[Sunagakure] Kazekage Mansion

[Apollymi]

About five minutes after the arrival of Youko, Benihime returned as well, in a flash of crimson light. She was presently returning from the Land of Fire, where she'd taken her younger siblings after meeting up with them. When she entered, several boxes and scrolls almost manifested on a nearby table containing various items she'd picked up from her travels. She looked to her desk to find her husband standing there, almost confused. She hadn't rushed home, under the assumption that he simply wouldn't be there when she returned. "Well, that's surprising. I didn't expect you to be back first, Okaeri~" she chimed as she approached the man a bit more directly standing before him.

[Bloodedge]

The moment there was a second light flashing within the office, Youko's attention was brought to the appearing redhead. He immediately began stepping toward her, abandoning the scrolls for just a moment. "Hai. Tadaima," he said as he grabbed the woman by the waist and leaned forward to kiss her lips. "I didn't have to do as much as I thought. I did end up revealing myself as the sage, though, and having a go at my ex... who happens to be the queen now. You two should meet; you'd have fun. Also... I have news beyond the matter of my clan's prophecy..." Following this rather leading statement by Youko, he reached to the desk behind him, grabbing and revealing a scroll containing the Four Symbols Seal of Benihime's own creation. "A certain redhead washed up on a raft some years ago. I looked at the seal itself, and... well..."

[Apollymi]

Benihime's arrival was met with Youko's approach, which followed with a greeting which she hadn't experienced in quite a while. A smile crossed her face as her waist was grabbed and she was kissed on the lips. She got to enjoy this feeling for a few seconds while the man explained why he'd been able to return so early. "I am not going to have a tangent about how unfair it is that you get to go and play with what is likely a great looking woman and I get stuck, visiting my fucking parents." she scoffed, though she wasn't at all upset by the news of Youko having some sort of sexual encounter while he was out, she was simply wishing she'd been involved. Though his suggestion that she meet this other woman, made her excited, in a very specific way, though that would be put on hold for a few seconds while Youko gave a rather leading statement. "Oh, what else?" Benihime asked as the man moved behind her speaking of a redhead washing up on shore, and showed her a seal which she knew was one she'd created on her own. Beyond this it'd only been taught to two of her siblings she reached for the seal running her fingers across it. There was a chakra this one felt close to, and given that closeness but not exactness it had to belong to exactly one person. "TORI-CHAN?!" She seemed a bit stunned by the idea that her younger sister had shown up in such a place as the one that Youko had gone to. "I'm relieved, I was a bit worried that Mari-chan had gone off the deep end and killed her. Where is she?" She asked after the whereabouts of her younger sister, excited by the potential for connecting with more of her family.

[Bloodedge]

"If it makes you feel any better, I'd rather have had a day off at the oasis," he replied. Moving on, Benihime inspected the seal upon the scroll and came to the realization that Toriko, one of her younger siblings who once resided in the village they lived in now, was the redhead in question. When asked where the younger woman was, Youko returned to his post against the desk. "She was last seen six years ago when she arrived. Apparently, she left within the year to the Land of Water, saying she had something that belonged there. Now I'm just waiting on the word of her whereabouts, if she's still there. We can relax for now. So... what do we have about our daughter?"

[Apollymi]

A wide grin spread across Benihime's face as Youko made his apparent preferences known, for her own edification. "Well, I mean, it's a nice push in a good direction~" she joked just a bit. Soon enough they were moving right along. As their conversation went on, she found out that her younger sister, had last been seen shortly after the birth of their children. It was sort of disappointing but apparently Youko had someone looking in on it, so she wouldn't worry about it. "Hai hai~" about their daughter she shrugged.

"I found my mother in the Land of Whirlpools. Or rather Hakudoshi did. The Uzushiogakure is probably going to be re-established pretty soon, and along with it the Branch Clans which make up most of the population there." the young woman explained she soon found herself walking over to the table. "My mother couldn't actually tell me anything. Apparently, normal people in the Clan don't get to know important information. They basically worship and celebrate Matatabi and assign a pair as her a Jinchuuriki and Handler. So only they get to know this information. So, all the stuff is in these scrolls and I haven't read them yet." She said. Going on to what she knew so far as she opened a couple of the scrolls she kept talking. "The basics of this situation is that everyone in my family is born as a twin, everyone comes in pairs, always. Twins are connected, by their chakra. When a twin dies, it's customary to burn the body, to break the connection between the twins or else you could end up with a situation of a living twin being drained to death by a corpse trying to fix itself." she said as she began reading the first of two sets of scrolls. "But, that isn't the case with Hakudoshi and Kanna. Hakudoshi told me that Kanna made him stronger, so... it is quite possible according to my father that her body is still growing and technically whole, because he's still alive," she explained, it was a little weird. She also seemed to glance over completely that her father was alive, but it was one of many things randomly forgotten by the woman in this instance as she tried to decipher the meaning behind this less than clear text which was ancient prophocies and old customs no longer spoken and likely unread for many years.

[Bloodedge]

As Benihime inspected the first scroll, Youko did the same from beside her. He read along with the woman's speaking, and at the mention of clan members being burned to prevent twins from leeching off one another in death, he opened a scroll of his own. "That's interesting. I took a bit of extra time to recover this. It mentions the possible unsealing of a fallen clansman, but also why the sealing is done in the first place. My clan has a close connection to the Pure Land, and the bodies of our fallen our done to keep the souls connected to us. It dates back to the ancient times, when Oborozuki clansmen would use their Doujutsu to communicate directly to the soul from the grave site. If we wanted, we could converse with Kanna right now... if she were actually dead. If you ask me, I'd say there's a connection between these two things as to why this works out the way it does."

Following this, Youko looked between the scrolls to try and figure out the minor details of the situation. During this, however, there were words shared by Benihime which drew his attention away. "Your dad? I thought he was dead."

[Apollymi]

"Oh, that's a bit strange, but I feel the same way. I thought Kanna was a bit different when we saw her today. I couldn't feel anything from her chakra. I was looking right at her, and there was simply nothing. It might be the opposite of the quality I get from Hakudoshi, who just feels like everything all the time but nothing specific." she mentioned seemingly caught up in her readings. The news that Youko's clansmen used to converse with their dead relatives from time to time, was nothing short of stunning. Even so, it wouldn't really help if the small girl wasn't actually dead or if they couldn't get to her body. As they continued searching for answers, it seemed that Youko had just caught something said by the redhead, she looked up and thought about it and then a huge smile broke out over her face.

"Oh, yeah... I thought so too. Interesting thing I found out today, both of my parents other halves were identical to them. Apparently, when we were young none of us really knew which of each parent was ours, so... we called them both Mom and Dad. The one who was killed was Dad's other half. He's alive so that was a good moment in my day, he met Hakudoshi it was nice." the young woman mentioned only to think more about it. "And while I am thinking about it, technically speaking according to my clan's customs, Hakudoshi is an adult, and my handler," she said chuckling about it because it made sense. While she continued reading she eventually found something which might lead to more specific help about the issue with their daughter. "Kanna's body seems to be the point at which both of the clans' customs seem to overlap. You said in old times they your clan used the bodies to commune with the soul. In ours, the body is destroyed to keep it from leeching off of its twin. So, what if both of these things are just occurring at the same time instead of it being one or the other?" She questioned aloud knowing Youko to be more than clever enough to piece together what she was getting at, the cyclical exchange of power between their pair of twins, which was likely keeping the body of the dead one alive, while her soul fed her brother's power.

[Bloodedge]

"She is a bit different. Looking at Hakudoshi though, his chakra seems to blend into the surroundings when he's not using it... almost like a camouflage. I couldn't feel anything from them, so I assumed she was the same." Benihime seemed to be on an interesting train of thought when combining the ideas of the two clans. Youko found himself briefly distracted by the fact that the woman's father lived due to having an identical twin, but he quickly returned to the matter at hand. This, however, was halted once more by the mention of Hakudoshi's adulthood. "... Our seven year-old... is an adult. And your handler? OK," he said. Upon listening to the redhead's theory, he kept the thought moving in his mind. From what he now understood of Benihime's clan, he figured such a link between a dead twin and a living one could also work in the opposite direction, if such a thing were possible. "So, Kanna's wandering soul is sapping Hakudoshi's energy because her body is still here... but because her body is here, it maintains a connection to her soul in the Pure Land. That link existing lets the two of them keep sharing the way twins normally do in your clan, because my clan stops the separation between body and soul for the dead. If that's the case, I'm glad my clan's customs are what we went with on the day of her birth."

[Apollymi]

"I noticed that the other day, I wasn't sure if he was doing it on purpose or not though." Benihime said about the active camouflage being used by her young son. It kind of made sense though, given the way the pair of them seemed to be shaping up. As for the thought of her son, apparently being an adult and her handler, Benihime thought to explain just a bit more, given the openness of Youko's response to being given that information.

"Apparently, the island is usually home to Matatabi. They revere her for whatever reason, one of the clan's branches, the one I am a member of, is focused solely on producing people capable of properly housing her. My youngest set of siblings were specifically being trained for this purpose. But since the entirety of clan custom revolves around sets of twins, a solo twin having something the other one doesn't isn't fair. As such the one who holds Matatabi is considered Fire Cat, and they get a Fire Rat as a companion. This is done because of the way the clan's Kekkei Genkai works, it isn't uncommon for Matatabi's Jinchuuriki to take on certain odd cat-like behavior, and thus that person needs someone with the ability to focus their attention, so the pairing. Also being declared an actual adult in said branch of the clan, doesn't require anything exceedingly special. Because they are always breeding for compatibility with Matatabi, clan based rituals of adulthood all revolved around the ability to use Fire Release, and you need a partner to take it with you, so in order for me to become an adult and get my questions answered Hakudoshi did the rites with me, until Kanna is revived he'll be treated as my other half." Her explanation covered why their young son was considered in such a way, technically speaking such a thing made them something akin to clan royalty.

Beyond this particular explanation it seemed that Youko had put together a reasonable explanation for the current situation revolving around their twins. And beyond that it seemed that going with his clan's rituals instead of Benihime's had likely saved their daughter and made it possible for them to be able to bring her back. "Definitely for the best that we used your clan customs instead of mine. It seems really simple now, it should be possible to put her back in her own body right? Or is there something glaring in context that I am missing here?" Benihime questioned while still looking through the scrolls she'd now spread out across this table.

[Bloodedge]

Youko was already a bit blown away by the information given about Hakudoshi within Benihime's clan, but part of the explanation she gave after his response baffled him even further. This resulted in him laughing with a hand held over his face. "... So your clan just happens to hail the host of the Bijuu you ended up with before I even knew you, and that person is the one who's allowed the information we needed today? OK." This entire conversation was serving the purpose of putting Youko in a sarcastic humor. This would be short-lived, however, as Benihime addressed the one problem with this situation, which was quite colossal. "The problem is... no matter what we do, there is no way we can bring her back right now. The seal we used on her body was applied by us, and because of my marks, we could seal her with Aiko as our third. The release to the seal is something my ancestors did not want happening for any reason, unless it would somehow benefit the clan as a whole, so..." Youko paused there, taking a seat upon the desk with a heavy sigh. He knew it would eventually be possible to release the seal, but there was no way these two would see their lost daughter for some time yet. "We need the two of us, and three other members of the clan. One of us and at least one of them must be marked for the seal to acknowledge it. I would have to send Aiko through the trials."