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-Illusion Severance Package

Chosen.

That was how she described herself. His face remained impassive, a mask of neutrality. He would allow neither doubts nor enthusiasm show in his demeanour. With those simple words, a huge piece of the puzzle suddenly dropped into place. One is not chosen unless someone is there to do the choosing. There was another power, one that stood in the shadows behind the office of Kusakage. He made no indication of the confirmation of his suspicions. He valued his life too much to be so foolish. Instead, he simply listened.

She spoke of the future, seemingly dismissing the mysterious vagaries of the past in favour of moving forward. Perhaps that was the best course of action. It could be that the truth was simply unknowable, and that both of them were dancing on a chessboard ruled by someone else. It would be best for his sanity to ignore the past. That, however, was something he could not do. Try as he might, he was just too damn curious. His eyes snapped up as she drew that curiosity once more with her words.

How could I forget?

“I remember.” And he did. He remember the rage and passion lurking behind her eyes. He remembered the unseeing insanity that had almost led her to attack him. He remembered the arrogance so strong it was almost a tangible thing. Underneath all of that, most of all, however, he remembered the pure power flooding into the atmosphere, the bearing of absolute strength and conviction she carried with her. She was as cold as a shark, and far more dangerous. “Seems a long time ago, now.”

He looked around the room. This was his home. Repaired and restored, its location somehow shifted and twisted, but it was Kusagakure. This was where his comrades had come from. It felt good to be back in the village he had visited so few times, the place that had taken him in. He had even met the former Kusakage once, just for a brief second. All of that was a life-time ago. Now, a whole new world waited before him, for the taking. But there was still one thing from the lost past he could take with him. “And that's not my name, for reference.”

-Divinity Redux

Shiro said nothing as the ANBU on the right bused him through the door. He took a few tentative steps into the room, allowing them to seal him in with the person before him. Words would only fail him if he tried to force them out, so he simply abandoned them in favour of contemplation for a few long moments. His eyes never once blinked, instead boring into the woman behind the desk. Clearly, she was the leader of this village. Clearly, she was an individual of diplomatic grace and political poise, as all Kages were.

But that was impossible, because she was Blanche.

And Blanche was fucking insane.

“I see,” Shiro said, the word seeming to suggest far more knowledge than he really had. Small pieces of knowledge were coming together, forming a half-coherent model for the current situation. All in all, however, it was simply too bizarre. Large pieces were missing. Clearly, someone had brought this village back from death, but it hadn't been her. There had been no hint of awareness in her when he last encountered here. She was the Kusakage, for sure, but was she the woman behind the curtain, truly holding power?

There was no way to know. Perhaps this was truly her game.

“Might I ask how this all happened?” He said, his tone polite, something in between amusement and wonder laced within the words. His eyes remained narrow, locked on her. He didn't know what to expect from the fair-skinned goddess before him. She could lie to him, manipulate him, or she might simply offer him the truth. She was too damn unpredictable. It made her dangerous. Very dangerous. “This is something of an unexpected development.”

His tone was perhaps a bit dry.

-Stormwind

SLAM.

Shiro wasn't particularly gentle with the doors when he came into the formerly abandoned shell of a building that now served as the office of the Kusakage. He wasn't in a mood to pay attention to the little things like making sure doors were opened and shut with the proper amount of force. What had been confusion and numbness had catalysed, and now he was filled with something akin to a mixture of frustration and anticipation. His first course of action was to gather more information.

Starting here.

His eyes narrowed as he looked around the room, picking out the important features. Black carpet, white walls. Cameras, stark lighting. Plants, of course, and a small desk. Behind that desk sat what he could only imagine was an assistant. With purposeful steps, he strode towards that desk. Try as he might, he couldn't keep the darkening expression off of his face. He stopped short of doing something drastic, however, and instead slapped his hands down on the desk sharply, no doubt catching the attention of the person behind it.

“What the hell is going on here? Since when does this village even exist?” He gave the assistant little time to actually answer his questions, however, before his tirade resumed. “Who is in charge of this place? I need to speak with the Kusakage, immediately.” He folded his arms across his chest, leaning back from the desk but otherwise making no indication that he was going to move until he got the answers he wanted. He quirked an expectant eyebrow, his mind racing behind vermillion eyes. It was too soon to know what was friend and what was foe...