Silent Night (3/3)

The dead came out of the waves in eerie synchronicity.

Her first impulse was to reach for the power from the death god and order them to leave their bodies. It made no difference. She reached and reached and couldn’t touch the power. Scowling, Aiko lifted her katana in front of her and confronted the closest body. It crashed into her with frenzied strength.

It was hellishly strong. She nearly lost her footing in the sand. Her opponent grinned at her.

“I don’t think so,” Sanbi said, disgusted. “That is merely how an exposed human jaw appears. There is no intelligence inside.”

He was probably right. The body was relentless, but it wasn’t very tactical. Aiko got her sword up and through the remains of its neck. The head flew off and plopped into the water. The body swayed for a moment. Then it dropped with a squelch.

“Ew,” Aiko said to herself. “I hate that.” She darted to help the next person struggling with a corpse. And the next, and the next, until the person in bronze armor let out an annoyed yell and strode to her, walking on the waves as though their chakra was unaffected.

She met it with a clang of metal. The warrior had a larger sword than Aiko did, and it came down heavily. The sheer force jarred her elbow joint when she caught and deflected a blade.

“Who are you?” Aiko asked, conversationally. “I’m Aiko. Fifth Mizukage. First Kage of Wave- well, I’m working on that. How are you liking my city?”

The only answer was a scream.

She flinched back. “I’m not sure where to go with that!” Aiko dodged under a blow and bent to scoop up a handful of sand. She tossed it at her opponent’s eyeholes. It did absolutely nothing, of course, but she thought it would probably piss them off. She used the moment to dig a purposeful line in the sand. She kept at it, mentally tracking her position as she danced around her opponent. It was clearly better for her to try to avoid direct blows- Aiko was faster, but this person was strong.

“But not the brightest,” Aiko said to herself, as her opponent stepped inside the containment seal Aiko had just finished drawing in the sand. It flickered to life, a little reluctant but powerful enough.

Her opponent’s body language changed entirely. Slowly, they looked down and examined the sand around their feet.

Aiko watched, wondering what they’d do.

“Traitor.” The word echoed strangely inside the metal face protection her opponent wore.

...She hadn't considered that possible comment. Aiko cocked her head, trying to think of who could possibly think of her that way. Danzo, who was dead in her home universe? Maybe...someone who thought she should be in Konoha? It didn’t sound right. She couldn’t imagine Konoha taking this route, and didn’t think they had anyone capable of this type of fuinjutsu. So she shrugged and smiled. “Take off your mask, if I know you.”

“You don’t,” came the bitter reply. But her prisoner removed the mask anyway.

Aiko stared, something hurting in her chest. It was the first time she had ever seen eyes the same color as hers. They were the same shape as Naruto’s eyes.

“Do you know me now?”

Her heart shuddered. “You’re Uzumaki,” Aiko said, not knowing how this was possible.

“Yes,” the other woman hissed. She had short-cropped red hair and a gaping wound on the left side of her jaw. “Release me, unfilial child. I have waited a very long time for this.”

Comprehension slotted into place. “You died in the invasion,” Aiko realized. She couldn’t stop drinking in the face, so like her own. “You- the people who did that are long dead.”

“Their children are not,” the other woman answered promptly. “And yet our children are. Our children were taken into waves with hands bound and then dropped to drown.”

It took real effort not to react to that. “That was a long time ago,” Aiko repeated. Her chest hurt. “Crimes committed by those who are now dead. Why are you here?”

The dead woman made an impatient sound. “Little girl, it isn’t the kind of offense that time heals. While it may have been optimal to act sooner, it was only this year that the old barriers came down.”

“Barriers?” Aiko trailed off. “Barriers to keep out…”

“Uzumaki.” Her ancestor’s eyes shone where they reflected the moonlight. “You must have broken it. This does explain why they changed their minds about taking the little ones. Your mere presence let us in…”

‘I don’t think she’s intending to be merciful just because of our shared blood.’ Aiko shifted to a more defensive posture, unsettled even though her opponent was still restrained. ‘I think she’s buying time. I… Karin.’ She kept her expression still even as fear coldly gripped her heart. ‘I can’t let this woman pass. She’s too dangerous.’

“What is this? How are you here? You should just be bones by now,” Aiko said, gripping her sword that much tighter. “This isn’t a genjutsu. So…”

“I was bones,” acknowledged the dead woman. Her yellow teeth stretched in a smile that showed… that showed she had what looked like human hair stuck between her teeth. “I gained flesh and vitality today. Thank you for the gift you sent into the water, daughter.”

The missing people. Aiko made a hand sign to ward off evil.

The dead woman laughed. “I don’t think that works,” she said acidicly. And then she threw herself forward at Aiko, breaking easily through the fuinjutsu hold. Aiko met the blow with her sword and kicked at the armored shins, aiming to fuck up her opponent’s knee.

She absorbed the blow with no sign of pain and twisted her blade down, reaching for Aiko’s head. Aiko moved like a snake, lithe and smooth to avoid it and keep her opponent’s sword trapped by Aiko’s little katana. It took the strength of both arms to keep the blow from coming down.

“Die,” the cursed corpse hissed. This close, Aiko could smell blood on her breath. “You may even join us.”

Aiko heaved off the other woman and darted around in a circle, falling back on Konoha swordsmanship. Of course there was no other Konoha nin to use the opening, so she was immediately pursued. Aiko moved to the side and then made her own aggressive leap forward, aiming to separate the horror’s head from her body. The blow was caught and diverted by the other’s blade.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Aiko said, eyes narrowing. “Unless there’s a technique in play to manipulate Uzumaki corpses for this. If you killed me and I was a sentient corpse out for revenge, I wouldn’t be helping you otherwise.”

“You’re wasted here,” sighed the abomination. “You could have been worth something, if you’d been born in your homeland.”

‘Karin is definitely in danger. If this woman is the one responsible, if she did something before she died… getting rid of her might end all of this. If it isn’t her, I need to find who it is.’

Aiko clenched her jaw and looked for the weak points in her opponent’s armor. They had to exist: the woman had already been killed once. 

”This city is under my protection,” Aiko said firmly. “You can’t have it.”

The dead woman swayed. Aiko leapt through all the possibilities of the incoming attack— and was utterly unprepared for her opponent to sprint away. She hesitated a moment too long and gave pursuit. Without chakra augmentation, she was too slow.

“Move!” Aiko screamed, trying to get people to clear a path, to not be where that abomination was barreling. It wasn’t enough. As she watched, two of her people were cut down unprepared. They had no warning, no chance to fight back.

“Aiko,” Sanbi suggested. “This trap cannot possibly be prepared to absorb the amount of chakra that our forces possess. What do you say?” His tone was hard.

He didn’t like seeing their people die, either, she realized. For the first time in their partnership, he was offering her his chakra.

“Yes, please!” Aiko bit out. “Can we flood it?”

“We can try.” And then she had to stop dead, because her body was shuddering with the force of Sanbi shoving his chakra through her veins. She hit her knees, sand flying as she collapsed on the beach.

In the distance, she heard Utakaka cry out her name. She was safe, though, because the dead people ran straight past her. She clenched her hands in the sand and tried not to cry out. The pressure was incredible, as the Sanbi strained to push out chakra into a forcibly chakra free environment. She strained, back arching. It was all trapped in her body, it was too big for her body and

And the dam burst. Aiko felt demonic chakra flood through her body and flash into a blue light show. She felt her own chakra again. She bared her teeth.

The very same instant, there was the sound of someone enterprising throwing out a lightning attack that dropped a crispy corpse. Someone whooped victoriously. And then the beach was absolute pandemonium. The sound of metal and scuffling was drowned out by gleeful and liberal application of jutsu.

The enemy commander stopped her mad sprint to the civilian shelter and turned in disbelief. Aiko waved. She didn’t get to see if there was any answer because some asshole took her opponent out in a wave of lava.

She put her hands on her hips and looked around for Mei. Mei pretended not to sense the bijuu fueled anger as she sauntered back to the beach, cheerfully throwing balls of magma.

Aiko allowed herself one long sigh before she leapt back into the fray.