There she was, firmly standing on  the ground, tighly sqeezing the scroll in her left hand for once more after such a long time had passed. The woman could not remember the last time she was on a mission and normally she would be looking forwards to bring that feeling of doing something important for the sake of others around again. Though this time everything was completely different. The ground the woman was standing on was totally alien and the scroll had another seal, nothing similar to the ones she was so used to see. That could only mean one thing – Akai finally had cut all the strings, which tied her to the Land of Fire. At least on the official level. Though in her mind, the woman would frequently go back to the certain memories, which had become her inner demons, immune to changes through time and space. Now while sqeezing the scroll, which had somehow become the symbol of loyalty to a certain place, several questions kept popping out into Akai‘s head. What did it feel to finally belong to another place? Was it any different, than the feeling of belonging from before? Or was it even possible to revive that certain feeling, which was long lost or even never there to begin with?


Speaking of inner demons, it seemed as the fate caught up to Akai well as this mission she had to cope with was all about catching an actual monster. Though now she was getting more and more nervious as the minutes were passing by standing there, thinking about various scenarious. To think of it, the woman was not in her best shape, she was pretty much exhausted. Even though the good night sleep saved her from the actual breakdown of the immune system, the tiredness the red head was feeling was more of a mental one. So many changes had happened through such a short period of time, that it left no gap for her to get used to them yet. Or more like it, sometimes what she remembered seemed more real than the reality itself. The past kept haunting her, taking her away from enjoying the success of finally reaching her goal .  Or in the end, maybe it wasn‘t even the kind of success the woman expected for. Though, the main question now was, would Akai be able to catch an actual monster if she could not even get rid off her own ones?


After contemplating on her own existence, Akai finally made a move forward the path leading to the border, as it was the exact place where this monster was throwing his attacks last. Throwing her gaze to the horizon and around, the woman was trying to spot some traces the monster could have left behind. The first step Akai had to do was to find this monster, which, as appeared, was created by some kind of gang full of criminals. It was not all about simply killing it. Finding it might mean identifying the gang’s base, where many criminals, responsible for so many deaths and assaults, were hiding, thus, it seemed as a quite important mission put in this light of thinking. Realising it, Akai started to feel the pressure on herself; she must not fail no matter the condition of her own being here. This was something that she always did. The Hyuuga woman could always find herself in a process of self destruction, which kept being triggered just by simply getting into her own messed up head for too deep. It couldn’t be helped though. The realisation always came too late, when the damage was already done.


While walking and looking around in order to spot some clues of a monster, some unexplainable feeling of free existence overflew Akai for a brief moment of time. Seeing the clear sky and huge groups of mountains, Akai was getting smaller and smaller as their peaks were colliding with the sky at that line formed of clouds, creating an impression as if they would be the solid supporters, keeping the sky from falling down onto the Hyuuga woman and the whole land, crushing everything it in its way.  The water lingering in the several ponds around was clear like a crystal, revealing everything that was below the line of the ground Akai was standing on. It was the first time the woman noticed all this. Due to being concerned with so many problems before, she was not able to see how stunning this land really was.  Even though she still had to be careful of being hunted by her father’s men, she finally was able to walk on this land freely and investigate it, without having to disguise herself fully. Because Akai was a Kumo ninja now. The ending was a new beginning.


After walking some more meters towards the border of the land, Akai was finally lucky to spot some clues, signalling about the monster’s existence being somewhere near. There were several huge rocks scattered into pieces, followed by a formed path of messed up terrain, leading deep into the mountains. Now the woman knew that the monster’s location was there, exactly where this trail led. However, thinking some steps ahead, Akai knew nothing in particular about the monster himself, thus, she couldn’t just simply rush there to face it. The plan was to accumulate some sort of information first to think of the move, which could get this monster off his feet. Actually, the main goal of the mission was not to simply capture him, but to kill him. Thus, it couldn’t be compared to all the missions of finding someone’s dog or cleaning the school, which Akai did before under the severe control of her father. This would be the hardest mission Akai had ever had so far.


With one simple blink of an eye, the woman’s face intensified and her veins were taking their forms, creating a path leading to her eyes. At the same moment, her eyes became even more ghostly looking than they were before. It was the sign of the legacy she was carrying. The legacy of her clan. The so praised Byakugan. However, no matter how much Akai would despise the current situation of her own clan, this doujutsu was the main strength she had right now. Being in this byakugan “state”, the woman was able to spot some bigger living creatures around her easily. Though to her advantage, there were none of them, so she could fully concentrate on only one target. Following the path of messed up terrain, left by this monster she had to capture; Akai was getting near the mountains. If this monster was created, he must have had some chakra running though his artificial body, thus it would be easy for the woman to notice.


The moment Akai felt confident about how the things were settling down, she suddenly got struck by this new presence of the massive amount of chakra. The woman stopped and froze, gazing at the huge figure made of chakra right behind the mountain in front of her. She was correct, that the monster had chakra flowing through his body, though she did not expect he would be so huge in size compared to her. After hesitating to go forward for a brief period of time, the Hyuuga woman made her move. She needed to be quick with this, since she couldn’t maintain her byakugan for too long being in such condition of exhaust. The moment Akai passed the mountain she finally saw an actual form of the monster she would need to deal with. He looked even bigger from up close, crushing everything it his way without any certain pattern of behaviour. However, what could be clearly noticeable was that the size did not work as quite an advantage for the monster as being so big restrained him from moving quickly. He seemed slow and clumsy, but furious indeed, growling and making such a hard to bear noise. At some point, Akai admired the moment of pure destruction she just saw. It was something she had never seen in her life. Except of her own life and soul being destroyed. Though now seeing this physical destruction, it somehow illustrated what Akai had been experiencing in her head for such a long time. This sudden sublime feeling. This sudden excitement. It seemed as if one of those inner demons of her mind would have stepped out off her head and turned into an actual physical monster.


Unfortunately, Akai was not the only one who noticed the monster. The monster soon noticed her as well. In no time, the woman saw him becoming even more furious, getting near where she was standing. It seemed as if the creature was mad at her for some reason. Could it be that Akai crossed his territory? This thought hit Akai like a rock. Even a monster had a feeling of belonging. A place which felt as his own. However, there was no time for sulking at the moment, as the monster was speeding heavily with his fists tightly squeezed, ready to smash the Hyuuga woman into the hard rock of the mountain behind her. However, being skilled in reaction, right at the point where collision should have happened, Akai managed to move herself to the side by jumping lightly. As the result, the monster smashed into the hard rock himself, hitting his head quite hard, which caused him to start falling backwards. By colliding with a rock, the creature made this noise as if something would have exploded. Even though Akai was standing there ready to fight, still trying to maintain her byakugan for that reason, she took a deep breath of relief while seeing the monster fall down. At first the woman feared that due to his size, this creature would be quite a piece of work to kill, however, she did not expect he would be such a clumsy and rather stupid thing. Though again, it was not the ending of it yet.


After several seconds had passed, the creature emitted a loud growling. He was muttering on the ground, shaking his hands and legs in chaotic manner in order to try and get his huge body up again. Every move the monster would make would cause some level of destruction on the terrain around. Thus, Akai was jumping around trying to avoid any scatters of the ground from hitting her. Just the second the woman noticed this monster got a grip of the ground and was stable enough to finally stand up, she knew she had to think of something quickly, because in the case the creature would manage to stand up firmly, she wouldn’t be able to counter the force he might come at her with. Seeing no other choice, Akai thought that the wisest decision would be to knock the monster out of balance again, while he still hadn’t regained his full stability. Thus, the woman positioned herself in front of struggling monster and slammed her both palms. In the result, the chaotic flow of wind hit the creature and all of his efforts were all for nothing again. He was knocked out of his feet once more, opening an opportunity for Akai to make another move.


Now that Akai had won some more seconds to work around the target, she took out the simple kunai. She always thought that the beauty of things were in their simplicity. Thus, with same simplicity she may end this. While the creature was struggling to get up, the woman jumped onto his belly. The monster muttered in response, trying to catch and slam her with his palms as if she would be like some annoying bug fluttering around him. Though, Akai kept jumping from spot to spot, foreseeing each and every of his slow movements due to the effect of byakugan. The Hyuuga woman gradually would get her way towards the monster’s neck. The monster would growl instantly in reflection to the feeling of something tickling, making his skin of the neck vibrate. It was almost to the point where Akai lost her balance and she was about to fall down. Though, she managed to get back on her feet by pushing herself up from the surface with one hand. One wrong move and she would have been scattered into pieces by this chaotic monster. But fortunately, seeing all of the vital spots in this creature’s body, the woman quickly found one in his neck and rested her kunai deeply in it. The monster started to mutter even harder, so that he threw Akai off his body unexpectedly. Even though she ended hitting the ground, she watched the monster with great excitement. He was growling, he was moaning, he was grasping something in the ear with his hand. Akai kept admiring. In the face of death, the creature had such energy and strength to fight the ending, even though she was not even sure if he knew what that ending actually was. Eventually the monster was starting to lose his essence and his fight with the unknown was getting more passive.  Akai watched him satisfied until he completely stopped moving. Surrounded by pieces of destroyed terrain and array of mountains, the creature seemed as if he would be the stone piece of it all. Now the only thing left to do was to send a sign to the village forces to come and either remove the body of this thing completely or collect it for the further investigation.


While walking away from the unmoving monster, still bearing the fresh feeling of an experience she just had, Akai came to think about lots of various things in her mind. Actually, this physical monster did not resemble the haunting demons from Akai's past at all. The later ones could never ever be destroyed or get ridden off. They were the part of her which couldn’t be cast out without completely being embraced instead. Because maybe....maybe they were the best of herself.

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