The Dragon Queen // (Under Revision)

Kinship

She was awake. She was walking.

No, wait...floating? No...maybe just...drifting. Aimlessly.

There was no destination. No point of origin. Just voices and images scudding along around her, going about their business. She was the trespasser. She was not sure if she was welcomed, but the pieces of soul about her did nothing to stop her. It was dark here, warm. Flashes of pulsing light danced around her. She was only aware of her own self, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. She was too disoriented to sense much farther.

Then she was on her feet, standing. Hadn't she been on her feet before? She could not recall, but there was solid ground beneath her now, and she wasn't in any position to argue that point with herself at the moment. Something else was there.

It was massive. It—no, he, it was a he—towered above her, eyes gleaming. Nine tails licked the air around him, fanned out about him like a peacock's spread. He stood impossibly tall, with powerful limbs and a gigantic array of magnificent teeth. He was some kind of fox-like creature and held an aura of power about him that both frightened and intrigued her. His eyes weren't friendly, though, and it made the trespasser wonder what she had done wrong.

"Who are you?" he growled, his voice echoing across the space. Before she could find her voice or even her name, an earth-shattering roar ripped through the air behind her. She turned and almost leaped out her skin. It was a dragon, matching the tailed creature in size. The green-and-black scaled creature roared again, in warning. This creature was as equally impressive as the fox, but she had a feral way about her, something that the trespasser felt kinship with. The dragon roared again, emanating power and raw strength into the atmosphere. It radiated outward, washing over her and making her feel comforted.

Stay away from my Queen! The beast was saying. Tsuyoi–yes, that was her name–could hear the words clearly. Suddenly, she realized that this was her Dragon Spirit. Shock stunned her out of her confusion. Everything sharpened to a point in her mind; why she was here, and whose mind she was inside.

This fox...belongs to Naruto? She looked back at the creature, who opened his jaws to roar back. Then he froze. He narrowed his eyes and drilled his gaze into the dragon's. Tsuyoi's Spirit calmed and stared back. A silent conversation took place between them then, and they'd seemed to have reached a compromise.

"You better not do anything to harm Naruto," the fox growled, looking back down at Tsuyoi. His eyes blazed. "Or I'll kill both of you."

The dragon rumbled a low warning. Then the fox and the dragon both vanished, and Tsuyoi was left staring at a massive tree-like network of blue light. The tendrils intertwined and seemed to dance around one another. Each branch led to another and stretched as far as Tsuyoi could see.

I just have to find the place where his wa is broken, Tsuyoi thought. Or maybe she said it aloud, she didn't know. Being inside someone else's mind wasn't exactly something she was used to. She was floating again, and she made a swimming motion to propel herself forward. Noroi! She seethed. I hate this. That shinobi's gonna pay me back for this, even if I was the one who hurt him to begin with. She fussed on and on until finally, she found it. Or, at least she thought she had found it. This part of the blue web had a broken tendril, shrunken down to a sickly, shriveled green. She placed her hands on. It was cold and lifeless. She let her hands fill with the reiki she'd scattered around before entering Naruto's mind. She pressed energy into it.

In no time, she'd healed the broken tendril, and it was healthy and blue again. She guided the severed tendril to another one close by. It merged and pulsed twice, then dimmed to the normal blue.

"I actually did it," she breathed. "Now I can–" She paused. Off to her left, where there was empty space, a small square of blue tinted light had opened and expanded into a large canvas of sorts. The light was so bright, it washed over the space softly. Puzzled, Tsuyoi drifted closer, her feet touching down again.