A little longer (in content length) than anticipated, Chapter 3 is here! Pleae read the information below:

A quick, dire warning for you now, two actually:

1. If you do not like to have your skin peeled off in anticipatory suspense, the whole chapter crawls with it.

2. There is an EXTREMELY graphic torture scene, so if you cannot stomach expressed gore, outta luck.

This is an extremely dark chapter, so remeber: you've been warned...

Enjoy!

Don't own Naruto or Predator.

A wet drop hit Hinata's face, slowly stirring her from her sleep. "Hana, you lesbian, if you're mas-", Hinata started muttering, but stopped as more drops hit Hinata's exposed skin. Naruto stirred, grunted softly, and said, "Oh. Rain." Hinata snuggled closer to Naruto as the rain picked up, for it was not a warm, Konoha rain: it was a cold, malicious rain, the kind that surrounded a funeral. "Let's get inside," Naruto said, also feeling the unusual difference in temperature in the rainfall.

The loud crack and bright flash of lightning lit up the low light level surroundings for almost an instant, and the low rumble of thunder followed.

Naruto and Hinata rounded the corner, only to find that the lights in Ichiraku's were off. The lights were never off, even in a rainstorm. Naruto said to Hinata silently, "It's quiet. Too quiet." Another flash of lightning, closer, caused Hinata and Naruto to jump into each other's arms. Naruto suddenly felt the surrounding air drop thirty degrees, and he shivered violently. "Do you feel that?" he asked Hinata, now beginning to fear whatever was with this storm. "Yes," she responded shakily, for she too, was shivering not from cold, but from a disturbing energy that enveloped the two ninja. "What is this?" Naruto was starting to shake uncontrollably. "BYAKUGAN," Hinata started to use her clan's kekkai genkai, but screamed in pain and fell to the ground, covering her eyes. "What is it, Hinata?" Naruto was shouting now. His adrenaline was spiking. "Unh, unh, it BURNS," Hinata cried from pain. Naruto calmed Hinata before asking her again. "What happened?" "I-I was blinded by hu-huge amounts of ch-chakra," Hinata began, "and it wasn't just atmospheric or ambient chakra; it is the kind that I would see if I looked at any ninja. There is someone else here, Naruto."

Naruto began to feel like he did in Zabuza's Mist Jutsu: the killing anticipation of whatever was out there made him wish that it would just come out.

Suddenly, something in the clouds caught his eye. It looked like a tornado, but it was wispy, and it seemed to be forming another cloud. The new cloud began to grow larger and larger, and it began to take shape. 'Is that an egg?' Naruto thought, 'No, a ball? No, a... skull.' The cloud had formed into a skull, but not one of any human. Twenty short, curved spikes ringed the skulls cranium, and all its teeth were pointed and slender. "What the hell is that?" Naruto muttered. Then, Naruto jumped. The skull was moving. 'What the fuck is going on?' Naruto's thoughts were racing, and he thought he might go insane. The skull opened its mouth and emitted a shriek that could rival that of a legion of banshees. The hideous noise nearly split Naruto's skull. He knew, though, not to open his eyes, in case it was a tactic to blind him while whoever was out there was trying to take him. Yet another flash of lightning lit up the sky, almost forcing Naruto to clamp his eyes shut, but he kept them open, and his vision went white.

As his vision cleared, he saw a lone figure standing on the roof. He could not tell who it was, but he could tell it was tall and that it wasn't any one he knew. The skull shifted again, and two more dark figures descended from the skull's nose and mouth, and landed next to the first. Naruto looked for Hinata, but she had disappeared, and he found himself alone, with three presumably hostile ninja not even fify yards down the road from him. Suddenly, Naruto's vision began to swim, and everything went black.

...

Fraactuur growled impatiently. He was itching to slice something off of his designated prey's body, but he would have to wait until the torture ended. In the meantime, he would escort his assigned leader through the village in order to get familiar with the new hunting ground. He was promised a chance to kill, but in the meantime, he would have to search for a suitable target to dispatch as a warmup before he could attack the valuable Biju.

...

Naruto slowly opened his eyes and groaned. He tried to sit up, but was restrained by a three large, barbed chains that ran across his neck, legs, and torso. His arms were held down by razor wire bindings, and his feet were restrained by serrated clamps. He turned his head carefully, as not to slash his neck on the chain. He was in a room lit by a menagerie of candles. He was chained to a large, stone slab suspended by more barbed chain. Naruto heard a loud, resounding thump from overhead. He lifted his head so that he could look up and not do himself in, and wished that he didn't. He seemed to be at the bottom of a deep, well-like pit, whose walls were probably lined with hair trigger traps; responding to foreign chakra. A hooded figure stood at the top of the pit. Naruto flinched. He recognized it as the one of the hooded figures in the thunderstorm. He tried to build up chakra for a substitution jutsu, and Naruto felt one thousand volts of electric chakra raid his bones. Shaking involuntarily from pain, Naruto heard the hooded figure growl darkly. Naruto stopped instantly. No human or ninja, no matter how deformed, could growl that animalistically or so... demonically. The figure jumped straight down the small opening and straight to the floor of the small room. The impact jarred Naruto's teeth from where he was suspended. 'He's really strong,' Naruto noted. 'Is he Akatsuki?' he wondered, as tense as a spring under the restraints. As the figure drew itself up from the crouching land, it was evident that the attacker had no red clouds on his cloak, but it wore a mask that, in the dim light, looked like Tobi's. Naruto's heart stopped. 'It's Tobi, I'm chained, which means that he can take the Kyubi if he wanted to right now,' he thought frantically. However, upon a closer look, mask was shaped differently from Tobi's; it was streamlined, projecting away from the figure's covered face. A strange notch sat above the left eyeslit. There was only one marking on his mask, and Naruto didn't recognize, which meant it was a new enemy, one no one had ever heard of before.

Naruto heard a small whimper from the opposite part of the chamber. 'Hinata,' he thought, 'so this is where they took her.' The new threat eyed him, then Hinata; looking back and forth between the two prisoners several times before making up its mind and approaching Naruto. It spoke to Naruto, seeming to pose a question: "Graat, tuo sken hueen Biju?" Naruto didn't understand what the creature was saying, especially since it spoke with an accented growl. It asked again, but this time, its thoughts formed in Naruto's head: "Rat, are you the fabled Biju?" "So what if I am?" Naruto spoke with a clenched jaw. "Vuu to shiniea. Tuo jin'hai wonm vuu xzin'lao, wy vuu wyyerm Hyuga xin." "What about Hinata?" Naruto asked, understanding 'Hyuga', aside from the fact it was warped by the animalistic voice of his captor. Again thoughts formed in his head, 'I propose an accord. You give me what I want, and I'll release the Hyuga girl.' Naruto clenched, "What if I should refuse?" Half-expecting this response, the figure emitted a drawn-out hawk call. Two other figures, also masked, dropped from above. Being smaller didn't matter for the third captor, since the large figure and the interrigator respected its prescence. Smaller was a understated comparison to its subordinates; it easily could've made Kisame look like a midget. Easily three meters tall, it acknowledged the others; then faced Naruto, and spoke in English, with the snarled accent, "Greetings, young Biju." Naruto did a double take. First, it kidnapped him; now it revered him? 'What is going on?' he wondered. "If you do not give us the Kyubi, you will suffer a fate worse than death or close loss: Snahrvilcoun, the most dire form of torture that exists in our estranged society." "I've suffered worse," Naruto snapped, losing control. "Very well," the keeper responded cooly. It turned its head and growled to its larger cell mate, "Fraactuur. Vuus inom."

The larger and smaller figures stepped towards a nearly invisible torture device rack. Thousands of wickedly crafted points and blades seemed to leer at Naruto and Hinata in the dim light. The one called Fraactuur lifted a large, double-blade. It clicked, and thousands of smaller curled blades swirling off the handle. Fraactuur, if that was its name, chuckled darkly and moved towards Naruto. The head captor lifted a large scepter from the rack and headed for Hinata.

"NO!" Naruto screamed. Hinata whimpered from where she was restrained. The leader flicked his wrist three times, and a blade extended from the side of the scepter's head with each snap, gleaming threatingly at Hinata's smooth pale skin. "DON'T TOUCH HER, YOU BASTARD!" Naruto raged. Were it not for the chakra zap-chain binding him, he would let Kyubi take his body in exchange for their cold, motionless bodies on the floor, mutilated. "Nohk zohh" the blade-wielding brute snapped, whipping the blade through Naruto's navel, into the base of his spine. Naruto yelled in agony as the brute sent a strong electric current down the blade length, causing Naruto to convulse uncontrollably. This forced the barbed chain deep into Naruto's skin, and since he could not control his arms or legs, the razor bindings sliced right through Naruto's wrists and ankles. Naruto screamed a curse that echoed a hell of pure agony. Grinning satanically under his mask, Fraactuur pulled the blade out and plunged the handle-blades directly into Naruto's chest.

The leader stood satisfied, with arms crossed, watching the beginning of the torture as if he were watching an ant burn under a lens in direct sunlight. A small, scared voice cut through his thoughts. "Why? Why are you doing this to my Naruto-kun?" Hinata asked in complete shock and fear. The leader scowled under his mask. "He is valuable to our society for what secrets his skull holds in terms of the Kyubi," he replied. Hinata looked puzzled. "Now, I get to ask you a question..." He drove the scepter's head through Hinata's stomach and through the back of the slab that she laid on. She screamed in pain. "...does it hurt?" the leader asked with a sadistic glee. Hinata screamed white hell at him in response. "Ah, I take that as a 'no'," he grinned, driving the head of the scepter up through the hole in her stomach into her chest. Hinata screamed again, feeling the blade slide against her rib cage. The leader nudged the blade to the left. Hinata felt her lung burst. Blood gushed from the hole in the slab, onto the cold stone floor. Hinata wanted to call Naruto's name in consolation, but she could no longer scream.

Neither could Naruto, and he was in worse shape. Fraactuur had taken the liberty of cutting out part of the boy's tongue, amputating what was left of an arm and a leg, and tearing off all his skin from the bottom of both ribs to the top of his pelvis. 'This isn't real,' thought Naruto, 'it can't be.' He looked over at Hinata. She had a gaping wound in her lower torso, and it didn't look like she was breathing. 'IT CAN'T BE REAL!' Naruto screamed in his head. He racked his head with denial and self-comfort. Then, he smiled. And with that smile, he cut off all of his chakra flow. And then, the chamber, Hinata, the hooded figures, and dire injuries faded away.

...

"Did he break the genjutsu?" Skahr's voice rang in through the headpiece. "Yes sir, he forced himself to believe he was not being subjected to actual torment," Wuund responded. "Don't worry, Wuund," Skahr's voice came in again, "the Biju will be in true hell soon enough." And even though Wuund could not see his face, he was sure that with those last words, Skahr was grinning demonically under his mask.

Wow, I thought that was pretty good. If you agree: review! If you disagree: review! If you like the story but don't care for my thoughts: subscribe. Don't forget to check my profile!

Bye!