Naruto: Naiko

Author's foreword: In this chapter, you should see Naiko falling apart somewhat... It's the beginning of the end...

Chapter 6: My Favorite Pasttime Is the Art of Powning...

Uchiha Sasuke vs. Abumi Zaku...

This match would go to the Uchiha at the end but Sasuke managed to defeat Zaku with a well-planted new combo called the Shishi Rendan. The match had started with Zaku firing off one of his blasts right off at Sasuke. He was still scared of Sasuke and what he had done. The Uchiha had thrown himself to the side and bellied down, avoiding the blast completely. He stood up and fired off shuriken in a curving pattern to the left while sprinting to the right. Since Zaku only had the use of one arm, he would be hopefully be able to get close enough to engage him in taijutsu.

He wasn't successful as Zaku pulled out his other supposedly damage arm and used that as well. Sasuke lunged away again. Damn Kakashi and his warning. He couldn't use chakra or the curse seal would spread...

Quickly, he got back up and charged Zaku again, firing off shuriken in curved patterns. Zaku, who didn't want to get hurt, dodged these metal stars, which was a fatal mistake. The Uchiha had gotten close enough to slide in under Zaku and slam a foot straight into Zaku's chin. He flew straight up a good ten feet into the air. Sasuke reappeared under Zaku and pointed a finger under Zaku.

"Kage Buyo... (Shadow Dance)," Sasuke jerked as the curse seal began to spread.

'Kuso. Stupid thing. I won't submit to this now!' With a roar, Sasuke began the combo. Whirling his left elbow around, he smashed it into Zaku's chest before spinning around to punch with his right. Zaku blocked it but Sasuke had swung his knee as well, sending Zaku flying to the ground.

"Shishi Rendan!" Sasuke proclaimed in all his glory as his right heel, cracked onto Zaku's face, knocking him out and shattering his nose.

Hayate simply raised his hand towards Sasuke and said, "Winner, Uchiha Sasuke,"

Sasuke panted from the effort he had used to finish the match. Kakashi walked next to him as some medic-nin came out to check on him.

"I'll take care of him," Kakashi nodded as he vanished in a swirl of leaves.

Hayate coughed as he looked at the screen where the randomly selected competitors would be paired up.

"Would Hyuuga Hinata and Haruno Sakura step up to the front?" Hayate was currently thinking about where his cough syrup had run off to at the time.

However, the answer eluded him as he had to referee another match, which would demand his attention. Naiko stared down at the two combatants. Haruno Sakura was never serious about being a shinobi. Hyuuga Hinata was too shy. Sakura thought that love drove her to be better but Naiko always saw her with her other friends, never really training or really trying to improve herself. Hyuuga Hinata was an excellent fighter. She trained and pushed herself but the poor girl's confidence was in such shambles that it impeded her progress.

Naiko sighed. If she had never stumbled across the fact that the Yondaime hokage had been her father, she might have ended up like Hinata... Timid... Shy... Unconfident... She lapsed into thought as Hayate started the match.

She had seen amber eyes and heard a mocking voice before darkness closed in on her. She had felt something shunt her deep into the recesses of her own mind and came face to face with an odd copy of herself. She noticed Hinata take the initiative as she charged down the Haruno who simply fired back shuriken, trying to keep her distance. Apparently, that big brain of hers remembered how the Jyuuken worked...

This odd copy of herself had called her weak and pathetic... Saying something about not being able to protect their own livelihoods... It was only after struggling against the bonds that held her down that she was even able to try and regain control of her own body. She had seen what she was about to do and had willed herself to stop, succeeding just barely as her sword only stopped a hair breadth away from splitting Nara Shikamaru into two pieces.

A few blows were exchanged as Hinata danced around Haruno Sakura. Hinata's endurance outstripped that of Haruno Sakura's own. Eventually, Sakura collapsed to the ground, breathing hard with Hinata having broken out in a good sweat. The medic-nin carried off Sakura while Hinata was guided off by a single medic-nin to tend to the shallow cuts she had received.

Silence greeted the rest as Hayate prepared to call down the next competitor. So far, the matches had been satisfactory. None of them had brought about suspense and jaw-grinding moments.

"Hyuuga Neji vs. Kinuta Dosu," Hayate coughed as he once again groaned about his cough syrup.

Kakashi had come back and heard Hayate cough out his lungs, making a note to tell Hayate that the cough syrup was what was worsening his condition. It grained against the throat more than it soothed anyways...

Hyuuga Neji stood high and proud, impassive and still as a stone statue. Kinuta Dosu crouched into his stance, ignorant of the jyuuken's power and abilities.

"Hajime!" Hayate jumped back, giving the two combatants space to fight.

"You should just give up now," Neji proclaimed with a hint of arrogance over a load of self-confidence, "fate has declared that you will fall to my hands,"

"Don't get so cocky, pretty-boy," Dosu snapped back, "I'll kill you,"

Neji graced Dosu with a smirk and fell into his stance, leaning back as he stretched out his arms in front of him, his right hand facing Dosu and his left sitting next to his heart.

With legs stretched out, Neji waited. Sure enough, Dosu's patience ran out first as he charged Neji. Dosu swung a punch at Neji's face. The Hyuuga parried it and slammed a palm right into Dosu's chest.

'I really have no idea how the jyuuken really works,' Naiko thought as Dosu danced around with Neji in a sort of dance that seemed awkward, 'jyuuken works by forcing malignant chakra into a foreign system where the chakra would then break down internal organs. Since internal organs can't be strengthened, the jyuuken would then tear apart even the strongest opponents,'

Neji parried more blocks and seemingly poked Dosu with his middle and index fingers.

'Another basic concept is that the jyuuken can stuff up tenketsu by acting as a stopper. This forces chakra in the body to come to a halt, something that can result in death,' Naiko wondered, 'the scariest component is that experienced users of the jyuuken require only a mere touch and they can kill or even disable opponents,'

Dosu went slower and slower with Neji ever gloating over his victory. With each 'poke', Dosu only got slower and more tired. By the time he figured it out, Neji had slammed a palm to his heart, forcing so much chakra out of his hand that it was visible on the other side of his body.

'To be able to do that...' Kakashi thought, 'Gai wasn't kidding when he said he was a prodigy,'

'A genius? I would believe so,' Naiko thought, 'but he has a stick shoved up his ass or something,'

Dosu collapsed onto the ground, unmoving. His eyes stared into oblivion. The medic-nin all rushed over and checked him over, finding him dead, very dead and gone. As they carted off the body, all the other ninja in the room had mixed responses.

Most of the genin felt somewhat sick except for those who had killed before... Those included Uzumaki Naiko, and Gaara of the Sand most definitely. The slight brutality didn't escape the more older and experienced ninja who had seen death on the battlefield. This match was actually one-sided now that some people thought about it.

The sick referee coughed and hacked as he called down the next pair of competitors, "Kankurou vs. Chouji,"

This would be a humorous fight.

"Chouji," Sarutobi's voice echoed throughout the chamber, "if you win, I'll treat you to barbeque!"

This bolstered Chouji's spirit.

"Are you sure that's wise?" Kakashi asked, "because I remember Akamichi are known for rampaging if there is no food anywhere,"

Asuma sweatdropped, "Kakashi, don't be an ass,"

"I am?" Kakashi asked.

"My eternal rival! Do not downgrade others! It is unyouthful!" Maito Gai declared as he struck a pose.

Kakashi looked around, "Did someone say my name?"

Gai went off and cried in a corner, "Curses! My eternal rival... You and your hip attitude..."

Kankurou found it humorous to tease or put down Chouji.

"Hey, fatass! Are you going to eat all day over their?" Kankurou smirked as he pulled the bandaged bundle off his back and set one end into the ground, holding it up with his other hand.

"What did you say?" Chouji asked in a dangerously low voice, implying doom to the moron who had dared to call him that infernal and insulting name.

'Oh, crap,' Ino, Shikamaru, and Asuma all thought, 'he hates being called that,'

Kankurou was about to do something very stupid...

"You heard me the first time, lard-butt!" Kankurou roared, making himself heard.

Yep... He did something even a moron wouldn't do...

"That's it!" Chouji clasped his hand together and then spread them, raising them in a cheer, "I'm not fat! I'm just big-boned! Hurray for big-boned people!"

Chouji held his position, "Baika no Jutsu!"

Chouji grew several times in size.

"Akamichi jutsu: Rolling Meat Tank Skill!"

Chouji's limbs and head appeared to be sucked into the body and he started to roll at Kankurou, chanting a mantra, "Roll! Roll! Roll! Roll!"

Kankurou's eyes widened in fear, 'Holy shit on shit sandwich!'

He dodged it barely, throwing himself to the side. Chouji hit the wall and the impediment to Chouji's rolling spree exploded in smoke and debris. Kankurou waited with anxiety making him sweat. His eyes widened again, this time in horror, as the rolling ball of Chouji rolled after him.

And so, a couple minutes past with Kankurou fleeing the giant mass of Akamichi Chouji bearing down on him. To be honest, it was quite comical. Kankurou had dropped his bundle earlier on as it lay on the side, ignored. This didn't go unnoticed...

'Wait a moment,' Naiko recalled the way Kankurou had placed that bundle, 'he's a puppeteer,'

Naiko's claim came true. Chouji eventually collapsed to the floor, unable to roll over his opponent anymore because of a lack of chakra.

Kankurou unwrapped himself from said bundle that had lain on the floor.

"Interesting," Hayate coughed, "winner, Kankurou of the Sand!"

The next match was between Temari of the Sand vs. Yamanaka Ino...

What was funny was that as Temari was using the time to gloat, Ino had performed the Shintenshin no Jutsu. 'Temari' gave up without so much of a fight. When Temari came to her senses, all she heard was Hayate saying that the winner of the match was Yamanaka Ino. When she had asked what happened, her brother, Kankurou, had summed it up in one very blut sentence...

"You lost, dumbass!"

Temari forgot about her loss and had simply made a beeline for Kankurou before starting to slap him silly with her fan...

Naiko smiled ever so slightly. Kakashi happened to catch it as he looked up from his book to see what all the commotion was about. He smiled softly to himself. The Sandaime Hokage had said that this blonde's smiles were some of the most elusive things to catch. Even with his crystal ball, Sandaime himself wouldn't catch a glimpse. To be graced like this was wonderful. If a soft smile like that was able to make him smile, imagine what a full-blown smile would make him feel like. As quickly as it came, it was gone, her face returning to the normal impassiveness.

At least she wasn't totally cold. She was quiet and kept a lot of her thoughts to herself. She had been thought to have been silenced by the hate of the villagers. To presevere under circumstances like this... meant that more potential could be unlocked. To have such potential squashed and not brought out... was a crime... She had only unlocked part of her potential and that had meant that so much more could be brought out...

(Author's notes: The next three fights are Nara Shikamaru vs. Tsuchi Kin..., Ten-ten vs. Unknown..., and Aburame Shino vs. Inuzuka Kiba. Besides... I want to get to the more juicy stuff... In case you wanted to know... Match between Aburame Shino and Inuzuka Kiba ended in a victor for Aburame Shino when Inuzuka Kiba fell unconscious from chakra exhaustion. Nara Shikamaru won his match against Tsuchi Kin with that same trick of his... Ten-ten fought with an unknown genin whose teammates gave up before the preliminaries... She fought to a double knock-out...)

The last fight of for the Chunnin exams would be Uzumaki Naiko vs. Rock Lee... As they faced off against each other, Naiko remembered how Rock Lee moved in his small fight with Uchiha Sasuke.

'His speed is quite impressive. It's as fast as jounin should be. I wonder... does he use anything else other than taijutsu? Or did he plan on specializing in taijutsu?' Naiko wondered as she stared back.

"Before we fight, I want to ask you something, Uzumaki Naiko," Lee said.

"..." Naiko stared at Lee, not unkindly.

"Fight me with all your strength," Lee declared seriously, "I know that you are the fastest of your team and that you are quite powerful,"

Naiko nodded in reply and slid into her stance, leaning down slightly, spreading her legs and arms, half-clenching her hands.

"Match. Uzumaki Naiko vs. Rock Lee!" Hayate raised his hand, letting it fall, "hajime!"

Lee wasted no time in rushing Naiko who simply ducked the haymaker punch and spun away from the following kick.

"Impressive," Sandaime muttered.

Naiko and Lee exchanged punches and kicks, feints and parries, and counters and special moves. Naiko stepped into a punch, letting it graze her before vaulting over the knee Lee sent at her. She blocked a kick in mid-air and used the kick's momentum to leap away farther. She charged and swung her fist straight down. Lee stepped back and prepared to punch down but was suddenly flung up. Naiko's fist had suddenly changed direction and swung up, crashing into Lee's chin. Lee recovered and landed, rubbing his sore jaw.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Naiko formed the seal for her technique and four clones appeared.

Naiko took a step and flashed away from sight, reappearing behind Lee who ducked under a swing of the sword. He tried to counter but Naiko had flashed away again. The clones began to flash-step faster and faster, seeming reappearing in all but the most random of all places. Lee pulled out kunai and began blocking the strikes that came faster and faster until finally in a burst of speed that caught Naiko off-guard, Lee pulled off a spinning kick move.

"Konoha Senpuu!" All the clones had flash-stepped to strike Lee but had instead been kicked away in the faces, sending them all flying, exploding in the plumes of smoke.

The real Naiko rolled to her feet, rubbing her cheek. That was going to leave a bruise. Lee flipped away to gain some room.

"Lee!" Maito Gai flashed Lee a grin, "I'm giving you permission to remove them!"

"But, Gai, you said that I could only remove them if I was protecting someone," Lee exclaimed.

"It's alright! I say it's fine!" Gai shouted back.

Lee smiled, removing his orange leg warmers to reveal weights around his ankles. He pulled them off and dropped them on the floor. The echoing crash and the twin plumes of smoke were an indicator of how heavy the weights were.

Kakashi paled, "Gai, isn't that overkill?"

Gai smirked, "It's nothing,"

"Yosh, here I come!" Lee grinned as he disppeared from normal view.

However, Naiko was able to track and attacked behind herself. Lee had to duck the sword swipe but a quick kick knocked Naiko's sword out of her grasp and causing the sharp blade to stick into the ground in front of the platform on which many of the foreign jounin instructors, the chunnin proctors, and the Sandaime Hokage sat. The echoing of punches, kicks, and grunts could be heard as both fighters flickered out of existence and reappeared at some other location, only to strike again and again.

Shikamaru sighed, 'This is a close match. Without her sword, Naiko lost her advantage and Lee evened the playing fields,'

Kakashi watched, having put away his book, 'Both are excellent in speed. Naiko is holding her own quite well but she is no taijutsu expert. She's just fast and that makes her deadly. Evidently, she trained in kenjutsu since she is more fluid. I've seen her practice taijutsu though; thou, it's not as good as her taijutsu,'

'Kakashi, my eternal rival,' Gai watched Lee and Naiko battle it out, 'you have a young blossom whose able to fight my pupil on an even field like this. I'm jealous,'

The two fighters broke apart to reveal bruised fighters. Naiko had a slight grin on her face and her eyes were tinted with amber.

'She's getting more violent and less restrained,' Kakashi thought, 'could it be?'

After regaining their breaths somewhat, Naiko and Lee went back to fighting each other, yelling and grunting as the kicks and punches increased their intensity and frequency. Small shockwaves echoed as they met punch for punch, and kick for kick. There was no quarter until Lee got an extra boost of speed somehow.

'What? Where'd he..."

Naiko's train of thought was interrupted as a high kick, smashed into her jaw. Her mind went blank for a moment as the shock of the trauma registered. She recovered at the apex of her rise. However, she couldn't move.

'Kuso... It's that damn Kage Buyo...' Naiko thought.

"It's all over now," Lee said from underneath her as he unwrapped the bandages.

Kakashi turned to Gai in a fit of anger, "You taught him that! Gai, what are you thinking?!"

"It was a must," Gai replied as he watched the match.

"The Lotus is a double-edged sword. You need to be able to open a celestial gate to use that!" Kakashi's single eye widened, "how many gates can he open then?"

Gai was silent for a while, "Five,"

"That's more than enough to cripple him for life!" Kakashi cried as his visage toughened, "I think I've lost my respect for you,"

"What would you know?" Gai muttered, "this kid would give up anything to be recognized as a great shinobi. He is willing to pay the price. He is willing to sacrifice so that he can go far in life,"

"He won't be able to go farther if he gets stopped," Kakashi retorted.

"..." was all Gai gave Kakashi.

Naiko grimaced as the bandages wrapped around her. She felt a spin and prepared herself for what was coming. She felt a blast of pain and everything went white for a moment before blackness claimed her. Lee had leapt off at the last moment. The Initial Lotus took a toll on the user, requiring the release of the first Celestial Gate which limited the power at which muscles worked. Muscles worked at about twenty percent of what they could do. If it went any higher, it would tear the muscles into pieces.

Lee watched in anticipation...

Blackness faded away to reveal a strange place. It was a dark place with a hard stone ground and no way out. Naiko looked around to find a strange person looing at her. White hair... White skin... White clothes... White sword. Everything about it was reversed to what Naiko was... Wait... It looked like her, too. It had dark amber eyes and black lips, curled in a grin, which showed smugness and arrogance.

"Damn... You got owned like nothing," this other part of her grinned.

"..." Naiko stared.

"You're weak..."

Naiko was about to voice a question when this other part of her forced a hand at her. She felt herself being pushed away into darkness...

Hayate was about to pronounce Lee the winner when Naiko stood up, laughing and cackling maniacally.

"Che... Free... again!" Naiko screamed as she sighed, her amber eyes staring at her target, her lips curled into a smirk.

Lee looked shocked at how Naiko could have retained consciousness from the impact. Naiko flash-stepped to her sword and pulled it out, dropping to the floor.

"Now, I need to kill something," Naiko whispered lovingly, as she flicked her wrist, the blade in her hand rushing to life with wind nature chakra, forming a deadly cutting edge.

Everyone else other than Team 7 and the Sandaime Hokage was surprised at the skill.

"Getsuga..." Naiko raised her sword...

Shikamaru's eyes widened, "Someone stop this match now!"

"SAIHA!" Naiko swung her sword down.

Lee still had a mind to dodge as a whirling crescent shaped blast of black chakra, rushed by him, tearing the floor like nothing and destroying the wall behind him, spraying dust and debris. He felt a hand on his back. He turned to see amber eyes staring at him.

"Took you long enough!" Naiko cackled as she raised her sword to cut.

Lee grabbed her arm and slugged her in the jaw, sending her flying, sword and all.

"Still got some fight, eh?" Naiko grunted as she pulled herself up, "no matter, I'll still murder you and everyone else in this damn village!"

'I have to end this now!' Lee thought as he crossed his arms.

"You think that's enough!" Naiko clenched a fist as she rushed forward, "nothing can save you now!"

Lee opened the third gate... the fourth gate... and the fifth gate... Red, blue and green chakra poured out of him at an insane rate as his veins bulged all along his body. His eyes became white.

"Ikuse," he whispered.

He disappeared again from sight.

'Nani?!' Naiko's eyes widened as she felt Lee's presence under her, 'he's faster than me now!'

She felt a kick to her jaw, a powerful kick several times more than the kick for the Initial Lotus. She felt ten more kicks to her jaw and Naiko could have sworn that she heard something crack. Lee appeared above her and punched down, wrapping a long length of bandages around her waist as he did so. Just as Naiko was about to hit the ground, she felt a sharp pull that launched her back up.

"The lotus blooms twice! Take this!" Lee cried as he punched down with both arm and leg, "Final lotus!"

Naiko gave a sharp cry of pain and anguish as she pulverized the stone ground into which she was slammed. Lee landed on the ground, his feet giving away under him after having pushed himself to his limits. He stared unexpectedly at the mess and didn't expect to use it but Naiko's sudden change in attitude made him act slightly irrationally. Hayate looked around the debris for Naiko. He found her, still standing, breathing heavily, her clothes torn from the impact. They were almost rags and Naiko's sword was chipped along the tip.

Even then, Naiko was still grinning eerily but suddenly charged Lee. Lee couldn't move and Maito Gai caught Naiko's hand just as she was about to strike again.

"Bad move, eyebrows," Naiko smirked, "Getsuga Saiha!"

Gai managed to get away with Lee just as the familiar blast of black chakra flew past him and Lee.

"Temee," Naiko grunted as she clasped her face, "not again,"

Shikamaru had stared with bated breath the whole match. He continued to look while Kakashi stared oddly. Shikamaru remembered the sequence of events. Naiko was screaming and pulled at her face and hair, swinging at some unknown enemy before blowing out a pulse of chakra and collapsing to the floor. Here, Naiko did the same thing, her amber eyes raging and bulging as she stumbled about before giving one final scream and collapsing to her knees, gasping for breath.

"Winner. Uzumaki Naiko," Hayate declared.

Naiko collapsed to the ground with a soft moan, 'What was that?'

Darkness claimed her quickly and smoothly as pain racked her unconscious body. Whatever strain she had put upon herself was greater than what she could normally take.

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Naiko spent a few days in the hospital, coming out before she was even fully recovered. The senior doctors didn't mind. The 'demon' could go and rot in hell for all they cared. After all it did to their village, the detestable... thing deserved it.

Naiko sat at home, writing in her journal as usual. The quick and easy strokes of her flawless and skilled penmenship would have stunned some of the royals of the Fire Nation as characters seemed to spring up at an insane rate. Desperation drove her. Hatred drove her. Hope drove her. Need drove her. So many emotions and feelings drove her as she desperately sought what her life meant.

A knock at the door startled her, causing her to drop her brush. She quickly cleaned up and put away the book and laid the brush, the hairs on a napkin. She smoothed out her yukata, her usual home wear, and went to the door. Opening it, she found Kakashi looking down at her. She saw his mouth shape into a smile as his eye crinkled into a upside down 'U'.

"Mind if I come in for a bit?" Kakashi asked, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly, as he usually does when he requests something.

"No," Naiko stepped by to let Kakashi pass.

Kakashi entered to find the house in a somewhat mediocre condition. The paint was peeling off the wall, revealing sickly yellow foam underneath. The kitchen tiles were shattered and broken, obviously having never been repaired for years. The kitchen light flickered as if gasping for life and the atmosphere itself was gloomy. The current resident didn't seem to mind much though. Actually, she had been desensualized to all of this; hence, she didn't care.

Naiko was in fine condition. Her yukata was old but not ragged or dirty. It was well worn, having turned off-white from the snow white it had been years ago. Her usual golden-blond hair was tangled and unbrushed, hanging off in a low ponytail. To be honest though, she was still quite beautiful for her age.

"Ano... how are you?" Kakashi asked.

"Fine," Naiko sighed as she exitted the kitchen area, bringing some tea and biscuits.

She set the tea and biscuits down and sat down, "You'll have to forgive me. My living conditions do not permit such luxury,"

"Maa, maa. Don't worry," Kakashi waved it off, 'you're more polite than you look sometimes,' "I came by to check up on you and to let you know that you will fight Hyuuga Neji in the first round of the chunnin exams third examination,"

Kakashi tried the tea. It was warm but missing something. Well, he brushed the thought aside since he didn't drink tea anyways.

"I also wanted to ask you what happened to you in your match against Rock Lee," Kakashi's eye narrowed, not sharply but softly, "I just want to help if I can,"

Naiko froze up, tensing. Kakashi did not miss it. Naiko panicked, her breathing quickening, her heart racing, adrenaline building up. She was afraid. Afraid... This thing inside her. It was dangerous. It took control of her body, overpowered her mind. She was scared of it. She didn't want anyone to find out.

Kakashi leaned forward, "Are you alright?"

Naiko simply gulped and shook her head.

"It's something you don't feel like speaking about, right?" Kakashi asked as he leaned back, "that's fine. I won't press you but I have a feeling that it's going to happen again,"

Naiko opened her mouth to speak. Words slipped her tongue as she fumbled to explain.

She heard that strange voice again, 'They can't know about me yet,'

She gasped as she felt something strangling her and collapsed off her chair, gasping for breath as unconsciousness bound her to the darkness. Kakashi saw something off right away when Naiko's pupils constricted to pencil points while gasping for chair, trying to pull something off her throat. He caught her before she hit the ground and checked his surroundings. No jutsu had been cast. Naiko was fine, just unconscious. Her vital signs were fine. Nothing was strange except for the fact that the blond had no reason or cause to just faint.

Maybe it was the fear or something. Whatever it was, there was definitely something Naiko was hiding... He sighed as he put the blond girl on her own bed, wondering what to do.

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Naiko looked around. It was that same dank place. This time she noticed bars on one side of this room, behind which lurked a dark and hateful presence, loathing and anger radiating out through the bars from some source. She stepped closer and was greeted by two blood-red ruby eyes that froze her in place, making her feel as if she were something to be played with and then eaten with great pleasure. It roared and a great paw with sharp claws slammed into the bars, making Naiko take a step back into caution. A giant roar and a blast of chakra followed.

"Che! Foolish animal," that peculiar voice rang out with a mocking ring to it.

Naiko turned around to find that monochrome copy staring at the giant beast.

"You hold no power here. Now shut up!" the copy turned back to her, "As for you, no one can know I exist yet. I don't want to say that you and I are the same but if you were to die, it would be a rather horrendous pain for me, too,"

Naiko glanced at the beast, 'So, that's the Kyuubi no Youko,' she turned back to her copy, "who are you?"

"Don't 'who' me, you little twerp!" her copy snarled, "I am you! I am everything negative about you. Your darkest secrets. Your hate! Your anger! Your desperation! I am what drives you! I am you!"

"As I had thought," Naiko whispered before raising her voice, "what do you want?"

"Control. In order for the ability to combat you for control, you have to achieve your... bankai... "her copy grinned, "after a full release of your power, I can fight you for control and we will decide who will be the 'king' and the 'horse' of your world. In your case, you would be a 'queen',"

"Bankai? What in the world is that?" Naiko asked, surprise evident in her features.

"You don't even know this? Your sword is the key to the bankai. What is a bankai? Moron... It's a full release of your powers, raising them to levels at the least five times what they normally were," her copy smirked as it pushed a hand at her, "Hurry up!"

Naiko's eyes snapped open. She froze for a moment as she stared up at the roof of her house.

'Bankai?' Naiko pondered it, 'I wonder how I'll achieve that,'

"Ah, you're awake. You had me worried there for a second, Naiko-chan!" Kakashi spoke up after having seen her eyes open.

Naiko stared at Kakashi before sitting up.

"Kakashi-sensei," Naiko sighed as she picked up a spare set of her normal clothes, "I must be going now. I have other matters to attend to,"

"Hmm, very well," Kakashi nodded, still wanting answers, "take care. If you ever want to talk, I'll do my best to make time,"

Naiko nodded as Kakashi left the room. After hearing her front door open and close, Naiko quickly changed and left for the training grounds...

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Author's notes: Yes, there are shameless Bleach references in here. I was thinking about doing a Bleach fic when Naiko dies and meets up with the shinigami. Should I or should I not? I might...

Anyways, I'm sick as hell and coughing up crap... I haven't been writing much because I don't know how to run the story so that it's fluent... Give me some time for that... See you all...