Rabbit Princess [Gaara] [3]

☾ 18 ☽

Toneri led Tsukiko back to the room that he had fetched her from, and Tsukiko looked up when he left the room, closing the doors but not locking them. Tsukiko sat on the bed, cooling down her head as she thought back to the shrine. She had not felt Hamura's Tenseigan there, but she was sure she needed to go back there, especially after the images that she had seen.

If Tsukiko believed what she had been shown, she knew she would have to destroy Hamura's Tenseigan, which was sleeping somewhere in this castle, before being noticed by Toneri, and without somehow spiking up her Chakra levels.

Tsukiko left the room about an hour and half later, sure that Toneri would be asleep now. She did not act as if she was hiding, sure that she could tell Toneri that as his future 'wife' she should be allowed to roam. It worked out – no puppet disturbed her.

It was when Tsukiko was hurrying to Hanabi's room that she noticed some commotion, and she looked ahead to see that two puppets were hauling Hinata.

The sight of someone that she recognised made Tsukiko speed up as she reached them. She expected the puppets to resist but for some reason, they allowed her to do ahead, closing the door behind her. Hinata had rushed over to Hanabi's bed before she noticed Tsukiko.

Hinata turned around, shocked to see that Tsukiko had somehow appeared in the room, momentarily scared that it was Kaguya or another Otsutsuki, and the moment that Hinata's eyes met with the familiar blue eyes that belonged to Tsukiko, everything around them changed swiftly, and the two of them found themselves standing in a dark place.

"Tenseigan-Hime and Byakugan-Hime..."

The two girls were standing in an underground place, and while Tsukiko did not recognise this cemetery, Hinata seemed less concerned about the setting. And she wasn't as taken aback when an old man with empty eye sockets stepped out of the darkness.

Opening his mouth, the man released a glowing green sphere from within himself, emitting a light that prompted Tsukiko's Tenseigan and Hinata's Byakugan to activate. Various images revolved around and jumped into both of their heads.

They came as flashes – there was an army, the design of two crossing Shuriken, a giant eyeball, a gigantic explosion, and a mountain of corpses.

It all disappeared as soon as it had come, and Tsukiko and Hinata found themselves standing at the head of the strange temple's underground cemetery surrounded by thousands of stone coffins. The figures of people rose above the coffins.

The number of figures gradually increased until there was one standing on every one of the coffins. They were all armour-clad soldiers. Hinata took a breath.

"Who... are you?" Tsukiko asked the air, and it seemed as if she had unlocked something because a strange feeling washed over the girls, and it allowed the men to speak.

A man stepped forward to answer, appearing to be in his prime, but when Tsukiko looked closely at his face, she saw that it was the same old man that had released the glowing sphere earlier.

"We are the descendants of Hamura, the main family of the Otsutsuki Clan," said the man. "We were annihilated by the branch family, who misinterpreted Hamura's celestial decree,"

"What must be done?" Tsukiko inquired.

"Toneri," said the man. "A descendant of the branch family, is misusing Hamura's Tenseigan to try to drop the moon onto Earth. Hamura's Tenseigan must be destroyed. Tenseigan-Hime, Byakugan-Hime, the only ones who can do this... is your combined power,"

All at once, the soldiers bent down and knelt. Tsukiko looked around to see that a tall, elderly man was entering the location. His horns stood above his long white hair.