Part 4, mainly a fighting episode, as well as some emotions a little all over. the story is coming to its end now... Oh well, hope you´ll like c:
4. The contest
When Sasuke opened his eyes he thought he was all alone at first. But these fears disappeared when he in panic bumped into a passed out Neko, whom were awoken by this. Newly awakened, she looked up with halfway closed eyes, to see a dark prison-ish room with dark stone walls and floor. The exit was barred, and around her on the floor lay several familiar faces; Itachi, Hidan, Rini, Kisame and Sasuke, whom sat up. When he saw that he wasn´t the only one awake there he crawled over to Neko and said with a small voice:
- Neko-chan, I´m scared. Where are we?
- I don´t know, Sasuke-kun, she replied while gently patting him on his head. I´m just as surprised as you are…
She thought for a while, then she said:
- Hey, why don´t you go and wake your brother? He for sure is needed if we have to fight…
Sasuke happily followed her orders and skipped over to Itachi. But on the way, he by accident stepped on Rini´s wrist. This caused her a lot of pain, so she woke herself up by screaming. Thanks to the piercing sound Sasuke no longer needed to wake his brother. The same thing concerned the other two.
Neko frantically covered her best friend´s mouth. She got over the shock, and looked around herself with big eyes. When Neko thought it was safe, she let go of Rini´s mouth.
- Geez, you sure can scream, can´t you? She said.
- Yup, she can, Hidan replied from behind. Neko spun around to assure herself that it really was him. When their eyes met, they both felt a little spark between them.
Rini saw their reaction and smiled; finally Neko got a boyfriend. Well, it felt somewhat strange that it turned out to be her brother, but this only meant that she could keep an eye on him, so he didn´t do anything stupid. But for some reason she wasn´t so worried about that, since she had never seen Hidan with such caring and tender emotions before, not even to his own family. Hm. But oh well, that´s just normal when you´re in love, isn´t it?
Rini´s thoughts were disturbed by a hand on her shoulder. It was big and pretty warm, and it slowly caressed her collarbone tenderly. It comforted her, so she didn´t try to stop it. She closed her eyes and leaned her head backwards a little with a smile on her lips. But then she came to wonder who the nice hand belonged to, so she turned her head so she could see what was behind her. To her surprise and happiness, Kisame was there, smiling at Rini´s now blushing face. Had Hidan said anything to him about her?
Unsure of what her reaction should be like, Rini changed her surprised expression into a shy little smile with her eyebrows nervously wrinkled. Kisame found this reaction cute, so he let out a slight laugh, which only made Rini´s expression more nervous.
To give her a hint of what he thought of her, Kisame leaned forward and gave the woman before him a small kiss on her rosy cheek, which made it even more red. A small "oh" came out of her mouth. Nothing more.
Sasuke sat and inspected the two couples. He had started to wonder about how that kind of love felt like. Was it better than love towards your family? He glanced over to Itachi, whom sat beside him, looking unmoved and bored, like always. Had he ever felt love? Was it wrong to love?
Itachi´s gaze directed itself to his little brother, to see that he held a thoughtful and worried face. For some reason, he didn´t want his brother to be like that. He wanted him to smile, although he didn´t really know how to make him do this. But oh well, it was worth a try.
Itachi then put one of his hands behind Sasuke´s back, in an attempt to show him that he wasn´t alone. To comfort his brother more, he let a friendly smile spread over his face, while he closed his eyes. This was a face he was very unfamiliar of, so he didn´t know if Sasuke understood it.
But he didn´t have to worry. The requested effect came, and gave his little brother relaxing chills all over his body, and made his worries fade. No, it was definitely not wrong to love.
At least not the right persons…
It almost started to look like a small club house for the group, but the pleasant feeling disappeared once they heard a malicious and somewhat hissing laughter coming from every corner of the room.
The two women were both put in a state of shock. Hidan and Kisame got affected too, but recovered after a couple of seconds and decided to comfort their ladies by holding them to get them to their senses. Sasuke stared in fear for an explaintion from his older brother, but Itachi didn´t know what was going on either.
No one did, until one of the black walls turned out to be a big flat screen, from wich an image of a snakelike smirking man appeared. Orochimaru.
Sasuke got chills all over his body by only seeing him, as well as Neko and Rini. The men on the other hand, glared at the traitor, especially Itachi, whom had some very unpleasant memories of the snake-man.
- Well well, Orochimaru started. Seems like you all are somewhat rested now, good.
- What do you want? Sasuke shouted, which only made Orochimaru´s smirk wider. He knew that he had them like in a box.
- Oh, nothing, he continued, I just want to play a little game with you.
At this sentence, everyone started to wonder, and Sasuke was the first one to ask:
- What game?
- Oh, be patient, my young friend. I´m just about to explain the rules to you now…
The next second, a small trapdoor in the ceiling opened, and a purple silk-bag with white lined snakes on it fell down.
- You´ll each get one envelope from that bag, Orochimaru explained, and if you´re lucky, you´ll get to be the fighter in the game. Two of you will get the opportunity. One will get the easy task, and the
other will get the harder one.
There was a moment of silence in the room. Could they really trust this?
At last, Rini made a move.
- We´re obviously not gonna get anywhere until we get this over with.
She picked an envelope, but without opening it. The next one was Hidan. Then came Kisame.
- What the hell is this supposed to mean? Hidan had opened his, and everyone came to see why he shouted. In his envelope, there was a paper, with a closed eye printed on it. No one understood what it meant. Rini opened hers afterwards.
- Hey, mine is all blank! She announced.
- Just like your mind, Hidan dissed her. Itachi picked an envelope while Kisame opened his. Hidan peeked.
- Yours is blank too, that means that you and Rini makes a lovely couple, since you both think the same, he said. Rini laughed sarcastically. Itachi opened his and showed his paper - blank as
well.
This meant that it was only Neko and Sasuke left to pick. Sasuke had started to understand the concept now. There was probably one paper left with some kind of motive, and the one out of him and Neko would be the one to face Hidan, which meant a safe death, since that probably was what Orochimaru wanted to see. It was either him or Neko.
Using his Sharingan, he detected that his theories was true; he saw which envelope that contained the illustrated paper. It was kind of his thing to decide now; he had a chance of saving Neko´s life now. She had been so nice to him always. Maybe she deserved to live more than him…
Neko stretched out her hand, and was about to take one of the last envelopes, when Sasuke in a swift move took it before her eyes. She blinked, surprised. Then, she looked at the little Uchiha, whom looked at her with a strange emotion on his face, like he was sad but in the same time happy. After a couple of seconds, he looked away and slowly opened his envelope. Neko took the last one, to find a blank paper. She held it up, having a small feeling that Sasuke had done this on purpose.
- Alrighty, Sasuke-kun, Rini said, what´s your paper like?
Sasuke quietly held up his paper, to show a big, light blue-irised eye, lined with black eyelashes drawn on his paper.
Orochimaru had seen the whole act, and he now clapped his hands slightly.
- Let the two with the illustrated papers step forward, he said. Hidan and Sasuke took a few steps so that they were separated from the rest.
- These are the lucky fighters! Orochimaru then announced. Hidan seemed pretty annoyed with their weird commentator. He wanted to get this over with, so he half way yelled:
- Hey! what is this good for really?
Orochimaru smirked.
-Well, he said, if you wish for your friends to survive then you better play this correctly.
- What do you mean? Hidan´s worries started to grow with every word that escaped the snake man´s mouth.
- Well, I´ll explain the rest of the rules then, Orochimaru said, you two have randomly been chosen to be the "players". You will soon get to the arena, where you will use anything you have to… kill the other one.
Sasuke flinched. This was exactly what he had feared. He had been trained by his big brother, that´s for sure, but he was still not fully learned. And Hidan was strong.
Thinking it was a strange concept, Itachi opened his mouth and said:
- But why would they want to kill each other? They don´t really have any reason…
- Oh but they will get one, Orochimaru said. If they hold you other dear, then they will be head over heels to get their weapons through each other. You see, I´ll give you five minutes of free- fighting. When that time is up, your friends will be in a quite "pressed" situation, if you know what I mean…
To demonstrate, Orochimaru snapped his fingers. A loud, scratching sound pierced through their ears, making them cover their ears. Then, the room seemed to get smaller. But in fact, it was the walls approaching them, pretty slow, but still. Then, they stopped.
- So if you don´t hurry, you two, Orochimaru said, then you will most likely loose four persons to the prize of one…
Hidan looked uneasily at Neko, whom shared his expression. Now it was up to him to rescue her, and his sister as well. But this required the death of Itachi´s little brother caused by him, and that could mean grudges from Itachi, and also maybe from the others that liked him.
But wait a sec, what was he thinking? Of course anything was worth saving his love!Purposefullness filled his eyes, and he warmly looked into Neko´s eyes, hoping that she would relax and understand that everything would be alright. She didn´t exactly know how to interpret the sudden expression, but she guessed that it meant that Hidan had decided to win. That meant killing Sasuke. It sure was regrettable. Why did he have to end up in this?
Then it hit her. He had chosen it himself. For some reason, he must have known what envelope he had to choose to save her. It was because of her that he had to die…
- Very well then, let the players get to the arena.
Orochimaru seemed pretty unmoved with the atmosphere that had inflamed the group. He once again snapped his fingers, but this time no walls threatened to crush them. Two new trapdoors opened, one over Hidan and the other over Sasuke. In some mystical way, they were elevated up through the holes. When they were gone, the holes closed themselves.
Neko looked up into where her Hidan just had disappeared, and sighed. Rini saw her, and thought that her best friend seemed to need some support, so she gently patted Neko´s right shoulder from behind. Kisame thought that this was a good idea, so he took care of the left one.
Neko surprised looked up, but when she saw the two of them, she smiled and let them do it.
Itachi on the other hand, stood isolated from the trio before him. Surely they cheered for Hidan. It was not much else to do, but the sadness and anger still kept boiling into him. Why did it have to be Sasuke? Why?
The small elevators led Sasuke and Hidan in different directions. Neither of them appreciated the cramped, pipe-like spaces they were transported through, and it was a relief when they finally escaped.
The fighting-arena was pretty big, about one football-yard. When they surfaced from a little hole in the ground, they stood on each side, on the opposite side of the other. The looked into each others eyes, and started to prepare themselves when they heard an oh so familiar voice:
- Oh, I forgot to tell you something, something very important…
Speakers enlarged Orochimaru´s voice, and to manage, Hidan yelled:
- What the hell is it now?
- The drawings on your papers weren´t made randomly. Now, who got the opened eye?
- That was me! Sasuke yelled. Orochimaru smirked.
- Well then, Sasuke, he said. Then you get the easy part. Hidan on the other hand…
- Yes? Hidan was impatient.
- You have to fight… with your headband covering your eyes.
It didn´t really matter for any of them. Sasuke was the only one that could die anyway, so it just meant that Hidan would have to trust his feeling and hearing ability a little more. He removed his headband from around his neck to over his eyes. Orochimaru spoke again:
- Alright, were all set then ready, set, go!
Hidan, who had been pumped up about attacking Sasuke and save Neko, suddenly stopped. He simply couldn´t move. It wasn´t anything Sasuke had done or anything. He didn´t know himself either. It was something in his mental sense that suddenly gave him a picture of that his now unseeable enemy was his son. It was really strange, but that was the case.
Sasuke on the other hand at once sprinted off towards Hidan. He took a kunai out of his pouch and rapidly cut up little wounds all over his arm while running.
When he approached the Jashinist he didn´t stop, he did a quick turn. As he passed Hidan his wounds dripped with blood. Since Hidan´s mouth was slightly open from his weird anti-thoughts, some small droplets came inside of it, which he swallowed by a reflex. This was the key to opening his Jashin-illusion and let the ritual begin.
Sasuke ran a small circle before running towards Hidan again. This time he closely ran around him with one foot smearing his blood into a circle. At the next lap he somehow managed to draw a triangle inside of the circle with the same material. Now the ritual was set.
- Hidan! Sasuke yelled. Use your brain and activate it!
Hidan got out of his state of shock, and immediately understood. In a minute, his skin got unnaturally black, with white markings that looked like skeleton bones. Thanks to the fact that he had swallowed Sasuke´s blood, any harm that were caused on him would affect Sasuke too, like a voodoo. Fortunately for Hidan, he was the ultimate sadomasochist, turning stabs into pleasure.
To end it all quickly, Sasuke threw a kunai towards the room. It flew right threw Hidan´s heart. Just then, Sasuke felt how a hole were ripped up in the center of his chest, and his warm blood started to gush out. He felt how his organs permanently were put out of function, and he fell to the ground.
The small company that were locked in, soon got free by one of the walls splitting apart and opening. Before them the fighting arena spread wide, and in the left corner stood Hidan. Neko got pretty happy to see him breathing (which was a fact since he couldn´t die), but Itachi didn´t share her feelings. He rapidly made his way over to his little brother´s blood-soaked half-dead body. He bent down and took Sasuke´s head and upper body in his lap. The sight wasn´t pleasant to any of them.
Suddenly, Sasuke started to speak:
- Brother… he whispered. Itachi held him closer. He wanted to warm Sasuke´s body as long as he could. He spoke again:
- Brother… are you there?
- I´m here, Itachi whispered back. None of the other inferred, this was their moment.
Hearing Itachi´s voice made Sasuke smile, a weak little smile, but still. He was happy.
- Don´t hate Hidan, please, he then whispered. He just wanted to save all of you. I wanted too you know… especially you…
All of the sadness brought tears to Itachi´s eyes, for the first time in a very long time. They fell and stained Sasuke´s cheek. Neither of them cared.
Sasuke felt that he didn´t have very much time now, so he had to hurry getting some things said.
- Also, he said. My amnesia didn´t last very long. I remember now, everything.
Itachi flinched. This couldn´t happen! Sasuke probably would say that he hated him again.
He didn´t have to worry, though. The next and last thing his little brother said was:
- But I don´t care anymore. You had your reasons… live life well now, farewell…
Whereupon he started to cough weakly before his heart stopped beating and he was gone…