When Kyuubi didn't respond to his words, the blond frowned. Do what you always do...
What he always did.
A smirk made it's way to his face.
XoX
"Are you sure that was wise?" Chomei asked with a frown as he looked at the door Toki left through. His eyes darted back to Naruto to see him standing by the bedside where Chishima was sleeping, looking down at the person who was probably Toki's most loyal supporter. "Letting Sagi-Sama leave like that. You know as well as I do that Mōsō is likely far more dangerous than he realizes. Sagi-sama may very well be moving into a trap."
"Of that there can be no doubt," Naruto looked away from Chishima to eye his compatriot for the moment. "I would be honestly surprised if Mōsō didn't know that Sagi is the Cursed Warrior." He shook his head at using Toki's brother's name. He should probably tell Chomei the truth about her, however, it wasn't his information to tell. "Chances are he's prepared a reception for your Daimyo and is just waiting for Sagi to make an appearance."
"If you knew it was dangerous, knew that Sagi-Sama was being led into a trap, then why did you let him leave!?" Chomei looked about ready to rip his nearly nonexistent hair out. Seriously, couldn't this boy have tried a little harder to keep Sagi-sama from leaving?
"If I had done that, all it would have done is make Sagi even more bitter," Naruto closed his eyes, thinking about another person who had lost themselves to vengeance. He often wondered what would have happened had he caught up to Sasuke that day. If he had stopped the Uchiha heir from leaving, would Sasuke have been grateful? Or would he have become even more bitter and resentful towards others?
It was a question Naruto would never find an answer for.
Opening his eyes less then a second later, the blond fixed Chomei with a look.
"Right now your Daimyo is in a bad place, and unless he gets some sense knocked into him, he's likely not going to be leaving that place any time soon." Naruto broke out into a grin. "Besides, who says I just let him go?"
It only took a few seconds for Chomei to understand the context of that sentence. When he did, his eyes widened.
"You mean...?"
"That's right," Naruto's eyes closed as the grin etched on his lips stretched across his face, making the whiskers stretch along with it. He truly looked like some kind of kitsune right then. "I'm just a Kage Bunshin. The real Naruto has been trailing Sagi since he left."
XoX
The darkness of the night was only barely offset by the light provided by the moon and stars. A velvety layer of black had surrounded the land of Tori no Kuni. Everything was covered in darkness, masking the kites Toki was using to sail through the air well.
Once more dressed in the garb of the Cursed Warrior, Toki prepared for her final showdown with Mōsō. No matter what happened from here on out, nothing mattered except for her revenge.
The place she was heading towards was very easy to spot. She could see the building where Mōsō resided. It was marked by the fire from several torches, which crackled and wavered gently in the cool night air. Mōsō himself was standing on the veranda.
So he was waiting for her to arrive. That was fine. It would make things easier for Toki now that she didn't have to search for him.
At least, those were Toki's thoughts until a fire ball shot out of Mōsō's mouth, illuminating the entire area and showing the man she had come to kill how she was managing to stay aloft.
"What!?"
This was followed by Mōsō going through a set of handseals that she could not see due to the illumination from the receding fireball, which was just as quickly followed by a stream of fire that was launched from Mōsō's mouth again, this time hitting her kite and reducing it to ashes.
With her kite no longer able to keep her afloat (kind of hard when it's been burnt to cinders), Toki began to fall. Her feet managed to find purchase on a tree branch, but it was unable to support the combined weight of her and the armor she was wearing, thus it snapped under her and she fell to the ground.
Thankfully, she was able to land on her feet. Or mostly her feet. She was forced to kneel on one knee due to how far she had fallen in order to absorb the impact. At least she was alive.
Not so thankfully, her oni mask was beginning to get unbearably hot, which she soon realized was due to it being on fire. Moving with frantic haste, she yanked the mask off and cast it to the side, showing her face.
"Hehehehe..." Mōsō chuckled lowly at the sight of Toki as she knelt there on the ground. So he found this amusing, did he? She would ensure he wouldn't find it so amusing after gutting him with her naginata. "...I bid you welcome... Cursed Warrior."
"Make your move Mōsō," Toki scowled at the man as he stood there, cool as a cucumber. "I will give you reason enough to fear me."
"Save your breath, it's among the last you shall take."
"Fitting epitaph!"
With a shout that seemed to unleash all of her anger and hatred for this man, Toki lunged forward with her naginata, wanting nothing more than to see this man impaled on the long pole weapons blade.
It wasn't going to happen.
With surprising quickness, agility and strength, Mōsō jumped up over the blade meant to stab him in the chest. Then, with surprising lightness of feet, he landed on the blade itself. Another surprise was that even though he was standing on the blade, Toki was able to hold it up just as easily as if he were not standing on it, like he wasn't even there, or as light as a feather.
"You thought it would be easy, didn't you?" Mōsō smiled a mocking smile at Toki. "I'm almost disappointed that you would think so. But then, I suppose I shouldn't have expected anything less from someone who I had so unwittingly duped for all these years."
Pushing his feet off the blade, Mōsō jumped backwards into the air, his body flipping over like some kind of acrobat before he landed on his feet several meters away. He looked as unruffled as ever.
"Allow me to formally introduce myself." He gave a mocking bow. "My name is Hoki, and I am the leader of the wandering ninja."
Wandering ninja? Toki's eyes widened. Hadn't she heard Naruto talking about the wandering ninja? She hadn't quite believed him then, but now the evidence was irrefutable. It was staring her right in the face.
"With no land to call our own we drift from place to place, flotsam on the waves, stealing the jutsu nobody will deign to teach us. But the years sit heavy on our shoulders. Our patchwork clan tires of this vagrant existence." Hoki, as he was now calling himself, looked up at the sky as if in contemplation. "That's why we've been looking for a place to end our wandering and set down roots."
And suddenly, Toki understood. She understood everything that had happened to her up to this point. It was all because of this man, for this reason.
"So the truth has finally come out. You've been planning to take over this country from the very moment you arrived here!"
"How dare you judge our motives you spoiled brat! Fortunate has favored you! We wandering ninja suffer in a way you could never begin to understand!" Toki tensed as Hoki opened his normally closed eyes to look at her. "I see no harm in unfortunates like us wanting a place we can call home. But we could have never come this far had it not been for your father."
Toki's hands gripped her naginata tightly at the mention of her father.
"I assumed the guise of Mōsō and charmed my way into Owashi-sama's confidences. All the while the fool never suspected a thing. A dramatic bit of genjutsu was enough to convince him of Mōsō's magical prowess, thus he brought me into the fold as a trusted adviser."
"Chomei alone had enough sense to harbor suspicions about what I was up to. So I painted Chomei as a malcontent, after killing your father."
"That... that was you?" somehow, suspecting something and after that same something confirmed were two very different things. The knowledge that this man had indeed murdered her father was shocking, even though a part of her had already come to suspect that it was he who killed her father. "You're the one who murdered my father?"
"I killed him with pleasure! And after I kill you tonight, no one will stand in our way!"
That was enough. She had heard enough. This man had to die!
"You're evil ends here!" Toki's body shifted. Her left foot moved backwards to give her more support as she lifted the hand holding her naginata behind her back as if it were a javelin. The muscles in her arms and back tensed like a coiled spring waiting to be unloaded. "The dead cry out for vengeance!"
With a quick motion, she unleashed the naginata, sending it flying towards Hoki. Her aim was true. The weapon soared through the air, traveling straight towards her most hated enemy. It was set to impale him through the heart.
It would have too, had Hoki not moved. A quick step back followed by an upward swing of the fan in his right hand deflected the long weapon, not only launching it off course, but sending it spinning end over end towards Toki.
A gasp escaped her lips as Toki tried to move back in order to avoid the weapon that was now coming towards her. While she was able to avoid getting injured, her surprise was such that she did not move wuickly enough to avoid the naginata entirely.
The blade of her naginata hit her helmet, knocking it off her face and sending her long hair spilling over her face.
It was the first time since she had known the man that Mōsō, Hoki she corrected, looked surprised. Well and truly shocked.
"Can it be...?"
"Yes," she said, her left hand gripping the sheath of her katana while her right grabbed a hold of the hilt. "Sagi's younger sister, Toki."
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