The Lone Princess (A Naruto Fanfiction)

Chapter 20: Akira vs Daiki

     I backed away slowly before falling on my but. "Aki-chan, what's wrong?! Who's he???" Naruto shouted in confusion, but all I could feel was a string pulling at my heart painfully.

     Akira, get up and fight! That's not your family. That's just a sand figure!

     Yeah, you heard her. Before me was my brother, smiling lovingly at me. Exactly the way he was when I last saw him. I gulped and got up, trying to get it in my head that that's just sand figures. Holding the kunai with my shaky hands I tried to get a grip on myself. I took a deep breath and glared at the sand user.

     "How dare you..." I seethed. He just shrugged with a smirk plastered on his stupid face. I lunged at Eric as he got ready to block my attack with his sword, and knowing that I would need more than one kunai to manage that, I attacked him with two kunai in hand.

     I kept a cold face and pushed all the thoughts of my brother at the back of my head as much as possible, but as you know, that's a bit hard with his appearance right before my eyes. But along with Naruto and Sakura's cheers, it helped me think of a plan.

     With the Intel I gathered from this fight and our encounter for the first time, I can assume that his kekkei genkai allows him to look into someone's memory and then able to use it his advantage. He would also be able to create whatever he sees in the memory from sand and it would look like the exact copy. And also be able to manipulate it to his will... that's an impressive kekkei genkai. Let's hope that's all it does.

     When he almost got me pushed back, I did a number of back flips and wasted no time in performing the jutsu I had in mind, putting extra chakra in there to make it stronger than ever before - and trust me it won't be a waste. "Water Style: Ripping Torrent," I mumbled with my palm out towards the sand figure. I watched as the swirling vortex of water quickly dashed to my target, ready to hit him. But of course he dodged, at Daiki's will, and ran over the other side of Daiki probably expecting me to make the torrent follow Eri-..the sand figure.

     I smirked and caused the torrent to dash towards Daiki, surprising him. Fortunately, but unfortunately for him, he wasn't fast enough to dodge. "Gaaah!" he shouted as the vortex hit him head on. He slammed on the wall but quickly stood his ground, stumbling forward with a grunt. With what I could tell, he must have at least one broken rib. I immediately took action towards my fake brother that was seemingly lifeless at the moment, probably because the manipulator lost focus, and was about to slit his throat, with the constant thought that it's only sand playing in my head.

     "Aki, you betrayed me," was the voice that came out of what I thought was only sand. I froze on the spot with my eyes wide open. My jaw dropped at the exact replica of the voice and my eyes almost teared up. That gave an opening for the sand figure to kick me in the stomach with much force. I flew back as I got another kick on my back - from Daiki. I slammed face first into the wall, and slid down to my knees.

     I slowly got up and used the wall for balance, my other hand clutching my bleeding head. My vision was blurred to the shocking hit my head took. I blinked away the blurriness but immediately regretted wanting my eyesight back when I saw the look on my brother's face. Betrayal, sadness, heartbroken, anger... I had never seen it on his face to be directed to me. "How could you...?" he spoke taking a step towards me, "How could you just leave me there to die?"

     I shook violently as the memories I tried to forget came rushing in. "I-I didn't. No.. stop it. You're not.. you're not my brother!" I shouted to make my point, more like trying to convince myself. "You could've helped me... If you did, we would've lived such a happy life together. But you left me to die!" Anger dominated his features as he slashed his sword at me. I gasped and dodged at the last moment.