EDIT, July 2011: Once upon a time, StormDragon666 was a friendless, awkward fourteen-year-old who sat alone every day at lunch in eighth grade. Every day she looked forward to coming home to go online and gawk at how many people loved her story, Airborne. Now, July 2011, Stormdragon666 is a successful high school graduate with many friends and has decided to edit Airborne all the way through...and then update it. YAY.
Summary: As a half bird experiment born in a laboratory, Sakura is a prisoner. As a half human, she wants to be free. As an intelligent, flying creature, Sakura must trust herself to find true freedom.
Uhhh…start.
Oh, wait, read this little thing here: Please note that this story begins in January of 2008. Basically so I can know how old everyone is, which doesn't matter THAT much but...but. Yeah.
Chapter the 1st.
January 3rd, 2:24 AM (very late at night) ...Karin POV
'Daily Log. January 3rd, 2008. Writer, Karin U. Secretary of Orochimaru, Sole Director.
Today, there's been a notable advancement. Our youngest experiment has exhibited a new quality and it's a shining beacon compared to her otherwise meager repertoire. At last, our first female has proven she is capable of some amount of problem solving, much to the chagrin of some other lab workers whose names will not be given, but let it be known that security cameras are always rolling, and pay is easily docked.
It was an average Sunday here at the lab. At least, THIS lab. If the reader is newly employed, they will need some more hammering-in yet that this laboratory is far different from any others under the Chambers umbrella. Number 9, which for the new reader's benefit I will state has a separate name used by many lab workers and it is "Sakura", broke free of bondage on her own. While she is prone to long bouts of adrenaline and agility when faced with an interaction trial, never has she utilized any such skill while her life wasn't in danger. Today, she did that which is simple, almost unthinkable for her. She wriggled her wrists furiously till metal handcuffs slid off her wrists, taking two to three small skin strips with them. (New grafts are already in place on the subject's wrists at the time of this writing.)
The simple theory is that Number 9, possibly, made the mental connection between her freedom from the bondage and her own efforts toward that result. The cameras normally trained on her room of storage and residence have all had an extra lens added atop them to more ably record tinier movements, and in closer detail. If she shows any more signs of brainpower, we won't be missing it.
Again, I elaborate for the new reader. Be aware that you are unlikely to get any other simple introduction than this to your new academic home. You are expected to already know the workings of the place.
Number 9 is the latest successful weapon by production of Chambers, lifted from the tank in March of '99, but hopes for her usefulness died soon after her birth. Only minutes after she was born, it was discovered that she's a mute. Despite a perfectly formed and functional larynx, no amount of stimulation would emit a sound from her. No amount of stimulation would emit anything from her, in fact. Number 9 seems to be an avid fan of sitting in silence and staring off into space. Fears mounted throughout the summer of her birth was that there was a brain defect we had yet to uncover, some form of autism, perhaps. The exact gauge of her brainpower and understanding of her environment is still mostly unknown, though good estimates set the bar very low.
Nevertheless, she obeys commands just as the others do. She walks, stops, sits, and lies down when told a good majority of the time. And her training is far from over. This experiment is one in a line of many that will one day be at the war front when her country needs her the most. It's thanks to our efforts that thousands and perhaps even millions of American lives will be saved from any foreign menace that rears its head in the near and far future. Her life expectancy is close to one century, and her body will not deteriorate or even age particularly much till the end of this life. Within the year, a new type of pacemaker will be implanted in her which will allow us to force-stop the beat of her heart when needed, and implode the entire body. If she is to die on a battlefield, the corpse will not fall into enemy hands.
But that is far in the future, perhaps beyond our own lives. For now, a new schedule is being set for Number 9 to test her abilities at reasoning and further problem solving. This development with her handcuff trick has the whole lab abuzz with excitement and anticipation. Her schedule will likely start tomorrow evening, and the Director himself is signing off the treatment. If Number 9 fails any of these new tests, the punishment will be the same as always, and that, at least, proves that her mind has one more dependable function: fear. But for the grace of God, how her eyes widen with terror when she's threatened with the punishment!
We need only a child's dependable intelligence before we can move onto a set of more useful courses, combat courses, training for her real purpose. The other experiments have begun these courses already, and their scoring is close to perfect. It's only our brainless girl that we're waiting on. No matter which experiment is going through a course, I will be sure to heighten the punishment myself if I'm there for observation. I have never been one to be soft on individuals who seem weaker or lesser in any way. They are, in fact, the ones who need the most attention. On that note, I plead the reader to make one of their first contributions to the laboratory a suggestion to myself or to Mr. Yakushi a bare-bones framework for a new type of training for Number 9. We need all we can give her at this point!
No matter what sorts of training she'll receive, the one that will be hardest ingrained in her is that which differs her from all other human beings, a trait that will be a sign of courage and strength for Chambers and for the country:
Her wings.
Daily Log. January 3rd, 2008. Writer, Karin U. Secretary to Orochimaru, Sole Director of Chambers Inc.
Time unknown ...Sakura POV
...
…Hello?
Who are you? Excuse me?
I said, who are you? I've never seen you here.
Oh, then, excuse me. I, uh, I shouldn't be so rude to you. Well…what's your name?
That's a nice name. Very pretty...I think I like it better than I do my own name. Mine is Sakura. It's always sounded a little odd to my ears, but...well, it's mine. Pretty much the only thing that really is mine. I hear it has something to do with my hair, but I haven't heard exactly what it connects to yet. I've yet to piece it together and until then I can hate the man who decided to name a girl after some hair.
If you really are here about me, then I suppose I can tell you. It's not like you can expose me, I mean, look at you!
I'm Sakura. Hi.
I live in hell. I don't mean that literally in that I live in...a place full of fire and red men with horns and hooves. Yeah, if only I lived in a nonsensical drama-house like that, but I don't. No, I just have this laboratory, in an undisclosed location in America (which I'm told is a country that does everything in a way that is really big and really stupid and you know what, I believe it) and here, everything isn't hellfire-red, but ugly, milky white. Everything is sharp and everything hurts. Ever day I wonder about the possiblity of dying, because it's better than this, it really is. But I have to put mental duct tape over that voice because I feel that it's just giving up to be thinking that way, and it's very difficult to create mental duct tape, anyway.
This place Chambers Laboratory, or, a numbered one of several laboratories. There are several creatures in here and we engage in mutual suffering together, which is not the highlight of any of my days. Here at Chambers, everything looks the same, all walls and halls and rooms are of a standard size (maybe one of four standard sizes? I've noticed a couple.). It's almost a game to find a room that I haven't bled or cried in. They're all so perfectly white, and they have perfectly silver equipment. There is one room that's a stupid perfectly beige color but I haven't seen it in seven months. And you forget about those rooms, anyway. It's the white that imprints into your head, practically blinds you. Even the scientists all wear white. For all the bloodshed they're involved in, their coats are generally spotless white. I think the only splashes of colors are me, a few other experiments, and the blue gloves and boots that the scientists wear. Nasty, polluted-ocean blue. I can't stand that blue.
Eight years ago, almost nine, I was born here, but I don't look like an eight-year-old child, or so I've heard. I only know from hearsay what an eight-year-old child looks like and it doesn't look like I do. A child that age would be...half my size. The consensus is that I look sixteen or so. Yuugao and Chouza both proclaim seventeen.
I don't know any grand difference between the two numbers so I don't care. They can say I look seventy-two. I wouldn't care. That's a cool number. But will I ever get to be seventy-two? No. NO. That would be normal and that would be what nature dictates happens when lives seventy-two years, they look seventy-two. I don't get to have that privilege. Karin said long ago that I'm going to be almost frozen at this age, this face. I may get five more years of growth, but it'll take till the time she has grandkids or longer.
I have a bit of a hard time conceptualizing such a big scale of time, so sometimes I just call that "forever." I am sixteen-and-seventeen forever. Yay. Forever. Forever in here? What a fucking joke. I wouldn't wish a life like this on anyone but the most black-hearted murderer or rapist. But it's hard. I don't know any other life. I don't know what else I should have, except something that's not this. This just...is ungodly. I hate it. I hate it so much and I hate what I'm forced to do every day.
I hate being pulling by a leash and collar and I hate sleeping in a dog crate that I can't sit up in and I hate being opened up with surgical knives so people can touch and and prod my organs and I hate having metal blocks dropped on my legs for strength resistance or some such BS and I hate needles in my skin and I hate everything the scientists do with me and, a-and...and I hate when I can't think about anything but that, anything good and enjoyable. I wish I could think about cats or something.
But I hate that this is my life. This isn't fair. These people cut me and starve me, stare at me when I'm naked and talk about pulling my heart out of my chest to hold it in their hands, and I can't ever truly be away from it. God, just STOP it! I just said I would stop thinking about it! Cats! Think about pretty cats! Anything! Oh, I have to, I have to, I can't let my heartbeat rise too much, they might know. Calm down. Yes. Good.
...Don't feel sorry for me, please. I'm dealing with it okay, and it's my fault for having you in here and talking about this. I have such a habit of...mentally talking for ages. I ramble on and on. And...and now it's all awkward because I'm halfway through and I still haven't answered everything. I'm so sorry. I guess I'll just keep going, keep explaining.
Get your pen ready. You wanna know why this all happens? I've already started telling you this tale about what Chamber does behind closed doors, so at least let me finish being your exposition fairy before you leave.
Just why exactly would people do that to a totally innocent person? I have wings, is why. That's the magic answer and the magic word: wings.
Because these hell-rejects screwed with my DNA while I was still in the womb (a phrase which doesn't make sense to me; I'm very sure I was a test tube baby) I was born with these things growing out of my back. And hey, that's reason enough to do this torture to anybody, right? It's all for science! "Let's stab this girl in the name of science!" That's what goes on in this building. That's it. No, really, that's it.
And if I don't respond the right way, they shock me. How? How the hell do you think? Well, not with a dang Pikachu. Is that still a thing, Pikachus? Look, it's with a shock collar, okay. It's been on me for four years now. It's not tight...that much, anyway. I guess. Once in a while they bring in a bearded guy to check and make sure it doesn't choke me and let me tell you, he does exactly nothin' whenever he comes in to see me. My life could be that much more enriched if I didn't have to look at his gross beard and the sparrows that probably nest it in. I take care of that maintenance on my own, anyhow. Once every three weeks, I do it myself.
The week prior, I listen for the security room schedule and wait for Genma's turn to man the computers. When I know he's behind the lens is when I put myself at an angle in my crate where he can't see, where he isn't looking anyway because he's such an unobservant moron, I stick two fingers between my collar and my skin to give the two surfaces some respite from each other. And also, you know, make sure my skin doesn't start sticking to the metal. Kabuto once said there was a woman whose butt got stuck to a toilet seat that she sat on for too long so I am not taking that same ridiculous chance. I heard once that an experiment at another lab had this happen to him ,and his skin has begun growing over the collar itself, so the workers simply said "whatever we won't take it off anyway. Common sense, durhurrhurr!" That's not gonna be me. So thanks, Genma, for the opportunity to tend to my own needs. I don't care about Genma and I don't care about his demonic coworkers and I definitely don't care for his disgusing chain-smoking and all that smoke he circulates. One thing he does circulate, though, all too often, is the plain and simple fact that I'm not alone here. As though that needs to be circulated.
No, little Sakura's not the only one. I have fellow experiments here. They, and these scientists, are the only things on God's green earth that I truly hate.
Each of them has something, well, worth...staring at. I've got wings. Naruto, I mean, Number...well, wait, let me explain. "Naruto" is not Naruto's name, really, it's a casual nickname. He was Number 8 before the workers here started to think of cute names for him. The number comes from the birth order: Naruto was the eighth experiment born in this lab. And I'm Number 9. Guess my order number. I'm asking! Guess!
This means I'm the last in line, the youngest and the most recent. I don't know if being older would have made a difference, but I feel like being both young and small is a bad card to be dealt, at least when you compare me to the eight other experiments. I mean, they're all tall and big and intimidating. They're great oaks in the forest and I'm...like, a cactus or something. Very small and obviously non-belonging. It's frightening for a small person to look at a tall person, at least for me. It's also frightening It's also intimidating for small people to have to look at really tall animals, which is what they may as well be.
Okay, I was starting to get onto Naruto. My wings come from a forced DNA-splicing of a human egg which had bird DNA grafted onto and into it. Naruto is the result of splicing human and red fox, so once the fetus matured enough such that it stopped looking like a shrimp on the ultrasounds, it wasn't wings the scientists noticed on his body, but fox features: an extra pair of ears near the top of his head, and a tail. Cute little things, actually. The first time I saw him, I fell into the trap of assuming they made him a sweet little puppy. Wrong. No.
There's another older experiment, Number 5, "Deidara," who's also worth speaking of. He and I are the only two out of nine who have wings. I'm guessing he's part parrot, because his wings, which are much bigger than mine, are blue. And I know that parrots have very bright plumage, but blue wings just seem very odd to me. It's like having purple hair. It's like...I don't even know. This is one occasion where I can't really articulate my thoughts. Blue wings! Geez! I doubt he's ever used them to fly (the scientists who are so big on experimentation and research just abhor birds that can fly) but I know that he's got strength elsewhere in him. But I think I'll save that for later. I feel like my own thoughts are spoiling my mind.
Because it nearly hurts to think of them. I hate them, I fear them. They're the stuff of almost all my nightmares, far too often, and for good reason: they're monsters, monsters with appetites, and seem like they want nothing from me except to tear me limb from limb and gobble up the pieces. Without a doubt, the worst thing about the other experiments is that the scientists like to stick me with one of them in a big room and see what happens. Weekly, or more.
And the same thing always happens. The male experiment charges at me with a predator's grin. I run. I can't fly and I'm scared to fight and I don't dare do it anyway, so I run.
Anko, says it's like "cat and mouse" (and I'm not kidding, she says that all the damn time. The joke never dies with her.). And I'm always the cat in this situation. No matter which male experiment is stuck in a great white room with me, they always try to get me. I always run with my heart in my throat and my mind running strategies to flee like a marathon. Adrenaline flows each time and saves my life. Awful though it is, I have at least made it out of all those encounters alive. Sometimes I get feathers clipped off my wings, sometimes much, much worse. But...it's...you know what, I think I will think about them just this once.
It's been a while since I've reviewed them all thoroughly in my head. I should always keep what I know of them up-to-date. And you came here of your own volition anyhow, so sit down, will you? You asked for an "exposition fairy", I think you said, so here I frickin' am; sparkle, sparkle.
First. Number 1. Chambers' first success. Yay, bio-engineering, yay, DNA-splicing, yeahhh, science! Number 1 is Kakashi, born in '92. He's the eldest of the creatures, and possibly the smartest, though I wonder at the workings of his thyroid. Just what kind of hormones has he got that let him advance in growth so far beyond me? What I mean is ,why the flying fudge does Kakashi get to look like he actually is over twenty years old? (Or more! He might be midway through the twenties!) Hell, I might die before I get to be that old!
Yeah, yeah, laugh. That's where it stops being funny. Kakashi got to age farther than me, and perhaps he has some brain growth to show for it. He's a real hunter, that one. He wears scarves over his face, like a man who tried to make a turban on his head while drunk. Even with that oddity, he runs like a demon. One blink and he'll be three-quarters of the way across the room, and only then would the breeze catch up and actually move the air, and lift the scarf from the other eye, and I get a full-on view of a perfectly red eye. A literally red eye, red in its iris, where a mundane color like blue or brown should be. It's his only strange "animal" feature, because everything else on him looks human. You'd never guess that his cells are busily at work each second of the day producing wolverine DNA. You'd only know it from the way he attacks. Furious, and fast. So fast. His favorite tactic is to dash...and simply never stop. Run, dash, roar. He makes a grab with his claws, which I have never touched, and I pray I never will. The claws of a wolverine would rip my organs from my belly.
That's enough about Kakashi. I'm done with him. He isn't worth so much thought. Beast.
Who's next? Number 2. I don't know his birth date, but he is the next eldest for sure. Number 2 is called "Sasori", and he's both man and scorpion. Now, I can't make a claim that I'm any type of religious...but I do thank the lord above for the fact that he's never managed to bite or sting me. Sasori is like Kakashi in that he looks quite human (his hair definitely looks a more human color than Kakashi's) but he does have one overtly non-human trait, a scorpion's tail protruding from the end of his spine. It's much more maneuverable than a real scorpion's tail would be. He sways and moves like a dancing nightmare, like nothing I've ever seen. I have bad dreams about him more often than the others, because of an...an event two years back. Yuugao and Torune actually forced me to drink his venom. Drink it from a flask, ugh. I mean, UGH! I wanted to gag myself, vomit, anything! But no, I'm not such a priveleged little doll. You know what they found out from that day? Really? One ounce of venom and one seizure later, it was determined that I am not fucking immune.
A real bummer. Next.
Number 3 is a half-weasel humanoid with the name "Itachi." Again, he looks like a regular human! A shocking find! But again, he has one off-putting feature, though Itachi's may not be from the animal parts of him. He has red eyes, red-irised, though unlike Kakashi both are this color. I know he's had many optical surgeries. Wouldn't be surprised if they burst a blood vessel on accident during one of the operations. It wouldn't be the first time these exceptionally professional motherfuckers woke up one day with the grace of Catskill rednecks.
I do think this hypnosis thing they're using him to experiment with WAS purposeful, though. Itachi's gimmick, his defining value to Chambers, is that his stare causes hallucinations. I still don't understand the science behind it. But it's undeniable that it's true, and it happens, and...and it is fascinating, I admit. To myself only. Sometimes they bring in people to test it. Kidnapped people, death row prisoners. Unknown and unmissed people. They're tied to chairs and forced to look at him, and they foam at the mouth, or have dramatic seizures. I've watched the process fourteen times now, from behind observation windows, waiting for one of the workers to take me somewhere. Those humans see something in his eyes, some...some what? Some color? Some radiation shot from his eyes? Chambers doesn't know. I don't know. I do know that Itachi's hypnosis is daunting beyond anything human. For that reason, I've never looked him in the eye. Not through the windows, not passing him escorted in the halls, and not in the white rooms. I will not look at him.
Let's move on. Next in line is a monster in the most base and unfortunately physical sense. Zetsu is Number 4. He's not even an animal mutation, but a plant. He's a venus flytrap...I'm serious...I'm serious! Maybe he considers himself lucky. After all, he does get to rape all laws of science and blend into any matter around him. He can literally melt into the ground and become dirt. Become the concrete wall or become the lifelike plastic tree. He's manipulating the entire world! Oh, and does he take advantage of it.
In the white rooms, he's the happiest little child sometimes, because he has the biggest advantage, which means not only is he a disgusting beast, he's a fucking cheater and I despise that. It's time to go into a room with Zetsu today, oh, thought you were safe standing a hundred feet away? Just kidding, Zetsu can grab your foot from the ground! Thought you were safe standing on that block, just kidding, Zetsu's gonna get you there! You think you're safe, no, you think you're safe, fuck no, run for your life, bitch, run and never stop or he'll get you! God above, I hate the white room trials with him. I hate them I hate them I hate...
Moving on. This only gets worse and worse, doesn't it? I'm willfully doing this to myself, too, willfully pouring nightmare fuel into my brain, I need some fricking assistance here. Therapy. Maybe I need a Rorschach test. That sounds fun and I could use a little fun.
Yes! Moving on, I said. 'Kay, already said that Number 5 is Deidara, mostly likely the result of the marriage of human and parrot DNA. Since I've already explained away his wings, how about his other defining trait: his hair. That alone is worth a small essay. Deidara's hair has to be...the result of some lady employee here with too much time and too many hairbrushes on her hands. I've never imagined such a funny style as that in which Deidara wears his hair. I was just a little child when I first saw him, and even in his own childhood they had dictated his hair would be worn thus. I grinned like a fool, I'm sure, and had to fight laughter at the sight of it (I also thought he was a girl, but yeah, not so important). And three seconds later I was running from a winged monster who I then realized was not a girl. And five seconds after that, I was dodging bombs (let me finish) that got shot out from the palms of his hands. Did I mention Deidara makes bombs? Your body and mine may make sweat, or acne, or eyelashes, but Deidara's makes bombs.
You're telling me you've never seen a man with gaping mouths in his hands that spit explosive little balls? You know, I've got my own theory on what they are, and the employees here have sort of confirmed it for me that they're basically balls of sodium with a strange shell over it, and his saliva eats through it and BAM, sodium explodes from contact with glorious water and BAM! Bombs! Oh, wait, wait, we're not done, there's more to this circus freak! Not only do those mouths spit explosive material, not only are there just goddamned mouths on that creature's hands, but those same mouths have tongues that stretch eleven feet. He uses them as people might use a whip, to grab things, and to lash things. Sometimes the efforts of my day include trying to avoid having my skin lashed off by a parrot's two tongues.
Number 6, you say? Why, that's Neji. He's half-caracal, a cat of the desert with jumping abilities that make us mere mortals writhe in shame. He shares animal features with Naruto; like him, Neji grew a tail and a second pair of ears while he was still in the tank. I'm of the opinion that he's got fantastic hearing as well. He's had some sort of optical fuckery done to him just like Itachi, and it was a direct consequence of that that his eyes were drained of color when he was not even two months old. It gives him a ghostly look, not that he needs such a thing to be a frightening beast.
He has a stare a bit like Number 2's. Not in that it makes you hallucinate and seize, but it's...it's so unsettling. It makes he shiver, and feel so, so unsafe. Sometimes his stare becomes so focused that the veins around his eyes are pushed up, and it's as though he's seeing through 20/20 glasses, because his accuracy is always heightened when his veins are up. I've lost tiny scraps of clothes to Neji's claws before. He's never touched skin, but he has just barely raked at my shirt or pants more than once, and he loves that. Damn him. When he does manage that, when he walk away having ripped my clothes...when I walk away, he stares and I can feel it just like someone's hand on me.
Stop that, we're near to done. The last to introduce here is Number 7. He's easily the biggest, most muscular humanoid I've ever seen and the last person on Earth I would ever want to see in a dark alley. This is Kisame. Half-bull shark, if it's not obvious from one half-blind glance at the thing. The guy has gills for goodness' sake, and, and blue skin! Perfect for his gross, fishy self. Kisame's a swimmer just like any shark, he takes to water very well, and if you stick around long enough you might get to see him moving water with his hands, like it's a missile that he can shoot off. There's also a pool on the first floor that's explicitly to be used by Kisame when he needs exercise. That piece of scum actually gets his own pool. He gets his own pool, and when he's not chillaxing in there, he's chillaxing in a white room with me, sometimes a flooded one so he can swim, and I have to dodge on platforms. There was an occasion where we were both underwater. And he wouldn't let me get up to air. He floated directly in my way and smiled. I don't want to talk about it. It was a bad day, and I had bad dreams that night. And a cramp in my foot to boot. Please, I don't want to talk about that time.
Number 8 might be a better topic, since he's so unintentionally humorous. Number 8 is Naruto, the biggest idiot you've seen this year, I'd bet. He does have at least one trick up his sleeve and that's fooling people into thinking he's cute and harmless. I fell for it when I was a little kid, and almost touched him and tried to pet his ears. But his charming, sweet purrs turned to growls in a heartbeat, and I ran, and avoided his hands slamming down onto where my legs would have been, and perhaps would have been broken. I've never been fooled since. He has a second trick that he's been trying for years and years to replace his single, failed one, and that's his oranged "air power". To his credit, it's the most weird and unexplainable of all the experiments' strange talents. Naruto can actually make air particles glow orange, and direct them with a movement of his hand, and smash them into things. He had shove his hand forward at a rock ten feet in front of him, and that rock will tumble over because he made a gesture at it. It's dangerous and he's fucking dangerous and the mixture of him and that ability seems like a very ugly joke by a very insincere god.
Number 9? That's me, or did you forget? I'll do this, but I'll make it short. I'm Number 9, AKA Sakura. I like medical trivia, debating with myself, swimming, sleeping, and the concept of flying. Pleased to meet you. I have no special sci-fi powers, unless flight counts. But I haven't done that yet, and it remains nothing but a dream. I'm called special among the Numbers because I'm the first and only female, though if this was by luck or an error in their engineering, no one knows.
Plus the whole female thing makes me more interesting to attack in pair-up trials. Thanks to the miracle of nature, two males in a white room together is different than one male and one female. I'm a great prize for them to try flaying and eating, while another guy is just not apparently interesting. I'm the only one on the receiving end of murder attempts. The males do not attempt to kill each other, much to my displeasure.
I don't even get why they do it. I never did anything to them. Why do they chase me around and smile and growl at me? Why do they roar when they hurt me? I have theories, but they all boil down to the same disgustingly simple animal behaviors. The first idea is that I'm seen as prey, because I'm small, and my refusal to fight back probably doesn't help me any. Second, the male experiments are dumb as fossilized rocks and don't know what else to do with a strange, non-testosterone-riddled organism, so they try to kill it. Three: they have just enough sentience to be fucking evil and are doing this for the same reason that nasty little children try to roast ants witha magnifying glass. This last theory, I can really, really see. Zetsu once popped out of the ground and aimed a punch at my thigh that would have snapped my femur to splinters had I not fled. The day that Kisame nearly drowned me, pushing my three minute limit of holding my breath to over four, till my lungs were shriveled to raisins and I begged any omnipotent force of life to kill me then and there, but none did and Kisame kept on smiling and baring his teeth. Heartless...piece of shit. I wish he would drown. I'd like to watch. I'd like to put it on Youtube. Genma would put it up there.
Usually, though, some scientist will shout something to stop the trial before it gets as ugly as my nightmares suggest it could be. They'll shock me with the shock collar, either for not fighting back as I am encouraged to, or because Karin's around and that's just what that woman does with her spare time, electrocute eight-year-old girls. The experiment who was chasing me stops moving and waits to be led away by scientists who jab him with cattle prods, and sometimes it's gratifying to see that, and sometimes I could care infinitely less about it.
You know, I'm very fond of the last two theories I mentioned, or rather, mixing them: not only are the male experiments bats out of hell, but they're too dumb to know any better. I love thinking about their idiocy-induced violence, because it makes me think about the opposite of that. The opposite of mindlessness. The opposite of what the scientists believe. And it's me.
My name is Sakura. My scientist upbringers think I can't solve a four-piece puzzle. But in truth, I can do the Pytharogeon theorem in my head and name every bone in the human body. So suck on that. Rotten bitches.
It's been one heck of a job making the scientists believe I lack all but the most simple brain functions. I remember the first time they gave me the block with the square and round holes in it. And I picked up a square peg and tried to put it in a round hole, again and again. Out of the corner of my eye I could see all these befuddled and disappointed faces and little me, I was so abuzz with delight, thinking, 'I fooled you, I fooled you bad people!' and no, I didn't have the most fantastic vocabulary at six months old, but I knew was victory felt like. That was one of my very first ones. Forever after, reinforced by me pretending to have difficulty telling red from blue and circles from squares, these men and women who so proudly boast their engineering accomplishments at this and that university, and "oooh I harvested seahorse eggs from a a corpse once, I'm a Ph.D. and pay more taxes than you, look at meee", yeah, those people, are utter fools, desperate to try and make little old me understand that "circle is not square."
In the past two years or so, I've worked a little harder at displaying strength weak and inconsistent, with occasional bursts of random adrenaline and almost performance-satisfaction, to keep them on their toes. I did that just this morning with a pair of handcuffs. Most often, I'll shove a big obstacle out of my way when I'm with a male experiment, to clear an escape path, and the scientists raise their eyebrows and have hopes for my growth for a few seconds, but within an hour they are forced to write off my strength as a burst of adrenaline, and we're back to square one. I have everyone fooled, and no one knows how incredibly wrong they are.
Every day of my life, I've been listening, learning, and knowing. As needles are stuck into my arms, or as I'm pulled down the hall by a leash, I listen to the scientists talk about work, formulas, relationships, movies, politics, donuts, traffic jams, and everything in between, and as I listen to them, I understand what they are. From listening, I learned everything I know now. I learned to spell words, speak English, do math in my head, know that the Force is with me, and appreciate people like Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and Morgan Freeman.
I've had this little nagging thought in my head that's always told me to keep quiet and listen, and that's what's gotten me this far. Quietness. But for silent, body-shaking sobs, I've never spoken a word or uttered a single sound in all my eight years, and you better believe it.
I am not, no way in hell, as glaringly stupid as the male experiments. They can't talk, but they can make animal sounds, and understand basic commands like "stop" and know the difference between yes and no. Growls and purrs and snarls are the only sounds they can make their vocal chords cough up. Personally I think their brains and their speech match. With both those working at full capacity, you might even be able to get them to tell you the answer to one plus one.
One thing I can be thankful for is that I'm not like them. I'm better than them. I've kept quiet and listened to the scientists and workers-the different classes of employees-as much as possible, and taught myself everything, all in my head. I like to fancy my knowledge would challenge that of a human adult. Maybe regular adults are smarter than I realize, but I was raised by people who know telemetry and the origins of most modern medicine, and how to hide illegal bio-weapons. For me, personally, it's my mind and my ability to shut up that will get me out of here. My mind is what's going to get me my freedom. My escape.
I've been listening and watching for all these long years, not making a sound for the sight of scalpel or fear or pain, all because I want freedom.
Recently, I've heard little gossip rings talking about new trials for us experiments. Outdoor trials. I've looked through windows before. Sure, maybe the last time I saw a window was...was, uh, four months ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. Outside, the world is blue and green and more beautiful than words can ably describe. Words for its beauty don't truly exist in my vocabulary, because I don't actually know it. I can define the structure and texture of grass and wind, but I have never experienced them, and all those outside things and feelings, like plants. Plants like Zetsu—no, er…much nicer and prettier than Zetsu—grow anywhere and everywhere, and the sky, the sky that you all consider so boring and so ordinary...it's there. It's waiting for me to come see it. It covers every last patch of the planet, and everyone but me has seen it. I want to see it, too. I want to feel it. I want to fly in it. I will fly in it. I will be free in it.
When the outdoor trials come, I'll do what any bird would do when set free and outside. I'll open my wings and fly away.
Once I'm outside, once I'm free of bondage and set in front of some other Number to be chased like prey—because that's doubtlessly what I'll be doing out there—I'll turn around, run, open my wings for the first time in my life, jump up and fly. I'll escape Chambers, fly far away, and they'll never find me again. They'll never have another chance to stick knives, needles, syringes or spikes into me. Those scientists will never again hit me with bricks or metal plates. The other experiments will never strike fear into me with claw, fang, tail, glare or growl again. I'll float in the sky forever and be free like the birds I've only heard about.
I've lived almost nine years in this hell and I am getting out.
January something, according to I-love-thinking-out-loud-in-front-of-everyone Karin; maybe early morning since I'm tired…? ...Sakura POV
I was sitting in my cage at some point many days later, trying to sleep. My cage is really just a dog crate, except if I was a dog then I'd actually be able to sit up and stretch my legs in it, and I can't now. The only pillow I have is a dent in the corner towards the top that had been worn away from year after year of my head settling there. Sakura's Dent in the Box is, at the least, a place nobody's tried to steal from me, and that's nice.
Just then I was waking up from a dream that had something to do with the sky being green, and I cursed myself for waking. I fell asleep but didn't have the sweet dream again. It was a comfortable sleep though, and since it was peaceful in my quiet, bare room I could almost forget how sore my legs and back were and how my shock collar felt far too hot and uncomfortable today. Then I heard the door open, and I rubbed my eyes to rid them of sleepiness. I heard the brisk, no-fucking-nonsense-ever steps that could only belong to Karin. Before long, I saw her signature extra-tall blue boots standing before my cage. I heard the jingling sounds of her fumbling with some keys. She crouched down and I stared at her strange hair while she undid the double locks on my cage door.
"Come on, get up." The command was hurried and sharp and unkind, a wonderful complement to the rest of her. I pretended not to hear or understand. Karin believed the act, who'd've guessed.
I was looking at Karin's hair—short and unkempt on one side and long and neat on the other, as weird as it was every day—when the door opened and she shouted something at me, pointing towards the door of my room. I moved and crawled out of my cage and stood up. I took the precious seconds to stretch my stiff legs and arms, then my hands shot to my neck.
Karin was shouting at me again, but I only registered the pain that jolted from my neck down. She had shocked me using the shock collar to get me motivated, as she usually did, being her pain-causing self. I frowned and promptly stopped tears from coming out. I swallowed and slowly set my hands down, preparing to crawl out of the cage. Karin jabbed me with a cane and I started towards the white door of the white room towards the, gasp, white hallway. As soon as I came into the hallway, two men in white coats and blue boots slapped handcuffs on me, and attached a chain to my shock collar. One of the men took hold of the chain. I heard Karin press a button on a remote and electricity again coursed through me.
I shuddered with the terrible pain but walked as she jabbed me in the back again, between my wings. I cringed, letting out a sigh, just about the only sound-like thing I could do besides breathe heavily. Karin jabbed me with a cane whenever she wanted me to turn a corner. Thwack my right side to turn right, thwack my left side to turn left. The other two men walked stoically beside me. The one who held the chain to my collar didn't seem to have any interest in pulling it and causing me pain...this time.
Eventually, after turning many corners and going down a flight of stairs, the man who held the chain to my collar came to two double doors and reached into his pocket. I heard the jingling of keys, and as he searched for a certain one on a ring with at least three dozen keys on it, I looked out the tiny square windows on the two double doors. I saw patches of pale blue, white and even pink.
The sky! The sky's right out there!
I hoped to God that I wasn't tense with anticipation. I wanted to look neutral and stupid. Average Day Sakura. The doors were kicked open by the second man, who didn't hold my chain, and I closed my eyes as I was suddenly blinded by something harsh and white. At first I thought it was a flashlight that the maintenance workers sometimes carry to fix broken things in dark places, but realized it was too big and bright to be one of those dinky things.
There was no time to wait for my eyes to adjust if I wanted this to work, so I blinked several times and let them go their own way. Karin jabbed me hard between the wings. I started walking, and the pain between my shoulder blades didn't seem to matter at all. My bare feet walked out on something cool and...and unbelievably soft. I looked up and saw the awe-inspiring blueness of the sky above me. It was tinged pink and orange with what I assumed was a sunset, and I almost wanted to cry at its beauty. Poems and ballads about the sky and the sunset and love and anything were nothing in comparison to the true subject. It looked even more amazing than I'd dreamed. I reminded myself quickly that there'd be time to admire the sky after I got out of here.
I looked around as scientists and worker bustled about in their white coats, talking and whispering hurriedly as though they were late for something. I saw the green stuff all over the ground...grass, right? This stuff was so much better than the green thingy that covered Zetsu. I gave a half-smile, and then made it disappear. 'Not a single sign, remember? Keep a blank face or it all might go down the drain!'
I kept myself busy by looking around, desperately trying to keep my confusion and awe out of my expression. The outdoor yard-place had a huge brick wall around it, about as tall as nearly four Kisames. Not even the nimblest experiments, Neji and Kakashi, would be able to jump it. I certainly wouldn't. Thank you, wings! A fringe of barbed wire covered the top of it, as though anyone who could somehow climb the wall would have their hands pierced to ribbons or possibly electrocuted. I shuddered fearfully at the latter thought.
There were a few cameras on the brick wall—most of them were directed at me, I noted slowly. Then suddenly I felt someone's rough hand undoing the chain on my collar. It was taken away and the handcuffs ripped off. I rubbed my wrists and pretended to be absorbed in the task. A few minutes later, all the white-coated people started rushing inside through the double doors I'd come out through.
"Get out there!" a man yelled at me. Electricity zapped my neck and shoulders and with a silent gasp I staggered out towards the middle of the field. I shoved the tight collar up my neck to rub the sore part that it usually rested on. Woefully, tenderly, I felt the skin. It hurt to touch and felt hot and raw under my fingers.
"Be ready! Prepare to record everything you see!" I heard someone shouting from above me.
I pushed my collar back down, hoping no one had noticed me feeling me pained neck, and turned around. All up the incredibly high wall of the Chambers Inc. building, there were balconies that jutted out of the wall. People were coming out from inside the building filling up these balconies and staring down at me with video cameras and notepads in their hands. Just like reporters. Huh.
I felt fear and anxiety starting to rise in me as everything quieted and they all stared at me. I wondered if I was shivering. I backed up a few steps, remembering that I was probably going to get chased around the yard by one of the male experiments. I looked around for once, ready to run in case Zetsu popped up out of the ground. I stared around the yard. I was happy to note that the brick wall around this outdoor place-four Kisames high, remember-was not nearly as high as the Chambers Inc. building itself. It would be easier to fly over a two-story-high brick wall than a six-story-high building.
Back to looking for the males. I stared around, squinting. The light seemed to be growing dimmer. As I'd heard, the sun set and rose in the sky, making light brighter and dimmer. It must have been nighttime now, as the light was getting worse and worse. It wasn't much of a problem for me, though. Birds were creatures of fantastic vision, and that characteristic of them had been successfully cloned into me. I stared into the darkness and shadows, searching for Itachi, who had his evil ways of not being seen by anyone.
I found something worse.
There, in a dark corner where I foolishly hadn't noticed them hiding in shadows, was Sasori and Itachi. My breath hitched in my throat. The two of them almost always were given dark clothes to wear, it wasn't a wonder I hadn't noticed them in the shade and shadows before. My breath decided to hitch some more when Neji stepped out of the darkness, followed by Kakashi and Deidara. Soon enough, all eight of the other part-human men emerged from the dark corner, a scant fifty feet away from me.
All eight of my worst life enemies stood in front of me, all looking perfectly capable of tearing me apart. My wings went shivery and cold. I started at each one of them in turn, and, no surprise, they were all staring at me.
And they all smiled.
Hmmm…what happens next? Find out next chapter.
To clear a few things up, since I know a few things got confusing…Uh,
A.) Sakura and all other experiments were created in the laboratory. Kakashi was only made in the labs fifteen years ago yet he appears to be twenty-something. Sakura is only about 8 years old but she appears 16. This is true for all the rest of the experiments. However old they actually are, they look youthful-ish, and do not gain aging features like normal people. In simpler words, they stay sexy basically their whole lives. (It's a tactic to unconsciously lower the guard of enemies and prey, btw. Yay biology. You donate generously to the fangirls.)
B.) I stated Kakashi's date of birth and age and Sakura's but none of the others' for a reason. Their ages and dates of birth (and character profiles!) will be shown in some later chapter. All you really need to know now that Kakashi is oldest and Sakura is youngest, and they are all numbered according to age, so you already know the order.
EDIT NOVEMBER 20TH, 2013: Don't mind me, I'm just polishing up the story a smidge. Again. Someone contacted me this week to just...give me a fanart and I was prompted to look at this story again after silently squeeing over it in the middle of my business law class. I promise nothing, because college life and responsibilities suck, but I'm at least gonna neaten up this and the next chapter to meet my current standards. Because yeah, this Sakura is pumped full of weird, even Sue-ish characteristics and personality but...that's the Sakura I wanted to write about when I was 13/14 and I still like her. I tweaked her some.
Personal Criticism notes, 1) I added a remark by Sakura about being an "exposition fairy" because goddamn that's just what this chapter is. Eighth-grade me sure had only the best of writing rules in mind when I first made this.