Interlude: A Tale of Two Teachers

[A New Student, An Old Perspective]

The air of the mortal world still stung her skin in odd ways. This was a reality too thin in some places, too thick in others. It was not like the battlefields of her age. No sacred peaks of the Éire to drown in blood. No rifts to her personal otherworld. No demigods or heroes calling her name with awe or terror in their lungs.

But she had found something interesting here, despite the unwelcome surprise that was her summoning. To think she had managed to die and not even remember how? It was vexing to the extreme. Still, it had its blessings.

She had found him, and he was blessing enough.

Scáthach sat cross-legged on the edge of the hotel room's bed, one leg tucked under her in a relaxed pose that betrayed nothing of her state of mind. Her spear, Gáe Bolg, leaned against the wall nearby, humming faintly with the pulse of her master's Od, or as he would call it, 'chakra'.

He was in the other room, bathed in the soft white of his Divine Healing Light, kneeling beside the girl with the depleted energy and the cracked glasses.

The red-haired one.

Her name didn't matter. Not yet.

What mattered was what she was.

A woman who crawled to his feet with her soul ripped to shreds and bled for his attention. The stench of desperation clung to her like perfume. Despite all that, Scatach had to admit one thing.

She liked it.

Not because she pitied the girl. No, Scáthach had long ago burned the part of herself that could pity another. It had existed at one point, but it had died long ago along with most of her emotions. She had a few of them left, muted and faded, but they rarely made themselves known, and pity hadn't shown its ugly face for centuries, maybe even millenia.

No, she liked it because weakness had its place. And because watching Sōkotsu lift the girl like a broken thing he refused to let rot… that stirred something ancient in her. Something feminine and dangerous in an ancient warrior like herself.

She had children herself, she recognized the stirrings of attraction that seeing the boy pamper the redhead had awakened within her, she just long thought herself beyond those feelings. Yet, it seemed they were among the few still clinging to life within the Queen of the Dead.

She had killed countless kings and claimed no masters but those she allowed. She had taught Cu Chulainn himself to kill, to fuck, to bleed for himself, and his nation like the dog he was at the end of his tale. And now?

Now she had bent and nearly broken for a boy barely into his manhood, not because he defeated her in combat, but because his sexual prowess alone had demanded submission in ways that not even the gods she had killed could likely resist.

They definitely hadn't been able to demand it from her. Not like him.

Her thighs flexed as she adjusted her seat. The memories were still fresh. The sensation of his hands on her hips. His voice, low and commanding, threading through her like a woven geas. His cock plundering her insides for all she was worth.

She had fucked plenty of men in her time. Her new master was too good to be placed amongst them. Perhaps if she had fucked some Divine Spirit with an Authority over Sex, she'd be able to properly compare.

Scáthach's smirk returned.

Her Master had not tamed her with brute strength or with divine blessings, though both seemed to come to him as easy as breathing.

He had conquered her with his intent to do so. That rare and essential edge that made men into legends, he had it in spades. If he didn't, she might have killed him herself, or forced him through enough training to bring it out of him. Either way, it would have been a blessing.

The sound of water running broke her thoughts. The boy was cleaning the redhead now. She could hear the girl's quiet breaths, the way her lungs fluttered with every stroke of cloth against skin. Even now, even this, he did not rush.

She turned her gaze toward the bathroom door.

"Gentle even when she doesn't deserve it," she murmured to herself, her voice soft and smokey. "How cruel of you, Master." It was the highest form of cruelty to entertain the delusions of another, after all. Her Master did not love that girl, no more than he loved her or any of her fellow servants. He just desired to claim her. He was like a dragon with his greed.

Jack was asleep nearby. Curled like a child, her bare feet tucked under the sheets. She hadn't dematerialized, claiming she wanted to 'cuddle' with Sōkotsu before entering into the proper resting state of a servant. Astolfo had passed out again on the floor, shirt half-off, one arm curled around one of master's discarded jackets like a stuffed animal. He too, hadn't astralized, though with a fool like him chances were he might have actually forgotten to do so.

Scáthach rose with a sigh and moved to the window. Her crimson eyes scanned the Hidden Leaf village below, its lights too dim for a city that claimed to rule this strange and foreign world of 'ninja' she had been summoned into.

"This world is wrong," she whispered. "It is too soft. Your entire society was shaped by one woman's delusions of peace and the rest of you still live in her shadow decades after her death. You're like children, scared of the punishment from parents who have long abandoned you."

But he was no child.

Not truly.

He had walked into the blood circle, summoned three legends from the seat of death itself, and made them his. With nothing but his 'chakra' and hunger and will.

Scáthach had seen empires rise and fall. Had taught demigods how to kill and make war so glorious they might even be able to take her own life, one day.

She'd be damned before she let another fool try to take him before she could mold him into the fiercest warrior this pathetic world had ever seen.

She would kill anyone who tried.

Even that red-haired girl in the other room, if she proved herself unworthy of showing him her devotion and faith. Though she doubted it would come to that. The girl had some steel in her, but she seemed to turn to jelly around Scathach's master.

Scáthach's brow furrowed.

There had been something else in the girl's eyes. Not strength of will, or even the steely resolve of a woman seeking out a loved one. No, it was something far simpler.

Something darker.

Obsession. Need. She could taste the emotion the girl was doing her best to hide like it was iron on her tongue.

If the red-haired girl betrayed him or made herself too much of a distraction, Scáthach would end her with one stroke.

But if she didn't…

If she grew stronger… if she learned to fight for him instead of crawling toward him like a whimpering mutt.

Then maybe, just maybe…

The girl might be worth teaching.

Her smirk returned. The Queen of Shadows turned back toward the room, where the flicker of healing light still spilled out across the dark floorboards.

She would watch. She would wait.

And if Karin Uzumaki was worthy?

She would break her down to bone and rebuild her into something beautiful. Just like she had done with so many before her. Heroes come and go, after all, and she was curious if someone from this world had the mettle in them to meet her lowest standards. Excluding her master, of course.

As she gazed out of the window at the village below, she could feel the pulse of energy signatures growing closer.

One of them was sharp. Not large, but dangerous and coiled like a blade mid-thrust, precise and full of pressure. An assassin's grace. A 'shinobi' whose footsteps didn't dare kiss the ground without permission. It radiated calculated menace. She was amateurish and obvious compared to the thieves and assassins Scathach had wetted her spear with before, but it was an admirable attempt.

The second was wild, elemental and tempestuous. They had an aura like a geyser of energy that refused containment. She could practically feel the power bristling under this one's skin, muscles that trembled from training. A spirit saturated in brutality, likely too much for her young self in this soft world. A brute, through and through.

The third…

Her lips parted slightly. That one was familiar.

Heavy. Smooth. Predatory. A woman. A warrior. And probably far more than that.

The moment the first footstep touched the roof of the hotel, Scáthach turned away from the window. Her spear flicked into her hand without effort, and her presence filled the room like the sudden scent of blood before a massacre.

She didn't need to make threats.

She simply existed, and that should be threat enough.

The door didn't knock.

It vanished a blur of motion too fast to track with the naked eye. The wood paneling groaned under sudden air pressure and reformed itself behind the trio stepping through. Probably the work of the first woman through the door, judging by the dazed gaze on the two girls following her.

First came a woman in black and gold, a body suit clinging to caramel skin like it had been painted on, cut low across the back and tight around curves that had no right being hidden. Short purple hair framed a mischievous, confident smirk. Gold eyes gleamed behind the edge of her fingers as she waved them lazily.

"Well, well," the cat-like woman purred, "looks like our little prodigy's been busy while we were out."

Behind her stepped two more figures.

One was a girl with dusky skin and a short, angular bob, wide hips swaying with every heavy step. She moved like a shadow, half phasing in and out of vision even as she stepped into the room, a strange bracelet of flickering light dancing across her wrist. Her dark eyes met Scáthach's for a single, cutting moment, and then they narrowed.

"Is this a joke?" Sombra asked coolly. "We left him alone for five minutes and now he is collecting new toys without even telling us?"

The third girl entered last, barefoot and still somehow radiating the strength of a hurricane. A blue tunic hugged her chest, arms and shoulders bare. Her eyes were hard, ice-blue and glowing faintly with some spiritual resonance. She wore a dumb smile on her face that reminded her of a certain blue haired mutt.

Scáthach raised her chin, not one inch of her posture showing the slightest concern.

She recognized these women for what they were immediately.

Allies? Yes.

Threats? Possibly.

But most importantly, they were competition. She had heard her new student muttering about his 'sensei'. She assumes the dark skinned purple haired woman is her.

And they had the same look in their eyes that she had after he was done ruining her for all other men. They didn't even seem to know it either.

"You're late," Scathach said simply, voice cool as a mountain's peak and sharp as her spear. "Your Master's been busy proving he's worth far more than this world seems to understand."

The dark skinned purple haired woman tilted her head, her golden eyes now locked onto Scáthach's spear. The cursed energy seemed to be less off-putting than it should be for a soft world like this one. Then again, her master owned a cursed weapon of his own, didn't he?

"Master, huh?" she murmured with interest, before grinning wide. "Looks like someone's learned how to take care of himself real quick, if he's picking up more strays."

Scáthach's smirk didn't falter.

"He did more than 'take care' of me."

A pause. The purple haired woman blinked once. The shorter one raised an eyebrow. The muscular one made a soft sound in her throat that could have been exasperation or interest, or maybe some combination of the two.

And then the purple haired one broke into laughter, stepping inside fully and letting the door close behind her with a whisper.

"Oh I am going to like you. I'm Yoruichi, the brats are Sombra and Korra. Touch them and your head won't stay on your shoulders. We can have a talk once I'm done interrogating my white-haired problem child."

Then the three newcomers walked past her, not quite brushing shoulders, but close enough to let their presence be known. Close enough that Scáthach's knuckles whitened ever so slightly around her spear shaft, but she never raised it. Not yet.

Not unless one of them did something truly stupid.

Behind the bedroom door, still cracked slightly open, Sōkotsu's voice murmured low in the redhead's ear.

Scáthach turned to watch him and his reactions, as his pets approached him with eager smiles on their lips.

-x-X-x-

[An Old Student, A New Perspective]

She smelled sex the moment she hit the rooftop.

Not just sweat. Not blood like that damn forest had been bathed in. Just sex. Like it was radiating out from the floor below them.

It clung to the air like perfume, heady and raw, and woven with the chakra residue of her favorite student and something darker. Something that was older, ancient even. She'd smelled it before. In abandoned clan compounds. In neglected shrines to forgotten gods.

It was the smell of a conquest, and based on her cute little genin's usual modus operandi, she could bet the smell of sex mixed with it was more than just a coincidence.

"So," Yoruichi said, eyes narrowing, "seems like he really went and did it."

She didn't mean stealing more strays while Konoha was already breathing down her neck for his existence and his pretty obvious poaching of the Taki Jinchūriki.

She meant stealing real shinobi. At the end of the day, the Taki girl was just a genin, as were most of the marks he focused on in the forest. They were easy catches, both due to his power and his brand new seduction skills.

But she had seen for herself that he wasn't just stronger than the average Genin. She held back a little bit so he wouldn't get turned into a charred skeleton just from her using her technique, but the fact he managed to walk it off with barely even a scratch after a few seconds?

He could probably capture and 'tame' most of the Kunoichi in this damn village.

Which is why she hadn't expected the presence waiting for her on the other side of the door to be so… strange.

She had expected a presence to be sure. Probably a Jonin getting ready to knife whoever walked in on them with their new baby daddy. Still, the pressure coming from that room alone was enough to make most jonin sweat.

But Yoruichi didn't sweat.

She grinned.

Wonder what kind of trouble the brat got himself into this time?

---

They walked in like they owned the place. Because, in her opinion, they kind of did. They paid for it, at least, and after the limp wristed exam Konoha had put her genin through, she was starting to think Kumo should own this place.

Sōkotsu was hers too, in her opinion. Sure, he was village property first and foremost, or at least his bloodline was, but he was her little monster. She didn't know how he had gotten so strong so fast, and she didn't know how much longer she'd be able to bullshit about him just being a ringer and not an anomaly Kumo itself barely understood.

Yet here he was, surrounded by madness and a strange assortment of sluts curled up in their hotel room.

A small feminine… boy(?) curled up like a kitten beside his jacket. Another, a dangerous one, if her instincts were right, softly snoring under a blanket and muttering about her 'mother', her mouth still glazed with a familiar white sticky substance. Yoruichi resisted the small urge to run over and lick it off the girls lips.

And then…there was her.

The tall one.

Her eyes flicked to the spear. That shit was even more cursed than Sōkotsu's first sword, the one with the freaky red seals. This wasn't like the fake shit some weapon users liked to create for their self-forged histories of their 'cool' signature blades. Sōkotsu's sword was the kind of thing that made most of the 7 Swords of the Mist look like fucking jokes, and this spear hummed with pure malice. With violence barely restrained behind some strange looking symbols and the blood-soaked grace of its owner.

The purple-haired woman turned to meet Yoruichi's eyes.

The room held its breath.

It lasted less than a heartbeat, but it was enough. Yoruichi knew the look.

It was recognition. This woman could probably kill everyone in this village. She didn't know where she came from, or who the fuck she was, but that much was obvious. Honestly, she wasn't sure who she'd put money on if this woman decided she wanted to fight a Bijuu.

And Yoruichi?

She loved her instantly.

Not because of her power. Not because of her indescribable beauty that might have drawn her student to the woman, though there were plenty of both. But because this woman wasn't playing at being anything.

She was what she appeared to be.

And she liked Sōkotsu. Probably enough to kill everyone here.

That made things interesting.

"Well, well," Yoruichi purred, "looks like our little prodigy's been busy while we were out." She said with a chuckle, looking up and down and checking out the impressive build of the warrior woman in front of her. She was a monster. Her chakra felt endless and she was built like a living killing machine even when she wasn't holding the scariest fucking weapon Yoruichi had ever seen.

"You're late," The woman said simply, her voice cold and unfeeling even if it was sharp as a freshly polished kunai.

Yoruichi chuckled. She was already planning her response, something along the lines of 'Fashionably late' and then maybe a wink at the other woman to disarm the tension so that she could return it herself. She'd lose a fight between them. She knows that. Doesn't mean she doesn't want to take a stab at it anyways.

The other woman's smirk didn't falter though, and she kept talking even as Yoruichi went to respond.

"Your Master's been busy proving he's worth far more than this world understands."

"Master, huh?" Yoruichi murmured with feigned interest, her wide grin meant to off-set her inner eye rolling at how apparently 'tamed' this woman was by her brat's cock. "Looks like someone's learned how to take care of himself real quick, if he's picking up more strays."

"He did more than 'take care' of me."

Yoruichi couldn't help herself, after the brief pause those words caused her, she burst out laughing. Wiping a tear from her eye, she made the mandatory threats as she closed the door behind her.

"Oh I am going to like you. I'm Yoruichi, the brats are Sombra and Korra. Touch them and your head won't stay on your shoulders. We can have a talk once I'm done interrogating my white-haired problem child."

---

Sombra slipped past her with a muttered curse about "too many mouths crowding around his cock already" and "collecting girls like they were ninja trading cards."

Korra didn't speak, but her presence thudded through the room like a war drum. Her eyes drifted over the room, searching for proof of the sex they could all smell in the air. Unfortunately, all there was to find were too many free-loaders sleeping on one of their beds and on the floor cuddling with one of Sōkotsu's jackets. A quick smell-test revealed they, the woman outside, and Sōkotsu himself were the source of the potent scent filling the room.

Her favorite knucklehead sniffed the air again, before folding her arms. Saying nothing, even if the pout on her lips and the jealous look she was giving the two strangely powerful new strays Sōkotsu picked up said more than words could.

Her most adorable little genin had this effect on people, especially girls, and especially his teammates.

He just existed and acted with such conviction that others fell into his orbit, then usually fell crotch first onto his cock.

He didn't need to manipulate. He didn't need to beg. He commanded his little followers by sheer gravity and charisma. Maybe a few nights ago they were just addicted to his dick, but now the little fucker radiated an aura that seemed to draw people to him like moths to a flame.

Especially vulnerable people who already had a liking for him, like her two students.

Wonder if I should tell her she's pregnant?

Heh, nah, I'll let that be a surprise.

She watched the way Scáthach looked toward the bathroom. Probably where the brat himself was. She could hear running water, did he decide to bathe after funking up their room? How considerate of him.

The other woman's spear hummed. Just once. Not as a threat. As a response. To what, Yoruichi didn't even know. She just had a feeling she might have a little bit of trouble trying to get her team away from these weirdos for some private training away from all the prying eyes in Konoha.

Yoruichi chuckled again and threw herself backward onto the bed, one leg draped over the other, lounging like a cat as she stared at the other woman with a wide grin. The other woman could probably kill her easily, but Yoruichi had a habit of pissing people like that off. It always made for a better story.

She laced her fingers behind her head and stared at the ceiling.

"He's growing up," she murmured. "Faster than I planned. Faster than any of us planned. He was just supposed to be here to get some experience for the next exams…"

Sōkotsu hadn't just awakened his bloodline's power, and then apparently taken it one step forward. He hadn't just started to assemble a harem that included his teammates.

He was making followers out of enemy Shinobi. Gathering up monsters like the ones in this room. Pulling artifacts out of his ass that most Ninja villages would kill for.

She wouldn't be able to cover for him much longer. If he showed off too much during the finals, there was no putting the cat back into the bag.

Yoruichi closed her eyes.

And for the first time in a long time, the 'flash goddess' (she was still pissed that the 4th Hokage AND Shisui had to die for her to get that title) felt the whisper of something she rarely admitted to even in the privacy of her own mind: Fear.

Because when her student finished growing?

There wouldn't be a force in the world that could control him. Not Kumo. Not Konoha. Not even the gods themselves, if they fucking existed.

Even if they did… she might be watching the start of one.