Dreams of the forgotten past...

Yawning a little, Akiko glanced out of her window down at the streets below. The apartment was small, cheap, and affordable (as affordable as things go when you've been alive for nearly a century and have a store of money avaiable for practically anything you want). Still, she wasn't much of one to use the money she'd store up in her 'lifetimes' and it wouldn't look good anyway.

She'd spent most of her time in the libraries and checking out where the Hatakes lived, as well as seeing where her grandfather and father had spent their time in Konoha. What was she hoping to accomplish or find? She didn't know. She still felt like something was missing and that maybe... just maybe she'd be able to find out what by sticking around in Konoha for a little while longer.

It really wasn't much of a success though. She still hadn't seemed to have found anything at all. Ahh well, it wasn't like it would matter too much. If she couldn't find out anything in a few more months she'd just leave like she always did... But for some reason a part of her really wanted to find out what was missing here in Konoha. Why?

Sighing a little, Akiko looked away and went to her bed, sitting by the edge for a few seconds before laying down and staring up at the ceiling. She hadn't told Yamiyo the truth about why she really wanted to 'transfer' to Konoha, but he seemed to be okay with it for now. He certainly wasn't objecting to them staying so... at least that was a plus. Still, why did she feel like he was hiding something from her? He wouldn't... would he? Ahhh whatever, Yamiyo was just being his secretive, protective self, that was all. He must have a good reason to keep something from her, if he was that is, and it wasn't like he was hiding something big from her, right? Wrong. But she wouldn't know that...

Before long she found herself starting to get sleepy and closing her eyes. Maybe she'd take a nap... When was the last time she had slept anyway... A few days ago... Yawning a little she started to drift off into one of her more rare, deeper sleeps. What would she dream of tonight, well this afternoon?


For some reason she thought she was seeing a girl in her dreams, an.... an.... no. Gone. Who was that? Ahh just another random dream person, right? Anywho, the girl or whatever it was she had glimpsed had quickly faded out to show her in some sort of clearing in the middle of a forest with the sun blazing high up above her and an eerie mist beginning to creep into the area. But asides from that, not much else was happening, still... it felt real. And before long Yamiyo himself showed up in her dreams beside of her.

She was used to seeing him, but this time it felt... different. There was a strange aura coming from him that she didn't quite get, almost couldn't recognize. But then it dawned on her: fear. Why was she afraid of Yamiyo in this dream? She felt... terrified... so, so terrified of him. And to top it all off, she had no idea why. Dream Yamiyo hadn't done anything to clue in why she was so afraid... and Real Yamiyo would never scare her like this. Shaking just a little, Akiko shook her head slightly and took a few side steps away from Yamiyo only to look into his face and find that she couldn't see anything... just... just a sort of darkness. Closing her eyes she focused on breathing for a moment. Why was she acting like this? It was a just a dream. A dream. Cold. Now she felt cold, exceedingly cold.

'I don't get it... why am I afraid of Yamiyo? Why.... why do I feel like he's going to kill me? I can't even begin to explain it... What does it mean?' wondered Akiko, trying to convince herself to dream of better things. And it worked, or at least it appeared to be working. Her dream had morphed and changed again only to show herself enveloped in the world of mist and darkness with the hazy outline of a female person constantly ahead of her, just out of her reach. What's more, she didn't understand why she was chasing said person or even if said person existed. Was this all something to do with that blank spot in her memories? Or... what?

Her mind would wonder and falter just a little, she was a bit in doubt of something. There was something terrifying her, someone else also dwelled in her soul, using her as a vessel, her mind was unstable...and for that second, Riku could enter into her mind, her mind was not as strong he as hope for old ones usually have strong wills. This was different however. Normal circumstance would had made this task difficult for Riku. Yaguri would certainly not be pleased and would probably move on.

"Let us begin" a calm and soothing voice said unreconizable by Akiko. To whom she has heard this vocie before was an entire mystery. It did not sound cold and unforgiving but rather a comforting warm sensation of the sun. That is what Akiko woudl feel now. The warmth of light brimming down on her skin. The trees were gone and now she would hear the soft sounds of water coming in and out. Underneath her would be soft and wet sand. She was standing at the shore of the water. It was cool, something that was not unfamilar but yet something different.

To her side, she would see a small glimspe of a man wearing an all white attire. His eyes were a hollow green and his hair was a wintery white. He had looked at her and mouthed something that she could not hear. A blink of the eye and he was gone or was he even there. Over in the same direction was a large cliff, maybe two hundred or three hundred meters away. The earth from that distance was probably the smoothest rock that the feet could ever feel. It was a dream of course, it would have to be the smoothest. Or maybe it was jagged and coarse. The thought would slip by as another man stood in that same direction but he was only five meters away from her.

He didn't fade away. He appeared as real as a man standning to talk to someone in reality. What is reality a voice would say in her head. Is it an illusion or something else? Who was that said this? Was it the man standing beside....he was no longer beside her but no in front standing in the cold water. He was in the shallow part of course, it was up to his shins. He had a warm and comforting smile, now almost embracing and enticing to not look away. He was handsome, maybe even beyond that word. If there was a word to descibe the narrow face of man whose aged very well, Akiko would think it.

Riku stood there, looking at her as her eyes would quetion and wonder. He could see the aura that radiated off of her. A soft yellow with a mixture of oranges and greens that danced and mingled with one another. Her aura was beautiful, something that he rarely sees in reality and dreams. She had an old soul which would explain the radiating beautiful meshes of colors eminating from her. In short, because an aura like that was beautiful, it would make that which eminates beautiful.

He was not alone however, there was another spirit here, someone older and someone a bit agitated of his presence. Riku understood that even if he were to use the tranquil aura around him and the women, he would see that he would have to confront him. Yes, it was male. With that intensity of a spirit, it was purely a masculine one at that. Calm yourself, I am not here to hurt Riku said in his mind. Akiko wouldn't hear it but the spirit would.

What's her name? A...Aki...Akiko, yes that's it. That is her name. The name kept bein said in so many voice.. Some said neutrally, some said seductively, some said it harshly and others that just intertwine with the voices. He put out his hand towards Akiko and said "I am not here to hurt you my dear. Join me closer in the water" he smiled a warm smile yet again.


Existing in the realm of darkness, there is many voices of the dead that howls and whimpers and even yells from time to time. Yaguri, was one of those who had began to adapt to the constant and almost dreadful noises of this place. Was this better than death? Perhaps it may have been because he notice that the spirits here were not necessarily aware of Yaguri. Whenever Riku had appeared, they notice him quicker than a homeless man hearing money and they would try to swarm him.

It is because he alive. Yes, when they are alive they can feel the echo of the body and the spirits wanting to have a body again. It such a painful existance because Yaguri could see that there was no point of obtaining a body. They crave it yet have no understanding of how to use it. They have lost all conscious thought when they died. Some died viciously and with murder, some souls were so evil that they yet had to wait in line before they went to hell but others souls just didn't pass through the veil. They continued to linger here and wonder when they would be judged.

Yaguri couldn't classify this as a purgatory or a realm in between. Riku descibed this place as the realm between realms, a place where anyone can go depending on how you travel there. Some people see this in there dreams, others come out of random. It's not a place in which a person could naturally summon unless they found the key or the kings of this place. No, when people just disappear, they usually end up here.

Yaguri sat on the grey grass, sitting mediatively and thinking about how he could get stronger. He open his eyes and saw the moon glaring down in this world. Being in this world so far, he would have to say that this world may be bleak but it was beautiful nonetheless. It was not filled with the colors that is seen in the physical but rather a place in which he was stuck in a huge canvas and the artist is only using blacks, whites and greys.

He turned his head and not shocked, you loose that when you die and come here, was Riku standing there with his hands in his pocket and of course a smile on his face, unpredictable it is "Sup" he said with a youthful demeaner

"Yes" Yaguri said wanting to get to the point "What is it? Why are you here?"

Riku shrugs "Eh, I was getting a bit tired of training with the shadow clones. I wanted to take a break, ya know, maybe do something else while my two clones do a bit research on that body. You know that last fight you came into? In Konoha"
Yaguri nodded wondering what that had to do anything with him showing up here. It's not like he didn't mind his presence, it's just that he has random times of showing up and it gets a bit odd at times

"Well, I was thinking about enhancing some of our abilities together. I mean, we work well in a team. I focus on taijutsu and ninjuts while you balance it with a heaping load of genjutsu, ya know?"

"Correct" Yaguri buisness manner showing "I'm going to assume that you want us to have more attacks together"

"Well..." Riku swayed his body a little bit, trying to find the right words to say what he was trying to say "Not exactly. You see, I just have to practice with all of that, necessarily speaking, I was thinking about how we could combine our powers together to communicate with other people, ya know?"

'How strange...' thought Akiko for a few brief seconds as her dream morphed and changed yet again. "Let us begin." She wondered where it came from, glancing about to see if there was a person, maybe someone she knew. The voice sounded familar... yet foreign at the same time, as did her surroundings. It was all strangely surreal, as if she were there, yet not there. And before she knew it, she was seeing a man in white by her side, aparently telling her something, something she couldn't hear or make out by reading his lips. Strange.

And before she could do much, he was gone. Blinking a little, she wondered if she had just imagined that... well of course she was, this was a dream. Still... strange. And yet, despite all of this, she felt warm and safe. Her gaze shifted slightly from where he had been standing and now she caught sight of the cliff several hundreds of meters away... and... the strange man? Wait, no, he was... in front of her? And all these questions being thrown at her from somewhere within the imaginary realm she was in.

For a brief, brief second she wonder if maybe somehow, someone was playing some sort of trick on her, a Genjutsu maybe? But that wasn't possible. She hadn't fallen for Genjutsus since... well since she and Yamiyo met. And last she checked, most of the other nin living in her corridor were low leveled Chuunin incapable of performing any sort of Genjutsu this detailed and intricate, if it was one. Was this really just a dream? She didn't dream about things like this often, then again she didn't dream often either so...

Maybe she ought to start dreaming more often... Somewhere within the back of her mind Yamiyo was trying to enter her mind and wake her up, but she wanted to see more of this dream... See if it might hold something worth knowing, might show some clue or riddle to her forgotten past... She resisted him for a little while, letting her dream self's eyes focus on the man before her. He still hadn't moved and seemed real enough, the water about his feet lapping his shins gently. And he certainly didn't seem dangerous, maybe a little intimadating and mysterious but... not dangerous. Almost as if she could trust him with her life...

No wonder Yamiyo wanted her to wake up, and strangely, he had stopped trying to wake her up, calming down or sulking in his own way. Shortly after she felt Yamiyo's pull and influence on her weaken and fade, she began to hear her name being repeated over and over in a multitude of voices, none of them in the same tone or even pitch, all so very different. And then he moved, holding out his hand to her and saying that he wasn't going to hurt her, to join him in the water.

A part of her was resisiting and tellinig her not to, that something about this dream was just not normal, that for her to create such a man as he so intricately was abnormal, that this couldn't be a dream, that it was something more... But his face, his voice, and his aura was calming and warm. She couldn't sense danger and didn't detect any. Almost without her true consent, she found herself transversing the soft, warm sand and into the cool, gentle water next to the man, taking his hand and looking closer at his face, wondering if she might have met him before in her long life, that maybe she had glimpsed this man before and something about him had stuck out to her and was being replayed in this dream.

The more she looked at him, the more she couldn't tell if she had seen him before or not. And he seemed so much like the scenery here: surreal. He looked human enough, but something about him reminded her of herself and made her think he wasn't entirely human, maybe human to begin with but no longer human, something akin to humans but not necessarily human... So... strange. Just what kind of dream was this?

And vaguely Akiko thought back to her childhood, well the bits of it she remembered. She remembered watching some of the other children that could never be ninjas play silly games that involved odd things like 'magic' and dragons and all sorts of things. When she had asked them why once, they had simply told her it was fun. That running around playing make believe was fun and not idiotic or a waste of time. This place... it reminded her of that. And from some of the stories they'd told her it certainly seemed like a place out of one of their little fairytales. The only thing out of place were the people involved... a strange, myseterious man who held some sort of calming and warm aura and a woman who'd been brought up as a killer of a sorts who had never really had time for such things as playing or dreaming. So why now...?


'This isn't right... Who's messing with her? I can't tell if she's okay or not. I can't even get into her mind! If she finds out... If she remembers everything it won't go well, and not just for me. I don’t want her to remember the pain of having killed Kazuki… And I don’t want her remembering that child Raikage either! Ahhh what’s going on? Is she really dreaming? I keep sensing something or someone here in the room with us. I don’t understand at all… no one is here, but us so how come I keep sensing someone else here, much less from Akiko???’

Sighing a little, he thought back to when he had first sealed away her memories. He had debated a long time about convincing her she liked him, loved him, but… he just couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t take advantage of her like that. So why could he seal her memories? It was essentially the same thing in a roundabout way. Did love really make you do crazy things? Maybe. Ahh why did he keep pursuing her anyway? He knew she didn’t like him as more than a friend, and yet he continued to hope and try. Why? Was he really that desperate? No… he could go pick up any other woman he wanted, so why did he want her?

He still didn’t know the real answer to that himself. Oh sure, if he was pressed for it he could say this or that, but the real reason why… He didn’t know. Was it going to be one of those silly, little foolish things like ‘I feel in love at first sight’? Like he did with that young woman so, so, so long ago? What was that girl’s name again? Hana… Hanashi… Hanashi something… He had forgotten what her last name was though, he vaguely thought it was one of those great Konoha Clans or something… Uchiha or Hyuuga, something like that. He had fallen in love at first sight and might have nearly taken that young Nasaki’s body just to meet and greet her, but he had managed to control himself and let her slip through his fingers like the sand and let the sands of time claim her…

Hmm, come to think of it, they were in Konoha, maybe she had descendents? Or relatives? She had been from Konoha… or was it Suna? Ahh, how the times have changed. Maybe he’d ask Akiko to go through the old, old, old archives that were typically public since those people had been dead for decades. Maybe he could find out what had happened to her, what kind of death she had had.

’Damn it, I sound like some kind of obsessed freak instead of just having a crush on her… … …’ thought Yamiyo, somewhat annoyed with himself. Sighing again, he tried to think of other things to calm himself down from worrying about Akiko’s safety and wound up trying to recall exactly what Hanashi looked like at the time when he saw her through the Nasaki’s body he had been living in at the time.

He really was a bit of a child then, having skipped from body to body just to be able to watch the young woman. He could remember some of the others watching him with interest and surprise, placing bets on whether or not he would take over someone to be with her. A lot of them had lost that day, but even more had won. And it worked, trying to remember exactly what she looked like, what her voice had sounded like, and her eyes…

Yaguri had disappeared in the realm where Akiko and Riku had resided. It was the main host conscious that he saw. He did not wish to engage in the conversation. Riku had asked him not to. He believed he would be enough to awaken whatever lies inside of this conscious mind. The moment Yaguri stepped into this conscious is when he felt a certain presence that was not familar to Yaguri.

His disappearance had put him in a space where he saw the memories moving around him like a room full of thousands of glasses showing images of two peoples lives. Why were there two. Yaguri walked towards one of them the dream mirros as Yaguri had called it. Placing a hand casually on his chin he begin to watch the scene inside of the miror. He saw a child, a young girl who was surrounded by a group of children. The children seem dreamliked, at least there faces did and they were talking to the young girl. It was a younger appearance of that women that Riku confronted. Youth now lost in the body of a woman who could never age, beauty that has stopped in place.

The memory was a bit foggy. It was like a person had blown inside of the mirror with a cold breath. Now the young girl had faded away into a distance corner of the mirror that he could not see. He looked over that thousands of dream mirrors, there some where whole and healty others were shattered bits, the glass falling on the ground. Yaguri did not question it because he knew what this meant. Those memories were some what fading and were trying to get out to reach the conscious but something was not allowing it to happen.

Yaguri walks over to another mirror. He leans at the mirror which was just as tall as him and saw that this mirror did not contain a memory but rather a place in another persons conscious. Person wouldn't be the word really, but rather something of a spirit. With a hand, he slowly moves into the mirror. The mirror was like water, the ripples spreading out of the surface area. He moved his entire body in and was now in the conscious of another person. He did not hear anything in particular, the echoing of his shoes clicking on the ground yes, but there was a type of feeling that he was getting. Something familar, something that people wanted, that drived them into madness....

Love wasn't it. It was love....or rather a physical desire of a love at first. He couldn't tell if it was something of physical or something more. He wanted to know more. How would he know? His speciality was genjutsu, the minds chess game. He spread his arms forward, concentrating, trying to hear what was in this spirits mind....lust...desire...caring...love...passion. A voice had said obessed over her....then faded back into the feeling of love and desire yet again. Then it changed, it changed into something entirely different from before which was "I dont want to hurt you. I dont want you to remember. Please wake up...."No, she couldn't wake up. Not yet. Riku's mission was yet to be complete yet. Yaguri broke away, his eyes looked forward and saw the spirit.

"Words like that, to not hurt, to not cause pain. It is the emotion of such that gives that women drive." Yaguri replied. His voice was plain, neutral almost like drinking lukewarm water, it wasn't satisfying and yet it sent a message across "Yet I talk to you as if you are nothing more than a speck of dust in the wind and I am nothing more than a dust that gets caught in that speck"

He walks towards the spirit, his appearance, all white even down to the hair was more than just abnormal. It was intimidating to be at least. The markings on his eyes that looked like tears of green blood lead up to emerald eyes that were blank....emotionless "Fear is something you say it is painful. You are nothing more than the incarnation of fear itself. Why do you hide things from her? Is it to truly protect her or is it rather something to protect yourself?"

He wouldn't give the time of day to answer that question truly. Yaguri voice was beginning to sound very tempting. Just a second before, it was blank and emotionless and now it was....enticing. "What would you give in order to protect the one you love the most....?"

Akiko had held the hand of Riku. It was nothing short of something out of a romance novel, a young woman grabs the enigmatic young man who appears decieving at first but has a warm and sensitive touch to him. God, if something like they were going to make love into some type of tacky love scene, this would certainly make Riku sick to his stomach but nonetheless, he would continue if allowed so.

Her eyes were a sugary glaze, looking at him as if he was apart of some puzzle yet to be solve. Riku smile that never faded only disappeared. No longer was he the long white hair man but another man whom hair was short blue and his eyes were a dark oceanic blue. He appeared younger than the man who held Akiko's hand but that's not what his eyes were saying. His eyes did not give a measure of time but rather a measure of existance.

He was beyond ancient, beyond the circumstances that Akiko would've seen. They stared at her for a few seconds, gazing at her. Whomever he was, she would get a short glance before the image reverted back to the man who said "It is time" he was young appearin as well but his soul didn't appeara ancient as that last image she've seen. He was younger than her but she would supect that he was older in some ways. Was he human? The suspect that he was or formerly human were now out the window. No one had an aura like him.

Riku moved to Akiko, her head reaching towards her head slowly. The urge to move away from him would be gone as his aura and appearance, which was once enticing, had intensfied greatly. going beyond the measure of dream people and more towards the reality of things. He was appearing to move to her lips. What was this, a soap opera gone totally array? He was so close to her lips that she could smell the breath which was a smell unlike any she would've smell before. It was a mixture between the smell of rain and the ocean. But that was a facade and moved to her ears.

They were close together. With this, Riku had a faint image of hugging the person that he onced love long ago. He remember his father saying to him that he could not become attach yet for he was young and fiery. He was that but now it was not that any longer. He shook the feeling away in his mind moving away like an itch that was bothering him and he ignored it. There he said to Akiko "Broken...that you may be, you will begin to remember thee....You'll begin to understand happiness and sadness, joy and pain, mourning and rejoicing. You'll begin..to remember..."

Yamiyo sighed a little as he failed to recall exactly what the woman had looked like only to find that he was sensing someone there with them again, only this time... this person was with him. Strange. He knew of none that could go freely transverse the odd 'spirit' realm like thi... And stranger yet, the emotions he was reading didn't seem entirely human, as if there was a hint of something more to him. But where was this strange man?

Almost as if answer him, the man appeared and spoke to him, steadily walking towards him. It was as if this man could read his very thoughts for he was speaking to him of the things he had done to Akiko, had tried to justify in his mind on his own. Within himself, he was becoming just the slightest bit nervous, wary, and fearful. Who was he? Why did he know all of this? How?

He wanted to ignore the man's words, but he spoke of the truth. He was like his conscience, telling him he had done wrong, that he was still doing wrong for hiding things from Akiko and making up excuses to justify it. For a brief second he became angry, both with himself and this strange man that seemed entirely inhuman. He shouldn't be afraid or wary of this man, he shouldn't be second guessing himself all at the word of some stranger.

"What would you give in order to protect the one you love the most...?" That froze him on the inside. Oh sure, he might have been calm and as blank as the man on the outside, but now he was confused, growing ever wary of the man in white. 'Wake up Akiko...' he thought fleetingly.


She watched with mild surprise as the man's appearance shifted and changed into a younger man, yet his eyes retained that age old look of wisdom to them. 'Is he... like me?' she thought for a moment, but no, there was something about him that said he was similar yet different... She let her eyes look over him once more, resting back onto his dark ocean blue eyes. Given another time and place, she might have fallen for him but now? No... not quite. Not for looks alone. But his image shifted again, leaving another impression on her mind.

Yes... he was like her, an old soul.. a very old one at that. Was he truly immortal? Perhaps... in all her time she had never met anyone who was truly immortal, certainly none ever as old as this person before her. Vaguely she wondered what this man did for a living, how he lived his long, infinite life. How he had lived it... What he had been like before time had stopped for him. For she had come to see that after a certain point, once time had stopped, one changed and arguably only a fragment of their former self.

She had been like that too, different before time stopped for her. Of course, she couldn't recall exactly how different, it seemed so far away and some were blurrier than others, but always she remembered training and... Uchiha Kazuki... Where did that name come from? The thought and name had been fleeting, it felt like she had just traveled through decades of time, but it had only been a few seconds.

She came back to the dream, seeing the man rather close to her face. And oddly, she had the faint image of herself and some faceless girl faintly appear before her eyes. She was confused, yes, but as he breathed out she caught a whiff of what his breath smelled like. It was exotic, his scent and her already oversensitive senses easily reacted, but she couldn't quite say what his breath smelled like, but something akin to rain and the ocean. She had questioned if this dream was a little more of reality than dream, and almost believed it, but had shrugged away since this couldn't be real. But now... she was beginning to have doubts again.

What was with this guy? So calm, so warm... It reminded her of what those happy children would call 'father' or 'brother'. Someone that they trusted and felt safe with... something she had rarely felt, even with her own mother. And yet... he was still so mysterious and strange, making one become wary and suspicious even when he gave off an aura that just screamed he wasn't dangerous.

She almost expected him to kiss her, given the closeness between them, but instead he moved a little further up and his voice was like a faint whisper to her, like the wind that blows ever so softly on cool evenings that you can barely feel, or the water beneath her that gently brushed her skin and left just as quickly. At first she only wondered what he could have meant, some riddle? A hidden message? But his last three words explained all of it: begin to remember. Did he... did he truly mean she would finally remember those blank spots in her memory? But how? She had tried for countless weeks to remember even the tiniest thing from those blank spots, but nothing. How could he, a man she didn't even know, a man that might not even exist, be able to do such a thing?

She would've said something back to him, but just a second after his finished speaking images of that faceless girl passed by her eyes in a flash. She couldn't see the girl's face, but she could see herself... smiling... a real smile... Not with her mouth, but her eyes... and vaguely she started to remember such scenes. It was when time still flowed for her, when she could still age... when the world about her could and was steadily molding her. When she was vulnerable to everything and anything.

Who was this girl? She knew her name and general appearance, but why... why couldn't she see her face? Why couldn't she remember anything else about this girl? All she could remember was that she and this girl had spent time together in her childhood. Were they friends? Teammates? Rivals? What had happened to her? Images rushed past her, but after a certain point they simply stopped and faded back to darkness. What... was that? Why did it stop? "Who... is she?" whispered Akiko quietly, still trying to process it all, barely aware that she was still holding the man's hand.


Yamiyo's thought process froze as he began to realize what was going on with Akiko. She was starting to remember. The dark, blank spots within her mind were beginning to fade, the walls in place were crumbling, snippets of her forgotten past was slipping through the barrier, through the seal. How?!

He gazed up at this man before him. "I would do anything... no matter how dark the deed," he replied quietly, ice cold. "What are you doing to her?" he simply asked, knowing that this man had either caused her to remember or knew why. "Why are you interfering?!" he asked, letting his anger show just a little. "Why would you interfere? She's nothing to you... isn't she?" he asked, wondering who exactly this man was and why he was here.

And while he waited for an answer and talked to him, he struggled to rebuild the walls in her mind, to keep up the barriers, to prevent her from seeing everything, trying to strengthen the seal. Why were they interfering? How could they be here? Why were they able to be here... here in their inner thoughts, in their dreams, in this place... What did they seek to gain from this?


Vaguely, Akiko thought she sensed Yamiyo's presence yet again, but it was fleeting and scattered, as if he was running around wildly within her mind and thoughts. She wondered if something was wrong, if something was happening in the real world outside, but she would've woken up by then, wouldn't she? She wouldn't still be asleep and here in this... this dream, if it could still be called that.

"Who... no... What are you?" asked Akiko, confused, but calmer than her counterpart on the other side. "You... can't be human, not anymore... Why are you helping me?" she asked, a little uncertain how to approach him. Dealing with old souls was usually tricky and complicated because one could never be too sure of what the other knew about them or were capable of, given their long time of existence and chance to learn many various things in life.

And one could argue that it is the physical skills one learns that makes them all the more terrifying and formidable... but Akiko knew better. No matter how badly one destroyed the body, so long as the mind existed there was always a chance and a way that they could prevail. No, what made someone truly formidable and terrifying was their ability to tear one apart from within, to turn their own mind against them, to have them doubt everything about themselves and everything they knew. Defeat the mind and one easily defeats the body. And training the mind was something that could not be done easily... it is perhaps the weakest component of any living creature. It was the weakest, yet the strongest and the most sensitive and intricate part of being alive.

The silence that Yaguri had was a painstaking answer that he gave to Yamiyo. Indeed, the explanation that Riku said to him about why they were interfering was an odd. "I am a person of the random" Riku had said to him earlier. "I do things to do things, a person of the moment. If I see, I'll run towards it. If it catches my interest, I'll go for it. Like a dog chasing after cars, I just do things to do things"

Those words reverberated within Yaguri. The polite yet sarcastic tone, the jovial yet deceitful expression. He was saying that to answer Yaguri's concern. There was a reason why he got involved. If he had a little more time to investigate the matter, he would then begin to come up with a few theories but he had to follow his master's orders. He did not want to suffer the consequnces.

Yaguri finally broke this ten second silence "We are not doing anything to her. Well, I'm not doing anything to her. In honesty, this event was going to happen either way. Really, you wanted it to arrive slowly....no, you didnt' want her to know. You are so scared" to think that Yaguri was understanding a five century year old spirit was beyond the comphrension.

There was blink with Yaguri's eyes, a blink so slow that it felt like a thousand years has passed. It was a illusion for Yaguri to get behind Yamiyo. He was told to convince the spirit within this body; in order for Yaguri to understand spirits, one must tempted a spirit. He says faintly "Perhaps you can tell her personally...in a whole body. You said you would go into darkness. Would you now? Would you sacrifice your own persona in order to protect her...to become flesh...to become...whole"


Riku laughed just a bit at the thought of her figuring that he wasn't human. It tickled him to know that there are some people who realize that Riku was neither man nor animal, demon or angel. He laughed because he didn't know what he was. He placed a fist over his mouth saying excuse me. "Yes, you are correct. I am not human. The powers that you say that I have is only a mere illusion to perceive the fact that I am all powerful. That is not the case. There is more to it than mere memory. Perhaps..." he paused looking at Akiko. His smile, no longer humorous, was warm again "Perhaps I was distracted...."

He looks around the beach surroundings "My, I did qutie a number here. Perhaps we should leave this place and go to a more, neutral place than this romantic one. If I were to stay here, well I suppose the distraction would be tempting for me, eh?"

The warmth from the sun remained however, the sand, the water and the sounds of the ocean had disappeared. They were now sitting at a round table, the setting was compltely different from the beach. The birds chirped just a bit sweeter in this one. They were surrounded by people, all oblivious to both Akiko and Riku. When she would face to Riku, she would see that he was in a formal suit, an all black jacket with a white collared shirt and a tie so black that the black sky at night couldn't compare to it. He was wearing glasses this time, which fitted him nicely to the shape of his face.

Her appearance had also changed as well. She was wearing something relatively simular to what a woman would wear to a dinner at night. It was not revealing as most night attires for women usually were yet it showed just enough to give the person a good imagination as to what lied underneath that silky blue dress.

A tea cup rose to Riku's lips and he took a light sip of the tea inside of it. His eyes were looking at the sky as he was tasting the tea. He smiled then placed the tea cup down "Ah, a rich taste. It's almost like an aged wine. Very gentle yet has a bit of bitterness in it. You dont want to add sugar or honey otherwise the taste would be ruin" He points to the tea cup. When one would look, it was not the golden color one might expect. There was not a velvet red or a tangy orange color. In fact, it was a shade of green that was most unimaginable. What type of tea in the world existed with this color? There was none.

She would expect to see the same color of tea, but instead when she would look down it was a beautiful purple, almost like a mixture of blueberry and blackberries. When she would taste it, it was not bitter yet it woulnd't be overwhelming sweet. It was good, very good to imagine it. The deliciousness of the tea was great enough to profit of off. If this tea existed in the real world, it could be said that Riku would've sold this like hot cakes.

"Amazing what lies in your mind. To be honest, this is actually apart of your conscious. What I did was merely activate it and your mind continued on with the creation. but you have a way of keen detail within your long term memory. This looks like a place that was built almost years ago" he points to the tea "What you would taste is not necessarily tea...it's in fact the taste of auras. You would taste the aura of mine and I tasted the aura of yours. I can't necessarily tell you at the moment as to why that came to mind but I believe it has something to do with a type of trust in one another"

He takes another sip of the tea before saying "You wish for an explanation, I can tell you that this would be considered random among other things. I assure that it is not....or perhaps that's a matter of perception"


The voice of Yaguri, both emotionless and neutral had a way of creeping inside a person's conscious. It crawled into the conscious like a predator through the grass. His voice would lurk and begin to stalk the conscious before long his voice would pounce upon the conscious and begin to devour and influence

Riku had seperated further from Yamiyo. It was indeed Yaguri's job to distract him but that thought in mind was long gone. There was a type of pleasure tempting a person. It's so...simple to do. He never understood the persuasion act, it was difficult trgonemetry to Yaguri. After he died, he began to understand that it was simple, very simple. It was placing a key into a lock and opening the door to many surprises

"Perhaps, I can tell you that you can always protect even more. A type of assistance that will lend you a physical being and a protection no spirit could imagine....what if we could give you....life?"

Yamiyo's moutch clenched shut and his teeth grinded against one another. He kept telling himself to stay calm, to not let his anger get the better of him. But it was becoming increasingly harder... This man seemed to know too much. It worried him, scared him, really, but he didn't want to let it show.

But he froze again, not even trying to rebuild the barriers in Akiko's mind. To have his own body... No. He knew too much about him, this had to be some sort of a trick, some kind of game... but... the temptation....



"Mmm, you're right about the scenery... Although... if you wanted, I suppose I wouldn't mind..." replied Akiko calmly before the scenery faded away and was replaced with a new, less tempting and suggesting setting. She marvelled a little at what he could do, knowing that this was likely only a small sign of his true abilities and strength, that if he wanted to, he could very easily turn this into a nightmare she'd never wake from.

She smiled warily at his new appearance before taking a glance at herself. She was in a dress, something she didn't quite prefer when she had a choice, but she didn't mind it for now. A change in color and style was nice once in awhile. And seemingly as if they had always been there, tea cups appeared. She glanced at her own, not really one for tea but soon noticed its strange color as he spoke to her of its taste. Again, she got that surreal feeling again. Gingerly, she let one of her hands settle around the intricately made tea cup and looked at its color once more. For a second, she thought she saw a face reflecting back at her, her reflection? ... But the color of the eyes weren't right... wait, how could see colors in the tea? Startled, she realized she was seeing the girl from before, only the face was steadily becoming clearer.

But just as quickly as the image had appeared, it disappeared and grudgingly, a little disappointed, she began to drink the tea. So... strange. What she tasted wasn't what he had described... and when she took another look at him and his cup of tea she found that her's differed from his in appearance as well. And as if he could read what she was starting to ask in her mind, he answered her and then some.

'This... is actually a part of me? Not... something he's created? But I...' and with vague memories dirfiting by she recalled age old decor similar to everything she had just projected. They weren't exact, but they were similar... these scenes had drawn off of her memories and recreated them, supposedly in a way she wanted or how she subconsciously saw the world. And as he explained to her what the 'tea' really was, she wondered what this taste of him meant... Sweetness, yet not overwhelmingly sweet... a hint of bitterness, but barely so, delicious and intriguing, yet... mysterious and strange. Just what kind of man was he? She was certainly interested in him now, but not from a romantic viewpoint, even if she could openly admit that she wouldn't mind having a one night stand with him.

But at leas now she had an idea of what his abilities lay in: auras. She had never heard of anyone like this... let alone met anyone like this. He was different, in a good way. He was half answering her, and yet... she understood in a sense, vaguely. For old souls, doing this or that didn't always need to have a meaning. They had already experienced much of life, arguably too much of life and didn't always have to have proper reasoning or judgement behind their actions. Whether or not their actions could cause a war or invoke peace, no one really knew, and it might not even have been their intention, it might have merely been a simple game or something to waste time.

She understood that... the vast majority of the things she'd done was usually something of a whim. She had never really planned it or even thought of the results, but nevertheless things happened. And then images flowed past her eyes again. That same dark haired girl with gentle, warm eyes... an aura that reminded her of this man before her. She had trusted this girl, felt safe with her... no... what was this feeling that she couldn't grasp? It was something beyond friendship... beyond family... Was it... love? Had she loved this girl? Uchiha Kazuki... the name seemed foreign on her lips, but the name resounded in her head repeatedly. And before she knew what was going on, she found herself longing to find out who this girl was, what her relationship with her had been, and most of all... what had happened to her.


Swallowing, Yamiyo wound up thinking about the man's offer without meaning to. 'No... I shouldn't even consider it...' But his desire to have his own body was almost as great, if not greater, than his desire for Akiko to love him as he loved her. "... How... How could you possibly do that without hurting her?" he asked, wary and hesitant, but all the same... longing. "How can you possibly give me a physical body that is my own to control without hurting her... without placing limits on me and making me a slave or indebted to you... Its impossible, isn't it?" he asked, trying to make himself believe it and not fall prey to the man's ever alluring words.



"Perception..." murmured Akiko quietly. "Isn't everything always about perception? Everything can be seen as evil... but at the same time it can be seen as good... An angel can quickly become a demon and vice versa. It always depends on one's perception and which side they wish to perceive things from, does it not? No... more like which side suits their needs most." Glancing up from the tea and table, she faced him and looked at his eyes behind the glasses. Something told her that despite his words, there was a reason for the two of them meeting... she just didn't know why yet, and maybe he didn't either. Time would only tell...

The smile was captivating as he slowly took the cup away from his lips. It was first a sly smile and then a small grin, the snow white teeth was remarkably stunning and terrifying. The tea now was beginning to be more suspectful, doubtful. The taste of temptation. He was learning that the spirit's aura was mixing with hers and the variety of taste in his mouth gave Riku the knowledge that Yaguri was doing what he was told to do.

"Angels and demons are nothing more than pawns. Their view of perception is more tunneled than humans. Humans are the most intriguing do to the fact that free will and perception are in the arsenals of mankind" her eyes stared into his and his eyes did not hesistate to stare back. His eyes were coy, as a lover looks back another lover. What color eyes did he show this time? A magenta, a rosie red, perhaps a hallows eve orange or a midnight moon grey. No, she would not see that. In the realm of dreams, his eyes were the color of lifely white and a deathly black.

"But I suppose everything in the eyes of a human is perception. Many have called me the trickster, many have called me the assassin. Perhaps that is what I am but I suppose that I am nothing more than a force rather than a perceptional being. But enough of philosophy, I am here to bring temptation and be tempted" he stands up. His chair moved and the sound of the scuffling of the chair shattered the entire landscape of the dream like broken glass,

As the dream glass fell into an abyss, Akiko and Riku stood in a realm that was grey. This place was the entire conscious of Akiko, an endless realm that her mind had created. Akiko was wearing the attire she fell asleep in but Riku was still wearing the suit, the glasses he wore were in Riku's hand. As he folded them, he bowed his head "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Riku, Riku Shikyo. From what I know and understand the old beauty in front of me is named Akiko Hatake" he walks to her and kneels down on one need. There, like a gentlemen, he placed a hand underneath hers and kissed the top of his hand gently. His kiss was oddly cold but nothing short of comforting. He looks up and stands up.

"Tonight, I shall create an orchestra of pure romance and beauty...."



Behind Yaguri rose up a chair in which he sat himself down, folding his legs "Have you always think that there is a 'catch' or 'equal exchange'? No one truly believes in generosity anymore. I can see why however. When I was alive, an offer of this magnitude would be ridiculous in my eyes..." Yaguri hand was pointing at Yamiyo. Behind him was a chair for him to sit on "I shall tell you a short story. Long ago, there was a clan that wish for balance in the world. They were life and death, creation and destruction, a cycle in which all things revolve around"

The images of seven people stood in the darkness. Three of them were female, the rest were male. All of them had white hair, there eyes were fire, the left eyes was a black fire while the right eyes were white flames "At first there were few but long after they continue to procreate, creating a clan that was meant to keep the balance" Images of adults and children stood behind the seven people, growing in numbers as the talking continued

"The men were the destroyers, they were the ones that protected the balance and taught the generation after to continue this balance. They would even kill those that try to destroy such cycle. The women were ones who created, they were the ones that understood that life is more than a game and they cherished it. They taught this to humans as the humans began to populate the world. But there were many that tried to disrupt such balance"

"There was a kingdom that wanted only destruction. They, over a mllenia, place war among the balance guardians. This kingom underestmated them and in time, this kingdom fell to the power of the guardians. The guardians then took this kingdom and used it for themselves. The guardians took a power that this kingdom could not utalize" There behind Yaguri was a man, long flowing hair with a long white nodachi that was pressing against the necks of two people, "They gave this clan the power to utalize the power of the spiritual realm...the realm of shadow"

Yaguri stood up "You are a spirit....this is an oppurtunity for you to have the power to become flesh. This is the power of this clan...of my associate....my master. I was killed when I faced against him and he gave my spirit and body a second chance. I can assure you that you can have that same oppurtunity like myself. The 'catch' as you will say is a seal that allows the person with the spirit to summon you...that is all. My master has no reason in controlling you....he's not the controlling type. He's a person that only wishes to settle balance, no matter how small the disrupting cycle is"

Yaguri steps to Yamiyo and lifts his chin so that he could meet eye to eye "Wouldn't you want that? So that you can become flesh with no attachments. My master can give that you....as long as you are willing to do so...."



"An orchestra that mends together the midnight beauty" he points to Akiko. He smiles at her, his eyes were fixed at her eyes "Perhaps you may join me in such an affair. To learn more about me and your own self. A process of two olden spirits"

He could feel the pull Yaguri was doing to the spirit. Yaguri was a fine apprentice, for he began to learn that temptation is not just bounded by humans. spirits, angels, demons....gods can be tempted and he was learning from a professional. Riku snapped his fingers and they were back at the beach scenary. This time it was no longer day but it was night. The moon stared at both Riku and Akiko, a potent orange reflecting both in the sky and on the ocean waters. In Akiko's mind she would hear the voice of Riku repeatingly say 'remember' over and over till it was just a slight fading.

"Beautiful isn't it? Night time reminds me of how beautiful death is. As an immortal, it is something that I can feel everyday. As the moon arise, the peak of death is at its purest. When the moon disappears, life will spring anew when the sun comes up and there will be life that will spring forth" his hand was place on her chin "An orchestra that is never-ending of both creation and destruction...life and death...." his hand moves away from her and that coy smile remain still

She was just starting to notice the new area when the man introduced himself to her as Riku Shikyo and revealed he knew more than he should about her, kissing her hand gently with an odd cool, comforting kiss. In another time, back when she was younger and more wary and annoyed of such displays she might have become violent with him, pulled away, but now... after years had gone by she was getting used to it and didn't mind it so much.

Oddly, he seemed like Yamiyo, holding that old traditional sense of courtship, yet she could sense a more modern approach behind it as well. He was... well balanced it seem, capable of melding the past with the present rather than sticking to one era's ways. She herself was a little unsure of how she wanted to play this out with him, but soon settled with merely going along with it for the time being.

"An orchestra of pure romance and beauty?" she murmured quietly, just loud enough for him to hear, contemplating over what she would do to him.



Grudgingly, Yamiyo took a seat and listened to his story, calming down just a little, but still remaining wary of him. He watched as shadows formed and helped give visual perception to the story he was telling. What he said... it was something that was whispered once in awhile from the few oldest vampires, some nearly as old as the infamous Genshiryou... some a little older, so he couldn't outright call the man a liar and had to believe him.

Some things he said he could vaguely remember hearing before when he had been a child, other things he said filled in the blank spots and voids in this little fairy tale, but most of what he said he couldn't begin to link together with all the snipets and version of the story and had to choose to either believe the man or consider it lies. Yamiyo would have loved to consider them as lies... but it fit the story all too well. It fit and it answered some of his own questions.

A spiritual realm, huh? He could believe that. His kindred did live in an odd sort of similar realm, what the normal human could consider a spirit realm. But this kingdom he spoke of... it was the biggest part of the story he wasn't sure about. The Genshiryou were old, far older than he... but... they never spoke of such a kingdom... The oldest of the souls among them hadnever once mentioned a kingdom of any sorts.

And yet... they had talked of a time and place where it was once said a great and dark battle took place; however, such a story had only been a story, a legend really. The Genshiryou were old, but not millenias old, maybe a couple thousand but milenia? No... what remained of the stories they were told to pass the time in their realm were nothing more than what the Genshiryou could remember from their predeccesors passed onto the older souls who thus passed it on down and so forth.

As much as he wanted to wave it off as nothing more than another legend... to have heard it from his predecesors and know that his ancestors knew of it... to have this man tell another, much more detailed version of it... Behind every lie, every legend, every story there is a grain of truth, even the most outrageous story would be based on some tiny grain of truth. He could not possibly rightly accuse this man of lying to him.

And what was more... the emotions he got from him were strange. They felt real enough, but there was some bitter aftertaste to sensing his emotions... He wasn't like normal humans who he could read easily at the snap of a finger, but rather he had to focus on him and concentrate. If he didn't there appeared to be no emotions coming from him. When I was alive... Those four words rang through his head for several brief seconds and he soon realized why it was that he had to concentrate on this man's emotions if he wished to know how he felt.

The man had died before... yet... he had his own body, his own flesh and blood, his own mind... his own emotions... What he spoke of was truth, he wasn't lying, as far as Yamiyo could tell at any rate. And as he explained how the process would work, he thought over the man's words. It was all very tempting but...

Sighing mentally, he thought back to the little lessons he had had as a child. One of the older souls had told him that if he ever bonded with someone they would become attached to one another through more than just their mind. If he should die his partner would be devasted and likely die, the same applied if it was his partner. Few ever survived having lost the other half of themselves. And those few that did would wish they had. The feeling of a strange emptyness and quietness within you... there were no words to convey it. You became nothing more than a zombie...

But he and Akiko had developed a technique where they could be seperated yet still together... it was highly, highly dangerous of course, but it gave him a chance to feel human, to have his own body. Each time they used it he never wanted to go back, but he knew he had to or else he'd risk hurting them both. Would this seal have that same effect? Would they still be connected? Or would he truly be a whole new entity void of any life threatening attachments to anyone? It was all so very tempting, yet... dangerous.

And as the man came towards him, meeting him eye to eye and asked him if he wanted his deepest desire fulfilled, he knew the man could see that he wanted it in his eyes, that no matter what he said or did, this man knew his deepest desire and knew he had found such a desire. He was trapped, it was as simple as that. The trap had been laid perfectly and he had fallen for it all too easily. Strong in body he may be... but perhaps in mind he was not.



She smiled a little at his words, returning his smile. "You offer a most interesting ordeal. It is tempting... however it is not always wise to give in to temptation, much less to one who clearly knows more about this world and its inhabitants than I." Still, she had to admit he had a way with words and his aura was vastly different than others. It wouldn't be too hard to say that those humans who were weak of heart and will could easily be manipulated by him.

The faint wind brushed across her skin and made her aware that she was once more in her own clothes: a tank top and shorts as usual. She had assumed that she was still in the same outfit as before seeing as Riku himself hadn't changed, but perhaps it wasn't just assumption that made her a little careless about her own image. Her mind seemed to be in two places at once. A part of her remembering and a part of her here with this man, and very faintly she thought she was with Yamiyo, but that thought and feeling was quick to change in seemingly almost nanoseconds and she simply began to disregard it since it was so vague and so fleeting.

She heard his voice then, murmuring 'remember' over and over and over only to fade away into images of that young girl once more. Things were becoming much clearer now and she wondered if he was doing this somehow. She was seeing this young girl in familar areas, places she had been to before all over in the Land of Grass, in the Hidden Grass Village. These images... they had always been in her mind, but never this girl, and yet... she was slipping into these old images as if she had always been there, as if she had been but glass before and was only now being seen. Was this what Yamiyo had been hiding from her? But why?

The girl, Kazuki, as she was beginning to become familiar with, seemed so gentle... so kind... And she... she seemed to have liked this girl, loved her almost... no... she did love her. Where were these old, forgotten feelings coming from? She had never been in love... had she? She couldn't remember... no... she couldn't recall ever being in love, but Yamiyo had said there was only so much he could remind her of, could help her remember. Maybe she had been in love before?

She was thrust back into the dream realm as Riku spoke to her of the night sky and its beauty. She could understand him, but she also sensed another meaning behind his words, whether he meant them to have meaning or not she wouldn't know. Her own ability to sense another's emotion was rather poor compared to Yamiyo and in reality she really couldn't sense emotions herself unless she was connected to Yamiyo. His eyes and face were vaguely distracting to her and she was only just aware of his hand upon her chin, speaking to her in his oddly alluring voice.

'I swear... if he had gotten to me when I was younger I'd already be hanging on to his every word. But I do wonder how he knows of me, of who I really am... Of those who know who I truly am... they're dead now so how is it that he knows? How long has he known about me?' she wondered faintly, letting her body respond to him as it wished, her hand softly touching his, making her amazed at how real he felt.

When he had touched he before and interacted with her, she had been sure this was perhaps just a realistic dream, but now that she was the one touching him... she became quite aware that this was no ordinary dream. It was a mixture between reality and imagination. He felt so real... so real that she wondered if he might have actually been in the room with her and she had simply been unaware of his presence. That perhaps he had entered their room somehow just shortly after she'd fallen asleep, but something told her that it wasn't so.

He had met her in her dreams for a reason. If he had wanted to meet her in real life he could have easily done so. "You see and know much of the world... even without your strange gifts and powers, your words alone hint that you are no longer truly human," she said softly. "And yet... at some point you had been human... What were you like then when time still moved for you? What caused you to change?" she murmured quietly, moving ever closer to him and looking up at him to gaze at his eyes again, letting her hand continue to play with his.

And as the words left her mouth, images of her being with that young girl flashed by her eyes again.

"Kazuki, get off of me, will you?" she asked, a faint smile on her face and her eyes bright with happiness as she looked up at the girl on top of her body. She was about thirteen, as old as she was.

The girl only laughed in reply though, smiling down at her, her hands pushing down on her shoulders with a strength that surprised her. "No, I won't. Not until you admit you lost~" she had chirped out happily, a smile still on her lips.

Her smile had faded away by then, only to be replaced with a grin. "One last chance to get off of me," she replied coyly. But the girl only shook her head 'no' and applied more force. Her grin widened a little and with far greater strength than the girl above her, she pushed her off of her and was now the one on top of her. "I told you," she said in a playful smugness, bringing her face down closer to the girl. Her hands were in slight fists on the soft grass on either side of her face, knowing she wouldn't need to apply much force to keep the girl down.

She was expecting her to try to fight back, to try to win this mock fight of theirs, but instead she had brought her arms up to wrap themselve about her neck and pull her down closer, giving her a soft kiss on her lips. She hadn't known how to reply, she had never been kissed before, never imagined she'd kiss anyone. She was expecting protesting, anger, annoyance, the usual things the girl did when she lost in their fights, but this was new.

She was even more surprised when she found herself kissing the girl back, trying to be gentle, but finding that she wanted this so much more and oddly... the girl didn't protest and only kissed her back, her hands trailing down along her back.

Her mind wavered slightly at the thought. She had kissed that girl... had wanted to kiss her... she loved her... But... what happened? She wanted the image to finish playing, but it faded again, almost as if it were taunting her.



"You know my weakness all to well... Your master is a powerful one and you are rather intelligent yourself... But I still have questions. I still have doubts. You've explained how this is possible, but you've yet to gurantee that she'll be safe, that she won't suffer from this. If you know this much about me, then surely you know about my kind. Tell me... how can I trust you both enough when I know nothing of you or your master? How can I entrust my life and her's to you? As much as I want a body of my own... I love her more than that desire. What else could you possibly offer to me?" he asked, his thoughts shifting to the woman he loved so dearly and cheerished, but such a thought was plagued by his old silly childish love of that young Uchiha he had fallen in love with at first glance when he had been but a child and preteen as well, as it always was whenever he thought back to her.

There was a slight aura of impatience with Yaguri. It was hard to tell whether his eyes were either showing displacement of the situation or that is how his eyes remained; as emotionless and blank. His hands slid into his pockets, his uniform was odd in it's entirity. His all white attire that was simular to that of a Aikido student yet it was something oddly modernize to a white jacket, a black sash and a hakama. He was surprisingly different from the shinobi attire. His paleness was becoming more necrotic, as if he was dying.

Yaguri said "There is a reason for doubt and that is fear. Fear of hurting the one that you bound to" he points to the left. There was a image of people. From there looks they were desendants of the seven main people. Yamiyo didn't know and wouldn't know how he would know but they appeared to be fathers and sons. The last person, the one with silvery white hair had a simular aura to Yaguri. He was the master.

From there the images shown from the oldest, the man with long black hair wearing a full suit said in a deep voice "Arise, my shadow" The silhoutte that this man created became blacker than black and there came out a beautiful women, her hair just as black as his own. That image disappeared. There another man, his hair completely white adjusted his glasses as an arrow shoots at an unseen enemy. There a women in short blue hair, skin as full and blush as any red, comes out from behind with wires that seem to cut the unseen enemy.

The next scene was another man. This man was different from the other images for he appeared as a solid image rather than a faded memory. This man had blue and grey hair, his eyes oceanic blue, he looks at Yamiyo. He was looking at him as if he could see him, no he COULD see him. He doesn't smile but turns forward and says in a calm voice "Arise Hitoshi". There a loud shouting comes from underneath this man and rising up was a man who was ranging close to seven feet with knives the size of small blades, the tips dripping with blood of another. "These fuckers are going to DIE!"

There that image faded. Yaguri hand lowers and he walks away from Yamiyo "This clan is called the Shikyo clan. They were never called this however and it has been forgotten what they were called before. It was them that created a seal that allowed them to enter into this realm. The mirror, the spiritual realm. I call it the realm of darkness. A place where it is always a full moon"

The image of Akiko stood in front of Yamiyo, she was bare up the waist up, her arms covering her body, her eyes closed. His finger touches the back an a image of a what appeared to be a tribal tattoo was trailing up from her neck down to the lower region of her back. "The seal will tap into her chakra and you'll be able to become flesh. You'll become a full being. That is all....that is all it takes is a seal and a bit of chakra to summon you"

"My master....he shows great deal of interest to see this work...."



Riku's head tilted at this question. She had no idea who the Shikyo were. He laughed to himself, of course she didn't know, the Shikyo dont exist, they are just as existant as a statue of a god that use to roam the either existed. His smile did not fade away as Akiko let her body touch his. He could feel the warmth of her body now, the softness of her hands reminded him of the softness of another women. For that moment, there was a sudden sadness in his eyes. That movement, that sly movement of her body, her hands intertwining with his, it was all so memorable.

He blinked and the sadness had disappeared away from his eyes and he said "I never was human" he said in a soft and romantic voice "I may have flesh like a human, muscles and tendons like a human, nerves like a human, a mind like a human....but there is no comparison" his hands moved onto her waist, bringing her closer to her. Being in this realm, he could not help but to move closer to her.

"I do not know what I am. But I can say before I was like this....I understood that love was not something of a trivial thing. It was a beautiful. It brough balance to beings all kind. Romantic love, familal love, friendship love, I understood that but now I am beginning to become cold to such feelings" He was closer to her, so closer that her lips almost touch his "Even then as I understand now....there is a balance. Life and death, creation and destruction, peace and chaos....love and hatred...."


Riku dove into the temptation of hiding in the shadows of her apartment. He had to move out of it. The connection would be stronger he thought to himself, hiding in the darkness will only make it more difficult for me to move. He oozed out of the door like walking through a waterfall and there Akiko was, asleep, her breathing was slow and easy; it was at a point of tranquilty.

Riku eyes were fiery white, he could only see the dream realm and Akiko with his hands intermingling with hers and his hands on her waist. He could smell the breath from her lips, a smell like that of cherries. He moved to her sleeping body and sat at the edge of the bed, he blinked out of habit.



In that dream, Riku wanted her. This was not a fading moment where he could regain his composure and continue on with his plan, no the urge of biting her neck occured, the urge to lick her body was in his mind. He was ready to pounce on her oh so on her delicate body. His reaction of doing so in the real world and in this world was strong, his instincit was moving in.

"Master" said the blank voice in his head. Riku urges had faded away. He knew who that was yet he was ready to ignore it for now but the voice said again 'master'

"Be quiet you..." Riku said. Not this time was he going to be interuptted. Not yet he thought, not yet

Yamiyo watched, intrigued and still wary, but all the same... intrigued and longful. These were memories, he could tell that much easily enough; memories of generations of these people utilizing spirits, giving them flesh and blood until it last came to the near future. He couldn't recognize any of them of course, but... he knew... and understood that they were as real as he was, or at least had been at some point.

The last image of Akiko before him and his explanation of how the seal would work further tempted him to agree, but he was still wary, oh so very wary, but... he wanted it, clearly so. 'I'm sorry Akiko...' he thought quietly, letting the thought reach her if it would.



Her body reacted to his touch accordingly enough, telling her move ever closer to him, even if her mind was clear and able to think. She remembered the faint traces of sadness and remembrance in his eyes and wondered if she might have reminded him of some past love or affair he'd been involved with, but his voice and words half distracted her again and she sensed it'd be wiser not to ask him of it.

A wry smile formed on her face though. She felt both close and distant to him, similar, yet different, lustful and reserved… It was as if she couldn’t feel but one single emotion for him, but always one and it’s opposite. How strange it was… And yet, here she was, kissing him, her arms about his neck and her body telling her to go further while her mind warned her not to go too far, and some part of her was off in another place remembering better days.

The taste of his lips was strange to her, again, giving her that surreal feeling making her wonder in which realm she was feeling this, dream or reality? Or was it some other world on its own? And as she kissed him, she found herself wanting more and more, or at least her body did. Her senses were already overwhelmed enough as it was… his taste, his scent…. It made her want him more, and his touch… it was so calming and different than anything she could remember. The sound of his voice was alluring enough as it was, as was his looks… Put it all together and he was nearly irresistible.




”Ahh… Akiko… I was wondering if I could stay over at your place tonight…” asked Kazuki, trying not to sound as shy and nervous as she was inside. She was failing horribly. She never was one who was able to hide her feelings easily.

She looked up at her, a little surprised, but her face didn’t show it. Yawning, she sat up and looked her over once. It was easy to see that something had gone wrong. The tinges of red in her eyes, the dark circles under her eyes, the way she kept shifting from one foot to the other, how her hands couldn’t keep still, and the way her eyes kept looking everywhere. She didn’t know what was going on… but alright. “Sure,” she yawned out. “But…”

“But…”

She gave her a devilish smile and got up. “Give me your blood.”

“… Akiko!” cried out Kazuki. She had always known Akiko loved blood and its taste, but for to say such a thing?

She moved away from Kazuki, laughing lightly. “I was just kidding,” she replied, walking away when deep inside she was a little disappointed and upset. “You coming or what?” she asked, stopping and tilting her head back slightly to look at her. “Well?”

“… You’re annoying,” mumbled Kazuki, but following her nevertheless. “But… thanks.”

“Mmm,” was all she said in reply. She wasn’t one to show kindness or be nice to others, but always she had held a soft spot for Kazuki. Always… Something about her just pulled her towards her. She didn’t know what it was either. It might have been her blood, but… she couldn’t possibly think of taking her blood directly, not like that. No, she couldn’t do that to her, not now, not ever.


“Hey, Akiko, where do I sleep?” asked Kazuki as she came back from taking a shower, the towel still wrapped about her body lightly.

She only looked up at her from her bed, staring a little, but looking away. “The floor, where else?” she replied in her usual cold, emotionless voice.

“But… its… dirt…” pouted Kazuki, eying the floor with distaste. But after a few minutes she let out a sigh. “Its okay I guess… I mean it’s probably troublesome for you to even have me here what with your mom and dad… and… well Kanto and all…”

She nodded lightly at this, closing her eyes and listening to her movements, opening her eyes a little and silently watched as Kazuki rummaged through some of her clothes, trying to find something she wouldn’t mind wearing for the night. Minutes went by like this until she let out a small laugh. “You know, there’s nothing else there. Make do with what I have.”

“But its… all… so… skimpy and… revealing…” mumbled Kazuki, sighing and turning around to face her. “Don’t you have… like… anything normal?” She merely opened her eyes and looked at Kazuki for a second. “Right… of course. Silly me. You never dress normally so why would you even have normal clothes?” And she went back to rummaging, hoping that maybe, just maybe there’d be something.

She watched her for a few more minutes before mentally sighing and getting up. “Sit down. I’ll go find something if it bothers you that much,” she sighed, showing annoyance. “You’re making too much noise.”

Happily, Kazuki sat down at the edge of the bed whilst she began to pull out drawers from hidden compartments she didn’t even know existed. Finally, she stood up straight and walked towards her, handing her a pack of clothes that were… alarmingly clean and pressed. It was clear she had never once tried them on. “T-Thanks…” murmured Kazuki. “I’ll go—“

“Change here. My mom’s gonna get bitchy if you make even more noise,” she sighed, grabbing hold of Kazuki’s shoulder and marveling at how soft her skin felt. “And hurry up too,” she mumbled before leaving the room, pausing at the doorway. “I’ll be back… so unless you want me to see you, change fast.”

Slowly, she left, leaving the door open. The truth was, she just didn’t think she could handle it if she saw Kazuki bare before her eyes right now. Not when she was so… so painstakingly vulnerable. She listened quietly, trying to gauge when Kazuki had finished changing. After about five minutes she thought she had finished and walked in, only to see that she hadn’t dressed at all and was back in the towel, looking at the clothes that were just slightly too big for her.

She was still young and emotions such as these couldn’t be easily controlled. Before she could really stop herself, she found herself on top of Kazuki, her face at her neck, breathing in slowly. “A-Akiko?” asked Kazuki, swallowing.

God… did she really have to do that? Her scent was already alarmingly good… Her skin so smooth… “A-Akiko, w-what are you doing?” asked Kazuki as her lips brushed her neck softly. She was so tempted… so, so very tempted to take in her blood. And as she felt Kazuki’s hands grasping her neck, her tongue slithered out and gently licked her neck, making her want to let her teeth sink into her delicate skin… to pierce through such softness and let blood flow through the small punctures… to let such sweet liquor spill on that paleness called skin and rush onto her tongue… into her mouth…

But caught in her own moment of vulnerability, Kazuki rolled atop of her, and instead of chastising her, she merely kissed her on the lips and she found herself wrapping her arms about Kazuki’s waist, kissing her back and slowly working the towel off of her body. “Akiko…” murmured Kazuki softly as she gained dominance again. One of her hands went to her neck and she let out a small groan as she cut herself slightly. “Please… be gentle…” she whispered, letting her eyes close, a little afraid herself.

“Kazuki… why…” she murmured, staring at the cut and the blood oozing out of it, its scent strong and even more inviting. She knew Kazuki didn’t know her true nature… never would… but she had never thought that Kazuki had figured out she liked the taste of blood. She had always been so careful…

“Because I love you…” she whispered quietly, opening her eyes and reaching up to place a warm hand on Akiko’s neck and bring her closer. “I figured it out awhile ago… “ she explained, knowing Akiko would be surprise. “I don’t mind…”

And with her words, her gentle touch, she found herself lapping up the blood, cherishing its taste, moving onto the small cut in her neck and gently licking the wound, helping it heal. She became oblivious to the sounds Kazuki made and her touch against her skin, but she was gentle, strangely. She knew it must have hurt to inflict such a wound and she didn’t want her in pain and she knew that if she fed on her… she’d feel pleasure. But for some reason she found herself wanting more than just blood from her.

‘Because I love you…’ Those words rang through her head several times as she gently licked at the and breathed across it,, somehow able to control herself of draining her completely. ‘I love you…’ Those words rang through her head again as she finally stopped, knowing that the small wound be healed or well healed in a few more minutes. Instead, she moved on to kiss Kazuki on the lips again, barely aware that Kazuki had managed to slip off most of her clothes. "Sleep with me here... tonight..." she whispered quietly.



”I love you…” murmured Akiko softly in the real world, smiling just a little, turning towards Riku. Those three words… three words she had always wanted to tell her… Three words she had never been able to tell her… Now at last she was saying them, but it was already too late, wasn’t it? But she had yet to recall that hurtful memory. No… she was reliving her lost love, her first love. All she could remember was her, all the time they had shared, all the memories she had tried to forget when she had remembered.

’I’m sorry Akiko…’ Those three words didn’t even reach her. She was lost in her own memories and dream, if it was even that anymore. She wasn’t even aware of the change in the bed, unaware that the man she dreamt of, that her present self was loving was here with her in this very room, all too real.

And Yamiyo? He could sense him, but how he could break through to Akiko would be anyone’s guess. Besides… he was busy trying to accomplish his life long goal… the goal of all his kindred.




”I… accept such an offer…” he said, the words rolling off his tongue as if they weren’t his own. ”When… would we begin the process?” he asked. He was still concerned Akiko was remembering… but did it really matter? If he had his own body… if he had his own body, could he not show her that he could give her more than that girl ever could have given her? Couldn’t he show her that he was something far greater than that child she had shown feelings for? Couldn’t he at last be given that chance to win her heart?

With his own body… What would he do first? It was like he was a child again. What would he do? There was so much he wanted to do, so much he wanted to experience for himself… What… What would it be like? To have his own body forever… what… what did that entail? Would he… would he really be able to have his own flesh and blood to control? Be able to touch her with his own hands, murmur words to her with his own voice, comfort her with his own arms, see her with his own eyes… There was just so much he wanted to do…

Yaguri's absent face did not say anymore. His face almost didn't even seem real, he seem more of a dream than a person in reality; it could only mean that he was now fading away from the presence of Yamiyo and now that Yaguri mission was done. Distracting the spirit and make the contract was done, he can assume that Riku was tempting the woman. He was good at that for some reason. His appearance was good, great depending on which way you went but Yaguri seen many attractive people in his life and something about Riku just made him far superior.

The darkness grew into a fade grey and then there was a slight light. When Yaguri eyes adjusted he saw that he was inside of a apartment room, the small area confined of a bed, furniture of antique, a mirror and a window that lead to the outside. He saw a sepia color streetlight blaring into the room that Yaguri was in. He looked to his side and didn't have to look down to see Riku sitting on the bed with Akiko. His eyes were wide open, flaring a white flame that was angelic yet horrifying with a demonic touch. There was no need to interupt him for he already known that he would begin the process. What Yaguri did was take a step downward the darkness and there he would disappear.



Akiko's lips pressed against his; she wasn't reluctant in kissing him, not a bit seeing that she was deepening it by wrapping her arms around Riku's neck. Her body was becoming more relax, more open to Riku's touch, to his appearance, to his actions. He was not hesistating in kissing her back, the fond memories of kissing the one he loved in the past came in like a water through a broken floodgate.

In the world of reality, Riku did the same actions he did in the realm of dreams and reality, his hands touching her waist, the closeness of their bodies touching each other, the warm lips kissing his cold ones. The actions were happening simaltaneously. His head moved to her neck and his mouth open. The points of his teeth were vampiric, the coldness coming from his breath created a fog on her neck, condensating the small trickles of hair on her neck. The responses on her neck would tell her to tighten but the force coming from Riku didn't allow this to happen.

"Let it happen..." his voice whispered in both the ear of Akiko in the dream and in reality. He smiled as he softly bit on her earlobe. What was coming off as sexual was masking what Riku was actually doing. His hand moved slowly up her back, his left hands were contradicting both hot and cold at the same time. The middle of her back, the seal that Riku had on his shoulder began to spread over the skin of his arm. Once a warm and flush tan skin now a midnight black. Riku eyes were flaring both black and white flames.

Her back would begin to feel a sensation of pleasure, pleasure beyond pleasure: her senses was on a trip of ectasy as the darkness spread on her back. It slithered slowly creating marks and edges that was tribal in fashion. The middle of was a large round circle that appeared like the moon. The seal then stopped as it reached her lower back. As the process was near complete, he would finish his time with Akiko for he was going to enjoy the single moments of such fine beauty.

The seal was becoming more and more manipulated, it was not appearing tribal as the original seal but become more gothic, a eighteenth century style drawing of blacks ink drawing on her back. It was fitting for a vampire for it had to be a different type of seal. If it was the original, the power of the seal would not work at all, she would have a tattoo with no power at all. This was fitting for Yamiyo so that he can move freely and within a body. But that was his goal and his opportunity, Riku's opportunity is tonight.

The bodies of two souls came together, the forces of a two immortals one whom had longly lasted as a human and the other a being who only existed as a means for balance. The bodies would come together all through the levels of physical, mental and spiritual. As he would not let such a beauty die away slowly, he would let these three things balance not only within her but within himself. He would enjoy what seem to be a simple pleasure but in the eyes of a Shikyo, it was more than just that.

The morning came and Riku had disappeared. Whether he left out the room through the door or other means, he was gone. She would feel the he would return or a feeling that maybe they will cross paths but for now she would not feel empty nor would Yamiyo feel such a incomplete structure of a spirit. Her body would feel whole

He was surprised when the process began well... immediately, but it held a sort of happy gleefulness to it and he watched in almost child-like glee. But he did become slightly annoyed and angry that Akiko was being so intimate with the man... It wasn't like her usual playful games...


'Mmm... why... does this feel... so... different... from what I know...' thought Akiko vaguely as she became lost in his touch and kiss, well her memories too...



Dreams and reality, wants and needs... the two entities that existed one could now exist as two... but at what cost? The past and the present come clashing together with an unpredicted future in mind. Such great and abnormal things occurring and yet... all in the space of one small apartment in the time frame of little more than hours.

The centuries old vampire was out and about now, looking at the woman he had fallen in love with and loved for so long. He had been tempted to do something other than merely watching her sleep, but he had controlled himself and merely sat by the edge of her bed, patiently waiting for her to wake up.

At last she began to awaken, her eyes fluttering lightly beneath her eyelids and the traces of blackness withering away from her hair, returning her to previous silver-haired state. Her eyes a soft brown and her skin a little lighter than it had been since she'd been inside lately. At last she was awake, but her eyes were still closed, turning over, laying on her back again she let out a small groan. "What the hell was that dream..."

Yawning a little, she sat up and let out a small gasp. Her body felt... sore slightly for some odd reason and her back... whenever she moved an odd sort of tingling sensation came forth from it. "What... Y... Yamiyo?!" she nearly yelled when she spied him sitting next to her. "How did you... I didn't... You..." she mumbled clearly surprised and showing it for once. Shaking her head she thought it was a dream until he reached over to her and touched her hand, holding it and raising his other hand to stroke her face.

"I've... You don't know how much I've wanted to do this... with my own body..." he whispered quietly, giving her a soft smile. "What do you think?"

Sighing, Akiko turned away and ignored the sensation in her back and and got up, taking note that her tank top was oddly ruffled as if someone had... She turned then and faced him. She would have asked him if he had done anything to her but then she became aware of something: she couldn't hear his thoughts. What... what the hell was going on? Brief flashbacks of the night came to her, fleeting words from Yamiyo, odd sensations... "You..." she started and then trailed off before looking away again and going over to the bathroom door. "Explain while I take a shower... I need to think about a few things..."

And with that said she slipped inside the bathroom, but otherwise let the door remain open. "Talk. Now." Slipping out of her clothes, it started to become a mundane, ordinary routine... until she spied a part of her back in the mirror behind her. Gathering her hair she moved it away and merely stared at the strange markings covering the upper half of her back. Her hand went to trace parts of the patterning, but as far as she could tell... it was like it had always been there, like her seals almost... Seal... Was this a seal? Her thoughts drifted back to the man from her dreams... to... Riku Shikyo and she had an odd sensation come over her. Why was it that she felt like this wouldn't be the last time she'd be seeing him... So he was real, was he?

Yamiyo's words drifted and phased right through her as she remembered the memories she had regained from the previous night. Closing her eyes briefly she calmed herself down a little. "Why..." she started, coming out of the bathroom with her arms crossed.

"I... You know I wanted my--"

"Not that! Why would you hide my memories from me on PURPOSE?! Why? Why would you hide them from me? No... why would you even think of messing with my memories? Why? Were you that desperate to get me to love you? You knew... you knew everything and yet you..." Grinding her teeth together, she took a step towards him and let herself scrape the side of his cheek as hard as she could and as deep as she could. "You.... you are so lucky we're linked together or else I'd kill you right now..." she hissed at him as her fingers left his cheek, covered in blood. As the blood from the five long, thin, yet deep lines dripped onto the floor she licked her fingers. Blood... real blood. So he wasn't kidding about having his own body.

He took a step towards her only to have her strike out at him again, drawing more blood and leaving more lines across his face. "Akiko... I--"

"Shut up and explain to me why you took away my memories!" she snapped at him, glaring at him. "Now, not unless you want me to start breaking bones."

"I wouldn't mind..." he said quietly before getting a swift punch to the face.

"Why did you take away my memories?!" she snarled at him, letting her fingernails slice into his neck and sink in. 'The hell is up with him?! Not resisting... he's.... Gah, I hate people who get clingy and shit like this, ignoring their own pain just because its from the person they like. What the hell happened last night... Did I really....' Mentally sighing, she shook her head and disappeared inside of the bathroom after withdrawing her hand from the side of his neck. "I don't care what the hell you're thinking right now... but you're going to explain why you took my memories.... and then you'll explain why you were stupid enough to accept a deal like that!"

Once inside she slammed the door shut and began to run hot water in the shower. 'That idiot.... taking away my memories just so... he... I... I... I killed... no... I.... I c-couldn't... W-Why...' Her thoughts had quickly changed as she came to unlocking her final memory of Kazuki. The hot water easily hid the tears slidding down her face, and it was increasingly getting hotter and hotter, but she didn't really notice it. She felt numbed. She had... killed her... Killed her without so much as a second thought...


'I... I thought... I still have to get used to this body...' thought Yamiyo quietly as the door slammed shut and he sank back onto the bed, letting the cuts heal on their own. Even with her superhuman strength, the wounds she had dealt him would quickly heal. He did tap into her emotions though, he missed not being able to read her mind, but perhaps it was better this way. 'I should apologize to her. I... I really do need to apologize to her... taking away her memories... lying to her... decieving her... making decisions without her input... I'm such an idiot.'

Silently, he got up and went to the door, gently knocking on it. "Akiko... I... I am truly sorry for what I have done. I apologize to you from the bottom of my heart, from my very soul. I never meant you any harm. Its just..." he sighed a little and turned away, leaning against the door, closing his eyes. "When you... when you feel in love with that human boy, Kiyoshi, I... I grew very jealous. I hated him really, but... I couldn't hate him because you loved him and I... I wanted to see you happy again... I wanted you to smile and laugh like you had with that girl, Kazuki, but... I didn't want anyone else to have you so I... I did something very childish and very stupid. I regret that now and... and well I want to... Akiko, are you... crying?" he slowly asked as he quickly sensed the change in her emotions and that they were steadily going downhill.

Slowly, cautiously, his hand went to the doorknob and he turned it, but as soon as Akiko heard the slight noise she threw something from inside the bathroom at the door, leaving a sizeable dent in its place. "Leave me alone!"

Swallowing a little, Yamiyo went back and sat on the bed. 'Am I... hurting her? I... I did hurt her, didn't I?' Layin down on his back he stared at the ceiling. 'I... should have never taken her memories away... It's the dumbest thing I've done in my life. I... I should be dead. To have hurt her like this, I... Why did I do that? I really am just a little child that cries and whines when I don't get what I want and plays silly, stupid, little pranks to feel better, not caring about how much I'll be hurting other people.' And he laid there, thinking of how foolish and idiotic he had been and wondering what he could do to make her feel better. 'I had hoped to make you smile and laugh like you once did... but it seems I've only made you angry and cry... Akiko... please forgive me. Let me try to make it up to you even if I'll never be able to with my infinite life...'


'Kiyoshi... Who...' but as she began to ask herself who that was through the pain and tears, images flashed through her mind and she was reminded of the young Raikage she had become attached to. The tears and pain returned anew, stronger than before, if that was even possible. It hurt... it hurt so much remembering them... Did he remember her? She'd been gone for so long now... Glancing up a little, the hot water struck her face directly and pained her slightly.

'They... no... Kazuki will always be the only one I truly love and care about in my heart... but Kiyoshi... he... does he... But if he does then... then wouldn't he...' The pain had lessened a little, but her heart still throbbed painfully, reminding her that it wouldn't go away for some time. She wondered if Kiyoshi did remember... if he still cared about her... but if he did then... wouldn't he had tried to find her? Or... something?

But her thoughts wouldn't let her think about him, they kept going back to Kazuki over and over and over. They'd replay a sweet, loving scene and then it would go back to their spar... to her death... over and over and over... And each time she saw herself killing Kazuki again and again and again she found herself crying anew and feeling more pain. She felt so... so empty and lost inside. So cold, so numb... You'd think she'd hate the man who had influenced her to so, but no... she didn't. It had been her choice in the very end, hadn't it? She could have chosen not to kill her... she could have done a lot of a things but instead she had chosen to kill her... kill her and gain a great power, but did that power really mean anything? It certainly didn't seem like it right now... then again, she hadn't known she was capable of such a power then... 'Kazuki... I'm... I'm so sorry. If I could I would go back and undo that whole day. I love you Kazuki... I still do... I... I don't know how I managed to... to kill you but... I love you and I couldn't... I.... Kazuki...'