Vision for the Future

Lifethane

Prologue: War's End

The bridge of the enormous flying warship was engulfed in a cacophony. Orders were being barked by numerous crew chiefs and met with panicked acknowledgment from the subordinates. Explosions in the sky outside rocked the vessel with shockwaves such that everyone aboard had to stop what they were doing and hang on to the bulkheads or whatever was available for dear life every other moment. Through one of the viewing panels that had been broken open, the screams and roars and clanging metal of the combat below could be heard in between the explosions.

The whole crew knew that even though they were airborne, they were no safer than their counterparts on the ground. Though they had not had time for a proper briefing before lift-off, they had been informed that the insurgents were equipped with weapons that had been capable of destroying the high tower-mounted defense installations of the Cloud Village from the base of the defensive wall—a difference in height of approximately one-hundred and sixty meters, and a length of trajectory at least two-hundred. Given the ship's maximum test height of one-hundred and forty-five meters and maximum speed of seventy kilometers-per-hour, it was extremely likely that they could be shot down by these weapons, assuming the rebels still had them. In an allied village, they would not be able to fire back, either. Unless some miracle manifested itself and saved them, their chances of survival were slim.

Nevertheless, the ship's captain made a valiant attempt to keep order. He strode back and forth along the catwalk between the helm station and the command console, stopping above each station to observe, encourage and, when needed, render assistance to his crew chiefs and their charges. Though he could see the open panic in the eyes of some of his subordinates, he was able to keep them at their panels and doing their jobs. Thus, the ship remained in the air and functional even as they sailed through a storm of fireworks that the insurgents had let fly.

"Steady as you go!" he yelled to his helmsman. "No course changes except to avoid a direct hit! Damage Control can handle the scrapes."

"Aye, sir!"

He moved to the next station, where the young weather crew officer had noted heavy clouds in the west was hurriedly trying to squeeze a report out of his meteorology team for the area. The team was frantically reading their instruments and performing the necessary calculations, but they were unable to produce reliable results due to several of the ship's ventral sensor arrays being heat-damaged. The junior officer was clearly agitated and looked ready to tear his panel operators' heads off.

"Weather Officer of the Watch!" the captain called, to which the officer straightened and snapped to face him.

"Yes, sir?!"

"Go above and have someone who's got their head on right relieve you. Come back when you've had time to compose yourself."

The terrified officer hastily complied, very glad to be wash his hands of this mess. Without even a second glance at his captain, he vanished up the ladder into the upper levels to find his relief. The captain put the senior operator in charge of the weather station, and told her to report adverse conditions when the instruments were working properly.

Luckily, the fireworks stopped a few moments later, and the crew's renewed courage quickly became evident. The helmsman's hands grew steadier, and thus the ship shook less, further improving morale at the other stations in a chain reaction.

The captain returned to his command console, observing the ground battle through the tactical viewing window mounted in the deck beneath him. He could see the enemy's launchers being overrun by the Cloud shinobis' superior numbers, which explained why the fireworks had stopped abruptly. The battle was nowhere near over, however; he could also see that the insurgents had broken through the lines to the inner cloister of the village, where the armory and main supply depot, as well as the Raikage Tower, formed the points of a triangle. If the Tower and its many defensive weapons were taken, the village would be lost.

As he watched a cloaked rebel suddenly produce and fling a barbed vine like a whip at a squad of Cloud nin, wiping out two of them and grazing the third, the captain realized that though the Cloud had the advantages of numbers and home ground, the class of ninja that the enemy possessed was substantially higher. The village might very well fall in this battle, though it would take a long time. If and when it did, the Lightning Country would be forced to surrender and this whole war would be for nothing.

But then, he thought, was there even a reason we entered the war in the first place?

They had told him that the country's leaders had done it because the Raikage, the leader of the Cloud nin, had insisted, promising them that he could retake the land and the resources that had been lost in the last Great War. In doing so, the revered master had said, they would usurp the Fire Country's throne as the dominant power on the continent, and all the traders and contractors would come to Lightning Country to seek their fortunes. A new era would begin.

But as the war dragged on, the citizenry—as well as the captain himself—had become increasingly convinced that the Raikage was insane. It wasn't until the weapon called Susa had become operational that they had their faith in him restored. However, even with that power, the village was being taken. How could the slaughter up until now be justified if the rewards that the Raikage had promised them were reaped, not by them, but by the enemy? The captain knew that it could not, and when the war ended, the victorious countries would make the Lightning Country suffer for it.

Still, there was little that he could do except to press on. Unwaveringly, he ordered his helmsman to keep them flying straight for the forest valley that was supposed to conceal the enemy ninja's forward base of operations. Once there, they would deploy Susa and, hopefully, knock out any possibility of enemy reinforcements.

Suddenly, a whooping siren-like noise made two pulses, indicating that a message was coming in over the sound-powered communicators. He picked up the handset and held it to his ear, pressing his lips against the mouthpiece.

"Bridge, captain speaking."

"Bridge, Maneuvering," the officer on the other end said, identifying himself. "We are observing wide fluctuations in power. We may be unable to maintain maximum speed if the levels do not stabilize."

"Manuevering, Bridge," the captain responded, "Maintain as high a power as you can. Propulsion, not weaponry, is the top priority now."

"Bridge, Maneuvering, aye, sir."

"Bridge, Fire Control!" another phone talker yelled. The captain, who had about to put his handset down again, immediately brought it back to his ear again.

"What is it, Fire Control?" he said.

"Sir, the weapon module compartment has been breached by saboteurs! One of the capsules has been smashed open!"

This was such shocking news that the captain let the handset fall from his grip. Terror gripped him more strongly than it had been gripping his grew not long ago—Susa, sabotaged! The weapon had only just had its final capsule filled, and now it had been emptied again. But worse than that was the thought that the contents of that capsule were more than likely running amok in the ship this very moment, which was a greater danger to them than all the fireworks in the world.

"Lock down all compartments!" he barked into the general announcing system. Immediately, heavy hatches began shutting rapidly all throughout the ship. Just as fast, the crew on the bridge turned their heads to stare at him in bewilderment. He knew that they were all wondering what he had heard over the phone, but their apparent fear made it obvious that they already were aware that it must be something bad.

"All crews, mind your stations," he added, noting their reaction. He exhaled as his order was executed.

"Sir," his Bridge Coordinator said, approaching the console cautiously. "If I may ask, what's going on?"

"Never you mind," the captain told him. "But stand by for new orders. Be ready for an emergency landing if I call for one."

The Coordinator promptly returned to his duties, allowing the captain to turn his attention to the crisis. He listened carefully to the noises of the ship around him. Oddly enough, he could only hear the normal sounds of the bridge, the faint mechanical whirrings and clangings of the engine room in the aft of the ship, and the continuing sound of battle on the ground below. Nothing else could be heard in the ship.

Nothing at all to indicate that one of the legendary Great Tailed Beasts was loose...

Then, quite suddenly, the young weather officer that he had sent above came back down frantically, screaming his head off in a panic. The bridge crew all stopped their work and turned around to watch with fearful faces as he scrambled down the ladder towards the deck, then fell the rest of the way when two shuriken embedded themselves in his shoulders, making him lose his grip. He hit the metal with a horrible thud and several sickening cracks that left no mystery as to whether his bones were all intact.

No roars came from beyond the hatch the officer had come through, resulting in an eerie silence that lasted an eternity for the captain and his crew. The captain knew that it was no Tailed Beast, for the monsters did not use shuriken. It could only be the saboteurs, whom he was quite sure by now were enemy ninja; who else could have gotten into the weapon compartment without being noticed? His hand went to the sword strapped to his hip, though he knew it would do him little good, and he waited for the inevitable exploding tag or smoke bomb to break the terrible silence and herald the end of his life.

Yet what came through the ceiling hatch five seconds later was no explosive or chemical; it was a person, who landed on the deck before anyone saw the assailant falling. This ninja wore a black bodysuit, black gloves, black boots, and had midnight black hair that fell loosely around his head and stopped at the base of his neck. Surprisingly, no weapon appeared in his hand, nor did one seem to be on his person anywhere. Just as curiously, no village identifier was marked anywhere on his clothing. The captain could not see his face, for the stranger had his back to him, but he noted that all of his crew seemed to be too terrified to move, so he assumed it must be a horrific face. He was not great in size, but the captain did not question it; size mattered very little to a ninja.

Then, much to his horror, the entire bridge crew just fell to the deck, all at once! No shuriken had been thrown, and no blows had been struck. The bastard had not even moved! He had to have been using some kind of mind trick—genjutsu, illusion, the captain remembered the Cloud shinobi called it—to make them all unconscious...

Or dead, his mind whispered.

Seeing his crew fall, the captain was overcome with grief. But the stranger still had his back to him, and hadn't appeared to notice him. Perhaps the sword in his hand could avenge his crew. Perhaps not. But he was willing to take his chances; his life alone was not worth much, and if he succeeded then the Lightning Country had one less enemy. As quietly as he could, he crept around his console and towards the back of the (hopefully) unsuspecting adversary.

But an elbow was in his gut before he had even lifted the blade for a stroke. The ninja had known he was there, after all. Before he could recover himself, the ninja followed up the strike with a spinning kick and then, inexplicably, a gust of wind blew from the ninja's turned back and tossed him unceremoniously against his console. No magic words, no strange, mystic hand contortions that he had seen other ninja use... the ninja seemed to have generated the blast of air from his will alone. Sputtering blood, the captain collapsed to the deck, joining his crew. Agonized groans escaped his throat, despite the effort of his remaining pride to keep it down. The ship was lost, just as the village was most likely lost.

While he lay coughing on the deck of his ship, the ninja turned and climbed back up the ladder, returning a moment later with another stranger slung over his shoulders. The ninja set this burden down against a nearby instrument panel and walked towards the helm, where he busied himself by surveying the surrounding area through the viewing ports and spun the wheel, making course corrections. He did not say a word throughout the whole process, but then the captain supposed he shouldn't have expected any more. The Cloud nin were notoriously single-minded, so it made sense that other ninja would be similar.

Unable to speak himself due to being winded and hoarse from coughing and fear, the captain refrained from questioning the ninja, instead glancing over at the apparently unconscious stranger that the ninja had retrieved from the top of the ladder. It was a female clad in a tattered and dirty white robe, who had black hair pulled back in a ragged braid. There were many cuts on her pale, gaunt face, which he surmised must once have been beautiful. She appeared to have spent many days without food. If not for the slight rise and fall of her chest, he might even have believed her to be dead.

Then, she groaned in her sleep and started to twitch and spasm, and her breathing became very rapid—it appeared that in addition to being starved and injured, she was also very sick. This caught the attention of the black-clad ninja as well, who stopped adjusting the ship's course and rushed over to her. The ninja knelt and grasped the woman by the shoulders, holding her down, and examined her carefully.

"Haruka, don't die," the ninja said.

The voice, the captain was surprised to find out, was that of another female. He had thought for sure that she was a man, mainly due to the lack of breasts and the brutal force of the blow she had given him earlier. But, he reasoned, she probably was flat-chested because she was very young; her voice had the high pitch of girlhood, and youthfulness would explain her very small size.

This young, and already a powerful shinobi, he thought to himself. It is small wonder that the Fire Country has come this far in the war, if the Leaf have ninjas so strong at this age...

The young ninja bent over the woman and held her down until she finally stopped shaking, then stood up and returned to her work. She finished changing the ship's course, then set about lowering its height. The captain watched her, trying to figure out what she was trying to accomplish. It seemed that she had turned it towards the mountain range that surrounded Cloud village on three sides, and she had set the altitude at just above one hundred meters. Did she have friends in that direction, waiting to board and take control of the entire vessel? Or was she simply planning to smash it into a mountainside? It was impossible to tell yet.

"What's wrong with... her?" he asked, finally finding his voice.

The young ninja stopped in surprise for a moment, then continued her work. She was now overriding Maneuvering's control over propulsion and setting the ship's speed lower.

"She will be well soon," she told him as she worked. "Her body is in shock, but it will soon become acclimated to the change."

"What change?" the captain asked. "She isn't ill? Was she one of those experiments of the Raikage's that rumors have been getting out about?"

The girl ceased adjusting the speed when it reached thirty kilometers-per-hour by the local meter, then moved on to the auxiliary weapons panel, where she overrode and shut down all of the ship's defensive batteries and disabled Susa's main cannon. The ship was now low, slow, and helpless. Maybe she was planning to have her allies board the ship, after all.

"No," she said. "She's been through much worse than that. But she is a shinobi like the rest of us; she will be pained for a while, but she will survive."

Then, she turned her head towards him, and he saw her face at last. She was indeed a child, perhaps ten years old, with pale skin, cheeks that hadn't yet lost their baby fat. Yet she had very cunning, intelligent eyes. The eyes of someone who was growing up much too fast, who had experienced pain and loss of her own.

Red eyes, with the strangest pupils the captain had ever seen. They were not round, but formed an odd star-burst pattern in the center of those crimson irises. The captain felt himself gripped in the will of this child's outlandish eyes.

"You are going to survive, too," the girl told him. "As are your crew members. But you should abandon this ship as soon as it gets clear of the village."

"Why?" the captain asked, intending to find out why she, his enemy, was sparing his life.

She took it to mean that he wanted to know why he must leave the ship, and said, "Because, if the mountains do not destroy the ship, Susa eventually will. The weapon's operator has become unstable. We tried to pacify him, but he is beyond saving and he nearly killed us. And even if he does not kill you, the other insurgents might, once they find you."

The captain's vision swirled and distorted around the red eyes, the only stable points in view. His consciousness was slipping, his will diminishing. He was powerless to stop it. This was the power that had incapacitated his crew.

"Who are... you?" he managed to gasp.

"You will wake up soon. Mind what I have told you, and you and your crew will live."

"Who...?"

A pause, then...

"I don't know yet. If I see you again, maybe I will tell you."

His vision left him, along with his mind, and he slumped against the command console, no longer in this world.

Her task completed, the ninja gathered her unconscious companion onto her back once again and, moving back behind the console, kicked out the tactical viewing window from beneath her feet. Wind rushed through her black hair as she fell away from the dreadful flying machine towards the ground below. She could see the battle continuing there. Her allies were just entering the base of the Raikage Tower. Now the long battle to ascend the tower's many levels and capture it would begin.

She saw a large machine being wheeled towards the base of the tower by Lightning Country soldiers, escorted by five Cloud ninjas. She recognized the type—an artillery machine that had been developed in the last year of the war that fired large volleys of kunai knives in rapid succession. Escaping such a weapon was unlikely except for the more skilled ninja. The Fire Country soldiers and the Lightning Country rebel militia making for the entrance of the tower would be decimated if she did not do something.

Her eyebrows narrowed in concentration as she carefully formed the hand seals needed for her technique. Then she released her chakra, and the ground beneath the Lightning soldiers erupted, knocking them into various surrounding buildings and pinching the machine in between two pillars of earth.

The surviving Cloud nin saw her and launched ninjutsu of their own, among them gouts of spiraling wind and a serpent made of crackling lightning. The girl gasped in fear, but then on instinct she opened wide her strange eyes, which grew suddenly bloodshot. The enemy ninja froze in fear as black flame consumed their ninjutsu, then turned and ran as it made for them. But the flames did not follow them; instead, it consumed the war machine that they had been escorting.

The girl ninja clamped a hand over her eyes and whimpered in pain; she had not even known that she could do such a thing, nor had she known any ninjutsu that burned the user's eyes.

This, however, did not stop her from falling. Fortunately, she had been prepared for that, and as she fell within an arm's length of the top of the nearest building, she flipped herself and her unconscious passenger over, and kicked off the stone surface, sending herself flying towards the Raikage Tower. Her current speed was insufficient, but that was no matter. She merely focused her will and repeated the same trick she had used to send the captain of the ship rocketing into his own control panel, and blasted two concentrated gusts of air behind and below her to launch herself higher and farther, all without taking her hands off her passenger. She landed on a balcony near the top of the tall tower, nearly falling off the edge as the woman on her back unbalanced her.

Once she had steadied herself and regained her footing, she noted the two stunned, young-looking soldiers she had dropped in on staring at her in amazement and terror. Yet within a moment they recovered themselves and brandished their weapons at her. She dispatched them quickly with two quick jabs to each man's stomach, avoiding using the power of her hypnotic eyes for fear that she would hurt herself again—the power was still very new to her, and she had no one to teach her the proper way to use it.

She exited the balcony and made her way into the tower, and a masked Cloud ninja rounded the corner and charged her, moving with an incredible speed. The girl knew she was not fast enough to fight this man with her passenger, and so she unleashed a quick gout of orange flame using her invisible, hand seal-less power to keep him at bay while she set her burden down.

The enemy was a man twice her size and much faster than she was. She barely managed to raise her guard in time to deflect the first punch, and the rapid kick that swept her legs out from underneath her was too fast to be stopped. She began to fall to the floor, but the enemy stopped her by slamming his open palm into her stomach, which hurled her up and embedded her into the ceiling.

Thinking he had won, the masked ninja took his time in forming the complex hand seals of what looked like a water-style ninjutsu meant to be the killing blow. This turned out to be a mistake; the girl was more resilient and resourceful than he had thought, for in the next moment he found his feet encased in ice that appeared out of nowhere and bound him where he was. The girl extricated herself from the ceiling and fell to the floor, and the enemy ninja's eyes widened as he saw a pattern of white light on the girl's skin fade away. Then she came at him, landing a flying kick in his face and sending him crashing to the floor.

She attempted to follow up her attack, but the first attack had dislodged him from the ice and he rolled out of the way, spinning agilely on the floor and again sweeping her legs out from under her. Now that it was her on the floor rather than him, he decided to be quicker about finishing her, lest she trick him again. Pulling a knife, he put his foot down on her and rolled her over, exposing her chest. No fancy ninjutsu this time. He intended to simply stab her heart and be done with it. Looking upon her with spite, he knelt down to plunge the blade into her small body...

And then promptly fell unconscious, his kneel turned into a fall, landing across the chest he had meant to stab. The girl winced and clamped a hand over her eyes again in pain. Then, with some effort, she pushed her defeated attacker off of herself and hobbled, feeling with agony the true extent of her injuries, back to her companion. She could no longer carry the woman, so she dragged her across the floor towards the nearest door, which she opened, then entered and locked behind them.

She felt around in the darkness of the room for some kind of light source. Eventually, she found what she thought might be a torch, and lit it with a basic fire ninjutsu. Thankfully, it was a torch and it illuminated the room adequately. As she looked about, she realized that this must be the Raikage's stateroom—a large bed, a desk, and many bookshelves lined the walls, and numerous ornamental tapestries and hangings decorated the entire room. Three large statues of the past Raikages stood in the center of the chamber, looming over her as though meant to cow and intimidate.

Yet instead, the girl felt relieved. She slid home the bolt-locks on the door and moved several bookshelves against it, then moved her companion onto the bed. The window was of no concern, as a metal grate had been slid and locked shut behind it, probably at the start of the battle some hours earlier. The room was secured, and nobody had witnessed them enter it. They would be safe here, at least for a few hours, and then the rebels and their allies would rescue them.

Her companion suddenly began to shudder again. Immediately, she grasped her shoulders and held her down.

"Haruka, it's okay," she said gently. "You're going to be okay. You have to be okay..."

The shuddering stopped, and the girl allowed her head to fall onto her companion's chest. Finally away from danger and from prying eyes, she allowed her battle-hardened discipline to drop. Sniffing quietly, she let herself weep into the threadbare cloth of her companion's robe, holding onto the woman as tightly as her tired, fractured arms would allow. There she stayed a long time, letting out all her sorrows even as the carnage and the death continued around them.

Fighting could wait, for now. Her young mind couldn't take any more just yet. It had already taken too much.

"Why did this happen, Haruka?" she said hoarsely, her throat constricted from crying. "I did what I was supposed to. I kept the secrets that I was trusted with, and I found Naruto and went with him just like I was told to, but I didn't get what they promised me. I'm still alone..."

Haruka groaned slightly, but she did not shudder or spasm. The girl lifted her head and gave a forced smile.

"Sorry," she said. "I meant, alone except for you. But I barely know you, even though Keisuke talked about you a lot..."

She frowned, as though remembering a painful truth. Then she laid her head down and wept again.

"And you're hurt," she said when she regained her voice. "We're both hurt... and I have all these powers that I know little or nothing about, powers I shouldn't have. Keisuke tried to teach me, though. He was the closest thing to a parent that I've ever had, even if it was only for a little while. But now..."

This time, she fought back the tears. She steeled herself, a new resolve taking shape within her. Looking upon Haruka with purpose, she grasped the woman's hand firmly.

"I'll take care of you for him, Haruka. I promised him that I would. But there are two things I have to do first."

She stood up and made her way over to the Raikage's desk, sitting down in the high-backed chair and rummaging through the drawers until she found paper and an ink pen. Then she cleared away the clutter of books, charts, and food that remained on the desktop, sweeping all of it into the waste bin that sat by her feet. Finally, she set the stack of paper to one side of the desk, put a small metal paperweight from the drawer on top of it, and lit a candle on the other side. She glanced at Haruka one more time.

"I probably won't be here when you wake up," she said. "But I'll be back soon. Maybe Naruto and Hinata will, too. When all of this is over, I'll make sure it never happens again. I promise."

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, letting her stress leave her, and allowing the memories of the past weeks to come flowing back into her mind. Weeks of trial and triumph, weeks of training and accomplishment, weeks of laughter and fun, weeks of war, bravery, and comradely unity. The most wonderful, terrible weeks of her life, and the only ones she had any memory of. It all came back to her in such detail that she could practically see herself living it all over again.

Then she reopened her eyes. Her vision was slightly dimmer and blurrier than usual—probably from all her crying, she reasoned—but it was not very troublesome. She had had excellent eyesight to begin with, and could still see quite well. At peace with herself for the moment, she settled into the chair and began to write...

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