So I decided to rewrite this and make it better and less lame. The old version may or may not be gone after a while. The goal is to rewrite this and the next one, but leave the last one as is. So until I get back to it, it's on a temp Hiatus.


Operation: Infiltrate Akatsuki!

V2.

Chapter One:

Career Choices

I pace around my bedroom on wobbly legs, wondering if I had gone down the right career path. Who'd ever said that being a ninja was so great? That having cool jutsus and tricks to use in battle was just a thing that my oh so naïve, five year old self had to have? It's that exact wide eyed idealism that led me to pursue the art of being of kunoichi, and, 13 years later, it's the reason why I feel in danger of crapping my heart out onto the floor.

I switch from pacing to sticking my head out of the window. The humid night air does nothing to calm my nerves. It's hard to breathe, so I retreat back inside my room and slink over to the mirror. My mind races, my palms sweat, and I seriously consider flinging myself out of my still open window. Before I can move, the bedroom door opens, and in pops the frizzy head of my mother. She brandishes a huge backpack stuffed to near capacity. A rolled up sleeping bag is tied to the top.

"You don't want to be late for your mission, do you?" she asks.

Mission. Right. The reason why my body is having trouble functioning properly. If it was some ordinary field mission that I was so used to, maybe I'd be fine. If it wasn't a basic death sentence, maybe I'd be chill about it.

I bite my lip and think about how I should have become the type of girl who marries a rich doctor and has his babies by age 23 to trap him. At least then I'd be in no danger of imminent death.

Mom sets the pack down and hurries over to me, straightening my ponytail and tugging on my shorts to see if they come down any lower. "You cannot be ill-prepared for this, Shiori. This is a very important mission and you are the only one in this village who can do it!"

I steady myself on the oak dresser in front of me, feeling in sudden danger of passing out.

My mission: infiltrate the Akatsuki Hideout and gather as much information as I can. On account of my near-perfect memory and penchant for memorizing large chunks of information in short times, I was a shoe-in for this mission. The only problem is: I didn't choose to take it, and if I wanted to get technical, I'd say that I was being forced into it against my will. These were the freaking Akatsuki. Not some regular, run-of-the-mill delinquent gang. And while I found them fascinating in a strange way, I in no way shape or form wanted to be thrust into the heart of their headquarters in order to gather info.

The kicker? I have to get myself kidnapped.

"Geez, Shiori, do you ever moisturize your hair?"

I swat Mom's hands away and run my fingers through my ponytail. She seems to not have a hold on the severity of the situation. Ever since I got the news that I would be sent on the mission, she hadn't stopped acting like I was chosen to be a pageant queen. Not being a ninja herself, she never really grasped the fact that it was no playing around. To her, it was glamorized fisticuffs.

My alarm clock plays its tiny little music box tune, and it's then I know that it's time. Time for me to go. I take one last look at myself in the mirror—after all, I may not come back in the same condition. I may not come back at all.

Grabbing the pack, I stumble into the hallway. The Twin Monsters—my younger brother and sister, are watching me from the doorways of their bedrooms with wide eyes. They're five, and absolutely can't wait to start their formal training. I want to tell them not to even try. That it's not worth the effort, the heartache, the fear that you might not return from a mission. Something prevents me from doing so, and I'm glad. I just don't have the heart to shatter their dreams, although I wish someone had shattered mine.

My father is in our painfully blue kitchen, face blank and hands clasped tightly on the coffee mug in front of him. I at least had someone to feel negatively about my job. Dad had been against the Akatsuki mission from the start, arguing that sending a young girl into a den full of men is just outright asinine, and that if any of them touched me he'd have a personal "talk" with the village leader himself. As I pass him to get to the door, I avoid all eye contact. I don't need any sentimental goodbyes or tearful hugs. The last thing I want is another reason to hesitate.

"Good luck, big sister!" says a voice.

"Bring us souvenirs back, okay?" says another.

Dammit.

"Okay," I squeak before flinging the door open and sprinting away from the house. Leave it to a couple of five year olds to reduce me to a pile of mush.

The Village Hidden in the Shadows is very much exactly what it says on the tin. With its gloomy buildings and many secret passages that the kids just love, almost everything is behind a shadow. Tonight, the chirping of the crickets and the damp, muggy air accompanies me towards the village gates. It's all I need; the quiet, still air is perfect for just relaxing the brain and thinking. The stillness of the village at night is always the first thing to deter visitors. They think it eerie, that it's so quiet it's almost as if they're not alone…

To the right of me, a cat screeches, and I nearly turn tail and start running. I find it funny that the girl being sent on such an important mission gets so easily startled by hissing cats. I pass alleyway after alleyway, house after house, making sure to look around me whenever I walk under a streetlamp. I go through the shopping district, the convenience store, the strip joint, heart hammering harder and harder the closer I get to the gates.

I hadn't had a panic attack in a few years, but it was getting increasingly difficult to keep it together. Come on, Shiori, I think. You can do this. You might not have much training but you can do this.

The gatekeeper, a young man with dyed ice blue hair and a nose piercing, impatiently waves me over from his post. As I approach, he boredly looks me over from head to toe.

"And where are you going so late?" he asks, blowing a big pink bubblegum bubble in my face. I roll my eyes.

"I have a mission, for your information. And I'm on a very tight schedule."

"Oh?" The bubble pops, he leans closer over the wooden post. "Aren't you dressed a little too lightly? It gets pretty chilly at night in the forest."

He eyes my legs. Maybe I should have changed to pants. I shift out of his gaze, moving towards the closed gates.

"Open the gates," I say, arms folded.

"What's the ma-gic word?" he coos. And he opens the gates just before I can turn around and throw a fit, laughing all the while.

"Good luck, Shiori!" he calls after me. I wonder how he knows my name. But then again, news in the village travels pretty fast, and the fact that I'm going into a den full of lions is probably the latest gossip in the entire land. Hopefully that would turn out to be in my favor.

The large wooden gates close behind me, cutting me off from the village. The forest beyond my home is roughly the size of a large supermarket, and compared to others, it can hardly be called much of a forest in the first place. But given the context of my situation, and the time of night, it seems like it stretches on forever.

I walk slowly, attentively, careful not to trip over a my own feet and knock myself out cold five minutes into the mission. It's hard not to imagine the shadows of the trees coming alive and ensnaring me in their branches, or some lonesome ghost appearing and robbing me of my breath. Okay, I think with a shuddering breath. Stop thinking crazy things, Shiori.

Behind me, and owl hoots, and it sends me sprinting wildly though the forest. I try and follow the moon, doing my best to avoid veering off the path and smashing into trees. Every two feet, I trip. But there it is—the end of the scary trees, and the beginning of my path into oblivion.