Author's note: Shame shame shame…I'm so sorry to all of my prior fans…I know that I'm wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy over due on 'One Piece In The Wind' but…I just had too…I recently started getting back into Naruto again…and the old Akatsuki fan girl inside of me burst out of the prison she was held in…I was forced by her to write a story! She made me do it! Not me! Blame her! But just to let you know I am half way done the next chapter in my One Piece Story (I couldn't leave Kuki alone haha) so it will be done and uploaded in the near future. Any who, I hope you enjoy this new story of mine haha, rate and review? Criticism is highly needed; I would like to know what you think! Come on, take a minute out of your life to help me T_T please?
"So…all I have to do is find this…ring?" she asked, a slightly insane smirk dancing across the petite girl's face.
The Kunoichi was getting pumped, so much so that she started shifting her weight, from one foot to the other, emitting a low creak from the old, worn wood beneath her sandaled feet, unable to stand still. This…'hut', as she so put it, looked as if it had been there for a while, with greenery forcing it's way threw the cracks in the walls, a large hole in the ceiling, and a few broken floor boards here and there. The one-roomed building, if you could call it that, contained nothing but a small table and the smell of dust and stale air.
"No, you obtain the ring and then you have an admittance battle with one of the existing members." The shimmering hologram answered.
The girl watched the figure, it was flying threw the colors of the rainbow but still maintained a dark tone.
"A battle you say?" she smiled, tracing the tattoo on her left arm out of routine.
When ever the female ninja got excited she had a knack for going over the thin, line etched into her skin. The tattoo started of on her middle finger, circling it as if it was a ring, then the line, which looked like purple barbed wire, started spiralling up her arm, crawling all the way up to her shoulder and then stretching over to the soft space in between her two collar bones beneath her neck, finishing into a outline of a heart.
"Yes, now the ring will take a while-" the hologram started to say.
"Is it metal?" she interrupted, looking up from her arm.
Pein's figure grunted, not liking this disrespect, "Yes, Nashi."
The ninja's ears perked at her name, "Call me Kokoro, I hate my last name and I have a…special bond with metal, so it will take no time for me. I just need the general area." The hologram's arm lifted and pointed to the table and a roll of paper on top of it.
"The area is circled on that map and about that side job…" Pein continued, pausing to see if she remembered on what they had previously talked about.
Kokoro walked over to the dusty table, rolling out the large paper and seeing a section of it circled in some sort of black mark. It showed to be inside the Fire Country's boundaries, the place was shown to be a dead forest, and a little of from the large mark was another, smaller circle.
"That other guy right?" the kunoichi asked, not looking away from the map as she studied it.
The second circle seemed to be inside an area with a living forest.
"Yes, if you can't fix him then just bring his ring back." The hologram instructed.
The girl raised a bemused eyebrow as well as bringing back her smirk from earlier, "What? Do you doubt my skills?"
The, multi-colored figure did not show any emotion, "If he isn't back by now then he might very well be dead, even if that is unlikely. If not then try your best, he is a very…unique…situation."
"Is there anything I can get you sweetheart?" the older woman asked from behind the bar.
Kokoro had spotted a small food stand along side the road she was traveling on, and was now holding the large tassels that covered the eating area above her head with her arm. It was a cute, family owned store, small but still roomy and enjoyable. The female ninja sat down at one of the bar seats, inhaling the smell of noodles and fried vegetables.
"Ah…what's your specialty?" the girl asked, running a hand threw her short, black and purple hair.
The kunoichi liked to keep it short in the back, so she didn't have to constantly take care of it, as well as have it get in the way. But she did grow out her hair in the front, having side bangs, where the purple was, almost long enough to cover her right eye.
"We have an amazing rice and vegetable stir fry." The lady offered with a dimpled smile. Her eyes were a dull, blue grey and her greying hair was pulled back in a loose bun.
"Why not?" Kokoro agreed, her stomach grumbling.
It had been two days since she left that worn down 'hut'. Pein had explained that he did not want the female ninja anywhere near the actual hideout until she finished her first mission.
"So what your you doing out here all alone?" the old woman asked, trying to start conversation as she cooked.
Kokoro gazed at the person, still smiling.
"Oh just business." She replied, her expression never wavering.
The woman looked up and studied the ninja's left arm, "That's a nice tattoo you have there. Does it mean anything important?" she pressed on.
"My empty heart, and since you like asking questions how about I try?" Kokoro answered, making her smile twist into her trademark smirk as she drew circles on top of the counter with her middle finger.
After that the woman refused to speak, giving the lady who had walked into her store one suspicious look before handing her the food and keeping her head down as she cleaned.
"Have you ever killed someone?" the girl asked, changing roles with the older woman.
Kokoro stuffed her mouth with the food, chewing slowly as she watched the owner's eyes widened as her head shot up to look at the female sitting on her stool, smiling insanely at her.
"Ever felt someone's pulse drift away?" the ninja pressed, feeling the fear swarm out of the woman, "Watched their eye's deplete of all life?"
"N-n-no." the lady stumbled on her words.
"Well then…never mind." Kokoro sighed, her smile disappearing and a look of annoyance crossed her face as she turned her focus back to her meal.
And with that the owner made an escape to the back of the store, leaving the ninja alone.
"I guess we have nothing in common." She laughed, departing the store after she was done, without paying.
"Ah, there it is." Kokoro sighed, sensing the metal off in the distance.
She raised her hand up in front of her body, soon a large ring flew up from the ground and at her, slapping into her hand as she smiled in victory.
"Easy enough." The ninja mumbled, it had taken the kunoichi an hour after leaving the road side store to get to this area.
The Rotting trees and dead ground made her smile, this place felt like a scene from a horror story. Kokoro could also smell the reek of death; a battle had recently gone down here. From the shattered bits of decomposing wood to the blood trail leading to a large space on the ground stained with the red and the putrid stench of someone's demise.
"So they took his body and everything with it but left this? Strange…" the girl muttered, looking down at the object in her hand.
The top of the ring was a dark green in color and had the Japanese character "north" imprinted into the colored circle. Pein had told the ninja that it was to go on her left middle finger.
"I hope this other guy is dead, I hate green and I don't want anything covering my tattoo." She huffed, shoving the piece of jewellery into her pocket.
Kokoro then started walking again, in the direction to where the second circle on the map was placed. Off in the distance she saw trees, real, alive, green trees.
But before she took another step she stopped, "Chakra…" she smiled, popping open the medium sized, black bag attached to the belt on her hip.
The inside was filled to the brim with tiny, metal shavings. The ninja stuck her hand in grabbing a hand full before spotting the wielders of the chakra she had felt earlier. Opening her hand, the metal shavings clumped together, creating two, small, metal balls the size of peas.
"So this is why they sent me." She joked to herself as she flicked the balls away, making them fly towards the two shinobi, "The 'guard dogs' can't sense my chakra from back here"
Kokoro chuckled at her own joke, watching as the tiny spheres pierced threw the ninjas' chests.
"Right in the heart!" the kunoichi cheered strutting past the dying men as she continued on with her victory dance, "Perfect aim!"
The orbs then started following her as she made her way into the forest.
"Stop staring at me!" Kokoro bellowed, stomping her feet as if to try and scare her pursuers, she glared dangerously at the culprits.
After a silent few seconds of nothing the female ninja turned to face the other way taking three large steps, 'one…two…three', she thought before spinning back around to find that the offenders had not moved.
"Fuck! Shoo!" the kunoichi ordered running at the guilty party, serving only to make them back up a little ways, "How am I suppose to sneak around here with you guys following me!?"
With one more heavy, over exaggerated sigh, Kokoro turned on her heel and stomped further into the forest, her little group of deer following close behind.
"God dammit I'd kill you guys if you weren't so fucking cute." Kokoro mumbled to herself, kicking a stone in a statement to show her distaste of her current situation.
To her surprise, the rock bounced past the bush in front of her to reveal a small clearing. The glade had no grass growing in the middle of it where a large circle of fresh, recently moved dirt laid, and the surrounding trees displayed signs of abuse, some with missing limbs and spots where bark was completely gone.
"Ah…I found it. Now make yourselves useful and go find a body, he could be dead…or alive…I don't really know." The kunoichi demanded pointing ahead of herself as she talked to the group of deer behind her as if they were her underlings.
There was a brief silence when no one moved, Kokoro's arm was still up and the animals refused to blink.
"Worthless…the whole lot of you." the ninja grumbled, trudging on ahead onto the dirt area as she gave up on the doe-eyed deer behind her.
There was nothing here except dirt, dirt and more dirt. Where was this guy…and then she felt it, the metallic zing underneath her…about ten feet under to be exact.
"Ohhhhh…what do we have here?" she wondered out loud, bending down to put her hands to the ground, "Ah, I sense high quality…I want it!"
The ninja giggled, shoving both hands into the bag that contained her metal collection. After grabbing two handfuls of the shaving, the tiny girl threw it onto the ground around her, taking care to step away from disturbed dirt. Spreading her arms out in front of her she forced the shaving down, into the area with no grass, about nine feet, and once at their destination, Kokoro clapped her hands together. Soon, after a devious smile, the female ninja lifted her arms up and, as if on cue, the dirt in front of her rose, and kept getting higher until she could see the metal 'floor' she had made carrying the large chunk of earth. After raising the dark metal higher then her self and pushing it over to the forest, the girl summoned all the metal shavings apart and back to herself again, making the large amount of 'ground', which was floating in the sky, fall back to where it belonged.
"Now what do we have here?" Kokoro hummed, sitting down on the edge of the hole she had dug up.
The small, framed girl was swinging her legs back and forth, as if she was on a dock, dipping her feet in and out of the water. She raised one hand and called some of the metal she felt out of the hole. Another ring, like the one currently inside one of her pockets, flew up. The ninja's hand snatched it out of the air and opened her palm to look at it.
"Yes! I want this one! It matches my eyes!" snickering as she admired the bright orange color.
It indeed matched her eye color, except her's held more depth and color range, but all in all she was pleased with finding this guy dead. Well he was more then dead, more like butchered, with body parts scattered here and there, the head missing from the torso, arms laying two feet away from each other and so on. The carnage of it all made Kokoro's head spin.
"Why would someone hide such a bloodbath?" she questioned no one in particular, as she slipped the pumpkin orange ring, that read 'three', into her pocket to join it's 'brethren'.
The zing was on the top of her tongue as she felt two more metallic items, with her arm held out over the gaping hole, she called another of the three items up to her, but this time it was much bigger. A huge, triple-bladed scythe pulled out of the ground, slightly nudging the head of the dissembled body as it did.
"Tsk tsk, an old man?" Kokoro smirked, seeing the shinny grey hair of the forgotten body part flash as it hit the sun.
Most of it was slicked back, but some stray strands stuck out here and there, making the female ninja wonder what had happened here. The large weapon finally got to its destination, the kunoichi's outstretched hand. Her orange eyes skimmed over the item, the blades where mostly blood red, with silver tops, all of which were connected to a long staff that matched the red scheme. Wrapping was done around the bottom of the staff to indicate that this was the area this weapon was supposed to be held, and at the bottom a thick, grey wire came out, which was loose for a couple of feet before the rest was wrapped 'hose' style. Kokoro was lost in her findings until she heard a branch crack under weight, the ninja's head snapped up to notice that she was currently surrounded by her old foe… the deer…apparently someone had brought reinforcements.