When Darkness Turns to Light

Whisper of the Heart

Recappy From the Last Chappy: Almost cockily, he put his first on his hip and glanced at Hikari. "Hehe, looks like I'm a ninja now, too!"

Despite herself, Hikari cracked a smile. "Don't get ahead of yourself. It's not over yet."

Sasori stood and caught sight of a forgotten contraption not far away from him. Lying with sand threatening to wedge into the cracks, the weapon he had detached from the Kazekage puppet remained with Hikari's bones wedged in-between the blades. His lip curled as he raised his hand and attached chakra strings to the contraption. It was lifted from the ground.

The Keybearer lowered his weapon and scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, I know that. But we took away his weapon, so-!"

Something struck Sora's back.

Chapter Nineteen: Whisper of the Heart

Blue butterflies, seeming to glow as their shimmering wings reflected light, had fluttered around them in that waterfall cavern in a similar way that feelings had fluttered through her body as her and Sora's palms touched. Although she had not had "butterflies in her tummy," the feelings had been warm and fuzzy all the same-and they had been real.

Of all feelings she had experienced, in spite of her not possessing a heart, the emotions weaved during the flight of those butterflies had been the most veritable and strongest of all preceding in three years. There had been the phantoms, the "memory-manifestations," but nothing had matched the strength. Beforehand, the strength had not continued on, either.

She recalled the butterflies briefly, for they were referenced in "flutters," but she could recognize the feeling in her stomach was not that. Upon watching Sora be struck from behind by a potentially poisonous-and fatal-weapon, she felt not a flutter but a deep tension. The tension was heavy in her gut and had plunged after a jump of fear.

This was different from the stirring in her chest when she thought Cloud had killed him. Similar, but stronger. She was definitely not as Heartless as she had previously believed. . . .

Sora! Hikari saw him fall over, but could not be sure if it was from force of impact, pain, or his body's immediate response to the poison. For all she knew, it could have been all three. She tried to close the small distance, but the scythe blade/bone contraption lifted from his back and pursued her. The movement was a little less than graceful due to its instability and crude design.

When it approached her, she performed the Dance of the Larch as she did during the Iron Sand Drizzle. As this taijutsu dance was not solely an effective defense to ward attacks, the offensive capabilities came to light when her bones began destroying the contraption with spins, twists, and thrusts that simply tore it apart.

At the end of the dance, the parts of the scythe blades and bones were strewn in the sands and Hikari remained unharmed. Sora was a few feet away, lifting himself to his hands and knees, slowly . . . which he would not have been able to do if he were poisoned.

The bones were still mixed with the blades . . . maybe, because they were farther out, the bones struck him and the blades could not reach? Poison must not have leaked onto the bones . . . , she speculated as she approached him. Keeping an eye on Sasori in her peripherals, she lowered herself to the Keybearer's level. She had to be careful how close she was to him because of the bones.

Acting presumptuously, she carefully touched one of the wounds, causing him to flinch and grunt. Blood steadily seeped from the wound, but fortunately not profusely. The pattern of the wound was more rough than one sustained from a smooth-edged blade; in her non-medical ninja opinion, that almost confirmed he had been struck by the bones.