I don't own Naruto, just my OC's, and please forgive me, I am doing this as an experiment.
"Wake up." A whispery voice said, the noise caressed my skin like a cool wind. Sending chills up my spine and causing me to stir. "You need to wake up." It hisses softly. I try to open my eyes but they feel chained together, my chest felt like someone was sitting on, heavy and immobile. My stomach hurt, a slight burning that seemed to radiate inward and spread outward the further it got. Little pricks that just arched off seem to spread. Then I felt something smooth and damp caress the pain away. I groan a little and try to lift my head, or at least move it. "WAKE UP!" the voice yells.
As if someone slapped me, my eyes opened wide and I took in a deep breath, then the pain, hot and creeping that crashed into me. It drove away my breath, and steered the acidic bile into my mouth.
"Asuma, hold him down!" I heard a woman's voice yell as I tried to twist to my side and clear my mouth of the bile, but instead someone firmly grasp my shoulders and pushes me down back onto something soft. I choke on the bile, then another hand turns my head to the side and then my mouth's empty and my tears are covering my vision. I take in a sickening sweet breath and hiccup. I try to move my arms to wipe away the tears, but the hands move down a little bit further, but thankfully someone puts something soft under my eyes and the tears are patted away. "It's okay, just breath slowly and take shallow breaths." The woman says.
I nod and take a small slow breath, the pain ebbs slightly, but as I exhale it comes back some more. I took in a few more breaths, then I opened my eyes and blinked, then someone puts my glasses on my face. Leaning over me was a woman with large red eyes, a pale heart shaped face with long black hair, and a… a weird metal band over her forehead? I groan a little and try to lean forward a slight bit, but then the hands on my shoulders push a little bit more. I got the message loud and clear, don't move.
"Hold on a minute." The woman says, then she disappears. I turn my head a little and see that it's a man holding me down, a full beard and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and another weird metal head band. Okay, I'm no slave to fashion, but when the hell did I miss this statement?
"How you feeling kid?" The man asks me, I look a bit further south and see that he's wearing a military style flak vest with a large collar.
"Like I just got stabbed." I respond raspily, then wince slightly.
He smirks a little. "Yeah, figured as much. Gotta say though, I've seen grown men cry a river with a knife wound like this." The woman came back at that point, she put her hand behind my head and lifted it up slightly and then I felt cool glass press up against my lips.
Out of slight experience, I opened my mouth a little and then a little tide of water rush in. After a little bit of waiting and swishing the water around, I bitterly swallowed the water and cleared my throat. My mouth tasted less disgusting. "Thank you."
She smiles and tips the glass again, I gratefully take another gulp and swallow it, then she takes away the glass. She looks at the man and nods her head. He takes off his hands and then nods at her. She turns to me and smiles. "My name is Yuhi Kurenai," she nods to the man. "and this is Sarutobi Asuma. We found you in a clearing with a knife in your stomach."
I nod my head and then try to push up with my hands to get a better look at them, but the man stops me and the woman pulls a few pillows behind me and puts them at the small of my back. I lean back slightly and then my head hits the headboard, I wince and grimace in pain. "The way you said your names, family name first then?" they both nod their heads and give me an odd look. "Well, in that case, my name is Squire Zachariah, Zack or Iah please. And thank you for helping me."
"Zachariah?" Asuma says with a arched eyebrow. I start to open my mouth to protest but he holds up his hand. "Alright then, Iah, sounds a little less weird."
I roll my eyes. "Tell me about, can't tell you how many people give me that line." I look around and see that I'm not in a hospital room, I'm in a… motel room? Hotel? "Um, what exactly am I doing here?"
Kurenai leaned back and gave me an assessing eye. "It's safer in here then it is at a hospital, less chance of the people who attacked you sneaking in." she then fixed me a cold gaze. "Now, would you care to explain to us why exactly someone would stab a child?"
I looked down and saw that I wasn't wearing a shirt, instead I had a bunch of gauze like wrappings around my stomach, and some weird damp and cold feeling creeped up on me. then something else hit, where are my things? I look around for my stuff, then find it in a chair on the other side of the room. "That's my stuff right?" I ask.
Asuma nods then tapes my shoulder. "Answer the question kid, we helped you out, least you could do."
"Actually the least I could do would be insult you, try to take my things in the middle of the night and leave." I pointed out. They both gave me a very ugly look. "Sorry, bad sense of humor. And to tell the truth, I brought some of what happened to me on myself. Well, in a way I did at least, I guess."
Asuma rolls his eyes. "Make some sense would ya?"
I roll my eyes back at him. "Fine, I punched a guy after he insulted me and laid him out. His friends wanted revenge and ended up chasing me till I got to my house while throwing bricks at me, then I scared them off."
"And that justifies a knife in the gut?" Kurenai asks.
I shrug my shoulders. "Apparently the guy I punched thought it would be a good prank to pin me down and act like he was going to castrate me, then he went a little overboard and actually tried to." They look confused and shocked at my nonchalant attitude to my little predicament. "But I ended up struggling and when I was able to get up, well I think you can pretty much piece together the rest." Then I look at my bag and see that I can't find Fos. "Where's my gun?" I demand.
Asuma looks at me weirdly, then goes to a desk across the room and pulls out a drawer, and then pulls out Fos by the end of the barrel. "Is that what's this is called?"
"Yes, and don't hold it like that!" I yell at him and wince I pain. UGH, this is going to be annoying, and god am I hungry.
Asuma places Fos on the foot of the bed slowly and then goes back to the drawer and then pulls out the silver skull trench knife that was previously in my stomach, the skull part was sheathed in the handle. I back away from it a little bit. Asuma turns it in his hand and looks at it. "Huh, cheaply made for sure."
"Good enough to cut through my stomach." I mumble. Kurenai smirks at that one, then picks up Fos by cylinder.
"Yeah, well, its weird, the knife is cheap but it seems to conduct Chakra greatly." He continues on. I furrow my brows at them, then Kurenai almost pulls the trigger on Fos.
"DON'T!" I yell at her, and try to snatch it away from her. She pushes me back and holds Fos up above me. I don't bother pushing against her, I just eye her with wide eyes. "Don't pull that."
"Why not?" Kurenai asks.
"You seriously don't know what a gun is?" I ask them dumbly.
"No." they say, then Kurenai looks at it weirdly. "Huh, this can conduct Chakra too." She looks at Asuma. "Almost like the blade."
"Where'd you get this.. gun at kid?" Asuma asks.
"My uncle bought it. And what the hell is Chakra?" I ask him. They both stop and look at me like I'm stupid. "What?"
"You don't know what chakra is?" Kurenai asks in disbelief.
"NOOOOOO, should I?" They look at each other, then at me, then grimace. Then they spend the next twenty minutes telling me what it is. "So, Chakra is basically just energy that is manipulated by people to be able to create powerful techniques?" They nod. "And you two are ninja's." I state. They again shake their head. I pinch myself, then when I still see them, I slap myself. Still there. "I must have hit my head." I mumble, then try to get up again. Then the lamp next to me separates into two halves. I look at the metal base and see a clean cut through the metal. Then I see Asuma standing next to the nightstand with a glowing weird looking trench knife in on hand. He's smiling and smoking like a freight train.
"Still think you've hit your head?" he ask smugly. I look at him dumbfounded, then I sigh and lean back into the bed.
Kurenai holds up Fos to me and shakes it. "Now, mind telling us what this does?"
I grab Fos by the handle and point it at the opposite wall, then hit the latch and it pops open. I push it all the way till the bullets popped out of the cylinder and landed on the bed in between my legs. I laid down Fos and picked up a empty casing and a live round in each hand. I hold them up to each of them. "Nothing quite as special as your chakra abilities. The gun is just a tool, but it's useless without these, they're called bullets." I turn them around and show the round firing nipples at the bottom. "See these, the hammer on the gun hits the firing pin, the pin hits the nipple on the bottom, then it ignites the powder inside the casing, the ignition builds up pressure and the pressure then pushes the bullet, the lead piece on the other end of this bullet." I motion to it, then put down the spent casing and pick up Fos and hold up the muzzle to the light and hand it to Asuma. "Look up the barrel and see the grooves in it, those grooves turn the bullet which allows it to travel greater distances and higher accuracy." Kurenai looks at Fos weirdly, then picks up a bullet.
"So, how dangerous exactly are these bullets?" she asks.
I shrug and take back Fos and load a few live rounds into the cylinder. "Well, they aren't as precise as Asuma's knives, or by your explanation, as some of those chakra abilities. But with one round, I could make someone's brains come out the back end of their skull at over 300 yards away. Cause lacerations, crush organs, shatter bones, make a simple wound into a terrible one." I load the last few live rounds, all in total, three in the chamber, then I close it. "If one of these had been in my gut, I'd be dying a slow and horribly painful death." Then I lay down Fos and look at the both of them. "And you know what's strange, almost everyone knows what a gun is, or at least knows the basic shape of one." Then my stomach growls loudly, and then I feel a nice sharp pain in my gut.
Asuma smirks at me and then looks at a clock on the far wall. "You know, for someone who doesn't know what Chakra is, you sure have a ready supply over it."
"What do you mean?"
"Your body is repairing itself faster than a normal human," Kurenai answers. "in fact your wound is almost healed up as it is. Strange isn't it."
"We need to get going." Asuma says abruptly, then heads off into the bathroom.
"What?" I ask looking at the both of them. Asuma comes back in and is carrying my coat and jacket.
"Well, you need some food, and we need to meet our clients." Asuma says, then tosses me my clothes. I picked up my shirt and saw that it had a giant vertical hole in the front of it. But surprisingly, there wasn't a lot of blood, hell, no stain at all. I look at them dumbfounded, then find that there isn't any stain on my coat. Do you know how hard it is to get rid of blood on wool?
"How the hell did you get the blood out?" I ask them amazed.
"Kids shouldn't use language like that." Kurenai scolds.
I gave her the 'really'/sorry look. "Sorry, but my brain to mouth filters been busted for a while, give a me a little bit to fix it." She rolls her eyes at me and stands up.
"You learn plenty of little techniques to get blood out in our line of work." Asuma says. "Now get your shirt on and we'll help you out of bed." I sigh and slowly pull on my shirt, wincing slightly in pain as I flex my arms. After a few minutes of pain and slow movement, I finally pulled my shirt down all the way.
I looked at the big hole in it and sighed. "Think I could borrow a spool of thread and a needle later?" I ask.
"Sure." Kurenai says softly, then goes to my left and softly grips ahold of my arms. "Now, swing your legs over the side and we'll help you up. You've healed enough of your wounds to where it's only a few centimeters deep instead of the whole knife length. What's really taking so long is the fact that the curved hook cut along the lining of your stomach. Within a day or so, you should only have a scar."
I give her a surprised look as I slowly swing my legs over the side. Then Asuma gets behind me and pushes and Kurenai pulls, and in no time flat I'm on my feet wobbling from side to side. Kurenai steadies me on my feet, then Asuma hands me my jacket.
"Just button it up to cover the hole, sorry to rush but we need to go." Asuma says. I nod and put on the coat, then slowly I button the coat, missing the hole a few times, but I got it done. Then came my shoes, that was fun, had to waddle like a penguin just to get into them. Then Kurenai hands me my backpack and Fos. "It's safer to switch hotels every night instead of using the same one over and over again, less chance of someone coming in and getting the drop on us." I shrug and put the strap on over my shoulder, then stop and think.
"Can I load Fos up first, if your lives are so dangerous, might as well level my playing field a little bit."
"Fos?" Asuma asks.
"The gun is called a Webley Fosbery, I just call it Fos for short."
"Can you do it while we check out, we need to get to the restaurant by 12:30." I nod and we all exit the room, then go down a long hall and down a flight of stairs, real fun on those, nearly toppled twice. When we got to the front desk to check out, I pulled out a box of ammo that I had already opened before and loaded up Fos quickly in a corner then snapped it back in place and put it inside of my bag, then we went outside and I knew for sure one thing, we weren't in Arkansas anymore. Yeah I butchered the line up, so sue me.
Dirt roads, people dressed in clothes that didn't look like mine, in fact I was getting a few stairs, yep, I was out of place alright. And what else was different, everything was in Japanese, the signs I mean. I couldn't understand a damn lick of it. Okay, how the hell did I end up in Japan? Or at least, some time frame of japan. Seriously, what the hell?
After a lovely walk, more like me waddling at a brisk pace. Again, more weird looks, but hey, I was stabbed with a nine inch blade, give me a break. We finally ended up at some upscale looking restaurant, I guess it's upscale, looks nicer than the other places around. When we got inside a hostess, I think, met us and then escorted us to a private room, then I got to sit down again in front of a black table and Kurenai ordered some Udon for me to eat. Said it'd be the easiest thing for me to stomach since it was mostly just broth. I don't give a damn, give me something to eat.
"You know, it's weird." Asuma says as I sip a glass of water.
"What is?" I ask.
"The knife that stabbed you." He says, then takes a sip of his own glass. "It's not exactly the best quality, some of the metal work is crap. Yet it conducts chakra well enough, and by my guess, that in of itself is odd since you aren't exactly of this world."
I do a spit take and look at him weirdly. "What are you talking about?"
Kurenai holds up my brown leather wallet and opens it up to my drivers license picture. "We mean this."
"Hey." I protest and try to grab it from her, she just pokes my forehead and pushes me back.
"Sorry kid, but we had to take it, information is key afterall." Asuma says boredly. He then grabs my wallet and looks at it. "It says here that you're from a place called Arkansas in the United States of America."
"Yeah, and?" I ask.
He closes the wallet and hands it to me. "We've never heard of this place, cause there is none." He says calmly.
"And you don't know about Chakra, or ninja's." Kurenai adds. "And if I made a guess, you probably don't even know the layout of the lands, or the people in charge or customs around here at all."
I look at them, then at my wallet, then sigh and put it up. "So what, not exactly like I know how I got here, or that I'm even here and not dreaming." Asuma pokes me in the shoulder with a chopstick. "Hey!"
"That hurt, you're not in a dream. Unless your under some majorly powerful genjutsu." He says.
The udon some comes and then I finally see what it is, noodles, mushroom soup/broth, and a few other tad bites I don't know. "Genjutsu, that's the chakra technique involving illusions right?" I ask as I pick up a spoon and take up some broth and blow on it.
"Yes, and some our powerful enough to even make you kill yourself in order for it to stop." Kurenai says as she eats a piece of barbequed meat.
"So after gen, its nin and tai right?" I ask as I sip the soup, umm, that's good. Asuma started to say something, then the door opens and in steps a large group of people. Asuma and Kurenai quickly get up and I slowly and painfully totter up to my feet.
The front of the group is an old man of about 60 surrounded by a group of younger men that all looked intimidating and.. well I guess criminal. Most of them had scars and looked hardened, or purposefully intimidating. Then out of nowhere, there's like a 14 year girl that's all smiles and happy in some flowery patterened outfit clutching the old guys hand. Okay, gangsters and a little girl, now things are just getting weirder. A snarky haunting laugh echoes slightly, I look around and see that Asuma and Kurenai don't notice anything, same goes for the lovely little gangster group.
"Are you the ninja's from the village hidden in the leaves?" the old man asks sternly. Asuma and Kurenai nods, when the old man doesn't see me nod, he looks at me oddly. "And who is this child."
I hold up my hands in defeat. "I'm just a tag along they found injured on the side of the road, I think I'll take my food and go to one of the front tables."
The old man looks at the ninja's. "Is he trustworthy?"
They look at each other then at me, then at the old man. "Yes he is." Asuma nods. Oh crap.
The old man looks at the little girl and smiles. "Toka, why don't you go out front with the boy."
The girl smiles up at him. "OKAY!" she says cheerfully loud. She then runs up to me and smiles. "I'm Toka, come on, it's boring at these meetings." She then turns to the old man and smiles. "Are Baldy and Toothy coming to?"
The group smiles at her and two men step out front, one has no hair and a lot of scars on his face, the other has three missing teeth, two on the top and one on the bottom. I turn to Kurenai and give her desperate eyes. She just motions me forward and I step to her, she leans down to my height.
"Make sure your guns ready, and be careful." She whispers. I give her the evil eye and bend down and pick up my bowl of udon and slowly bend back up, knife wounds suck ass!
"COME ON!" Toka says, then pulls on my arm and makes me splash myself with soup.
"OWW!" I yell as the scolding soup soaks through my shirt and burns my chest.
"Get going you baby." Baldy gripes, then comes forward and gives me a intimdating look.
My eye twitches him and on hand goes down to my bag. "Hey, you wanna see a-"
"Iah." Asuma warns. I turn to him and stick out my tongue.
"Fine." I tell him, then do a slight march to the door. Then Toka comes skipping down the hall and the other guys are following behind her. We get to the front and a hostess comes along and the guys scare her into giving us a table near the corner, we get there and I slowly sit down.
"Hey brat, what the hell happened to you?" Toothy asks.
"Stabbed in the stomach." I mumble, then take up a noodle with the chopsticks and slowly slurp it down.
"With what? A chopstick?" Baldy asks ribbing Toothy, they both laugh. I reach into my bag and pull out the trench knife, Asuma put it in there before we left.
"No, with this." I tell him wryly. They all have shocked faces as I put the knife back and go back to eating my soup.
"Ho…how the hell did a midge like you survive that?" Toothy asks amazed. I shrug and slurp more noodles.
"Are you a ninja?" Toka asks amazed.
"God no." I tell her in response, her face deflates and she stands up abruptly.
"I need to go to the bathroom." She announces. Toothy and Baldy get up and go after her as she goes to the bathroom that's in a hallway a little bit past the kitchen and then takes a sharp right. I shrug and go on eating. God I'm hungry.
After about seven or eight minutes of me eating, I start to wonder where the hell they went to. Okay, I understand that girls take a little bit longer to go to the bathroom, and okay it may be the second step, but come on! Then a strange scent comes along, like blueberries and sugar. I sniff and look around and see nothing, but as I turn my head back I see Toothy and Baldy walking out of the bathroom with Toka in front of them. Only, they looked, different. Fuzzy and unclear. I rub my eyes and blink, but still they look fuzzy and now… see through? What the hell? I slowly get up and look at them, then the smell grows faint, followed by something copperier and…. Is that piss?
Baldy gets to me first and sits down quietly as do Toothy and Toka. Then it hits me, well, more like it's whispered to me. Genjutsu. Illusions. Shit. For good measure, I go around the table and kick Toothy in the leg, and in a cloud of smoke and some silly sounded poof, Toothy is gone. "Ninja's." I moan aloud and walk to the hall where the bathrooms are. I stop as I hit the corner and see Baldy and Toothy laying down on the floor in a growing puddle of blood with weird looking knives sticking out of their backs, a look of shock and anger on their faces. I back away slowly and start to think of going back to the room and getting Kurenai and Asuma, but instead I hear a loud scuffling noise and some muffled cursing.
"SHIT! the little brat bit me!" Someone curses from behind the emergency exit.
I weight out going back for Asuma and Kurenai, and the big group of scary merry men, but then I also balance that thought with the fact that these people are ninja's, Toka could disappear within a few steps and we'd probably never find her. Or I'd never find her. Wait, Kurenai said something about ninja's accepting jobs, so that means that this is a job since they said clients. So could the job be to protect Toka? I heard a muffled screech and a small sigh. "CCCCCCCRRRAAAAPPPPP!" I moan and reach into my bag and pull out Fos. I crept to the door and slowly cocked back Fos, my hand on the cylinder to make sure it cocked back slowly and quietly. I stepped over Baldy and Toothy, apologizing the entire time, and finally hit the emergency exit. I leaned up against the door and slowly pushed against the door till it cracked a little.
It opened onto an alley, and at the end I saw a horse drawn cart with a tarp over it. And then I saw three guys standing around the cart, and one was lifting the tarp up and the other was putting Toka in. Then, they all piled in and off they went. Shit.
Taking a deep sigh, I looked back once down the hall and told myself I was being stupid and irrational, then I went off after the cart. MY STOMACH HURTS!
-Hour later-
I leaned up against a post and puked up the udon I had eaten. It did not taste as well going back up as it did going down. I looked up and wiped away the fluids. I was in some residential area about two miles or so away from the restaurant. I followed the damn cart here and it was almost nightfall, nearly lost the thing five times. My legs felt like rubber and this was the third time I've thrown up. My stomach bleed a little bit on the way there, and I found out that Kurenai stuffed my wrappings with some weird leaves.
I didn't want to even try to begin to understand the leaves, so I just put them back in and wrapped it up tighter than before, and it stopped bleeding a few minutes later. But god is still hurts like hell. The house was surrounded by a eight foot wall all the way around from the looks of things, two stories tall and the walls looked to be a mixture of paper and wood. The house, not the wall, that was all just big logs side by side to each other. I saw the front gate open up and the cart full of three guys, and Toka, still unconscious I think, go inside. Sighing, I silently curse my own stupidity and hero fantasy, I walk off to the side of the fence farthest away from the front gate.
One thing about houses like these I've seen or at least seen types back at home, the fence either doesn't run full circle, or there's some hill that cuts a few post short. Or if I am lucky enough and these people are stupid enough, a tree old enough to climb, no such luck. But luckily, it would seem that they ran out of logs, or ran short, and they started cutting them in half, and some of them are rotted through.
Sighing, I pull off my bag and put Fos in it, then sit down in front of the most rotted looking log, and then I slowly start kicking it, stopping every now and then to listen and see if anyone was coming. I heard nothing but a hollow thwacking noise every few minutes, some crickets and running water. Damn, how late is it? In five more kicks, the bottom portion of the log and some of the surrounding log gave way for a hole big enough for me to walk through. I pushed my bag through the whole to clear away the sharper pieces of wood and then slowly wiggled my way through it, gasping in pain whenever my stomach flexed to much. How the hell am I even doing this? Or better yet, WHY?!
I finally got through the damn fence and ended up looking into a large zen like garden with a big pond in front of me surrounded by bushes and other greenery. The hollow thwacking noise was a bamboo cup on a axle that had water pour into it and then it overflowed and then fell forward and hit the stone below it. Past the pond was part of the house with a large porch and an open screened room with a large table in the middle of the room. Looked like the meeting room in the first Kill Bill movie with the crazy 88's. the lights where on and glowed pale yellow everywhere, but so far I couldn't see anyone come along. I slowly got up and pulled out Fos from my bag and then put the bag over my shoulder and started to slowly creep around the edge of the pond, I was about three feet away from the porch when I heard footsteps. So I did the only stupidly painful option available, I dove for the area under the porch.
I hit the ground in a side roll and rolled under the porch right as a door was slide open. Fos dug into my chest as I rolled over it, and I had to clamp a hand over my mouth to make sure that no curses got out. I barely breathed and just barely gritted my teeth together in fear of creating noise. People walked out and some came above me to stand on the porch. I felt like screaming out obscenities and in pain as I sat on my back and looked up through narrow slits in the porch. My stomach was on fire and I'm pretty sure I opened it up again. I heard more scuffling and then I heard some muffled high pitch grunts and then someone smack someone.
"Where you noticed?" Someone asks.
Someone snorts. "Of course not. Though the little bitch here and her body guards put up a little more fight than expected." So it's those guys! Some muffles something and then another smack. Well, I know where Toka is.
"Good, it seems that hiring you clanless ninja's was a good idea after all." GGGGRREEEAAATTT, more ninja's.
"When do we get our pay?"
"As soon as you deliver the message to that old fool, he pays up to make sure that little princess here isn't harmed and hands over his area."
"What if he doesn't go along with the plan?"
Someone chuckles wryly. "Oh, he will if he doesn't want to see his precious granddaughter's finger in a lovely little box laying on his pillow." Toka screams again into her gag, another smack. Shit, come on Zack, think damn it. God, I need a distraction. Something big enough to get them away and put Toka in a room and then find her and go out through the fence.
Wait, what the hell am I thinking?! I should just get the fuck out of here and go back and find Asuma and Kurenai and then let them do their Ninja thing!
"We should probably cut off a finger to send with the message to show that we mean business." Someone suggest. Toka screams once again, another smack. GODDAMNIT ALL! I turned over onto my stomach and suppressed a grunt and slowly got onto my hands and knees and began to crawl away from the people on top of the porch in the opposite way.
Okay, think, think. What do you have on you? Fos, don't want to waste the bullets. Knife? No, I may need it in a fight. Ironic if I stick someone in the gut with it. Bullets? Don't have a lighter and it hurts like hell to pull lead bullets out of a casing. Damn it, god damn it. What the hell is left? My Ipod?... Mother fucker. I reached a corner at the end of the porch and slowly came out from underneath the porch and looked around and back to see if there was anyone. Nothing but darkness. Okay, I have my ipod and my speaker, now all that is required is… bingo! A nice big shrub. I took another quick glance around and… wait! I slid my shoes off and then ran to the bush near the fence. I slowly got down on my hands and knees and dug out my ipod and speaker and connected them together and pushed them into the bush. I picked up my Ipod and mentally went through a list of songs that started off slow and got louder.
Think, think, think. Ah HAH! The Howling by Within Temptation, it starts off slow and then goes fast. Alright, enough time for me to get the hell back to the porch. I turned up the volume all the way and then found the song and hit play. Within seconds I was on my feet and on the way back to the porch, sticking to the shadows as I went. The music started off melodic, almost barely unnoticeable, but right as I hit the porch the guitar rift started and so did the shouting.
"YOU IDIOTS!" the first guy yelled at the others who had taken Toka. "YOU WERE FOLLOWED!"
Then I heard a scuffle and some low whispering. "Look you old shit, we'll take care of this and our payment. FAN OUT!" then I heard more scuffling and soon people where running across the grass and porch as I started crawling under the porch towards where I began. I had grabbed my shoes on the way and was now where I started out putting them on.
I listened intently, though partially I was singing the lyrics to the song as well. I heard nothing but faint scuffling and grunting, so I took a chance and put on my shoes and slowly looked around and got out from under the porch. The few people I did see where off in a distance and getting further away, looking for the music source. I hope my ipod survives this ordeal. I looked over the lip of the porch and saw no one in the room and quickly scurried into the house. I brought up Fos as I got closer to the door and looked back at the opening and listened to see if anyone was coming, no one on either end. I quickly slid open the door a little bit and stuck my head out of the crack and saw no one, then I bolted across the hall and quietly slid the door back in place and looked up and down the hall.
"Where the hell are you?" I ask to no one silently, then comes a lot of scuffling and yelling from my left a ways. I smirk. "Found you." I whisper and begin to walk on the balls of my feet quietly, kinda hard to do with shoes on, damn, should have left them outside. The hall took sudden right turns multiple times and then branched off slightly, I decided to stick to the main pathway and stop at each corner just in case. I came to some close calls when a few people came by, but they soon went by and I let out a big breath. But finally almost near the end of the song I reached the one final turn and heard some more scuffling. My body felt cool yet hot and I was getting jittery standing at the end of the hall. I felt better than ever, which is weird since I was puking my guts out a little over ten minutes ago.
"Put her in my room." One guys says firmly. "Then go and help those damn fools find whatever is making that awful racket!" HEY! Within Temptation is good!
"I better go off and help." Another guys says.
"Fine, just go and turn off that noise, it's giving me a splitting headache." Oh, you will be asshole I thought silently as I reached into my bag and clutched ahold of the knife. The minute my fingers brushed the cool metal a whole flood of memories and emotions came to me, then came this flowering sensation of cool power, a hum like electricity running through a wire. Then the song ended and footsteps came closer and closer to me, I silently pulled out the knife with my left hand and with my right I brought up Fos to a fine point.
I counted the steps as another song started up, What have you done by Within Temptation as well. Right as the first lyric was sung, I pivoted sharply on my right foot and brought up my left hand in a bee line punch upward. A slight jarring feeling went up my arm as I felt the guard of the knife connect with the guys noise, I put more weight behind it and imagined it going through his head, and I started going forward slightly as he went back. I stopped and stumbled to the left slightly to where I was in better view of the hallway and the four guys, minus the one of the floor, as they stood at the end of the hall looking back at me shocked. Toka was with two other guys with spear like things. She looked at me and muffled.
I pointed Fos down at face of the guy I had knocked over onto his back and smiled at the others. "Hey, wanna see a magic trick? I can make his head disappear!" Then I pulled the trigger once and the bullet entered in under his nose and the back of his head went wide open in a spray of blood, I felt some hit me and my ears echoed with the noise. I stepped past the dead guy and smiled wider. "Now, who's next?"
One of the three guys suddenly gets an angry face and starts to charge at me. "FUCKING BRAT!" he bellows. I tense up my legs and crouch slightly as he gets closer. Then right as he's a few steps away from me, I spring upward in a giant ass jump I didn't know I could do. I find myself twisting my body around and doing a backflip onto the guys back with my left hand inverted and the blade pressed against his neck. As he goes down with a ooph I slit his throat in a spray of blood and use him as a spring board to do another backflip and bring up Fos. As the world inverts itself, I brought up Fos and pointed it at the other guy and fired off two quick shots and they hit him in the chest.
It all seemed to go slow motion for me, I could barely believe I was doing this. It was like the beat of some unknown song was driving me. I landed on my feet and then went into a wide circle on one foot and pivoted then jumped with my left foot up. I went flying a few feet and my foot found it's place in the guys stomach. A slight jolt went through my leg as he went flying back and I had to hop on one foot for a second to balance myself. I smell something along the lines of piss and dirt in the air.
The guy went flying into a wall and then slid to the floor with his head down in a slump. I smile and turn to face Toka, and my eyes fly open as I see her figure be fuzzy and unclear, and underneath it was a grungy looking guy who was actually taller then her. "SHIT!" I curse and jump to the left as she swings her arm. I see a weird looking knife like the one that was in Baldy and Toothy in her hand.
"You've got some good moves kid." Not Toka says in a manly voice, and with a pop the Toka appearance disappears and a grungy thirty something man in her place with a large grin. "What village you from?"
"Neither." I tell him and bring up Fos and point it at him. "I'm just a good Samaritan. Now, where the hell is she?"
"Right here kid." Another gruff voice says. I turn my head and see two more guys in similar dirty outfits as the other guy. Then I see Toka in the taller ones hands with a weird knife in his hand next to her throat. "Now drop them or the girl gets a makeover."
I look back at either side of me and grit my teeth. This is the shittiest two sided Mexican standoff I've ever seen. If I drop Fos then all I have is the knife. If I drop the knife and shoot Guy 1, guy 2 is more likely to kill Toka and then guy 3 is probably going to gut me. Shit, shit, shit da le shit shit. WAIT! The skull. Okay, that and to many cheesy action movies and replays of The Transporter. I sigh dramatically and slowly grip and ungrip the knife and Fos. "Fine." I say and hold up my arms parallel to the ground. At the same time, I let go of Fos and the knife, but I quickly pinch the skull on the handle of the knife and clench my hands together and make the skull blade run parallel with my wrist. hopefully they didn't get a good look at the blade to realize-
"HEY!" one guys exclaims. Shit. "Where the hell-" I snap my left wrist and let the blade soar towards Guy 2 and he suddenly screams aloud and lets go of Toka. I dive down to the floor and try to scoop up Fos, but Guy 1 is on me and punches me in the face. I hear some more scuffling as my glasses fly off my face, but then Guy 1 lets go of me and goes flying backwards. I hear more scuffles and grunts, and the next thing I know I'm being pulled up to my feet and my glasses are being slid onto my face. And to my happiest surprise, it's Kurenai standing in front of me.
"You did well." She says with a grin. I turn and look at Guy 2 and 3 and see Asuma standing at the end of the hall with his foot on 2's gut.
"Sorry we're late kid, took like 20 minutes for us to actually figure out what the hell is going on." He looks down at the other guys on the floor and whistles. "But it looks like you had it under control."
I just sigh and then lean back against the wall. "Thanks."
