Welcome to Gaia! ::

Shaneko dozed off a few times but she was awake enough to know where she was being led. She shivered now and then but for the most part wasn’t cold. She was more so hot than cold. She assumed she’d caught a cold of which Akou mentioned already having. For some reason people kept winding up wandering around aimlessly in Hidden Snow without being covered. Hopefully it wouldn’t become a trend. Shaneko noticed Naomi and Akou sometimes chatting or Naomi gazing at her. There were other times where she just sat and watched as Naomi watched Akou sleep and would reach out to him then recoil her hand after a few moments. It was awkward being in the twos presence. They treated her, a lot of the time, as if she weren’t even there. They were distant from her. After arriving in Konoha, Akou carried Shaneko around where ever the Giant Ram couldn’t venture; like the boat. Always he would carry her delicately on his shoulder with one arm. She was as light as a feather for the tiny boy. She wished he were older. She wished he could be hers but knew that wouldn’t happen. As soon as they found a hotel room and laid her down she lost all consciousness. It might not have been wise but she was too tired. Besides, her jutsu were still unusable so she was pretty much a sitting duck anyway; especially as powerful as Akou was in comparison to her without her weapons or jutsu. She slept for hours before nightmares woke her up. She found herself calling out Sai’s name and awoke. She breathes hastily for a while before her breathing steadies. She sits up on her bed and grips her chest while keeping her eyes shut. “Did you have a bad dream?” Shaneko’s eyes fly open and she looks around but can’t find the source of the voice. “Boy, you people with those doujutsu are practically blind without them.” In a flash Akou was at the foot of her bed. She jumps in slight surprise and he shakes his head. “Scaredy cat.”

“I am not.”

“Are too. And you’re a copy cat too. It’s in your name.”

“What? No it isn’t.”

“He didn’t teach you very well,” states Akou furrowing his eyebrows in utter disappointment.

“What? Who?”

“Sai. He didn’t teach you good Japanese if he couldn’t even realize your name was Japanese and what it meant.”

“My name is Japanese?” Akou furrows his eyebrows even more to show his increase in disappointment.

“Your first name is two parts. Sha means copy in Japanese and neko means cat. Your last name Warabe means child.” Akou almost laughed in defining Shaneko’s last name because she didn’t seem happy about it. “So you like being called cat?”

“Huh?”

“You like people to call you Neko which means cat. So you enjoy being called cat?”

“Erma, I guess. Hey… how do you know Sai is teaching me Japanese? And… how do you know my nickname?”

“You talk in your sleep.” Shaneko blushes a little. “I don’t know how I know your nickname. I remembered it.” Akou thinks a moment. He seemed to way what he planned to say in his mind. “So you like Sai, huh? The way you say Sai-kun tells a lot.” Shaneko’s eyebrows furrow. She was in better control and could easily take that lightly. “And you call him sensei… why? Why not sempai?”

“I like Sai, yes, as a friend. I say Sai-kun the same way I’d say Akou-kun.” Akou’s amused expression turns slightly angered and Shaneko falls silent a moment. “Sai teaches me Japanese phrases… or taught me. We got separated.”

“Yeah, yeah. I don’t think we’re on that kind of familiarity basis where you can call me Akou-kun. I prefer you just call me Akou.” Akou looks away from her a moment before looking back at her with a less angered face. His face was close to serene though it still held a small hint of anger.

“You don’t like me very much, do you?”

“I have nothing against you aside from the fact that you are of Reina’s team. But… you don’t seem to hold ill will towards Naomi-sempai so I don’t consider you much of a member of Reina’s team.”

“Well, Naomi deserves much of the dislike. I mean…” Shaneko stops seeing that same angered expression on his face though it was less like a child’s angry face and more like an angry mans.

“Naomi deserves no dislike.”

“She does-”

“SHE DOES NOT!” With that a door opens. Shaneko blinks a few times before looking around. Since when did hotel rooms have closed off bedrooms? This wasn’t a hotel room. This looked like a bedroom though it was poorly furnished. It held a bed and a chest for storing clothes but nothing much else. There was maybe one window, one closet, and one door; in the doorway stood a silhouette that Akou seemed to recognize it. “Naomi-sempai,” he states gazing at the figure in the doorway.

“Why were you yelling so loudly?”

“The Reina minion was talking like a true follower,” Akou spat glaring at Shaneko out of the corner of his eye. She opens her eyes up wide in surprise. “She seems infatuated with Sai, also. I’d keep an eye on this one. She seems like a home wrecker.”

“WHAT?” Shaneko couldn’t help but jump in at that point. “I am not infatuated with him! HE IS MY FRIEND! I told you that! Are you that dense? You’re spoiled rotten, you know that?” Akou only continued to glare as he began nibbling at his bottom lip. Naomi watches Akou cautiously as she inches farther into the room. Shaneko realized, a little late, that provoking Akou was one of the dumbest things she could do in her situation but she went on and did it anyway. He could easily snap her in two. She watches him for a while before he shakes his head.

“If I’m a brat then it is because of your bloodthirsty leader. I will not deny that I am spoiled nor will I say that it wasn’t because of my upbringings. Reina Rose Hudeni spoiled me rotten. Go on ahead and bring down the name of your leader in bringing down my name. I don’t mind,” he states unfazed at all by her statement on the outside aside from him continuing to bite at his bottom lip. He back flips from the bed and walks over to the doorway. He does not look at Naomi who places a hand on his head.

“Did you not think she wouldn’t push back?” Akou snorts at Naomi’s comment and walks by her. Naomi could see the wetness of his eyes but did not say anything about it. She would wait until he was far enough away. “Some way to treat Akou after he saved your life. What a nice way to say, thank you.”

“You both are arrogant. I suppose you don’t have to be blood to adapt certain things.”

“You talk a lot of crap for someone without their precious armors to protect them. You weren’t very nice to Akou. He’s only five. That’s a tender age.”

“I don’t need my armors and weapons to be strong. And he was the one being rough. I only returned what he dished out.”

“Immature. Anyway, why were YOU wandering around in Hidden Snow without anything on? It’s odd how you and my son enjoy doing that.”

“Maybe… I wasn’t doing it for fun. I was left there to die.”

“Was it Drago and his group?”

“No, no.”

“Who did it then?” Naomi motions farther into the room as Shaneko begins remembering.

“It was a large, furry beast. It could speak the English language though it had a sort of accent. It had deep black eyes and could walk on all fours or on two feet. It was powerful and very fast.”

“Lycan.”

“Huh?”

“Lycan or werewolf.”

“Oh.”

“Where is Sai? Weren’t you two together like I left you?”

“We were together. I don’t know what happened but… I fell asleep after a long day and woke up to find him gone along with any and every armor and weapon I had. The beast seemed like it had returned from doing something when it came and snatched me up. It took me into the village and talked in another language than English to another beast before taking me to Hidden Snow and leaving me.”

“We must go then.”

“Wait… what?”

“I have to travel to Hidden Twilight and enter the village. You will stay with Akou outside of the village-”

“Wait, pull back. We? I’m going back to meet up with Sai. There’s no need for any other help. He wouldn’t want it anyway.”

“You think you know him that well,” scoffs Naomi. “He is my son. Yes, he won’t like it but he will not… CANNOT refuse my assistance.” Shaneko almost laughed but only smirked. “Look, smart @$$. Regular human beings cannot enter Hidden Twilight. You journeying there would be pointless. He can enter the hall but not you since you are a mere human. The village is made like that.

“Reina ventured there though.”

“Reina never mentioned entering the village, now did she?” Shaneko does not respond. “Eventually Sai will enter the village to look for you and will be faced with a village of beasts.”

“If he can’t take them then how can you? You couldn’t have grown that strong in four years?”

“And why not? Akou and I have been training. Why am I explaining? Either come with us or be left behind. We are leaving tomorrow evening. Do what you wish during the day today and then get some rest. If you wish to join us in Hidden Twilight that is.” Shaneko huffs as Naomi sighs and turns to leave.

Akou was perched in a tree when he saw Shaneko walking the path beneath him. He watched her without showing any true emotion for a while before she grew out of plain sight. He sighs and climbs to his feet while keeping his eyes on her. He takes up tracking her as she walks. He watched her move with alert and cautious eyes. He didn’t know why he was following her other than he was bored or why he was sneaking around other than he didn’t want to strike up conversation… wait, that explanation was good enough. Akou could imagine himself disturbing the silence and startling Shaneko as he often did at any moment but constantly refrained from doing so. It was as if he was waiting for something to happen first. After following her a while she meets the Giant Ram which makes Akou’s blank expression turn into a curious one. He wondered how she would react to noticing the Giant Ram. She seemed absorbed in her thoughts and hadn’t yet looked up to take notice of the beast. Shaneko looked up too late and slammed hard into a hind leg of the Ram. It reels its huge head around to gaze at her with eyes filled with nothing at all. Shaneko stutters and tries to find a way to apologize as Akou watches her then sets his gaze on the Ram. Akou knew how the Ram worked and knew that he didn’t like being touched by anyone who was not his owner. Akou wondered if the Ram would attack Shaneko. And if he did how would Akou react? The Ram stamps his foot and Shaneko falls silent. She picks herself off of the ground and scrambles back from the Giant Ram. It simply turns around and stamps the ground again which makes Shaneko set out in a run. Akou continues watching Shaneko with a sort of worried expression before setting his sights back on the Ram only for it to be gone.

Shaneko runs as fast as she can but the Ram was slowly gaining speed and catching up to her with little effort. She turns slightly to see how close the Ram is to her and then turns around and slams into a low hanging tree branch. She flips backward and lands on her stomach with a loud thud. That was when the Ram bolted forward. He was going to take this as his time to strike. Shaneko turns her head to see the beast sprinting towards her and then pulls her arms over her head. A flickering figure darts through the trees as the Ram grows nearer. Just when it was nearly upon her the flicker appears directly in its path. Akou outstretches his arms and catches the Ram, not even being shoved backward from the great speed and mass of it, by the horns then flips it over onto its side. Shaneko could hear the loud crash of the Ram being turned onto its side and uncovered her head. She turns her head to see Akou facing away from her. He was petting the Ram and asking for forgiveness for protecting her. “A-Akou…” he tilts his head in her direction a moment before turning back to the Ram. He lifts it up and sets it upright again without so much as a grunt and with a single hand. The Ram stamps angrily before dashing off. Akou sighs before turning around to Shaneko. She gazes up at him and tries to stand only for Akou to place a single finger to her shoulders with both hands to stop her. He was strong. She couldn’t even shift her arm if she tried.

“Stay there a minute.” Shaneko just stares at him. He had turned to face her when he pinned her and had crouched down now. He gazes into her pale pink eyes a moment before his starry eyes begin trailing over her face and then her body. “You’re quite accident prone, aren’t you,” he almost laughed. His stern face had shifted to a more humored one. He found Shaneko very funny. He touches a hand to her cheek a moment and looks in her eyes again. She does not look away until he releases her and looks away himself. “I don’t know why I went on and saved you… Naomi didn’t give me any order to protect you at all. That Sai’s gamed altered memories must have made me do it. What are you to him anyway?”

“Huh? I’m confused. Gamed? And what do you mean by altered memories? Sai doesn’t alter memories. And we are friends; that is all, as I’ve said before.”

Akou snorts gently. “Ichazuki are liars. You, of all people, should no that.”

“And why is that?”

“Those Ryuugan eyes you HAD should have been able to analyze him. You’d know whether or not if he were lying or not.”

“And he has yet to lie to me. He has no need.”

Akou rolls his eyes around a little. “Sure, sure. And game is… well… Naomi says it.” Akou shrugs his shoulders as he shift hi arms down to Shaneko’s wrists and grips them in his tiny hands. “I’m taking you back now. Your fever didn’t go away. You shouldn’t have left the house.”

“Fever?” Shaneko tries to reach a hand up to her face but Akou’s grip was strong.

“Your face has scratches from when you hit the tree branch. Don’t touch it.”

“I can’t,” mutters Shaneko and Akou laughs lowly at her. She truly did amuse him. He flicks her into the air which starts her and makes Akou shake with laughter that he held in. He would catch her delicately before flashing out of the forest.

Shaneko lay in bed as Akou tends to her face. She watched his expression changing every so often from amused to stern to angered to concentrated to confused. He was full of life. “Why do you believe the memories you hold are false?”

“Not all of them. Just the ones the Ichazuki gave me. I think he was trying to make me a pawn of Team Cero.”

“What,” cries Shaneko which makes Akou stop working on her to watch her carefully. “You can’t be serious Akou. Those memories weren’t altered. All those memories you have of Reina and everyone else are real.”

“Prove it to me then.”

“How am I supposed to do that? How can I prove to you YOUR memories are real?” Akou merely shrugs and awaits her to prove his memories to be true. Shaneko thinks a moment before figuring out a memory. “How about… How about the time where you yourself were an Ichazuki?”

“What about it?”

“Um… You remember when our entire group was in a circle and you were giving me, Nimen, and Tebayai information to prepare us for the upcoming Chunin Exams?”

“Fabricated.”

“WHAT,” she shrieks. Akou had started working on her again but stopped and stared at her with slight confusion on his face.

“You can’t be serious. Those memories weren’t my own. Those were given to me by the Ichazuki when I was an infant.”

“Then you remember Reina holding you and feeding you and carrying you around. You remember the day she let you take part in an exam to see what exactly you were.”

“She left me there! She didn’t even come to see how things were going! She was too busy with that game Drago!”

“That’s not true!”

“How isn’t it? How do you know what happened?”

“Anthro…”

“A homunculi in league with the Ichazuki.”

“His name is Sai and he would never make anything up. He wouldn’t lie to me!”

“Why not? You’re just his friend and nothing more! There need be no true honesty between you two!”

“You can’t believe the things coming out of your mouth!”

“I do. So what? I will admit that Reina may have cared for me but I won’t believe she cared about me. Those were the memories the Ichazuki Sai gave me and they weren’t real. If so then how come I never experienced pain though I was constantly killed and reborn? Things were left out purposely. How did I die last time?”

“You sacrificed yourself for the team.”

“Team Cero’s sacrifice boy.”

“Oh my gosh!”

“Each time I died… why was it?” Shaneko thought on that and realized it was true. Each time he died it was from sacrificing himself for someone else. He began working on her again but his hands trembled and he bit at his bottom lip.

“How can I get you to see? Reina isn’t the bad guy.”

“Four years ago… do you know why she disappeared?”

“To look for you.”

“Not entirely. She disappeared after having tried to kill close to four ninjas in Hidden Fantasy’s Hidden Spira, successfully killing a Maimu ninja, and then destroy the village.”

“That’s a lie!”

“It isn’t! Naomi was talking to Reina about it and she said she did it and regretted it!” Did she hear him right? He and Naomi spoke with Reina?

“You’re lying! Reina would never do such a thing.” She remembers how Reina tried to kill her nearly six years ago and winces but continues on. “I don’t know what manner of brainwash Naomi gave you,” Akou made to protest but Shaneko continued on, “but you aren’t the Akou I used to know. Akou loved Reina more than anything in the world. She loved him the same. She would kill for him and he for her. Now you can’t even be sure the memories you have of her are real or not? Have you no heart? What trickery has Naomi used to make you so… so… HEARTLESS?”

“Must you two always yell at one another?” Akou stops working on Shaneko as Naomi stands in the doorway. She crosses her arms over her chest and stares at the two on the bed. “What happened to Shaneko?”

“She was running from the Ram and was almost attacked but I saved her. It wasn’t my objective but I was compelled to save her.” Naomi furrows her eyebrows and looks from Shaneko and Akou almost nervously. Akou would not look from Shaneko nor would he look up at her. He was biting his lip still though he began to stop now and then before starting to bite his lip again.

“Well, it is good you saved her. I wouldn’t want harm to come to her. She is in our care and Reina wouldn’t be very happy.” Akou lets out an exasperated sigh before continuing to work on Shaneko’s face again. “Why do you sigh like that, Akou?”

“Reina, Reina, Reina. It’s just like when you kept talking about Ella, Ella, and Ella. I don’t want to hear about the million faced magician or the mutt girl anymore,” he whispers. Akou then winces feeling Shaneko’s grasp on his wrist. “Let go of me,” he hisses snatching away from Shaneko so hard he nearly broke her entire arm. He leaps off of the bed and glowers at her a little while. “What’s your problem?”

Shaneko sits upward and glares at Akou whose face turns confused and a bit frightened. After a moment Naomi motions between Akou and Shaneko. “You may be valuable but not as much as Akou to Reina. Killing you now for looking at him and grabbing him like you did would be justified.” Shaneko was a bit worried and relaxed her face. She was not as important to Reina as Akou was no matter if he had forgotten all of them. She couldn’t stand what he said about them though. She was tired of it.

“I-I’m leaving,” whimpers Akou as Naomi turns to look at him. He was covering his eyes with one arm and was biting at his bottom lip.

“Do not cry, Akou. It’s all right.” She rubs his head with one hand but he shakes his head and knocks her hand off.

“Why can’t it be me and you like it always has? Why do we need her or anyone else? I don’t like them… they aren’t that important.”

“They are.”

“No,” he cries before shaking his head and running from the room. Naomi follows after him as Shaneko sits upright in the bed staring. She had made Akou cry. It couldn’t be easy on him. It wasn’t his fault he couldn’t believe in his own memories. She was being cruel to him when he was treating her nicely… well, nicer than she was treating him. Then she remembered how he was biting his lip when he cried. He bit his lip when she had insulted him before and he did it when he was asking about each time he died up until the time where he ran from the room. That’s how he kept from crying. So she had been upsetting him the entire time? He was just confused and she was just hurting him.

Shaneko had fallen asleep after a few hours of beating herself up over how she’d been treating Akou. As she slept Akou sat at her bedside without her even realizing it. He was still teary eyed but he wasn’t crying like before. He was going to set Shaneko straight. He was going to tell her off. Then she started talking in her sleep like she always did and he climbed to his feet. “I’m sorry…” He stares at her face as she slept and sees she was teary eyed too. He looks away from her a moment before he turns back to her. His hands glow as he focuses chakra into them. “I was being childish… I shouldn’t have been so cruel. It’s just…” He waited to see if she might say more but she fell silent. He sweeps his hands into the air above Shaneko before gliding them over her body. Any wound she had would heal up instantly and her sickness would also fade away. He didn’t know why but he couldn’t be angry at her. He couldn’t find it in him now that he was in her presence… now that he was looking at her. As he sweeps his hands over her once more she reaches up a hand and grabs one of his wrists. He jolts which makes her jolt too. Her eyes pop open just as he leaps out of the door. “W-wait!” Shaneko leaps out of bed and runs outside. She couldn’t see anything so trying to find Akou in the dark was pretty pointless in her situation. “Akou come back,” she calls but receives no response. As she begins running deeper into the forest a silhouette high in a tree disappears.

Time passes and she grows tired of searching and sits leaning against a tree. She felt oddly refreshed. It was as if all of her injuries had been healed. Though, she did feel a bit feverish still. The silhouette watches from above her now, not moving an inch. The clouds part in the sky and the moon illuminates the area. The silhouette is revealed as none other than Akou. He liked traveling around in the trees. He would simply watch her and see what she planned on doing next. Time passed and Shaneko just sat there being boring. He wondered if she’d fallen asleep outside and so he appears beside her. She starts and he laughs loudly before covering his mouth. Just when he prepares to retreat back to the trees Shaneko reaches a hand out to him. “I really am sorry, Akou. I don’t know what got into me. I just started being a total douche bag to you and I apologize for that. It’s just… you’ve changed.”

“From the memories inside me, you have too. You are crueler to me now then you were back then. But that is none of my concern. I will follow my orders and watch over you here out. I won’t fraternize with you any further. We are nothing more than guard and guarded.” Akou’s smiles he once had falls prey to a stern face. He merely glimpses back at her before he grabs her outstretched hand. “I’m taking you back now,” he states before sneezing away from her. He grimaces and leaps off before Shaneko can utter a word.