Stage 1 - Denial (Kasuga)

Watching Kasuga succumb to grief at the news of his sister's demise, Akihana found herself torn between both boys, both needing comfort from a reality they had to eventually face. Unaure who to turn to in this moment, the kunoichi reached out an arm to each boy, pulling them closer to her. Arata shrugged away, trying to hide his own tears as his dark winged counterpart openly wept. Watching Arata storm away, Akihana noted a Queensguard follow, leaving her to look after Kasuga.

As the dark Aura began seeping from the boy, Akihana was already in motion, the handseals for a Hikariton barrier forming around her and Misaki's little brother. The blonde wasn't sure what the darkness would fo once allowed to bleed into the outside world but it was a safe bet that it wouldn't be good. Uncaring of what the aura would do to her physically, she pulled the weeping boy towards her, enveloping him safely in her arms. Hugging him tightly to herself, Akihana let the boy grieve. He was so young and he needed to cry, just as she needed to be there for him. For his sake and Misaki's.

"It's oksy sweetie," she soothed. Even as a distinctky different persona took over the child's body, not startling her in the least. She had seen Misaki with Maya and though this apparent possession was interesting, it wasn't important right now. The only thing that mattered in that moment was the child she held on to, rmbracing him just as warmly as the pool of light that sarrounded kunoichi and child. "It's okay to cry, it's okay to be sad. Your sister was one of the best people I knew and countless tears were shed for her. It hurt us all to. ose her so I understand how it must be hurting you.

Hands glowing gold with her own brand of healing chakra, Akihana hugged the boy, her touch seeping warmth and comfort into him, relaxing the muscles he was straining from his sobs, replenishing his tear ducts even as his eyes ran red into her gown.

"But please understand, it was how she wanted to go. Your sister was a fighter til the very end. People started abandoning Kumo at the end, when it seemed things would get worse. Not Misaki though. She fought for what she believed in and she gave her life for it. So it's alright to cry at losing her but you must always remember her with pride. She was a real shinobi, and it had nothing to do with her power. Her true stregnth cane from her resolve and her iron will to defend those she loved. "

He hadn't noticed the barrier until he had felt the warm embrace of the female cover him. The darkness that had a hold of him swept from the depths of his body overtook him, the light he had once held swallowed by his despair and yet...this new light penetrated through. Though he thrashed about for what seemed like a few moments, his body soon gave in to her calming embrace as his rage subsided and his anger ridden voice was replaced with sobs. He couldn't explain it...It had felt as if his whole world had came crashing down around him and in its chaos a break of serenity had overcame him, washed over him like a wave. In that moment the wings and aura disappeared as he sobbed into the woman's embrace, letting out all of his strife.

His mind washed blank of all malice until all that remained was peace, he continued to cry into her arms before the soothing chakra of hers silenced him. In that moment his body and chakra went still, almost as if for that short moment he was at peace. He would never be able to see his sister again, but...just then he knew that he had a legacy to carry on. The more she had spoke the more he had felt better though he could never truly let go of it. His last sibling had been gone from this world, protecting their fathers home but that had left him and his father with nothing. His wet eyes turned to the Raikage hat as he stared at it. Misaki once took that mantle and wore the hat with pride, taking the entirety of Kumo upon her. She died for the village, but also left a hole in their family.

He no longer knew how to feel about this and yet...he did at the same time he did. His sobs slowly turned into small hiccups as he hugged her tightly, small arms wrapping around her as he snuggled into her embrace for a moment. Kasuga was yet to fall asleep, but he needed this. In place of his mother he needed the embrace that had told him despite his situation it would be fine. There he sat in silence as he sighed softly and spoke," All I wanted was for our family to become whole...I knew dad had known she wasn't around anymore...but I wanted to prove him wrong and bring her home. Now I know that I can't but what should I do now? I..Don't know how to look at the world if all its done to me was take...Lost my brother...now my sister...what should I do Akihana?," his eyes turned to her slowly as he wiped his face. He was the last Ametsuchi to carry the line, but he didn't know what to do at the moment. As his spear laid underneath the hat, his mind began to wander until everything went silent for him- Just what was his goal supposed to be now?

It felt as though the boy had cried for an eternity, and yet it couldn't possibly have been enough to mourn a loss this great. Akihana herself didn't cry, acting more as the sponge that absorbed all the boy's sorrows and pain. She had shed her own tears a long time ago and now, well, now it was time to help others do the same.

"I know, sweetie. I understand," she soothed as the boy explained about wanting to make his family whole again. Ninjas led scattered lives, of that much Akihana had learned at an early age. Even as a girl she hadn't been able to spend as much time with her grandfather as she would have liked. At first she had been sad but a little later, the young kunoichi had realized that her grandfather's time was not his own. It belonged to his duty. It was why she had initially worked so hard in Kumo to provide every ninja with a family, or at least a family like atmosphere. Finding family while on the go was almost never possible unless a ninja made it her goal to provide that to everyone.

"I know you miss her and I know it hurts. It's probably going to keep hurting for a while, Kasuga-kun, but whenever it does, you can always talk to me about it," the blonde spoke softly, releasing the boy from the hug but by no means breaking the reassuring physical contact she had established with him before. "I know I'm not her, but she was one of my best friends. And though Misaki is irreplaceable, I can promise to love you as much as she would have had she lived." Slowly reacing ou to wipe the remainder of the boy's tears with gentle hands, Akihana managed a small smile athim.

"You know, I don't have a little brother, I always wanted one though. Would you do me the great honor of being mine?" she asked, golden eyes glowing with love and sincerity as they gazed upon the child. "Families are easy when you're young, darling," she explained, reaching over to tuck a strand of Kasuga's hair back in place fondly. "It's always mother father, brothers and sisters. But when we grew up, we can make a different kind of family, the one we choose for ourselves. And I would love for you to be a part of ours."

For a moment Kasuga looked up to Akihana and listened to her every word slowly, taking them all in and holding onto them. Though she wasn't family she had treated him as such and he imagined this is what her sister had all her time in Kumo when their father was missing. It was odd how the male had felt so calm in her embrace which admittedly was better than his mothers. Snuggling into her a bit more he would stand up and shake his head in order to make his pepper colored hair behave. At that moment he noticed that Arata had been gone and tilted his head wonder what his relationship with his sister had been.

Family. It was all he had wanted honestly. His first semblance of family was a sham by his partner/demonic host and now his family simply consisted of his mother and father. A father who had been busy all of the time and a mother who he was still getting used to being around. A family that wasn't whole. Somehow...he felt better around Akihana in the sense of exactly what he wanted.

As she wiped the last of his tears away he stepped just shy of her to pick up the hat and placed it on his head slowly, and looked up into the sky. He wondered what his sister thought of the sky when she looked to it with this hat on and now he had it. Kumo...a far stretch for him, a home that had been taken and turned into something that he didn't know. His yellow eyes trailed over to Akihana slowly when she had asked for him to become her little brother. His eyes at first small became wide and taken aback at the question.

For a moment he would smile and moved towards her as he almost glomped her to the ground and smiled," Sure... I'll be your little brother. Though that would mean i'd need to stay here a bit longer so I can grow onto you," he was happy to say the least. Standing up he would pick up his spear and smile, thrusting it into the air in test of resolve so to speak. Sure he had been broken into pieces, but from this small action he was going to pick himself back up and become something his sister could look down on and be proud of. Setting the spear onto his back he would turn to his new sister and smile," Should we go and look for Arata?," though he was still getting over his own shock, the other male still needed someone there for him.

For the first time since she'd met the boy, the kunoichi let out a small laugh a the idea of the boy needing her to grow on him. She was perfectly fine with that. Misaki's brother was her brother but she would play any part the child needed. A sister, a mother, a confidante, she would help in whichever way she could to get over the loss of his sister. "Well, that's perfectly okay with me. We can get you a room at the palace where Arata, his older brother Arashi and I live right now. You'll learn pretty soon that Hoshi is very different from other shinobi villages. It wasn't even a shinobi village up until a year ago when I first arrived here," she explained carefully, putting away the remains of their picnic back into the respective baskets. Arata had barely finished his sandwich and Kasuga had at least had dessert. Akihana herself hadn't eaten anything but that was nothing new. Food wasn't necessary, many things in life just no longer were even if she refused to acknowledge the reason behind that realization.

When Kasuga mentioned going to look for Arata, the kunoichi extended a hand to stop him, gesturing for him to sit down once again. "I'm afraid we can't do anything to help Arata right now," she explained, a soft note of sadness in her voice. "You see, the Yondaime Raikage, your sister's friend and student, he was Arata's sensei. The people who attacked Kumo, they took me and Arata hostage and kept us in a secluded space so we couldn't fight alongside your sister and the rest of the squad. Arata thinks that... that we let them down. That its our fault they aren't here with us. He needs time to process the information, this is the first time he's lost something major and I'm afraid it will take some time for him to make peace with it."

In a way, Arata had the luxury to brood and feel hard done by. Akihana had shed her own tears at being unable to help her friends but she had had to remain strong for her son. Her tears were saved for her pillow at night when Arata was sound asleep. one of the first things Akihana had learned from being a mother was how to cry completely silently and the lesson had come in handy a year ago. As a result though, Arata seemed to think his mother felt no remorse for the deaths of the people she had held so dear to her heart.

"That being said," she added, a hopeful note in her voice. "I am his mother, I know a few tricks to draw him out." With that, the blonde rose to her feet, giving a hand to Kasuga to follow suit. "Before you arrived, we were training for a new jutsu my friend invented. Arata is irresistibly drawn to training and chakra. He thinks its "cool", a concept I will likely never get but he tells me it is. So if we train for a bit, he might just show up again to join us. What do you think, Kasuga-kun?"

While he had been stopped from looking for the younger male, the thought of living in a palace for a bit made him a little happier at least. Hearing that the younger male who would soon become his little nephew had a brother he wondered how old he had been in contrast to Kasuga, who had been reverted to such a younger age. Putting that aside he tilted his head a bit and took the time to look around the area, so he had been right in this assumption that this had not been a shinobi village for long. It was too...normal in the sense that the buildings and even the people themselves seemed so much better without chakra, which he had been meaning to ask about those building with the weird symbols adorning them.

Shaking it from his head for a moment he nodded slowly seeing that she had devised a plan in order to get Arata to come back outside where they had been, a little spar had been the solution. Smiling he nodded and picked up the hat moving it to a safe location where it would not be in any harms way, heaven forbid something happened to the hat and he ended up going insane because of it. So slowly he would move to a nearby tree and hang the hat onto a branch and smiled," i'll get better...just to wait," turning he would walk five meters from Akihana and hold his hands out which had been holding the spear. Within a silver flash it would disappear causing his hands to now become empty though with this it allowed him to summon something else from the plane.

Bringing his hands to his side he would summon forth an armor that was connected to not only the earth but his own body as well. Smiling his clothing would change into a white cloak which had spilt onto both sides of his form. His pants would also turn white with orange trims as his hair which had once been black and white reverted to an all white color. Within his hair sat an arrangement of orange feather like bonds and finally summoned to his arms which would float just above them would be a pair of colossal gauntlets.

Smiling he would shake his head and allow the hair to fall behind the hood on his back as he looked towards Akihana," Alright nee-chan let's do it," taking his fighting stance he would wait for Akihana to do the same before running at her and punching the ground below him, sending himself into the air and aiming the other gauntlet at her, shooting it towards her. Something within him felt different to the point the elder demon within him smiled for some reason," Little twerp is growing fast in front of me...still belongs to me however," while he didn't admit it, the bond between Kasuga and Erebes had been growing deeper and deeper.

Kasuga's enthusiasm was infectious indeed. He may not have known it but he was a lot like his sister, always battle ready as shown by how quickly he had interpreted training as them having a spar. Akihana couldn't blame the kid though, he had only just met her. How could he know that the blonde rarely ever sparred. The kunoichi had only sparred properly with three people in her life and all three had been very close friends. No, she would take Kasuga through the basics first. No doubt he was skilled by virtue of being an Ametsuchi but Akihana had little to impart in terms of actual fighting. Someone very dear to her had once told her she laid traps and made strategies, and that was the best thing she could teach this young man now.

"Uh uh, not so fast," she called out as Kasuga appeared in full armor and equipment in front of her. Applying her mastered dispersing technique, the kunoichi appeared to disappear at the spot, appearing about three meters behind Kasuga and where his foot had landed, neatly avoiding the impact of the ground he may have injured. "Your sister was a great purveyor of every element. She had an ability that made her store and use unlimited elements so lets start with seeing what elements you have proficiency over shall we?" she asked, making sure her voice would carry over to wherever Arata was. If her voice didn't reach him though, she wasn't worried. The feel of chakra in the air drew the boy near like bees to honey.

"Here's a sensory technique based on rain I find very helpful," the blonde explained, bringing her hands together slowly to form the seals at a speed Kasuga would be able to see and memorize easily. "I was never much of a fighter. Many people thought that didn't make me a great ninja but your sister and her friends saw that I was not entirely terrible a tracking and they taught me more sensory jutsu. This one, makes it rain, and imbues said rain with the user's chakra." Just as she spoke, clouds covered the area of the water gardens they occupied and in a moment, small droplets of rain were pattering down on the two of them. Kasuga was safe under his armor and gauntlets but Akihana - dressed in nothing but a pal blue silk gown and a small golden tiara, was soaked through in an instant.

"Did I forget to mention its helpful to have an umbrella when you're doing this?" she asked with a life, golden eyes scanning the area for Arata or any signs of spectates. Their little session would have to be contained within the garden lest someone from the city saw the use of ninjutsu and started panicking. "This jutsu allows you to sense things going on as far as your rain extends. I've kept it controlled to here because we don't want to alarm anyone but using it in a place where water already exists is even more beneficial as your chakra laden rain will infect the natural water and add to your sensory."

When his fist collided with the ground he immediately began to look around as Akihana had disappeared from sight and at that point he went into puzzled faced mode. Looking around frantically, the gauntlets would return to their floating position but stop just above his arms as he heard her voice and turned towards the direction in which her voice had came from. In an instant it had seemed like her entire being had disappeared from the area around them, even evading his chakra senses which had been...quite odd. He only knew of his own technique which allowed him to do so, but when he listened more intently she was going to begin to teach him jutsu in order to become stronger. A smile went on his face as he nodded and folded his arms as he listened, comically the gauntlets would also float as if they were crossed.

When she had confirmed herself that his sister had been able to learn all of the elements through a jutsu, it reminded him of what his friend Linqqui had been speaking of in their first meeting. While he didn't get the name of the technique he was almost certain that this is what Akihana was speaking of. Nodding he would watch her slowly as she made the hand seals, his hands imitating them slowly as she did so and his Kenseigan would activate just to see the flow of chakra for the said technique. Seeing that the technique was water based in nature he smiled knowing that he could do it and watched as it rained. His smile only grew bigger as he spun in the rain for a moment, but when he had noticed Aki getting drenched one of the gauntlets would be floating over her head in order to block the rain from drenching her more.

Seeing that one could use a technique to bring forth rain and also use it as a base for sensory fascinated Kasuga, which as he smiled and formed the hand seals again he would attempt to contain it just as his big sister had done as well. Within moments as it began to rain he could feel and see everything that his water had touched, even to the guards themselves. His smile continued as he held it for as long as he could before dispelling it and nodding," Water jutsu are fun . You can always use one of them to benefit the other can't you?," he thought about it for a moment.

In his forgetfulness he forgot to explain what elements he had actually knew, most of which were basic except for gale release which he had just recently learned. Looking over to AKihana he would begin to speak rather quickly," I know I should have said something earlier, but my elements are Lightning, Fire and Water. Those are the only one's i'm proficient in at least," he said this out of truth and a hint of embarrassment not knowing what the blond would say.

It didn't surprise her in the least how fast Kasuga picked up the jutsu, he was after all the brother of Misaki. Akihana's knowledge of the Ametsuchi bloodline was limited but she did know that it was among one of the most revered bloodlines in the shinobi world, and the most powerful. It was a wonder Kasuga had made it here without being attacked. Though now that she thought about it, perhaps it wasn't luck. The child had excessively high levels of chakra and the way he'd sprung into action bespoke someone who was not only used to battles but used to winning them. The realization made her proud.

When one of his gauntlets floated up to protect her form her own rain, Akihana couldn't help the soft fond smile that lit her face. It was hard to explain but the child reminded her so much of Yaju in some ways though the two clearly had no connections. Kasuga's small act of courtesy called to mind her former boss and kage drinking two weeks worth of bad coffee instead of just telling her how to make a good cup. Yaju had suffered through too many flasks of too bitter, too sweet, too creamy and too bland coffee until Akihana had stumbled upon the right combination.

"That's a good mix of elements," she reassured the boy, pushing aside a clump of damp golden hair out of her eyes. "Especially since water and lightning compliment each other nicely. I myself have the same three elements so we'll probably share a lot of the same techniques and combinations," she added with an encouraging smile. The rain continued to pour though Kasuga had already dispelled his. It was needed for her next demonstration.

"Now, I'm sure as a lightning user, you've heard of the chidori technique. The lightning cutter as some people call it. I'm going to do it on a really really small scale because we don't want to hurt anyone, but please look closely at all the seals - there are quite a few - and how I shape the lightning chakra into a makeshift blade of sorts." With that, she motioned for Kasuga to move a bit further away just in case. Even then, she turned so her back was to him and her attack was in front of both of them rather than aimed at him directly.

The small spark in her fingers began with a dull chirping noise, lightning cracking and fizzing in her fingertips as it gained chakra and momentum. When the spark was about about as big as her pinky finger, Akihana sunk gracefully to her knees on the wet grass, extending her hand out in front of her as though releasing a tiny silver fish from her grasp.

The effect was instant, the lighting shot to the very edge of the rain's parameter, leaving a trail of sparks and charred grass, sounding like two dozen jilted birds all complaining at once.

"And that is the chidori technique. What do you say, wnat to give it a go?"

Kasuga would continue to watch as the rain poured down on the two of them somberly, it was as if the rain was cleansing him but at the same time absolving him. His smile remained as he continued to cancel out his own rain while still giving Akihana the coverage of his gauntlets. The right armed gauntlet would continue to hover over her extending its range so that it would allow her to have an extra moving room so to speak. His body however would be fine as the Coralen Shift kept him dry for the most part while he had used the other gauntlet to protect himself as well. With his eyes focused on Akihana he listened as she mentioned she had the same elements as him while also explaining why water and lightning were such a good combination.

Nodding at this realization, he further continued to listen to her as she explained what the chidori techniques were. His eyes instantly switched to their lightning form while he watched her perform the lightning jutsu' seals, the fact that he could see the flow of chakra made it easier for him to understand it as the seals were made. Slowly he would make the seals in repetition following Akihana's lead but didn't execute it just yet. When she had finished and pushed chakra into each of her fingers, his eyes realized that she had been pushing the chakra into a visible form then changing it so that the lightning had form.

His head would tilt slightly as he looked at her hands, the sounds of chirping birds ringing into his ear as the technique formed into her hands. Smiling he would clap and nod as he was finally ready to try the technique himself. After watching Akihana show restraint on the technique himself, he did the hand seals she had shown him and after a moment knelt down and focused his chakra for a moment. In his silence he took slow breathes and pushed his chakra into the palm of his hand, focusing on making it small before changing its form into lightning. His issue was as soon as he did so, the lightning had engulfed his arm before sparking out, a slightly grunt of disappointment leaving his lips before trying again.

Leaning down he would perform the hand seals again and this time start big, forming his chakra in his whole hand including his fingers before smiling. Turning the sparks onto his fingers first he had trailed them to the center of his hand before igniting it, causing the chidori to form in his hand albeit in a now smaller scale. Shaking his hand he would disperse the technique and look up to Aki to see if he had done good or not.