"Damn!" Naruto panted as he crouched to the ground, trying to regain his breath. "Hey Sasuke-teme, all we're doing is running around!"
"Be quiet and get up!" Sasuke snapped at the blonde. "I can't watch you too!"
"Hey guys!" Jizouko called from the outside of the ice blocks, "I'm going to see if I can break it from the outside, so hang in there!" She'd pressed her hands against two blocks of floating ice while she was talking and now pushed herself away to examine the arena closely, blowing on her bare palms to warm them up from their previous contact.
Fire is the opposite of ice, right? So all I need is a fire jutsu! She thought as she racked her brain for solutions to the problem.
"Oh… Hello there…" She trailed off when she noticed Haku's masked face looking out at her from a block of ice.
"I cannot allow you to interfere in this fight," he said as he held up a handful of senbon needles.
"Well that's a shame—" Her sentence was cut off when Haku threw his needles and hit a group of nerves in her neck, causing her to fall to the ground unconscious.
Jizouko had the feeling of floating, and she had to admit it wasn't the best feeling in the world to her. As soon as she thought that gravity kicked in and she landed heavily on her sandaled feet. She stumbled for a moment as she tried to gain her bearings.
She was surrounded by darkness, making her believe that she was blind for a moment, but when she looked down at herself she saw that she was glowing slightly. Her dark skin seemed to radiate an unearthly light that her clothes slightly muffled, but it still shone through.
"Am I dead?" She finally voiced the dreaded question aloud.
As if in response to her question she heard someone talking in the blackness. She blindly followed the sound until she could clearly understand the words.
"What do you want for your birthday, Ji-chan?" A soft male baritone asked.
"Otouto-chan!" A child's voice squealed happily, causing the man's voice and another to chuckle softly.
"We'll see what we can do…" a woman's voice said, you could practically hear the soft smile in her voice.
"You know, that doesn't answer my question…" Jizouko muttered darkly as she glared into the dark.
There was a silence for a long moment before another voice called from her inky surroundings.
"But Kaa-chan, why do I have to go with Oji-chan?" The child's voice asked.
"It won't be for long, Ji-chan," the woman's voice consoled, "me and Tou-chan just want to make sure you don't get blown away in the storm tonight."
… What the Hell? This does not help at all!
The silence around her grew oppressive before the woman's voice cut through it again.
"Yamakaze Jiyuudo! You get out of here right now! I thought I told you to stay with Isamu-kun!" She sounded furious.
"I'm sorry, Ryuuka-san!" A young male voice apologized, it sounded like he was no older than Jizouko. "I lost sight of her for a moment!"
"Keep a better eye on her; this is no place for a child!"
"Yes, come along, Ji-chan!"
"Kaa-chan, who is that?" The child asked, ignorant to the apparent danger of the situation she was in. "Why is Tou-chan sleeping?"
"Isamu!" The woman barked sharply.
In the darkness two red circles began to materialize, two red eyes with a black ring around the pupil with three black commas suspended in orbit. The scream that she had heard earlier echoed around her head once more.
Images flashed around her so fast that she could only lock in on one for a brief moment before it was replaced by two more. Some she recognized as scenes from her life, and others she had never seen before. The images flicked by so fast that they ran their course in almost an instant, leaving Jizouko in a confused daze.
"Wait… What the Hell?" She screeched after a long moment, stomping her feet in anger. "Was that supposed to be my life flashing before my eyes? I don't even think that first part was my life!"
The darkness around her slowly faded into light and she began throwing a fit. "NO! You better explain what that was all about back there!" She yelled to no one in particular. "I demand to speak to whoever's in charge here!"
The light came into focus as sunlight muffled by a heavy mist that was slowly clearing above her prone form.
What. The. Hell. She grated out in her mind as she clenched her jaw to keep in a frustrated scream. It's decided, when I die for real, I am becoming a very unhappy poltergeist until I get answers!
She slowly got up to her feet and looked around. She felt a slight strain in her neck and brought her hand up to feel two senbon skewering the relatively thin column. She quickly retracted her hand and decided that instead of turning her head to look around she would just have to turn her whole body.
"Jizouko-chan! You're okay!" She heard Sakura call out.
Jizouko just turned and waved slightly, not quite feeling up to the task of talking.
"What did I miss?" She croaked hoarsely when Sakura got closer.
"Kakashi-sensei beat Zabuza and then more mercenaries showed up, but we scared them off," she explained happily.
"Oh, okay…" Jizouko trailed off, "Do you know who I can see about getting these out?" She asked as she gestured towards the needles in her neck.
"Ah! Yes, let me take you to the village doctor with Sasuke-kun!"