A child in pain.
A cry in vain.
Again this song.
As spice on our tongue.
The evening was well passed. The empty streets of the newly destroyed city had been evicted of the corpses that had been laying all around since late in the night before. Now even those who had wreaked havoc down on this poor city were long gone. Blood still covered the grounds, walls, and even ceilings of the buildings. It had really been a massacre. One that had been done without reason.
It was at that exact time, as the sun set on the ravaged city where even the wind didn't suffice to wash away the stench, that he set foot in the town that once was the metropolis of the country. But he was none to be taken aback by the atrocities of war. He himself had taken part in some of them, killing only to survive when the saying "kill or be killed" was taking all its significance.
He had even been able to survive in a pile of rotting corpses during three days, drinking the rain that was pouring down daily over that country. Yes, he had seen atrocities that had driven lots of men into oblivion and madness. But he was not the kind to be disturbed by anything.
His dark eyes looked at the blood-splattered, partly destroyed houses that marked the limits of the city. His fine nose immediately stung as the stench of death was carried to him by the wind. He lifted his arm and covered his nostrils with it.
"What a stench. This must have been a real carnage," his smooth voice said lowly, to no one in particular.
Another gust of wind, a bit stronger, made his trench coat flap violently behind him, cutting short his observation of the devastated city before him. He adjusted his backpack, heavy of dried food and a couple of bandages, on his shoulder and started to walk again. The metal clasps of his black boots kept his feet securely away from the dirt and blood as he walked in drying puddles of bloody mud.
He was utterly alone. He had thought that some stray animal would have escaped before the arrival of the attackers and returned after, but an hour of walking through the empty streets later, he understood that the only animals he could be in hope of encountering were vultures from the lands around the town.
He had now grown used to the stench and as he pressed forward, the light began to fade into night. He soon decided, as the darkness was already starting to gobble up everything, that he needed a place to rest. He entered the first building that seemed somewhat less damaged.
As he passed the door, his boots echoed in a vast room. His eyes wandered a little, taking in his surroundings and examining the area for any potential danger. After all, he was to stay in town for at least two days. Better make his camp in a safe place. He walked on the polished tiles to a corner, near a window, and set down his weighty load.
He stretched out, sighing in contentment, before massaging his sore shoulders a little. His need of food wasn't great at the moment, as even for an ex-soldier such as himself, the sight of blood cut his appetite for the first few days, after which it was no problem at all. Living in the capital of the neighbouring country for a few months, he had nearly forgotten how drying blood looked and smelt like. But he knew he wasn't fitted to stay in the same city for long.
He had always travelled around as far as his memory went. The only time when limits had been restricting him was during the great war in which he had been forced to take part as a soldier. He had been injured to a leg, rendering him unable to walk. The soldiers of his unit had perished along with the enemy's. He had been the one, alone, to kill the last of them as even his injured leg maintained him down to the ground. He had waited three days among the corpses. The rain clouds hovering above gratifying his hard work and determination to live by pouring water down on him every now and then so that he wouldn't suffer from dehydration. When his allies found him, they took him to the capital, where he had to stay for a few months to recover fully.
Now that he was finally free again, he had received a mission from old friends. He was to infiltrate a secret base where they took people to brainwash them, by atrocious torture, into killing machines. The idea wasn't exactly appealing, but at least he was freer than when he had been in the army or in the hospital. The only thing he had to do for now was to wait for his friends, find one of the agents that worked in service of that base, immobilize him or her and help his friends take this agent to interrogate him or her and/or get help to stop that base from operating. It was all simple.
He took off his coat and sat down. He had walked quite a lot lately and it was starting to get its toll on him. He would have to get back in shape soon, or else he would tire out and get eaten by the carnivorous animals that lived in the wastelands that he loved to pass through. And that, he would.
He leaned against the nearest wall and covered himself up with his coat. The sun had set and darkness had taken over the city. As his eyes fluttered close, a feeling of total peace invaded his mind, enabling him to drift into a serene sleep.
As the first rays of light pierced through the windows, his eyes opened and a great thirst assaulted him. He rose to his feet with a groan, forgetting for a moment his coat, which fell in a heap to the ground at his feet. He stretched a bit and passed a hand through his silky black hair.
"Damn… better find water or else I won't survive the day," he muttered to himself, his voice low and hoarse.
Letting his things where they were, he walked out of the building and looked around, evaluating the part of town in which he was. The building he had made camp in was five stories high, surrounded by ten stories high towers. Which meant he was in the main part of town. Following his instincts, he entered the tower in front of him. He knew, for having read a little about this city, that they had running water. All he needed to do now was find where he could get that water.
He never liked public places, so when he entered the tower, he was surprised to see all the complexity of its making. But the thirst won over the awe for now and he quickly found the washrooms. He opened the faucet and sighed contently as clear water flowed out. He put his hands together under the water and then lifted them to drink. He repeated the process a couple of times until his thirst was gone and then he turned off the water and exited the tower.
He spent his first two days in the city resting and drinking water. He awoke the third day with the sun to a growling stomach. A small smile curved a bit the corner of his lips. He opened calmly his backpack and took out a peace of dried meat. Sure it was taut, but at least it lasted longer than regular food. He bit hungrily in the firm meat and ate till his stomach said enough, which didn't take that long since after his first piece of meat, his insides began churning. He laid down a moment, then got up once he was sure he wouldn't throw out. He went in one of the tower's washroom and drank.
The rest of the day he spent it a bit like the other two, resting and drinking, sometimes eating a bit. As the sun set and he was getting ready to sleep, he heard footsteps approaching. He quickly and silently got up and put on his coat. He then proceeded to look carefully out the window. In the dimming light, he saw a small group walking in the streets. Three men with trench coats, roughly the same height as himself. Then something caught his attention. A dog accompanied the party. And he knew but one person who would take a dog to a place such as this.
He swiftly walked to the open door, silent as a shadow. When the party walked passed the door, he burst out with a great roar, scaring the three men and the dog. Then he began laughing whole-heartedly, satisfied that his surprise had worked. One of the men, who had brown, spiky hair and red tattoos on his cheeks, smacked him on the arm.
"Damn it, Sasuke! Why the fuck did you do that?" exclaimed the man, petting the dog.
He smiled at his friends and sighed, happy that he wasn't alone in this town anymore. "To see you all freak out, of course. You know I love hearing you screech out like a girl, Kiba," he replied.
"Stop teasing, Sasu. Not like we've been here for three days. We had one hell of a hard time finding where you had decided to stay, you know."
One of the two other men, with long, black hair, walked up to them and put an arm around both their shoulders. "Could we talk around inside, I don't like how the moon glows down on us from above the towers' top," he said, pushing them inside.
The dog and the other guy followed silently. Once inside, they all sat down in the corner where Sasuke's backpack laid. They all were good old friends. Only thing was that they hadn't seen each other for five years. As Sasuke's eyes scanned his friends, he thought back to what he remembered of them.
First off there was Kiba Inuzuka, his childhood friend. Brown, spiky hair, red tattoos on both of his cheeks, black eyes and lots of muscles. All brawns and nearly no brains. He was a lady's guy, the type to hit on many girls at once in the evening, spend the night with them, and run off in the morning without a word. He took his dog, Akamaru, everywhere he went.
And then there was Neji Hyuga. Sasuke had encountered him by accident while he had tried to sneak in a secret military base for a bet he had lost with Kiba. Long, black hair, pale skin, pale lavender-coloured eyes. The guy was really too superstitious and serious for his own good. His only relative known to the group is his cousin, a girl named Hinata, which had been kidnapped many years ago. He had sworn to find her and take her back home, and so he left the military and joined Kiba, Akamaru and him into their adventures.
Then their was the last member of their group. Gaara. Nobody knew his full name or even what he had done in the past. All they knew was that the guy had a sister and a brother that had suddenly disappeared some years ago. Also, he could not return to his home town or else he would get captured, tortured, and killed slowly. Red hair, green eyes, no eyebrows, a tattoo that say "love" on his forehead and thick, black eyeliner. And they had never seen him sleep. Ever.
They were all single and most probably heterosexual. Probably. Gaara didn't talk much, Sasuke didn't know, Kiba always ditched his supposed girlfriends after a day or two and Neji… let's just say he wasn't into relationships that much.
"Uchiha," started Gaara, breaking the silence that had followed their entering of the building. The man never called either of them by their first name. None of them knew or even asked why. Something about the red-head just said that they shouldn't ask him too much about his past or his habits. "What have you found out about this city while you rested?"
Even though Gaara wasn't much of the talkative type, it didn't faze Sasuke that he had started to talk first. Quite often, the man said aloud a lot of unnecessary questions into one a lot more accurate. "This wasn't any attack. It was all planned. The objective was clearly to annihilate all life from these parts. I wouldn't be surprised if in a month we came back and the city was as we left it. I didn't visit much, but I seriously think it is safe to assure that none survived or was left behind. Everything was calculated to perfection," declared Sasuke.
A moment of silence ensued. They had been expecting something like this to happen eventually, and it seemed like the time had arrived. "How long since it happened, you think?" asked Neji, a bit of sorrow piercing through his voice.
"They finished taking the bodies during the night before I arrived. But some blood had already started to rot. I'd say the massacre started exactly five days ago," replied the Uchiha.
"You think we have chances of encountering them here, or they were the ones to do this?" asked quietly the dog-lover, petting slightly Akamaru, more to comfort himself than anything else.
"I don't think they have made a move of the sort yet," replied Gaara. All eyes turned to him, asking him to continue on, to explain the reason of his opinion. "We know that they kidnap good fighters before torturing them and brainwashing them." His green eyes flicked to Sasuke, who looked away at the statement. "They use their brainwashed 'puppets' to capture and kill other people. The first ones killed being their friends and families. They must also be used for the torture of other captured people.
"As of now, there were no reports of them ever attacking a whole city like this. And even if the idea came to them, getting the corpses away from the killing theatre isn't exactly their style. This seems more like military business than anything else, if you ask me. What do you think, Hyuga?"
Neji looked at Gaara, then at Sasuke, then back to the red-head. "It is possible alright. But I don't know an army who would go to this length of security measures. Except for keeping something secret, and even then they would only do that under specific reasons."
"Keeping something secret like a treasure?" offered Kiba, trying to be of some help in this talk.
"Or a secret place," said thoughtfully Sasuke, looking out the window to the starry sky.
"Right!" exclaimed Kiba. "Which means that they could be involved with what we're searching for!"
"Or responsible of it," said Gaara, looking intently at Sasuke.
Kiba's eyes went wide. "You mean…?"
"My thought exactly too," said Neji.
"Let's elaborate on this tomorrow. I think we all need a good night's rest," cut Gaara, looking away form Sasuke.
"Good idea!" said cheerfully Kiba.
"Excuse me, I need some air…" said quietly Sasuke while getting up. He walked out of the building silently and the others watched him go.
"Must be harsh for him," said quietly Kiba once their friend was out of earshot.
"Yeah. Poor guy's family was wiped out because of our target's activities. It's even a miracle that he's still alive," agreed Neji.
"We shouldn't be talking about his past and you know it. For now we must concentrate on the target and the target alone. Let me remind you that we're all on the same boat and even if his case is worse, ours could become the same at any given time. We must get rid of this organization in the shortest delay possible," reminded Gaara, trying to get their mind off of it.
"Yeah, you're right. It makes him so sad to think about it, the fastest we're done with this, the fastest he'll be better," said Kiba, laying down to sleep. "Night."
"Night," answered Neji, getting ready to sleep too.
"Hn," simply said Gaara, sitting back and looking at the open door for any sign of their friend coming back.
A long while passed by, and still Sasuke walked through the empty streets. His thoughts were clouded by the memories of the past he tried hard to forget. He didn't want any of these stupid memories to affect his work or his relationship with his friends. Memories belonged to the past and he wanted them to stay there.
As he turned heels and started to walk back to his friends, a moving shadow caught his attention. No living soul should have survived the attack, and yet this moving shadow told him otherwise. He followed the shadow as it swiftly moved in an alleyway. After a few minutes, Sasuke saw that the alley cut ahead in a dead end. The shadow stopped and turned around, backing against the wall.
It was a small form covered by a black sheet. Coming to a halt, Sasuke stayed a good ten feet away from what was in front of him. Something then brought his attention to the ground. Small footprints of blood lead to the form before him, footprints of a child. He looked back up and saw that the black sheet was trembling. Also, he could faintly hear small whimpers. He took a step forward and extended a hand.
"Calm down, kid. I won't hurt you," he said kindly, trying to sound reassuring.
It all happened in a fraction of a second. The kid in front of him shrieked suddenly. Immediately after, something flew above Sasuke's head and struck the child, decapitating him. Sasuke's eyes grew wide and he turned around quickly. There, on a house's roof, a tall shadow was looking down at him and the dead body of the kid. The moon, round and full, shined brightly behind the dark figure. Sasuke squinted his eyes as the shadow made a hand sign to him.
He couldn't see the sign quite well and jumped in surprise as the dark figure jumped off the rooftop and ran in his direction. He was trapped. Behind him was the dead end and in front of him was coming this hostile stranger, rushing in his direction. Also, he had left his coat and his weapons with his friends. If this stranger's intention was to attack him, he was finished.
Sasuke rolled to one side and the stranger passed by as if he wasn't there. The Uchiha turned around and gasped in surprise and disgust as he saw the stranger take off the piece of sheet still covering the kid's head. The man, as he could now see, was tall, imposing and wore a strange thing on his head. Sasuke gulped to keep from vomiting as the man tore off the kid's eyes and tongue and ran away with the bloody head.
He fell to his knees and turned away from the gory mess. Sure he had seen worst than than before, but after months of staying in a white room, his stomach hadn't had enough time to get used to it again. So as his insides were churning almost painfully, he did the first thing that came to his mind.
He threw up.
Footsteps echoed at the other end of the alley. He lifted a bit his head and through his blurred vision he saw four figures coming his way. He blinked slowly and somehow he felt arms come around him. He saw a blur of red and green, too. And he heard voices. Although he tried to concentrate to get back his spirits, he passed out.
Gaara held Sasuke to prevent him from falling to the ground as he passed out. Kiba, Akamaru and Neji looked at him, worried.
"I should have known that asking him to come here so early after he left the hospital was a bad idea. His stomach is still weak," said the red-head, taking his friend in his arms.
Kiba went to observe the corpse in the back of the alley with Akamaru. "Well this is recent. The blood hasn't even started to coagulate. It was a young kid and it wasn't the military who did that. Poor kid got his head cut off from a long distance shot. By this," he said, taking something from the wall. It was a strange-crafted blade, very thin but resistant.
"I confirm," started Neji, looking at the one foot long weapon. "It's too well-crafted to belong to any army. I'd say it was made by a master artist."
"We'll talk about this later. For now we must take Uchiha away before whoever killed this child comes back for him," said Gaara.
The other two nodded and they swiftly left the ravaged city. But as they ran, they started hearing something. Someone was playing a doleful melody with a flute. They couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from, for the beautiful notes echoed on the walls of the city. Somehow a sour taste came to their mouth as they listened to the song, still running.
"I heard this song before. After my sister was killed by them," said Kiba with a grimace at the memory.
"I heard it too before," agreed Neji.
Gaara nodded and they left the city as fast as they could, running away from the theatre of a terrible massacre and an even more terrible enemy.