The Lion's Den [Solo]

Thunder rolled across the village even at the break of dawn. The wind moved through the village, thick with the dense moisture of the rainy weather. Large thunderclouds stooped low in the sky, pushing across the village quickly. It would rain soon, but luckily no one would be up to endure it. Shihouin had already been up since about 5, shaking the sleep from his body as he took a shower. The small shower in the back of the room blasted hot water all over his body, waking him up from his sleep. His boss had given him the day off since he’d been working non-stop for the past week, between missions and other activities. He had made a total of at least 1000 basic ninja tools that week and they’d easily become overstock on them. Since he was the only one who could handle the more delicate weapons, he didn’t need Shihouin at all. He thanked him for giving him the day off, since Shihouin had something he needed to do.

After a warm shower he put on some white shorts and a blue shirt, marked with a large Uchiha crest on the back. He reached over to his small dresser and grabbed two nin pouches and secured them on his waist. With a sigh, he sat back on his bet and dug each foot into a pair nin-boots. He grabbed his black ninjato and fastened it around his back, adjusting the strap to fit his body. On his dresser were the last few objects, a kunai some shuriken and his headband. He wrapped the Konoha headband around his forehead and tied it in a knot while he reached for his kunai. He placed it in his right pocket along with three shuriken in each pocket. After a small stretch, he made his way out through the front door, headed towards the Uchiha complex.

Today would mark an important day for Shihouin. Ever since his father and mother had died, he had always kept a piece of paper with one of his father’s wishes on it. Since both of them had been shinobi, they both had left a few gifts for Shihouin before he was born. One of those gifts could only be attained after he’d awakened his three tomoe Sharingan. It was a personal journey Shihouin would have to travel alone. For a second his mind fell on his Uncle as he quickly walked the sidewalk in the brisk morning. He was out there in the village somewhere, more than likely dealing drugs or doing other heinous crimes. As a child, he didn’t know much about the relationship between his father in and his twin brother, but he assumed that it wasn’t great. The times when he’d come over to see his only nephew, the times he’d tried to give Shi money as a gift. The same money that he’d won from gambling, or got from selling drugs. He always remembered that strange feeling he had when his parents would turn away, but yet as a child he craved to have it. He shook the memories from his head, and focused.

He crossed an empty intersection, headed back towards the Uchiha Complex of the village. At this time in the morning, people over here weren’t too busy and weren’t up. This would make things a lot easier, since Shihouin wouldn’t have to worry about running into thugs and drug dealers. He briskly walked through the ghettos of the village, looking around at the rotted apartment complex. Few lights shone from each building, people here still have lives and jobs to go.

His eyes fell on his old apartment building as he walked closer. There was a dark blue tarp laid over the window from the outside, signaling that the landlord and not bothered to even fix it. He sighed and pressed forward, picking up to a sight jog.

With each step he quickened his pace, headed towards a large building in the back of the Uchiha Complex. The building was unmarked, and in the past was used as weapons storage for custom Uchiha weapons. Even a few floors had been dedicated to training matches and what not. Shihouin had been here a few times with his father growing up, remembering him buy weapons and keep stock on them. Like the rest of the Uchiha Complex, the place was abandoned since his parents were the only few buyers that actually came, but Shi wasn’t supposed to be buying anything today. He reached the building in no time, pushing the doors open as wind pushed inside of the building, filling it with empty hollow noises.

A cat hissed, reared its back and took off towards the right, away in some littered trash. Shihouin reached into his pocket and silently read the note that his father left him in a soft mumble, walking towards a large staircase. ‘At the bottom level of the store there is a staircase. Down at the lowest level of the basement there is a hole in the cement block on the left side in the far corner. Follow the path to the pride of the Uchiha.’ Unlike this writing, there had been no riddles to solve or no mysterious and elusive words and places to figure out. Like a father, Shihouin’s dad had left him with clear cut instructions on what to do. Remembering his dad for a second, Shihouin clutched the paper in his palm and stuffed it deep in his pockets and moved downstairs.

Moving silently down the stair well, Shihouin had to dodge the mess of rats and litter that had been placed here. It didn’t seem to be booby trapped or anything at all, but he kept his eyes peeled for areas that he might normally forget about. There were random piles of empty boxes scattered around the first basement level, so Shi continued to move to a small hand crank elevator at the end. Walking over to the dusted chain, he tapped it first wary of any bugs on it. Once everything was clear he pulled on it and the shackling chains echoed around the entire room, jangling loudly as the small box was pulled up from the bottom floor. It rose after a short while of pulling, and the guard on the elevator opened up as it pulled itself up. Shi stopped the elevator and it dropped for an odd second, then hung with ample height for him to get in.

He removed a kunai from his pocket and began to claw at the thick muddle of silvery spider webs in the elevator. Eerie daddy-longlegs spiders crept from the corner and away from the threat. Shi huddled himself in the inside as he grabbed the next chain and began to lower himself down one level. Releasing the lever, everything went entirely black for a second as he passed through the floor and light quickly returned when he arrived on the second level.

The second level was just as the first, random boxes with the Uchiha crest were strewn around the floor, some overturned and some opened. He continued on again, shrouded in darkness as he passed through the last level of the basement. This time, the elevator stopped, but there was no light. Shi could hear the echo of the room as the guard of the elevator opened up. Even though he wasn’t too trained in sound and spaces, he could roughly make out the distance of the size of the room by the echo. It was about the same size as before, and the echoes didn’t travel much further. Unaware of anything that he might not see, Shi turned on his Sharingan to one tomoe. He quickly scanned the premise, and caught no chakra signature but his own in the room. He reached in his pocket and grabbed a kunai. He undid the cloth around the handle and wrapped it higher around the top of the kunai. With a small hand sign and a quick breath, he burned the fabric on top of the kunai to give light.

The room was no different from any of the other rooms. The boxes, the spider webs, everything was pretty much the same. Since it was darkest down here, Shi moved the fire on some of the spider webs. They instantly caught a blaze as the fire increased and rushed around the room in a dazzle of flaming light. As soon as it had come, it faded away as the spider webs burnt off. He’d gotten a glimpse of the room and kept his Sharingan on as he continued down towards the left side at the far corner. The cement blocks looked all uniform, so Shi figured that if he kicked one, more than that would fall away. With a strong leg, he kicked the corner stone and felt a small move. Adding more power, he continued to kick until the stones began to collapse and a small ragged and manmade hole appeared in the wall. He cleared the cement debris from his path and ducked into the tunnel.

Once he’d gotten in the tunnel there was an oddly familiar sound. It rushed past his ears constantly, echoing off the earthen walls. There was a moist feeling in the air; it was a lot easier to breathe than in the abandoned building. Shi cocked his head to the right a bit and scrunched his brow in confusion. He spoke softly to himself. ”Water?” He took a small step forward down the path and the ground became noticeably softer. The earth under his foot didn’t hold and he slid forward until he realized that he was about to fall over into a massive downward tunnel with rushing water protruding from the ground right underneath his feet. Before he could fall, He put one foot upward, sticking to the roof with chakra. Once was up there, he placed the next one and walked on the top of the hill to avoid the rushing water.

The tunnel went down for what seemed to be approximately a mile or two. Shi wondered if anyone knew about the location, or if anyone had been down here before. Knowing that Konoha was a moist and humid environment, there were probably parts of the village that passed off giant holes for aquifers. When it rained, the water would drain into the ground and filter itself as it passed through the layers of dirt and form an underground pool full of freshwater. Either way, if someone knew or not the place wasn’t that exciting and no one probably had been down here before.

After what felt like a two miles, the rushing water and tunnel met a dark end. Shi crouched upwards towards the roof since he was walking on it and then released in a small tight flip. He kept the chakra on his feet as they splashed onto the water so he wouldn’t slip. He stood tall before the dark cavern opening and looked in. The last thing he wanted to do was cause tremors down here. If the earth was wet, one wrong move could bring the entire place down. Shi reached into his pocket and pulled out some wire and another kunai. Fashioning it the same way as before, he lit the wire and the kunai with the other dying kunai before the fire went out. With a new makeshift torch he turned on his Sharingan and blinked hard, walking into the cavern walls.

He opened his eyes and was thoroughly surprised. The entire area was completely blacked out, yet there was something down in here. One, two, three, four, five, six. Six chakra signatures all like small and medium size dogs and cats seem to prance around in front of him. Shi could make out low grumbling sounds and slight noises coming from the direction of the chakra. Yet he couldn’t see anything by way of light from his fire. He kept moving it around in front of him, but somehow these animals were able to avoid getting caught up in the light. His empty hand reached for another kunai, but one of them lunged out at him in surprise.

On instinct he tried to move out of the way, the same way he’d come in would be the same way he would leave. It was annoyingly awkward to find out that somehow that exit was now blocked off. He pushed off with his left leg, throwing his back straight into the wall. He grunted from surprise as one of the animals quickly approached him. Keeping himself still, he rolled to the right and reached into his pocket at the same time pulling an explosive note. The animal missed, but planted itself securely on the wall like any ninja would and simply jumped back off in a flawless leap.

Shi began to look at the patterns that they were walking in. These animals were organized and they could also use ninja abilities. They had to be summoning animals, but what exactly were they? A low humming sound reverberated across the base of the dark den. Shi couldn’t put his finger on it, but he remembered that same type of sound somewhere before. An image of Nasamea flashed in his head but it wasn’t enough to jog his memory. He refocused himself on animals as one of them attempted to hit him from his right flank. He dodged forward and tossed the explosive note into the air and then activated it while ducking and rolling back.

Using that small advantage, a large explosion followed by a flash of light filled the cavern quickly. These weren’t dogs like he had thought, they were lions. Out of all the animals he could have thought of, lions were the last thing that he was expecting to be hiding under the Uchiha Complex. Once the lions were shaken by the surprise, they quickly retreated back and stopped attacking him. Shi couldn’t understand exactly what was going on. Several questions ran through his head, several questions that didn’t make too much sense. These were lions living down under the village in this cavern. How were they getting food? His thought process was rudely interrupted by a caving wall on the far side of the den. A brilliant light beamed through, and the silhouette of a full grown lion paraded into the den.

With the light, Shi could now see that there were now six lions; one adult one, two smaller ones and three cubs. They all moved out of the way of the adult one, respecting the full colored male. A deep guttural grunt crackled from his throat as he marched his way towards Shihouin. His massive muscular paws beat down the ground as he walked closer. Shi held the kunai in his hand with this Sharingan activated; if this thing made a move it would kill him easy. Attacking this wasn’t going to help him at all.

The lion continued on its majestic path towards him, looking him dead in the eye as if he were sizing him up. Shi stood there and watched every movement carefully. His body was shaken with fear, but the lion wasn’t going to surprise him without ample warning. After a few odd seconds of what seemed to be an odd sniff, the lion actually spoke to him. His tone was loud and thunderous as if he was a king. ”You are Shinshou’s boy, aren’t you?” Shi didn’t know how to reply to a talking lion, but he did anyways. ”No… Takumo was my father.” The lion turned around and began to grumble under its breath. It marched forward to where the light was beaming through and turned back to him. ”Follow us, quickly.”

All five of the lions took off after their leader and began to run down a massive slope. Shi didn’t have much time to view the scenery, but from the bits and pieces that he saw, he could tell that the place was huge. There was an underground cavern with a large crack in the earth above which let light shine through. This place must have been situated somewhere close to the village border, but near the Hokage monument. Maybe it was behind it. Shi couldn’t focus on details too much, but this placed seemed untouched and hidden from the rest of the village.

They continued down another hill until they rose up one and got to a clearing. At least five hundred meters wide surrounded by a fence of very high trees. They had come from a tunnel underneath the clearning, about a hundred or so yards from what seemed to be the center. The adult lion in the middle turned around to face Shihouin and looked him in his eyes. For a second he stared at the lion, looking at the large majestic mane on his neck colored in deep gold and black.

It’s eyes were the same color but almost as if they were pure glass the way he could see each individual detail in its glossy golden eyes. His mouth opened to speak, and Shi managed to catch a large set of nasty yellow teeth ribbed with saliva. This guy was powerful. ”How much do you know about your family?” Shi tried to recollect some of the memories in his mind. Most of them were horrible and nasty like mold, things best left untouched. He spoke though, out of common courtesy. ”I only knew of three family members. My mother, my father and my uncle of course.” The large lion rested himself on the ground. The cubs moved to the left a few meters and began to play while the rest of the more grown lions followed suit with the larger one. He motioned for Shi to sit down in the grass with a strong gaze, dipping his head slightly. Shi sat down crossed legged among the high grass which came up past his thigh. ”I guess there is no use in beating around the bush at this point. Boy, your father and mother had a very twisted history and your father left it up to me to explain it to you. I won’t be able to prove whether or not it is factual, that would be left up to you to accept as fact. Ok?” Shi nodded slowly, he was scared of what would be said.

The lion yawned a bit, throwing its massive head back and opening its wide powerful jaws up. It released a deep bellow mixed with a couple of grumbling noises that Shi could even feel beat around inside of his chest. ”Your history lies deep within ANBU. Your father, uncle and mother were very powerful assets even among ANBU. They were all equally capable of becoming ANBU Captain at any moment. They were shrouded in mystery and confusion and thus no one really knew much about them. All three of them went by code names, their real names Mai, your mother, Shinshou your uncle and Sanshiro your father. They decided to change their names outside of ANBU to keep cover for a program they had going under the radar of everyone else. It was some covert operation that only the ANBU Captain and those three knew about. They were attempting to create some kind of system to allow Konoha to benefit off of. Shinshou told me it was some kind of system that would allow ANBU to capture lower ranked ninja from unnamed villages, turn them on to drugs and push the drugs into Konoha. They could control the amount of drugs, create missions for ninja and make money off of the whole thing. A horrible sounding idea, but it would have allowed them to make money off of crime and control it. It would be profitable for any village.” He sighed deeply. ”Mai, your mother wasn’t the best woman on in the village. Going on S Rank missions all the time, assassinating people, fighting until it became second nature, she was one hell of an Uchiha. However, she had a bad problem. She couldn’t keep them closed and…” Shi continued for him. ”She slept with Shinshou, and I am his son because of that.” His voice was solemn and grave, as if he wanted to deny everything that he had just said. As if he wanted to speak a lie but felt the truth form in his mouth and leave his lips. ”See your father, he never knew or never saw it coming. Just to make sure they didn’t find out your mother even went to the point to use ninjutsu and mess with his brain.” Shi curtly interrupted.

”Well, If I am my uncl- my father’s son then why did my father kill my uncle?” It was hard re-wording everything to the correct term. It hurt more than it was difficult as well. Your uncle, Sanshiro wasn’t the best man. He couldn’t tell that Mai had been sleeping with Shinshou for a while, but after all Sanshiro is an Uchiha. It was only a matter of time before he would eventually figure the entire thing out. By that time, you were already born. You see, out of the three, Shinshou was the strongest by far. You heard of Itachi Uchiha right? He was up there with that guy. Shinshou worked his ass off for strength and it never failed him. Even when he tricked his first girlfriend into getting his Mangekyou Sharingan. He never failed to gain strength and always got it. He ranked up quickly. After a few years Sanshiro began to crack at it, until one day he finally had that doubt in his head. For a man, that hurts. To have a doubt like that lingering around in your thoughts and sleeping with a woman who had been sleeping with your very own brother. Sanshiro wasn’t the calmest by a long streak. So instead of talking it out, Sanshiro decided he would call all of them into one room together and finish it once and for all. Do you understand why Sanshiro decided to do that? He could have easily just killed Mai.” Shi was a bit confused and his tight brow showed it. ”No, not really…” ”Your eyes boy. Your father had already planned on killing his wife, and if he could just kill his own brother he’d easily gain eternal sight. But the same applied to your father Shinshou. When that night came, only one man remained standing. Shinshou killed the both of them. His Mangekyou is a rare type. He killed them easily with it.” Shi didn’t get it. He didn’t really understand. ”I don’t get it, why did he kill my mother? Didn’t they love each other?” The lion yawned once more and began to speak in a somewhat calm and soft tone. ”Unlike normal ninja, once you enter within the ranks of ANBU you must drop all emotions and focus on your goal, the goal of the village. I told you that your father was focused on making the village money through war, and he was also focused on making himself stronger. Your mother, your father, they were nothing but stepping stones in his ever-strong conquest to gain the ultimate power. And out of all the Uchiha history had shown us through the years, you are the only one to inherit a strong will like that. Your will to grow stronger is even stronger than your fathers. To your father, you’re nothing more than an insurance card. He has kept you alive just so he could use you. The letter that brought you down here, your uncle wants you stronger so he can use you later. When he went to jail he lost the ability to use his eyes. He’s waiting on you to become ANBU Captian or something just as strong as that. There are several steps in his plan and you are walking to the sound of his drum.”

Shi’s face seemed to stretch out in bewilderment. He couldn’t fathom the things that his father had placed ahead of him so he could become stronger. Did he really inherit a will like that? He recollected on his father killing his mother, knowing that his mother had died as a pawn. He focused on Nasamea. The connection between him and her, he could easily sever if he was strong enough. Or he could easily sever it with Sanzen. Trading their lives like that for power, the decision was fickle. Yet Shi held it firm. He couldn’t become like his father. As much as he hated the fact that his life was nothing but a path that he was forced to walk down, he would have to accept it. The summons that his father had offered him, if he wanted to reject what his father had given him he would just turn around and find his own way. But he didn’t want to do that. He would take what his father had given him, he would walk down this path, and he would become stronger just like his father wanted him to be. Deep in the recesses of his mind he locked a thought there permanently, fixating it so he would never forget it no matter what. In the end, he would kill his father. He would take his plan and turn it against him and show him what a true determination for strength meant. He had an entire village to take care of if he planned on becoming ANBU Captain, he would not be able to throw it away on the plan and life of one man, whether it be his father or not.

Shihouin looked up at the lion puzzled a bit. ”Your father left you a scroll for the summoning jutsu just in case you needed it. It will explain how to learn the technique. Give it about three runs and then you can sign the contract.” The lion pressed his huge paw forward into the ground. The ground poofed and a small scroll appeared under his thumb. He rolled it towards Shihouin and began to get up along with the other lions. ”We keep the scroll in a separate location and try not to summon it. It’s very fragile, we will be back. The two cubs will stay here with you while we leave. Practice the technique in the mean time.”

Shihouin nodded as the adult lions and teenage lions took off towards the hole which they had emerged from. The cubs continued to frolic and play around clawing at each other’s tails and face. Shi refocused himself and grabbed the scroll. He unraveled it quickly and looked at the contents. There wasn’t any hint of a message this time, just instructions and a painted image of a man doing hand signs and performing the technique. Shi went over the hand signs a few times and began to commit them to memory. Releasing the chakra didn’t land him the printed kanji on the ground yet, he would need an actual summon for him to be able to do it. He continued to practice, releasing slightly different amount of chakra as he continued to use the hand signs. After performing them several times over he felt as if he had the technique under his belt, all that was left would be to try it out when the lions came. After attempting to increase the hand sign speed with the technique, the lions came back, coming up from the rear.
The adult lion had a scroll under its mane. It moved for Shi to grab it. He grabbed the old scroll and unfurled it to reveal a few names on the list. The lion spoke as he read it. ”This scroll is rare. The Uchiha have claimed all types of animals, crows and birds, what not. This has been the only one that hasn’t fallen into the hands of someone else. Sign it and test it out. “ Shi bit down on his thumb with a small crunch as a small stream of blood trickled down around his thumb and nail. He wrote his name quickly and neatly and then rubbed some of the blood on each of his fingers and pressed them under his name. He rolled the scroll up and handed it back to the lion. ”Our summons are special. Only Uchiha can use them. To clarify though, only you can use them. If you were to die then only another Uchiha could be possibly capable of summoning them.” Shi nodded slightly and began forming hand signs. He called out the technique silently and smashed his hand onto the ground. This time, the summon kanji spilled out over the ground and a large cloud of smoke popped up. Shi looked at his result. It was a small cub, a baby cub and it could barely move. His first attempt was a failure, but the lion had a tip for him. ”Visualize yourself summoning a lion of your size and deem the chakra appropriately based off of that. If you just focus on chakra control by size you might end up with something smaller than you want. When you visualize a concept with the word “control” behind it you might think of something that is “smaller” or that you should use less of it. Focus on size and visualizing what you want.” It was a good explanation and Shi had to admit that he was right. This time, he brought the concepts the lion taught with him to his mind. He focused his chakra and visualized one of the cub summons and tried again. In a flash of smoke a small lion cub appeared and looked up and Shihouin and looked around. Its eyes wandered from him to the cubs and trotted over by them to play. Shihouin turned to the adult lion who was about to say something.

”When you get stronger you’ll be able to learn a lot more things. The cubs won’t be so playful in battle and it’s ok to leave them out and let them roam the village if you want. Though, it is good to make everything seem like a game, sometimes they follow orders that way. Anyways, you should head back to the village. There isn’t anything else for us to tell you except that you should catch up to your father. Hurry up and get stronger.”

As the lions left, Shihouin began to make his way back to the hole towards the village. There were so many things on his mind; this new power he had, the ability to summon animals into a fight to help him. Sanzen had used it against him and it had proved to be one of the more effective combat strategies. Now he wouldn’t be powerless when he was out-numbered. He wanted to return to Sanzen to fight her again with his new ability, but there was someone else he had to see first. His mind wandered to his father, his real father Shinshou. She had dropped his mother like a bad habit, all on a whim for power. It stung deeply, because Shi could easily do the same thing to Nasamea if the chance arrived. Even though he felt bad for having to remember that he had thought about using her like that, it quickly faded as soon as it arrived. There was no way he was going to end up like his father. No way could he follow in the exact steps he did. Shi had more things to worry about. He had to become strong amongst ANBU if he wanted to change his future.

[End RP]