The Dragon Queen // (Under Revision)

Kite Strings

Tsuyoi stood outside the meeting room, anger still boiling like a pool of lava under her skin.

She leaned her back against the wall and lifted her face towards the ceiling, desperately tamping down the overwhelming urge to go back inside the room and break Chizu's skull open like an egg. Her whole body trembled as the anger swelled, growing impossibly large until it filled her to the brim. A growl that didn't belong to a human, but a monster, rattled in her throat and her dairokkan tattoos glared down the dark hallway.

I want to kill that demon! I want to tear her into pieces! Her thoughts started spiraling out of control. Kill Chizu! I hate her! She's made me suffer for years and I did nothing wrong!

A singular image opened up in her mind's eye, a memory from so long ago when the sun shone gray through the clouds overhead. Chizu had called her name, and little Tsuyoi heeded her call and entered the courtyard. And then...a man's body...stretched out under the sky like an animal skin drying in the sun. The way his eyes had bored into hers haunted her.

Her mind swelled up with the clamor dragging her around and bashing her against the inside of her own skull, threatening to break her control.

If Chizu dies, no one will miss her. Kill her, now!

"No!" The word tore itself loose from Tsuyoi's throat, leaping out of her chest and into the stale air of the hallway. Tsuyoi slid down until her bum met the floor, burying her hands in her thick mane of hair. The animal screams that came from her mind were not hers, but the Dragon Spirit inside her. It fought against Tsuyoi, thrashing and crashing into the confines of its cage. Tsuyoi bit back a scream as the beast within her wrestled for power.

Hazy memories and voices swam through her mind, running into each other.

I want my mama—

I don't want to die...Kill her, kill her now!

I hate her! Kill Chizu! Rip her guts out!

What did I do to deserve this?

I want my momma and daddy!

—Kill Chizu and you can have them back!

Take everything back! I don't want it, I don't wanna die-

Everything gray...

Kill Chizu! Fix everything and kill Chizu!

Its thoughts were louder and clearer than Tsuyoi's own, drawn from the raw emotion that was being stirred up in the pit of her stomach. It was all she could do to keep it contained. The smell of blood made her nauseous, the weight of the sword pressing down into her palms, the man's eyes, her knocking knees, it all sent her into a tizzy as she fought to return these flashes of memory back into dark corners of her mind.

Somehow she had dragged herself away from the meeting room, into a cool hallway behind the kitchens. Her dairokkan flared and glowed harshly, so bright it burned Tsuyoi's skin and light up the walls around her. Black scales started to crystallize and grow on her skin, creeping up her hands and around her shoulders. She felt her sharp canines elongate and her spine shift to create the Forbidden Scorpian Tail Chizu had used earlier. No! Tsuyoi thought, her consciousness trashing for control. Close! Close right now!

Kill Chizu now! It roared loud, shattering her concentration. Tsuyoi whimpered, body convulsing as she felt her grip loosening further and further from her grasp. Her vision spun, the gray of the walls and the green of her light blending like spilled paint around her. She closed her eyes. She thought she'd lost it, thought she'd end up locked in the keep again, until that boy Naruto's grin appeared in her mind. It was way off in the distance, but she could see it. Tsuyoi stiffened, seeing the brightness of his hair in her mind's eye. Thank you, Tsuyoi. His voice in her ear. Nice to meet you. She reached out and focused on him, the solidity of his presence, breathing deeply until her hands had stopped trembling.

Don't give in, you idiot, she scolded herself, gasping for air she didn't realize she was needing. She cupped her hands over her chest, making a circle, and breathed in again, focusing her wa.

"Your harmonious spirit is your connection to the earth, to every other living thing around you," Lady Hayate's voice instructed in her head. "You can use your heightened sense of reiki for various things, like healing or for finding weaknesses in your enemies. But as the Dragon Queen, your wa is your greatest weapon, because you use it to control your Dragon Spirit. Your spirit is what ties you two together. And what avoids taenji.

Taenji is the bending inside outwards of energy. The reiki balance is thrown precariously off and demanding to be set back right, according to the laws of equal exchange. With a primordial life force living inside of her, it was not wise to overexert and tip the balance. It would create the perfect condition for a manifestation of her Dragon Spirit to form, and she would be on the inside instead, no longer in control. And she'd wake up in the keep, left for days.

Tsuyoi remembered her predecessor Hayate's words fondly. Their time together had been short, but Tsuyoi treasured Lady Hayate's memory always, keeping her close to her heart. Thinking about her predecessor helped her calm down, as it was one of the only bittersweet memories she possessed as opposed to all the other horrible ones, but she had to admit...thinking of that boy Naruto helped a little, too. She wasn't sure why it worked. He's different. I didn't know people like him even existed. People who are so...so real and so strong. So solid. There's just something about him...

Shaking her head, she pushed herself up from the floor and headed through the bare monastery, her markings flickering weakly in the dark. She dragged her body along the wall. The weight of the near taenji release bore down on her body, threatening to take her. Her eyes drooped, she could barely see. She tugged herself on, not wanting Chizu to find her in a weakened state.

As she walked, she pondered the series of thoughts that had surfaced during her episode. I want my momma and daddy! The voice in her mind had sounded like a child's. Was it supposed to be her voice? She couldn't remember. But it was ridiculous. She didn't even remember her parents. She knew her mom had died in the war and she remembered the day her father had died when their house caught fire. And then that other thought, even more ridiculous than the first; Kill Chizu and you can have them back!

That was just plain stupid. It didn't even make any sense. Her parents dying had nothing to do with Chizu...

She stopped walking. What had nothing to do with Chizu again? She thought for a moment, but pulled up a completeblank. She groaned in frustration. This happened to often—she could be thinking about anything and then poof! Gone in a puff of smoke. She envisioned herself holding on to a kite in a misty field, and a gust of wind yanked the line out of her hand. She grasped at it, but the wind teasingly pulled it away into the mist. Sometimes she'd run after it; falling until her knees were bloody and tears streaked her face, other times she let her hands fall to her sides in defeat.

She barely made it back to her room, energy exhausted. As she slipped into a dreamless sleep, she hoped that the shinobi would be alive in the morning. She needed to talk to them.