This is just a silly idea I had rattling around in my head. Overused concept I know but unfortunately I'm not creative enough to create my own Naruto world characters, and my knowledge of the existing ones is not strong enough to make a believable story…so real world oc it is.
The Akatsuki are likely to be OOC so I apologise in advance.
Disclaimer: none of the Naruto characters featured in this story are my creation. A huge surprise I'm sure *voice dripping with sarcasm*
I groaned pathetically as the peacefulness of sleep slowly began to seep away as I regained consciousness. My head was throbbing and every muscle and bone was violently protesting as if threatening to leave my body. A cool dampness that reeked of stale water and old urine seemed to be all around me. A hard, scratchy surface pressed against the side of my face as I lay motionless on the ground. The inside of my mouth felt like sandpaper. What had I done last night? It was all a blur. I remembered drinking cocktails and…oh lord did I finish off a bottle of absinthe? No wonder I couldn't remember anything.
Instinctively I grabbed my head in a futile effort to ease the pain. I must have really tied one on last night. I didn't smell the musty stench of sweat or feel a distinctive tell-tale ache between my legs. That was a good sign at least.
Sluggishly I cracked open my eyes and immediately winced. After a couple of seconds a world of varying shades of brown started to come into focus. Brain slow in its interpretation it took a moment for me to register that I was looking at dirt. In fact I was surrounded by it. Gingerly sweeping my eyes about the area as best I could I discovered that three walls where solid, brown, dirt with old roots slithering in and out of them like snakes. The fourth wall was a row of rusty iron bars embedded in the floor and ceiling that housed a single hinged door made of matching iron bars, which had been left open. I tried to think of where I might be but the pounding in my head quickly put an end to the effort.
"Where did she come from un?"
Every word was like a rail road spike through my head. I curled myself into a ball in a pointless attempt to recapture the sweat nothingness that unconsciousness had provided, my stomach threatening to escape out my mouth even at that slight a movement.
"Ohh! Tobi wants to play with the new girl. Tobi is a good boy!"
"She fell right out of the sky, if Itachi hadn't caught her…haha…splat."
Oh god, every sound made the pain worse, even my eyeballs were throbbing.
"Why'd you catch the bitch? Should have just let her fall."
"Hn"
I pressed my forearm tighter against my temple in a fruitless effort to ease the skull splitting pain. I really needed some Tylenol.
"Her flesh smells delicious. Can we eat her?"
"She might be of value."
"Either way we have to wait for Leader."
Who the hell keeps talking? Whoever it was, they needed to stop. "Ugh… my head feels like it's got a couple of monkeys arguing over a sack of marbles inside it," I grumbled carefully pulling myself into a seated position, my stomach once again threatening to violently empty its contents. "So will you please…shut the hell up!"
Several men stood just beyond the earthen cell that housed me. One wore a bright orange mask in a swirl pattern that obscured his entire face except for a single eye hole, his rapid, sporadic movements only increasing my nausea. Beside the lollipop man was either a butch woman or a slightly effeminate man. They had long blond hair worn in a half pony-tail and a side-swept bang that cover one side of their face. To one side of the blond was something that could only be described as a shark on legs standing next to a man with long black hair held in a loose pony-tail at the nape of his neck. Shifting my vision to the opposite side I saw a man with slicked back white hair beside a man wearing a hooded cowl with red and green eyes. Behind them was a two-toned man being swallowed by the world's biggest Venus fly trap and a surprisingly plain-looking man with bright auburn hair.
Though they all had very distinctive, in some cases very inhuman, differences they all wore the same black cloaks decorated with what appeared to be red clouds embroidered with white around the edges. As strange as they were there was something…something almost familiar about them. Like I had seen them some place before.
"What did you say bitch?" snarled the man with the slicked back, white hair. As he moved closer towards me I noticed his eyes were an unusual shade of violet.
"I said," I responded back, foolishly rising to my feet. "One sec…" The effort it had taken to stand and keep myself upright had been the final straw. Vomit poured unceremoniously from my throat splattering on to the ground at my feet. Dam now broken I fell to my knees as my stomach made a valiant effort to expel every ounce of its contents. "Oh god…I am going to die in this shitty dirt cell...," I managed sputtered between bouts of vomiting. By the time I had finished my stomach muscles were aching and my throat was burning.
"That is disgusting un."
Though it had certainly felt like I was dying at the time I could still count myself among the living. Stomach now officially empty I pulled myself together as best I could. Wiping my mouth on my sleeve I returned my attention back to the man with white hair. "As I was saying…I am rocking one monster hangover so could you and your little friends take your conversation elsewhere?"
A look of barely contained rage swirled in the man's violet eyes. Before I could think of what had him so angry another man entered the room, shadowed by a blue haired woman both wearing the same black and red cloaks. The man had spikey orange hair and a dozen piercings decorating his face. There was probably some body piercing company out there that had to thank him personally for keeping them in business. As it seemed to be an ongoing theme among them he too had unusual eyes. His appeared to have a series of purple rings.
"Where are you from girl?" The tone of his voice held an air of authority.
"Who wants to know?"
"I'll be asking the questions." His voice was calm but had a threatening edge. Crossing his arms he glared at me menacingly as he waited for me to respond.
"I don't think I want to tell you." I moved to put some distance between us careful to avoid the retched puddle of puke I had made earlier, the revolting smell of it mixing with the stench of moldy earth and other bodily fluids. My head still pulsed with agonizing pain but the nausea that had accompanied it previously had lessened.
An open hand struck me hard across the face forcefully causing my head to turn, my cheek burning from the impact.
"Geeze…owwww!" My hand flew up to cup my injured cheek. "You got another one in ya?" I questioned seductively.
Shock flooded his odd face before he schooled his features back to a look of calm indifference. I honestly wasn't sure why I had said that. Maybe I thought it would be funny. I didn't have the best judgement sober, when I was drunk or hung-over it was even worse. "Sorry, ignore me. My whole thing is I just crave attention."
"We can do this the easy way…or the hard way," he began taking a threatening step towards me. "Decide."
Arms crossed he stood blocking my only exit from this underground cage, silently waiting for me to make my choice. Appearing as though he didn't care what I decided one way or the other.
With the exit blocked I stepped back further into my earthen cell in an attempt to maximize the possible distance between me and this strange, orange haired man. The others, the unusual individuals I had been observing early, stood in silent observation. Even the loud, foul-mouthed white-haired man from earlier was quiet. As if none of them wanted to draw the attention of this orange haired man. The only exception seemed to be the blue haired women who hovered closely behind him like a human shadow.
He wanted to know where I was from. Fine, I could answer that. "Umm…Earth…duh"
The scowling look in his eyes told me he had not been impressed by my answer.
"What?" I replied as I searched for another exit out of my dirt prison. "Not my fault you didn't think to be specific." If I had any common sense I would have realized that smart-alecky comments were not going to help and they certainly weren't going to help me get out of this prison I found myself in. My therapist often said that my problem was talking before thinking.
"Fine, perhaps a few more hours alone in this cell will loosen your tongue."
With a final frosty glare the orange haired man turned and left through an exit at the far end of the room that I hadn't noticed before. As if given some invisible signal each of the similarly cloaked men followed closely behind him.
"Oh thank Christ." Unable to maintain the pretense of stability I collapsed to the ground. My head was throbbing too hard for me to think straight. My throat was so dry, even the moist dirt underneath me seemed appealing. I should have asked for water.
As I lay there in misery I began to wonder if perhaps they had been correct. Maybe I did have a drinking problem. How many times had I gone out only to remember next to nothing the following morning? I'd woken up in several strange places before, such as a park bench and a stranger's balcony, but never in some cage carved out of the ground. Just where the hell was I anyway? Shifting my thoughts from my potential borderline alcoholic-ism to those strange cloaked men I started pondering just why they seemed so familiar.
Had it been that sense of familiarity combine with being hung-over that had me so unfazed by their extraordinarily bizarre appearances? Had they even been real? The dull, burning sting on my cheek said that at least one of them had been real.
Where had I seen them before? I could feel the answer dancing around inside my head just outside of reach. It was those cloaks. There was something about them. What was it? The more I tried to think of an answer the more my skull threatened to split in two.
I tried to relax letting my thoughts drift freely. They kind of looked like characters from that anime I liked to watch…the one with the blond kid…Naruto. Didn't that had some villainous organization that wore matching cloaks? What had they called themselves? Avengers?...no…Ak…something…Akutzy?..Akatski?...Akatsuki that was it.
Those were cartoon characters though. Colored images rendered by artists, not beings of flesh and blood. I was starting to seriously question my sanity. Maybe this was some type of crazy, new reality TV show. One that tried tricking unsuspecting people into believing something crazy, like alien abductions or anime characters coming to life, and filming the results. Closing my eyes I curled into a ball and waited for the sweet nothingness of sleep to reclaim me, perhaps things would start making sense again after some rest.
I was awoken from my nap by the creaking sound of rusty metal moving against rusty metal. This time when I regained consciousness the pounding in my head had been reduced to a mild throbbing and my stomach felt less eager to spill its contents at the slightest provocation. I was definitely still hung-over, but sleep had helped to alleviate my symptoms a little.
I lifted my head to see that same orange haired man from before, this time without his human shadow, apparently back for round two. In his hand he held a cup of some kind, the liquid contents within sloshing slightly with each step. I eyed the cup hungrily, desperate for any type of moisture. My mouth felt like a three-week old gym sock wrapped in coarse sandpaper.
"Do you feel like answering my questions now?" When I didn't reply he starting pouring the contents of the cup to the ground.
I sprang from my position on the ground as fast as my body would allow in a pathetic attempt to stop him. A move he easily dodged. Before all the liquid could escape, he tilted the cup upright once more and silently waited.
"Answer and you can have this drink of water." He stared at me like I was a dog that should obey its master's command.
"I'll suck it straight out of this bacteria infested ground before I give you the satisfaction of answering your questions!" Wait…why was I being so hostile about this? He just wanted to know where I was from, a pretty reasonable request though reasonable people didn't throw people into creepy, make-shift dungeons…
When he moved to empty the remaining liquid to the ground I quickly motioned for him to stop. "Wait"
He paused in his action, holding the cup half tilted his expression clearly stating I'm listening.
"Burnaby…I'm from Burnaby."
Instead of handing me the drink of water as promised he narrowed his eyes and took an aggressive step towards me. Before I could register what was happening my back slammed against a wall as he held me up by the collar of my shirt. "I am growing tired of your little games girl," he growled pulling something sharp out from under his cloak.
Panic consumed me at the suddenness of such violence before the absurdity of it took over. Without thinking I began to laugh. "Bravo…for I moment I almost believed you were Pain."
I was held against the wall my back had been so unkindly slammed against by a forearm pressing painfully against my collarbone, my feet dangling helplessly off the floor, a sharp knife-like object hovering dangerously close to my throat. "Who are you? How do you know who I am?" he snapped angrily, the tip of his blade biting into the delicate skin at my throat. "Answer me!"
I could feel a thread-thin trickle of blood running down from the superficial wound. I was all for authenticity, but this was taking things too far. Wasn't there some waver I would have to sign first if there was a chance I might actually get injured?
"I have no idea who you are, but you look like the figurehead leader of the Akatsuki, Pain…or Nagato or whatever."
The arm that held me pinned pressed harder against my clavicle. "Tell me how you know that or I'll kill you."
Panic began to return at the cold, seriousness of his voice. This was rapidly getting out of hand. Where the producers pushing things this far because I hadn't fallen for their little hoax like some silly fangirl and wasn't making the proper ass of myself for public viewing? "Hey it's not exactly classified information. Anyone could easily do a Google search and figure it out."
The arm that had held me to the wall abruptly moved away causing me to fall to the ground. I hit the floor with an ungraceful thump, a momentary shock of pain flaring threw my nerves. He loomed over me threateningly, a menacing scowl on his face. "What else do you know?" he questioned suspiciously.
"About this world," I started using my fingers to make air quotes and the word world. "Surprisingly a lot, I never expected to get sucked in but I did. Now I know all sorts of things about the Akatsuki, the leaf, the sand…not so much about the rock or mist…but let's be honest who really gives a shit about them..."
"You have knowledge of the Hidden Leaf?"
"Yes, quite a bit actually" I replied back, it was now my turn to be suspicious.
"You may be useful to us after all."
Shit that sounded rather ominous.
"Any chance I can have that water now?"
Thanks for reading
Not sure where I'm going with this so I make no promises for frequent updates.
Yes I'm aware that the Akatsuki have died but I thought I'd do a story with them anyway.
Until next time
