Disclaimer: I do not own the Naruto series of any of the characters associated with the Naruto series.
The wind seemed to blow harder than usual on this particular afternoon. The sun almost seemed too bright as San trudged through the long grass surrounding the abandoned mills. Her braid whipped her back, reminding her of how long it had become and faintly she wondered if she would want to cut it.
The echo of her boots on the stone steps went unheard as the whispers of the trees in the wind seemed more like moans. She entered the mills shelter, finding the lack of movement around her almost unsettling. Despite the racket outside, it was completely silent within.
San took a moment to switch which hand held the bento before making a right and starting her accent of the stairs. Something in the house felt... off... missing even.
She scanned the hallways, finding only darkness before turning to see the single frame upon the wall. Her brows knotted, finding her father's penetrating grey eyes unmasked. She halted, taking note of the lack of dust. In fact, a swipe through the glass had been cleared, leaving the full frame of her father exposed.
San turned to look up the stairs, taking a shaky breath before quickening her pace up the stairs, passing another frame. This one had a thicker layer of dust and only the center of the frame was cleared. Still, two pairs of green eyes were unveiled to follow San up the stairs. The emerald orbs were nearly identical, except for the soul behind them.
San's footfalls were barely a whisper through the house until she reached the single door where light peaked out from underneath. Her palm pressed itself against the ice cold knob. She closed her eyes a second long prayer before she opened her eyes to an empty room.
Her heartbeat rang in her ears and she squinted at the lights reflection of everything. Rays of light intruded the room, bouncing off every surface that it could. Silence occupied every corner of the overly lit room but she felt her own breathing suffocating.
Empty...
Not even the clothes lay upon the table as they usually did, nor the boxed lunch from the previous day. The chokuto included. But, her heart wasn't sinking because of the vanished items.
The sound of her footsteps ran the silence out, as she plopped the wrapped lunch on the table with a sigh. The room somehow seemed much larger than it really was. How long did she really expect him to stay?
She never really thought about it. She gave him no reason to remain bedridden and her "prisoner." Maybe because, in her mind, she assumed that because he left her once, he wouldn't repeat his actions. However, as she stood in the bright room with a hollow heart, unlike last time she did not feel an ounce of rage. Instead, she just felt as empty as the room she stood in.
Her arms itched to hold something, so they wrapped around herself; but that did little. Not even the wind could comfort her at this point.
X-X-X-X
Screams. Screams of panic, fear, and confusion filled her ears as she desperately sprinted across the burning rooftops of the village.
"Evacuate."
That was her command from the Soyokage's own lips. She hurried to help those that were still struggling behind the mob of citizens heading for the deep forest bunkers, another remnant from the Great War. They had withstood the war and the years, she now prayed that they still stood strong against the present attack.
"Protect."
She drew her tanto, taking a breath before her blade clashed with an intruding ninja. His mask prevented identification, but the symbol he wore on his headband was all she needed to make a decision. San shouted at the women behind her to keep moving before pushing her opponent out of her space with ease and pulling back her leg to nail the guy in his spinal cord. He dropped and she continued onwards without another thought.
'Stay safe...' It seemed like the breath left him all too quickly as he stared down death.
It seemed that with ever one Otonin that San took down, three replaced the one. Where were the others? All available Soyogakure shinobi were commanded to be at arms and ready, but she had seen no head nor tail of any of them.
San insured that her group of civilians made it to the bunker's entrance safely before leaving the sealing to the men in the group.
"You going to be alright alone out there?" One asked. She recognized him as the supermarket owner along the main street in town. She gave a nod, watching as they lowered the boulder on the base of a tree, shadows casting over their wide eyes. "Stay safe..."
She was left standing alone before the sealed entrance, leaving her open in the darkening forest. Her heart beat faster against her rib cage before she found her legs sprinting back to the village to assist with the defense. Why hadn't they been better prepared? Trees passed her in a flash as the darkened skies, heavy with smoke filled began to emerge.
"No..." The fuel for those fires were people's homes. The thought alone brought her feet moving faster, pushing harder on each branch that her feet grazed. The village was burning, falling and she couldn't even hear the wind anymore. Where had the wind gone?
She could have been at the village gates in ten minutes at her pace, but she heard the tearing of leaves. Her eyes widened as she abruptly changed directions, kicking off a branch to fall several feet down. Where she would have landed, the trunk behind it was now embedded with half a dozen needles.
San skid across a branch and threw a quick glance behind her before leaping off another branch at another angle. Someone was tailing her and a voice screamed inside her mind about her worsening luck. She quickened her leaps and swung around branch with needles imbedding in the bark behind her.
Her thoughts raced through scenarios, finding the majority of them nearly impossible. Kabuto would be one of the worst opponents for her. She had his medical expertness against her, meaning if she aims to damage him, it would have to be in one, powerful shot.
Her ears picked up a change in the air and abruptly threw herself to the ground, hearing a knife embed itself in a branch before exploding. She managed to catch her footing on the ground. There went her first choice scenario of getting to the clearing to battle.
"It's been a while, Sanzen." His voice rang clearly through the trees as she tried to press her back harder against the trunk, as if willing the tree to take her in. "How long has it been?" She tried to catch the slightest scent in the breeze while her focus remained in his voice.
"Too long..." It came from beside her and her eyes shot open, coming face to face with the medic nin. Her tanto was already drawn, but blocked by his scalpel. She quickly pushed away, zigzagging through a series of other trees. "Not long enough..." She though back a two years prior, when the pain was still fresh.
A field of chakra exploded between them and San took the opportunity to roll away and gain distance. She gripped her arm with grit teeth. A very human pulse rang through her ears, originating from the appendage that she was clutching. 'Not like last time...'
"Are you worried of losing control again?" Kabuto's voice echoed around her. San took a breath, releasing her arm and forming a seal. "I know how fragile the seal must be after all those breaks..."
She reminded herself that it wasn't like last time. She was stronger in both will and fighting capability than two years ago. "You won't be able to force the seal again," she said aloud with chakra gathering around her in tendrils of blue.
A smirk formed on Kabuto's lips as San's energy level increased. "It'll be easy with the rate of chakra burning you're doing now."
A storm raged around their arena, but her mind remained calm and clear. Her arms raised and expanded, allowing the arms of energy to pull in the raging winds around them. Grey eyes opened with a steady breath as she brought her arms closer to her center, bringing the storm's energy with it.
The branches groaned in movement, including the one Kabuto perched himself upon. His silver hair whipped around him as his knife dug deeper into the bark to keep his footing. At the speed of the racing winds around him, he attempted to calculate her movements.
Captured leaves obscured his sight of her until he realized that the wind was slowly dying and San no longer stood before him. With narrowed eyes he took in his chaotic surroundings, but her chakra was everywhere and the movement of the trees and leaves prevented any relevant movement from being detected.
San concentrated on holding the storm's energy between her shaking palms; grey eyes still narrowed down at her target. The winds around them were nothing close to the power that she restrained between her fingers.
After a second of waiting and gathering the calculations, she stood and leapt, head first.
Kabuto's sharp eyes immediately caught her form from above, but before he could make a move San lowered her arms and unleashed the storm in a single, concentrated blast. It threw Kabuto to the ground and San back up to the heavens. Gale after gale spiraled from her palm as she removed a hand to steady her other wrist.
Two storms collided, sending everything out of the forest in an explosion, before allowing a silent calm to settle. San dropped into the forest's foliage, the moss doing absolutely nothing to cushion her impact. One shot. Her only shot.
She drew in heavy breaths, attempting to hoist herself up, off the unforgiving ground before a crack omitted from her shoulder. She bit her tongue to silence the groan. She tried again, this time, managing to get herself back up on her feet. However, the world seemed to shake around her.
Her eyes widened. No, it wasn't the world; just the ground. Before she could make a leap for it, hands shot out from bellow, grasping onto her ankles. She fell, but caught herself with her arms; only to have another two pair of hands emerge from the ground and grasp onto her wrists and shoulders.
San squirmed and kicked, but the hands held her like a vice. Bodies began to arise from the foliage bellow, bringing her into a kneeling position. She attempted to bite the hands that grabbed her, but they kept their distance. She continued to try and free herself, but a tremor raced through her body, halting her actions. Her bones shook and every nerve cell in her body began to blend and boil. The heart within her increased in rate, as her green eyes began to widen.
"No..." She whispered as coils of black tentacles began to snake its way out from under her skin to consume her shaking frame. "No!" San yelled, but she already felt the fire within her begin to consume the barrier that contained it.
From above, the black cloud of smog continued to grow, fueled by the villager's homes. San's home...
Well, the last chapter before the final conclusion of this story. Thank you so much to 123Blue's Clues, anon, and HomeSkillitBiscuit.93! Your reviews and feedback keep me motivated and have convinced me that I do not want to stop such a great thing that will soon be with Sanzen and Sasuke. Instead, I want to further it with a sequel!
So, please review this so that I know you care and next (the very last) chapter I might put a preview of "What Will Come."
Thank you, thank you, and thank you!
-Sin
