Tenten shivered, studying the black snake wrapped around her left wrist.
It matched the ones wrapped around both fourth fingers like gleaming, scaly black rings, and the two intertwined across her back, slithering across her sides and curling up just below her ribcage.
She'd wanted dragons, but they were a touch too complex for areas so small, so insignificant.
And yet another friend was dead, because that snake was smiling up at her, crisp black and vivid green ink.
First Hitomi, then Toshi, after that was Kyoko, followed shortly by Nagashi.
And now Ino was gone.
Things weren't supposed to turn out this way, Tenten mused.
Lots of people were supposed to have arrived. The plan was that she would make the journey in two weeks. Then the others would arrive, the blonds first and then Hinata. Soon after would be Lee and Neji.
Tenten had taken three weeks instead of the planned two because she'd sprained an ankle. She'd gotten antsy after a few hours of waiting and walked out of the safehouse, claiming Healing Magic. She'd raced across the countryside at a greatly delayed pace as a result, but she was moving and that was easier than sitting still and waiting for disaster to strike. A two-week trek took an extra seven days because she refused to let it heal properly.
She'd arrived with much fanfare, disguising a limp, and the next two days were spent in a whirlwind of activity. Afterwards, things slowed to a crawl and two more weeks dragged by. Tenten had toured and explored and found a favorite place in a grassy field littered with stones of different sizes and shapes. And she waited.
She was still waiting. Hinata should have arrived in the past week. So should have Lee and Neji. In three days, Sakura was scheduled to arrive. A day after that, so were Kiba and Shino.
Naruto and Ino were supposed to have arrived nine days past.
Instead, Ino was dead and Tenten was still waiting.
When had everything gone so wrong?
"Tenten! We need your help deciphering this page."
Tenten hurriedly wiped at her dry eyes and yelled back an answer. She lingered a touch longer in her favorite place before turning to leave, letting her hand smooth over the rock's surface, fingertips brushing briefly over the words Rest In Peace.
Four weeks ago she'd been planning for her birthday party.
Now her best friend was dead.
Sakura had to stifle a hysterical laugh at the irony of it all.
Ino had, quite clearly, promised to see Sakura again and buy her a new dress. It was going to be white with a deep emerald sash and lace hems of the same color. The white would be sprinkled with pink watercolor flowers and faint green leaves. There was a small rip in one of the seams, so she could have gotten it at a discounted price from the nice lady who always wore red earrings.
But Ino was dead, now.
Sakura suppressed another giggle, wondering for a moment why, instead of crying, she was laughing and considering a black dress with a dark red sash and star-like blood-red cypress blossoms.
Then a hand reached blindly into her corner of darkness and she focused on disappearing.
"Shit!"
Neji winced more at the loud exclamation than at the bullet grazing his ribs.
Incorporating his flinch into a smooth back flip, he dove to the left and curled up his body as he broke through a window, fell ten feet, and slid across a dirty floor.
"Shit, man, are you okay?" Kiba exclaimed, peeking down through the window. A dark silhouette jumped over Kiba's head and landed softly by Neji's side, gauging the wound with a critical and trained eye.
"He'll be fine. The bullet merely scratched his side," Shino intoned detachedly. "But why is your wrist bleeding?"
Neji groaned quietly as he carefully rolled into a seated position. He studied his wrist and grimaced at the dark red 'x' that was slowly fading into jade green. "You'll find a scarab on yours, and Kiba, there's a triangle on yours too."
"Shit," Kiba repeated.
"Ino is dead," Neji remarked dully, rising to his feet. His words echoed in the shadowy room and even the traffic outside seemed to go quiet for a few moments.
"We need to get moving, the trackers will be here soon," Shino warned abruptly, and they soon heard horns honking and voices yelling.
"Shit, sorry again, man. I didn't mean to shoot!" Kiba exclaimed. "We can't leave you here like this, shit, Neji, really—"
"I'll bring him around," Shino cut in smoothly. "We'll meet at the Hive."
Kiba nodded, ducking his head back out of the window. His shadow turned both ways before climbing upwards and sprinting away across the rooftops. His silent escape was visible only by the shadow projected onto the buildings on the opposite side of the alleyway.
Shino and Neji locked gazes and nodded simultaneously, melting into the shadows just as the remaining windows shook from the crisp report of a shotgun.
"Shit!"
"Kiba!"
Running, running, never stopping, Lee ran faster and faster. To stop would be to be killed, to pause would be to die. Faster and faster, and the world blurred past and the wind kept coming and it was more air than Lee had ever breathed in his life, but still not enough, never enough.
He kept on running so that the sound of gunfire warped as it rushed past his ears, and then he was laughing, because they couldn't touch him, never would.
Then there was a cracking noise and fire was burning a trail up his arm, pain and heat even though he was going fast enough to suffocate a flame.
And then he was falling faster and faster, drowning and still running, never wanting to stop.
Flames, licking up and dancing, cackling at failures and chuckling at death, snorting at success and happiness and life, laughing and laughing at everything in their path as they destroy, destroy, destroy.
Bright, cool moonlight glints off of a flower's delicate petals, edging them silver and deadly even as the petals float away on the wind. Then they shatter into a million pieces and they turn out to be ice, not metal. Still deadly, but more fragile, like glass in place of steel and hope instead of sorrow.
Black, as far as the eye can see. A stalwart wall of slate; dull coal in some places and shining obsidian in others, nothing more, nothing less. Uniform and yet not, and then the eye focuses in on hairline fractures slowly making the structure weaken.
Not more than expectations, just an oppressive heat even through the dark, like heavy summer nights and velvet darkness smothering and crushing and until one just can't breathe.
Gold, liquid gold pouring through the cracks and filling up, and yet a solid that forbids movement and will never release, heavy and heavy until it's solid and yet liquid, suffocating and one starts drowning.
Shikamaru groaned, stretching and pawing at his tired eyes until he froze with his eyes on his wrist.
All memories of what he'd seen from the frames on the wall drifted out of his mind, and through the sudden ringing in his ears, Shikamaru only dimly registered the feeling of pressure on his shoulder, and a voice came through, warped and warbled by his own inattention.
Where did I go wrong? he wondered, hearing faint, musical laughter and tinkling bells.
All he could think of was the splotch of gray on his wrist, the cloud-like shadow that became bluish directly over his veins.
It made sense that things would fall apart with a deathly gray fixed over his bloodstream.
And all he was left with were rapidly dissipating memories of pale skin, pale blue eyes, pale blond hair, all pale and fading by the minute. A wisp of a figure, a sliver of a smile, a wan silhouette, and the thin, papery sound of tinkling laughter and musical bells.
And if even he concentrated, all he could find was a slowly thickening veil of gray fog.
-End Prologue-