Consciousness floated in and out of her reach. Every few hours she would grab it and hold on for a minute or two, and then it would slip from between her fingers leaving her alone in the cool blackness of limbo. Noa struggled to keep it in her grip, but a part of her didn't want her to wake. Part of her didn't want her to face the horrors that surrounded her in waking.
A wretched, inhuman scream finally pulled Noa from her dark nothingness. Her eyes slid open and were strained as she tried to tell what was around her. Even while awake she was surrounded by darkness. She could make out vaguely the shapes of people or maybe what used to be people. Now all they were was corpses. They were crumpled on the ground and unmoving; some looked like they might be sleeping while others were in positions far too odd to have been just a slumber.
No more than two feet away from Noa a sole woman was convulsing violently. Noa was no expert, but she could tell that this woman was having a seizure. Noa wondered foggily if she knew the woman, but it was a stupid question. Everyone she had known here was now long dead.
Noa was shivering as she stared; the woman had now stopped moving. Probably dead, thought Noa trying to focus on the woman's face. Was it her imagination or was her vision becoming blurry? Noa couldn't tell. She shut her eyes and curled into a ball for warmth. She could feel sweat pouring off her like a fountain. Her lips were dry and cracked. She wasn't too sure when the last time she drank was but it didn't matter. There was no point. There was a water bowl across her prison but she had neither the strength nor the will to make it there. Months of imprisonment had drained her resolve.
She felt a twinge of abhorrence towards her captors but she didn't have enough energy to be enraged. They had done all this in the name of "science". Whatever drugs they have given them had caused the deaths of so many, yet all she could feel was a small pang of hate. She wasn't capable of more.
Light flooded into the room and to her terror she was blind. She could see nothing. She squinted and could make out a figure- no, make that two- entering. One had blond hair like the sun and the other had fiery red hair. She couldn't tell anymore about them than that.
One of them, Noa couldn't tell which said, "Look for survivors." It was a male voice. Noa tried not to move, hoping they would overlook her. She didn't want more drugs, she just wanted to die in peace. To her dismay she saw blond hair near her and felt herself being picked up.
"Found one, un," said the one in the midst of picking her up. He had a male voice too. In a last feeble attempt, Noa tried to thrash her body and slip away from his grasp. She was too weak to do much but she felt him fighting against her struggling. "Calm down, un. We aren't hurting you!" he said and Noa couldn't make out his tone. She did stop resisting but not because of him. Her vision was completely gone, her hearing was starting to go and she didn't have the strength to move. She heard him saying something but to her frustration she couldn't make it out.
She wasn't too sure if she was sleeping or if her senses were failing her but either way, when she reclaimed consciousness she was laying in a clean warm bed. She had tubes attached to her arms and she wore a nightgown. She stared at the I.V. and wondered what it was administered. She tried to pull it out but she was no good with pain; especially not the tugging one of tubes in her arms. Noa gave up after the pulling began to sting and left her arm feeling strangely numb and tingly. She felt better now than she had in the cell. No longer did she feel feverish, nor were her senses out of control. Perhaps the I.V. was helping her, she ended up reasoning as she gave up on her attempt to pull it out.
Noa cautiously stepped out of bed. Her legs almost collapsed under her weight. She had not done much moving in months; not since the beginning of her captivity. She had lost track of how long she had been prisoner but she estimated that it was a minimum of two months. She made her way to the door using her I.V. pole as a walker. She tried the handle and to her surprise and delight it was unlocked. She opened the door painfully slowly, and peaked out. No one was around.
She couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. She had to decide what to do next. She wasn't too sure where she was, nor who was around. Maybe they were helping her but for all she knew it could have been her captors.
To her horror, before she could decide on a course of action she heard footsteps. Her first reaction was to run and she tried that, boy did she try. Unfortunately her legs weren't ready for that and instead she hit the floor with a loud thud.
"Shit," she murmured through clenched teeth as she tried to pull herself up. Tears in her eyes from the pain of impact, she could see someone coming quickly towards her with blue hair. "Stay back!" she found herself ordering and to her surprise they froze. Noa blinked the tears from her eyes, sure that her senses were failing her again. Blue hair?
"Are you alright?" asked a woman's voice. Noa's vision cleared and she gazed up at the woman. She looked to be a couple inches taller than Noa and a few years older. She indeed sported shoulder length blue hair with a white flower decoration. She wore a black cloak with red shapes that Noa would only realize later were supposed to be represent clouds.
Noa just stared at her. She didn't reply to the woman's question but she did get to her feet, so that probably helped to indicate a "yes". She was as alright as she was expected to be after being imprisoned and used as a guinea pig to test new drugs.
"Where am I?" Noa asked finally.
The woman gazed at her steadily before responding, "You are in the headquarters of an organization called akatsuki. It's located in the Village Hidden in the Rain. My name is Konan."
The only thing Noa found important from Konan's talking was her location. Village Hidden in the Rain was not located in Rice Paddie Country. She had crossed the border. With that in mind she asked in a voice that sounded a lot surer than she felt, "why were you experimenting on people?"
"We weren't, but maybe we should sit down before we get in to everything," she replied then added, "May I approach you now?" She spoke with a soft yet strong voice. She didn't seem cruel, but Noa knew that evil came in many forms. Still Noa nodded consent. The woman approached and gently gripped Noa's arm, leading her away. She wasn't led back to the room, no.
Noa was led to a kitchen. The smell of a freshly made pizza filled her nostrils. She located it cooling on the counter and her stomach growled in yearning. When had she last ate? She couldn't now remember.
"Here, sit." Konan parked her at the table and then went to grab two plates. She loaded each with three slices of pizza and brought them to the table. Noa dug in without hesitation while staring at Konan expectantly.
"It was not akatsuki doing human experimentation but a missing ninja from The Village Hidden in the Leaves by the name of Orochimaru-" Konan began. At the name of Orochimaru Noa began to choke on her half swallowed mouthful of pizza.
After a small coughing fit she managed to wheeze out, "The leader of the Village Hidden in the Sound?" Konan nodded and Noa was filled with a feeling of utter betrayal. "But he had a deal with the daimyou to get that village going! He has no right neither kidnapping the citizens of Rice Paddie Country nor using them like that!" she cried out somewhat desperately.
"I agree," said Konan considerately "It really does show the sad state of the ninja world." The two sat in silence after that for awhile after that eating their pizza.
Finally Noa asked a question that was bothering her, "Why was I brought here? Not to a hospital?"
Konan laughed but what type of laugh it was Noa could not say. "You were found by a couple of men in our organization. They were investigating the dealings of Orochimaru. You were the sole survivor of the test subjects. They brought you here partially because you needed healing, but also partially because our organization is curious to what, if anything, the drugs you have been injected with have done to your body." A look of disgust crossed Noa's face and Konan must have noticed this for she added, "You must think us no better than him for seeing you as an experiment, but please understand that you have already been used as test subject and it seems a shame to let the suffering of so many people bear no fruit."
Noa could see too easily Konan's logic but still didn't wish to be used. "Do I have a choice?"
"I fear that you don't, our leader wishes to see the results of Orochimaru's experiments, no matter how unethical they are."
"I see," was all Noa said but she didn't argue. It was then that she felt it, something that can only be described as a burst of self-loathing. Her lack of argument towards being used reminded her of how much of a pushover she was. Even more, it reminded her of her feeble spirit, which had been broken too easily in the darkness of her confinement. These thoughts made Noa feel nauseous.
At exactly the same time Noa doubled over and a blond man entered the room. From a quick observation the blond man wore the same cloak as Konan, but that was where the resemblance ended. His hair was not only blond, but long and held back in a ponytail.
"Are you okay?" asked both the blond man and Konan at the same time. Noa opened her mouth to reply but instead found herself throwing up all over the kitchen table.
"Gross, un," said the blond man gently pulling Noa away from the ex-contents of her stomach. Noa jumped away from him, terrified.
"Don't touch me!" she shouted, panicked.
"Sorry, un!" said the man in alarm holding his hands up revealing his palms. He was trying to show he wasn't a threat but instead Noa was faced with a bizarre sight. In the palms of each of his hands, was a mouth. It was a complete mouth, with lips and teeth, and even a tongue. She wasn't sure whether to be awed or frightened.
"I probably fed her too much," said Konan regretfully, "I forgot that she was on the brink of starvation. The cheese was probably too rich for her."
"I'll see if I can get a change of clothes for her, un," offered the blond man. Noa glanced down and her nightgown and saw how the front was covered in her own vomit. Disgusting.
"Alright, I'll clean this mess up," said Konan wandering into the other room, presumably to grab cleaning materials.
"What size do you take, un?" asked the blond man turning to Noa.
"Medium," she replied instantly, out of habit. The blond man laughed and Noa looked down at herself. She had definitely lost weight in the last few months. She used to weigh 120 pounds and that weight was obvious mostly in her chest and derriere, though she had had a bit of tummy chub. All the fat was off her bones now and she stared down at herself in shock. She had once had what she considered rather decent sized breasts. She had gone from a C cup to what looked now like an A cup.
"Small?" she tried again, though she really had no idea.
"I'll find a few different sizes, un," he offered and she nodded thankfully. She found herself alone in the kitchen, which was somewhere she did not want to be. The overwhelming smell of stomach acid was making her gag and she wandered into the hallway. She weak legs wouldn't take her at a very fast pace though. She was halfway back to her room when the blond man returned with a few sets of clothing.
"Here," he said offering them to her. She took them cautiously, being sure not to hold them against her chest where there was still puke. He pointed two doors down and opened the door a bit. She could see that it was a washroom. "You can change in here, un," he added.
"I got that," she said somewhat sarcastically though she was thankful for the kindness, even if she was only the akatsuki guinea pig now.
He laughed, "You'll be alright?"
"I'll be fine," she agreed and she went in the washroom and shut the door. She easily slid out of her nightgown and dropped it and all of its barf-filled glory in the tub. She proceeded to then stare at herself in the mirror. She was much too skinny, all of her looked it. Her bones were so prominent that she ended up looking like a skeleton. Her skinniness made her appear younger too. Instead of looking nineteen she ended up looking merely fifteen. The thought of her thinness brought other realizations: she hadn't had a period anytime recently. Hadn't she once read something about underweight women being infertile? She shook the thought out of her mind.
On the bright side, Noa was relatively clean. She assumed that she had been washed by someone after she was taken to akatsuki headquarters. She found that she had hair in her armpits and on her legs, which were places that she preferred to be shaved. She was paler than she had once been too, she supposed that being in the dark for so long would do that to you. Her hair looked rather unhealthy. Malnutrition and the lack of proper hair care had caused it to lose it's lovely golden shine it had once possessed. It was just a ratty blonde now.
Once she had taken in her appearance she tried to put clothing on. She found it rather difficult though. She managed to put on underwear and a bra but it was rather difficult. Underwear was a struggle because she didn't seem to be capable of standing on a single leg for long. The bra worked fine but due to her I.V. she was incapable of getting a shirt on overtop. She had managed to get out of nightgown only because it was a button down thing.
While considering her options she noticed a scale. She waited until the display showed zero. She then stood on it and stared as the numbers changed. Eventually it rested on 93. She was 93 pounds. She had lost approximately thirty pounds. That was a quarter of her weight she realized in shock. She sat on the edge of the tub and began to think of her predicament again. Eventually she admitted that she needed help.
In humiliation she was forced to open the door slightly and call Konan's name. She only called it about ten times when Konan heard and arrived. Konan didn't even ask the problem, she just got to dressing Noa immediately. It was degrading for Noa to be dressed by another grown woman. Especially since Konan dressed her so quickly and efficiently.
"You won't need an I.V. soon," Konan comforted her; "You should be able to move onto solid food, and pills. All the I.V. is going to need from now on is dealing your dehydration."
Konan was right too. In two weeks Noa wouldn't need an I.V. The trick was getting to that point. The first night was the worst. After another meal made by Konan –smaller this time- Noa was brought back to her room where she was left to do as she pleased. She was never a big reader but she ended up reading some fiction book that she found around the base. When finally ready for bed she put the book down and just hit the switch of her lap. She was engulfed in darkness. She had never had a problem with darkness before, she had even spent three months getting acquainted with it and been fine but after being left in it she panicked. She trashed her arm out going for the lamp. Instead of turning on the lamp all that accomplished was knocking it off the nightstand. It hit the ground with a smash and she knew at once it had shattered. The terror had not ebbed away quite yet and she leapt out of her bed. She was lucky not to have stepped on any ceramic shards. She dashed to the door as quickly as she could, being attached to her I.V. pole. She swung the door open quite violently and the room flooded with light.
She let out a sigh of relief. She then heard quick footsteps and tilted her head to see the blond man racing towards her. He slowed his pace when he saw she was alright
"What happened?" he asked.
"I think I need a nightlight," replied Noa sheepishly. He nodded straight away and hurried off to grab one. When he returned Noa thanked him.
"I'm sorry, I'm not usually this high maintenance," she added.
"Don't worry about it," replied the man with a mischievous smirk, "I'm not usually this nice."
Noa laughed, "I'm Noa by the way, if you hadn't already gotten that."
The man laughed too, "I kind of got that. My name's Deidara if you were wondering."
