“Tadaima.” I said as I stepped into the apartment. The only other person in the room, my foster father Shiratama, a tall man with his brown hair tied back and grey eyes, merely nodded from his position in the kitchen as he began removing plates from a cupboard, which I soon joined him in doing so.
“So how was the assessment results, Kyoku?” He said, taking my plate from the drawer, a simple porcelain with the painting of the sun upon it and began filling it up with Onigiri that he had made beforehand.
“Hi dad, “ I said, the word still feeling foreign in my mouth. “They said that I passed and I am good to meet the class tomorrow.” I quickly grabbed a cup from the cupboard, wrapping three fingers around it before putting it back and taking another one from the drawer.
“That’s good.” Father narrowed his eyes just a fraction, enough that only someone in the room would notice, but continued placing the onigiri on the plate before sliding it towards me. I nodded, excused myself before taking the food to the room. On my way there, I took the liberty of studying the contents of the plate.
Everything we had done was in code. The cups that I handled was to inform him that there were no complications during my time in the ninja academy, and that I had about three sightings of the ANBU (Ansatsu Senjutsu Tokushu Butai) within the compound. The placement of the onigiri on my plate was no less deliberate. A total of eight rays extended from the centre of the sun drawing on my plate, each one representing a certain direction on the compass. The rice balls filled with meat meant that someone suspicious was in that direction, and the amount of filling normally dictates the number. Vegetable filling generally means all clear, which was sort of a good thing, I suppose.
Why all the secrecy, you might ask? Well, probably because my father and I were not exactly citizens of Konohagakure, the Village Hidden in the Leaf. We were in fact, agents planted here by the Great Orochimaru, whose tasks were to gather as much information as possible on the current state of affairs in the village.
My ‘father’, Shiratama, was a Jounin, an elite ninja of this village. He had an almost clean record, the only stain being that he had been tutored by Orochimaru himself while Lord Orochimatu himself was still a member of the Shinobi forces here. Unfortunately for the village, Shiratama had continued to retain his loyalty towards Lord Orochimaru and had been acting as his undercover agent for the past eight years.
I, on the other hand, had been personally saved by Lord Orochimaru himself when I first came into this world. Yes, world. It was a fact that the Lord himself refused to believe in, but it was true that I was not of this world.
Before he bestowed upon me the name of ‘Kyoku’, my name was Sunset Shimmer, former student of Princess Celestia, the Last Alicorn(Redacted as of recent events), the Ruler of Equestria, Sol Invictus, She Who Raised The Sun. And I was not a human.
I was a unicorn.
To put the story short, I was once her prized student, until she replaced me with one Mi Amore Cadenza. It was the cause of our falling out, and when I knew I finally overstayed my welcome in her castle, I gathered what little possessions I could and escaped through the mirror, the very mirror she had shown me mere weeks before she banished me, the mirror that had showed me my destiny.
The mirror transported me to this world, and I immediately regretted my decision to step through it. This world was terrifying and horrible, I found myself in a town near the border of someplace I would later learn was called the Land of Lightning. I was in a new body, one completely foreign to me, and worse of all, I had almost no magic to call upon. Not that it did not exist, but the magic that I could call upon was being smothered by this other energy within me. Still, I could cast the most basic of spells between sufficient rest, and it helped me get by.
So I looked for help in that village, learning all that I need to survive.Thankfully, the first group of kids that I found managed to have a sense of compassion, something I realized was rather lacking in this world, but they took me in, for a price of course, mainly the jewels that I had brought with me. They first taught me how to walk, how to talk, before teaching me how to steal, which was their primary means of survival. Of course, stealing was something I considered beneath me, but when it was your only source of survival, well, one hardly had the right to complain.Turns out that I excel in it, mainly because Notice-Me-Not spell worked rather nicely when trying to escape a vengeful store-owner.
For a time, things were fine, until one of the shinobi took an interest in me and stole me away from that town.
I probably spent months in that dungeon of his. It became a daily routine for him or his underlings to come in and interrogate me on that Notice-Me-Not spell that I had cast in the market on that very day that I was taken away.
I held out as long as I could. Even attempting to escape on a few occasions, though it always ended in failure. The punishment that followed was harsh, but usually non-lethal, probably because they still want my magical secrets. Thankfully I was stubborn to a fault to crack.
Then they transported another inmate into the cell. Ume. She was a good woman, brunette, and with a nice charm about her. She was a person who did not deserve the hand that fate had dealt her. I was wary of her at first, though eventually I warmed up to her. Being isolated for so long had probably made me just want to rant for a bit. So I told her about where I came from, who I was. I told her about Equestria, and about Celestia.
Like the others, she did not believe me, but at least she listened and it felt good just to let it all out for once.
Of course, it occured to me that she might be a spy sent to get information out of me, so I deliberately kept the part about magic out of any conversation if I could help it. Thankfully she did not ask, and that solidified my trust in her.
But even then, that all came to an end.
It all happened so quickly. One day, one of the guards barged into the room, yelling something about having to kill all the prisoners before sinking two long knives into Ume’s chest. He would have done the same to me too, but I was saved by Lord Orochimaru.
On that fateful day, he saved me from the hell that I was in, and took me in, along with multiple other children held captive. It was not what I had been expecting, truth be told. I had fully expected him to kill me on the get go, or worse, take me off to one of his own dungeons, like those other shinobi had. Instead, he took me in, fed me, clothed me, and most importantly, trained me.
Well, that was mostly his underlings that did the practical work, but considering that the orders came from him, I had held an immense gratitude for him.
My only disappointment was the fact that I could not teach him magic, something that had piqued his interest when he went through the recordings of my prison. I did tell him the mechanics behind it, however, though to my eternal shame, he took it for mere rubbish in the end and never called me up again for that same matter.
As such, I trained diligently. He saved my life, he offered me the choice to not be powerless, and so I owed him my gratitude. My grudge against Celestia be damned, I had lost all my hate for her in the first few months that I was here. Orochimaru had easily taken her place, and I owed him much much more than what I would have wished to give that foolish princess.
As such it was to my joy when I was called upon on that fateful day...
~One year ago~
“I, Kyoku, am here to answer your summons, Lord Orochimaru.” I knelt outside the door, my discipline keeping my panic at bay.
“Enter.” A voice rang out after some time had passed.
Standing up, I gingerly pushed open the door to see a single long haired man dressed in a simple kimono sitting beside a table stacked with scrolls in the middle of the room. As quietly and quickly as I could, I strode inside, stopping just shy of twenty paces from Lord Orochimaru.
It was the maximum distance one leap from me would be, as such, it would be disrespectful to move any closer.
Swiftly, I knelt. “What would you have of me, Orochimaru-sama?”
He stood up, taking a scroll from the table. “Kyoku, is it?” I nodded in response. “Is it true that this was the scroll that you handed in?”
I squinted at the item in question. If I was not wrong, that was one of the scrolls in which I had used to take notes about the Iwanin outpost that I had been dispatched to by my instructors. My instructions were to note down everything that I believed would be useful to take out the outpost. And so I did, I merely sauntered in, using a mix of some minor spells and other techniques to infiltrate the outpost.
Luckily, most of the shinobi stationed there were complacent, so that was the reason why I managed to do what I did.
Still, that was indeed the scroll I had taken and it wouldn’t do to keep Orochimaru waiting, so I quickly replied. “Yes, Lord Orochimaru.”
“Good.” He smiled, and I lowered my head, not trusting my features to betray myself. Returning the smile would be highly disrespectful, after all.
“Now then, Kyoku.” He said, causing me to raise my head. “I would like to ask you a question.”
“Yes Orochimaru-sama?”
“Would you be willing to do something for me?”
“Anything for you, Orochimaru-sama.”
“Good, come closer.”
Swiftly, I stood up, but before I barely took a step. Four killing intents flared out at me, causing me to freeze where I stood. Did I do something wrong?
“Stop, the four of you.” Orochimaru said, his words cutting through the atmosphere like a clean, sharp knife would through butter. Almost at once, the hostility ceased and I released a breath that I did not know I had been holding.
The Sound Four. Orochimaru’s personal bodyguards, I had seen them once in passing, and instantly, I knew that despite our age difference, they were most definitely stronger than me.
Of course, that was something that would change with time. I swear it.
“You have skills,” Orochimaru began, once I moved close enough and was in a kneeling position. “That are rare, but extremely valued by me, Kyoku. As such, I will want you to take on a mission of utmost importance, all the while improving your own skills in the process.”
“Understood, Orochimaru-sama.”
“Very well, listen closely.” He leaned in and said in a voice that brooked no arguments, “you will meet up with one of my students and infiltrate Konohagakure…”
~Present~
And so here I am. Asagami Kyoku, adopted child of Asagami Shiratama. As far as the cover story goes, I was a child that he picked up during his two year long surveillance mission. As far as the story went, I was originally intended to make his cover more convincing, but since I had grown on him, he brought me back to Konohagakure and adopted me immediately.
My basic medical knowledge, ninjutsu and taijutsu skills were all explained to be taught by Shiratama while he was on the job. An explanation that was accepted by the intelligence bureau, but as far as we were concerned, it would not hurt to be on the safe side in case we were being secretly watched.
Thankfully, my application to join the Ninja academy was approved almost immediately, and I was placed into the appropriate skill group according to the assessment test that I underwent. School would start tomorrow. That was a good thing, as far as I was concerned. It was much easier to work when I could blend into the crowd.
I sighed as I poked one of the onigiri left on the plate, not feeling hungry anymore. I had my work cut out for me to be honest.
Of all the things I have to excel at, why infiltration? I snorted. Back in Equestria, I had always been among the more flashy variant of spellcasters. Maybe this was how the SMILE agents felt on their first major assignment.
“Seriously, what would Princess Celestia say if she could see me now?”
Saying the princess’ name unwittingly, I found my eyes travelling to an empty spot in the air near me. I almost instinctively reached for it, before remembering the meaning of covert and quickly drew the curtains close before resuming the gesture.
The air rippled as my hand passed into the pocket dimension that I had bound there. It was not that big a space, truth be told. It was only big enough for a single object, but that was all I needed.
It only took a few seconds before I held a thick, leatherbound book in my hand, one with a symbol of the sun upon it.
It had been a few weeks since I last held this in my hand. I used to take it out of the pocket dimension I conjured for it everyday in the first few months, then I stopped during the period that I was incarcerated. So why did I take it out now?
It was a question I left unanswered as I opened it and flipped it to the latest entry.
The words there were still the same as I remembered them.
I am sorry. Those three words stared back up at me as they had done so every single time I opened the book, and somehow, I felt an intense moment of irritation spike up within me. I slammed the book shut and shoved it back into the pocket space.
“No you are not.” I muttered. I quickly strode over to the bed, and tried to will myself to sleep. After all, school starts tomorrow, and so does work.