The Dragon Queen // (Under Revision)

Foundational Sacrifices

"Tsuyoi..." Naruto was cradling her head in his lap when she opened her eyes. She must have passed out in her remembery. Now he'd seen all that she had seen. She blinked away tears and sat up, rubbing them profusely. 

"Tsuyoi, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pushed you to tell me." Naruto's hands run over her shoulders and stopped there, gently propping her up. 

"No, I'm sorry," Tsuyoi said, looking back at him. His eyes were so warm. "...I'm... scared of myself, I think." She let her eyes slid away from his. "Of how strong I am. Of how important I am. I don't know what to do with myself sometimes."

Naruto just nodded, telling her to go on. Let it out.

"You know, they tell us that we'll...die then years in advance to kill our spirit. You know why they bring us Dragon Queens away from the village in the first place? It's very easy to transfer the Dragon Seal from person to person. If I wanted to, I could give it you right now. The seal is pretty basic. Someone could take it out of me easily, too. That's also why it's so hard to control." Something in her words pricked at Naruto. A thin veil of sadness slid over him, but his eyes remained clear. Tsuyoi took note of it.

 "Whoever thought of this sick, twisted scheme knew that we would break eventually. That we wouldn't be able to take it anymore and that we could slap it on someone else's neck and disappear into the crowd. So they keep us here. Alone. At least that's the most logical reason I can think of other than the fact that they're just evil."

Tsuyoi took a deep breath in and let it out.

"Humans weren't meant to be alone." Naruto said. "It messes you up inside. I know that from ...personal experience." Now she could hear the melancholy in his voice, ever so slightly.

He wants to say something, Tsuyoi realized. He's waiting for the right time to say it.

"I think I'm different because I'm the first Dragon Queen to be an orphan. All the others before me had a family to return to, people to live for, and I didn't." She rubbed at her eyes again and sat back, head tilted to the ceiling. "Chizu never broke me. I was messed up before I was Chosen, I think."

Tsuyoi scooted her butt across the floor until her back pressed against the wall. Naruto silently settled in next to her. Tsuyoi leaned her head back, resting it against the wall. She closed her eyes. She was holding back unprecedented tears.

Warm fingers intertwined with hers. She jumped. Opening her eyes, she glanced down at their hands, and then looked up into Naruto's smiling face.

"I'm listening. Go ahead."

Tsuyoi smiled. A warm feeling filled her stomach. He was comforting her from the inside out. Her fingers felt so warm...She leaned back against the wall, and let out a deep breath.

"My...mother. Her name was Nanao. She and my father were called to fight in the First Lioditan War when I was five. Hayate was fifteen, then. The ninja from Iwagakure wanted us out. They wanted the clay deposits within our territory and declared war.

"The story was that my mother was a brilliant fighter. She wielded a katana like it was a third arm. That's what Dad always told me." Tsuyoi smiled at the memory. "But she didn't like fighting. She was a peaceful nomad that had met my father on the outskirts of the village. She only went to the war to be with Dad." Tsuyoi smiled faded.

"My mother could use reiki, too. But they had only started to teach reiki art in schools back home. She and my father were the last alive in their cell, and my father was critically injured. My mother tried to use reiki transfer to give some of her life to him, but she was too weak, and she couldn't balance out the ratio close enough and failed. She gave everything she had to him, and it still wasn't enough. His right leg was permanently mangled. She died on the battlefield."