Impossible to Forget

Chapter 30: The Presence

There was something there.

We had reached a large cavern, and the water in my sandals froze as every breath crystallized before it even left our mouths.

Something was in there with us. Something old, something powerful.

I reached out and grabbed Kakashi's hand automatically. Even though I'm a grown woman, it didn't feel childish. I just needed some sort of assurance that there was another sane human being there with me. And based on the way that Kakashi squeezed my hand in return, he felt the same way as we stood there frozen from both the cold and the shock.

Nori used a quick fire jutsu to light a lantern that was already in the cave, and I almost wished that it had stayed pitch black.

At first, the large cavern looked like it was completely empty. But what had looked like strange, warped shadows was slowly merging into a single, semi-transparent form.

The chakra coming off of it was immense; the only thing that I could compare it to was standing too close to Naruto while he was fully utilizing the Nine-tails' chakra mode. The more that I was in that cave, the happier I was that I'm not a sensory ninja.

On top of the chakra swirling around, my hair stood on end as the air itself seemed to crackle with static electricity.

As the lantern finally warmed up completely, illuminating the cave more fully, I was finally able to make out the shape of the thing in the cave with us. It was a large wolf, curled up into a tight ball and seemingly fast asleep. His fur was like those old fashion paintings of clouds, and his entire body was partially see-through, allowing the cave wall behind him to be visible. Blue electricity sputtered and shot around his body, sizzling across his back, down his snout, along his tail. Just one of his eyes would probably be bigger than my hand if he were to open it up, and his whole body was about the size of a modest house. In total, the wolf was about half the size of the Nine-tails, but in a cramped cave, that was more than big enough to be absolutely terrifying.

"Behold the namesake of the Land of Lightning, Raiju."

It took me a moment to realize that Nori had said something and another moment to process what she had said.

Raiju? A yokai and the animal companion of Raijin, the god of lightning? But that was just a myth; he was even one of the yokai in those silly books that Anzu reads where mythological creatures exist in real life. This could not be real. However, I could tell that this was not a genjutsu, and if seeing is believing, I could definitely see the electric monstrosity in front of me.

"They say that the mountains themselves are the result of when Kaguya and Raiju battled. Kaguya won, of course, and entombed the beast here, in the very center of the mountains. This cave is known as the Heso, or Navel, and is where Raiju has slumbered for almost four hundred years. I think that it's time for him to wake up, don't you?"

Wake up? That thing was scary enough while it was fast asleep.

"If the myths are in fact true," I looked over in shock at Kakashi, surprised that he was actually answering Nori's question, "only Raijin can control Raiju so what are you going to do if that thing actually does wake up?"

Nori smiled a little too sweetly for my tastes, "You see, while Raiju is definitely real, Raijin is not. That is where fact meets myth. And when I awaken him, controlling him and his chakra won't be a problem at all. Before the Sage of the Six Paths, no one would have thought about sealing a chakra beast inside of them, and even still today, people think that only the Tailed Beasts can be sealed away like that. I shall make myself a new kind of jinchuriki to rival the might of the Five Great Nations by sealing Raiju within myself. I will become a new sage, the dawn of a new era. The Akatsuki failed because they were narrow minded in their search for power, never looking beyond the nine, well known beasts that formed the Ten-tails. But I will succeed where they did not."

I scoffed, "So are you going to try to put the whole world under an eternal genjutsu as well? Are you going to declare your own war?"

"No and yes. The Akatsuki was truly attempting to bring about a world of peace, though in a rather warped way, but I have no such plans. My desires are a bit more on the material side, and to achieve it, I probably will end up having to declare the Fifth Great Ninja War once I've built up enough strength."

Another ninja war? Oh hell no.

"Then what is this almighty goal of yours that will require a war to achieve?"

She clucked her tongue and shook her head sadly, "I won't insult your intelligence by telling you something that you already know. Think, it really is quite obvious."

I wanted to scream. That was the question that I had been asking myself for over a year without figuring out the answer. What did that power-hungry bitch actually- Wait.

Power.

The way the she loved bossing me around as a child; the way that my dad was kept on her short leash. Every time she tried to boss around Sakumo even though he was her team leader, and every time she would issue orders to passersby on how to live their lives. The way that she collected pawns like Kanaye and Sadao only to kill them herself, and the way that she had nearly burst with joy when she made Kakashi carry me all the way here. Power, feeling in control, she just couldn't get enough of it. Nori was like an addict, always pushing the boundaries, the hi getting more and more elusive every time until she had to go bigger and bigger. And that was all that she wanted out of this too. In her crazy, warped mind, Nori must have decided that nothing but the world would satisfy her lust for power, and that was what she was going to set out to achieve.

"You're right, your goal really is quite simple: world domination. I'm right, aren't I? The oldest cliché in the book, pitiful."

Kakashi whispered quietly to me, "I told you that you'd figure it out."

Nori's reaction was slightly less encouraging. The corners of her mouth curled into a sardonic grin slowly, "You make it sound so unimpressive. People mock thoughts of world domination so commonly, toss it aside like a petty pipe-dream that no one would actually put any effort into achieving. But, the world is my oyster, and I intend to crack it for all it's worth. Sasainako and Kanaye had shared my dream, but now I'm the only one standing here, on the cusp of obtaining it. Laugh all you want now, but the two of you won't be alive to see my new world order."

A small part of me actually agreed with her, to my absolute horror. Nothing would be more satisfying than complete control over everything. So many things are poorly utilized, improperly maintained, unfairly doled out, that sometimes I really feel like the world would simply be better off if I ran it. Even when just managing my office, it had taken me three years after Toukuro and Shikaku's deaths to actually trust other people to do things in my department as opposed to doing everything myself. Because when I do everything myself, I know that it will meet my standards and will be done right.

I immediately snapped myself out of that train of thought. What Nori was doing was wrong and there was absolutely no justification for it, no matter how satisfying running the world would be. She had to be stopped, and it was up to me and Kakashi to do it before the situation got any further out of hand, before it led to another war.

Nori pulled a large scroll out of one of the cracks in the wall, "As fun as this little chat has been, I think that it's time for this to get started, don't you?"

A/N: Second update of the day! I think that I'm going to take a nap.