The Return of the Puppet King

Daedalus turned his head slowly, his expression stayed the same, but his eyes locked themselves onto Xarias' face. He made a quick mental recomposition, attempting to match facial structures, cheek bones, anything, and got nothing.

"How?"

He was looking ahead again, his words this time were shaky with emotion. Whether it was rage, happiness, sadness, disbelief, at this point nothing could be certain, his wooden carved face revealed nothing.

Xarias stared at him.

"How what.." She asked, impishly.

Daedalus' entire body turned at this point, his large frame easily over towering the small yet presumably powerful woman.

"I am Seiyuuki Uuindo. I have never met anyone like you in my entire existence. How is it that you could not have forgotten me, unless we had previously met? Answer correctly and honestly."

Xarias just simply looked at him.

"Alright, Daedalus. You've got me. Its me, Hybris. But I am naturally known as Xarias Oni. The first prophecy. I apologize for keeping this all from you." She states, crossing her arms and looking straight into his dead eyes.

As her blindfold met his eyes, he turned his head away, shaking it and looking off to the horizon.

"How many years has it been, two, five, maybe even ten? Of all the people that saw me go down in the land of earth, I figured if anybody then atleast..... But no, I was left to rot."

Clearly upset at this point, Daedalus was going to need some time to clear off. Such a bomb of information was simply too much at the moment. Making an executive decision, he wiped his thoughts on the subject focusing back on the task at hand. He wasn't supposed to be human after all.

"From now on, keep any other secrets to yourself."

Xarias simply nodded.

"I'll be sure to do that. Just keep my identity secret.. I did this to protect my pregnancy.." She said, smiling at him. She could tell he was infuriated. "I knew you would be absolutely fine. Why do you think your alive.. Instead of the lightning fully and completely shocking you in the battle, I intercepted it and took most of the shock. Your necessity and gears and widgets are still working because of me.." She states simply, leaning against the wall of darkness. They were almost at their location.

Pregnant? Daedalus had been gone for awhile, she was an adult now, not the young student he had trained so many years ago. The fact still remained though, that while she had kept him alive, everyone that Daedalus had come to call his team, his friends, had left him buried for years, abandoned him. He refused to discuss the subject any further. How could he forgive anyone for leaving him the way they did.

"Soon it won't matter, I'll be repaired. We're here."

The dragon unveloped them, and dissapeared. She awaited the presence of DeathWave, and stood there - Quiet.

He erected (lol) from the ground with his arms crossed. He raised to the surface and dusted himself off. He looked over to Daed and he spoke to him calmly. "What are we doing here"

Daedalus looked over at his teammate. "Retrieval mainly. I used to have a lab here, we need to recover everything we can from it. It's as simple as that."

Daedalus began to march up the extremely long staircase to the entry way of the abandoned akatsuki base, disarming it's traps and precautions along the way. As the group entered the building Daedalus continued to guide them towards the basement, disarming more armaments at certain junctures. Eventually, the trio reached a massive door, to which Daedalus responded by reaching into his chest compartment for a key. As he turned it in the hole, locks and gears could be heard spinning behind the steel barrier in front of them, until the door finally swung open. As it did Daedalus began to chuckle.

"The attacking forces never made it this far... Ahehe... It's untouched."

True, there was dust everywhere, but every single piece of machinery maintained a silver polished look beneath everything else. "This shouldn't take long now."

Xarias waited outside, flying above with her massively drawn wings of darkness. She was scouting the area just in case a nin was foolish enough to try and intercept their mission.

Crossing his arms he breathed inward as he watched his partner mess around this dump of a akatsuki ruin. He keep focus on Daed as he Stood there not really helping. He Looked around at the multiple inventions that where in the room. He was impressed buy how much time it must have been to create these. He waited for Daed to ask him somthing or else he would stand there doing nothing.

Daedalus busied himself marking everything with ink, in very specific places. Frenzied now that he was so close he was hobbling back and forth, his body practically falling apart.

"DeathWave! Grab that chamber looking thing in the corner. Says restorer on it, yeah that's the one! I need it right here. When I tell you to, press that button."

Limping into the machine, Daedalus nodded at his partner and the process began. Initially, many spider like limbs tore at the deformed Daedalus, stripping him of excess parts, eventually, he was down to a torso neck and head. After applying more solder to him, the machine then began to melt off and reconstruct his main frame. When it was finished, it placed corresponding seals on the Puppet King's body, tapping them with the arms again before the machine pulled away. Instantly, bursts of white smoke covered Daedalus from view, and when they cleared, there he stood, carved out in perfection. The machine finally finished it off with an Akatsuki cloak, loosing tied around his neck.

Stepping down from the machine, Daedalus' weight hit the floor with a clunk, his limbs moving easily now to transfer his massive weight. Looking down at himself, he grinned then did a single motion as if one were tightening their muscles. As he did, weapons emerged from panels nearly everywhere imaginable, Daedalus' silhouette getting larger and jagged quickly before having them all retract.

Finally happier with himself, Daedalus turned to his new partner, his words coming from a massive grin.

"Now we're ready."

Xarias flew down from overhead and landed feet flat, her wings dispersing from her shoulderblades. She looked at the broken mawl of rubble. She was simply awaiting the presence of the two.

He walked out and peered over to Xaria. He crossed his arms and stood there. The wind gently blowing past him as he awaited Dead to come out as well. He had began sealing his chakra into his meteors so that he could not attract anyone in the area to there location. He breathed inward and scratched his head. "What now?"

Its short sorry.

Daedalus stepped out of the door shortly afterwards, the bright setting sun lighting his new body, or old body, depending on how you knew him. One thing was for certain, he was back to his old self.

"Now we go back to Zodiark, and we do what Akatsuki always has." He was grinning, looking forward to every moment.

"Xarias, can you take us there?"

Xarias kneeled down and shot her arms high into the air, whistling. She peered back.

"More weight now, need a bigger mount." She states, smiling. Suddenly a beckoning crack in the sky formed and an incredibly huge demonic-looking phoenix glided out of it, blocking the sun out. It sped down and dissapeared, reappearing with a bellowing roar near Xarias. It lay still as it waited for the three to climb on top of its back. Xarias stepped on, waiting for them to follow.

"Bah its whatever really, the sooner we leave this dump the better." He said this blankly as he hopped on the Gigantic Bird. He stood there one again with his arms crossed. He awaited for his new partner to get on as well. Honestly it was only a matter of time before they would be returned to home. He remained quiet however. It was not in his nature to speak with Xaria in public or to anyone in that matter. He was a stoic and rude fellow and he had decided that whatever happens on this trip happens. He closed his eyes again and he toyed with his own chakra.

Moving gracefully onto the bird (something Daedalus had not been able to do for years), Daedalus occupied himself with checking his weapons, ensuring everything was in full stock. As the time went by, he eventually turned to Xarias.

"So, fine, you saved me, but you left me buried for years. How many? I don't even know yet. You can imagine how hard it is to forgive somebody for abandoning you. In fact, I'm sure you know."

Xarias, whom was known to Daedalus by Hybris Kaguya, looked at him and smirked dissapointingly.

"Yes.. I know its hard to forgive me, and yes I do know. It has been six years. I came back to look for you after my human form recovered but I couldnt find or sense you. My guess was, you were destroyed anyway - Or your reactor was too badly damaged for me to sense you. I was depressed for years.. And now seeing you again has made just alittle more happier you know.. She said, simply staring at him. The phoenix glided through the air was deadly grace, but they were almost at their destination thanks to the quick speeds of her mount. She peered at Hawk, whom was occupying himself at the moment and looked back at Daedalus. ".. Keep my human form secret, Daed.." Standing straight, she was. The wind from the speeds hardly appearing as if it took effect on her.

Daedalus smirked to himself.

"As far as I'm concerned, it no longer exists."

Over top of the village now, Daedalus stretched both arms out wide, letting the air catch his robes.

"I need to find Zodiark and inquire as to my next mission. This will be far enough, it's time for a test run anyways." He twisted his head back at this point, speaking to his partner. "Coming DeathWave?" He then bent low, and leapt high off the phoenix, the wind catching him and dragging him back behind the beast. His body lingered there for a moment, arms spread and knees curled in an eagle like pose before his image flickered, then vanished, having moved quickly down to the ground below.

"Show off" he peered back to Xaria with a stoic and expressionless look on his face as Daedalus leaped off the Bird looking as flashy and as cocky as it would come accross to Akio. He looked over at Xaria and he spoke to her, his deep voice booming as he spoke to her. He opened his eyes and he began to to tell her. "Master, I shall see you shortly." With that his body appeared to be static, he flickered a bit and was gone. He was actually just using his own chakra to make himself faster. He appeared on the Ground, looking up at Daedalus. "Move your ass" He stated as he closed his eyes again.

(Note im not faster I just jumped straight down. Like a needle in water)

Xarias simply nodded, and flew away.

[[out of topic. call if you need meh]]

Daedalus landed with a thud beside him, cracks running along the ground as he did so.

"Perhaps it would be a good idea to break in the new parts. Let's just see if you can keep up."

The puppet king then tapped his index finger onto a seal just below his navel, and with a puff of smoke, his standard legs were replaced with a set of quadruped spider like limbs. As soon as the smoke cleared, he was already moving, his four legged pace being higher of that then any human. Naturally at this point he still wasn't using any flickering techniques, simply scuttling along the ground as fast as his legs would allow, which albeit was still pretty fast.

Arriving at the bar once more, were once again replaced, returning to his standard configuration. Turning towards DeathWave, who he expected to at least have been able to keep up with him, he spoke joyously.

"Well, here we are. And just you wait to see what else this body is capable of."

"Me keep up?, Surly you wouldn't understand how important it is that we take our time, Bah whatever lets just get there so we can get a mission and get this crap over with." He was keeping his pace matched his his freak of a partner. He wondered why his partner was so happy, always joking around it seemed. He mananged to keep his pace because he had attached a chakra string to his Partner before hand. He licked his lips as he looked around the bloodmist village. He gave a sigh as he awaited nearing the correct location of the Akatsuki Leader. So he is basically a living puppet that can control other puppets. So that must mean he is extremely powerful with weapon arts. He was confused at there pairing, Usually the akatsuki had teams that where able to support each other in combat. He wondered how this would play out int the future. He made "Whatever your body does will bore me, lets just get this over with." He said with his deep booming voice. He stood there waiting for his partner to hurry and get rid of his silly legs.