Disclaimer: None of the characters or setting belong to me they are all the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto.
She struggled to reach the surface, water filling her lungs as she fought for life that once seemed so worthless to her, but she stayed in place legs ensnarled by vines that cut deeply into her legs until they drew the blood that they seemed so thirsty for. Throat burning as she screamed in her anger, desperation and pain only forcing more water down her throat, but it did not taste or feel like the cloudy liquid anymore. No it was much thicker with a heady metallic taste that made her mind swim as she started to give in to exhaustion.
The vines released her and she gave slow shallow kicks until she reached the surface, grasping onto anything she could find to hold herself afloat praying that someone would find her before she succumbed and slipped under the surface once more. A thick tree branch with scarlet leaves was her only harbor as she lulled her head against its scoured arm and looked out upon a river of blood. She whispered riddles with no sound as her body began to sink while the world around her shook, signaling that this plain was beginning to break sinking back into the conscience of its creator.
"Break the dream," a man growled in a distant place to a girl with rosy hair that pressed her fingertips gently to the center of her forehead.
"Always saving her," she said with a melodic voice that betrayed nothing of her true feeling. "She deserves to know. The war cannot start without all players on the board."
He punched the wall behind her head; caging her with his body as he leaned in to her ghosting his lips up her neck, never truly touching her skin. Fire ran through her veins but she did not let it show, she could not let him continue to hold the upper hand in their constant dance. How badly she wished for this to merely be a show of affection and not a simple tool of manipulation. How long does this game have to go on before she breaks?
"Not like this," he hissed into her ear, fist clenching tightly. He pulls away from her and leaves her there sprawled on the floor, heart racing.
"How long does this game have to go on, Hephaestus," she whispered to no one.