I was suffocating; but not in water. The fighting spirit within me fought to stay alive, even though the poisonous atmosphere was burning my lungs with such intensity that I thought a nuclear reaction was happening inside my body, slowly melting me from the inside. All around me black smoke was raising high above the burning buildings, blocking out the summer sun that brought life into this world. Ash burned my skin as I ran through the village – trying to see through the engulfing smoke that surrounded me. Every now and again I would hear the screams of dying men, women and children. Covering my ears, I tried to block out the deafening sounds that seemed to bounce around from wall to wall inside my head because I knew I had my own personal mission to accomplish, so I kept fighting and ignored the suffering cries that pleaded for help. I was looking for something ... or someone; I wasn't sure. All I near was I needed to find them and fast. Then a thought came to my head as I changed direction to find the place I knew was mine and my friend's favourite place, I knew it was a stupid place to check but I was desperate. Suddenly, I felt myself flying through the air and slammed back onto the ground. Pushing myself up I rubbed away the blood that was dripping in front of my eyes for a spilt in my head and tried to take off again but tripped over something. Cursing my clumsiness, I looked up to see the ramen shop sign I had been looking for. I crawled back on to my knees but froze when something cool and slimy soaked into my hands. I slowly lifted up my heads to find thick blood slowly slipping down my skin. Despite my instincts telling my not to look I peeped around my hands to see the bloody mess of civilians and shinobi covering the street ahead of me. I screamed and shouted at my body to get up and search for survivors but a small dark shape in the distance caught my attention and made me freeze in fear. The small figure began to grow bigger and bigger as it hurled its way towards my frozen body.
"Hungry." It moaned, finally close enough for me to see it grabbing the dead bodies and devouring them, as it greedily stuffed the limb figures into its mouth. "HUNGRY!" It shirked at the top of its voice before launching itself at me.
I screamed, launching myself forward and off the bed. Coco began to protest to being flung off the bed again but I was too busy trying to calm myself down to notice. Damn it! I cried, as I pulled myself back on to the bed and slammed my angry fist into the closet pillow I could reach. That was the fifth time this week; almost double from last week. The next thing I knew the door swung open and Kakashi with eight nin-dogs came racing into the room; ready for battle.
"Nariko! Are you ok?" He questioned, placing himself beside me. Even though it was the middle of the night, his silver hair still stood out among the darkness. Shrugging his comforting hand off my shoulder, I pulled the covers high up to my neck and lay on my side, so I was facing towards the window.
"I'm fine, just a dream." I mumbled from beneath the blanket; fighting with dad was the last thing I wanted to do. Hearing my father messy his – already untidy-hair and letting out another heavy sigh. He muttered a goodnight before dad and the dogs (except Coco) left the room, leaving the room in utter silence. The only movement in the room was from Coco jumping back on to the old bed and making himself comfortable again. I didn't know what to do but for the past three weeks I was waking up screaming and then dad would come in to the room, thinking an intruder had entered the room. The first week was the worst. Dad and I would just argue about all the time, threatening to tell Ibiki about it since I was still receiving counselling from my last experience; being captured by Danzo, tortured and then brain washed into beating the crap out of everyone. I rolled back over and stared back into space. Despite naming this my room I hadn't done much to make it homey. Except for the clothes that hang in the wardrobe and the only thing to show this was someone's room were the scattered photographs on the desk. I was trying to decide which photo's I should stick to the walls – thankfully Nene was coming over tomorrow to help sought them out. I hope these dreams end soon; otherwise I'm going to wake up one day and find the wicked witch staring back at me in the mirror. Slowly, after what seemed like hours of counting sheep, I finally fell back to sleep.
"Wake up sleepy head!" Hamako cried out when she and the others dive on top of me. I made a series of curses, threats and moans but as usual the little children did not pay much attention at all; since they probably had no idea what half the things I said meant. "Come on lazy butt, we're got school in half an hour." The young girl whined, grabbing me by the ankles and attempted to pull me off the bed. However, using a little bit of charka I was able to twist the idea of the wall climbing technique around to my advantage so I was now stuck to the bed. But this only caused the other young children (some of them nearly Genins now) to join in the battle and try to yank me out of bed.
"Leave me alone you evil little people!" I moaned, pulling the covers over my head, as three girls, the twins, plus Jiraiya all began pulling on my legs.
"Right that's it; I'm bringing in the cavalry." Jiraiya cried out before walking out of the room. Since I was still half a sleep my brain did not function his words properly; until it was too late. When I felt the little hands leave I thought they had given up trying to get me out of bed, making me release the charka threads I used to attach me to the bed because I thought it was safe. But then a pair of much larger hands grabbed me around the thigh and in one swift movement tucked on my leg, leaving me to tumble out of bed and make a loud crashing noise on to the floor.
"Rise and shine Princess." Minato sang happily with a foxy grin on his face. Rolling over, I glared right back at him (trying to hide me shame while everyone in the room laughed at me) but he was not affected by it. Sighing in defeat I pushed myself off the floor and grabbed some clothes hanging off the chair. Grumbling, I –literally- kicked him and the four children out of my room and quickly dressed, putting on my usual: red long t-shirt (with no sleeves), tight fitting combat trousers and black converses on before tying my curly pink hair into a tight braid and slapped on my kunai pouch. A loud yawn escaped my lips as I exited the room. "Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning." Minato teased, causing the little ones to cover smirks and Itachi to send me a sympathetic smile. I waved the comment away as I made my way to the bathroom and gave my face a quick wash and brushed my teeth.
"Ready?" I asked the large group, remembering to grab an apple to keep me going until I got back for a late brunch – breakfast was a rare thing to see in this household. At first I had found it weird because the times I had stayed here Kakashi was usually up early to make breakfast but that trait didn't last long after I moved in officially, which I was ok with because that meant sleep ins for me.
"We're ready." Minato answered, gesturing the kids to start moving towards the door. The kids walked in front of us while I, Itachi and Minato walked behind them, keeping a careful eye on little ones; especially the twins who were always up to mischief. We didn't talk much at first and I was happy with that since I wasn't really a morning person and was happy to watch the kids laugh and caused trouble. It didn't take long to drop the kids off to the academy since it was only a fifteen minute walk from the Hatake apartment. A huge smile spread across my face as I watched the kids skip off happily to find their other friends. At least they get a child hood, I thought quietly to myself as I imagined I was six or eleven years old and was going to school to meet my friends. Sadly, that never happen for me because I and my mother lived a nomadic life together, until I was eight when my mother was murdered forcing me to survive on my own for nearly seven years of my life. I bit my tongue angrily as I tried to stop the tears pouring down my face and was able to regain my self control before it fell completely. However, I knew sooner or later Minato or Itachi will ask me about it because they always seemed to catch me in the act before I was able was to slow to cover up the evidence of what I had just been thinking. Speaking of being caught in the act, as soon as we had dropped the kids off, a huge yawn escaped my lips.
"Some ones a little tired." Itachi inquired, being the most perspective of the two oldest friends. Too tired to really use my brain at the moment I just shrugged, not noticing that alarms bells that were going off in the older boys' heads, since I would usually make some kind of sarcastic remark back. Honestly, I didn't even know they suspected anything because my brain was so dead until Minato decided it was about time to say something.
"Nariko, has everything been ok lately? You seem a little tired." Minato asked me out of the blue, snapping my sleeping mind into the reality I had chosen to ignore until now. Crap! Was the first thing I thought when I realised that after weeks of dark circles under my eyes and loud yawning my two ninja friends had finally plucked up the courage to ask what was going on.
"Fine, I've just been having trouble sleeping lately." I answered; it wasn't like I was telling a lie or anything; for once I was telling the truth. Having all these weird dreams lately has been making my ability to sleep a nightmare but it wasn't like I was going to tell them about the dreams otherwise I would hear never ending worry from them and I was sure they had more important things to worry about then me losing some sleep. They were just dreams after all, they would go away in a little while; at least... I hoped so. Nevertheless, I could sense the uncertainty between the two. Just as I sensed I was about to be pounded into the ground by millions of unnecessary questions, Nene jumped down between us with a large box of bright and colourful fabrics and paints in it.
"There you are I've been looking for you everywhere." My female best friend grinned wildly, popping the box of material under one arm and grabbing my wrist with the other, she began pulling me away from the boys and began discussing what she planned to do with my room (even though I had only asked her to help me frame the photos) throwing different ideas right, left and centre, so I had no idea what type of themes she was planning since there were just too many to process at once. Shooting a sorry smile at the boys, I allowed Nene to drag me off to my home, thankful by the sudden save. Hoping that I would survive whatever Nene had in store for me. I joked about how it was probably going to be the most terrifying experience of my life; little did I know I was closer to the truth then I thought.