Chapter 10 - Earth Zone
"Urgh..." Ino groaned, coming into consciousness. When she remembered what had happened, she kept her eyes closed. She felt the ground with her hand, and listened to the sounds in the air. Her hand came in contact with leaves and dirt, and she could only hear the sounds of the wind rustling through trees. Slowly she opened her eyes. She sat up and looked around. It took only a moment for her to realize she was in a forest. A very old forest, she deduced, after seeing the height of the trees.
After taking this in, she pulled out the senbon from her neck, and stood up. She started to walk into a random direction, trying to figure out if there was anybody else in the forest with her. It was after a couple minutes did she hear a loud sound, like an explosion. She looked in the direction it came from, and decided to go towards it. The explosion hadn't come from too far away, so she walked.
Nearing the area where the smoke was coming from, she hid behind a tree and looked into the clearing trying to find somebody. When the smoke was cleared, she saw one of the Akatsuki members, Deidara. Ino smiled seeing him, "Deidara!" She called out.
He turned towards her and grinned, "Ino! Hey!" He said and approached her.
She looked around the clearing, then turned her gaze onto him, "So...What was with the random explosion?" She asked him.
"I used it as a way to see if anybody else was here, yeah. The other members know it's my signature, and I figured if it were one of you guys, you'd still approach, yeah." He replied.
"It wasn't exactly inviting...No matter. Do you know what's going on?" Ino asked, though she doubted he knew any more than she did.
"I have no idea, yeah." Deidara said with a shrug and started walking.
"Where are you going?" Ino asked, following him.
"I have no idea, yeah." He repeated and she sighed, but continued to walk with him. They walked for a while, until they couldn't walk anymore. Well, until they couldn't walk forward anymore. They found themselves on the edge of a mountain. The base of the mountain was pitch black.
"Oh my..." Ino mumbled. The sight before them was not pretty. At first they thought it was just so far down, that it was just black. The more they looked on, the more they began to notice what it truly was at the base of the mountain.
It was black. Burnt black. It was supposed to be a forest at the base of the mountain, but it seemed as if the forest was massacred. It was burnt, and some of the trees were chopped, cut up, until it didn't resemble a forest anymore. But both Ino and Deidara guessed that there must have been much more to the forest before the attack on it happened. Not one bird sang its sweet melody.
"Who could have done this?" Ino said softly, looking at the carnage in sadness.
Deidara shook his head, "I don't know, yeah." He himself liked destroying things, exploding them, but even he knew that this was just cruelty. He never understood the point of attacking something that couldn't defend itself. And that must have been the point.
"There can't possibly be a reason for this."
"Maybe the person who did this was looking for something, yeah." Deidara suggested.
"But why would the person feel the need to destroy the place?" Ino couldn't understand how anyone could do such a thing.
Deidara shrugged his shoulders, "Who knows? Sometimes there are just cruel people, yeah."
"Cruelty is not even close to what this is." A voice said sadly. Ino and Deidara looked at each other. When they realized that neither of them said this, they looked around.
"Who's there, yeah?" Deidara asked.
"This was done by a monster." Came the voice again, but this time, it came from behind them. They both turned around quickly to see Satoshi.
"It's you!" Ino said surprised, her expression went from surprise, to sadness when she took in what Satoshi said. "A monster?" She asked.
Satoshi walked to the edge of the mountain and looked on into the darkness, "Yes...But that will be explained to you later when you reach the Destination." He said and turned away from the carnage.
Deidara looked at him confused, "And that is, yeah...?"
"You'll see. Now I've come here to give you a hint, something to guide you on your search for the Destination." Satoshi said clapping his hands, bringing himself back to attention. He had something to do, and he would not get distracted again, "The only power that one truly has to work for, is power over oneself." Satoshi spoke with his eyes closed.
"And that means, yeah...?" Deidara asked.
Satoshi opened his eyes and smiled, "Now I can't tell you that! It would ruin the point of putting you here in the first place." Satoshi replied.
Ino looked at him, "So there actually is a point to this?"
Satoshi laughed, "Of course! Now, I'll be seeing you two later. And you'll see your other teammates later as well."
"Are they okay?" Ino asked hurriedly. She saw Satoshi nod before disappearing. Ino and Deidara stared at the spot where he had just vanished, then turned their gaze onto each other.
"So..." Ino said awkwardly.
Deidara just looked at her, a blank look on his face, "Well..." Suddenly, he turned away and started walking back into the forest, "We won't get anywhere standing around doing nothing. Might as well take a look around, yeah." He said. Ino followed behind with a shrug. He was right, and she knew it.
"What are we looking for?" Ino asked after a couple minutes of aimless wandering.
"Something called 'the Destination'. What that is, I don't know, yeah. I have a feeling we'll know what it is when we see it though, yeah." Deidara replied.
"Ah, how lovely." Ino said sarcastically, "Looking for something in the middle of nowhere... Lovely." She repeated.
"Yeah, kind of random isn't it?" Deidara said laughing.
Ino joined in on the laughter, "You think?"
The two walked on, talking amiably together. They both kind of forgot what they were looking for after a while. A couple times it would be brought up when trying to decide which way to go, but other than that, they made no real effort to figure out the puzzle that lay before them. They allowed the beauty of the remaining forest to fog their path. The temptation that came with beauty, and friends, was far greater than most realized.
Thus why when they heard the most melodic voice speak to them, they could only follow its command, "Come to me... I will show you to the Destination that you seek..." The voice repeated the same thing over and over. Ino and Deidara stopped speaking the moment they heard the voice, neither looked at each other as they walked forward towards the voice.
Suddenly, Ino tripped while walking. She regained her balance quickly, but the trance on her was broken. She stood still, listening to the voice intently, and ignored the words. The voice had a melodic quality to it, but it didn't sound genuine. It had a sinister tone to it. When she discovered this, she allowed the words to sink in. It didn't seem right to her. If they were meant to be lead somewhere, Ino believed that Satoshi would have done so. Following the voice now seemed like a bad idea. When she came back to reality, she realized that Deidara had yet to notice that the voice was off.
He was nearly completely hidden amongst the trees when Ino went after him. Upon reaching him, she grabbed a hold of his sleeve and pulled him backwards. The sudden jerk seemed to pull him out of the trance, and he looked at her with a bewildered look on his face, the voice was still distinguishable in the background.
"What, yeah?" Deidara asked confused.
"I don't like this." Ino made a gesture with her hand that meant she didn't like the situation.
"Why not, yeah? It's been the only sign of something else living since we got here, yeah." Deidara replied.
"Listen to the voice. I just don't trust it." She whispered looking around warily, "We don't know who it is, and we haven't even seen this person."
"I suppose, yeah..." Deidara seemed hesitant, but listened as she had asked. After a moment, he looked at her and nodded, "Okay, I think I know what you're talking about. Let's get away from here, yeah."
"Good." Ino said satisfied, the voice was starting to freak her out a bit. Hearing it, and not seeing it was unnerving her. She spoke loudly, "Thanks, but we're going to find it ourselves." She pulled on Deidara's sleeve, and led him away from the path they were on. Just as they were leaving the area, they heard the voice turn into a growling sound. It seemed displeased, but it stopped and disappeared after a moment.
Silence hung in the air for a while, until Deidara decided to break it, "I think..." He said hesitantly. He was going to let it go, but with Ino's encouraging smile, he continued on, "I think I recognized the voice, yeah."
"You do?" Ino sounded surprised, "Can you put a face to the voice? Or better yet, a name?" She prodded.
Deidara shook his head, "No...I have no idea how I can recognize it at all. It just seems like a distant memory, yeah." He looked thoughtful. Ino was disappointed by the lack of information he could provide, but knew that perhaps the answer would be given to them later when they reached the Destination.
"Where do you think we should go, yeah?" Deidara asked after a moment of silence.
"Hm..." Ino looked around, thinking, "We can always try going up." She said pointing upwards. "If we climb to the tree tops we'll be able to see much more of the terrain than we are by walking around."
"Makes sense, yeah." Deidara agreed and the two put chakra into their feet, and started to climb up the trees. The trees height was greater than either of them had thought. The branches that would normally have blocked out the sun, seemed to of only been blocking more branches. It felt like forever before the two of them reached the top. The two stood on the trees' highest points and looked around.
"Oh my God..." Ino gasped.
"What the Hell has been happening around here, yeah?" Deidara said with anger in his voice.
He was angry towards the person who could have done the terrible things that they saw before their eyes'. The destruction of the forest had not stopped at the area they were at earlier. The destruction had continued its path all around them. It looked to them like they stood on an island and instead of waters around them, there was the destruction. The only greenery was the 'island' they were currently on. The island was rather small, they guessed that they had probably been going in circles, and that is why they had only seen the one patch of carnage in all the time that they had been there.
"We've got to figure out what's been going on here, yeah...Let's find the Destination quickly. Satoshi said we would get our answers there, yeah." Deidara spoke after a moment. He looked over towards Ino and noticed her mortified expression. "Ino? Are you alright, yeah?" He asked anxiously.
She shook her head, bringing herself away from her thoughts, "Yeah, it's just...I've never seen something so sad. What if there were people here? And what about the poor animals?"
Deidara was at a loss for words, "I...I don't know, yeah..." He continued to look around, hoping that something would catch his eye. Suddenly his eyes landed upon a bright, white light not to far from where they were. "Look!" Deidara pointed it out to Ino. Her face brightened when she saw the white light.
"That has to be what we're looking for!" Ino exclaimed, smiling.
He nodded, "Alright, let's go, yeah." Before she could reply, he jumped to the next tree over and looked at her over his shoulder, "We'll go from up here, just to make sure we don't lose sight of it, yeah."
"Sounds like a plan." She agreed and the two went off towards the light.
A couple minutes later, they jumped out of the tree and landed right in front of where they had spotted the light. The light seemed to have been coming from a hole. Ino approached it and looked down and instead of the usual darkness, there was the bright light shining from it. "I think we just have to jump down." She said. She was now on her knees staring down into the hole.
"Ladies first, yeah?" Deidara said with a grin. Ino glared at him, but brought her legs out from under her and put them over the edge of the hole. With one last glance at Deidara, she jumped down. He looked into the hole and called her name. When he got no answer he guessed that it must be safe, and jumped into the hole. White light flashed before his eyes, then darkness.
AN: Thanks much for reading!
-MewMew