instant, Rei crossed the space and landed just shy of the mountain surface on top of a snow bank. From there she carefully squeezed through the small dark spaces in the rock face until emerging on the other side where a dilapidated temple of Raiden sat in a hovel.
As the Sennin slowly crossed the threshold into the Elder’s domain an ill-seated motion dropped into her stomach. The faint waft of death crossed her senses and her body went turbo. Something bad had happened. Her eyes narrowed as she flickered from outside-to-inside within a blink. This grand entrance was met with grisly carnage before her eyes. Cold air circulated the now overwhelming smell as she saw bits and pieces of all five ancient minds strewn across the main meeting room. A panic began to rise within the leader, at the thought of how much knowledge had just been sundered from the world as she stepped forward.
Rei’s feet fell between the blood and gore like droplets off rain as she hopped through the room to survey the carnage and get a footing to investigate what had preformed this heinous deed. As she moved through, her leg caught on something invisible causing the well practiced shinobi to fall to the ground unceremoniously; following her fall was a loud, “Oof!”, said a voice not her own.
Her eyes narrowed once more before standing back up with her arms spread wide.
“Oh shit,” a gruff voice in a corner whispered before the Sennin clapped her hands together and mumbled something. The stone floor where she stood suddenly became spotless in a perfect circle around the Sennin. As Rei drew her arms back out to spread the cleanliness out and over the entire room - floor to ceiling - uneasy shuffling on the floor quickly caught her attention. Lights were re-lit, furniture replaced, and once everything had been put back into order it was then that Ryuu leader could see the old fools laying around in gray garments meant to hide them.
“…is she still there? She sees us, doesn’t she?” another voice spoke, with somewhat of a wheeze.
“Yes, Hikaro…she sees us,” the gruff voice from the corner spoke before standing up and letting the gray cloth fall away. Rei kicked at the elder closest to her and the old man cried out before scurrying away clearly unharmed. It was next to impossible to actually hurt any of the Ryuu’s Elders due to their extensive forbidden knowledge; which only made her angrier in the realization they had almost tricked her.
“The nine hells do you want, woman,” one hissed, still beneath his blankets as the Sennin moved back to sit on her knees close to the entrance. It was the proper place one would sit to ask the Ryuu Elders a question, and it didn’t go unnoticed that the most uncouth of leaders was finally following protocol. Three of the five shuffled onto their pillows - an old man with no hair and a beard to make up for the lack of it. Another with head hair that covered his face in a bushy mess, with skin so thin it wrapped his bones. The final, he who hissed, was a rat-faced man with beady eyes to match, greasy mop of a hair, and a face clearly untrimmed on purpose to perhaps compete with the first in vain. The other two, so far, were missing.
“Well, go on then,” the gruff spoke up.
“I…am ill, deathly so…” Rei let that sink in for a moment but the old men didn’t seem very phased by the prospect, “A little over six-months ago I was bitten by the Lycans that are infesting Lightning while I was weakened. It infected me immediately. Through nothing short of a miracle, I preformed the 1000-Layer Dragon Seal by myself to restructure-“
“You, WHAT?” one cried.
“Rei, you were taught that technique in secret to be preformed with select members of the clan, not by yourself! Had something gone awry it could have destroyed the entire village!”
“It is a forbidden technique with clear, cut, rules for a reason, you child!”
“I had no choice!” she cried back, knowing the moment she did it was cementing them against her, “If I didn’t preform the rite, and transformed into a beast, I might have destroyed Kumogakure anyways!”
“The Raikage would have handled you if you had done so, child, that is no excuse. Once again you have let your passion get before your head - that is NOT our way!”
“This is why we pretended to be dead on your arrival! We knew you would only come up here looking for something, never to finish the training you sorely lack! There is no point in this meeting. I move that we remove the Ryuu from the holdings and back to her village. All say I?”
“I.”
“I.”
“No, wait,” croaked the voice of an old woman. The three men stiffened suddenly, the one in the center quickly getting up and shuffling towards an end seat. A part of the wall in the back of the room split away and opened up to reveal a brightly lit room glowing a soft pink. Jasmine and fresh cut citrus wafted over them all, cutting out the stale air and replacing it with a scent that relaxed even Rei. From within a tiny old woman hobbled out leaning against the gnarled root of a white tree that was easily twice her size. Helping her along was the last of the Elder 5, her husband, who stood up proudly with a clean-cut look to him that clearly denoted his superior status over the other three men. Once the old lady had settled onto her cushion, her husband took his seat beside the curly-haired elder with a snarl at his appearance.
“What- it was for a thing!” he snapped in defense to the glare.
“Rei of the Ryuu,” the old woman spoke up, cutting through the air with an authority and power that belayed her appearance, “13th leader of our clan, and keeper of the small. She has come in honesty to seek out answers, as we’re supposed to oblige,” her sharp tongue cutting the souls of the others.
“Speak, child, tell us what ails you.”
With a respectful tone and with words far more benign to their age than she would usually produce, the Sennin explained everything she could about the virus itself. From how it effected shinobi, to how it had touched her, what it had the potential to do, and what it was still trying to do despite her best efforts. She apologized with a deep bow that all but made her want to puke, for the use of the Dragon Seal, and it showed in her ridged form; but the offer was accepted.
“Rise, no apology is necessary. You have shown great restraint in not coming to us first, and we should honor that.”
“Despite our misgivings,” the gruff voice once again complained.
“Not every leader of the Ryuu can be you, Teo. Tengokai was the first in eleven generations to betray the trust we gave the Keeper, and Rei has given us no reason to mistrust her despite their clear, distrust in our systems,” the old woman once again replied, quelling any dissent that was brewing right there.
“The answer you seek is not one that will be easily gained,”
“Nor it is one we all willingly relinquish,”
“…but, the more you spoke of this Lycan problem, the clearer the solution became. Close your eyes.”
Her red irises darted to look at all five, resting on the woman in the center before sighing softly and doing as told. The Elders preformed synchronized handseals before appearing suddenly around the Sennin and placing their hands on her. Knowledge suddenly exploded into her mind as something that could not be spoken of was relayed from their memories into her own. The process brought a pain that she didn’t know was possible, and her hands clutched at the pillow she sat on tight enough to drain the blood away from her palms.
“Seventy-Two leagues away from our temple to the North sits a golden sword. Buried beyond ice, rock, and an ancient seal placed by our elders, it is a weapon capable of ending the world if given to the wrong hands. Like the weapon Tengokai was after, the Shiva Blade, this weapon contains the spirit of some otherworldly creature that can bequeath its powers to whoever swings it. Many speculate what resides in the weapon - an angel, a Kami, an ascendant monk who was placed into the weapon to maintain his immortality once his original shell could no longer contain his soul…we don't know for sure. What is known, are the powers it has to grant life with each swing, making it a progenitor weapon from an age long lost to man. We can’t say for certain that this blade will cure you, or if it will lead to our ruin, but we all agree that it is the only chance you will have to make things right. Good luck, Rei of the Ryuu, and may the dragons’ claw carve out your road.”
She was lifted out of the temple and through the rough as if her corporal form no longer existed. From there she felt the wind rushing by her face, cutting her flesh as she was thrown at inconperhensible speeds from the temple, to a deserted frozen island in the middle of the North Sea. The woman could not stop her decent, slow it down, or even mold chakra to lessen the impact as she felt the ground rush up to meet her face.
Rei gasped, sitting straight up in bed once more. Her hair was a mess, a cold layer of sweat stuck to her body, and once again the sheets were in disarray. Snatching the phone off the bed-stand to her right she flipped open the case and powered on the screen to see that it was still the same day she had decided to seek out the elders. The time was the exact same as when she had awoken, her stomach was empty, and the fleeting memories of her haunting nightmare continued to coil around her memory. Had the Elders preformed a temporal jutsu? With another frustrated sigh, the engineer rolled back out of bed and moved towards the shower.
A week later the Sennin had finally gathered enough resources and time to make the journey. During that week the spy master thrown a handful of agents into the great north to do some much needed recon. Of the five she sent, only three returned. They spoke of great perils awaiting anyone who would dare make the trek that far in the form of not just the natural state of the weather, but the creatures as well. Some deadly serpent resided between the two land masses, hiding beneath the thin ice patiently. It attacked their icebreaker ship half-way between, killing one spy instantly by snapping the ship in half with its jaws. The other one died from exposure on the way to the island. The remaining three shinobi made landfall to find a large pine forest that couldn’t be entered. Snow melted at the touch, and it gave off a heated shock to anyone who tried to move through it. Metti, the barrier expert the Sennin slipped in on purpose, claimed that even a shinobi of her skill would need twelve others just like her to bring it down; that, and three weeks of constant chanting.
It was an old seal, nothing like Metti had seen before. The language used to put the barrier up was unrecognizable and carved into twelve stones that circled the island. Each one appeared to be their own anchor, meaning the barrier had at least as many layers to it not including whatever was potentially protecting the super obvious cave that was a straight shot through a line in the trees. The docket this information had come from stuffed to the brim with pages detailing the expidition that the survivors had gathered for her, and along with it was two resignations from the military. The latter made Rei wince. It was unlike her to do things this way, but it was what she had to accept in trade for such a high rank. Clearly it wasn’t a mission she could continue to reconnaissance. Just as disappointing was her condition, in which she didn’t think was going to continue being just nightmares for much longer. The engineer had to make a choice that she had never once gave a thought to. For the safety of Kumogakure, she would need to disappear for awhile.
As to not leave her office, a spy agency, in complete disarray, the military general put in orders to be effective immediately in naming her most trusted adviser as the next spy leader. Once this was all done with, Rei would be returning to Kumogakure as the Main Branch Sennin, and nothing else. She had shouldered far too much in this job, and it showed now in the worst of ways. It caused an excuse to begin open conflict with another branch of the military that was just as important; problems she couldn’t be neutral towards when they’d inevitably pop up. The day the orders were to go into effect, Ryuu Rei vanished from the village in the dead of the night without any trace as to which way she left. The handful of people who might have known pretended to be just as flabbergasted by her moves, and for the next week the loyalty of the Ryuu Clan’s Head would be put into question.
The journey to the frozen sea was made entirely on foot, and with the aid of chakra she was able to burst through miles and miles of territory without being noticed. The only thing that marked her presence were the small claps of thunder when she broke the sound barrier to blink past farm towns. Once her feet crunched into the snow in the last three-hundred yards to her target is when the super-sonic woman finally slowed down; coming to a complete stop at the sea’s beach of shattered ice.
Rei stood shaking, her hands heavy against her knees as the sea-leaden air made it difficult to catch her breath after such a sprint. A minute of wheezing, hacking, and wind-down stretches, and the lithe figure finally caught back up with herself. The idea to cross now was tempting just to cut her journey down, if nothing else, but the weather had begun to turn for the worst. Waves were beaking through the thin ice in the distance and the wind began to pick up throwing snow every which way. Before the blizzard could set in fully, a quick glance found a littoral cave some way down the beach that was still open while the tide was out. In a blink Rei warped reality to glide her form over to the entrance and ducked in to climb further back.
The sea cave itself was a spacious opening where the floor raised itself back above sea level. It had clearly been home to travelers many times with the usual marks of human comfort was spread throughout. A shoddy hearth in the back of the cave, prepped with dry sticks ready to become fuel for fire. Roughly made chairs crafted from beach wood rested just in front of the hearth while the far right side of the cave held an insect infested animal fur - bear, from the looks of it - that was stuffed with bits of hay to make a bed. Clapping her hands together and kneeling down, Rei pulled the palms apart and gently touched the ground. The act circulated her chakra in a manor that manipulated its reality shaping properties to the maximum potential. When her palms were placed against a surface she could restructure it as anything, and with enough strength could even make a cabin appear from thin air. Yet, for the innate need for secrecy in this delicate matter and her previous work out, it suited the Ryuu far more to spruce up the littoral home.
“Secret Art: Room.”
Tiles crystallized from her palms before flipping off of each other until the floor was no longer dirt. As they hit the furniture, the stone turned into raw power that consumed the objects before leaping towards the wall like a rabid blob. In her chakra’s wake the cave slowly transformed from a hovel and into a tiny cabin-like space. The chairs became shaped into something an artisan would spend months creating, the bed a full frame and down mattress. The hearth turned into a full fireplace with a chimney that broke just through the hill next to the sea. Over the logs turned form sticks hung a cast-iron pot from a metal hook complete with wooden utensils that themselves hung on pegs driven into the stone wall beside. Rei stared at the white tiles for a moment before stomping her foot to flip them into wooden planks instead, giving the room a much more rustic feel truer to its natural state. She nodded, pleased with her creation.
The soldier hunted down her meal that evening, despite the weather. A rabbit that she turned into a simple stew using water from a near-by creek fed by the area's local spring. Despite the simplicity and lacking herbs she would normally have for a meal, it was still delicious. Perhaps it was the pride in having taken down the meal herself from start to finish that made the meal better. The weight of the meal settled down her mood for sleep almost immediately as the impact of using her chakra to bolt from Kumo to the North Sea in under ten minutes finally took its toll. Kicking off her shoes she climbed into bed and immediately fell asleep. The rest wasn’t peaceful, though, as predicted. The nightmares of being a wolf haunted her still, and when she regained full consciousness from her dreams the woman found herself in the hovel’s corner, nude, and scratching at the wooden floor. The wounds and splinters sticking out from under her finger nails did little to phase Rei as much as the act itself did. A flex of the chakra coil’s core muscles and those wounds were healed, but the haunting act did not flitter away from her mind so easily. After eating the rest of the rabbit stew for breakfast and waiting for the tide to slide back out in full, the Kumo leader decided it was time to get this over with before she killed someone.
Sliding out of the hole and back into the cold was a surprising shock considering how used to the this kind of weather she was. Fresh blankets of snow from last night's blizzard mixed in with the beache's dirty sand as ice crashed against the shore. Further beyond the ice was still. Something about the the cold of the beach cut through even her normal resistance, and as her booted foot touched the surface of the water leading onto the thin ice she could feel it crawl further down her back. It quickly occurred to the engineer that the cold feeling wasn't the weather - her chakra could stop that. It was a gigantic seal that her people had managed to enchant over the entire section of water, as she began to recognize the shivers weren’t from the cold but from the raw power she was standing over; her body acclimated after a mile. While slowly traversing over the ice a giant shadow loomed beneath her feet multiple times but never made a move to break through. At one point she felt like it stopped to stare at her, and when Rei turned her head to look back in ferocity the serpent quickly darted away.
“Coward. I owe you two, don’t think I won’t eventually come back for your head, snake,” the Ryuu threatened the beast below. It didn’t show itself again for the rest of her trip.
The moment her foot touched shore to the far north island a heavy weight hit her back. Something pushed the woman forward instantly, before she could consider what was happening, and found her body being hurled through the twelve barriers without harming a single hair. The mysterious force stopped the Sennin just short of the cave’s entrance and Rei stood there wary, crouched down and prepared for an ambush. Turning around she tried to leave only to walk right into an invisible wall that caused the ninja to drop onto her butt like an unbalanced Academy Student; which was odd. She slowly stood back up and tried to make use of her chakra only to find it…muted. Concerning when the reflexive nature that she used for combat was completely nerfed, but it seemed like there was no point in worrying over it. Nothing could get in, she couldn't get out, and unless there was some terrible demon guarding the sword beyond she had no reason to be anxious. No doubt the island recognized either the seal on her back, or whatever the Elders did to mark her as the current Clan Head. At least...that's what her head told her, but something else beyond that felt like it was all a ruse. The primal canine within was pulling at it's leash, trying to talk her out of walking into the cave but, stuck within, she decided there was no choice but to move foward.
Carefully stepping inside she found the cave to be pleasantly warm compared to the sharp cold the twelve barriers did nothing against outside despite the heat they gave off. Two small torches lit up a small shrine within that was covered in grass, flowers, and other fauna that shouldn’t be able to grow there. It grew ever thicker towards a wooden alter that contained a golden katana held up by two prongs made from the same alter. It was unmarred by the elements and had no handle - just a blade and tang. Rei slowly closed the small gap between her and the sword before tentatively reaching out to grab it. The moment her hands clasped down on the metal completely, a shock surged through her entire body...but that was it.
The shinobi lifted it and swung it a few times. It was impossibly light, but also impossible to use for combat. The lack of a good grip told her immediately that it would be useless in a real fight. She dragged the edge against some stone still exposed through the grass and moss grew in the weapon's wake - cutting through the stone as if it was butter. It was indeed impressive, but the Clan Head couldn’t imagine how it was supposed to help her condition. She considered that it had only been two days since her disappearance, it would be easy to slip back into the shinobi village to lie, and say she had been there the whole time just working on something. There Rei could access Kumo’s technology to unravel the golden katana's mystery.
As she turned to leave, a vine reached out and snagged her ankle. Due to the muted nature of her chakra beneath the twelve layers of sealing, the Sennin once again tripped and fell as any normal human would. The bottom bit of the tang slammed against the ground causing the weapon to slip from her hands, fly into the air, and fall back against her; point down. It slipped right into her flesh painlessly and pinned her to ground, connecting the blade, shinobi, and world into one figure that the creature within the katana tried to take over. Just like the Shiva Blade before it, the Hubris of Truth was a weapon containing a mythical being that could grant the wielder of the weapon immense power in trade for something. For Tengokai, the trade was his sanity. For the last user of the Hubris, it had been their vanity as they traded looks for raw power.
For Rei of the Ryuu, nothing needed to be offered.
The connection the blade had made between the human and the world overwhelmed the creature within, and the hungry chakra that piloted Rei’s body sprung to attack without hesitation. The seals may have reduced her ability to use her powers, but there was another creature in control of that chakra besides the shinobi, and the wolf didn’t hesitate to strike down a prey that was trying to take its body away. However instead of consuming the creature, and using the planet itself as a medium, the 1000 Layer Dragon Seal activated in the presence of the life-giving powers within the golden weapon, causing Rei to fuse with all three in a single moment. The transformation of Rei, the lycan, whatever resided within the katana, and the world, revealed itself to the Lightning Country as a distant calamity.
From Kumogakure it would appear to be like an atomic bomb. A great sphere of hot-white energy consumed the island and a greater part of the sea around it before imploding back into a single point then exploding even further beyond in a single blast that shook the windows of the shinobi village. The sea serpent that had killed 2 of Rei’s soldiers did not make it out alive, either. In the middle of the sea, unfrozen now from the blast floated a naked woman with long white hair that stared up at the gray skies that continued to drop snow gently only to melt against the salty water. Rei smiled and waved her hand to clear away the clouds as if it was simple smoke, and a miracle occurred; the weather cleared up instantly.
Another six days passed before Rei showed back up at the gates with her usual green hair and a business casual outfit. Something about her had changed, which was immediately noticeable, but no one could figure it out. The Sennin took back over her job, but only after debriefing Kitsune on why she had to leave so suddenly in the first place. The Raikage was also the only person she confided into about what had happened, and even from her best friend, Rei withheld the entire end result. The katana was gone, the spirit consumed, and Rei thought of something she had never considered in her life before.
Could man become a living god?