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After running for a while she noticed that the chakra was flowing steadily as it did when she was standing still. She ran a bit faster and then slowwed down and ran faster again. She turned around and beamed in the direction she had last seen her sensei.

"I did it!"

Aerith beamed happily, then flumped dwon on the ground beneath her. her legs crossed and her arms stuck out behind her she leaned back and looked up at the sky.

"Oh?"
Somehow i sound a littel dissapointed, yet currius about what hshe is going to say.

"What..?"
He lifts an eyebrow seeing her walk avay.
"When your dead, i shall have your corpse taken back.."
He turns, seeming extremly unhappy, and starts walking avay.

Aerith sat in a tree watching the village of Konoha. She tilted her head sideways so it rested on the strong trunk of the tree. Raki came to her and landed on the branch beside her. She wondered if it was all worth it.

Aerith snapped around and grbbed the edge off the branch with one hand and pulled out a kunai with the other. She crouched there for a moment before recognising her sensei. She slowly lowered the kunai and then sheathed it again. She put her other hadn on the branch, jumped backwards and swung down onto the ground.

She stood awkwardly for a moment before bowing low. With a tembling voice she spoke.

"Gomenasai, sensei."

Aerith remained bowing and paused for a moment to arrange her thoughts. They had gone haywire sometime ago and were still wrecking her mind.

"I... I don't know what happened. All of a sudden I felt so... unworthy. Why should I, a useless, weak stranger get so much respect and time from someone like you? I think it was also that because of my teaching when I grew up I felt a slight bit of disdain for the jutsu's you were teaching me. I've always had it beaten into me that jutsu's were forbidden to my... my clan..."

She stopped this was useless, she could even make sense of her own thoughts. She dropped to her knees and bowed on the ground.

"I should feel such ingratitude! You've helped me more than a hundred times anyone else has..."

Her voice went quiet.

"..it's not right..."

She gripped her head with her hands and she knelt there with her head to the ground. Her head was begining to pound and her arm was throbbing.

Aerith was stuck as she was. The pain in her head and arm were paralysing her. She cringed as it increased hugely and then slowly ebbed away. A moment later she managed to push herself up so she was sitiign on her heals. She couldn't manage any more than that. The pain had exhausted her. She stared at the ground as she began to speak.

"I will not dishonour, betray, or desert the Isra. If I do so I accept the punishment as death for both Soul-Bound and I.

If I tell others about our clan and it's secrets I accept the punishment as death for both Soul-Bound and I.

If I use the tainted jutsu's of other clan's I accept the punishment as death for both Soul-Bound and I.

If I go against the Elders then I accept the punishment of the Reunion and Divison. I also accept that my lips she be cut and sown shut and my hands removed."

Her eyes filled with tears and she balled her hands into fists on her lap.

"I wish I had broken one of the first three."

She squeezed her eyes shut and the tears spilled out. She took a breath and kept speaking.

"I broke the last and so my Soul-Bound's fate was decided... the Elders are The Rule in Isra, they cannot be disobeyd. I told you in that small village of how I killed Xenon, my Soul-Bound and how I ran from Isra. I left the most disgusting and painfully thing out..."

Her head dropped to her chest and she shook trying to fight the urge to harm herself. She had done that before and it only led to more misery.

"Xenon's not dead. He survived the Reunion but just barely. He was missing limbs, and some organs too. He was dying. I remember vaguely seeing him thrashing and flailing on the ground when he was Divided. I saw one of Elder walk up to him, spit on him and kick him in the side. I remeber his screams. He tried to crawl towards me, he needed help. He was all bloody and dimembered. I..."

Her palms began to bleed as she clenched her fists tighter.

"I took a step back! That step back wounded him more than anything the Elders had done to him. The pain in his eyes..."

Aerith stopped, her heart was breaing again. It hurt her so much it was hard to breath.

"All I could do was faint. I was so useless. Afterward, in the cell before I escaped, after the Elder had come and told me he wanted to Bind me to the child's Soul-Bound. Another Elder came to me. He told me that Xenon was still alive. I ran at him, I hit him, bit him, kicked him. Demanded to see Xenon. Screamed his name in case he could hear me. The Elder just shoved me up against a wal and held me there. I tried to fight him off but his Soul-Bound was a large consrictor and had wrapped itself around me. Crushing me until I stopped stuggling.
Then he told me that Xenon had lived. The surgeons had worked on him for hours and he was exactly the way before the Reunion. But they were having trouble with him. He didn't want me back. He hated me and... and wanted a new Soul-Bound. Then he told me to leave. To run away and not tell anyone. If I did then he would make sure that I wasn't followed. So I left."

She sat back and drew up her knees and hugged them. She looked up at the Mizukage with terrified, tearfully eyes.

"Then I told you, I'm sure they've found out. A while ago my head began to pound and my arm was throbbing. The parts that Xenon couldn't extract from me were crippling me. I know now that he is definately alive and that he's looking for me."

She buried her head in her arms and sopke again, muffled by talking into her arms.

"I know I'm a coward... I know!! I don't want my lips sealed shut. I don't want them to cleave off my hands.... I don't want to have to look Xenon in the eyes after what I did to him..."