The pain left, the fog in her mind cleared. Swords disappeared, clones became real. Not. Everything had felt like a blur. A nightmare come true, but as she opened her eyes - were they closed? - reality imposed itself again upon her senses. It all seemed so surreal. Like she had eaten the wrong sort of mushroom, if she recalled well. Nariko needed some time for her mind to find back its way to reality, as if her soul was dragging behind. As if she had some difficulties with truly understanding that the genjutsu had lifted. Or had it? She certainly could see only one Maigo now. And one Burittsu. Vague reminders of his words rang through her head like a bad dream. The jerk. Spitting sticky stuff, leaving her behind in the forest, considering her luggage... The man had no idea who she was, did he? The heiress of the Santaku lineage. Nariko straightened her back, raising her chin. Wings spreading? Wings spreading. She looked backwards at her wings. Hadn't she only unsealed those in the dreamscape? She thought she had. The genjutsu wasn't supposed to be real, right? The sight of her unsealed wings... compared to the lack of the clones and blades... her mind couldn't grasp it. The black eyes in the dreams of a wanna-be demon, compared to... the plain eyes of a mortal.
Her fazed mind registered things only slowly. They mumbled between each other like she wasn't even there. Some personal feud. How rude. Not that she cared. Or maybe she did. Burittsu's words had cut deeper than she had wanted to allow, but then again... to be treated like nothing was an exhilarating experience in comparison to her father doting over her, imposing his dominance and prestige. The man was a toad. She loved to hate him, rolling her eyes behind his back. Was this the same she felt for Burittsu? No. This was different. A different sort of hate. Like she merely wanted to pester the blood from under his nails just to see how far he'd go with his disgraceful habits. But... the man was dangerous. He was a game that could cost her life. It scared her. She liked that emotion, that sense of fully losing control over her own actions involuntary. Such an opposite perspective of the world she knew. So unreal.
The two departed. Maigo first, running for the woods. She could see him leave, but her body only responded sluggishly as if it was still waking up from the unrealistically real and painful nightmare she had waded through. Burittsu followed, blurting out something about answers and dying. Was he seeking dead answers? Would he die doing so? Like a horrible flashback, the genjutsu of a moment ago throbbed in her head, cloaked her vision just a fraction of a second. She remembered the fear of dying, the blistering pain of the black. Was that what Burittsu was looking for? It sounded much like that. How odd that the man, seemingly so rude and apathetic, surprised her now by saying such an absurd thing. She smiled at him, or... at the after image imprinted in her mind still, since he was already gone.
Turning her head, she felt the whole world twist. She could see the outlines of her own body swirl away much like her own aura tended to exist so fleetingly. There went Buri, and the afterimage of his afterimage of his afterimage of his ... Reality snapped back in place. Burittsu was running. Chasing the Uchiha. Hey! She wasn't done yet? She had a secret to steal, to covet. Her mind finally reconciling with reality, Nariko gave chase as well. Her body felt unusually slow and the sensation of wind stroking her feathered wings felt oddly unfamiliar, but she chased. Of course she was slower. These guys... they were... so much faster than her. David vs Goliath. Mortal man versus the Mad God. And she would spectate, perhaps prod some more at the God's attention. Would he show her the same world again if she did? If he would, the only way would be down. Down the rabbit hole to no return.
It took her a while to arrive at the forest as she wasn't as fast as the two other shinobi, but with running came the satisfying sensation of feeling real again. Her wings were there, her freedom returned. She had ditched her clan, arrived in an unknown place. It was most fitting that she had earned back that what she had locked away. Her soul had been freed by the touch of the Mad God's genjutsu, her mind had been freed from the norm and the imposed perspectives of her father, and now even her body was freed from its trappings through the blistering blackness of the madness.
Reborn, as it were.
With renewed vigour, she entered the forest and jumped straight into the trees with the help of her wings. The others were nowhere to be seen, nowhere to be heard. Her untrained eyes weren't sharp enough to see the hiding techniques through the foliage, inexperienced enough to detect a shinobi of their rank. But the squirrels were not like that. A white squirrel passed in the distance, its white fur a smudge on the brown and green of the environment. It ignored her as it searched for whatever nut they intended to nibble. And from the foliage, a rather large nut appeared, actually, spinning and twirling in the air... much like his eyes. Eyes that her dormant genjutsu immediately had copied for herself and which would be visible if Maigo even noticed her appearance.
Nariko wasn't sure if the shuriken were aimed at her as with a shinobi of his skill she'd have to be ready for anything. Taking her own kunai to protect herself, deflect the shuriken if need be, she followed the squirrel she had spotted some 15 meters behind from within the trees, landing on a branch on what she considered a 'safe spot'. Even if she was at a 15 meters distance from the whole squirrel ordeal, feeling her heart beat in anticipation of what was to come, she knew in the back of her mind that there was no escaping the Mad God.
The Uchiha oddly hopped from one branch to another, throwing shuriken in a whirl of movement at the squirrels. The way she saw it, the shuriken would certainly miss the squirrels as it pretty much looked like he was throwing them way ahead of the squirrels, but there was no telling what the precision of high ranked shinobi were. After all, she had been too slow to parry the shuriken Burittsu had thrown at her before the fight started. And speaking of which, as Maigo concluded his business with the squirrels, he dashed straight in the foliage towards yet another target she couldn't lay eyes upon. More squirrels to kill?
1169
Total: 7406
- Chakra 85/150:
Buffs
Maintained: Eyes of Chaos, 5/post: +1 reaction [Post 3]
Mimicry: Active - Mimicking Three Tomoe Sharingan
Cooldowns
Glamour Clone - 5/5