Disclaimer: I do NOT own any of the characters written here. They are own by their respective owners. Nuff' said.
Warning: This is rated M for a reason (blood, gore, extreme violence, language, and possible adult themes/lemons, etc.) Some of the characters will be a little OC.
Now on with the tenth chapter.
The Black Leaves
Chapter 10
"Hello. May we see our daughter?" Annette asked the bored-out-of-her-mind receptionist at the front desk of Konohagakure's hospital.
The young lady lazyly looked up from her magazine for a split second before speaking. "Sure, whatever. You know where it is?"
"Yes." And with that short discussion over, Annette made her way throught the hospital's hall's until she got to the stairs. She quickly looked back and forth and saw that the coast was clear before extending her hair up to the top floor's hand rail. She quickly pulled herself up the flights of stairs and continued to room 312.
Annette was used to hospitals after the horrible accident that befell her daughter. Annette actually turned part of the grand mansion that was her home into a hospital so that she would be able to stay near her beloved child.
It did not take the symbiotic ruler long to find her daughter's hospital room in the empty hallway. The blood soaked human skin that was nailed to the rusted metal door was one of the things that alerted her to the room. The peeling walls that revealed rusted iron fence behind, was another. Annette walked over to the door, unfazed by the sudden twitching of the skin as she reached for the door handle. But before her hand could touch the fleshy handle, she stopped all movement.
"How long do you plan on standing there," She spoke darkly as a figure rounded the corner of the hallway a short distance away. "Danzo?"
The old warhorse couldn'r help but smile at how peeved his mere appearance made this woman. 'My fame preceds me' He though to himself as he slowly walked closer to Annette.
"I wonder," He spoke, still smiling. "How did such a beutiful woman such as yourself became the leader of a bunch of body snatchers." He chuckled the last part.
Annette slowly withdrew her hand and slowly turned her head to the bandaged man. The smile she wore was almost sickeningly sweet, as was the way she responded. "Do you really want to know?"
"Oh, yes. Please, enlighten me. I know for a fact that your..." He stopped to think for a moment. "Lord Venom was it? Is much stronger than you, yet you are the one in charge. In my personnal opinion that is a bad idea. The strongest should control any form of civilization."
Annette chuckled lightly. "You trully are an old fool."
Danzo raised his only visible eyebrow in question. "And why is that?"
"The power of an individual is not always measured by the force they put behind a punch. But also by how they can influense and control a croud." She spoke coldly.
"Do you think I don't know that already? I have been on the Konoha council for years. I know how to manipulate people." Danzo's voice showed signs of his dislike of Annettes additude.
"Do you really? How are you so sure that your presious ROOT won't all of a sudden turn on you? How do you know that your loyal followers will stay loyal tommarow?" She replied with a sinister chuckle.
"I have had an entire squad compposed of Yamanaka dedicatted to maintianing the loyalty of my ROOT members!" He practicaly shouted. He did not like to be questioned by anybody, expecially some slut from outside his wonderful village.
"And how are you so sure that they won't betray you?" She asked light-heartedly. Which only pissed off Danzo. The old war hawk was somehow able to keep his composure.
"Might I ask you the same? How does a weak woman like you keep her subjects loyalties? Not by fear, I assume?" He asked as calmly as possible.
"Of course not. We use a more effective method of gaining loyalty from our kind."
"You have said that enough already. You also said that you would tell me what it is that you do to attain that loyalty."
"And like we said earlyer, you are a fool. No great leader would ever tell someone of thier secrets. But I thank you for telling me yours; brainwashing is such an inferior method of control, but to each his own we guess" She stated in an humerous tone. Now Danzo was pissed; this bitch was playing with him and he would not have it! He was the most powerful man in Konohagakure's shinobi council.
Annette turned back to the flesh covored door and turned the handle. "We are glad we had this little chat, Mummy Man." She then walked into the pitch black room; leaving Danzo steaming mad at the spot he stood.
'That bitch is going to pay. My ninja will find that Carnage symbiote and then we'll see who's method of gaining loyalty is inferior.' Danzo thought as he walked down the hall, away from the oozing door.
Naruto was having a great time at the festival. Throughout the few hours he had been there, not a single villager tried to attack him. Infact they outright stayed as far away from him as possible; probably because of the two beuties he had with him and the wierd creature hovoring apove his blond head. They still whispered rude comments about him, though.
Of course Naruto paid no attention to the people at all what so ever, his mind was only on the goldfish scoop game that he was currently failing at. He was squating infront of the long tank and had a small pile of broken paper scoops next to him. On his other side was a squating Samus, who had a big grin on her cute face as she whatched Naruto get more frustrated after every try. His eyes tracked a single goldfish, not too big but not too small either. He lowered his scoop to just above the water's surface and tried to anticipate the movements of his prey. Suddenly, with a quick swipe of his wrist; Naruto scooped up the fish and was about to place it inside the small water bowl he held, when the paper suddenly tore apart and the fish fell back into the water.
"Argh," Naruto growled as he tossed the broken scoop into the pile next to him. Baby circled above the blond and let out an angery scree that sounded like Naruto everytime he failed, then it would coo in a laughing matter. The owner of the little stand was practically in heaven. Normaly he would have been like all of the other villagers and would have tried to avoid the brat comming to his stand, but with how much money he was making off the kid, he just didn't care anymore.
Samus giggled at Naruto's frustration. That face he made whenever he was in deep consentration was just too adorable for her; she just wanted to smosh his face into her breasts in one giant hug. But, she was in public and would control herself untill the moment she was alone with her Venaru.
Across the street, however, another girl was having completly different thoughts. And they were somewhere along the lines of 'Who is that cunt near my Naruto-kun?' Actaully, those were Hyuga Hinata's thoughts exactly.
The hieress was standing on the other side of the street, hiding behind one of the many booths with her two best friends, Tenten and Ami. When Tenten became the teammate of Hinata's cousin, Neji, the two had slowly become friends. Thier friendship was further cemented when Tenten gave Hinata one of her many different copies of the "How To Catch Your Idiot Boyfriend" book/magazine series. Ever since Tenten has been helping with Hinata and her non-existant relationship with Naruto.
The only reason that Hinata had become friends with Ami, was the simple fact that neither could stand one Haruna Sakura. Ami couldn't stand the pink haired bitch because of how much more populer with the boys, her grades were better, her father was not a idiot drunk, and that damn forehead of hers was too damn big! Hinata could not stand Sakura for the sole fact that her Naruto payed more attention to the pink haired girl than to the blue-nette standing only a few feet away. Since the two shared the same dislike for the Haruno, why not become friends?
"Who is that with my Naruto-kun?" Hinata voiced her thoughts through clenched jaws. Tenten was currently flipping through one of her books and was not paying any attention.
"I don't know. I'm more worried about that thing above his head." Ami spoke as she whatched Baby zoom around in circles. Her eyes were completly focused on the little creature.
Hinata kept her eyes glued onto the pair and every single movment that the female blond made that showed any sign of having to deal with Naruto, caused Hinata's eye brow to twitch in agitation. Tenten nodded her agreement with the purple haired girl, though she wasn't really listening.
After watching Naruto fail at the fish game several more times. Hinata and her friends finally witnessed Naruto's success and, with fish in a water filled plasic bag, both he, the floating animal, and the blond woman left the stand. Hinata and her friends secretly followed and hid everytime one of them were threatened to be seen.
"Where did Marta go?" Naruto asked when he noticed that the other symbiote host missing.
Samus just shrugged. "Who cares? All that matters is that us, you and Baby are having a great family evening." She gushed the ending, and Baby cood in agreement. Naruto tried to hide the slight red to his face, but Samus still saw it and smiled. Since Naruto had never had any real family, the thought of having one; even with the...unique Samus and Baby, was at least a mildly pleasent idea.
Just as the trio was about to move onto the next enteresting stand, Baby gave a pained scree. Samus' head snapped around so fast that Naruto thought that it would come off. Her eyes widened beyond belief as she saw Baby weakly hovor over to her. Baby had a single shuriken embeded into it's little body. To say Samus was pissed was like saying that Hinata doesn't stutter. Samus was beyond livid.
Baby weakly hovored over to its mother and gave another pitiful scree. It flew into its mother's arms and continued to scree as Samus' head snapped up at the almost unaduiable sound of laghter. The laughter was coming from the other end of the street. In an instant Samus had bolted across the street so fast that Naruto could have sworn he saw an after-image of her. She came to a sudden stop in front of three young Uchiha who appeared to be around Naruto's age.
"Which one of you little bastards attacked our Baby!" Samus shouted loud enough to catch the attention of practically everyone on the street.
The three Uchiha looked up at her then to each other. One of them smirked and stepped forward. The disgusting smile he wore was almost a common sight on all Uchiha the past few days. Nobaody was sure why, but the clan had really stepped up its asshole-ishness.
"It was me," The kid that stood forward said, with no small amount of pride. "That thing was just so small and moved so much, that it practicaly screamed 'target'." He chuckled at the end. The other two Uchiha laughed as well. The feel of being lifted in the air by his collor, caused the humor to escape the boy. He was hosted off his feet and brought up to Samus' angry face with her left hand gripping the back of his collor and her other holding Baby.
Naruto finally caught up to Samus and saw the anger written on her face. And it scared the living daylights out of him. None of his pranks had ever made anybody this mad, not even any of the thick headed villagers looked at him like that. Baby saw Naruto come up and wiggled itself free from its mother's arm and weakly hovored over to the boy. It cooed and nuzzled into Naruto's chest. It then looked up at him. Which was wierd since the metroid had no eyes, or ears, or any other visible form of collecting ouside information and converting it into thought.
"And, what made you think that attacking our Baby was a good idea?" Samus spoke in an unusually calm voice. Her grip tightned on the boy's collor.
The look of shock on the boy's face quickly dissapeared and was replaised with the smug grin normaly found on Uchiha. "I am an Uchiha, so, I can pretty much do whatever the fuck I want." He then leared at Samus. "Like you, for example."
Samus just gave a crukied smile before lifting the boy higher into the air and slamming him onto the ground, hard.
"Ow! Bitch!" The brat shouted. He was about to say more when a large silver blade entered his field of vision. He slowly looked up to see that all of the blond woman's left hand fingers had turned into four inch claws. The crowd's reaction was what you would expect from a village full of ninja. Most, if not all of the villagers had seen at least one of the many impressive techniques that the ninja that they lived with could perform. So the crowd showed little to no reaction when blades replaesed Samus' fingers.
"You know?" She spoke calmly with a sadistic smile. "We haven't had a deceant meal in ages." Her lips parted to reveal her many sharp fangs. The youth's eyes widened in fear as an evil glint flickered in the blond's eyes. "Would you like to feed us?" She struck a threating pose; her arms streatched out at an angle, her legs slightly spread apart, and her fang filled mouth grinning. The threating pose gave the feel of a lunging predator.
Before anything could happen, a loud voice rang out. "What is going on!" The crowd slowly parted to reveal Uchiha Fugaku followed by his two sons, his wife, and several more Uchiha members. Because the Kyuubi Festival was such a big event, Fugaku had forced every single Uchiha back from whatever mission they had so that the whole clan could celebrate a victory they had no involvmet with.
Samus quickly reverted back to normal and shouted," This son ova bitch attacked my Baby!" And pointed an accusing finger at the young boy. She then shot a look at Naruto."Show them!"
Naruto looked at her for a moment and complied. He held out the injured Baby in his arms and showed all the weapon that was still embeded in Baby's tough membrane. Baby gave the most pitiful, soul renching, sad coo it could muster, and the whole female population of the croud gave a collective, "Awwwwww." Soon after, the croud was filled with "How cute" and "How could anybody hurt something that adorable?" About a hundred dozen glares landed on the Uchiha boy.
The Uchiha leader looked at the creature, then to Naruto, then to Samus. "So?" Was his emotionless response.
Then, Samus lost it. She let loose a feral scream and luanched herself at Fugaku, claws and fangs extended. Itachi was quick to intersept the angery woman and was able to defend both himself and his father by blocking Samus with his scaberd. The other members of the clan showed no sign of even noticing the attack, but Fugaku and the clan members that happened to be on the council all smirked.
Naruto instantly tried to think of some way to solve the current delema when the croud began to chant, cheer and jeer at the two combatents.
Itachi was surprised; this woman was actualy able to push against him and was basically about to hand him his own ass. When a sudden loud screach brought both man and woman's attention to Baby. The creature had hovored out of Naruto's arms and was hovoring back and forth in a threating fashion.
Samus gave a divious smile. "Feed, our child!" She boomed in a victorious voice. She adjusted her grip so that now she was holding onto Itachi's hands. Baby gave a loud aggresive screech as it charged at Itachi.
The Konoha shinobi tried to struggle free from the woman's grip and was once again surprised by her strength. His head snapped from the the woman to the metroid, Itachi quickly activated his Sharingan just as the creature latched onto his face. Right at contact, Baby's back claws gripped Itachi's head and a wierd sucking/worrbling sound emitted from the creature as its smaller mandables moved in a back and forth scrapping manner as it glowed red and began to absorb the energy from the Uchiha.
Samus released her grip on Itachi's hands and backed up with a smile gracing her face. Itachi, on the other hand, instantly dropped his weapon and grab at the metroid before a muffle scream came from him. Now the croud was murrmering softly as Itachi clawed at the creature and screamed in obvious pain. The members of his clan were also speaking amogest themselves on wiether or not they should help thier prized ninja or not.
As Baby fed off of the screaming Itachi, the weapon in its back slowly fell out and the wound healed itself. Naruto just stared in awe at what was happening. 'So thats how Baby feeds.' He thought to himself.
Itachi continued to scream as people that could actually do something other than stand and bitch came to his aid, or so they hoped. They tried beatng on the creature, bashing it with whatever they could find. When they tried to stab at it with Itachi's discarded sword, Baby forced Itachi to move out of the way.
Eventually, Itachi was brought to his knees and his screaming had died down to just ragged breaths. Baby released its meal and gave a burp-ish scree before happily hovoring over to its mother, who had returned to normal once again, and snuggled into her arms before falling asleep. Itachi slowly leaned forward before falling face first into the ground, unconscious. Samus gazed down at her child and looked back up with a kind smile; completly offsetting everyone that could see her face.
"Baby forgives you," She said quickly before turning around and bolting away. Naruto looked after her for a moment before giving chase; unknowingly being followed by his three stalkers.
When Naruto finally cought up to Samus, she was in an alley; away from the festival, and was hudlled over her Baby. Naruto, feeling a lot of tention coming of the shaply symbiote host, cautiously aprouched her.
"We're sorry," She said softly and without looking at Naruto. "We..." She squesed the metroid tighter. "We normaly don't overreact like that. Its just..." She squesed harder, the creaure's membrane squished at the grip but it continued to snooze in Samus' arms. A tear rolled down her cheek and splashed on the creature's membrane. "We lost our Baby once already," She slowly gazed up at Naruto. "Our Baby, our beautiful child was obliterated right before our very eyes." More tears began to fall. "It hurt...It hurt so much. To watch your child die right in front of you and to not be able to do anything to save it. Do you have any idea how helpless we felt? How much we wished that we had died instead? It almost impossibly painful," She was openly sobbing now. "Af-after Baby was killed we lost all hope. We actually planned in killing ourselves."
Naruto's shock was present on his face. He had just met Samus just a few hours ago and she did not appear to be the type of person to take her own life. She must have really been hurt to drive her to such extremes.
"But," She continued. "We met Lady Empress just a few hours before our planned suicide and she offered a way to give us back our child. She spoke of a way to create a true clone of the pieces of Baby that still existed, but in return we had to join her and swear our loyalty. We agreed without any hesitation. She was going to give us back our child, how could any mother say no? We were givin the Payback symbiote, bonded, and Baby was returned. And we do not regret a thing. Empress has been such a grand and marvouless leader; returning our child, giving Payback a host, and giving us a home. We owe her our lives and so much more." She was still crying, though if they were tears of sorrow or joy, Naruto did not know.
Seeing Samus crying pulled at his heartstrings, Naruto was never one to be able to stand a woman crying. Naruto suddenly recalled an event he saw a year or two ago. He was heading to the academy when he saw a woman crying. At first he was more focused on not being seen around the crying lady since some of the villagers might blame him and attack. Instead, however, what must have then womans boyfriend had wrapped his arms around her in a hug and whispered comforting words, like "Shhh, It'll be okay" and "I'm here, I'll make it all better".
Naruto looked around to check for any villagers. Since none were around; that he could, he took a deep breath and closed the gap between Samus and himself. He hesitantly moved his arms forward and made an attmept to hug Samus. The instant that his fingers touched her, though, she suddenly tackled him to the ground, one arm around his neck and the other holding onto the sleeping Baby.
So Naruto was laying on his back, bewildered, in the middle of a street, with a crying blond woman ontop of him. He slowly tried to wrap his arms around her once again, and was successful. Thus, Naruto just layed thier with a crying Samus sobbing and hiccuping on him and a still sleeping Baby snoring away. To say that Naruto felt uncomfortable was a bit of an understatment.
And to say that Hinata was pissed was like calling Carnage a peace loving hippie. 'Who the FUCK does that BITCH think she is?' Hinata mentaly cursed from her, Tenten and Ami's new hiding spot behind a few trashcans. 'Clinging onto MY Naruto-kun!' With her keen eyes Hinata saw the lower half of Samus start to slowly girate, causing the Hyuuga's blood to go beyond the boiling point. "That BITCH is HUMPING my Naruto-kun! I'm supposed to be the only one allowed to do that!' The look of pure hatred on her face scared Hinata's friends.
As Naruto layed thier, he quickly became bored. Sure it was a new experiance to have a woman ontop of you but; being as thick as he is, it started to lose its flare. Slowly, Samus' sobbing slowed down to slight hiccups and near silent moans. Now Naruto could understand the hiccuping, he himself has cried before but the moans confused him. It was then did he notice the rubbing in his right leg and an unusual wet spot on the same place.
"Um, Samus?" He spoke quietly.
"Shhh," She replied in a shaky tone as her hips girated faster. "We're almost there." She began to moan louder as her paise quickened. "Almost there, almost there." She chanted.
Now Naruto was more confused. But before anything else could happen, a hand came out od nowhere and yanked on the blond female's hair, hard.
"Come on, get up, you horny grandma." A familiar voice chided as it lifted Samus of her hump stick. The unmistakable pink hair and the red lines showed it to be none other than Marta; back from...where ever.
"Damn it, woman!" Samus shouted. "We were sooo close. Do you have any idea how long its been since we've had something other than our hands, tongue, and tentacles to pleasure ourself with?"
"Too long?" Marta said in her 'I-don't-give-a-damn' way of speaking.
"Damn right, too damn long. So why the Hell did you stop us?"
Marta shrugged her shoulders. "Lady Empress wishes for all four of us to meet her at the hospital," She gazed down at the still confused Naruto laying on the ground. "And we think you were scaring Lord Venom."
Samus continued to glare at her relative before sighing in defeat. "Fine."
Both she and Marta picked up one of Naruto's legs and dragged him towards Konoha's hospital.
Tenten and Ami watched the retreating figures before turning thier eyes to thier red face friend. The look of absolute vividity radiated off her in waves. The two girls slowly backed away for fear of haveing all of the Hyugga's rage unleashed upon thier frail forms.
Hinata's head snapped up and turned so fast that her friens feared it would have flown off. "Tenten," She spoke in the cool voice normaly associated with the Hyugga clan. "Give me every book you've got!"