Tayuya's flute please <3

Even Akihana didn't know what she hoped to find anymore.

But that was how it had all started wasn't it? Hope. As a child, she'd once heard an older woman of the Akari clan cruelly call a newborn stupid, but not out rightly. Akari women did everything with biting tact. The child had been called a few giggles short, eluding to the folktale that upon the birth of a child, a fairy laughed to greet the infant into the world. Should the mythical fairy not express the appropriate amount of joy, the child was born with problems.

If the saying was true, Akihana was certain the fairy in charge of ushering her own tiny self into the world had slept late and missed the show entirely. As a result, Akihana had grown up shy, awkward and forever tainted in the shadows of Senritsu. And yet what she lacked in actual prowess, the kunoichi had always made up for in faith. Blind, unjustified faith that somehow, things would get better, that people were not bad, that monsters weren't real.

That Maku wasn't gone.

That Echo would still find her some day.

That the Queen would live against all odds.

It was past sunset, the air already beginning to chill and the pale moon turning fine sand beneath her boots a pristine bone white. The infamous stars that gave the country's capital its name were already appearing in clusters above her blonde head, dotting the skies like so many diamonds would a back velvet box. No matter how many times she saw the sight, Akihana would never get used to the sheer beauty of Haven's sky at night.

Nor the heartbreak it brought with it anew each day.

It was the slugs - Cookie and Cream - on her arm that reminded her of the time, having been quietly gathering nature energy until now alongside a grudging Makona. Turning her gaze away from the stars, the medic cast her golden eyes downwards. Only pale sand lay in her wake, nothing obstructing her from a straight, endless view. The open skies above and the endless stretch of sand below. It was time to go home. Time to pretend she'd been productive. Time to pretend she'd forgotten. Time to simply pretend.

Because maybe if she tried hard enough to justify that there was no reason for the empty ache inside her, the ache would go away. Sadly, pain only demanded to be felt, not justified. Even though she'd been trying for near six months now.

Trying and failing.


AP: 1300 - 5 (Golden Eye L 2) = 1, 295
3 posts of of nature energy stored

Hell, it wasn't at all what he had expected. It seemed like only a second had passed when he had heard the doors close and the darkness engulfed his being. Or had it been closer to a thousand years, time held no power here, no meaning. It was a dream, a fable told to children that brought hope in a place that fostered none. Still, it wasn't at all what he had imagined. It wasn't the fire and brimstone some preached, it wasn't torture in the traditional sense.....in fact it almost was nothing at all.

So nothing that it made it all worse. There where times he wasn't sure if he still existed. Only he had to, because who else would be talking in his head. In fact he wished for something in the way of torture because it would have broke it all up. His soul floating in the ether of millions of other damned souls, nothing separating them. If he focused, really focused he could almost form a body, only for it to be blasted apart again, taking eons to reform.

His mind was already slipping into madness. He had looked into the abyss a little crazy was nothing, but this was different. As if what made him him, was being stripped away. Tainted and raped by the nothingness threatening to wipe away all he had become. That was the worse part. He wanted to scream, but no mouth. He wanted to run, but no legs. He wanted to see, but no eyes. He wanted to simply be........but he was damned.

Even as his mind sloshed in the ether attempting to form some thought, pain flared. It was almost welcome to change, because it meant he existed. Until he wished he had never wished it. The scream pierced the desert like a siren. Fire spilled from the ground, burning hotter than any jutsu ever could. It occurred nearly half a mile from where Aki was found wandering. At first it simply burned, and then started to take shape.

First the flames made the loose shape of a man, only to harden and crystallize into a skeleton. Sinew and muscle came next, and then flesh followed by hair. Finally clothes, weapons, everything he had had on his final days of life. The scream continued throughout the process. The hellfire didn't burn his flesh, that would end easily. It burned at his soul, racking it in pain and torment past endurance.

When it ended, he fell forward, knees and palms falling into the sand. His breath heavy and ragged, eyes a little less blue. Sweat dropped from his brown to make a soft clink as it hit the glass beneath his feet. The sand around him approximately 3 feet in circumference was now solid glass. His reflection within his view, he looked as he had in the bar, as he had in life, as he had the day he left the world behind.

A small tear fell as well, as he tried to catch his breath. His breathing easing from ragged to simply a sob when it fully happened. His chakra almost exploding from his body. There was no chakra in hell, and now it would seem it simply was stored for moments like these. As if it had been bottled and shaken simply to be released later. Golden light flowed around him as he flexed the muscle that had stayed idle for so long.

Slowly getting to his feet, he let his head fall back so his face was bathed in the light of his own chakra, with aid from the light of stars. His breath was finally normal, he finally had composed himself, and he knew he was back. Though........he could still feel distinctly dead.

Home? It was a concept really? Out here in the open desert, Akihana let her feet or her summons tell her which way home was. She'd discerned a pattern over her many trips, she always raced out the gates of Hoshigakure when leaving, and always walked back in, as if the longer she stayed out, the more it counted. The blonde couldn't truthfully tell what counted anymore but the action of putting on foot in front of another, to keep going felt like doing something. And as long as she was doing something, she wasn't thinking.

So when the brilliant display of fiery light erupted about half a mile away, stealing all attention from the gently twinkling stars above, it was Makona who warned her first before she could take the situation in herself. A spike of urgent chakra accompanied by a renewed effort to collect nature energy in the face of danger. Even the two slugs nestled in her sleeves seemed to have become more attentive. but all their worries were for naught because Akihana remained calm. Though her pace quickened, estimating that someone needed help, nothing much changed.

People lost their way out in the desert all the time, it was probably a stray traveler signalling with a jutsu, though if this was a jutsu, it was very devoid of a chakra signature. A slight frown crossed her features as she picked up the pace, making her way to the circle of light only to come to a dead stop fifty meters away...

Because suddenly this was no longer devoid of chakra... In fact, the chakra she was sensing was more familiar to her than her own. The blonde had lost a bit of her the day she had left the ring and the rose behind and now she knew where it had gone to. "This is real," she shook her head as her steps slowed, now walking as though in a fog towards the shimmering circle of light despite Makona's siren loud warnings in her head. "This isn't real, it's a trick, it's a genjutsu."

But she knew it wasn't. Not with Makona dispelling all illusions away from her. It was odd really, that the being who had tried to harm her through falsified imagery was now helping her discern reality from make belief but this time Akihana wished she wouldn't. This was not real because it couldn't be. The same as her pain couldn't be real because the foundation behind it had never been. As her golden eyes pierced the darkness ahead, making out the shadowy figure that formed on the glass, the kunoichi felt a lump form in hrr throat.

This was a dream like all the others. But that was not why the tears began to flow from her eyes and down her pale cheeks. As she made her way to the now solidified form of Maku, she cried because she knew all dreams came to an end.

"You're not real," she whispered as she stepped onto the newly formed glass, her protective boots keeping her safe from what was sure to be an extremely hot surface new in the forging. "You can't be." A soft breeze floated through the desert, surrounding the duo in a breath of fresh desert air. "You can't."

AP: 1, 294
6 stacks of nature energy stored

His head fell side to side, slight popping filled the almost silent air as Akihana's words echoed in the silent breeze of desert air. A habit he had long had, one of those small cues, a give away. There were some habits that never changed, even after a lifetime, and beyond. "Akihanna, we already talked about this. Reality is what you make it. Real or not, here I am. Though.......I'm not totally sure where that is." At this his brow furrowed into real contemplation.

This wasn't right, he knew the toll he had to pay. It surely wasn't up. A blind optimist might believe it to be, but he wasn't blind. His blue eyes drinking in the star light skinned the horizon, before resting on the face of the Kuniochi before him. She didn't look much different. The lines in her face maybe a little deeper, as if intense thought or sadness had permeated the flesh of the woman who worried for so many but forgot herself. Well, not to unexpected any amount of time could have passed......except she should be dead.

"I can't imagine your in hell too........what's going on Akihanna?" His voice was tainted with a small amount of doubt. Something he had very rarely shown in life. His confusion was running rampant in his mind. Was this a trick, a torture, a respite to make his time in hell all that much worse. Even as he thought this his right hand shot to his heart. A pain had gripped it, a skeletal claw squeezing the muscle that should keep him alive. It took until the pain dispersed that he realized....there was no beat.

"How long have I even gone Aki? This isn't right..." He looked down into the glass again, no this wasn't right at all. When the pain had gripped him he had the urge to attack, to loose all control. He wasn't sure but his chakra might have spiked during. Even now, he could feel it, like a nagging urge in the back of his mind. Focusing he could almost make it go away....for now. Before she could speak, he broke his own seriousness with a smile, "it is good to see you again, no cakes though on this picnic, if you brought food....which you probably did." He would say with a short chuckle. Once again dipping into his way of speaking in highs and lows of seriousness.

The first tear slid off her face as he said her name, a sound she was sure she would never hear again because no one said her name like Maku did. If this was an illusion, it was near perfect. The only thing that would have made it better was if she didn't know this was an illusion. Why hadn't the creator of this grand design chosen to bequeath unto her ignorance instead of the knowledge that this too would never last? And still she stood where she was, about two feet away from him atop the dark pool of glass reflecting only the stars above and their own shapes somewhere in the infinite galaxies laid out in sand. Time usually stood still in those moments but since when had they been so conventional? Instead, time continued to move and sway, as more words poured out of his lips, some comprehended, some not as her cautious eyes searched for the trick, the trigger that would make all this go away.

"S-s-ix mo-months," she managed, the silent tears still streaking down her face to land in soft, imperceptible plops on the glass beneath them. "We're in the H-haven deserts." The blonde couldn't simply give in to the illusion no matter how much she wanted to. Maku was the one who had taught her the dangers of even the smallest lie, and she wasn't done paying the price for it yet. So as much as she wanted to hold out her hand, to touch him, to hug him, to hit him, to scratch at him, to hold him close and never let go, she did none of those things.

Because she knew how it would end.

"You don't get to do this," she shook her head, refuting all his attempts to make make small talk about picnics and foods and merriment. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to give into that easy smile that existed just for him, too natural to settle into the quiet calm his protective chakra brought but no. ""You don't get to keep hurting me like this," she managed, her voice steady as she reached out a hand to brush away the tears that were falling against her will. "You did it once and it hurt more than I can say, but you don't get to do it over and over again."

With that, the blonde turned away, her back to the young man she had been hoping to find for six months now. This was what she had secretly hoped for wasn't it? That she would just happen across him one day? All her search for the legendary cure, her innumerate trips to the desert, she had always known she was looking for something and it had taken finding him to realize that she had never let go. Fresh agony pierced through the young woman as she now turned her back to the one person she was sure she couldn't live without.

And she must have been right, because here they both were, alive.

"Damn.....six months....." He said almost in a whisper. Well, only half a year. Not even close to anything resembling his time in hell. Hell, it didn't even come close to the life he lived. All in all, it was rather disappointing. The most peculiar part was though, if it was only six months since he's left those notes, that meant while he stood here unmistakeable dead........he sat in discord very much alive. Talk about time traveling paradoxical events.

"Sorry Akihanna, but I'm not the one making you upset. Your the only person who can do that." He would say with a half smirk, a look he had given her innumerable times since they had originally met. As he said it, he realized with a very odd feeling he wasn't breathing. He had, he supposed been out of habit, but with his contemplation and the pain gone, he found he had went the rest of the time without taking a breath, which locked in the notion that the game was afoot, and he had no idea why e was here.

"What's going on Aki? This isn't right......I'm not right...." He said with not fear, but something resembling it. He didn't think the girl had fully looked at him, fully and objectively taken in what he was. She was a trained doctor, modest but possessing skill. He knew once she really looked, removed the veil of emotion things would start to stick out. Even as he thought these things his heart hurt once again. Not an emotional response, but as if that skeletal hand dug the digits in another centimeter.

So much was happening and spinning in his head, it wasn't till the pain made his thoughts go silent that he realized how much he had missed her. He had no powers in the after life, he had been stripped of everything. Yet, he had wiped his mind of those he loved, and there were only 3. He hadn't wanted even their memories to step foot in that place. "Aki, I missed you.....40 plus years is a long time."

"Sorry Akihanna, but I'm not the one making you upset. Your the only person who can do that."

"Shut up!" the blonde uttered quietly, perhaps the harshest thing she had ever said to another, animal or human. But then again Maku had always played with her nerves, forced responses from her that she would never emit otherwise. He was perhaps the one person in the world she could be angry at as demonstrated on previous occasions and nothing had changed with his absence. He still possessed the ability to infuriate her unlike anyone else. "You don't get to talk your way out of this. Don't you dare..." Her voice quivered as she still refused to look at him, her back stubbornly turned to the young male. She fully considered simply walking away from this apparition, refusing to be a victim any longer. But real or fake, painful or more painful, she could never walk away from Maku.

All it took was the small worrisome confession tumbling from his lips to have her whirl around, cloud of golden hair tinted silver by moonlight splayed in all directions as she rushed to him. Until now, the young woman hadn't realized this was anything more than a sick attempt to play with her feelings but when Maku mentioned something was wrong, it was as though a switch flicked on in her head. Reaching him in three quick steps, the kunoichi brought her fingers to his hand, checking for a pulse... that was nowhere to be found.

It was what her chakra sensory had been trying to tell her. Beyond that initial burst of warm, rose tinted gold chakra, there were no signs of life. Golden eyes widened in panic as her hands glowed green, trying to detect a heartbeat, blood pressure, anything to let her know that he was okay even if he was an illusion. "I d-don't know what's wrong," desperately holding back her tears as her nimble fingers landed on his torso, feeling out the bones and sinew as if by doing so well enough, she would magically detect a heartbeat. Attempting to heal, the kunoichi began pouring chakra into him, all the while feeling it rebound off his empty shell and back into her own body once more.

Because there was nothing to heal.

"It's okay, you're going to be okay," she murmured under her breathe, pushing even harder to let the wall between chakra and obsolete matter break through. If she just applied more pressure. All she needed was one vein, one residual vein that still understood chakra like it used too. Even if it was buried deep, she'd find out. Beads of sweat dotted the blonde's pale forehead as she continued to try, doing everything in her power to find something to latch on to him, something to heal.

It was only when he said he missed her that her dropped her arms. Forty years... no breath, no heartbeat. He was truly gone. Letting out a choking sob, the kunoichi simply crumpled against his frame, her arms encircling his neck and she hugged him close and began crying in earnest. "Then why d-did you l-l-leave?" she managed as she continued to cry against him. It wasn't just that he had left, it was that he had returned just to remind her that he was - for all intents and purposes - truly gone. "Wh-what did I do wrong... Why did y-you leave?"

As she crumpled against him he felt himself pushed back a bit before steadying. The chakra still poured from him, as if it had been newly started and it refused to go out again. She began to sob, asking why. This only made Maku smile and chuckle a bit, a the air moving to allow be action, even if the alveoli no longer served a purpose. "Always the martyr my dear.......not much as changed, but not much has passed."

His arms moved around her and hugged her tight for a brief moment before attempting to move her back. His bright blue eyes looking into hers of gold. "Nothing, except show me what I'd not seen." He said, his voice sing song and cheery despite the ultimate conclusion of the fact he was post life. "It's hard to explain, and I'll never do it justice if I try. I think I just decided something on w whim, and maybe it was wrong. Maybe right, no one knows or will ever know." He said a hand moving the hair from her face.

His past life began to spring back, his memory clear. The realm of the living bringing back so much that He'll had sought to rip away. However, a small part of hm could only imagine the pain it would cause when it was taken from him again. A sigh, and a look of true sadness. Maku didn't feel remorse very often, but the reality of so many things lay themselves on him now.

"I got what I deserve Aki.........we all do in the end." His half smile on his lips, and despite the softness of his voice, confidence rung within. He said it with that Maku belief that not many displayed. As if no matter what, it was the truth. "I don't say it often, but I'm sorry." Leaning forward he would kiss her cheek.

It was then that the pain in his heart truly gripped down, no longer allowing any form of inner strength hold against it. Dropping striagjt down his hands fell into the sand. On all fours he gasped infront of the Kuniochi. His fingers gripped together beneath the dune, only to close ok something distinctly metal.

His explanation made little sense, but when had he ever made sense in the way Akihana had learned to understand it. He may be unsure of whether his decision was wrong or right but the blonde knew. She knew the moment she'd received that note and known she would never be the same again. But even now, she wasn't going to tell him. If he felt he'd done right, then there was no telling him otherwise and telling him he'd done wrong would be cruel. Akihana wasn't cruel.

The touch of his lips was soft on her cheek, almost as though it wasn't there. perhaps it wasn't, perhaps it was just ghost like enough for her to be able to easily forget over the years. Except she knew she would never forget. His apology was not something she needed, nor did it make her feel better. if anything it made her feel worse but there was nothing either of them could do about it. She had never needed an apology and what she'd needed, he couldn't have given had he even tried.

"You don't get to decide what you deserve," she shook her head slightly. "I'll find you, we can fix-" she was cut of mid sentence as Maku dropped to the glass, his frame hunched over in pain causing Akihana to go down with him, one hand already uselessly glowing green with healing chakra. "What wrong," she called out, reaching for his shoulder, trying to get a better look at his face to determine the cause of his anguish. "We can get you to Den. He'll know what to do." she offered, panic leaking into her voice once more.

Maku was... not alive, of that much she was sure. But he was in pain. A kind of pain she could do nothing about. The sensation left her feeling more helpless than ever before.