Starring:
Date: August 20, 2012
Summary:
Ryo leaves the monestary to hunt the rogue ninja and fallen commrade Naru.
"What if? Final Performance - Different Paths Intertwined"
Valley of the End
Over the years many things had changed… Changes in the villages and relations amongst the clans… For a particular kunoichi there was quite the change. Uchiha Narusegawa had long since abandoned the village, following in the foot steps of Uchiha Tessen, deciding that the current leadership of the Uchiha Clan was stagnant and weak… After attempting to take away leadership from Fuyu, she was defeated and fled, becoming a high ranking criminal in the bingobook and a wanderer. After a long time of running she found herself at the valley of the end, standing along one of the massive statues while peering forth into the water below, she were a simple black cloak, obscuring most of her form but the same lushous raven locks of hair was her trademark… It would be quite obvious as to who she was…
Things had changed for Ryo as well. Unlike Naru he sought a more peaceful life. He had entered into the life of a monk at the Fire Temple. It was not until he heard of Naru's exile that he decided to leave the Temple and seek her out. He was not coming to join her, no. His intentions were not that pleasant.
Wearing the traditional monk garb of the fire country, the still bald teenager walks alongside a pure white wolf. "Kouga, are you sure she is this way?"
The wolf glances at Ryo a moment. He is obviously annoyed by the question and does not answer. He simply continues to move towards the valley.
"Sorry old friend. I hate to say it but this sucks. I always knew it would come to this. I just wish there had been something that could have changed it." After a few more moments, the boy spots Naru on top of the statue. "Kouga, if this happens to be the last time we walk side by side, know that you were my favorite of your pack." He then reaches down and pets the head of the wolf.
Of course it wasn't as if Ryo was without notice, Naru was heavily known for her vigiliance, and despite being defeated by the clan head she wasn't at all to be regarded as a small time criminal. Her eyes merely watched along the opposite end looking into the land of fire, the bordering crossing… Someone had come for her, or at least that was where her eyes were telling her… Of course the signature seemed familiar, oldering but familiar… For now she simply kept herself distant, hand lightly pressing along the hilt of her blade while her eyes remained flickered with the scarlet red sharingan… "Ryo…" Naru suddenly whispers quietly under her breath, if Ryo's sharingan was activated he could have even read her lips… "You seem to be going the wrong way, Konoha is in the opposite direction…."
After nuzzling the hand of Ryo, the white wolf vanishes in a puff of smoke. The boy had no need to read her lips. He knew her well enough to know she might say something of that sort. "Neither of us will be returning home. You knew as well as I did this day would come. Neither of us wanted to admit it, but it is inevitable." Ryo bowed his head but for a moment. As it rose back up, his own Sharingan was blazing.
"Today I will end your pain and set your soul free. I shall hope that once I have severed your ties to the shinobi life, you will become pure again."
Drawing a blade from a sheath on his back, it was none other than Kuroji's Kusanagi.
The three tomoe in Naru's eyes began to swirl briefly, the both of them dying? " I don't know why you have placed yourself before me… But I'm not going to simply stand by… Not anymore… If you wish to be my enemy then you will be my enemy…. It was then at that mere instant Ryo could feel something tug as his leg, attempting to draw him into the ground below him, rocks and spikes stabbing and slashing into his flesh, it was a genjutsu, though perhaps something easy for him to work around… Once he did break out of the genjutsu she would seem to body flicker right before his eyes, bringing down a blade of rushing lightning chakra directly on top of him. " I won't be the one dying here!"
"Enemy…" It seemed to be the constant dilema. The genjutsu seemed to take effect and even the lightning chakra hit until it passed right through him. "To be your friend, I must not block your path, though if my own becomes blocked, matters not." It seemed Ryo had learned a bit about Genjutsu in his time away. Now the young man stepped out from the side, with his own version of her lightning strike, except for his hand was covered in swirling flames.
Ryo was a lot better at at fighting against genjutsu, though it was only obvious with the amount of training they both had managed to accomplish, she decided to go all out instead, her chakra racing as the hand of fire comes burning in her direction, only for her to take a lean back and slip under his hand, her eyes predicting his movements briefly, while her blade flicked once again, a slash across his chest turning into multiple flurries. "But you are blocking my path… That is the reason why you are infront of me right now…" Her eyes shift and quickly she motions through a set of hand seals. "Raiton! Raikouhira! bolts and torrents of lighting stream from her hands, pounding and smashing into the area around them…
"Maybe all those years that I blocked your path, I was your path." Ryo states as his chest is slashed. Instead of run, Ryo tosses the Kusanagi upwards into the air. As the lightning arcs off the blade, he moves in closer to her. His Sharingan allow him to see her movements. Soon he moves his arms around her to clasp at the wrists, both hands forming independant seals. His entire body locks up as electricity begins to conduct through both of them.
"Piercing Earth Prison, Fire Fist Jutsu!" Four spikes rise from the ground on each side, impaling through the stomaches of both people. Ryo's flaming hand then grasps the stone spike closest to him causing it to heat up and burn both of them from the inside. Through pain in his voice. "This is… the end."
Naru found herself completely subdued, feeling the his hand reach at her wrists while locking her inplace with the stone spikes smashing through her body and secondly the fire bursting straight through her, it was something she definitely not going to get out of… There wasn't much for her to say, instead blood poured of oher mouth and she winced in pain, feeling the coming of the end for her, as he spoke his words of pain she could feel her life literally burning away. "And…for what?" Was Naru's only words, the flesh melting off her body as the fire continued to burn away at her life..
Ryo was glad in a number of ways. The first of which is that she did not poof into some clone or genjutsu. He had been sure he managed to grab hold of her but that feeling of doubt always remained when fighting someone like Naru. It also pleased him that it was not a long drawn out battle. In the past she had been a lot stronger than himself. The longer the battle would have gone on, the less hope that would have remained. He was unsure if she had allowed the hit or was simply surprised by the sacrifice. Maybe deep down she wanted things to end as well.
As his arms wrapped around her body and the pain of the searing stone began to rush through them both, Ryo's eyes stare directly into hers. Blood flows from his mouth as well. "Forgive me… I vowed to protect the village and your soul. Hatred breeds… hatred. I …thought… love could end… the cycle."
The feeling was strange. As his life passed from within his body, his mind dwelled on their childhood. She had always driven him to become stronger. In return he had tried to show her that there was more than just fighting. Now all that had become irrelevant. The glue that had bonded them together and forced this conclusion. The memories that had brought them together as friends. Those were nothing more than now than a picture show that Ryo gladly watched as they flash before his eyes one final time…
