Dreaming of Jashin Part 3

Here is the last installment, though you can find some continuations on the forum after the fic itself. You can find the page numbers in the notes at the bottom. As before DOS/SQ=good+read some of the content is hers word for word.

"What is to give light must endure burning." Anton Wildgans

The word drifted in and out of focus as they were dragged forwards through perceived time by the will of a malevolent god.

The fractured reality on display before them made even Kakashi, a self-proclaimed connoisseur of terrible things, shudder.

beautiful, is it not

When Shikako came fully round though, Sakura had to admit that she preferred seeing time and space warped beyond measure and the spectre of a mad god to- to- Sakura was a medic in training, but she had never seen so much blood in all her life. Never seen so much… of the insides of people… so many people…

Shukaku howled within, though Gaara lacked both an inside and an outside at present. The beast was caught between ecstasy at so much carnage, and hatred of the creature that had caused it. In the end, the tanuki had settled for loudly critiquing the priest's methodology. For his part, Gaara waited. Patient and still as the desert before a sandstorm. He was Kazekage, and that meant he had the power to protect the people precious to him. He had mastered himself, he had mastered his demons. When the time came to rid the world of this evil, he would be ready to act.

do try, the more you struggle, the sweeter your tears will be

Helpless to his nature, Shikaku examined the new terrible landscape of slaughter the malevolent voice had taken them to. The blood, the victims, the alter and symbols – the priest, a creature horrifying to his daughter's perception. He tried again to find some way to save her, but even the shadows in this warped place defied mortal power.

you can but watch, heathen, you are in my world

"It that it?"

'It' the shirtless blood-stained priest had called her, Naruto fumed, like Shikako was some kind of – thing! Like she wasn't the first person who had ever acknowledged him, like she wasn't his friend, his precious teammate.

a true devout, gave and gave until all that was left was i

'It'

People had called Naruto 'it' before, and it felt like all his insides being pulled out. Hearing them call Shikako 'it' made his entire being burn with rage, and he screamed at the fox to stop this. Kill the priest, kill the voice: make this all end and save Shikako. When it told him that no one had power in this memory, that Shikako could not be saved – Naruto only screamed more: because that was the same bullshit excuse the fox used in Wind.

such devotion to the little god, such pain

Shino watched his friend, trapped in the most disadvantageous situation. Watched, as she did not pause, despite all her pain and weakness – watched her use a tool given to her by a friend to slip her bonds and he… Shino had never given Shikako a gift.

Why? He wondered as the last pins were pushed into palace. She was his friend. Why had he never given her something to protect her? She had treated him with kindness in all the time he had known her – never treated him with the distain others had. Shikako had even taken his little sister under her wing, and brought her joy and the friendship of other children her own age (a task he was wholly unequipped to undertake – not that it had ever occurred to him to try). He had never given her anything.

Why?

you cannot help her, i feast upon your desolation

Tsunade felt the misplaced hope that Aoba might be able to help wilt as the merry band of psychopathic murderers hauled him in, and the Hokage caught a stray thought from Shikako, trying not to calculate the number of people it took produce so much blood. Tsunade has seen more blood than any human being ever should, and she knows exactly how much blood is inside a person – her mind makes the calculation before she can stop it, and she- swallowed down her revulsion, and the tremors fighting their way back into her (not-a-)body were pushed back forcefully. Now was not a good time for a relapse in her haemophobia.

so much fear, so much weakness, your brokenness makes me whole, fleshbag

'Fear is the mind killer.'

That is what his sister thought at a time like this. Weakened by forces beyond human imagining, surrounded by enemies, with no rescue possible and her only ally strung up before her.

Not 'I'm going to die' not 'oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god' (which is what sticks to the surface of his thoughts like – his mind turns away from the similes that present themselves to him, they are all about… the things he is seeing here, and he-). She thinks about 'staying calm' but all he can feel is their terror combined, a painful burning weight in his stomach.

And then everything is worse. Worse than he can even begin to say, and he suddenly wishes for the blood and viscera similes of before because- because. Because his sister has just 'Spilt'. Shikamaru is retching and screaming from the echo of it, feels like he's coming apart and he can see dad on his knees – and the look in his eyes is what Shikamaru feels in his quaking soul.

she rips herself apart unable to withstand my glory

Ino simply whimpers again, this is just a shadow of the real state of her friend – and her condition is so much worse than anyone else can see. Yet. They approach the 'punchline' with every not-second that didn't-pass, and then everyone will see Shikako waiting for the death she created for herself to protect the world from this cruel god.

she cannot protect your world, heathen, she does not even try to protect herself any longer

her death is only the beginning

Yoshino hovered anxiously around her son and husband as she watched her daughter with wide, desperate eyes. Yoshino tried to feel pride at her only daughters' determination, her resolve to save her teammate. All she felt was sick. Sick because Shikako had just done whatever that thing was that made her son scream, and her husband retch – and though the Chūnin herself did not have the spiritual affinity necessary for the full effect, in her child's thoughts she felt... it was... like- something twisting in on itself, consuming and destroying and wrongwrongwrong.

Sakura couldn't help the hysterical giggle that ripped its way out of her mouth when Shikako noticed Aoba waking up. Her outrage over his sunglasses. But something about the laugh got twisted up, and it came out wrong, like a scream instead. A single continuous haunting note that would defy physical reality.

hopeless little fleshling, you are mine now

Naruto didn't know who the guy who lost his glasses was, but it made him so mad when the asshole just gave up right there – when he should be able to tell that Shikako needed him. Needed to save him. Shikako always needs to save people, it's her thing. She saved him from loneliness, the bastard from his- bastardliness. And Haku and Zabuza from being missing-nin, and- Naruto doesn't know what would happen if Shikako couldn't save this guy because he went and just gave up. He's not any less mad when the guy gets his throat slit, but Naruto felt a billion times worse about being angry.

so impotent in your rage

Hinata was a ball of uncontained misery, and she knew knew that she would be the same as Shikako's mission partner. That she, too, would be crushed by the absolute certainty of her own death. She sobbed when Shikako thoughtlessly ran to aid him, revealing herself to the enemy without hesitation. Hinata could never be so brave or strong – and that was precisely why a painful speck of hope seared her chest still. Naruto-kun was yelling and raging at the bars of their cage of non-substance, and he held in himself the same absolute faith in Shikako as Hinata did. Hope burned unquenchable in the core of her, until she felt hollowed out by it – she didn't dare let it go.

what good is the faith of a worm to a pitiful dying goddess

Sasuke watched, and it took everything he had not to fracture, to break down into PTSD flashbacks of That Night – or worse, the time Shikako had placed herself between him and That Man's Tsukuyomi. What he is seeing is undoubtedly worse than either of those scenarios, but he kept himself in one piece to watch anyway. Because he can't get rid of the hope that The Voice might slip up, that this time he might actually be able to save someone he loved.

you will fail as you always do, mortal

Chouji, still determinedly wrapped around Ino despite the fact that neither of them had bodies to hold or be held with, watched Shikako's progress across the room. Watched as her fearsome loyalty shone out of her, even in this dark place. Felt pride as she displayed her improved grappling to end one of the Jashinists – only the madmen cheered. Like it was a game, they called for more violence, praising their god. And Shikako denied them, but Chouji felt through her the power of their ritual. He held Ino tighter. Things would work out, he told himself firmly, they would all get through this, then they would all talk to Inochi-oji until he made things right, and then they would all go to Hyakumi (the last place where they were all together and safe and not-precisely-happy-because-Naruto-was-leaving-but-still-doing-okay).

what a simple creature you are

will your despair be so pure as your hope, i wonder

Jiraiya frantically examined their surroundings for the thousandth time, wondering again just how this clusterfuck had escaped his notice. How it had caught Shikako's. He watched her, and she was awe-inspiring and brilliant and determined as any of his previous students. He fears she is as doomed as them too. He watched her fight, all she had was her will, but she still made the world blow apart under her fingers. Totally without chakra, and under the power of an insane god: Shikako didn't let that stop her. Without any real expectation of success, the Toad Sage attempted another seal of his own. Once again, he was unable to stir even a single molecule in this hell they had been trapped within.

you stand drenched in my divinity, and think to challenge my power

Anko saw the attempts at healing fail – that moment the girl should have cut her losses and run. Felt through the kids mangled psyche as any hope of healing Aoba flew right out the fucking window. But she also felt that Shikako would not leave – could not conceive of leaving without her teammate. Anko felt that level of loyalty for one person once, but she doesn't think of that time anymore. Now she kept one hand on the back of Yakumo's shirt and tried again to summon her snakes. She wanted nothing more than to summon Manda to eat this fucking taunting, inhuman voice.

you'd threaten a god with another beast of flesh, a creature as pathetic as you are

Anko isn't the sort to relinquish the last word to anyone, even the disembodied voice of a sadomasochistic pain god.

"I'll just fucking tell him you said that – and then we'll see what you bleed, you fucking abomination."

Together, Kiba and Akamaru watch Shikako refuse to abandon her partner, even when it means certain death. Kiba clamps a hand around his nin dogs muzzle to silence his mourning howl. Shikako can't die here. There is no way Shikako 'choked a guy out with her braid' 'almost beat the Kazekage' 'can take out three ANBU with collateral damage' Nara dies here.

That's not a story he can tell.

you will not live to tell it

And Kankuro just watched as Sparky did nothing to stop the staff as it pushed through her skin. What the fuck kind of indoctrination does the leaf put their nin through? He wondered in horror, but he had a terrible suspicion that this was just Sparky in all her self-sacrificial glory – brainwashing not required.

ridiculous, is she not

she gives instead of takes, and that is why she is so small

it is her ruin, why i will win in the end

Haku gasped at the shadow of her pain screaming in his stomach – burning and freezing with anguish when a new pain came.

hello little god, it whispered to Shikako, and Haku's breath caught because – was that really the difference? The pain from the voice, of the voice, was so… muted. Compared to the thrumming agony of the thing speaking to them directly, it was nothing.

Haku was frozen to the bone, so cold it felt like burning, but he did what any good ninja does: extrapolated from the available data. What they are experiencing is the barest shadow of Shikako's suffering, her thoughts, her pain.

The knowledge breaks him anew, and Haku has never hated before. Not even those who wanted him dead – not even his father. But he hated now. He hated so much, and he just wanted it to stop. Please, god let it stop.

never

Sai followed, as Shikako was dragged to the alter. He wished he could do something, tell her he was there. Irrationally, he wished that her thoughts were not so eloquent. A lifetime ago, amongst the sunshine and the leaves he had thought that her flowered words and hazy metaphors were some kind of concealment technique, but as usual he was wrong. Her whole head was full of abstract and esoteric thoughts, even now there was poetry in her anguish. She thought of suffering and strength, the Shinigami and the inevitable, impersonal, decent into entropy. She thought of hatred and bloodlust and spite and pain, condensed into one being. How the idea of them was greater than the things themselves, and even though he didn't want to understand, Sai was terrified to suspect that he in fact, did.

'Go to hell' she told her captors, and unsurprisingly they remained where they were.

Zabuza's life has been pretty much fucked from the start, and for a long time things only went further downhill from his graduation onwards, but he can safely say that this this at the top of his list. He was forced to watch as a kid he kind of liked (as much as he could like a leaf-brat) bore witness to the death of her squadmate, was smeared with his blood, forced to witness horrors of the universe best left unexplored, and then had to drink said squadmates blood. Only now did Zabuza realise that he had been living in an acceptable level of 'fucked up', and that there were new and uncharted realms and flavours of unspeakable atrocities above and beyond Yagura's insanity and his own bloodlust. The world really expanded for him, and not in a good way.

you have seen nothing yet

Sasuke tried desperately to hold on to Shikako, even as the echo of Jashins triumph bellowed through them all, but she and the world became pain.

all of this is mine and i will destroy it the voice echoed across the psychic distance dully.

Shikamaru, reeling and shuddering stumbled over to her as well, and Shikako rose again.

She wasn't some glorious firebird roaring back to life like in the legends, but she remade herself none-the-less. Barely more than the bounce-back of a ripple once it hit the edge of a bowl. Just a little – but then, that's all Shikako had ever needed.

Her thoughts were soft, but they cut thorough the mad gods' exultation.

'But there is-

There is so much in this world that I love. That I don't want destroyed.'

'And said like that', thought Yakumo, 'it seems so simple.'

"No."

And Shikaku thought that wars could be stopped with that voice: that one word.

Sakura closed her mouth around the scream that finally tapered off. The priests were ignoring Shikako, and Sakura suspected that this was a very bad thing. For them.

she dies, stupid mongrel, dies and cannot destroy me

'You don't know-'

There was something like sunrise in the Nara's voice, and Jiraiya got the feeling he was about the learn something he really didn't want to know.

'-that I have been here before. Knelt, bleeding and dying, before the coming of a god.'

She sounded… bigger… than before.

Kakashi opened his mouth to deny this insanity, but then he remembered running home to find his littlest Genin had died twice while he was away. A mission so classified even he can't access it... even when he's not necessarily asking.

'Gelel had been life, and I let it in but there had been another option. There had been a way, a plan, a seal.'

If Tsunade was recalling the debriefing of that mission correctly, and she was bloody certain she was, that seal could have swallowed the whole continent. The Hokage opened her mouth and tried to order the Nara girl to not even dare think about it. But of course, there was no way to get through to the child.

she dies for you and it means nothing, I am a god, she cannot save you from me

'Chakra doesn't work here, now. But my seals still do. In this place of gods, willpower still counts.'

And Anko screamed with frustration, because clearly that only applied to people who were secretly goddesses. She's fucking trying, there's no fucking need to rub it in.

'And I know that seal. The instructions are right here with me, sealed into my flesh.'

"Wait what?" Jiraiya yelled, because, why would Shikako have a god-killing seal in her flesh?

'All I have to do is set it.'

'It will kill me, but … I am going to die here, either way. There is no way out. I have nothing. No chance, no choice, no hope.'

"No!" there is quite a congregation around the alter now, and Yoshino stares wildly into her daughters' calm, certain eyes. They stare though her sightlessly, and no attempt at physical restraints bore any fruit.

'Only me.'

"Kako- please don't do this!" Shikamaru cried, his hands pressing through her shoulders uselessly.

"No," She repeated. "This place is not yours."

it will be, your death will only delay the inevitable

Her eyes started to fill with tears, and Naruto cannot deal with this. Can't deal with tears and the crazy back hole seal and Shikako is goingtodie andpleaseno Kyuubi!

"Oh, it is," said the cult leader as he picked up his knife and Sasuke tried once again, to no effect, to remove someone's head. "This is just the last step."

Kankuro watched her in amazement, as her first tear fell and hit the ground like a tombstone slamming into place. Black ink blossomed from where it hit, spreading out and out and out like water across sand. Like life across the Dead Wastes.

impudent infant goddess, whose only power comes from her pathetic tears

The first time he had ever seen her cry, she had just released a god into the world. This second (last) time, her tears will kill a god and save the world. His non-existent fingertips itch with the need to write. It's not an urge he has ever felt before, he loves the classics too much, but… it unfolds in his heart anyway, and Kankuro needs to write it, needs to perform it.

"Your problem," she whispered. "Is that you think the greatest power lies in blood."

it does

The voice isn't even talking to them anymore, the malevolent deity is incandescent with rage as it screams at Shikako.

Shikako Shadow-Killer, Kiba thinks, and is sick.

'Blood carries chakra,' Shikako unknowingly informed the assorted nin, 'is necessary for life. It is powerful, and stable which was why we use it for seals. But tears – they carry everything life is about.'

And Sai did not know the last time he cried, does not know if he has ever cried, but he thought he might be crying now. '…surely this can't be what life is about…'

'I'm banking on that being more, being enough to highjack this ritual, to overwrite it, to fuel my seal instead.'

The other tears that fell were useless, desperate things, calling for home and family but she can't stop them. They just fell.

All around a commotion rose as the assembled twenty-two nin and one nin dog tried to find some miracle to pull out of their collective arses.

Shikako's seal pulsed with energy. The centre of the room started to collapse inwards, a single black point that would swallow both Shikako and the god whole.

you will die and die and die, little god, nothing can save you now

"No!" The priests' leader screamed even as Jashin howled at Shikako with impotent rage. He thrust his staff down into the ink on the floor, the priests combined will met with Shikako's in a furious titanic clash.

Unknown to her, her brother and father collapsed beside her on the alter as she fell backwards into darkness, becoming somewhat blank about the eyes.

And the seal-

-broke.

Jiraiya could not hide the fear on his face at the sight of it, because it did every broken failure of a seal always did: explode. There was more power tied up in that god-summoning ritual than a small ninja village used in an entire year.

And suddenly, they were pulled into the moment properly – though until that moment, they would not have thought they were not in the moment. Except Ino, whose bloodlimit had allowed her to experience both the mad god use her best friends' memories to torture them, and this still-shuttered-infinite-lurching moment from which the god had reached for them.

now see your little gods last moment in this world before she is destroyed, and suffer

"We're here now Shikako." Ino sobs, no longer torn in two, and upright under her own power for the first time since this nightmare began, she tries (and fails) to cradle the other girls limp body. "You don't have to be alone."

And everyone is crying – even Zabuza, a bit, which was frankly incredibly disturbing.

Well, everyone except Tenten.

Tenten has had quite enough of this dramatism for one day and, coming from someone on a team with Gai and Lee, that's really saying something.

Tenten pushes her way to the still figure on the stone alter, and she is full of purpose which apparently has the side effect of making her solid enough to elbow people aside rather than slide through them. Which is very useful, as Tenten isn't sure how she'll go about bending the space-time continuum to her will with Sakura elbow sticking out of her chest in addition to lacking chakra and, well, an actual seal.

'I'd have probably managed it anyway,' Tenten decides firmly, grabbing Shikako by the hand 'no one gets to save the world with a tear, and then die alone in an evil temple. That's not how it works.'

Tenten hasn't 100% figured out how it works herself, but that much she knows without being told.

Now all she has to do is figure out the rest of it before inconvenient things like 'time' and 'reality' get it into their heads to start working again.

Thinking quickly back through the ordeal, Tenten recalls how the cultists had gathered together their mental power and almost overwhelmed the will of the baby-goddess dying on the alter next to her.

'Right,' Tenten agreed silently, 'no chakra in god-land, so it's just willpower – dammit, the one time those two nutcases would actually be useful!'

Tenten looks down at the benevolent deity girl who is both her friend, and her boyfriend's sister, and decides that everyone is going to help with this. So they can cut the histrionics right now.

"Alright, listen up!" She gives then about half-a-second to shut it before continuing, Tenten doesn't know how much longer time is going to forget itself for – so they don't have the time to waste. "I can get Shikako home, but we don't have chakra here, which means we have to improvise with pure willpower. I'm talking serious Will of Fire stuff here okay?" she frowns, looking at the foreign nin who look back at her like she'd grown two or three extra heads which were all now spouting nonsense. "Or whatever the highest mental and chakra focusing tool you have as equivalent in your village…" she adds, slightly derailed, but angrier for it – which is something at least.

"Now people!" She shouts, and most of the people suddenly look very busy despite not outwardly doing anything.

"You can really bring her back?" Demands Shikamaru wild eyed.

"Yes, but I can only do it if everyone focuses on it with everything they have. Everything they are. I can save Shikako, bring her home, but you all have to help me." And Tenten says it firm, with fire in her heart and enough will that it became true – even if it hadn't been a moment ago.

'You're in god-land remember?' she doesn't ask them, because she knows it won't be enough for most of them to really believe they can do the impossible. If, on the other hand, they think she (as a noted seals mistress with a history of corroboration with Shikako under her belt) knows something they don't about the fundamental nature of reality – well they'll probably run with it and not stop until they reach the end. 'Things work differently here.'

Tenten doesn't let herself doubt her plan, even though all it amounts to is everyone wishing really hard that Shikako would come back home – more or less what they were doing a few moments ago really.

i am her unmaking, you cannot save her

"Can and will. Piss off." Tenten commands, not shifting her focus one iota.

"It's working," she shouts to the crowd "concentrate harder!"

As a matter of fact, it hadn't been working a second ago – their separate wills passing like ships in the night. It was working now though, which was naturally the reason for giving the ah- encouragement.

And there it was – forming obediently proving once-and-for-all that Tenten can in fact out-stubborn the universe at large (it's not terribly impressive, considering who Tenten has on her team, but knowing that she's at least as hard-headed as Lee gives her a warm feeling she pushes into the seal).

She calls it 'The Seal of Iron Will', because calling it 'The Friendship Seal' is much too fluffy for a seal that has to be butch enough to strong-arm the fundamental nature of reality.

Tenten felt the formation of her own mark under her palm, she knew without looking that the symbol there said 'Anchor' in her own handwriting.

The second is 'Twin' in a lazy, midnight black scrawl. The next one was a simple ink-black kanji for 'home', which means that someone was a) very boring and b) quite literally minded. Tenten would bet anything it's Sasuke's. The third she doesn't even need to guess about – it winds around the still arm in screaming neon orange, and says simply SHIKAKO SHIKAKO SHIKAKO SHIKAKO SHIKAKO. More amusingly, winding just above it in blood tones read the following: 'By the Sage, give the brat what he wants so he SHUTS UP ALREADY!'.

Unfortunately, this takes up all the space exposed by the pushed-up sleeve so Tenten doesn't have the opportunity to examine any more of the marks.

impossible, it will never work

No one even pretends to listen to that freakshow.

"We're almost there!" She calls out, and it's even true before she says it, and the fact fills her with more warmth she pushes into the Anchor of The Seal of Iron Will. "This is it, one last push and Shikako is home safe."

This is clearly the right thing to say, and a surge of white-hot power surges through her and Shikako and the Iron Will Seal.

Only one last thing to do, Tenten reminds herself.

Now, how did Shikako phrase this?

Ah Yes.

My Will Be Done!

And the alter is suddenly empty of all but bloodstains.

impossible, nooooooo

But the mad god no longer has Shikako, and therefore, no way to hold them.

They snap back to their bodies as one, like a stretched elastic band released.

Tenten jerks awake, and her hand clenches around Shikako's.

The Chūnin let out a deep sigh of relief at that impossibility, and for the first time privately marvelled at her own nerve.

"Tente- BY THE YOUTH OF SPRINGTIME!" Lee bellows "IS SHIKAKO-CHAN OKAY?"

"Ah," she knew she'd forgotten something, "Sensei, Shikako's really hurt. You need to get her to Tsunade-sama right now!"

Shikabane-hime was dying, but all things considered it was a fairly minor problem. Tsunade would probably have her up and about as quick The Grass Incident. It was barely even a problem really, with the Corpse and Slug Princesses in the same village at the same time.

"I WILL TAKE HER TO TSUNADE-HIME AT ONCE, AND IF I DO NOT MAKE IT IN TIME I WILL-"

But Tenten has had a bad day already, and bellows back – cutting off what would have certainly been an exceptional exhibition of self-flagellation – with a short "NOW SENSEI!"

Having finally determined that Shikako is stable enough to be moved, sensei picks her up carefully, and is off like he's been fired from a cannon.

"But," said Lee at a mostly normal volume "I don't understand. How did Shikako-chan get here?"

"It's a long story. One I'm not getting into right now, but it involved a lot of trauma – so there's probably a lot of group therapy in my future."

Tenten finally decides to get up, and stretches out her tired muscles gently.

"But Tenten," Lee whined "I though you said our team was done with – uh, 'traumatising psychiatrists who've never done anything to hurt anyone, and don't deserve me 'n Neji'?"

"You're not invited." She tells them both flatly, but doesn't elaborate – because this snafu has S Rank stamped all over it.

"Come on, let's go see if Shikako is awake and back to terrorising the creatures of the beyond."

"WHAT?" Back to standard Lee volume again. What a shame.

NOTES:

Original Notes Before the story:

Hope the final piece is worth the wait. It's been a real challenge to make all the different POV's work, as I have a terrible habit of just making everyone talk with my voice. Not a good trait in a writer, which is why I decided to start this in the first place.

As always, any comments, critiques or additions are welcome.

Also - warning I suppose. Anko swears a lot. Sorry about that, I tried to take it out but it didn't fit. She's having a bad day okay? I'm sure you can forgive her.

The Second third of this is on Page 361 (I can't remember where the first bit is - I'll check later and edit it in) ***Edit*** First Part is on page 360

Original Notes After the story:

So, in case you missed anything: Jashin (sore looser) wanted the little gods people (it thinks of them as followers, but whatever) to suffer – and for that suffering to bring it enough power to make this loss not catastrophic. This backfires exponentially, as not only did they not give him the power of their suffering, Tenten totally just stole Shikako back with the more or less pure concentrated stubbornness of 22 people who care about Shikako enough that their souls are linked together. Good plan Jashin. I almost didn't finish it, because of the chapter update, but then I thought – obviously deus ex Tenten wasn't how Shikako was going to escape anyway, you knew that before you started writing- stop shirking your obligations. You started something, so you'd best finish it. And suddenly, I am my mother – I always knew it would happen eventually :(

p.s. I bet you thought I forgot about Tenten didn't you? (or if you didn't, then you must have forgotten her – which is even worse), but no, she was the scheduled 'Act of God' to save Shikako the whole time.

Also, I was inspired a bit by this thing I read on the internet about elephants. How they get tied up in chains when they are babies, so that by the time they become adults a thin bit of rope is enough to hold them because they don't think they can break it. This is what happened to everyone but Tenten. They tried again and again and again to fight, right up until they could win – by which point they had given up trying. Consider it a heavy-handed life lesson from someone who ought not to be throwing stones in her very own glass house.