Characters: Nemu
Summary: A lack of order sends her pulse out of control.
Pairings: None
Warnings/Spoilers: No spoilers
Timeline: Pre-manga
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Nemu becomes aware of her heartbeat in the first few hours after being let out into the world, green eyes as vivid as life and as flat as death observing everyone around her for some sense of normalcy. Mayuri has thrust her out, sending her out into a sea of faces without any direction, and Nemu can only take this as an opportunity to expand her understanding of what as a newborn being she should be.
This hammering in her chest, the way blood pumps so vigorously through her veins, all those racing pulses just leave Nemu at a breathless silence, to observe the world without words.
What she finds makes her long for the order of a laboratory.
All these people rush through the ebb and flow of existence with chaos as the song of their blood. Frenetic paces, hurried words brought to garbled tangles of conversation, like ants darting from one place to the next, living what they think are lives of significance but really just the travesty of such.
Nemu seeks out places of stillness.
She likes far better the quiet places, even though Nemu is too far from being fully-formed to form a true opinion or anything resembling such. The chaos, the buzzing, the rancid stench of sweat and the oppressive atmosphere of panic puts so much pressure on Nemu's skin that she feels as though it will crack. Nemu flees to the silent places with words ringing painfully in her ears.
Down in the labs, all is cool, and silent. It is not serenity, not tranquility, but order that Nemu finds there.
And huddled in the darkness, Nemu examines with numb fascination the spectacular pageant of her heartbeat. The 'thump-thump-thump' echoes in the darkness, giving Nemu again the gift of order.
The only existence where she does not wilt.