In the darkness, a pair of eyes were a still lake of cold fire as they gazed out into nothingness. No irises, no pupils, no whites. As always, those frighteningly beautiful eyes were just a sea of purple flame, inhuman and endless. In the middle of an intricate golden cage, a new throne stood erected. Made of black bones emanating wisps of black fog, it seethed a deathly, rotten aura that completely didn't fit the beautiful, sinful creature sprawled over it. Long ink black hair draped over both armrests and continuing to pool down on the floor. Pale, luminous skin with the occasional string of dark tattoos practically shone through the gaps of the strands of ink black hair. Plump, luscious red lips were set in an uncharacteristically straight line as the deadly eyes gazed out into the darkness.

Ceiren was watching. Always watching. And she knew what was happening, she remembered.

She has been in this world for many years, and her memory of her life before was slowly dimming, getting lost, disappearing into the sea of memories she inherently had as a tailed beast, the product of all the other tailed beasts' chakra. In this time, the child of the tailed beasts. In another time, their progenitor and mother. She was the beginning of chakra. It all started from what had once been her being. The original Ten Tails. Ceiren sighed.

Sometimes it was easy to forget. Even when she lived in a cage of gold in someone's mind with powers greater than anyone could ever understand, she sometimes forgets. Exactly who she is. What she is. And, what she originally was meant for. Meant to do.

Infinite Tsukuyomi, eh? Wonder if I could just decide to go out and do that completely by myself?

...probably, yes.

Purple eyes hooded, the light coming from them slitting and shining out sideways in after-traces of purple light. Again, she looked out.

She could see Gaara. He was standing across from Sasuke, the proctor counting down the seconds til the start of the match. Her cute little Gaara. And with him Shikaku. Her parent. Her daddy (no no no not like that you nastyyy people!). This battle wasn't needed, she knew. All she had to do was let Shikaku know know of her presence, and ask her most rebellious parent to stop. Gaara was already looking a bit better with the little slack Shikaku had given the poor boy since his last encounter with the his kit. Ceiren sighed as the proctor shouted start and Sasuke and Gaara jumped apart from each other. While her eyes carried a bit of regret and pity, but as sand started rising from Gaara's gourd, and the exciting feelings of a dangerous battle started saturating Sasuke's mind, the excitement and craving in those flaming eyes couldn't be hidden. Twin infernos flared in a hellish display as the craving for a challenge, for blood, bloomed like spider lilies in her eyes.

Plump bloody red lips stretched into an insane smile, and Ceiren didn't even think of fighting it as the innate nature of a Tailed Beast surfaced in her heart and soul.

Oh, I'm definitely joining in the fun today, one way or another.

A small pink tongue darted out to lick those flush red lips, like blood and dew of roses, the earthshatteringly beautiful face, with ancient markings tattooed like tear tracks from the corners of the angled eyes of purple hellfire, was faintly flushed in excitement.

Who even knew that eyes like a sea of merciless and cruel demon flame could express anticipation and joy?

_____

Sand was floating around the battleground, the wisps quickly aiming to strike the fast moving dark shadow before quickly reverting back to its owner to protect against a hit or other from said shadow. Sasuke was rushing, running and hitting at great speeds that Gaara's sand was barely following and then countering, their exchange was fast and violent. The crowd was in awe, staring transfixed at the battle going on beneath them. It was much more intense than they had expected, especially for such young genin.

Kakashi was in the stands, watching his student dodge, jump, hit and retreat to start over again. Next to him stood Guy with Lee, and sitting beside them was Sakura, Ino and Choji. They were all watching in shock, especially Lee. Guy cast the smug Kakashi more than a few questioning looks. Sasuke's fighting style, it seemed this last month Kakashi had trained him specifically in Lee's fighting style and taijutsu, considering it proved rather effective against Gaara in the preliminaries. That is, if one disregarded the fact that Gaara's sand had grabbed hold, and the sand coffin had broken almost every bone in Lee's two limbs, leaving him as good as crippled and barely capable of attending the current battles, a whole month later. Kakashi ignored their looks, only solemnly watching the battle. Sakura was sneaking even more glances at Kakashi than Lee and Guy combined, her chewing almost making her lips bleed. In the end, seeing Sasuke being hit by a projectile of sand, she couldn't stop herself and turned to Kakashi.

"Sensei, why is Sasuke even here?! What about... that.... mark?"

Ino and the rest heard her just fine, but none knew what she was talking about. Only Kakashi finally looked away and turned to his other student, whom he hadn't seen in a month. Then, he had the audacity to smile.

"It's going to be okay, Sakura. It's what I've trained him this entire time to deal with. Also, it flares up when he uses chakra, so as you see, Sasuke now is quite the little master at taijutsu...though, for learning that, there was also another reason..."

Kakashi gave them all an innocent grin. The rest were still confused, but Sakura just gulped and looked back down at the battlefield, where sand and quick kicks and punches and other manoeuvres were being exchanged. The pink haired kunoichi looked at the speeding smudge that was her beloved, and gave a determined decision in her heart of trusting in him.

Then, something happened down in the arena. All of a sudden, all the sand on rose and quickly conversed around Gaara, in less than a minute, having a sphere of impregnable sand defense surrounding the red head. Sasuke paused for only a second before activating his sharingan, the tomoes swirling to life in the red irises. Then, the Uchiha started throwing a barrage of kicks and punches at the sphere of sand. But every time he did, the sphere's lean surface turned to spikes, piercing his skin and quickly forcing the raven to retreat and think some more.

For a while, there was a standstill. Sasuke was watching the unmoving sphere of sand, and the only indication of anything going on in there were soft, rhythmic murmurs that were faintly heard through the sand. The Uchiha took a moment to think, and suddenly a smug smirk spread on his lips and he jumped back before rushing to the far wall encircling the battle arena and ran up the wall. When he was almost at the top, where the audience seats began, he stopped and started making seals. Again there was silence, before a loud chirping sound crowded the air.

Guy, Lee, Sakura, Ino and Choji who had by now been joined by Shikamaru and Naruto were all staring, shocked. Guy then proceeded to cast pointed looks at the very smug looking Kakashi when a bright light started forming in Sasuke's palm.

"Chidori."

Sasuke pronounced clearly, and ran down the wall, amassing ridiculous speed. Everyone watched in shock and admiration as the raven ran like a flash, leaving only a streak of the Chidori's light in his wake, and embedded his lightning-clad hand into the sphere of sand. Slowly, the chirping sound disappeared, replaced by stillness. Sasuke's arm was stuck in the sand, and his expression was a bit unpleasant as he tried to remove it, and then a shocking stream of blood slowly ran onto his arm, shocking the audiance, ecpecially the ones from the sand village.

Gaara, their demonic, undefeated and bloodthirsty Ichibi jinchuuriki, had been injured!

But they barely had a moment to even pass their shock, because a horrifying, blood curdling scream rent the air mere moments later, as if only then understanding what had happened. Instantly, Sasuke was brutally sent flying by something big from within the sand sphere. It seemed to be a strange shape of sand with turquoise markings running along it.

Seeing it, all the sand shinobi in the stands paled and cursed in their hearts. Temari turned to Kankuro with a frown on her face, her mouth set in a grimace.

"He doesn't care about the plan at all!"

The rest of the crowd watched, once again struck speechless, as the weird sand limb with markings swung around the battle ground before retreating back into the sphere. Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Sandaime of the Leaf Village, watched with sharp eyes.

This aura... can it really be...

The old man sent a disapproving glance at the Kazekage sitting by his side, but the other wasn't bothered with him. Slowly, the sand sphere around Gaara started undoing itself, the sand slowly sinking to the bottom. Sasuke was still lying on the ground a long ways away, groaning quitely from the impact of the earlier hit. He had no idea what even happened, what had hit him so hard.

Kakashi was for once, stumped. And frowning.

This, he hadn't expected.

Naruto exclaimed in worry and said that Sasuke was injured, and that the battle should immediately be stopped. When Sakura heard him she quickly supported the statement and Kakashi honestly quitened down and considered his students' plea. But before he could do anything to help the injured Sasuke, his mind was quickly averted when out of nowhere, feathers started falling from the sky. Kakashi's gaze sharpened and met Guy who nodded in return, and the two quickly started forming hand signs to escape the genjutsu as all the people in the stadium were falling asleep. Immediately after, an explosion sounded in the Kage's booth.

It was chaos.

Suddenly, from god knows where, countless sand shinobi arrived and went to battle with the ANBU on guard duty. Kakashi and Guy quickly turned to make sure their students would be alright and were about to leap off to help the fight when an exclamation from Naruto made them turn their attention to the Kage's platform. The smoke from the explosion was gone, and they could now clearly see the man in the Kazekage's robes holding a knife to the Hokage's throat. The two were quickly joined by four strange individuals, sound ninja. One with more than one pair of arms, another with two heads, a third was bigger with a strange orange hairdo and the last was the only girl in the bunch, her red hair long and bangs completely in her face. They jeered for a second in between one another before being reminded by a curt order from the 'Kazekage', which led to them immediately taking positions in a perfect square formation. Kakashi felt cold premonition run down his spine, years of experience keeping his face expressionless as he assessed just everything that could go wrong.

When the four strange sound nin started making hand seals, a sudden shout made every one of them pause, and in the next second all their gazes, accompanied by Guy, Kakashi and the two Kages, were aimed down at the battleground.

Temari and Kankuro had jumped down to fetch Gaara, but all three of them were standing, completely stumped, Kankuro's face pale and eyes bulging while Temari still had the facial expression that gave away the fact that she had been the one to shout. Only Gaara's expression was somewhat weird. All the grown ninja followed the three genin's gazes and every single one of them, without exception, froze in shock when they saw it too.

Kakashi was probably amongst the most shaken.

He had never seen anything like this before.

In fact, nobody had.

...but saying that, would be a lie. Six pairs of eyes fixed on Sasuke, who was still lying on the ground from the previous hit by the One Tails. Or, more accurate would be to say that their gazes were fixed on the darkness dancing around him. Shadows pooled by his body, only to rise from the ground and twist and spiral in the air, like snakes or fire, the dark shapes constantly twisting and changing in a languid, enticing flow. Gaara and Naruto were transfixed by the sight, feeling deep within their heart, a resonance. The feeling of connection was deep and unforgettable. Both their eyes were clear, a bit confused but lacking any kind of doubt as their somber eyes settled back on Sasuke.

The Uchiha slowly turned over to lie on his side, and after a moment of regaining his bearing turned his head and a swirling sharingan, more intrusive than Kakashi had ever seen it, met the silver haired ninja's gaze. Kakashi could have sworn the color was a little off. A bit of a more pinkish, purplish kind of red?

Sarutobi was looking on with wide, shocked eyes and Guy's chin had completely fallen open. Orochimaru, dressed in the robes of the Kazekage, and Kakashi were also looking enraptured at the shadows that quickly erupted from Sasuke and spread like a disease, covering the battlefield in slithering, twisting, dancing strings of darkness. Orochimaru's smile widened as he watched, fascinated.

Ah, Sasuke. You are so special. I'd only seen this particular ability of yours briefly before in the woods- display the full extent of your power for me!

Kakashi though was the most shocked. When Sasuke's hooded, almost lazy eyes looked away from him to look at the 'Kazekage' holding a kunai to the Hokage's throat, Kakashi's whole whole body shivered in something he almost didn't want to admit was fear and his brain seemed to be set free to suddenly think at unimaginable speeds. His brain kept spinning, conjuring up memories that felt so distant, yet weren't.

That aura, that was so oppressive yet mischievous, like a monster hiding behind the mask of an innocent yet mischievous child. So sinister and dangerous, but could turn gentle the very next moment, making one feel as it all was just an illusion. A trick of the light.

Or the dark, in this case.

Kakashi watched avidly, eyes burning as Sasuke stood up, the shadows rising with him, clinging to his body like spoiled children begging for attention, for doting, for praise. At this moment, the great copy-cat ninja was both shocked, confused, and afraid. He didn't know what happened, didn't know why, how or when. But he knew that aura.

He had after all, been her teacher too.

They even lived together. Kakashi felt through his very being, that his outlandish guess was correct.

What happened to you? Sasuke...

and Ceiren?