AN: Because I'm inspired, I decided to start another story.
This will be the only disclaimer you'll find: I don't own Naruto. I just borrowed the characters to fit my story.
I hope you guys like it.
My heart pounded in my chest as I hid in the hallway closet. I listened to the gunshots, the terrified screams of my friends and family and the commanding shouts of the offenders. It was New Year's Eve and we had been celebrating when all of a sudden, a hail of bullets came from nowhere and people started dropping like flies. Then, there was chaos. People were running here and there, desperate for shelter. Their screams echoed against the walls of the dance hall where the ball was taking place. I was rooted to my spot, fear clutching at my heart as I watched the melee.
Then, I saw my grandmother fall. Her lilac dress billowed around her as she fell, her white hair cascading past her face as it twisted in pain. Then, she was gone, lying in a pool of her own blood in the middle of the dance floor. That's when I ran. She had mouthed, "Run!" as she fell and that single word broke me from my trance. I ran into the nearest hiding place I knew, which happened to be the hall closet right across the living room, all the while worrying about my immediate family, hoping that they got into the panic room in time.
I pushed myself to the back of the closet and in my panic left the door slightly ajar. The screams raged on, the angry shouts of the attackers never ceased and the rain of bullets was unstoppable. I listened, breathing harshly, to the 'ping' of metal on metal or the sickly sound of metal hitting flesh. There were crashes everywhere as the attackers ransacked the house. Vases, mirrors and windows shattered under the force of the pelting bullets while the people continued to plead for mercy, to be left alive. Their begging was futile and was answered either by another bullet or the rambunctious laughter of their captors.
I recalled what I saw while I ran for cover. Broken glass, dismantled furniture and dead bodies littered the place. Everything was scattered everywhere. There was so much blood. There was blood on the floor, pools of it. The walls looked like they had naturally been painted red; even the ceilings had the crimson liquid splattered all over them. I ran through the dance hall, past my dead friends, past my defiled family members, past all the destruction all the while hoping that I would survive this. My thoughts were cut short when I heard more screaming from the living room followed by the harsh voices of the invaders.
I edged closer to the door, my hand clamped over my mouth as I tried to stifle my breathing. My heartbeat pounded in my ears as I got closer to the gap in the door. I was able to get so close that I could peek through the small gap. What I saw left my blood cold.
There in the middle of the living room, my friends and family were tied up. The males were separated from the females but there were no children. I wondered what happened to them. Everyone I saw was not my immediate family, they were cousins, aunts and uncles but they were all dearly loved. I feared for my friends especially my best friend, Sakura and my other cousin Ino. There were no teens in the room. I couldn't find my mother either but my father was there.
'They made it!' I thought triumphantly as I realized that my mom was in the panic room with my two month old baby brother. 'They're safe!' I thought once more. I almost laughed in a mixture of emotions but quickly stopped myself. My victorious feeling was suddenly washed away when I heard distinct female screams from the second floor of the house. There were three different voices screaming for help and to be left alone. Their voices were followed by multiple crashes and then there were consecutive thuds.
Heavy footsteps fell on the stairs followed by the thump of something being dragged. I waited with baited breath for the people to come into my field of vision but what I saw made me regret peeking through the door. There were three men dressed in black with ski masks and automatic guns strapped across their backs; they were dragging my mom, my cousin Ino and my best friend Sakura by the hair. All three women were desperately trying to break free from their grasps but their attempts were futile. They had bruises all over their bodies; Ino had a cut lip while Sakura had a black eye. My mother was in worse shape; her right arm was bent at an awkward angle, her knee was bleeding and she was coughing up blood. They were dragged in kicking and screaming then unceremoniously dropped onto the living room floor right in front of the others.
"Hey boss," a gruff voice said. The man who spoke was tall with wide shoulders and what looked to be a tattoo on his neck. "Look what we found." He said, pointing to the three women on the floor. "Can we play with them?" he asked, shooting Ino a lecherous grin.
"Do what you want," he hissed. He reminded me of a snake and I knew I would never forget his voice or the way he licked his lips with his freakishly long tongue.
All eight men, besides the boss, turned to the three women on the floor. They walked up to them like predators to their prey. More screaming ensued; the men shouted threats at the offenders while the women merely sobbed and looked away. Three men approached Ino. One of them picked her up as if she was a ragdoll then tore up her dress, revealing everything that was hidden underneath. She could do nothing but scream as the man plunged roughly into her, her eyes wide open while the other two found other 'playthings' with other parts of her body. Sakura was being stalked by two men. One of them grabbed her waist and pushed her roughly on the floor so that she was lying prone. He pushed up her skirts and tore her panties off before taking her in front of everyone. Her mouth opened in a silent scream as the other man tore open her blouse and grabbed her breasts, roughly squeezing and then he bit her nipple making her whimper in pain. My mother was the captive of the other three men. They tore off all her clothes and defiled her body in every way possible. I couldn't look away as their eyes fell on me and they all mouthed, "Help me."
A flash of kunai and I was back in reality. There was the familiar 'ping' of metal on metal as I deflected the knife thrown at me. Gunshots ensued and I dived under a large wooden table just in time to hear the bullets lodge into the thick wood. I forced myself to remain calm even as another hail of bullets came my way. The meager light reflected on something and I let another kunai fly from my fingers. The man lay dead, a large rifle in his arms, the knife stuck on his neck. I had practiced countless times, on practice dummies and sometimes on small animals and I knew that my skills had been honed to perfection. Years of planning and it has finally come to fruitition. I almost laughed as another one fell with a shuriken to the temple. I continued to run, directly to the place where I knew the leader, the one at fault, was hidden.
I ran past door after door, taking out enemies and anyone else who got in my way. The adrenaline coursed through me and I knew nothing could stop me. Five years, it took me that long to track him with only his voice and a part of a tattoo to lead my way but I strived. I had to kill him to get vengeance for my family, I needed him out of my way so I could protect my baby brother. I wouldn't let him anywhere near us. I finally stopped at the end of the hallway, the door was marked Orochimaru, Sannin and I knew I had found the place. Pushing open the door, I was hit with a stench a weaker man would've fainted from; but I wasn't weak, neither was I a man. I walked through the spacious laboratory barely looking at the large tubes that held human experiments.
"Welcome to my lab," the voice sizzle and crackled through the intercom but I recognized it.
"Show yourself Orochimaru!" I shouted, my voice echoing across the dark room. The lights on the large tubes gave an eerie aura towards the lab but I didn't care. I had a mission.
"I would like to know who you are," his voice sounded so much like his namesake, I knew he had done something to himself. "You attack my lab and demand that I come out to see you. How rude!"
"Where are you, you slithering snake?" I walked farther into the darkness, my senses hyperactive as my eyesight adjusted to the dim lighting.
"What a tongue you have," I can hear the smirk in his tone. "This has been fun but I'm afraid I must go. I shall leave you to the hands of my right hand man."
"I don't wanna play with your bitch Kabuto," I spat. "I want only you Orochimaru."
"I'm afraid I can't honor that request." he said. "Kabuto, take good care of our guest."
"Hai, Orochimaru-sama."
"I will find you," I swore, his maniacal laugh reverbrating through the speakers. "I think you should reintroduce her to her friends."
"Understood Orochimaru-sama."
"Naru," there was a small wheezing voice from somewhere within the darkness. I recognized it but I couldn't pinpoint who it was. "Get out of here." the warning came only a few seconds early. I had to dive out of the way as something large and heavy barreled its way to me. "Get out of here Narumi!" the voice was a gargle even as another being stepped its way into the meager ight.
"Juugo," my eyes widened and I clutched a hand to my mouth as I stared at his horrid form. His body seemed to have been made from something hard, his eyes flicking back and forth from its normal orange color to something of an eerie yellow and he had both hands on his head as if he was trying to fight whatever it was that was contolling him.
"Narumi," he was behind me lying face first on the floor, long gray hair looking too dark for my liking. "Y-y-you have to get out."
"Kill her!" I could hear Kabuto's voice but I didn't pay any attention to him, instead I focused on my fallen friend.
"What happened to you?" I began to approach him.
"Stay away!"
"Kimimaro, I want to help."
"Remember what you promised?" he began to rise, his bones making strange cracking noises, his back seemed to be boiling.
"What are you talking about?"
"The night I last saw you," he'd become more forceful as he stared straight into my clear blue eyes. "That night when we accepted this mission I made you promise something."
"Aaaargh!"
"Juugo's losing control," Kimimaro continued. "Tell me what you promised to do if we ever got caught."
"I said I'd kill you."
"Now's the time Narumi," he said just as his bones emerged from his back, tearing tissue and sending blood everywhere. There was another scream of pain behind me and I knew I was trapped. I turned slightly away from Kimimaro so I could look Juugo in the eye.
"Kill her!"
"Please," the orange haired, gentle giant I used to know begged even as his eyes lost their focus, his pupils dilated and he finally lost control of himself.
"H-h-h-his w-w-weakness is in his n-eck," Kimimaro was already losing himself. "M-m-my," I had to jump back from the large, gray arm that had been slammed in front of me and I knew I had lost them. My friends, my partners and my brothers had been taken from me by the same man who took away my family. I launched a kunai to distract him as I tried to buy some time to devise a strategy. Suddenly I find myself in some hidden corner of the laboratory, far enough that they can't locate me but close enough that I can hear them destroying the surrounding area as they looked for their prey.
"Narumi if anything happens, you have to promise me that you will take care of it."
"Nothing's gonna happen. We'll get him before he can do anything else."
"Promise me." I had never seen Kimimaro so angry, so desperate. He had always been peace loving and stayed away from arguments. He would always let me win.
"I promise I'll take care of it." this was one argument he wouldn't give me.
"If it comes to it, promise me you won't hesitate to take both of us out."
"Kimi-kun,"
"Promise me Rumi-chan," he wouldn't come close to me, neither would he let me embrace him. "I don't want to live the rest of my life as one of his watch dogs, a failed experiment."
"I promise," because I saw the fear in his eyes and because they reflected my own. "I promise."
"I promise," I whispered into the silent room. "It's too quiet... they found me!" I launched three kunai towards the creatured barreling at me on my right, all knives lodging themselves in Juugo's neck. As he fell, I looked at him hoping for some kind of recognition but he was too far gone. His eyes glazed over and I knew he was gone. It took him that moment, that small amount of time to recognize that I wasn't paying attention and I paid dearly for it. I found three pieces of what seemed to be bone, stuck on the left side of my stomach, the pressure nearly pushing me over.
Kimimaro had something in his hand, a bone of some kind, it was long and thick at the end growing thinner at the tip. He seemed to be using it as a sword. He slashed at me and I barely had time to jump back from his bone sword. I stumbled over Jugo's fallen body, landing on the floor with a loud thump my legs over his arm, my elbows connecting to concrete floor painfully. Then there was a red light and the blaring of alarms, Kimimaro paused in mid-stride trying to make sense of the noise.
"Self destruct initiated. Countdown begins, two minutes til self destruct."
"Kuso!" I heard Kabuto curse but at the moment I was preoccupied, trying to find a way to take Kimimaro down while vaguely thinking of who could've set the lab to blow. I only had two minutes left.
"One minute and forty-eight seconds." less than two minutes. Frantic blue eyes searched for something, anything I could use to... there was movement underneath me. Juugo's arm moved and I looked over to find that he was staring me, his real eyes.
"Juugo-kun," I could only whisper.
"One minute and thirty seconds." he was trying to tell me something, his lips moving as he tried to mouth the words.
"What?"
"One minute and twenty-five seconds." the ignored the count down and focused on Juugo, Kimimaro was already upon me when I finally figured it out. "Heart"
"One minute and fifteen seconds," the count down continued.
"I'd love to stay and watch but I'm afraid I must go," Kabuto was speaking again. "Goodbye Narumi-chan. I hope we never see each other again." he was chuckling menacingly even as he turned the speakers off. The alarms continued to blare, the lights flickering around the room in a rhythmic motion.
"One minute and five seconds," I hadn't realized but my hand had already inched its way towards my weapons pouch and I held three slender needles within the gaps of my fingers. Senbon, the only weapon long enough to pierced through the heart and slim enough to pass through bone with minimal effort. I had trained myself along with others and I knew everything by heart. I'd began with unmoving subjects then with moving dummies before moving on to small animals. I could hit my target with my eyes closed for half a mile, a little more if I focus clearly. With no more time and space to spare I let them fly, the needles lodging in his sternum in a straight vertical line. I'd been trained to kill enemies but now I had to use them on my friends.
"Forty-eight seconds," it took too long, now I barely had any time to get out.
"Go!" Kimimaro whispered as he fell face first onto the floor. It felt so much like that time when Grandma Tsunade had told me to run and I found myself scrambling to my feet as I ran towards the nearest window I could find. I had no time to grieve, my first priority was to get out of there alive.
"Fifteen seconds," I was nearly there and I knew I couldn't stop, I'd have to break the glass with my body if I wanted to survive.
"Ten, nine, eight," the shattered pieces broke through my suit and pierced my skin but I didn't cry out. I reached behind me and pulled on a barely noticeable string that opened the gliders on my uniform's arms and legs. They had surprisingly not taken any damage.
"One." I was still too close to the building when it exploded, debris and burned metal showered all around me and I barely managed to escape. On my far left I saw something else floating on my peripherals, there was a parachute. It was way too dark for me to see who it was but one thing was for sure, he had been in the same place as I was. His chute caught on fire but luckily he was aleady closing in on the ground when it happened and I saw the person land safely albeit a bit hard. "He has skills to land that far from the ground and not break anything. At least he's alive."
The thought of my dead partners distracted me from thinking too hard about the man on the ground. I continued gliding through the night sky as I headed towards the direction of my vehicle. There were more plans of revenge clouding my mind.
He stared at the woman gliding above him silently praising her skills. She had managed to infiltrate the building and not be noticed until she was at the top floor and then she killed any and everyone who got in her way as long as they were enemies. Inside the snake's lab she had had to fight her own friends who had been experimented on and successfully killed them before getting out of the place. Even he had run when the countdown was up to one minute and yet she survived after jumping through a window at what he counted was ten seconds. "Narumi," he heard them and even Kabuto call her that through the speakers. Dark hair went up into its normal spikes as he removed his mask, red eyes with swirling commas trying to focus onto the woman's form as she disappeared through the treetops.
"Wolf are you there?" his radio crackled, taking his attention away from the thoughts of the unknown woman. Ruby orbs turned onyx before he answered.
"Roger, Wolf here." he began to walk into the surrounding woods. "What's up command?"
"What the hell happened, Sasuke? We heard the explosion and then nothing. Where's Orochimaru and Kabuto?"
"I'm fine Shikamaru," he appeased the worried tone in his commander's voice. "The lab's self destruct sequence had been initiated. Orochimaru left about an hour ago, Kabuto just before the lab exploded."
"Where are you?"
"I'm on my way to the car."
"Alright, get back to the HQ, we have to find that slippery bastard again."
"Roger that," he said. "Oh and Shikamaru, I think you'll be interested to know that there was someone else there."
"What are you talking about?"
"There was a woman in the lab and she managed to get in there before I could. It seems she has issues with Orochimaru as well."
"What does this have to do with our mission?"
"I think we can use someone like her."
"What does she look like? Do you have a name so we can see if we can find her?"
"I don't know what she looks like, she was wearing full armor and a mask, a fox mask. But her name's Narumi."
"Alright, I'll have her checked out." Shikamaru said. "Get back here and don't forget to drop by Karin's office to get checked up."
"Isn't Hinata around?" Sasuke asked as he climbed to his car only then noticing the pain around his body after he hit the ground with such force.
"She's busy. Go to Karin." then the line was off.
"Right boss." he said even though no one could hear him anymore. "Who are you Narumi?" he started his engine and drove away from the burning building.
So, tell me what you think ne?
Love lots,
Aly :)