I

Tip...tap...tip...tap...

Everything. The air were clasped tight, darkness shone on everything. It was a tunnel of one's body where you can hear naught but their breathing and heartbeat. It was not a place of conscience nor consciousness to linger.

The man walked forth.

Tip...trot...tip...trot...

He could not see, nor hear, nor sense besides what is beyond - the ultimate breaching road he was preparing for.

Tip...trot...

There Sasuke's opponent laid in his humbled corner.

"You have come, Sasuke."

Four eyes peered into each other's, those eyes that mirrored one another.

"I guess this is where it ends, brother."

Sasuke could no longer feel himself as his ears rung with a thousand silences. Yes... I have come this far... I will not lose...

Screwing his courage and embracing his instincts, he stepped forward for the first attack.

II

Two and a half years earlier...

She woke up.

She knew not how, for she has never woken up before, nor did she ever see or hear or feel anything alien to her subconsciousness. She fluttered her eyelids - did she have eyelids? She knew not how to move, and felt as a newborn baby would feel upon being stripped of the womb and plunged into airs.

And now she walks in the sun, too. Such as nasty thing, but really it did no harm above annoyance. She walked idly around, seeking shelter.

But nevertheless, she was free.

"Hey, babe."

"Whatcha doin' walkin' 'round 'lone like that?"

Who were they? She wondered curiously. It was just a couple of BOYS who were standing around, idling just like her.

"Sorry," she stopped. "Do I know you?"

The boys looked at each other, then laughed.

"Of course you know US, we were long friends!"

"I'm sorry, I don't know your names. Perhaps I've forgotten."

"No worries, we can remind each other later. What's your name, hon?"

"How do you know me if you don't know my name?"

They looked at each other again and laughed.

"I'm sorry," she replied. "I am in earnest. But perhaps you are mistaken after all if you claim know me and do not know my name."

And she walked away, and the boys were still laughing: "Oh, she's a good one, she is!"

What was her name? She could not remember a thing, at least nothing about herself. She has been walking around and saw that there were different humans gathered in a bunch, ancient and young, gross and petite, women and men. She thinks she's a woman, but she's not so sure. She was sure men would talk more with men and women with women - so perhaps she really was a man and that's why those boys would even speak to her. But men don't have long, silver hair like she did, so is she a woman after all?

What is this village called? Mica Village? In the Land of Fire? She had walked into this village from the place where she woke up...Were villages always part of the land, or the land a part of the village? Anyway, villages had names, and people had names. Did she have a name too? She heard someone call her "Zero". Was that her name?

"What are you still doing outside? I told you to come in five minutes ago!"

Zero stopped. It was a woman of buxom measures, clouding over three boys in the mud.

"But, mama, just five more minutes and I'll finish this castle - and then I'll come in and eat." one of the three boys explained as the mother swelled with anger by the second.

"Enough! Get back here, you lazy ass, and see that your clothes are properly cleaned off - I don't know why I keep you."

Zero watched the boy being pulled away by the ear, and the two other boys continued to build their mud castle as if nothing has happened. Zero started to furrow her brow - was this supposed to happen?

And she walked on, lonely and frightened, and the people around her dissolved into unfavoured, bothersome parasites, self-centred, egotistical wretched creatures. She wished she wasn't one of the humans, was she? She never behaved like they did, their selfishness and lack of affection...

"I told you, give me the pot, wench!"

She stopped suddenly, realizing she had came upon the outskirts of the village. The voice apparently sourced from a square, gorse hermit, his eyes hungry for the fish pot a young girl held in her hands.

"N-no, I can't, mama says I've - I've got to give them to m'daddy..."

"Look, cunt, I haven't eaten shit for three days and your daddy can crawl home. I'll say it one more time: give it to me!"

The girl was paralyzed with fear and could not even stammer.

"Goddamn it!"

In that moment he lunged forward for the pot- but there he breathed his last- for Zero knows not what she did, and in a flash her grasscutter cut easily past the hermit's shirt and impaled him.

Zero did not know how she wielded the sword, nor how could she have the strength to drive it through him, but she stood there calmly, and her arms did not shake; the drips of blood ran down the grasscutter and fell on the blades of grass. A corpse hang uselessly from her sword.

Drip...drip...drop...

The young girl watched, horrified, as the blood darkened the grass with red.

"M-M..."

Zero withdrew the blade and the body collapsed; at once the girl dropped her pot and hurried back to the village.

"MURDERER!"

Zero shook. She didn't like that word, at all...and she stood there, fixed, till the sound of an army started to reach her ears.

The villagers had come, armed with spades, shovels, axes and every best weapon. "Don't let the murderer run away yet! Keep her in! She won't get away with frightening my daughter!"

She suddenly spun around, with the blood still hanging from her eyelashes. Remorse and sorrow shot through her...but she was never well acquainted with these feelings...

"Don't come any closer." She tried to say, but her throat was hoarse. Her sword, still intact with blood, spoke for her.

She tried to run away, but they were angry and tried to stop her - she had to use her sword to defend herself, strike them down - there were close calls, but they all became frightened...eventually the horde stopped, and she knew not where she was...she was tired...

She fell to the ground and wept sincerely.

III

"A rogue ninja?"

Lady Tsunade was sorting through her papers in the main office. Being Hokage is sometimes nothing short of a nuisance, but anyway, who cares about little nuisances when you've faced worse?

Her own foolishly loyal servant- assistant, Shizune, answered, "Yes, I'm afraid so. I've looked at the report a few times, but every word is truth. It's a little village on the edge of Land of Fire and Village of Sound, and just yesterday three of their men got slaughtered by this rogue. They were positive they won't be satisfied unless she is brought to the village and executed before their eyes. Plus, it's against to law to slaughter three men."

"What a morbid village!" Tsunade muttered under her breath. "Wait, did you just say 'she'?"

"Oh, yes, they say she's a woman - somewhat tall, with long silver hair, a fashionable Mohawk and sable garments. She also wields a grasscutter."

"Can you give me more details on her appearance?"

"Afraid not- none of the villagers want to at this time, and none of them really saw her face clearly except the ones who got too close and died- they say her face was covered in blood."

"Another crazy, insanely strong monster- probably a prodigy in her youth. How do they know if she's a ninja? Does she have a forehead protector?"

"Not at all."

"This is incredibly difficult, but I don't suppose this can get worse. At any rate, we'll file this as a low B rank mission, since there's no concrete evidence the rogue IS a ninja - probably a samurai wannabe with too much time on her hands."

"Ay, but Lady Tsunade -"

"So who should we send to die- I mean, track down the mysterious 'rogue'?"

"I'll make arrangements for that."

And Lady Tsunade shifted to the next report.

"Poor Lady Tsunade," Shizune sighed quietly. "Painfully overworked."