Worlds of Harmony & Conflict

by LordBrony2040

Rating: mature
Tags: Human, Twilight Sparkle, Main 6, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Other, Princess Luna, Comedy, Adventure, Princess Celestia, Crossover
Length: 23122

After becoming a princess, Twilight Sparkle finds herself having to fulfill an ancient agreement between ponies and a race of creatures called humans. X-over with Naruto

In the world of the shinobi, Sasuke Uchiha makes a stop off at a Sound re-supply base before heading to the Kage Summit and comes across the first summoning contract while looking for a new ride to call into battle.

In Equestria, the alicorn princesses are finding themselves somewhat disenchanted with their role in society and are wishing they could find a task more fulfilling than signing paperwork, listen to other ponies complain, or…doing whatever it is that Luna does.

Boy are they all going to be wishing he just picked up that scroll with the picture of a hawk on it.

Published 2014-06-25 03:40:02 UTC
Last updated 2014-07-11 21:43:11 UTC

Chapter 1

Once upon a time, before the magical land of Equestria, a race of creatures called humans lived alongside their pony cousins in peace and harmony. Together they would laugh and play in times of happiness, comfort each other in times of sadness, protect each other in times of danger, share their belongings in times of need, and open their homes to each other at night. Of all the creatures in the world, no two races shared such a close bond.

Because of this, the two races were given a special gift: two magical seeds that would create a pair of trees to mark the ponies and their human friends as the caretakers and guardians of the world.

To the ponies went the Seed of Harmony, from which the Tree of Harmony sprang. With its gifts, some ponies became stronger and formed a link with the land, while others grew wings that allowed them to fly and tend to the sky, and a third group grew horns to create several miracles with their magic. With these gifts, the ponies ushered in a new age of prosperity for themselves.

To the humans went the Seed of Life, from which the Tree of Life. However, the Tree of Life declared that it would only grant its magic, the power to manipulate the magic force of chakra to one. Instead of letting its magic seep into the world, the Tree of Life stored and nurtured its power, letting it accumulate over time so that it would one day bear a single fruit. A fruit promised to bloom in one thousand years time after the tree reached maturity.

Because of the tree’s refusal to share its gifts with all of the humans, the two-legged people became embroiled in conflict, each one desiring the fruit for themselves when the promised day would come, and a single human would be given magic. Although the ponies tried to stop them, jealous of the fact that their tree had shared with the ponies so completely, the humans refused to listen.

Then, the promised day came, and a human ate of the fruit from the Tree of Life, gaining its immense power. With this, she conquered the humans and proclaimed herself an empress of all creatures, humans and not. While the wars had ended, a dark time of subjugation began as the empress consumed the whole of the Tree of Life to fuel her own greed.

However, as all things came to an end, so do did the rule of the empress, thanks to the efforts of her sons, one of which used his power to seal her spirit and power within himself, and then cast the remains of the Tree of Life into the sky to become the first moon.

This son had two children of his own, which he passed on his powers to in the hopes of ending the conflicts that had begun to start up again after the death of the empress. Because of this, the sisters, who were ponies born from the Tree of Harmony to lead their race, declared they must leave their human friends before their little ponies were once again swept up in the growing conflict.

Using the power from the Tree of Harmony, the ponies left the realm of their birth for another. But before they departed, the elder of the sisters gave to the eldest son of the firstborn a special magic that he could use to one day call the ponies back should the conflicts end, and the humans were ready to welcome the ponies home.

To this day, we still wait for Indra to call us home.

Twilight looked up from the book in the restricted section of the palace library, and over to her mentor and fellow princess. Celestia had an odd look in her eye that Twilight had only seen a few times before, when the larger alicorn had become wistful. But Twilight had found that the best thing to do at such times was to simply continue and let the ancient pony focus on something else.

“You know princess, when I asked you if there really was anything to Lyra’s crazy human tales after my coronation yesterday, I wasn’t expecting something like this,” the new alicorn mumbled as she looked up from the ancient scroll that was preserved only thinks to the magic keeping it from being harmed by hooves or age. The fact that the town crackpot was actually right about there being a real government conspiracy to hide the presence of humans was a bit...disconcerting.

The comment got a chuckle from Celestia. “Yes well, you did ask for the truth Twilight. And after hearing that stuff you called evidence about humans in Equestria, I thought it best to show you this. We may have had a shared history once, but I can assure you that there have never been humans in Equestria. What exists now are simply ancient myths and legends passed down through the years about our time spent together with old friends.”

Twilight nodded and looked back down at the scroll in front of her with its ancient words mixed with several pictures that showed old drawings of what had to be the Tree of Life and the sisters giving a human a scroll of his own which was the instrument of Celestia’s planned return.

“It’s just sounds strange to me,” the purple alicorn said without taking her eyes off the pictures. “I mean…these humans and how they fought amongst each other, they don’t sound like anypony I would want to meet. Then there’s this Empress character…how could we have been friends with creatures like that?”

From what the scroll alluded to, it sounded like the humans were some kind of evil and greedy monsters, fighting and even killing each other over the fruit of their tree. Of course, Twilight could understand the basic sentiment behind the idea with the fruit, it had been one of her first lessons in friendship that you couldn’t put one pony above the rest without causing problems, but to go as far as they did…

“I know it must be difficult to imagine for one who has lived with the Magic of Harmony all her life, but remember the Hearts Warming story Twilight,” Celestia reminded her. “The truth of it was that after we came to this world, ponies separated into tribes for many years because of their differences and no commonality like the humans which kept us together. Luna and I were too tired to stop it, the spell we used put us both into a deep slumber for many years so we could recover. Ponies did manage to mend their ways, but only after the windigoes threatened their lives, if that had never happened, ponies might still be living apart like before.”

The thought Celestia’s words brought up caused Twilight to shiver. Just the idea of being in a world like that, separated from her friends in such a way… No, if the tribes of ponies had never found each other again, Twilight knew that she would have never gotten to know them at all. That thought was disturbing in the extreme.

Not wanting to go down that road anymore, Twilight switched her mind to thinking about something more academic. She could tell it was a pain in Celestia’s heart. “So, this magic that humans used, or some of them anyway, what was it like?”

“Destructive…and curative, depending on how it was used,” Celestia explained. “It all depended on the human wielding it, although not many could when we left I remind you. My sister and I felt a kinship with Indra because of the special kind of magic he possessed within his eyes. When activated, they would glow red, and allow him to send others into a waking dream or ignite unquenchable flames with a thought. He named the in our honor…well, our ancient names, the ones ponies forgot while Luna and I hibernated.”

The pony princess smirked. “I think Luna misses her older one, it sounded more regal. But…I’m betting none of the foals she connects with so easily these days wouldn’t like to try and pronounce Tsukuyomi.”

“So…what else were they like princess? Their magic, I mean. What kind of magic did the human empress possess, and you mentioned sons, so there had to be more than just one practitioner. What kind of magic did the other human have, and the ones before them, who were the children of the empress, if its passed by bloodline, they must have had special magic as well, right?”

Celestia couldn’t help but laugh at Twilight’s inquisitive nature. It was good to see that her former student hadn’t stopped searching for knowledge once she had achieved per status as an alicorn. “Very well my student. I shall tell you all that I remember.”

What had been one of the former hidden lairs of the internationally wanted criminal Orochimaru was just as Sasuke remembered it during his time training under the former Leaf ninja before the man had met his end at Sasuke’s hands…and later Itachi’s. Although, if the snake was truly dead, Sasuke would put on a leaf headband again.

Thankfully, the hideout they had managed to find on their way to the Kage Summit was one of Orochimaru’s resupply bases instead of a lab, or one of the larger hideouts that had either been abandoned, destroyed, or overtaken by the experimental subjects like most of the others. As far as he knew, none of them had actually been discovered by the other villages.

It was also the bunker that Sasuke could use to replace the powerful summon that he had lost during his fight with Deidara. Manda might have been a creature that would have stabbed Sasuke in the back given half the chance, but that didn’t affect his usefulness. Although he could still call on serpents, they were of limited use with the strongest of their number now dead; and Sasuke didn’t have time to wait for the serpent that called him master to become fully grown.

In fact, at the rate his eyesight was going, and how much he would need to use his Mangekyou in the coming battles against Danzo and Konoha, Sasuke doubted he had more than a couple of years before blindness overtook him completely. Within two years, he wouldn’t be able to see at all.

Unless…

Sasuke crushed the thought before it could form. Itachi had made his choice to betray his family for Konoha. It wasn’t a choice that Sasuke could agree with, but he would respect his brother’s wishes insofar as not using Itachi’s eyes to attack the Leaf, even if it cost Sasuke his ability to see. He owed his brother that much.

Unfortunately, the worsening of his eyesight was causing Sasuke another problem at the moment as he looked at the grid of storage boxes built into the wall that held the numerous summoning contracts Orochimaru had acquired over his long life… He couldn’t understand the blurry pictures on the side of the summoning scrolls that told people just what animal they summoned.

“Gah, dude, would you make up your mind already?” Suigetsu said as he looked around the large chamber holding the numerous scrolls. A second later, he pointed towards a scroll close to Sasuke’s head. “Look, there’s a one for cats. Just grab that one and sign it. Remember the cat lady’s granddaughter? She was hot right? Sign a contract and summon her.”

The option was actually considered by Sasuke for a whole of two seconds before he tossed the idea of summoning cats away. He had already defeated the head of their clan when he was a child and…the memory wasn’t something he liked to bring up. Ever.

In fact, Sasuke was actually a little grateful when the redheaded female member of his team struck Suigetsu in the jaw as hard as she could and sent him flying into a nearby wall hard enough to break it. Apparently, his recovery from their battle with the eight tailed beast wasn’t as complete as he claimed if his liquefaction power was still taking so long to activate.

“Don’t say things like that you idiot!” Karin shouted before she stood back up and adjusted her glasses. “Sasuke’s not into bestiality! Hell, that’s sick, even for you!”

The final member of their team, an apparently young boy with orange hair spoke up. “Technically Karin, you can’t call a summon a beast. They do have sapience and the ability to speak after all. The term you’d be looking for relates more to a Xenophile, although that’s stretching things a bit.”

“Shut up Jugo!” she shouted before shaking her fist at the formally tall psychopath. “If you weren’t a little kid right now and violence against a child would show Sasuke that I’d be an unfit mother, I’d pop you one.”

Karin’s declaration made Sasuke repress a groan. Despite escaping Konoha and its endless mob of fan girls, the female of his species was still chasing him. It caused Sasuke no end of annoyance. If it wasn’t for the girl’s skill in locating other ninja and her healing abilities, he would have left her to rot at Orochimaru’s old hideout.

“Damnit Karin! I’m gonna slice you in two for-blerk!” Suigetsu exclaimed when a stone fell from the wall and impacted his head. This time, his body reacted the way it should have the first time and turned to a semi-liquid state for the rock to pass through. However, a second after he turned to normal, something else fell to strike him in the head before his body was ready to change itself again.

“Ow! What the hell is this?”

Sasuke looked away from the blurry pictures written on the scrolls and over to the large case that had fallen out of a newly revealed nook, behind the wall where Suigetsu hit it. The scroll case that rolled on the ground was as long as a man and decorated with a multitude of golden suns and silver moons. Despite his failing eyesight, Sasuke was able to make out every pattern of the object perfectly and felt an odd shiver run through his body upon seeing the images.

Karin regarded the case for a moment. “Oh…so that’s where Orochimaru hid that stupid thing.”

His interest peaked, Sasuke looked over to the emotionally unstable woman. “What is it?”

“Just some old thingamajig Orochimaru’s had since forever,” she said with a dismissive wave. “It’s suppose to hold a summoning contract made by the Sage of the Six Paths but…he never could figure out hold to get the damn thing open. So he just stashed it away and forgot about it. Or hid it so no one else could use it.”

Suigetsu let out a snort. “And how in the hell do you know something like that?”

“Hey! Some of us were actually loyal to Lord Orochimaru and did as he instructed!” Karin exclaimed. “Not stuck in a glorified aquarium half the time like you! Come on Sasuke, let’s just grab something and-”

Sasuke reached down to pick up the scroll case, and blinked when the thing opened with a click as he tried to pull it off the floor.

“-okay, wasn’t expecting that,” Karin mumbled to herself.

A strange feeling crept up from the pit of the ninja’s stomach. Sasuke took out the scroll to unroll it, only to find a single name written on the paper. Thanks to the large print, the ninja could read it even with his failing eyesight. “Indra.”

Jugo asked the question they were probably all thinking. “Was that the name of the Sage?”

“No.” The word had left Sasuke’s mouth before he had even known he was forming it. Still, he knew it to be true despite the fact that no one knew what the legendary progenitor of ninjas was called.

After a second of looking at the scroll and considering his options, Sasuke made a decision. He was going to summon the creature attached to this jutsu, and see if it would accept him as a partner. If it was the summon of the first ninja, it...or its descendants must have be exceptionally powerful.

All the rest of Sasuke’s team frowned in confusion when their leader drew his own blood and signed his name to the roll of paper, then added the palm print to seal the bargain. The connection was made, and he stood up to prepare and summon whatever the contract held.

“What the hell Sasuke?” Suigetsu shouted as the ninja with the dark hair formed the hand seals. “Are you nuts or something? We don’t know how big this thing is or what it can even do, and you’re just going to call it up?”

After gathering the appropriate amount of chakra, Sasuke looked over to his underling. “It isn’t as if we’ll find out any other way,” he replied evenly. Although, something in the back of his head told Sasuke that not to be worried about being crushed by the creature that would soon appear before them, or that there was anything to worry about.

Still, the young man had not survived as long as he did under Orochimaru’s care without learning to be cautious. So, he didn’t put as much chakra as he could into the powerful jutsu.

In the halls of Canterlot Castle, Celestia was practicing a skill she had developed in centuries past that aided in her survival during the darkest of times. With practiced grace and care, she nodded her head as the self-important stallion on the carpet beneath her went on and on about how he believed he deserved a special place during the next Equestria Games thanks to his wealth…or land…or some other such nonsense. Celestia just listened with half an ear and nodded at all the right places to insure the jackanape wouldn’t get all huffy.

It had been a long day, the kind that left Celestia feeling that it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to lower the sun a few hours early and perhaps give Luna full run of the kingdom for a few years while she retired to the Canterlot spa for a century or two. She deserved some kind of rest for the endless skullduggery and egos that seemed to fill her court as of late. With three other princesses to fill the void, was it so much to ask for a little time off.

Or a vacation of some sort, the alicorn told herself.

As the windbag took another breath to begin yet another rant on his how important he was, a strange chill ran down Celestia’s back, and she let out a gasp of surprise as she felt a mystical link forge itself between herself and…something else.

Memories from long ago surfaced, and the alicorn’s eyes widened in surprise. A summoner’s link…after all this time? Celestia asked herself.

...

In a dark room, hidden from the sun of Equestria, the princess of the moon awoke as she felt an odd sensation run through her body.

“Wha-huh?” Luna mumbled as her head jerked up to look around.

Then, after seeing the time wasn’t even past five in the evening, she promptly put her head back down on her pillow in order to resume her slumber. Apparently, Tia had been right. It was not a good idea to mix custard and hay before bedtime.

...

In the halls of the Crystal Palace, Cadence looked up from the latest report involving the crystal crop harvest and let out a sigh. When she had become the Princess of Love, the pink alicorn had thought she would be doing more to help ponies actually find their true loves, not…going over reports made in archaic script that had been discarded years before.

An odd shiver ran down Cadence’s back, and she looked around the room in confusion. “Did somepony leave a window open?”

...

Within the Hall of Friendship, Twilight sat alongside her friends as the looked at the two stallions standing in the center of their circle of thrones. Like many ponies before them, they had come to the council in order to have a dispute settled that threatened to destroy their friendship. But, like a few ponies before them, the argument was so insanely stupid and such a waste of time that Twilight decided to try and shock some sense into the idiots.

“So, you both claim ownership of this pie?” she asked the cherry farmer and the chef beside him.

“Yes!” the both said at the same time.

“Those were my cherries that made that pie! Grown in my trees, on my land,” the farmer declared.

“Baked in my oven, using my crust, and my skills!” the chef countered.

“ENOUGH!” the alicorn shouted after signaling her friends with an unfolding of her wings to just go along with her. Twilight banged her gavel on the stand that had been placed before her throne, until both the ponies stopped talking, and handed down her judgment. “It is my decision that the pie shall be cut in half, and both ponies shall receive…”

Twilight paused for a moment as she used her magic to take the object in question from one of her newly appointed guards.

“…DEATH!”

The two stallions let out a horrified gasp as the council nodded in agreement with her decision and Twilight looked over to the desert safely held in her magic. “We’ll eat the pie,” she said before an odd tingling sensation ran throughout her body that made Twilight lose control of her magic and actually drop the cherry pie onto the floor in shock.

What in the hay was that? Twilight asked herself as she felt…something change in the air around her. As if something tiny had attached itself to her magical aura.

“Twi?” Rainbow’s voice rang in her ears from the alicorn’s right-hoof side a second before the Twilight’s vision became obscured by smoke.

For a moment, it felt as if the world had just fallen out from under her as the alicorn was hit was an intense sensation of vertigo, and Twilight was left wondering, just what the hay was going on?”

Then, her ears felt like they popped and she found herself on solid ground, the sensation of tumbling end over end faded, and she coughed the smoke out of her lungs before waving it away with a gust from her wings.

As she closed her eyes for a moment and allowed the tear that was coming to help wash hr vision clear, Twilight looked over in the direction that she knew a certain party pony with a penchant for pranks parked her little pink posterior. “Pinkie, I told you, no more smoke-bwa?” the alicorn finished when she noticed a few things.

Like…how she was no longer in her palace.

Or…that her friends were no longer with her.

And…what stood in front of her were three tall, nearly hairless bipeds...and one that was not so tall.

The short creature with the spiky orange mane atop its head that was wrapped in what looked like a bed sheet cocked one of its eyebrows. “This is the sage’s personal summon?”

A taller creature with a smooth but short white mane in a form fitting shirt with water bottles strapped all around its waist and a large flat piece of metal that looked like an oversized cleaver on its back laughed. “Dude you got screwed!”

“It’s so cute!” the third member of the group declared a creature with glasses and a long red mane that couldn’t seem to make up its mind if it wanted to be straight and orderly or completely chaotic. Judging by its voice, it was a female despite how much it looked like the other three. “But uh…what is it?”

The final member of the group, a slightly pale creature with a mess of a mane that fell down to frame its face and glowing red eyes that made Twilight want to curl up into a ball and hide seemed to study the alicorn for a moment before speaking. She could practically feel its eyes on her as it examined her hooves, then her horn, wings, and neck that had grown a bit longer since becoming an alicorn.

“It’s a kirin,” he finally spoke an a tone that skirted the edge of being shocked.

Twilight could only look up in confusion at the creatures that made something in the back of her mind that had been placed there when she first became a princess. Wait a second…are these…humans? WHAT THE BUCK IS GOING ON?

Author's Note

Here's something that's been running around in my head for awhile as I try to work on stuff from some of my other fics and wait for some pony books from amazon to arrive. No update schedule for this fic either, although I do have a basic outline for it that I plan to follow so it isn't just going to to be dropped after the first chapter like some tease fic.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Twilight Sparkle stared up at the creatures in front of her with confusion in her eyes, but her mind racing faster than Pinkie Pie on a sugar high as she tried to come to grips with the situation. A few months ago, she had learned about there being a race of creatures that had shared an almost symbiotic relationship with her own species, and now she was standing in front of them.

The why of this phenomenon had already been answered. Most likely, it was due to the magic that Celestia and Luna had developed alongside one of the human creatures back before ponies even came to the land that was now known as Equestria.

Then, the human at the head of the pack, or herd, or flock, or maybe…well…Twilight wasn’t sure what humans called their social groups, but the head human, as Twilight guessed according to his position called her a…kirin. The misjudgment brought a frown to Twilight’s face as she felt the need to correct that bit of information.

“Actually, I’m an alicorn.” She had never even heard of a kirin. “And my name is Twilight Sparkle.”

Although…considering the name of her pony type and the fact that Celestia and Luna had gone by different names during their first period of activity, it was possible that alicorn had been a later invention of theirs to classify their sub-species of pony as something more in line with the word unicorn. Oh, I hope I didn’t offend any of them with incorrect information, although...they were wrong to call me that, but centuries of cultural differences could mean a whole different type of language developed. I mean, just look at Princess Luna.

After all, the humans seemed to have a strange accent in relation to how a pony would pronounce things, so it stood to reason that there might be a few grammatical differences in the thousands of years they had been separated.

“…I see,” the human with the glowing red eyes said after a moment. “I am Sasuke Uchiha. I summoned you here to learn about the capabilities of your species.”

Hearing that, Twilight not only found her curiosity as to the why what had happened sated, but the idea that she was apparently the first ambassador to the human race since their separation filled her with a deep sense of purpose and responsibility. She needed to make a good first impression!

Then she realized just what the human had said and Twilight’s eyes shone with a bright light and she let out a gasp of joy. His wording was a little strange, but she knew the offer for an exchange of knowledge when she heard one! And maybe I can learn about what kinds of magic humans can use too. THIS IS GOING TO BE SO MUCH FUN!

As the alicorn’s legs twitched with the desire to dance in joy, she looked up at the tall creature in front of her, and noticed its demeanor. It stood motionless, with barely any emotion written on her face. Obviously, the human in front of her was one of those no-nonsense types. She had come across a few rulers that were like that…especially during their first meeting.

So, Twilight held herself back from dancing in joy and cleared her throat instead. “Of course Mr Uchiha,” the alicorn told him, at least she hope it was a him. It was going to be really embarrassing if it turned out this Sasuke human was in fact a girl. But, when there was no cry of indignation, or angry frown…or angrier frown anyway, coming from the human, Twilight supposed she had guessed his gender correctly.

“But, I’ll expect a similar amount of information in return,” Twilight bargained. Although her plans for what to do if she was ever abducted by aliens and brought into a first contact situation didn’t quite fit the scenario she was in right now, the alicorn had decided to stick to its basic outline, as abduction by humans to the pony home world had never crossed the princess’s mind. If anything, she would have thought Celestia would have been snatched up by whatever magic had called her to the new land.

Hmmm, just why wasn’t Celestia called here?

On the other end of the conversation, Sasuke simply nodded to the purple creature’s request. No summon would accept a weakling ninja as a master, something several weaker shinobi had found out after signing several contracts in the hopes of gaining a quick path to power. Most of them found that the monsters they called upon simply turned around and ate them. “Agreed.”

What that bit of business out of the way, Twilight took to the air so she could look at the human eye to eye in his fascinating optical organs. Now that she had gotten over their oddness, the alicorn could tell they were quite amazing. Apart from their red hue and ability to produce a minor bit of light, they had a beautiful pattern that appeared to Twilight like some flower in bloom. She could also feel a strange air of magic about them.

“Hey it can fly,” the one that sounded like a female said.

“Well duh, it’s got wings, don’t it?” the human with white hair replied.

“Actually, if a normal creature were to flap its wings that slow, I doubt it would get off the ground. And, it does seem to be affecting the surrounding chakra in some way,” the smallest of the three commented.

For a minute, Twilight was sure the one with the red mane was going to say something else, but the lead human named Sasuke Uchiha gave them a glare and the three went still. Then he turned back and looked at her. “Is flying your only talent?”

Twilight couldn’t hide the snicker at the comment Rainbow Dash would have given if she had been in the room. “No, I’m actually pretty bad when it comes to flying. My real talent is magic. I can do a lot of things like,” she said before pausing a moment to take a deep breath. “Teleportation is kind of my go to spell, but I can move things with my telekinesis more than most, and that was even before I became an alicorn. Plus there’s transformation, transmogrification, conjuration, enchantment, enhancement, mind magic, defensive barriers, some offensive magic…although I don’t really like having to fight all that much, and I know basic herbalist skills to go with my potion making abilities; which I’m just a beginner at.”

After working his way through the storm of words the…alicorn threw at him, and understanding only a fraction of it all. Sasuke came to two conclusions. The little purple creature in front of him was obviously the least of the alicorn species, most likely a child; which fit with the amount of chakra he had put into the summoning. The second was that if he wanted to get any real information from the thing, he would need to ask her for a demonstration.

“Show me.”

The command was…less than Twilight had been expecting. Usually, her friends and Spike were a bit more enthused to see her magic. But, she didn’t want to disappoint the human who was making first contact with a pony for the first time in thousands of years.

Twilight landed back on the ground and looked around to get an idea of what she wanted to do. The room she was in was pretty big, with torches on the walls that gave off plenty of light, and giant…scrolls…that… she really, really, really, wanted to… No, bad Twilight! Focus on the good first impression, then they’ll let you see their library, the princess told herself.

The thought of being able to look at pages and pages of literature from a whole new culture gave Twilight plenty of motivation. So much so that she needed to actually restrain herself from squealing in excitement. She had to keep a respectful demeanor after all. The human was doing it, so she could as well.

“Okay,” Twilight replied before drawing magic into her horn before its mystical sensitivity, increased by the mana she had pumped into it made her eyes widened. There was a strange…new kind of magical energy that just seemed to hang in the air all around her.

Her curiosity wet, she examined this new power and frowned at how it seemed to feel so unlike the magic of harmony, the kind of power that ponies ran on. Harmony tended to had a certain calm, warm flow to it. It was almost like a lake that fed a river. As long as the pony knew what she was doing, the magic of harmony could be guided properly. This new magical force Twilight sensed didn’t feel like that all. It felt hard, and hot…like some kind of iron, or volcanic stone.

“Why the delay?” Sasuke asked evenly, making Twilight jump in surprise.

“Sorry, it’s just…I’m not used to feeling human magical energy in the air like this,” the alicorn apologized as she took a final look at this new human magic and decided that it wasn’t anything that would disrupt her magic or cause her any injury.

Human magic was just different, nothing else.

“Ugh calling chakra magic,” the human with the white mane mumbled. “She sounds like a damn farmer or something.”

Because of the importance of this event, and Princess Celestia would be disappointed to no end if she messed everything up in the first meeting human and pony, Twilight decided to be the bigger pony and ignore the rude creature’s comment. “Okay so…let’s start with…teleportation.”

Two hours later…

For about the twelfth time since the…alicorn started her demonstration, Sasuke Uchiha hid his emotions as he finished another one of her more useless abilities. Although, he supposed getting Suigetsu to shut up for any length of time did have a few benefits. At least with the field that currently surrounded his mouth and stopped all noise, he couldn’t simply break the imposed transformation with a burst of chakra and get his mouth back like the first time she demonstrated a jutsu that took away the former Mist ninja’s ability to speak.

Although, after watching the shark-toothed ninja yell silently for a minute, a thought occurred to Sasuke. He turned to the strange purple creature that only partially resembled a horse despite the fact it was calling itself a pony, and waited for her to catch her breath. “Can you create a sound dampening field to surround the entire body?”

“Well…yes, but why would you need something like that?” Twilight asked after she looked up from the ground. Exhaustion had made flying around too much of a hassle nearly thirty minutes ago, but magic was still more than doable.

Although her stamina and mana pool had risen exponentially since becoming an alicorn, this was the first time Twilight had ever truly put her magic through anything like an endurance test. It was working out better than she thought it would.

Sasuke saw no reason to hide it from her. “Stealth.”

As Twilight simply cocked her head to the side in confusion, the Uchiha let the creature rest while he mentally reviewed everything she had shown him. Apparently, the alicorn had a useless number of jutsu that revolved around actually forcing a transformation onto another creature, or providing slight alterations to their features that were also easy to remove like facial hair. She could deploy barriers meant to stop physical attacks, claimed to be able to fire a long-range blast of force that she wasn‘t willing to demonstrate inside of such a confined space, teleport herself and others, and had the ability to either summon objects from another place in similar fashion to a weapons scroll, or create them out of thin air as a product of her chakra.

The thought of the creature’s chakra brought a pensive frown to Sasuke’s face. With his eyes, he could see the nature of the energies shown to him, be it elemental, normal, or drawn from the environment like a sage could. However, the power Twilight used was different. He chakra appeared as a dizzying display of colors arranged like a rainbow that entered into the normally visible spectrum as a purple hue when she focused a great deal of her energy.

“And…that’s about all I can do,” the purple creature said. “I’ve got some other spells, but…none of them are really as impressive, and to be honest, I’m starting to feel a little worn out.” Which meant the power holding Twilight in her current location would soon disappear, and she would snap back to wherever her people were hiding from what Orochimaru had explained to Sasuke about summoning. It was the summoner’s energy that called the creature, but the beasts own chakra was what held it there.

Sasuke nodded to the creature. “Understood.”

“So…” Twilight prompted, only for the human to remain silent and waited for her to speak again. Ugh, it’s like spending time with Pinkie’s sister. Not that Maud was a bad pony or anything just…awkward; and in a way that she didn’t feel awkward, but made the other ponies around her like that. For a moment, Twilight wondered if all humans were like that, but…the three behind Sasuke seemed to have a bit of personality, so perhaps it was just him.

Although, that didn’t make much sense if he was the human chosen to contact the ponies. Twilight would have thought a more outgoing human would have made more sense to make friends with. Unless…they want to look at this from an academic standpoint, Twilight mused.

Of course, the train that particular thought left on started causing Twilight’s excitement to bloom. But…does that mean the majority of humans are scholars? It made sense, if they chose somepony…someman?

Somebody, Twilight decided. It was pretty unfair to the females of the species of the male gender was the root word for something that could mean a colt or a filly.

It would make sense if the humans chose somebody that represented the majority of their species to initiate contact with the ponies after so long. And if the majority of Sasuke’s species were academic types…they would just get along so well! Just the thought of an entire world of fellow scholars made Twilight have to restrain herself from looking silly in front of humanity’s ambassador.

Okay focus, mind back on task Twilight, the alicorn told herself. She needed to ask about the scrolls…or human culture in general…and maybe something personal about the human as well. Gah! Why did that one have to come last? Of course I should ask Sasuke about himself first. The first step to building any good relationship is a personal connection with the pony…or human you’re talking to.

But, it was a little odd that he had gone straight to asking about magic rather than a question about Twilight personally. However…she decided not to dwell on it too much. Her own history was filled of moments when she had put aside learning about other ponies for academic reasons. For all she knew, this Sasuke human could still be at the point in his life where he valued academic knowledge more than friendship.

Which of course raised the question of his age. Although it didn’t make much sense that a young colt would have been chosen to try and reconnect the two races, a human that was too old might have been set in his ways, so it was very possible that the species might have gone with a younger member of humanity to begin human-pony relations.

On the other hoof, since she had no idea how much age set humans in their ways, if at all, or any physical effects of humans growing older she could use to judge Sasuke’s age, Twilight shelved the question for a later date. For all she knew, humans were sensitive about their age and if she guessed wrong, he would be offended. Instead she decided to simply play it safe and reciprocated the human’s curiosity of her abilities.

“Tell me about yourself. What is it you can do?”

For a moment Sasuke just stared at the alicorn as he considered the question. Usually, the name Uchiha told everyone everything they needed to know about him, and the bit of traveling he had done since Orochimaru’s death had shown that his personal reputation had been growing.

Although, if the creature in front of him had been gone for so long they had faded into myths that got their basic forms and even their names had been mangled by the passage of time, as Sasuke had no doubt in his mind the alicorn summon was indeed the legendary kirin that he had fashioned one of his attacks after, then it seemed he needed to at least give some kind of bare bones knowledge of the world that she had been absent from since the sage supposedly existed.

“As I said, my name is Sasuke, of the Uchiha Clan,” he began.

An hour into the human’s explanation, and Twilight was wishing she had brought some paper to take notes on, as it seemed none of her new acquaintances carried anything of the like, and there was a lot to take in. Not to mention the phrases that the alicorn didn’t quite understand that needed clarification.

Apparently, the magic users of the world she had been brought to were called ninja, with shinobi referring mostly to the male practitioners while kunoichi referred to the female. Sasuke’s magic revolved around fire and lightning, which made Twilight wonder if he was a cook of some kind, or perhaps one of the humans that managed the weather in their shared homeland.

Although considering his talent in heat and thunder, Twilight figured he might also specialize in creating thunderstorms by affecting the atmosphere’s temperature. There was also his eyes, which were passed down genetically through his family line, although Twilight only took note of that fact since Celestia had explained the magic that could be focused through them.

Soon after the explanation about his human magic on a personal level was done, Twilight moved on to gain a broader understanding of it. Human magic was focused in the hands and was molded by connecting their internal pathways in which their mystical energy flowed, much like an electric circuit, in different ways for various reactions. Although, it seemed that much like ponies, humans had to specialize in specific fields when it came to their elemental based magic.

Then there came the questions about his species as a whole…

“So…how many humans are there?” Twilight asked. She decided to get a general sense of human culture and society before moving into more specific questions.

For once, Sasuke looked a bit surprised, at least that’s what Twilight guessed the slight turn of his head and raising of the human’s eyebrow meant. “Well…I’ve never really thought about it actually.”

The redhead took up the question. “Oh, um…if we take into account that the ninja represent approximately ten percent of the world’s population…the total population of people without the ability to use ninjutsu is somewhere around eight hundred thousand.”

Twilight filed the number away in her head, marking it a little low compared to Equestria’s pony population, and looked over to the group of humans. “Wait…you mean that only ten percent of humans can use magic? That’s all?”

Even if all the magic of humanity had sprung from a single source, Twilight would have thought the number would have increased more than that over the years considering their abilities. How in the hay could their numbers still be so low?

“Hey Sasuke,” Suigetsu spoke up. “Hate to break up this little meeting and all. But we’re going to miss the summit if we sit on our asses anymore than we have been. We got the gear and rations, and we’re rested up. Let’s get moving already.”

Twilight’s ears perked up at the mention of some kind of summit, suggesting a meeting of the human nation’s leaders. So that’s why I’ve been summoned. All the human princesses must be wanting to meet with the ponies to discuss reintegration! That’s why Sasuke summoned me, he must have been assigned to make a research paper on pony society and present it at his princess summit!

Then, her eyes widened with the realization that she had spent this whole time talking about magic! While a very worthwhile topic for discussion, it had almost no bearing on recombining the two societies!

Well, unless the contributions of the ponies to the workforce would destabilize the job market…but Twilight didn’t consider that much of a threat since if the ponies did return home, they would also increase the number of consumers exponentially was well.

That was…if the ponies wanted to return to their old home!

Twilight could understand there might be a certain bit of…well, a huge reluctance to simply uproot themselves after thousands of years in one place. And, although a princess, Twilight knew that such a decision was beyond her. She needed to get back to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna to discuss such a grave matter before making any decisions!

“Now that I’ve indulged your curiosity, will you agree to assist me with my goals and carry word back to your people to do the same?” the human asked in an even tone.

The question drew Twilight of out her thoughts. She supposed that being the first pony to see a human since the founding of Equestria would put some of the responsibility on her as well, even if the final decision rested with the sisters. “Well if you’re asking for my help, I’ll do whatever I can,” she told him. “And I’m sure once I tell them what’s going on, Princess Celestia and Luna will be more than happy to help you!”

Twilight examined the spell that was holding her in place, and found the return command a few second later. Hmm, I wonder if I can adapt this for use by other ponies… It would be very helpful if she could call on her friends at a moments notice…especially considering how hard Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were to track down.

“Celestia and Luna…those are the names of your leaders?” Sasuke asked.

After unlocking the mystical seal tied to her return, Twilight looked back up at the human for a moment. “Oh right, humans probably still use their old names. You know, Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi,” she said before looking away and activating the spell. “Well, thanks for talking with me Sasuke, call on me again when you get to the summit! I’ll be ready for you by then.”

Sasuke’s mask of composure slipped a second before the purple creature disappeared in a puff of smoke and he looked at the place where she had been in confusion. “Did she just call the leaders of her tribe Sharingan techniques?”

Twilight fought off the sensation of vertigo and waved her wings around to clear away the smoke before she looked around at the empty hall. A pair of her guards that were standing by the door ran over as she appeared, calling out Twilight’s name. It was then that a little thing that had slipped the alicorn’s mind when she had been exposed to an alien culture.

“Oh no! The ponies that came with a friendship problem…you didn’t really execute them, did you?” she shrieked as the two pegasi closed in on her.

The guards shared a confused look for a moment. “Um…no Princess. Since you weren’t here to sign the documents relating to their judgment, we had to let them go,” the dark pegasus on the left explained.

“Princess what happened?” the lighter stallion on the right asked in a frantic voice. “Your council said you disappeared in the middle of court! They searched for an hour, then left to Canterlot to inform Princess Celestia of your abduction!”

“MY WHAT?” Twilight screeched.

A second later, she was ignoring her guards pleas for an explanation, and running towards the doors of her castle, intent on breaking her personal best for travel time to Canterlot.

It was well past noon as Princess Celestia greeted her freshly awakened sister to the throne room and briefed her on the situation regarding Twilight’s disappearance. Which in turn led to her questioning the girls about the vanishing act, and what had occurred afterwards.

“And you are certain you felt nothing?” Luna asked the assembled ponies for what felt like the hundredth time. Although, she was mostly addressing the only unicorn, as none of the others were so in tune with magic as Rarity. Of course, the group’s threat detector was also there to give her appraisal of the situation.

“Well, I did feel something before Twilight disappeared, but I never get a woobly, wobbly, just all around timey wimey sensation like that before!” Pinkie explained in her usual manner as she tried to move her forelegs around, seemingly circling an invisible sphere as if that helped explain her nonsensical jabber.

Celestia looked down at the floor in thought as Luna continued to converse with the little ponies that had become closer to the two sisters than any of her other subjects in the past three years than any others before them; the only ones she could consider true friends.

Considering the timing of Twilight’s disappearance, a theory had been forming in Celestia’s mind. However, the magic she and Luna had crafted to summon them back to the land of their birth was only supposed to work on the sisters. From there, they could meet with the humans and learn if it was time to return home. It had never been designed to latch onto other ponies.

But then, there weren’t any other alicorns at the time either, Celestia reasoned as she looked over to Luna. “Sister? Did you feel anything odd this morning?” Considering that Luna had most likely been asleep at the time, it was a foolish hope, but one worth investigating until Cadence could be brought from the Crystal Empire.

Luna let out a groan as she looked over to the larger alicorn. “Yes Sister, I did experience a bit of indigestion in the odd hours off the morning. I will follow your advice when it pertains to dietary habits from here on in,” she said, however Luna’s tone put the words in a light that made them mean the exact opposite of what they were supposed to.

“There’s no need to be so snippy Luna,” the Alicorn of the Sun deadpanned before she put a little emotion into her voice to show her sister she was serious. “What I mean is, did you feel the summoning link act-”

A bright flash of light and a louder than usual bang cut Celestia off and caused her to rear up in both surprise and defense. However, when the light faded, Twilight stumbled forward in a daze, her mane more than a bit out of sorts.

“Oh wow…long range teleports are weird,” she mumbled as she stumbled back and forth. A second after she stopped, Twilight coughed out a black puff of black smoke.

Celestia raised an eyebrow at the sight, and nodded at the comment while the alicorn’s friends either surrounded, or outright tackled her in a hug while crying out her name. As the small crowd of ponies asked if she was okay, demanded to know where she had been, commented on her ghastly appearance, mumbled about how it was good she was back, and asked if she brought back any kunai (whatever those were), Celestia simply watched the scene play out until each of the little ponies could see for themselves that their friend was in good health.

Once that had been done, she cleared her throat to get her little one’s attention. “So Twilight Sparkle. Would you care to tell us all what happened to you?”

“So, it would appear as though I have won our bet.”

All of the Elements of Harmony sat around the Canterlot Castle’s dining table and looked on at the two sisters while Luna gave the larger alicorn a smug smile, and Celestia rolled her eyes. “Luna, just because a human was able to open the Scroll of Summoning’s protective casing is not proof of their foolish reincarnation theory,” Celestia countered. “Besides, the existence of such a thing would be unnaturally cruel.”

Applejack raised a hoof. “Pardon, er…Princesses, but…re-in-car-what now?”

Celestia sighed, and began talking before Luna could twist the answer to the question into something admirable. “Unlike we ponies and the Elysian Fields, humans do not believe in a place they journey to when they die,” she explained. “Instead, they think that they are trapped in a cycle where the dead become reborn into new bodies to live new lives.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound too bad,” Fluttershy spoke up.

A second later, the pegasus was grabbed from her seat when Luna reached over to put a hoof over her shoulder and pull her in close. “Indeed friend Fluttershy! Think of it, an infinite number of lives and chances to try new things, to meet your fellow companions, and become friends over and over again!”

“Reliving the same destiny, over and over again,” Celestia added. “Honestly, it sounds quite cruel.”

Twilight cleared her throat. “But…what does one have to do with the other?”

“The spell we used to guard the Scroll of Summoning could only be unlocked by Indra,” Luna explained. “However, the description you gave us of this human makes him sound too young.”

“Not to mention the name,” Celestia went on. “I have never heard of this Uchiha clan…but you said that he did possess the same odd trait that Indra had?”

Twilight nodded in response. “Yes Princess.”

After a moment of silence, Celestia nodded. “Perhaps the seal had weakened over the millennia, allowing his descendents to unlock the seal,” she muttered before looking back up to her sister with a smirk. “Which means you have not won our bet yet, Luna.”

“You just don’t want to pay thousands of years of interest and inflation on ten bits,” the other alicorn deadpanned. “Princess of Stinginess.”

Ignoring her sister’s comment, Princess Celestia looked back down to her former student. “Then what happened after the information exchange Twilight?”

Twilight sighed and hung her head. “I’m afraid that’s it Princess,” the smaller alicorn replied. “I promised to help Sasuke if he needed it, and said that we all would. Then one of the other humans traveling with him, the one with the predator teeth reminded Sasuke they needed to get to their princess summit in order to meet with the other leaders of humanity. I’m assuming they intend to summon us to open negotiations.”

“Princess summit?” Celestia mumbled before looking up at Luna in confusion. The other alicorn just raised an eyebrow as if to say ‘why are you asking me?’ and then shrugged. It was an oddity. Human society was the opposite of Equestria in the way that the males of the species usually made the decisions after their empress had been dethroned by her sons.

“Apologies if I misconstrue this Twilight, but…thou make it sound as if our ancient cousins intend to meet with us soon,” Luna spoke up. “Mayhap even on this very day.”

Twilight nodded. “That’s what I gathered.”

Celestia blinked as she held down the rising bit of panic in her stomach. “And you’re telling us this now?”

The question got Twilight’s attention, and the tone made her a little hesitant. “W-Well it’s always best to explain events in a chronological order!” she said hastily as she tried to defend herself from whatever anger Celestia was about to bring down on her. “And you had so many questions about the humans I met, and I tried to remember what I could about the others, but I only really talked to Sasuke, and he only spoke in a few short sentences when he wasn’t giving one-word answers!”

Before Twilight could explode with nervousness, Celestia held up her hoof. “It’s alright my student, I am not angry with you. Since none of us have been summoned, there is no need for us to worry just yet. However, I would have liked more warning to prepare for a formal meeting. So we will need to hurry and have the servants fetch my formal wardrobe.”

“Unless the human-Maud guy poofed up Cadence!” Pinkie suggested. “Then things might be a bit more interesting since she doesn’t even know what’s going on at all!”

Celestia frowned. “Yes…we had best send a letter…no, that would be too slow. Luna, teleport to the crystal empire and retrieve Prince Cadence!” The last thing they needed was an interspecies incident when they were potentially on the verge of a new era of cooperation between humans and ponies. “Return here with her immediately, if she is still there.”

It wasn’t that Celestia believed Cadence incapable of handling herself now that the humans had become peaceful again after so long, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Sasuke stood on the large bridge of stone and wood while Karin and Madara Uchiha waited at a safe distance behind, cutting off the escape route of his target, the first of three…or fifteen thousand really; although he looked forward to killing the heads of the village more than the others. The rank and file ninja from further down the chain of command were just there to serve as the means of his revenge to the former Hokage who had passed away before Sasuke had learned the truth. Although, they all played a part in the ostracizing the Uchiha Clan and what came after.

But the man in front of him…he was the one responsible for everything.

Danzo Shimura, the former leader of the Leaf’s secret black ops division and current village leader, the Hokage. He was an old man with a wrinkled face that was scarred and half-covered in bandages, as old as the Third Hokage had been before Orochimaru killed him, who had been the leader of the village during the night when Sasuke came home to find his uncles, cousins, and parents all murdered by his brother and the man called Madara Uchiha. According to Madara, it had been Danzo who pushed for the assassination of the Uchiha Clan the hardest.

Sasuke still didn’t believe it was the whole story though. The Leaf had blamed his brother. His brother Itachi had taken responsibility while also pinning the blame on Madara. Then Madara said that Itachi had done what he did under orders from the Leaf.

And now a man from the Leaf’s upper echelon stood before Sasuke. He had chased the man to and out of the Kage summit, losing Suigetsu and Jugo in the process, but that didn’t matter at all. Because now he would finally get the full story, and his revenge.

“Shall we begin?” Danzo asked as he lifted an arm encased in a large metal shackle that had been hidden in his robes, then broke the seal on the lock to let the thing come apart and reveal an abomination of human modification ninjutsu.

Sasuke frowned at the odd human appendage. It was younger than the rest of his body, with a stronger chakra flow than normal. The most disturbing thing about it however, were the several eyes that protruded from the arm at various points, all moving around to try and look at what was going on.

Red eyes, with a tomoe design that matched Sasuke’s own. Sharingan.

“Where did you get those eyes?” the younger ninja asked in a cold tone.

The transplantation of Sharingan wasn’t unheard of. Sasuke’s former mentor had wanted a pair for his own before Sasuke killed him, his the teacher he had before that, Kakashi also possessed a stolen Sharingan eye, and Madara had salvaged Itachi’s Mangekyou Sharingan, not expecting Sasuke to turn them down.

“Does it really matter?” the older ninja asked in an even tone.

Sasuke considered the question for a second. In the end, the how, where, and even why made little difference. “I suppose not. I’ve already decided on killing you,” he said before beginning to walk towards the man. “Bu I do want one question answered before you die. Did you and the rest of the village leaders really order my brother Itachi to slaughter my clan?”

Instead of an answer, Sasuke saw the man clap his hands together, forming the seals of the rabbit, the boar and the sheep before he charged. The effect that the combination was unknown to Sasuke, and his eyes detected no illusions. So he simply waited on Danzo to close the gap between them while preparing his defensive counterattack.

Danzo’s fist made impact, and Sasuke stood still as his third Sharingan technique, the Susanoo formed around him to block the hit with a flaming purple rib cage composed of chakra that simply sprang into existence at will. Then, as the older ninja was thrown off balance by the unexpected resistance, a giant skeletal arm grew from the skeletal shoulder to swoop in and swipe Danzo up in its grip.

A familiar pain filled Sasuke’s body as the use of his transformed Mangekyou Sharingan eyes took their toll on him, but he ignored it in favor of the man in front of him. Unlike his first time using the technique, he was fresh and ready for the feeling.

“So, this is your Susanoo?” Danzo asked calmly as if the younger ninja didn’t hold the man’s life in the palm of his hand.

“I asked you if it was true!” Sasuke shouted.

For a moment the older ninja was silent, then he let out a long sigh. “Damn you Itachi, you really did tell the boy all your secrets before you died,” he grumbled. “I guess he really did love you.”

Sasuke grit his teeth at the conformation, as what Madara had told him a few days earlier echoed in his mind. “Your brother wanted you to grow up believing the Uchiha Clan was the pride of the Hidden Leaf Village, never to know the truth. From the day he left Konohagakure, he had planned to die fighting you.

“He sullied his own name, and traded your love for hate, keeping up his façade to the bitter end. Yet he was still able to die with a smile on his face.”

As if he could hear the younger ninja’s thoughts, Danzo began to speak. “To be a shinobi is to sacrifice oneself for the village. It is your duty to close your eyes to the light, and live in darkness. That is the truth of this world. Thanks to them, the peace is preserved. However, you are not like your brother…or perhaps you are. By telling you of the truth, Itachi has betrayed his purpose, just as you have.”

“Tell that to all the people who died for your peace when I send you to them. And never speak of my brother again,” Sasuke said before willing the skeletal hand of his chakra golem that held the man to make a fist. The appendage of purple energy closed so fast that Danzo’s body became an eruption of blood from the massive change in pressure.

The musculature of the Susanoo formed around him, keeping the blood from hitting him while he smiled at the sight. And that’s one, Sasuke thought…

…at least until he heard the sound of a ninja sandal landing behind him.

Sasuke looked behind him to see the impossible. Danzo was alive and well, and holding a pointed ninja dagger ready for a jab. “Yes, from now on, let us speak with our eyes!” the old man spoke before thrusting his weapon forward.

It broke on the Susanoo’s outer layer, and Sasuke brought his golem’s fist down from above to turn the old shinobi into a smeared collection of blood, guts and bone while Karin and Madara watched from nearby.

“Impressive. Your Susanoo has both an incredible defense, and offensive capabilities.”

Sasuke frowned and looked up to one of the stone pillars that sat on the edge of the bridge. Danzo stood there, completely unharmed and despite Sasuke’s failing sight, he could tell it was no illusion. Nor had the others been.

Each time, with every attack, Sasuke had watched the man die with his Sharingan, an eye that could see through the most powerful of illusions. So how…how is he doing that?

Still wrapped within the defense of his golem’s bone and muscle, Sasuke willed the Susanoo to stretch upwards until it was within striking range, and then struck Danzo hard enough to shatter the pillar he was standing on.

This time, the man dodged by leaping a good twenty feet away, out of the Susanoo’s reach.

Sasuke focused his chakra in his left eye and closed it for a moment. Then he felt the tears of blood beginning to form, and opened it again to unleash his Amaterasu. A second later, Danzo burst into flames that were as black as night, and fell to the ground dead as Sasuke let his chakra golem dissipate.

“Using both Amaterasu and Susanoo is going to wear you out if you keep overextending yourself like that,” Madara called out from behind him.

Sasuke ignored him. If Danzo had switched to dodging attacks, whatever trick he was using to survive death had ended.

The sound of someone making a hand-sign caught Sasuke’s attention, and he turned in time to see Danzo releasing a barrage of long-range, wind style attacks. A jump at the last second kept all but one from striking anything but a glancing blow to the shoulder. However, the unexpected attack left Sasuke in the air, open to attack, and had taken him beyond the bridge to allow for a quick landing that would allow him to raise his guard. Crap.

With no other options, Sasuke clapped his hands together a few times to make the proper signs, then took blood from the wound on his arm before completing the summoning.

“I’m boooooooooooooored!”

Twilight sighed and looked over to her earth pony friend. “Pinkie. You don’t have to stick around here. Princess Celestia says that only alicorns can be called to the unification summit anyway,” she said before looking down to her dress. It wasn’t as immaculate as Princess Celestia’s, Luna’s or Cadence’s…but Twilight was a simple mare at heart and Rarity took that into consideration when she made it.

“But it’s been so long, hours! When are the humans going to call us so I can start planning my super double world interspecies mega party?” she whined.

“Twilight,” Princess Celestia spoke up, drawing the smallest alicorn’s attention.

“Yes Princess?” Twilight asked as she quickly reviewed everything she could remember about humanity. She wondered if the princess needed any reminders about the human’s magic, or their odd accents, or the name of the human who summoned her, or some of the theories she had come up with since returning from Humania; the name Twilight chose to christen their world or country since she had forgot to ask just what it was called.

Then Princess Celestia…hoofed Twilight the dice. “It’s your turn Twilight.”

Twilight sighed, and took the dice in her hoof before rolling them on the center of the Monopony board. “Five. Let’s see that means-”

“HA! You have come within my demesne of Boardtrot! Where I have positioned the red house of exuberant fees!” Luna exclaimed in triumph as she held out a hoof. “Pay my wage, or incur my wrath!”

The purple alicorn blinked. “But…it…you…that’s statistically impossible! The odds of anypony landing on that space are less than three percent!”

Luna smirked. “Yet here you are.”

“For the third time in a row!” Twilight shouted. “I’m mortgaged up to my eyeballs here! I don’t have anything left!”

As Twilight growled at the larger alicorn and wondered if she was somehow cheating, despite the dice having multiple disenchantment spells cast upon them, she noticed Pinkie trembling out of the corner of her eye. “Uh, nopony gave her coffee, did they? We made a law against that at the last princess summit.”

“Woobly, wobbly, timey-wimey!” Pinkie exclaimed. “Woobly wobbly, timey-wimey!”

Twilight and the other princesses turned to look at the pink pony.

“They finally calling?” Celestia asked.

“But my victory was assured!” Luna exclaimed, earning a roll of the eyes from her older sister.

Cadence looked around for a minute. “Are we supposed to feel a tingling or something?”

The last of the princesses sighed in relief. Not that she felt any shame for losing a game of chance based off of a modern economic principle that hadn’t even existed in Luna’s time.

Then, one of the alicorns surrounding the game board disappeared in a puff of smoke, and they all stared at the empty space.

“Wait…the humans picked her?” Pinkie yelled.

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Although new to the contract, the simplicity of the jutsu made the technique seem like a whole different creature when compared with the normal summonings. Whereas summoning a creature for the first time was more a shot in the dark than anything else, the second his chakra became focused with the intent to call an alicorn from wherever they resided, Sasuke instantly knew what his choices were. At least the basics of them.

There were four creatures that he could choose from, the smallest/youngest/weakest of whom he had already met when examining just what kind of creature the scroll was attached to. Considering her temperament, Sasuke doubted she would be of much use. The one at the top of the list wasn’t an option either. Such creatures that were thought of as the head of their species were either exceptionally old and useless, or so gigantic in mass their close quarters combat capabilities were of limited use.

So Sasuke went with the second to the top in terms of summoning hierarchy. At the most, it should have been small enough to fit inside the riverbed. However, if it was capable enough, Sasuke saw no harm in using it to assist him in combat against an opponent that seemed unable to die. A second later, the back of the creature appeared beneath him, and he landed on…a dark purple dress?

The smoke cleared with a wave of the creature’s wings, and the alicorn raised a silver-shooed hoof. “GREETINGS HUMANITY I AM-BWAAA!” Luna exclaimed as she felt the impact of feet upon her spine and fought to stay aloft while turning her attention the human standing atop her, with his feet! She had been ridden before, but just being stood on was a bit much for her. “Do you mind?”

Luna’s anger dissipated and her mind froze as she looked at the face of her rider. His eyes were different than what she had been expecting, appearing more as an open flower than the spiral or tri-crest that Indra had possessed, and… Is that blood? Luna asked herself as she noticed the dark red stain running down the face of the human’s left eye.

Sasuke frowned at the creature he landed on a crouch atop of in confusion. It was considerably smaller than what he had been expecting. Maybe I should have summoned the biggest one instead.

Over on the side of the bridge, the man called Madara Uchiha frowned at the appearance of the summon. “What kind of summon is that?” he mumbled as his Sharingan took in the creature’s appearance and odd chakra display.

It looked to be a small horse with wings and a dark coat, that had a horn jutted from its head. However, the true oddity of its existence was the outpouring of chakra that was keeping it aloft and dancing in its mane. Its coloration was of every pigment in the visible spectrum, but didn’t seem to be quite right for element manipulation. It just looked…wrong.

Not far from Madara, Karin also frowned at the sight of the new alicorn. Like the Uchiha, the former member of Orochimaru’s organization could detect chakra, but her senses were more akin to a sense of smell and touch rather than vision. Although the oddity of the alicorn’s energy still made her unsure as to its full capabilities, she could tell it was stronger than the purple one that Sasuke had called on earlier…much stronger.

From his place on the middle of the bridge, Danzo didn’t much care about the appearance of the summon, and as the eyes on his arm weren’t connected to any optic nerves to pass images to his brain, he couldn’t see chakra with them. He also didn’t care about the creature’s appearance enough to pause like Sasuke had. Instead, he saw the opening that presented itself, and took it.

The old man slapped his hands together for a long-range wind jutsu, and drew in a breath before releasing a blast of air that served as a blade coming from his mouth.

A flare of chakra that his Sharingan detected at the edge of his vision was all Sasuke need to snap himself out of his surprised disappointment over the dimensions of this new summon and get his head back in the battle. He almost went for Susanoo by reflex, but the presence of the alicorn offered other options that would allow him to conserve his chakra. “Barrier!”

“Pardon?” Luna replied with a frown to the human’s abrupt command, and if there was one thing a princess knew, it was how to recognize a command. “I am not some-”

“Damn it!” Sasuke cursed before crouching as low as he could and calling on his bloodline’s special ability with both of his eyes rather than just one. The skeletal figure of the Susanoo sprang into being around him, and its skeletal arms formed in time to intercept the wind attack before it could slide through the opening in the Susanoo’s ribcage.

Attack and dense collided in an explosion of power, and when the smoke cleared, Sasuke sat on the horse creature’s back unharmed, the bones of his chakra golem managing to contain the mass of the alicorn along with his own body.

The explosion banished Luna’s hesitation, and she frowned at the man standing on the bridge. It had been a long time since she had seen human magic at work, but the purpose of its workings had been obvious. “He just…tried to kill us.”

Several years of instincts kicked in, and Luna took in her surroundings in an instant. The place that she had been summoned to was not a meeting of leaders as Twilight had surmised they were to be called. The oddity of that was filed away for later, combat was not a time for conversation. She was in the air next to a large stone bridge with a human riding her, one attacking her, and two more standing off to the side. She recognized the boy atop her as the human Twilight had spoken with from her descriptions, and the redheaded female was also present. However, the youngest alicorn hadn’t spoken of a man in a black robe adorned in red clouds with a spiral orange mask that covered all but one of his eyes.

The second thing she did was take a measure of her attacker, the shock of his appearance nearly brought conscious thought back to the alicorn’s mind before she was done processing the information her eyes had gathered. The older human’s right arm was covered in red eyes that looked exactly like Indra’s did before the death of his wife. While Luna knew that some humans could be born with oddities, not even in the most outlandish tales the alicorn had heard of could such a thing transpire as eyes growing on a biped’s arm. “His right arm, why is it like that?” the Alicorn of the Moon growled. “I wasn’t aware humans could have eyes in that location. And his visible eye is not what a child of Indra should possess.”

“Who’s Indra?”

Such an oddity as the lack of knowledge about one’s ancestor was unexpected, but understandable considering the length of time that had passed. “He was the first of your line.”

“Well…that’s interesting,” the human replied as his tone became cold. “As for the old man, his name is Danzo. I don’t know how he did it, but he wasn’t born like that. He stole eyes from the corpses of my family and implanted them in his arm.”

Luna fought to keep her composure at the explanation. The barbarism of such an act caused the alicorn’s teeth to grind for a moment as she counted the optical organs on the human’s odd appendage that she could see, then factored in the positioning to ascertain the maximum amount he could have. If they were spaced evenly throughout the front and back, it would have made a total of ten of them. “And now he seeks yours?”

“No. I’m the one hunting him,” Sasuke corrected his summon.

It was a sentiment she could more than understand. “I believe I will require an explanation as to the events that led to the this point. Things are so much different than what I was expecting,” the alicorn said. “However, hearing such a thing was done…I will not allow it to go unpunished. You and I shall vanquish him together. Then, you will explain to me why things are not as we understood them to be.”

Sasuke let out a snort. “That’s why I summoned you.”

“The next time he attacks, deconstruct your creation and I will teleport us in past his zone of defense,” she told him.

“Better idea,” Sasuke mumbled before he focused his chakra in his eye and closed it for a second to let the power build before he opened it and looked at Danzo. The man burst into black flames once again, but the effort at using his Amaterasu at such a range while his Susanoo was in effect made the ninja wince.

Luna’s eyes went wide at the display. “That’s…” she mumbled before feeling the human on her back dug his fingers into her. This boy…the pattern in his eyes is different, but that is the power of Indra. The alicorn looked back with a frown, but the expression of anger quickly turned to one of concern when she noticed the boy’s heavy breathing and flushed face.

I see no injuries…is he unwell then? Luna wondered before she flew over to the massive stone bridge to land. “Boy, are you alright? Drop this…construct and-” the alicorn cut her own words off when she saw the form of the brigand that had been consumed by the child’s magical flames suddenly disappear, taking even the fire with it. “What trickery is this?”

A disturbance in the air made Luna spin her head around to find the ancient human standing behind her, a ways off from where he had died, completely unharmed. It had been years since she had experienced the human’s illusion magic that could fool not only the eyes, but all five senses. Still, the alicorn remembered the odd experience in herself that it caused in herself. It was a feeling she was not under the effects of at the moment.

“It’s been quite some time since I’ve seen Amaterasu,” the elder ninja said. “You truly are Itachi’s little brother.”

The name of his brother on the lips of the man who engineered the death of the Uchiha reignited Sasuke’s anger, made cool from the appearance of the horse he was currently crouched on top of. “I told you,” he seethed as he dived deeper into his hatred and seized onto it like a lifeline. With it, he could ignore the stabbing pain the Susanoo caused his body, the burning sensation in his left eye, and the exhaustion threatening to bring him down from continued use of his techniques. “NEVER SPEAK OF MY BROTHER AGAIN!”

Despite the risks, he poured more chakra into his Susanoo and a new layer of defense was added to the construct, completing its ethereal skin as a bow grew on its left hand, while the two arms on its left that were connected at the joint gained a black flame in one hand, and an arrow in the other. “DROP DEAD!” he shouted before the giant arrow was loaded and released, flying through the air too quickly to be dodged at the close distance where Danzo had reappeared. The size of the shaft cut the man in half when it struck.

Luna frowned as she felt the power radiating from the child atop her. It had been years since she had last felt the workings of ninjutsu, but alicorn memories were built to remember things clearly despite the passage of time. The emotions that accompanied the boy’s power were disturbing in the extreme. The child was awash in a visceral hatred that seemed almost all consuming.

“Boy…” Luna paused, recalling the name that Twilight had given her. “Sasuke Uchiha. Calm yourself and still your mind. Lashing out like this in the middle of combat is a foolish decision.”

The advice didn’t seem to go well when she saw the human’s sneer. “What the hell does a horse know about strategy?”

“I have lived for over three thousand years child,” Luna informed him while holding in her temper. “I have fought alongside the progenitor of your line, and battled against the first human to ever wield the magic you call ninjutsu. So be smart and take advice of a seasoned warrior when she tells you to keep calm. And I’m a pony. Horses are much taller...and possess more girth than is needed.”

Sasuke frowned at the horse…or pony, then looked back up as Danzo’s body faded from view. He reappeared beside it completely healthy once again. This time, before Sasuke could move to strike him again, the mare underneath him spoke once again.

“Save your chakra child. Twice you have struck him down to no effect. I can feel your strength beginning to wane. If you continue to charge in recklessly, you merely play into your opponent’s hooves-er, hands… Apologies, it has been awhile since I have conversed with humans.”

As much as he hated to agree with the horse…after examining things from earlier in the battle, he had to admit that she had a point. Sasuke had turned Danzo into a corpse five times now, and the man simply reappeared after each death. On top of which, most of the old man’s opening attacks had been weak. Looking back, it was obvious he had been using himself as a target for Sasuke to waste his chakra on; and his Mangekyou Sharingan techniques were extremely costly when it came to chakra. Even simply maintaining the golem currently encasing the two of them took a great deal of energy to keep it standing around.

The situation reminded Sasuke of his first real mission, the one that had brought him into the Land of Waves, before the truth about Konoha had been revealed to him. He and Naruto had fought a boy with the ability to hide himself in mirrors constructed from ice. After being trapped in a dome formation of them and activating his Sharingan for the first time in combat, the battle had become a race to discover just how the mirrors worked while Sasuke’s eyes and the boy Haku’s ability stalemated the other.

It was a race he had lost because he had let his emotions get the better of him, and Sasuke foolishly jumped in the way of an attack to protect Naruto from a barrage of Haku’s senbon with his own body.

And now he found himself making the same mistake, with anger in place of concern.

Sasuke let out a sigh to help clear his head. “Okay then. Can you put up a barrier like the first alicorn I summoned?” he asked. “The purple one?”

“I assure you my defensive magic is far superior to that of Twilight Sparkle,” Luna replied with a smirk.

The ninja let his Susanoo dissipate, and a second later, a clear dome of energy surrounded the pair. Thankfully, it had enough room in it for Sasuke to remove himself from the alicorn’s back. Luna took the moment of safety to begin removing her dress. A pity, Ms Rarity was hoping I could expose a whole new world to her fashions.

A second after she had freed herself for proper movement, Luna felt the foreign human magic impact her shield, and she turned in time to see the last three blades of wind from a larger barrage strike the defensive magic to no visible effect. Still, the attack on her self while she was preparing for combat struck a nerve. “Dost thou mind brigand? I am attempting to get naked here!” she shouted before casting off her dress and teleporting it back to where they had come from.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at the pony’s actions, and took one small step away from her.

On the other end of the bridge, Danzo frowned at the strange summon. Creatures that could use ninjutsu weren’t uncommon, but he had never before heard of one like the kind that stood before him. Apart from its defensive abilities, it was also counseling Sasuke on using caution, whereas most summoned creatures usually followed their owners commands unless the ninja they were partnered to didn’t have the beast’s respect. Mostly because it was passed along via family ties or other foolish reason.

He raised his arm to count the number of Sharingan still active. The eyes in his palm, and the two on his forearm were used up and closed. There was also the Sharingan in the eye hidden within the bandage on his face, but he needed to save its power for Madara, and there was a good eight minutes before it would be ready to be used again.

Danzo considered his options. With his best chance at bringing everything to a close eight minutes away, he needed to stall for time. Logic dictated that if Sasuke had relented in his assault, the best move would be to simply deactivate his current jutsu, and wait for the boy to make his move, then reactivate it before Sasuke could bring his full power to bear on the old man.

However, the unknown that the new combatant represented made Danzo cautious. With her to hide behind, Sasuke could conserve his chakra and be an actual threat even after the eight minutes had passed. And I don’t have time to waste just standing around and considering my options, Danzo reminded himself while looking at his arm.

I’ll go on the offensive for now, and attempt to remove the summon while trying to think of something else, the old ninja thought before he formed the handsigns and bit his thumb to summon his own inhuman ally. If the barrier they were in couldn’t be breached with his own power then Danzo would simply have to augment it.

Luna frowned as she felt the human’s magical energies surge, and then her eyes widened as a large creature that looked like an orange hairy elephant with tiger claws for feet appeared in a puff of smoke. That’s…

It…appeared to be the same magic that the Sisters had developed with the Sage and his children to call the ponies back one day but…there were several minute differences from what Luna could see. What is this? That magic was only supposed to be used to call us home! How can another have it? And why is the summoning tied to that…that thing?

The appearance of the baku made Luna grit her teeth. The Princess of the Night and Guardian of Dreams had thought she had killed all of the baku’s kind before her departure from her homeworld. Although not strictly a creature of dream realm, the devouring creature would wander the waking world, drawn by the negative emotions of ponies and humans and eating those who were in throes of such darkness whole to increase its magical power. From what she remembered, it also had an incredible suction ability, able to consume whole houses simply by inhaling.

“Ground yourself!” the princess called out in warning.

Then, it raised its trunk, and began to draw in air as such a speed that Luna found herself having to fight to keep her footing. With the danger of her situation apparent, she looked over to her human companion, and frowned when she saw the glow of chakra surrounding his feet was keeping him firmly rooted to the ground. It always had annoyed her that ponies couldn’t make their grip stick to such an extent as humans could.

Luna’s eyes tracked the movement of their opponent as the older human jumped from the baku’s back, over its range of suction, and sailed overhead. As Luna doubted human’s had managed to develop true flight while she was away, the alicorn saw her opening and decided to take it. “I’m dropping the force field. Deal with the monster while I keep the old human busy!”

“Tch, still giving me-” Sasuke cut himself off when the barrier disappeared right before Luna vanished in a flash of light. “-orders,” he finished before looking to the creature attempting to pull him in with a wind element attack.

As he clasped his hands together in a combination of hand-signs to mold his chakra, Sasuke decided that he liked the purple alicorn better. She was childish, but possessed an innocence he had seen in a very long time; if ever. Not to mention Twilight wasn’t nearly as bossy as…whatever the dark blue one was called.

After his chakra was molded to the proper element, the teenage ninja took in a deep breath and breathed out a large blast of flame. The grand fireball flew forward, devouring the baku’s wind chakra and growing stronger before it flew into the creature’s mouth to explode and consume the tiger-elephant chimera’s head in flame before the summoning was undone by the monster’s loss of chakra and the corpse was pulled back from where it came.

In the air above, Luna reappeared at a higher altitude than her target, and frowned at what she could see from her new angle. As she had guessed, there were ten eyes on the man’s arm, but half of them had closed. The oddity was noted a second before she focused her magic to construct a spell, and unleashed it on her unsuspecting opponent.

Beneath her, the human cried out in more surprise than pain, and Luna watched as his body was forced to a state of well below freezing before the cells in his body were completely overrun by a level of cold not even seen in the arctic. Then she wrapped the man in her magic and lowered them both to the ground as the baku’s body disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Ah, so that it is difference in our methods, the princess told herself as the smoke cleared to reveal nothing in its wake.

The battle over, she turned to her companion and smiled. “And that fare child, is how you do it,” Luna told the human with a satisfied smirk. Frozen as this Danzo was, whatever magic that was allowing him to revive from death would be countered by the simple fact that he wasn’t dead!

As the human child frowned at her brilliance, Luna raised a silver clad hoof to admire herself in its magically preserved cleanliness that allowed for a perfect reflection. “While petrifaction might have been considered by my sister, anypony who is versed in human magic knows that our transmogrification spells can easily cancel one another out. But a magically based change in temperature is-”

“GET DOWN IDIOT!”

Luna frowned at the interruption, and then at the boy. “Do not interrupt thy elders when they are explaining their genius child!” Luna shouted back before she felt a disturbance in the air, and looked back in time to see the human had replaced his frozen form with one that was normal…as well as created a sword made from wind that was based around a small pointed dagger with no guard.

Oh pony feathers, the goddess managed to think before the strike came toward her, too close to dodge or teleport away from in time. So, Luna called up her pegasus magic to form as good a defense around herself as she could with the half a second she had, and hoped that it would be enough to stop the coming decapitation. If only I had time to block it with my wings.

Then the man’s head burst into a conflagration of black fire, and worry became moot.

Not wanting the self-resurrecting human to simply appear behind her again, Luna teleported back to her companion’s side, and let out a breath she hadn’t known she had been holding. “Apologies and thanks,” she mumbled. “I believed by restraining him in ice, I could avoid triggering his ability. It would seem his regeneration is a bit more complicated that that.”

Sasuke grunted. He wanted Danzo dead, not captured. “Maybe cutting off his arm would work,” the ninja mumbled as he reached for the short sword he kept secured at his belt.

“Separating the source of the magic before it can activate seems a good idea as any at this point,” she mumbled. “Although, there is an oddity I noticed while in the air. Five of the ten eyes that decorate his arm have closed, and I can feel no power coming from them.”

The news got Sasuke attention, and he looked across the bridge at Danzo. The recent use of his techniques had taken a toll on his eyes, but he could still make out enough to see the stolen Sharingan when he was using his own. However, his own count came up with a different number than the alicorn. “Don’t you mean four?”

Luna looked back to the older human. “Yes…one of the eyes on his arm closed since last I looked,” she mumbled. But what does it mean?

58...59...60... From her place on the sidelines where she had been watching the battle, Karin frowned as the eye on Danzo’s arm finished closing. I thought so…when Danzo first engaged Sasuke, there was that weird alteration to his chakra, and each one of those eyes on his arm began closing, one after the other. At first she had thought it was caused by the old man dying, but after Sasuke killed Danzo three times in rapid succession and only one eye closed, that theory was thrown out.

Which meant… “Sasuke listen!” she shouted. “Each one of those eyes on his arm closes after exactly one minute, and his chakra takes a huge dip. It’s his Sharingan! Once he loses the last of them in four minutes, he’ll be vulnerable again! Just stay away from him until then!”

Back on the main part of the bridge, Sasuke let out a disgruntled breath. “So that’s what’s going on.”

“If that is the case, I can easily keep us safe until then,” Luna told her companion.

Sasuke considered the idea for the moment reviewing the fight in his mind. It was then he noticed an irregularity. “Wait…if Danzo only has four minutes of his invulnerability left…then shouldn’t he be attacking us?”

The question made Luna frown at her opponent. “Yes…considering the time constraints, that would be the correct action for him to take,” she mumbled. “But he doesn’t. Meaning that all of this is just a play for time. However, with his ability, it may not matter what action we take.”

“Wait a second,” Sasuke mumbled to himself as he remembered that at the start of the battle. Danzo had used a hand sign combination Sasuke wasn’t familiar with. Which means he’s not familiar with the jutsu enough to use it on instinct. On top of which, Karin’s words had given him the other third of the information he needed to defeat Danzo. If his chakra reserves decrease every time an eye closes, then he must need to spend more power for each use of the jutsu to keep it going. If we don’t attack, he’ll just stop using the jutsu.

The younger ninja smirked at the older one. “I’ve figured it out old man,” he yelled. “All I have to do is sit here behind a barrier, and just wait for your time limit to run out.”

Danzo scoffed as the boy looked over to his summon to say something before they hid behind their barrier again. For a moment, he considered attacking to keep up appearances, but decided to simply wait it out. Izanagi, the forbidden visual technique of the Uchiha clan that allowed the user to turn his wounds into an illusion and even undo his own death had a high cost in chakra, and even with his trump card, Danzo knew he’d have a hard fight on his hands considering that the Sharingan in his right eye socket could only be used once every few hours.

The boy was powerful, but ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme of things. It was Madara that Danzo needed to eliminate. For that, he was willing to die.

The seventh Sharingan on Danzo’s arm closed, and he didn’t bother renewing the jutsu. Three minutes until I can use Kotoamatsukami, the old man told himself as he resisted the urge to raise his hand to his face and touch his real trump card.

One…two…three…four… Sasuke counted to himself as he kept his eyes on Danzo’s arm. He continued counting to himself as he tensed his arm and tightened his grip on the sword in his hand. “So…what’s your name, anyway?” Twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine…

“I would have thought my cutie mark would have made it obvious,” Luna replied.

Sasuke spared a second to glance back at the short horse’s rear. Thirty five…thirty six… “So, you’re Tsukuyomi.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement. That particular oddity about his meeting with Twilight Sparkle he had remembered quite well. Thirty nine…forty…

The horse smirked. “That was the name I used when I last walked these lands, yes. However, these days I prefer the simpler name of Luna.”

As they approached the minute mark, Sasuke frowned at his target. “Get ready.”

Luna smirked and dropped her magical shield. “And here we go.”

A frown crossed Danzo’s face at the removal of the barrier, tensing for the possibility of an attack. So, they think to attack me now that I’ve deactivated Izanagi? No…they won’t know if it works or not for another few seconds, and I can already be activating it again by the time they realize the tru-

Danzo’s thoughts were cut short when an explosion rocked his ears and the man’s back was consumed in flames before the force of the blast sent him flying forwards. A second after he was launched into the air, there was a slight jerk on his shoulder, followed by a sharp pain before he hit the ground.

He tried to move his legs to no avail, then the old man looked over to his shoulder to see his arm had been completely severed at the joint. “W-What…happened to me?”

“Oh! Oh! Might I be the one to provide the gloating explanation?” the dark horse asked a man standing behind Danzo as she looked forward. “It has been such a long since I’ve been able to provide a gloating explanation! Um, that is still the custom when addressing a fallen enemy, is it not?”

Sasuke blinked at the odd question. Although, he wouldn’t put it quite the way Luna was talking about it…when he thought about it for a second, shinobi did tend to goat when they explained things to a defeated adversary. “Very well.”

With permission given, Luna pointed at the prone foe and barked out a single laugh. “HA! Thou was too overconfident, hiding behind thy rebirthing magic while ignoring the dangers of our own! With the explanation given by the girl of strange hair and poor eyes, Sasuke did deduce that thou had to will thy technique to continue at the passing of every minute.

“However, when you stopped attacking and simply stood around, twas I that deduced you were simply stalling for time!” she went on. “And considering how frantic you were to achieve victory in combat before you ran out of eyes, whatever thou art waiting for must occur after thy invincibility has expired. So young Sasuke called out our false one plan to fool you into a sense of security…and thou didst fall for it hook line and sinker!

“Then, young Sasuke did use the magic of his eyes to create a perfect illusion of he and myself standing there waiting, whilst what we were really doing was teleporting a note of explosion behind your back while you were vulnerable and still thinking we were waiting for the eighth eye to close. Twas a gamble, but a bet that was most hedged.

“But I do digress,” Luna mumbled before sticking stuck a hoof out towards her fallen foe! “Thou didst underestimate thine opponent, and it has cost thee dearly!”

The display of the horse talking down to the crippled man made Sasuke wonder if all ninja really did sound like that after a battle. Then, he looked at Danzo with his Sharingan and focused his chakra through one of them. A second later, the man’s body erupted into black flames, and the pony who called herself Luna leaped into the air to fly away from them.

Then, Sasuke’s eyes detected something unexpected. Several seals around Danzo’s body activated, and streams of blood bust forth in multiple directions to paint the seals in the air around him.

“Sasuke! Get away from the body, it’s booby trapped!” the man in the orange mask called out.

Sasuke crouched to leap away from the corpse before the jutsu could activate, but the second he lowered his legs for a jump, there was a strange sense of vertigo, and the next thing Sasuke knew, he was standing next to Luna outside the radius of the seal Danzo had created. The unexpected movement almost made him stumble, and he put his hand on the horse’s back for support.

A second later, the destruction trap Danzo’s death had triggered activated, forming a sphere of blood that completely annihilated everything within a twenty foot radius of the corpse in all directions. When it cleared, the man’s flaming body dropped through the hole in the bridge that his trap had created, and into the river.

From his position on one of the bridges pillars, the man who called himself Madara Uchiha frowned. He had seen during the Kage summit that Danzo’s right eye had been the one Shisui Uchiha had possessed, a Mangekyou Sharingan with the power of absolute hypnosis. It was something he would have liked to have taken for himself, but the flames of Sasuke’s Amaterasu would consume the body even while underwater.

Although, the riverbed would probably slow down the spread of the fire so such a large patch of land wouldn’t be put to flame as the last time Sharingan users had battled each other. Still, about a mile's worth of the surrounding area wouldn’t be habitable inside a week.

Back on the bridge, Luna looked at her companion with concern. Although he had brought her into the conflict, she couldn’t ignore the fact that twice during the battle he had acted to preserve her life: once when she first appeared, and a second time when she believed the man with too many eyes had been contained.

Still, with the battle won, she needed to find out what was going on. Twilight had spoke of a summit that was to occur later in the day, but Luna had found herself called to help defend against a highwayman. On top of which, two of the humans Twilight had described were absent, and a new one in a robe and orange mask had appeared.

The most logical explanation was that Twilight had been wrong about the timing of the summit, or the brigand had beset Sasuke’s party before they reached it…or, as Sasuke had said, he had come across the older shinobi’s trail and hunted him down, or perhaps Danzo had come across Sasuke and found him too much to handle, then became the hunted rather than the hunter.

And there was also the matter of the bastardized spell that she had seen, used to summon the baku. Luna needed to know how such a magic had come about without the intervention of the Sisters.

For all these questions and more, she would get answers for before returning home.

Luna looked over to the young human and frowned when she noticed his legs shaking. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” he grunted as his eyes went dark, and he pushed himself upright.

A second after the boy answered Luna, the man in the cloak leaped down from his perch, and the alicorn was able to catch sight of another odd Sharingan that had more of a pinwheel design as opposed to Sasuke’s flower. “You overused your eyes again in this fight. Tell me, can you even see at all now?”

What? Luna asked herself.

“I have enough light left in my eyes to finish things,” Sasuke grumbled without looking back towards the other Uchiha. “We should head on to the Hidden Leaf.”

A deep chuckle came from the man in the robe as Sasuke stumbled a bit before catching himself on his knees. “You can barely see or stand, and you think to travel in your condition? Return to the base with me and rest, we can deal with the village another day. Losing a useful ally such as yourself would be a setback to my plans.”

Sasuke turned to glare at Madara. “We are not allies.”

Tired of being left in the dark, Luna stomped her hoof on the ground hard enough to crack the bridge’s stone and got the attention of both humans. “I demand explanation!” she shouted before whirling to face the boy who called her. “Twilight Sparkle said that my sister and I were to be called to a meeting with your world’s leaders! Yet I find myself having to battle a brigand upon being transported, and what does he mean you can barely see?”

The man who called himself Madara regarded the horned horse for a moment, and decided to answer her question as a roundabout way in helping to convince Sasuke to take his brother’s parting gift. The boy would be useless as a tool if he didn’t have use of his sight. “Ah well, I see no harm in telling you,” he began. “After gaining the Mangekyou Sharingan, an Uchiha eyesight begins to wane. The more we use its power, the faster the darkness consumes our light.” He looked up to regard the boy. “Of course, there is a way around that for you, thanks to your brother.”

Luna looked back at the boy in shock. “The magic of your eyes causes you to go blind?” she demanded while keeping down the sickening sensation that made itself known in her stomach.

In her long life, Luna had made few friends. Before her banishment, she became enamored with a pegasus filly that had lost her eyesight when she was young. The pain and hardship such a disability had brought about had touched the alicorn’s heart and made her feel deeply for any creature cursed to such a fate. And if all who possess such eyes go blind…that would mean Indra… She swallowed the bile rising in her throat. He was losing his sight, and I simply abandoned him!

Sasuke turned a bit to look back at the robed figure with a scowl. “I told you that I have no desire to undergo transplantation.”

“And what makes you think you’ll be able to achieve your goals as you are?” Madara countered calmly. “Two of your comrades have fallen, and you can barely stand. Patience is what is needed now.”

The tension of the moment hung in the air as the two shinobi locked gazes…and was quickly broken when the final human arrived yelling Sasuke’s name at the top of her lungs. “SAAAAAASUKE! We’ve got incoming! There’s a group of four ninja headed straight for our location, and another two chakra signatures behind them. I think the first group also has a tracking hound with them judging by the feel of its chakra. They’ll be here in less than three minutes!”

Luna looked at the humans around her, both annoyed at the oddity of the situation and angry at the recent development. She had no intention of leaving until getting an explanation as to why things were so different than what was expected.

“I have no more need of you, return to your homeland until next time,” Sasuke told the alicorn, only to have the creature give him an outright glare in response.

“You do not give orders to me, child! And I will remain until my questions have been answered!”

The man in the mask looked over to the strange creature that was arguing with its summoner, and then over to Sasuke. “Do you truly think yourself capable of dealing with an ANBU squad in your condition? There is no need to remain here. I will transport us back to the base where you can recover…and think over your decision concerning Itachi’s eyes.”

Sasuke grit his teeth, but finally nodded. “Fine, let’s go.”

As she felt the space shift around her, Luna noticed the masked man’s mystical energies focused on his eye. A second later, the world became a swirl of color and dimensions, and she found herself standing in the grave of some giant beast. Its bones extended into the ground, creating a framework for the beginnings of a tunnel off to her right.

A new suspicion over the event caused her to speak. “Tell me stranger, was that your Mangekyo Sharingan that transported us?” Luna asked the robed man.

“Yes.”

“Do you all have different talents hidden in your eyes then?” she continued as a theory began to take shape in her mind, demanding more facts before a conclusion could be reached.

The man regarded the alicorn’s question for a moment, and saw no harm in answering truthfully. She was a summon, if an odd one, and thus played by a different set of rules than ninja. For her, simply curiosity was probably just that. “Yes and no. While those that gain the Mangekyou Sharingan do tend to have unique abilities…there have been known to be…repeats every generation or so.” It held more true for families, but he had no wish to get into a genealogy discussion.

Every generation or so, Luna told herself before she looked to the boy in front of her. He had the same businesslike demeanor, hardheadedness, and more than a bit of a chill to his personality that she remembered…as well as the exact same magic that Indra possessed, despite proof that such power was not often repeated.

The only explanation Luna could grasp was… Oh my friend, it is you come again, she told herself while falling behind the others as she gathering her magic. A second later, she released a stunning spell that nearly filled the cavern.

“WHAT?“ Sasuke shouted as he turned and attempted to leap away, but with his stamina exhausted, the beam struck him before he cleared more than a foot off the ground.

As the human in front of her collapsed into unconsciousness, Luna drew in more of her power and her eyes alit with their bright glow before she regarded the human in the mask and Sasuke’s redheaded companion as they took up defensive positions. “You will perform whatever procedure that child requires to restore his eyesight, NOW!” the alicorn shouted, causing the land around her to tremble.

The man who others called Madara Uchiha gave a minute shrug. Well, whatever gets the job done I suppose.

Sakura Haruno took her hand away from the pouch containing her knockout gas bomb and glared at their squad’s tracker, putting her plan to ditch the ninja she was with and face Sasuke herself on hold for the moment. While most people would have laughed at the idea of a girl with pink hair being scary, the boy with the red fang makings on his face still back away from her when she scowled at him. “What do you mean he’s not there anymore Kiba?”

“Just what I told you,” the dog trainer said as he did his best to put his pony-sized dog between him and the irate kunoichi; which was a bit hard as the dog knew about Sakura’s terrible temper and was wisely trying to put his master between himself and the human. “Sasuke’s scent has been on a steady decline for a good minute now. It’s like when you get done with a bento box, the food’s gone but you can still smell what you had for lunch for awhile.”

The group’s pale pretty boy with short blank hair looked towards the tracker ninja with the more wild appearance. “Then he’s on the move?”

Sai’s question got a shake of the head from Kiba. “No, or the scent wouldn’t be going down as fast as it is, even if he was outpacing us. This is the same thing that happened last time, when we caught a whiff of Sasuke and Itachi.”

Sakura didn’t need to hear any more. She stopped for a moment, and clenched her fists. After thinking about things for a moment, she continued on. “We should still go and see if there’s anything we can find out about where he’s gone.”

Half an hour later, Sakura was starting to regret her decision. Not only had they come to another dead end, but Sakura’s squad leader and old teacher Kakashi had managed to catch up to her and was giving the girl a scowl with the one visible eye that wasn’t covered by his Leaf Village forehead protector.

On top of which, just a few scant minutes after Kakashi came and finished the search of the area, Naruto had arrived. He looked a bit out of sorts, but it looked to be more than simple depression as far as Sakura could tell. When she had asked him about it, Naruto explained the area around them felt eerily different, like something had messed with the nature chakra in the area and it was giving him a headache.

“So, the trail ended here then?” the elite ninja asked the middle-class shinobi that he had followed to the bridge that marked the entrance to the Land of Iron. While most of it was still standing, a sizable chunk had been taken off its far left side, although the destruction left too smooth a radius to have been caused by an explosion.

Kiba nodded. “Yeah, all we managed to find were these,” he said before dropping several arm shackles with sealing formulae imbedded in them. Aside from the fact the designs came from Konoha, the jonin couldn’t tell anything else about them. “No blood, or anything else.”

The oddity had Kakashi frowning. “A fight that ruined a bridge large enough to drive two carts of oxen across, and you didn’t find a single drop of blood?”

“Well a few drops, sure,” Kiba admitted. “But…nothing anywhere near what a body should have lost. Do you think whoever fought here got captured?”

It was a possibility that Kakashi had to admit to. Still, what would be the reason for-The man’s thoughts were interrupted by a shout from the blond shinobi in the orange and black jumpsuit standing next to him. “Hey! What’s with all that steam down there?” Naruto shouted as he looked at the river.

Kakashi resisted the urge to tell his subordinate to be quiet so the older ninja could think, but the area Naruto was pointing towards drew his attention. It was barely noticeable, but…steam was rising from the middle of the riverbed, and there was a faint trail of bubbling water leading away from the same area. What is that? Even if there is some sort of underground magma flow, the water shouldn’t be heating up that quickly.

The jonin clapped his hands together several times, then used a water technique to temporarily divert the flow of the river from that section of the ground. When the water rushed around the area and receded completely, what Kakashi saw made his fists clench. The black flames had more than halfway consumed the ninja from the head down, and began to spread at an accelerated rate now that they had been exposed to air. Still, despite the fact the body was horribly mangled and missing an arm, but he could still recognize the dead man from the remaining hair and bottom half of his clothes.

“Black flames,” Sai mumbled. “It would appear that Sasuke has gained his brother’s abilities.”

Kiba frowned. “Okay but…just who was that guy?”

“It’s Danzo,” both Kakashi and Sai spoke at the same time, with the older ninja adding, “the sixth Hokage…Sasuke…killed him.”

The younger ninja stared down at the body that was quickly consumed by the flames now that they were no longer impeded by the water while Kakashi raised his forehead protector to access his transplanted Mangekyou Sharingan. “I need to absorb the fire with my Kamui before the it spreads too much to be removed.”

As Kakashi took care of the black flames of Sasuke’s Amaterasu, Sakura found herself needing to hold onto the edge of the bridge that hadn’t been destroyed. Although she had held onto a sliver of hope since Orochimaru had died that Sasuke would return to the Leaf, after hearing about him joining the Akatsuki, his attack on the Kage summit, and now the assassination of a Hokage…it seemed that even if Sasuke had wanted to come back, it was impossible now. “Why…why would he do this.”

“Danzo was at the center of a conspiracy to kill the Uchiha Clan because of some stupid politics that were going on in the Leaf since the day I was born...literally.”

All of the younger ninja looked over to the blonde that had spoken in a tone that hardly seemed like the Naruto that Sakura knew.

A second after he spoke, Kakashi looked away from the destroyed body that quickly became covered by the river. “Naruto! I told you to keep that secret!”

The blonde ninja looked back at Kakashi and glared. “And why should I?” he demanded before he threw his arm out to point at where Danzo’s corpse had been visible a moment before. “To protect him and his damn reputation? You told me that the Leaf needed stability, but if that means following a fucking monster, lying to my friends, and betraying everything I stand for, then…even the thought of it makes me want to throw up right now!”

“Unity is more important than the truth Naruto,” Kakashi told him before looking at all the other ninja standing around there. “And I expect all of you to keep this to yourself.” However, judging by Naruto’s clenched fists, Kakashi doubted that was going to happen.

Before the confrontation could escalate, Sakura stepped between the two and held up an apologetic hand. “It’s okay Kakashi-sensei, Naruto’s just feeling a little weird from the strange chakra in the air, right Naruto?”

The blond ninja looked back down at the water burial that Danzo had been subjected to, and grit his teeth. Part of him understood what Kakashi was saying, that they needed to survive the coming war, and for that they needed to stand together, but…for some reason, a new feeling in the pit of his stomach was threatening to make the young ninja lose his lunch over just thinking of such a thing.

After all, they were the Leaf Village, the ninja that held their comrades above all others, and yet…here they were, willing to follow a man who had willfully killed an entire clan because they disagreed on who should be leading the village. As much as he looked within himself, Naruto couldn’t help but feel sickened by the fact such a man had been called Hokage, if only for a day.

“How long before he will be able to see again?”

The man who called himself Madara Uchiha looked up at the strange creature sitting on the other end of the dark makeshift operating room that he had thrown together to meet its demands. As much as he tried to hide it, the thing’s presence was…unnerving. Its very hair danced with an odd chakra, and despite the fact that summons relied on their own energy reserves to remain where they were at, the horned horse with wings seemed completely fine after over an hour of sharing space with the humans.

“This is his first transplantation so…three days at the minimum, maybe as much as a week. I’ll be going now,” he said before turning to leave. “Girl, inform me when Sasuke awakens.”

After Madara had left, Karin turned to look at the sleeping teenager. Most of Sasuke’s clothes had been removed before the operation had begun, and the female ninja licked her lips at the sight of his bare chest. However, since they weren’t alone in the room, she couldn’t take better advantage of the situation. The summon looked to be guarding him like something akin to a mothering bear. “So, how long till he wakes up?”

Luna regarded the human for a moment before turning her attention back onto Indra’s reincarnation. “An hour,” she answered. Then, she looked back up at the human with the red mane. “Tell me child, do you know much about this boy?”

The question threw Karin off a bit. “I guess,” she hesitantly replied, careful not to say yes, but not giving an outright no. “Why?”

“I wish to know about him…and this world, and you, I suppose,” she added as an afterthought before letting out a single laugh before forcing a smile to appear on her lips. “Apologies, if I am guarded. The other man…unnerved me a bit. Come, tell me about yourself. It’s been millennia since I last met a human, and I am curious to see what has changed in my absence.”

Karin blinked at the alicorn’s sudden change in demeanor, but…the creature seemed…well, she knew it was far from harmless, but there didn’t seem to be any harm in letting it know what it wanted to know. “Well, you’re asking a lot but…I’ll try to keep things as simple as I can. Tell me, what was the last thing you were here for?”

The alicorn’s face became serious for a moment. “The last time I walked these lands, my sister and I assisted in the destruction of a beast with ten tails before befriending the sage’s children and leaving for a new home when things refused to settle down.”

“…I’ll give you the abridged version of history then,” Karin mumbled in an uneasy tone before beginning with events as far back as she knew. “Shinobi used to be divided by clans until a new system was developed where several clans gathered into a single military unit to work together to strengthen themselves and try and bring more order to things while lessening wars. The results weren’t what they were expecting. While small, constant conflicts became a thing of the past, war took on a whole new meaning when dozens of clans fought each other in battles that included thousands of shinobi. These new wars completely redrew the maps every time they occurred, and brought down nations. On top of which, without ninja scattered throughout the world, bandits of opportunity began raiding the unprotected villages that couldn’t afford to hire ninja to protect themselves.

“That’s where my personal story begins,” Karin continued with a sigh. “A man I once met told me my family was from a minor ninja village that the Uzumaki Clan created themselves, before it was destroyed. So, I wasn’t raised as a ninja, not at first at least. However, the village that my family fled to was destroyed by bandits. I sensed them coming, and hid before they arrived. Afterwards, a man named Orochimaru found me, and showed me how to use my abilities to detect the presence of others from miles away. So I followed him…until he was killed.”

Luna let out a regretful sigh. “I apologize for bringing up bad memories. His loss must weigh on you.”

Surprisingly, Karin shook her head. “I owed the man my life and allegiance, but he was no saint,” she said before looking down at the unconscious boy. “To be honest, none of us are. Orochimaru was considered a monster by his own village, but then…it was a bunch of murderers calling a man evil while their own hands dripped with blood. To me, he was the man who saved my life and gave me purpose, so I followed him. It was as simple as that.”

“And the boy?” Luna asked as she inclined her head towards Sasuke.

Karin smirked. “It’s kind of the same thing with him actually,” she said. “The first time I met Sasuke, he saved my life from a man-eating bear, probably doesn’t even remember it. Then one day, he came to join Orochimaru’s organization, and I was so happy. The beautiful boy that saved my life could be with me. Then things happened, and Orochimaru died. Sasuke set off on some personal business, and I followed him along with two others…the ones your purple friend probably told you about. And now we’re here.”

“And this business is?” Luna asked.

The redhead sighed. “Sasuke wants to assassinate the leadership of one of the major ninja villages,” she explained. “That man you saw on the bridge was one of them.”

Luna lowered her head and shook it in dismay. So, things have not changed at all since we left, she told herself before looking back up to the girl. “And the summit I was told of, what is that?”

“The Kage summit?” Karin asked. “Right…well… Another war is on the horizon, and the villages are coming together to fight the biggest war in the history of the ninja world. To be honest…it’s a little scary.”

“And what side do you fight for in this conflict?”

Karin let out a laugh. “We’re not exactly ones that play by the rules,” she said with a smirk. “I follow Sasuke, and Sasuke just wants to get his hands on the people who…hurt him a long time ago. We don’t really care which side wins. They’re all just as dirty to me. To be honest, I think this world would be better off if they were all to simply die.”

The feelings that Luna felt creeping up after hearing the girl’s explanation of things were mixed. There was a great deal of disappointment upon hearing that humanity had yet to find its way free of the darkness that it had been plunged into after the Tree of Life sprouted. Apparently, there were not yet ready for reunification. But…she was happy to see her old friend was still around in a way, and…separated from the mass of conflict.

She decided to remain until he awoke to inform the boy of the development regarding his eye transplants, and the return home to give Celestia the bad news. But then…why kill myself waiting? Luna asked as she brought her magic to bear in order to undo her sleeping enchantment.

A second after her spell was cast, she felt a shiver in the air and looked deeper into the human’s underground hideaway. “Strange.”

“What?” Karin asked.

“I feel a familiar presence that I have not encountered in some time.” But… how is that even possible?

Obito Uchiha, believed by the world at large to be the ancient ninja Madara Uchiha, made his way deeper into his private scandium before the telltale sound of his oldest partner came from the empty behind him, followed by the creature itself simply stepping out of the wall.

A creature of half black skin and a mangled white side that accounted for half his body, the Black Zetsu was the true director of the Akatsuki. Obito had been there to see his creation, before the real Madara Uchiha had died and passed his task to the younger Uchiha.

“Why do I detect the presence of a harmonic being within these walls?” Black Zetsu demanded.

Obito frowned from behind his mask. “A what?”

“An alicorn, it would looked like a horse, but possessed a long horn and wings as well as a special type of ninjutsu unknown to humans.”

The fake Madara looked back in the direction of where Sasuke was resting. “In his recent battle, Sasuke summoned a creature like you described,” he said while fighting to keep his voice steady as the absurdity of the coming statement threatened to make him burst into laughter. “It followed him home, so I let him keep it.”

Black Zetsu whirled on his long-time partner in a fury. “You fool! You let this generation’s incarnation of Indra come in contact with an alicorn when we’re so close to finally achieving our goals? We have to dispose of them at once!”

“What? Why the sudden panic?” Obito asked as he followed the Black Zetsu down the hallway. “What’s going on?”

“Why did you do this?” Sasuke seethed in anger as he touched the bandages covering his eyes.

Although he couldn’t see her, Luna frowned at the boy on general principle for his ungrateful nature. “You were going blind. So I took measures to stop it.”

The boy’s hand clenched in anger for a moment before he turned his head in Karin’s general direction. “And you just sat there and did nothing to stop them?”

“Stop Madara Uchiha and that thing?” Karin asked as the pointed towards the pony, then realized that Sasuke couldn’t see what she was talking about and groaned. “Don’t see what the problem is. Hell, I only need glasses, and it still drives me insane half the time.”

“Don’t try to pin your own weakness on me!”

Karin sighed in relief when Sasuke…probably glared at her and she didn’t die. It seemed that she would have a few days to talk him out of his latest bout of anger. By then, he would hopefully see the sense in what the horse had done, and be thankful for it.

All in all, the young woman didn’t know what to make of the situation they were currently in. After Orochimaru died, Sasuke gathered them up to track down Itachi. Karin had understood the motives behind that, everyone knew that the older brother had murdered the entirety of Sasuke’s family several years ago before fleeing the Leaf. Then, when Itachi died, something in Sasuke changed. All of a sudden, he wouldn’t hear of anything negative to be said about his brother, and declared his intentions to destroy the Leaf village. Anger and resentment turned to outright hatred, and he had started taking foolish chances that had gotten Jugo and Suigetsu killed.

Not that Karin cared about those idiots…not at all. One was a complete psychopath, and then there was the real crazy one. She was better off…without them.

The presence of a new chakra signature in her immediate area made Karin turn around to find Madara coming up behind her. “Oh it’s you…uh, Sasuke’s awake,” she said before the man quickly reached out with his left hand and seized Karin by the throat. What is- was all the managed to think before a kunai appeared in the man’s other hand that he jammed into her brain.

Luna sat stunned for a fraction of a second as she watched the girl drop dead from the knife that had been pushed into her skull. Then, the alicorn stood up in a rage as she spread her wings and glared at the oddly dressed man. “WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?”

“What’s going on?” Sasuke demanded as he turned his head back towards Luna.

‘Madara’ was the one who answered. “I’m afraid you’ve gone and done something none of us were expecting Sasuke. So I’ve been ordered to kill you now.”

A second later, Luna snatched the boy from the operating table he was sitting on with her magic, and pulled him back to the ground near her hooves before she glared at the offending human while Sasuke slowly got to his feet. “You and what army?”

“This one,” Madara replied before Luna felt the surge of magical energies coming from the cave around her.

Then, she saw them.

They came out of the walls, dozens of them. The freakish white creatures may have looked remotely human, but Luna knew that they had been stripped of such a title eons ago when the Empress attempted to plunge the world into an endless dream.

Kaguya’s tree-spawn, here? How is that even possible? They were sealed away on the moon with the beast! Luna mentally shouted as her mind raced with what the return of such creatures meant. “What is this?” she demanded. “How is it that those things walk this world once again? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE YOU FOOL?”

“Why, I’m saving the world of course,” the man who called himself Madara replied as several of the creatures finished emerging from the ground as if it were water. “Now, kill the alicorn and the boy.”

Luna grit her teeth and looked around. Tree-spawn were not powerful, but using her full might inside such an enclosure was risky at best. On top of which, she had the child to think about…not to mention question about what the buck was going on! If the children that had been reborn in the Tree of Life were once again roaming the land, things were far worse in the world of humanity than anything Luna had previously imagined.

“I think not,” the princess replied before jumping up to wrap her hooves around Sasuke’s shoulders along with her wings when it came to his waste. Then she activated the recall part of the summoned spell and disappeared in a puff of smoke, taking the boy with her.

Celestia paced around the throne room despite the fact that showing such distress was probably worrying the two other princesses in the room, and Twilight’s friends. Of course the scowl on her face didn’t help either, but the worry, annoyance, and outright anger that had been building up over the past several hours since Luna had disappeared was beginning to boil over.

“How long has it been now?” she asked the room of ponies. Of course, Twilight was the only one around to answer.

“Two hours, twenty eight minutes, and fifteen seconds…well, eighteen seconds now, nineteen…twenty.”

Celestia resisted the urge to groan and held up a hoof to forestall her former student’s continued counting. “Yes, thank you Twilight.”

The lack of another summoning disturbed Celestia greatly, and for several reasons. While she had to admit that Luna was more…familiar with humanity and had a better relationship with the creatures in the past, the Moon Princess was…well…

Celestia took a deep breath, and forced herself to calm down. From what Twilight had said, humans had become a peaceful group of creatures. They had not just abducted Luna to do Heavens knew what to her. Luna was probably just enjoying the spotlight since her role in Equestria was still a bit less than she would have like it to be.

After all, Luna was the alicorn that got along with humans while Celestia had been too put off for their penchant for violence. They had the same fiery passion she had most of the time, and similar quick tempers.

Luna liked humans.

In fact, she loved humans…

Celestia sighed, and looked down at the dress that Luna had teleported back with a frown. Okay, so there may have been some rumors about some interspecies relationships going on, but I never actually believed them!

On top of which, it had barely been three minutes, three bucking minutes! How in the hay could Luna have…have started participating in acts that did not require clothes that soon?! Celestia knew humans, she knew their customs, and the removal of a garments signified the beginning of intercourse!

The Alicorn of the Day let out another sigh to try and cool her temper. Just because there had been a few rumors back in the day didn’t mean Luna just going to jump a human at the drop of a hat to-Celestia’s continued attempts to calm herself down when a puff of smoke and a displacement of air accounted the return of Equestria’s Princess of the Night. However, the relief of having Luna return was quickly overshadowed by the creature she was currently locked in an embrace with.

It was mostly naked human male with bandages over his eyes…

Then, the younger alicorn looked up to the older one. “Sister, we are in a most precarious position!”

“Yes, I can see that,” Celestia mumbled.