Lost on the Road of Life
Chapter One:
It's All Over
"Your bottle is almost empty.
You know this can't go on.
Because of you my mind is always racing."
Erin smirked as she happily belted out the lyrics to one of her favorite Three Days Grace songs, her fingers practically dancing over the keyboard to her laptop as the final three paragraphs to her English final paper took shape. The teenager felt a rush of elation as she realized that she was almost done with the essay that had tormented her for the past month. It was at moments like these that the nineteen-year old was perfectly content to be in college, despite the enormous workload.
"The needle's breaking your skin.
The scar is sinking in.
And now your trip begins.
But it's all over for, it's all over for you, for you.
When you're on the edge and falling off;
It's all over for you.
When you're on the edge and falling off;
And it's all over."
Suddenly, a loud shriek coming from outside the teen's room caused her to jerk backwards in her chair, eliciting a loud and foul curse from the nineteen-year old as she almost fell out of her chair and cracked her head on the desk as the seat lurched backwards in an attempt to fall over. The massive German Shepherd resting on the teen's bed sat up immediately as he watched his mistress try not to fall down, his brown eyes intently focused on the desk. When no other harm came, the dog settled back down onto the bed. It took a few seconds for the girl to regain her balance, and when she did she was not happy.
"Dammit Jess, what the hell?" Erin growled as she wrenched off her headphones and threw them down onto her desk next to her laptop before standing up and storming over to her bedroom door. The cries of distress grew louder as the angry teen threw her door open and stalked down the stairs and out into the living room-type area of the dorm that she shared with another girl, only to find her dorm mate perched in front of her own respective laptop with a look of complete and utter horror on her face.
Erin's right eye suddenly developed a nervous twitch as she glared at her dorm mate, who was still engrossed with the images on the computer screen.
"What the bloody hell is going on?!" the nineteen-year old demanded as she fixed Jess with a withering glare. The red-headed girl let out a yelp as she was snapped back into reality before she spun around to stare at her irritated roommate.
"Uh… Erin, how nice to see you…" she muttered lamely, a hint of nervousness in her voice. "I was wondering if you were still alive in there."
Erin just let out a sigh and rolled her eyes in response as she massaged the bridge of her nose in obvious frustration. "Hah bloody hah, so not funny."
Jess gave her a sheepish smile in response as she rubbed the back of her head. "So, how's your paper going?"
"Well, I was on a roll until someone screamed like they were about to be ritualistically murdered," the girl grumbled darkly, her hazel-green eyes narrowed dangerously. "I thought that you were supposed to be studying for your math final."
"Umm… heh he…" Jess giggled nervously as she suddenly found the legs of her jeans to be interesting. "I got it all done."
"Bull."
"Hey, I did!"
"Why do I not believe you?"
"Because you're a distrustful midget with a Napoleon complex?"
WHACK!!
"I am not short!" Erin snapped as she glared at Jess, who rubbed at the sore spot on her head ruefully. "I'm almost 5'6!"
"I'm still taller than you," the other girl pointed out with an evil smirk on her face. Erin scowled at her, but other than that said nothing. Jess grinned triumphantly as she eyeballed her roommate for a few moments, her blue eyes shining with the knowledge that she had something over the smaller girl.
"So, do you want to copy my answers?" she asked innocently. The expression on Erin's face immediately darkened even further as she struggled not to express her feelings using four-letter words.
"Hell no!" she finally ground out. "I'll never learn anything if I just have the answers handed to me!"
"Suit yourself."
"You just asked me if I wanted to cheat off you! What the hell is up with that?!"
"Well, you know what I always say. If at first you don't succeed… cheat. Repeat until caught. Then lie your ass off and hope that the teacher'll buy it."
"You're corrupted."
"I try my best."
"… So many insulting comments, and not nearly enough time to say all of them."
Jess couldn't help but give Erin a Cheshire Cat grin as she leaned back in her chair and placed her hands behind her head; even though the two didn't act like it, they usually got along fairly well. Jess just enjoyed tormenting Erin whenever the opportunity presented itself, because the other girl was usually fairly easy-going and it was hard to irritate her sometimes. Although, when the nineteen-year old got mad, the results were truly spectacular, especially when the younger teen got so besides herself that a noticeable accent creeped into her voice.
"So, are you going to do your funny little accent bit now?" the red-head asked mischievously, giving the other girl cause to shoot her an incredibly filthy look as she scowled at the implications of her statement.
"No. And why do you think that's so damn funny?" Erin grumbled as she rolled her eyes upwards, even though she really didn't like her roommate's facetious comment. "I'm going back to my room now, where it's actually sane."
"Aw man, don't go pulling that cold English act on me," Jess whined, only to freeze in her seat as the other girl whirled around and leveled a venomous glare at her, visibly bristling at the insult.
"I'm Irish, not English. We tell people how we really feel. Now sod off."
The older girl blinked before she let out a wry chuckle, rubbing the back of her neck nervously.
"Heh heh… sorry about that. I forgot that you don't really like it when people say that kind of stuff."
"No, I hate it when people think that I'm English," Erin retorted as she let out an exasperated sigh. They'd had this conversation many times before, and as always Jess called her this just to get her riled up, usually when she wanted to avoid another topic. "I'm bloody Irish; get it right."
"I just think that it's funny that you have an accent and everything when you live here," Jess said with a chuckle. The nineteen-year old frowned as she stared at her roommate and arched a tawny eyebrow skeptically before she rolled her eyes upwards and prayed for divine intervention.
"I only have an accent when either A) I choose to, or B) I'm pissed off," Erin stated patiently, deliberately making sure that her voice held no trace of afore-mentioned accent. "Stop trying to make me mad just so you can hear it."
"But it's funny."
"To you maybe. But I am perfectly happy sounding like every other American teenager, despite what you may think about me needing to be 'unique'," the girl said with forced calm, trying to keep a firm grip on her temper as she started out the facts bluntly to her roommate. "I was born and raised here, and it's only by a sheer twist of fate that my dad came to the US from Ireland. Not to mention the fact that my grandparents managed to convince him and my mom to let my brothers and I spend the summers overseas with them."
Jess started to snicker softly at something that only her strange mind could possibly come up with, and Erin frowned as she turned around and started to head back to her room, letting out a world-weary sigh of blatant annoyance. After taking a few steps, the nineteen-year old turned around and stared at her dorm-mate curiously.
"Just what exactly were you screaming about anyway?" she asked before a look of suspicion crossed her face. "Please don't tell me that it had something to do with your anime crap that you watch all the time."
"Well, I'd be lying if I said it didn't. Besides, it's not crap!"
"Yes it is. There is absolutely no point in anyone sane even wanting to watch that mind-numbing junk."
"It's not mind-numbing, and it's not junk!"
"Says who? It's not like it even makes any sense!"
"Naruto makes loads of sense!!" Jess retorted hotly. Erin made a scoffing noise in the back of her throat as she crossed her arms over her chest.
"Yeah right. Then explain to me in realistic terms how a ten-year old kid can pull a hundred-foot tall toad out of a cloud of smoke."
Jess was silent, and Erin gave her a wry smile in response.
"See?"
"I told you though, he used a summoning jutsu."
Erin just shook her head as she let out an annoyed sigh before she finally relented. "Listen; just keep the screaming down, okay? I really don't feel like getting into an argument right now, I have an English paper that's due tomorrow, a History final to study for, and I've got a splitting headache right now."
The redhead gave her a knowing smile as she walked up and patted Erin on the shoulder, her expression one of somewhat false sympathy. "I told you that you've been pushing yourself too hard. You're going to get sick if you keep this up. I know that you haven't gone to bed until after one in the morning for the past two weeks."
"I just have to get through tomorrow, and then I'll have the entire weekend ahead of me to get some rest before my next exam on Monday," the teen promised , ignoring the 'I told you so' attitude coming from the other girl before she checked her watch. "Crap! It's already eight o'clock! I need to finish my paper so I can study!!"
"Just don't kill your dog with that awful caterwauling that you call music and singing!"
"Shut up!"
Jess gave a wry chuckle as she watched Erin race off back into her room and slam the door shut, before she returned her attention back to the anime episode that she had been watching.
"It's not caterwauling," Erin huffed in disapproval as she sat back down at her desk and started typing again. She liked her rock music.
Her dog let out a low whine as he padded up to her and shoved his head under her arm, his large brown eyes pleading. The nineteen-year old let out an amused chuckle as she reached down and started to scratch behind the German Shepherd's ears.
"Cuchulainn, you big baby," she muttered affectionately. "You act all tough on the outside, but on the inside, you're just a big puppy. Thank God you're here though; otherwise I'd go absolutely nuts without having someone sane around."
(AN: The dog's name is pronounced Coo-collin. It means 'Culann's hound', and is the name of a famous Irish warrior found in folklore.)
The large dog let out a low growl of pleasure and his hind leg began to thump against the carpeted floor as the teenager expertly scratched behind his ears. Erin just shook her head and smiled as she continued to scratch, her thoughts a thousand miles away. She couldn't believe that she was almost finished with her first semester of college.
'Man, I can't believe that I've been away from home for four months already,' the teen realized as she returned her attention back to her essay. 'It's still kind of weird to be living on my own, but it's not as bad as I thought it would be.'
Cuchulainn let out a low, pleading whine as he tried to beg for more attention, and Erin just sighed in response. She had been lucky to find a dorm that allowed dogs, since she hadn't wanted to leave Cuchulainn behind while she was at school. It was a three hour drive from her university to her hometown, and on most weekends she wasn't able to make the trip, so she had persuaded her parents to let her bring her dog with her.
It was definitely a decision that she didn't regret, although there were times when she wished that she didn't have to share her dorm with Jess. Somehow, in some strange odd way, the girly-girl preppy cheerleader type had become addicted to anime, and now talked about nothing else, except maybe getting Erin into more feminine clothing.
The last time such a suggestion had been made, when the two college students had first moved in together, it had resulted with the then-eighteen-year old threatening the older girl with a swift and violent retribution if she even thought about touching her clothes.
"Okay, what's another instance where animal rights activists go too far?" Erin muttered thoughtfully as she pulled out her notes and started paging through them. "I've already done mentioned the bit where the FBI considers the ELF and ALF to be terrorist organizations, and an instance where some activists raided a cancer research lab and set all the animals free. I just need another two examples to give before I'm finished."
Within a few minutes, the nineteen-year old was thoroughly engrossed in looking through her research notes, and completing her essay.
--
Five hours later
--
As Jess had predicted, Erin was still awake by one a.m., and she was dead tired. The teenager had just finished studying for her History final, and it was all she could do to keep her eyes open.
"All-nighters suck," Erin grumbled wearily as Cuchulainn lifted his head up from his paws to stare at her. "Damn I'm tired."
The nineteen-year old leaned back in her chair and sighed. All of a sudden, the room started to spin, and the girl yelped out a curse. Erin immediately clamped her eyes shut and waited until the spinning sensation had stopped before she dared to open her eyes again.
"Okay, that's it, I'm going to bed," she muttered as she ran a hand through her reddish-gold hair, with some brown mixed in as well, that went just past her mid-back in length. "I can take a hint."
Erin reached out and switched off the lamp at her desk as she pushed her chair away and stood up, her senses spinning feebly once again at the sudden shift in movement. The teenager didn't even bother to shove Cuchulainn off her bed as she climbed in and wearily pulled the covers over her.
She was asleep before her head even hit the pillow.
--
The next morning, Erin let out a low groan as she smacked the sleep button on her alarm clock as hard as she could. The piercing beeping noise that echoed from within the evil device came to a halt as she effectively shut off her alarm, and groaned once again as she sat up and winced as a shrieking pain lanced through her forehead.
"Damn it," the nineteen-year old moaned as she threw off her covers and got out of bed, noticing only then as she glanced out her bedroom window that it was pouring rain outside. The teenager shook her head and sighed as she opened her door and let Cuchulainn out of her room, before she headed into the small bathroom that she and Jess shared.
Erin promptly turned on the tap and splashed water on her face in order to wake up more thoroughly before she started brushing her teeth. The teenager had just finished rinsing her mouth out when Jess stumbled in, even less alert than Erin had been five minutes earlier.
"Mornin'," Jess mumbled blearily as she reached for her washcloth and towel. Erin just gave her roommate a wane smile as she returned to her room and started pulling together her school supplies while still in her pajamas. As the sound of rain pouring down outside grew louder, the teenager glanced over at her alarm clock.
"What in the…?" Erin began before she let out a yelp and darted over to her dresser, where she pulled out a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of blue jeans before she hastily started to get dressed. In less than two minutes, the nineteen-year old was completely dressed and ready to walk out the door.
Garbed in a long-sleeved black shirt, a knitted navy sweater, black leather hiking boots, and her old high-school letterman's jacket, Erin was effectively bundled up against the winter cold and wet. The teenager had just snatched an apple and a leftover roll from the fridge in the kitchen area when Jess strolled out from the bathroom in her pajamas, her hair wrapped up in a towel.
"Well you look like crap," she remarked bluntly as she pulled out a mug and fired up the coffee maker. Erin shot her a dirty look in response as she quickly jammed her black 'FBI' baseball cap on her head.
"Yeah, that's because I have class at eight, I have to get up at six, and I didn't get to bed until after one last night," she shot back irritably. "Not to mention the fact that I'm not a morning person in the first place."
"Your brothers have my sympathy. Living with you must've been hell," Jess said with a smirk as she reached into the fridge and pulled out a Mountain Dew before tossing it over to the other girl. "Here, catch."
Erin didn't as much as flinch as she easily snagged the can just before it hit the floor.
"Tyler's the one who tempts fate all the time. Keith's smart; he knows when to back off," she pointed out as she stuffed the caffeinated beverage into one of the side pockets of her backpack before glancing at her wristwatch. "Well, I've gotta go before I'm late. My English professor will rip my head off if I don't turn my essay in on time."
"Remind me never to piss off your professor," Jess remarked wryly as Erin headed towards the door. The other teen barked out a laugh as she stopped for a few seconds to give Cuchulainn a reassuring pat before she went out the door, and down the hall.
--
"Ugh, thank God that's over with," Erin grumbled as she exited her History classroom, her expression one of complete and utter exhaustion. Her headache had taken a turn for the worse in the middle of her History final, so it was a bit of a relief to be outside and in the open air.
'I hope I did okay on the final. I can't afford to flunk my final exam because I had a migraine,' Erin thought as she massaged her forehead in a futile attempt to rid herself of the painful headache.
"I think I'm coming down with something," the teen muttered as she sat down on a bench outside her classroom underneath an overhang. The rain, if at all possible, had gotten worse, and was now coming down in buckets. Erin frowned as she glared up at the sky, her hazel eyes narrowed intently. She usually loved it when it rained, but right now all it was doing was making her headache even worse.
The nineteen-year old unzipped the smallest pocket of her forest green canvas backpack and pulled out a small bottle of Motrin that she carried around for emergencies. Twisting off the cap with practiced ease, she shook two small pills out of the container and into the palm of her hand. Once she had re-capped the bottle, Erin pulled a bottle of water out of one of the side pockets on her backpack and removed the cap before she took a long swig, popping the Motrin into her mouth before swallowing.
"I really need to get back to the dorm before this gets any worse," she murmured thoughtfully as she stared out into the rainy afternoon. "With my luck right now, it'll probably turn into a lightning storm when I'm halfway home."
With a wry chuckle at the thought, Erin adjusted her baseball cap as she stepped out into the downpour. After walking only a few yards away from the overhang, a wave of dizziness suddenly hit the teenager like the proverbial brick wall. Erin fought against the feeling as hard as she could as a roaring sound filled her ears and a bitter metallic taste welled up inside her mouth. The nineteen-year old barely had time to think as darkness suddenly enveloped her vision, before her eyes rolled up into the back of her head and she slumped forward, out cold onto the concrete walkway.
--
There were images… so many of them flashing through her mind at an almost incomprehensible speed.
Two boys arguing heatedly in a clearing… a gigantic fox… a sobbing boy with a fresh scar across the bridge of his nose…a sliver-haired man standing in the rain, staring at a large black stone… a blonde-haired boy watching other children his own age being taken home by their parents with a pained look in his eyes… an old man staring into a crystal ball thoughtfully…
Erin gritted her teeth as she clenched her eyes shut, her hands clutching the sides of her head as she attempted to block out the mental overload. Instead, the senseless pictures continued their onslaught, and all of a sudden the teenager was flooded with emotions all bombarding her at once.
Fear… anger… hate… sorrow… she couldn't understand why she was feeling all of these at once, especially the hatred. It was almost like someone had sucked all the negative feelings out of everyone on the planet and was attempting to cram it into her entire body. As if that wasn't enough, voices started to swirl around her as well, showering the nineteen-year old with fragments of long-forgotten conversations.
"Why do you even bother to protect that monster?! It's because of that… that demon that your parents were destroyed! Don't you hate-"
"I'm gonna be Hokage, and then everybody'll have to respect me!"
"No one should tell the boy, or any of the other children, about the Nine-tailed fox residing within-"
"That's right! Even your beloved sensei hates your guts!!"
"If the bait is obvious, don't take it."
"You're not going home until you've cleaned off every single drop of paint!"
"If you ever lay a hand on my sensei, I'll kill you!!"
"Let me go!! My mom and dad are still fighting back there!!"
"I was gonna save you for later, but I changed my mind. You're finished!"
"I don't care. I know, it's true that Shinobi who break the rules are regarded and known as trash... but you know what? Those who don't cherish their comrades are worse than trash! Since either way I'm going to be considered trash, I'd rather break all the rules! Rules are made to be broken! If that's not the right way of the Shinobi, then I'll smash the right way and make my own way!"
Erin bit back a whimper as pain surged throughout her entire body; the harder she fought against the images and voices invading her mind, the worse the pain got. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore.
"STOP IT!!" she shrieked, her hands clutching her head tightly. "SHUT UP, JUST SHUT UP!! GET AWAY FROM ME!!"
As suddenly as they had come, the images and voices stopped, leaving the teenager floating alone in the endless inky void that surrounded her. Before Erin could relax however, the bottom dropped out of her stomach, and the nineteen-year old was sent plunging into the eternal darkness beneath her.
All she could do was scream.
--
With a sharp gasp, Erin snapped awake, a light drizzle falling down onto her face helping to wake her up. The teenager let out a low groan as she slowly pushed herself up into a kneeling position from where she had been laying face-down on the ground.
"Nnnngh… what in the hell was that?" the girl muttered dazedly as she reached over and grabbed her baseball cap from where it had fallen on the ground before she jammed it back on her head. It was only then that she noticed that she wasn't lying on the pavement like she had been right when she passed out, but rather on grass instead.
Erin scowled as she glared at the wet dirt and grass beneath her, almost instantly figuring out what had happened. Some of the senior boys had probably found her when she had blacked out, and as a prank, had dragged her into the woods behind the campus.
Biting back a long stream of detailed profanities, the nineteen-year old got to her feet and looked around her, her hazel eyes narrowed slightly as she examined her surroundings. The idiots that had pulled this prank were going to be in a world of hurt once she got her hands on them.
"Jerks," Erin grumbled as she adjusted her backpack straps, making sure that nothing had been taken out of her pack. "What kind of person sees someone passed out and thinks 'hey, I'll go and leave them out in the middle of the woods for the hell of it', instead of taking them to the nurses office or something? Bastards."
Erin continued to grumble under her breath as she took a few slightly shaky steps forward, not noticing the faint noises of someone coming up behind her until a deliberate 'crack' sounded behind her. The hair along the back of the teenager's neck stood straight up and a chill went down her spine as she whirled around to face her stalker. Instead of seeing someone's face, the nineteen-year old found herself staring at the high black collar of some kind of cloak with red clouds outlined in white floating across it.
"Huh?"
The sound of a throat being cleared snapped the girl out of her slight daze, and she immediately looked up into the face of the person standing in front of her, only to let out a yelp of fright as she took several steps backwards. Two red eyes with what looked like commas swirling around the pupils stared back intently at her beneath long black bangs, and it was all Erin could do not to run away right then and there.
"What are you staring at?" the man said curtly, and Erin felt an icy chill seep into her very bones from the coldness of his voice. The nineteen-year old decided right then that it would be a very good idea to just stay quiet, and she slowly took a step back in an attempt to put as much distance in between her and the man as possible.
"I asked you a question, girl. Now answer me," the man growled. Erin took yet another step back, only to bump into something behind her. A low chuckle came from whatever she had bumped into, and the teenager immediately whirled around to face the person behind her. Hazel eyes grew wide in fear as she found herself face-to-face with someone who looked like one of his parents had been a shark.
"Holy shit!" Erin hissed as she stumbled backwards away from the two men, now thoroughly freaked out. 'What in the hell is going on?! Who are these guys?'
"Well Itachi-sama, she speaks," the shark-man said with a harsh-sounding laugh. The other man, Erin assumed he was Itachi, made a low sound of agreement.
"Indeed."
The shark-man returned his attention to her and smirked, his white eyes practically boring into her very soul. Erin silently cursed her current inability to move as she dug her fingernails into her palms; it was almost as though someone had glued her feet to the ground.
"She's a strange one though," the shark-man remarked. "Her chakra is all constricted, and she doesn't look like much of a kunoichi to begin with."
Erin scowled at the comment; even though she had no idea what the hell 'chakra' or a 'kunoichi' were, she could still tell that it was meant to be an insult.
"I am more than capable of seeing that, Kisame," 'Itachi' stated coolly, his red eyes still focused on the teenage girl in front of him. "It looks like she has no idea as to what we're talking about though, if the idiotic look on her face is anything to go by."
"Hey, I do not have an 'idiotic look' on my face!" Erin growled as her patience finally snapped, even though a tiny voice in the back of her mind was now screaming 'you idiot!!' repeatedly. Itachi and Kisame both looked at her, the former with an impassive glare, while the other seemed to be amused by her defiance.
"Ohhh… it looks like she has some fire in her," Kisame remarked, his gaze predatory. "She should be fun to play with."
Erin's eyes widened in pure and undiluted terror as she stared in shock at the two men before her, all the blood draining out of her face in the process as the bottom dropped out of her stomach. That phrase could only mean one of two things, and neither of those options were even remotely pleasant to think about. She needed to get out of there… and fast.
Without a word, and obeying the little voice in the back of her mind that had been screaming at her to run like hell for some time now, the teenager promptly bolted away from the two men. Erin barely even made it a few yards before a strangely-shaped knife buried itself up to its hilt in the soft dirt right in front of her, effectively stopping her in her tracks. Then nineteen-year old spun around to stare at Itachi, whose arm was still out in a throwing position, before she whipped back around and shot off into the trees surrounding her.
'This is not happening, this is not happening, this is not happening!!' Erin thought desperately as she hurtled through the wet undergrowth, not caring about the fact that she was leaving behind a trail that a blind bear could follow. All that mattered to her at that moment was getting as far away from the two men as humanly possible.
Erin cursed loudly as her foot landed on a wet patch of stone and flew out from under her, sending the teenager flat on her face into the dirt. The nineteen-year old lay there for a few moments, spitting out the mouthful of soil that she had somehow obtained, before something told her that she needed to move out of the way, now. The girl immediately rolled away just as a bandaged broadsword slammed down into the dirt where she had been lying only a few minutes beforehand, and she heard the sound of Kisame letting out a frustrated growl.
"Brat has better reflexes than I thought," he groused out loud, and Erin took his brief moment of distraction as an opportunity to get to her feet and start running again. This time, she chose the hardest possible path to take in order to make it more difficult for her pursuers. Instead, Kisame's laugh echoed all around her almost mockingly, and Erin thought that she caught sight of a dark blur keeping pace with her up in the trees out of the corner of her eye.
'Wha-?' the girl wondered hesitantly as she ran like her life depended upon it before her eyes widened in realization. 'No way! That bastard's running up in the trees!! What the hell?!'
"Damn it!" Erin growled as she scrambled over a fallen log, her lungs starting to burn for the continued exertion on her part. Now she knew what the shark-man's plan probably was; once she had exhausted herself, he would come in for the kill. And judging for the size of the sword that he had attempted to use on her a few minutes earlier, there wasn't a chance in hell of her possibly surviving.
With a muttered curse, the nineteen-year old pretended to have problems continuing running, purposely stumbling as though at the end of her endurance. Just as Kisame dropped down from the trees behind her and raised his broadsword up for the final strike, Erin promptly threw herself into a narrow gap underneath a heavy thicket of thorn bushes.
Now, normally if you want to go run into a thorn bush, it's not supposed to have huge spikes that could double as pocket knives. It's also not advisable to try and grab a branch from said bush, and end up with three-inch long thorns stuck into your palm.
For some reason, Kisame didn't get this memo, nor did he actually notice said thorns until they were already imbedded firmly in his hand.
A furious expletive, followed by a howl of pain, split the air as Erin crawled along on her stomach underneath the thick shield of thorns. The nineteen-year old didn't care about all of the dirt that she was getting on her clothes as she finally managed to pull herself out from underneath the hedge, her entire body shaking from a combination of fear and whatever had caused her to pass out earlier.
"I… I need to get out of here," she murmured as she glanced back behind her towards where Kisame was, still cussing up a blue streak as he pulled thorns out of his hand. Erin spun around to start running again, only to let out a strangled choking noise as she was swiftly seized by her throat and slammed up against the very hard trunk of a nearby tree by Itachi.
The man's spinning red eyes seemed to bore into her very soul as he glared at her, an impassive expression on the rest of his face.
"You're not going anywhere, brat," he stated coldly. Erin squirmed about frantically in his grasp, clawing at his wrist in an attempt to get the strange man to release her.
"Let… go!" she gasped out, her vision starting to spin about wildly from the lack of oxygen.
"No."
It was at that moment that self-preservation took hold, and the nineteen-year old promptly rammed her knee as hard as she could up into Itachi's groin. The renegade ninja let out a gasp as he crumpled; automatically releasing his prisoner so he could hold onto his damaged… boys.
Erin didn't notice this, much less did she care, as she stumbled backwards while holding her throat. Without any further words, the teenager whipped around and took off like a shot, and this time, she didn't have any unwanted followers.
--
Hi there! I'm Wandering Hitokiri, and this is my first Naruto fanfic, so please be nice if I got any details wrong. Actually, I'm new to the Naruto fandom in general, having just discovered it a few weeks ago after being introduced to it properly by my best friend Samurai Rin 63. My general opinion? It's pretty cool!
Anyways, if I get some of the details or spellings wrong, please feel free to politely tell me, that way I can avoid similar mistakes in the future. -
Edward Elric: And why haven't you finished 'What One May Never See' yet? I thought that you promised yourself that you'd finish it before you started up on anything else.
Wandering Hitokiri: Umm… heh heh… I don't suppose that you'd be willing to back off and let me do my own thing?
Ed: Slacker.
Wandering Hitokiri: Oh, and you're one to talk.
Ed: (Glares at WH) I just don't see what's so great about a bunch of weirdos who run around wearing metal headbands and disappearing in a puff of smoke.
Wandering Hitokiri: Don't diss the ninjas!
Ed: I can diss whoever the hell I want!
Wandering Hitokiri: … Shut up, pipsqueak, before I sic Sasuke the Emo boy on you.
Sasuke: (Just stares at WH like she's lost her mind)
Ed: (Rolls eyes) Oh, I quiver with fear.
Wandering Hitokiri: (Growls and snaps her fingers, causing Ed to disappear) Go back to your own damn fandom! Bossy little brat.
Sasuke: …I am not emo.
Wandering Hitokiri: (Groans and starts smacking her head repeatedly against a conveniently-placed wall) Me and my big mouth.
Sasuke: (Rolls eyes) Wandering Hitokiri does not own Naruto, Fullmetal Alchemist, or the song "It's All Over" by Three Days Grace. She's just a college student with an overactive imagination, and way too much time on her hands.
Wandering Hitokiri: Hey!! That's not true! I didn't have time to work on anything for over a month because of my finals!!
Sasuke: … You're just like the moron.
Addition: I decided to rewrite several of the chapters that are already up, changing what needs to be a little more in-depth, to make the story flow better.