The streets of Konoha with all their protection would have their peace violated. A harmless mist would flood through the streets as a single man would walk. His bare feet scorching the earth beneath them. Leaving behind burnt footprints in his wake all the way from the gate where a guard still sat facing a corner and cowering as he mumbled prayers to himself and gripped his holy symbol. Whatever faith he had being his only hold to sanity now. Sero had come and with him a purpose. However he would usually contain his presence at least somewhat except he was not himself tonight. Though his passage was relatively harmless the homes he passed on the way suddenly had their occupants stirring in their sleep. Nightmares taking grip of them as he passed. The beast of Kiri was within the village hidden in the leaf now. His mind focused on one individual. Above all else she was his intention. His passage was smooth enough though as he didn't actively harm anyone within Konoha. Simply passing through towards a specific establishment. His intel suggested she would be there. One whom he had taken in and who in return had betrayed his trust.

At first even for her he would be too far away to feel. However the moment he passed the gate small hints would begin to appear. A line of spiders crawling across the window, Someone screaming in their sleep in the distance. The clouds above Konoha rumbling as the first drops of rain fell. The cold frost on the windows flowing back from the center and fading. However soon she would feel him. Know him on the edge of her senses. However something was off. One moment she would have whoever was with her in the room and the next the lights would flicker. After the flicker several forms were easily seen cowering into the darker shadows of the room. Where the light touched least. Pale forms huddled into themselves and mumbling. "Why is he so angry?" "I had never felt a single emotion from him before." "He is coming for someone....someone will be joining us soon." All in whispers. However in unison the blank faces would look up. Eyes removed from their sockets and replaced with dark holes as they gazed to the window. A green mist had begun to form outside and surround the building. They would cry out and the lights would flicker before all but one was gone.

One younger girl, someone Maigo had known and tried to save long ago was curled into a ball under the window. Rocking back and forth as she held her knee's to her chest. Pale and void of life as the dark pits of her eyes would stare blankly at Nova and only Nova. She would look to her as the thunder would boom outside. Lighting up the mist for a moment to see the figure approaching as a shadow. A tall pale man in robes as dark as the night. A sword on his left hip and long hair flowing behind him. However on his back for just a moment was a flash of eight long spindly legs like spider arms before those faded before he did from the flash of light too. Waiting outside for her. For her to confront him. The girl would stare at her and whimper before whispering. "Nova....oh god nova.....you should be running." Then the thunder would peel again and his form was gone. The loud thunder would block the noise but the girl would let out a silent scream as she clutched her head in her hands before the lights flickered and she too was gone. Sero was waiting.

Sero had managed to get within the building without raising any alarms. The downstairs was void of human life but little red eyes would watch from every corner. His spider kingdom having sent a witness to guard him. Not enough to take down a trained shinobi surely as they were simply a horde of tiny spiders but something still to pester and should he take a life to feed. More often than not when Sero left the manor they would feed. Hungry for human flesh like a delicacy. They had consumed insects and at one point even an adult buck they had come across partially consumed by another predator so they were not starved but for them her flesh would be a wonderful meal. Still he would not move from his position. Standing in the center of the dining area as his cloak and hair would float around him as if he were submerged in water. The smell of burnt wood idly filling the air from where he stood. The difference was however that stood out was his left arm, the sleeve remained empty. This seemingly immortal persona had been severely injured at some point between their last meeting. One might wonder how it had happened if not for all three of his blood red eyes glowing in the dark as they watched her approach.

He could smell it as easily as he could see and hear it. The fear that radiated from her. So much like the first time they met but minus the bravery she had shown him. He could feel the anticipation in the air even as he felt around for others. Had she raised an alarm he had not detected? Would she sacrifice others to her rage? He understood that likely she was under protection from all of Konoha but for the moment he did not care. He was prepared to burn them all should they interfere. To set a blaze upon the heads of anyone or anything between him and her. He was driven as he was angry. His facial expression was almost as blank as usual but rage filled his gaze. All three eyes staring into her very soul with each step she took. However he did not rush her or draw a weapon. Instead he would speak in turn with a dull voice and yet as he spoke the air seemed to fill with a growl behind his voice. He was showing emotion which was something she likely had never seen from him before. As he spoke his very words shattered the fragile lights in the room.

"I am owed an explanation."

His remaining right hand would lift and as it did small green flames would fill the air around the room akin to candle light minus the candles. Casting a bright green glow over the room as a chair at one of the tables would seem to scoot out by its own accord. As if beckoning her to sit there before him. Still he made no move to harm her. His aura however whispered of threats unspoken. Demanding compliance without a word as the alternative was clear. The spiders shifted like a storm cloud on the wall as he moved forward himself. Gliding to settle into a chair across from the one he had presented to her. As he sat the chair would seem to burn and expand further than it had been prior. Forming into a throne much like his one from his own manor as he settled back into it. Those three eyes watching her and waiting for her response. To see if she would defy him even now.

Sero would seethe for a moment where he sat as she would choose to finally join him at his table despite his hostile nature. Joining him out of fear of course but none besides those who knew him as she did could understand that this was not what he had wanted from her when he met her. Respect, understanding, Above all loyalty. However he did not revel in her fear before now. It was just a tool to strengthen her as needed. Fear was for those wishing to survive that were not born to stand above others. Fear was a healthy trait for those who controlled it. Never had he wished it to be the prominent sensation between her and him despite his anger before her now. He would take in a breath as he would look to her now. Despite the rage, the monstrous sensations coming from him there was something more there. A deep sense of the empty. Something so very lonely sat within those blood red eyes as they studied her. As she spoke of apologies his hand would clench as his fingers dug deep into the wood. His hand actually shaking at the words as if insulted.

"your...apologies."

How soft a sound and yet his shoulders would shake with something almost like a broken laughter. It sounded hollow and yet there was pain inside of it. So many emotions few thought this beast capable of. He would finally stop as he looked to her. The flames shifting in color as they would shift from a malicious green to a deep blue and cascade the color around the room. He would look to his hand a moment before lifting it from the table where his bare fingers had dug trenches into it. Lifting before his face as he studied it and spoke. His voice seemed to tremble every few words or so.

"How could you truly be sorry though? You do not even know what you have truly done. It is not simply that you left child. Nor is it that I hear you have chosen to cast out Kiri from your world entirely. Those wounds stand alone and are but the obvious. Did you know I have no sense of touch? I have never felt pain or pleasure. The touch of another or even the taste of food or the hunger from none. I have been cast out since I was born as but a monster no one wished for. So it was that I eventually gained power alone. I served a purpose for a country and rose as high as I could through the ranks without actually holding any office of political value. This left me alone for some time. That is until I created the Unmei. My children born as I was as something other than human. As such they are despised for it as I am. Many students have come to my door but paid a price. A corruption. to their soul to make them more like me. I spared you this curse of ours though. Because you were the hope for my children. For my lifetime of seclusion. If one human could come to the manor, befriend us and be a part of us uncorrupted and unharmed the people would learn to love us as we have never been."

He would clench his hand a moment as it trembled. A small droplet of his own blood moving from his palm down his wrist to stain the hem of his sleeve. He would look to it before suddenly he would pause. Unclenching his blood stained fingers before touching them to his cheek. A single tear seemed to have escaped him. How tired he must be to show this weakness. But she had wounded him in ways no one ever had. Broken the fragile trust he had for humans as it were. His red eyes would shift to her once more before the flames violently shifted to green again as his glare would take her in.

"You, my hope for the future of my creation, abandoned us without even a word. And you would simply have me take it as an apology?"

Sero as always radiated heat. It was just how his body worked. He had been hot to the touch since he was born. Hell spawn they had called him. Some punishment brought upon the ninja nation by the old gods. Or perhaps a new god yet to realize his potential. Now even missing an arm he stood at the pinnacle of his power. His might unmatched by most and many thought of him as a god of the dead. His Hansha gate becoming famous through the nations now. The spider clan given life, the Hansha gate awoken. All of it was like prophecy with a father of horrors at the helm. Even now with his chakra reduced in its own pitiful way he stood above the average human. Something about him lacking that which man held and she had been the only one to truly glimpse his humanity. He would not allow himself to show it long. His weakness, his vulnerability. Like a child staring at a burnt painting of his parents he had long since marked with his own acidic touch. Destroying it in a fit of passionate rage and a sense of being helpless and unable to understand at the time. Now he knew that man was meant to betray each other. To only live for ones self. He served a nation but his own purpose was far more selfish.

She would touch his arm and the fires would flare as the light in the room filled with the thunder outside. For a moment the dead appeared around them in a tight circle. Shoulder to shoulder as touching him brought vision to her of what he saw. Of what was connected to him with each peel of thunder. The dead attached to him and staring at her. As soon as the flash of thunder was gone so were they. He would look to the hand touching him and wait for it to be removed. That moment of humanity removed from his dull grey eyes once more as they appeared to be dead again. Empty pits with a void of any emotion or real life. No longer did he reveal his weakness to her. He was who she knew him to be again. Yet the memory would echo. How much did he contain within him? Did he always push it down so strongly or did it only appear in fits. Still he would speak in a dull voice.

"True words though you speak I hear other tales. Words of you defying Kiri in force and even fighting us. Denying us any alliance or trade. Sinking further and further away from those who would give you bread and shelter in your time of need now that you have the power to deny us. I even hear rumor that you will not have trade with us. That you will not show the world your new settlement. However I would still offer you one last breath of peace between us. My mercy for you knowing limits but not yet reached. Give one of our own a chance to prove you personally that Kirigakure can benefit your people still. If she can prove this, I wish for you to consider opening a port of trade in one of the southern most points of your nation. By the ocean with the village hidden in the mist. We need not be invited to your door....simply your market."

With that he would glance to the wall to his left. Speaking in a tongue that was not any language a low level sealer or one non proficient in sealing would understand. Like whispers with no real words. He spoke and seals formed in an arc on the wall. Creating a grey gateway. Where ever Verdandi was when he spoke a gate would open at a wall for her beckoning her with his voice. If she touched it she would be pulled through what would feel like ice water before stepping into the dark room. Presented now as Sero's envoy.

Verdandi had a rather large agenda to attend to during her stay in the leaf. As secretary to her aunt and kage she was taking care of many diplomatic tasks that would but only stand in the sign of peace between Kiri and the other great nations. Dandi’s newly appointed position as commander and leader of the ANBU in Kiri had given her many new responsibilities to take care of. But alas this position was a well-kept secret and to the public eye Verd would be little more than a helping hand to her aunt in order to lower the burden of the vast duties the Mizukage was utterly swamped with. Ayakashi made proper use of her nieces’ unusual persona within the top ranks of the mist. Whilst most of her hands were veterans of war and demons in their very own realm, the snow princess was untainted and free of prejudice towards any of the other nations. Her latent talent to make friends even among those that were political competitors to the mist would serve as a public sign that kiri also had its soft spot among the many rough edges it gave away with its dark figures and suspicious desire for power.

Ever since the princess returned from the suna reclamation project, she had been busy to understand the depths of its success and failures. The wiping of criminals and corrupt radicals had been certainly a positive effect that would open pathways for the people of the wind to create something new and clean on its ashes. But some nations, specifically kumo had shown little interest into bringing new life into the wind and Verdandi regarded it as a great failure that due to the nation’s selfish behavior suna was once again left with little of the resources and rebuild options that were originally intended to be delivered. While she could not control what the other nations would be doing with the refugees, they had amassed from the broken lands that left little sustainability for them to survive on, she could however have direct influence over those who she had personally managed in Kiri’s camps. Months had gone by since the great tragedy at Inabayama had brought an end to the nation’s presence in the wind. Words of how the remains of suna was now slowly recovering from its fate had travelled far and wide yet they would keep the actual depths of their progress secret and hidden away from public knowledge, leaving them with nothing but a chance to wonder what was really going on behind the scenes and below the sandy dust of the wind nation. In these last months Verd had overseen the large refugee camps near Kirigakure and made sure to keep them well fed and provided. A first motion to give these people a more permanent future had already been executed. Many of the refugees had left Kiri’s camps to new shores in the mist and even towards the ever-growing nation in the land of snow.

However, among these refugees only few of the sand had been willing to stay within the mist nations border for long term purposes. The sand people would stick together and upon given the choice to stay in a new home there they would prefer to remain within the camps and request their caretakers to make haste within their offer to return the children of the sand back home to their own shores and give them a new chance at helping to rebuild what was now still in its infant stages of progress. Whilst Verdandi had no actual knowledge over how far Suna’s recreation was going or even over what was still planned to happen, she was not one to deny her refugees their wishes and under her personal request, the commanders of Kiri had come to the conclusion that, with the major dangers gone and the larger villages under a new potential future of prosperity, the refugees that were held in the mist would return back home to where they belong and where they wished to return to. Sero helped the young snow princess prepare for this day and had requested her appearance to meet someone that might be interested over what will become of the children of the wind harbored within the mist.

Verdandi was attending one of the political get-togethers were the officials socialize and feast together. There was no specific goal on her agenda in here and she was already bored to the bone. Spending most of her time alone at the balcony, glaring into the beauty of the leaf. As she dared to return and face the political nonsense, Sero’s gate would open next to the balcony’s exit, leaving the princess with the choice between a further hassle of nonsense pleasantries and the invite of her teacher and comrade. The decision was fairly easy. She had expected Lord Osada’s invite for another conversation on the topic. She had to report its progress to him anyway. So Verd quietly stepped through the gate only to appear in a room with whom she expected and a beautiful lady that she had no knowledge of and about. Verdandi would deeply bow in respect, her usual Jōnin garment layering the chakra laces over her leather armor.

“Lord Osada, its good to see you. As requested, I may inform you that the troops have rallied the large refugee camp and are preparing its dispatch to their ships. Upon my return I can personally oversee their transfer back to suna. It will take a few days to load the ships with all the building resources that have been granted to them. But I’m certain everything will be ready for departure by the time we return back home. The refugees are aching to see their old home again and I cannot blame them. Many months did they spend within our care but they long to reunite themselves with those whom were left behind or chose to stay on their own accord.”

Verdandi did not dare to barge further into their conversation. She simply brought news of the progress of their operation. The situations seemed to be somewhat emotionally loaded so Verd would keep her mouth shut about anything further that wished to escape her lips except for what she was supposed to say. Her gaze still occasionally moving towards the pretty lady he had in company. Given that he had called for her report now must mean that she was somehow connected to his gift for the wind. Seeing as how preparations had already found its way to conclusion, their safe return was a given anyhow. With all being said and done and upon Sero's confirmation that required intel had been provided. Verd would bow once again and leave accordingly without further questions. Duty has been served.

[EXIT]

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