Chapter 2 Already..?

As Riku was about to fall asleep after walking for a whole day

*I can sense a strong presence, they have noticed you and are approaching.*

Riku immediately stiffened up, he berated himself for being so dumb, of course someone would notice the smoke in the middle of a desert.

As Riku grabbed his sword and began to run in the opposite direction, Kokuenryū immediately informed him

*beneath you*

Without thinking, Riku instinctively dodged backwards, a pillar of sand rising where he just stood, as Riku hastily put the Sunagakure headband on in case they were suna ninja, he turned around to face them, but the moment he did, All hope of survival had vanished.

There were 6 average bandits, probably ninja and in the middle of them was a young boy, no older than Riku himself he had short red hair and light green eyes, on his back was a large gourd the size of his body. Riku immediately recognised the boy as Gaara, the Jinchuriki of the one tails, shukaku. 

One of the bandits whistled "what do we have here? Such a pretty little girl all the way in the desert? That's a pretty nasty sword, definitely doesn't belong in such a pretty little girl's hands..~~" as the other 5 bandits giggled.

Riku immediately had a disgusted look on his face, "not only do they think I'm a girl, that disgusting look on their faces. These men are sick, Disgusting sick creatures that have no right to live." Riku's face that was once that of fear, was now of anger and disgust

*don't overestimate yourself. You're not in your previous body, and my power is at an all time low.*

Riku then came back to his senses. "Who are you, and what do you want."

The bandits all stopped laughing and sneered "You better grovel at our feet unless you want to die little girl.."

Riku couldn't take it anymore and his face flushed red in embarrassment and anger "I'm not a girl, man stop calling me that!"

Kokuenryū was dumbfounded

*are you seriously more focused on being called a girl right now? You're going to die if you keep this up*

Riku snapped back to reality and gripped his sword tight and got into the proper posture.

"Oooh she thinks she can use the sword?" The bandits snickered mockingly

Riku didn't pay any attention to them as he stood his ground, waiting for them to make the first move. "Kokuenryū, the moment one of them makes a move, flare your chakra. It should work the same way as flaring magical energy" Riku said in his head for Kokuenryū to hear

*as you wish..*

The instant one of the bandits moved, Kokuenryū flared his chakra. It wasn't at the level of a tailed beast, but it was higher than all of the bandits combined, it was around the level of a late chūnin.

As the bandit hesitated at the sudden surge of chakra, Riku lunged forward as he whispered under his breath "Arden Swordsmanship : 1st Page Crescent Arc" as Riku raised the sword high up, then quickly bringing the sword down to his hip and slashing upwards, instantly slashing the bandits lower hip all the way to his right shoulder, not sliced fully in half but definitely a fatal wound. After Riku's sword broke, he quickly grabbed the wounded bandits scimitar and quickly moved on as he repeated the first page of the Arden swordsmanship to slash down 2 more bandits before he had to dodge back.

His body, which was severely malnourished and having stayed awake walking for over 20 hours it was starting to take its toll.

Riku was on the verge of collapse, he had a slash down the left side of his chin from a stray slash that he wasn't able to deflect which stung, but was slowly regenerating thanks to Kokuenryū's natural regeneration of being reptilian. Right then, gaara stepped forward, a curious look on his face as he approached Riku, for some reason he didn't radiate bloodlust, as the Jinchuriki stared into Riku's eyes he looked straight into Riku's soul, or more accurately. Shukaku looked into Riku's soul, he had sensed the aura of a beast that was near the level of a tailed beast, but it was not one that he had recognised and so he was curious.

The moment Shukaku looked into Riku's soul space, Gaara's eyes widened and he backed away, Shukaku saw something horrifying, a hulking beast, slightly bigger than even him, who was a tailed beast that are known throughout the ninja world for their size. It was a terrifying force, it's black and white scales traced its long body, it's four legs armed with monstrous claws, on its back were four large wings with luminescent black scales with white membranes stretching between each section. It's glowing white eyes showed a prowess more terrifying than anything he'd seen before, the beast had a nonchalant, uncaring and arrogant air, as if it was seeing shukaku as nothing but a lowly creature beneath it's feet.

Shukaku immediately withdrawing his gaze, told Gaara to run immediately. Gaara, who had never been given a direct instruction from the demon within him was shocked and instantly listened as he began to run away.

The sight of the terrifying Gaara running as if he'd seen the devil incarnate, left Riku stunned. however with the biggest threat gone a huge weight was lifted off Riku's shoulder, as he grabbed hold of the sword and lunged forward, the bandits confused from seeing Gaara run away, let their guard down and thus Riku dashed forward, ending one and then one more life before he stood in front of the final bandit, Riku ducked down to avoid the slash at his throat, whispered "Arden Swordsmanship Page 2 : Rising Moon" as his sword danced upwards, causing a fountain of blood to erupt from the man's now split chest.

If any bystanders saw the scene they would've fainted, guts and blood littered all over the floor, 5 corpses all slashed and hacked beyond recognition, and in the middle of the scene stood a young boy, dyed red from the blood of his enemies, in his hand was a sword, the sword was also covered in blood but there was no sign of damage or scratch to it, almost as if it hadn't been touched by anyone, along with one corpse that Riku had cleanly slashed the head off, this was the corpse of the smallest bandit and the corpse he was going to steal the clothes from despite them being dirtied and bloodied.

Right at that moment, all the fatigue caught up to Riku, all his adrenaline had faded and he collapsed amidst the sea of blood.

…

…

Sunagakure is the hidden village of the Land of Wind. As the village of one of the Five Great Shinobi Countries, Sunagakure has a Kage as its leader known as the Kazekage, of which there have been five in its history. The fourth Kazekage, renowned throughout the ninja world for his gold dust manipulation had 3 children, one girl and two boys. One of the boys was the Jinchuriki of the one tails.

Said Jinchuriki was seen running towards the village at full speed with a look of shock on his face. As he ran further and further into the village and entering the Kazekage's office despite being surrounded by suna anbu.

As Gaara entered the office. Rasa, tha Kazegake looked at his son with disgust on his face. "What are you doing here?" Rasa looked down at Gaara who had entered his office without permission.

"There was.." Gaara tried to tell his father what happened but he couldn't get the words out. "There was.. what?" Rasa, now confused and slightly curious, but the frustration still evident in his gaze, looked at his Son with discerning eyes.

"There was a demon, one scarier than mine." Gaara was only 8 years old, he was yet to learn how the world worked and the truth of his existence as a Jinchuriki however, recognising the demon within him as a powerful presence he had no choice but to take his word for it.

Rasa grew curious "where?"

"He was in one of our camps, he was wearing our headband but he looked around the same age as me.." Gaara replied hastily.

However, Rasa then let out a deep sigh as brushed it off as Gaara sounded like he was spouting nonsense.

"B-but" Gaara tried

"No buts, remove yourself from my presence immediately." Rasa denied, a mix of frustration and dissatisfaction in his tone as he massaged his temples.

…

…

Around 23 hours later..

Riku, who was now awake, fully recovered thanks to Kokuenryū, his hunger satiated and his thirst was also quenched as 2 of the dead ninja had water flasks which Riku immediately drank one of them, storing the other in his brand new, not really clothes! Now that he was slightly less malnourished, his journey to Konoha continued! (He didn't have a single clue as to where on earth he was going)

*where are we going?* Kokuenryū, who hadn't spoken in a while chimed in.

"Hopefully the hidden leaf village, we'll see wherever we end up I guess, hopefully we encounter some konoha ninja that would love to take in a wonderful new talent for their village, right?" Riku said a bit arrogantly

*well, I will admit you're tolerable for a human.* Kokuenryū reluctantly agreed, which left Riku kinda shocked as Kokuenryū hadn't been exactly kind to him ever since they had reincarnated together, it had only been 2 days and they'd already gone through so much together.

…

…

Later on, Riku stumbled across a village.

"Finally.. somewhere I can actually rest" Riku thought. His 23 hour rest was decent yes, but he was sleeping on wet sand which wasn't exactly good for his body. As he entered the village, many civilians looked at him In horror and worry.

"Ah.. shit.. I forgot I was covered in blood.." Riku thought as realisation set in.

*hmph* Kokuenryū couldn't help but giggle at Riku's difficult situation.

Riku completely ignored Kokuenryū having the time of his life as he suffered.

Riku, who was now being treated like some sort of corpse on legs looked around for any chance of reason, "uhm hello?" Riku asked, in a kind of husky voice as he ran out of water a while back and his throat was still in pain from dehydration.

The crowd looked at the child with scared and disgusted eyes as they all swiftly began to walk away, at that moment a couple ninja appeared behind Riku with their weapons at the ready.

As Riku turned around with his hands up he said softly "please, help me." His acting skills were top tier having acted like a child for 9 years in his previous life. Even the ninja in front of him were caught off guard, they then demanded Riku's name. "state your name." The ninja on the right said sternly, he was a tall man with spiky light brown hair being held up with the Sunagakure ninja headband.

Riku hesitated, "m-my name is Riku Kuroshiro." Riku said with a low voice as he kneeled down, acting as if the two ninja were gods standing before him.

"Kuroshiro? Never heard of it. Have you?" The tall ninja asked his companion, a shorter ninja but his muscles were more prominent, he had short black hair and a short beard, "hmm, it sounds familiar but I'm not sure where from.." the shorter ninja said thoughtfully. "You do know you're covered in blood right? And it definitely doesn't smell like animal blood." The taller ninja chimed in, looking at Riku as if he had seen right through him.

"I was attacked by a group of men yesterday, they mistook me for a girl and tried to force themselves on me" Riku said with a tear in his eye. The shorter ninja suddenly noticed that the kid did infact look slightly feminine, however the taller ninja wasted no time, "that doesn't explain the blood."

Riku looked up with a innocent look on his face as he said "I killed all of them."

…

The two ninja were lost for words, they couldn't imagine the small frail child infront of them having killed multiple adult men. "How did you kill them?" The tall ninja once again wasted no time asking further.

Riku explained "I grabbed a rusty sword from the floor and butchered them all with it."

The taller ninja looked at him sceptically as the shorter one asked "how could you wield a sword with such a frail body?"

Riku then explained "my family, the Kuroshiro clan was a clan of swordsmen, I learnt swordsmanship from observing the main family of my clan." At that moment the short ninja had realised where he'd heard the name from "aha! I remember now, the Kuroshiro family once requested a mission from suna back when I was a gennin, now that I look at the kid, he has their looks definitely, that white hair with black strands is the exact same as i remember, how are the family doing now?" The shorter ninja asked with some familiarity, the menacing aura that once traced his being now gone and replaced with that of an uncle talking to a child as if they were friends.

"They're all dead. I watched as someone with an orange mask completely destroyed my entire clan grounds, I am the last remaining survivor." Riku said with a bit of sadness and longing in his voice as he looked at the shorter ninja with pleading eyes, "can you please help me get to konoha?" Riku asked politely.

The shorter ninja was dumbfounded.. "they all died? are you sure? And who was the person wearing the orange mask, do you know?" The taller ninja asked with some skepticism "and why konoha?" Chimed in the shorter ninja.

"I have some business there.." said Riku innocently.