Rocket to Oblivion
My toes clipped the tips of the grassy blades as I tore through the night like an arrow. I was itching to cross the exposed expanse of lawn that had been mowed to prevent forge fires. I was painfully aware of every footstep and pounding beat of my heart. This was already a particularly active spot during the evening hours, but nonetheless, I felt as though my intentions were emanating through the air in invisible yet clearly distinct vibes.
Escape… Escape…
I could sense the other people lurking within the shadows. They were out and about training, preparing, making deals… I was also sure that some of them spied for the higher ups. It couldn't be possible that some sort of border control wasn't being enacted. There had to be something…
I slowed down, taking aimless strides as soon as I had reached the perimeter of the clearing. Stalks of grass higher than my head formed an imposing wall before me. The wilds of Kusagakure were not far from our camp. We were practically on the border between Takigakure and Kusagakure. The nights were warmer here than anywhere else I'd been to in awhile. I needed nothing other than my usual clothing and satchel for my escape. All of my belongings could fit inside of the near-empty clay pouch I constantly packed around.
I sighed in a nonchalant fashion, releasing my expired oxygen. It felt as though a giant rock was moving through my intestines at that moment.
"Hey, hey! Deidara, is that you?" I winced as someone called my name out of the darkness. I cursed quietly between my teeth.
"I can hear you, you know. You're such a drama queen, I could recognize that sigh anywhere." A tall, thin boy a couple years older than me materialized silently from amongst the grass. "Hahaha… I almost got stuck in there, but then I kinda saw you coming this way- and you know you're a morale booster, after all." The other laughed ecstatically. I had the feeling he was on a drug high. His pointed face was scrunched up with amusement, and his greasy black braid was escaping everywhere in unruly tufts. His vividly blue eyes were dilating and contracting at random intervals.
I struggled to remember his name. This was the kid who followed me around whenever he was bored or something. From my few encounters with him in the company of others, I gleaned that he was more than just a little bit feared by the terrorists. He was received with similar reactions to my own when he entered a room. I knew that he was a frequent user of soldier pills. Well… he was continually downing them. Every time I saw him he was powering back drugs. The others were afraid of him, but somehow he never got quite the attention that was given to me. I don't know… maybe he just wasn't the outwardly rebellious type. I was sure that, like me, the only reason he stuck around was to get gratification for his addiction.
Ah, Ryota was his name. Great pain in the-
"How're you feeling, Dei…dara?" he asked in a somewhat concerned tone. I squinted at him, despite how difficult it already was to see.
"What do you want, hmm?" I asked peevishly.
"I would like to show you something real special, my friend."
"And that would be…?"
"Well, you'll just have to come and find out, won't you?" He reached for my forearm but missed it. "Can't see a… thing!" he exclaimed.
My eyebrows shot up beneath my forehead protector. "Why do you want me?"
"Pfft… just come on!" Ryota finally found my arm and grasped it tight. His fingers felt like barbed wire. They had a strange, gnarly texture to them. He began to half-drag me into the grass.
I allowed myself to be pulled along, grinning smugly. His pestilence could turn out to be a boon. After all, whoever might be watching this had nothing against Ryota… or so I hoped. If he had some reason to be out of the borders of camp, then why would it be strange if I came along at his request? Everything was weird about Ryota… what was one more bizarre excursion? If I got lucky, I thought that I might be able to slip away or do him in during an off guard moment. By the time anyone was the wiser to my absence, I'd be long gone.
"So, so…" Ryota's voice rose subtly over the quiet, scratchy sounds of blades of grass rubbing against each other. "I hear you've got a few people's panties in a knot, of late." I could hear the smile in his tone.
"Yeaaah…" I said, drawing out the single syllable. "I guess these guys will never understand art, hmm."
"Art, you say?" Ryota repeated. "That's an interesting take on killing."
"You want to get me started?" I chuckled quietly. "Killing is not the actual art, though. I'd call it, the perfect representation or medium for it, hmm."
"How's that?" he asked.
I could feel my heart beginning to beat faster. "Life is fleeting, and life is art in itself. We are but insects that leave tiny and insignificant accomplishments within the minds of other worthless beings. You can pass along and treasure those memories, but they will die. Some may say, slowly and surely they will fade away, but it takes a long time. That's when I ask them… what is a thousand years added to our world's lifespan? Nothing, nothing at all. You see, it's all transient in the big picture." I lifted my gaze to the overcast sky. "Binding life to my sculptures, which could be an embodiment of that essence… that's art, hmm."
"I never gave that much though to life. I didn't really get all that, but it sounded pretty plausible," Ryota laughed blithely.
I ignored him. I had initially been pleased by his curiosity, but now that he had revealed his ignorance on the matter I was only irritated. It was almost as though I was searching for some opposition. I wanted someone to be insightful and bold enough to challenge me on an artistic level.
"We're just about there…" Ryota murmured.
"What is the-"
"Can you see those two old fence posts?" Ryota grabbed my shoulders and spun me about.
"Where…? What am I supposed to be looking at?"
"Aw, geez… I forgot that you're short. You want me to give you a boost?"
"Not a chance!" I wasn't sure if Ryota had been able to catch the mutinous glance I'd thrown at him.
"Well… geez, there's a post about twenty metres northeast, and to our left there's another one thirty metres westward. Those are the unnamed boundary markers for camp."
"How do you know that?" I asked skeptically.
"Some people don't spend their time holed up lounging in front of the TV, trying to get their jollies by scarring the peons and pissing off superiors," he replied curtly.
"Touché," I said sarcastically.
"But, hey… no joke, I always got a laugh out of hearing your latest scandal."
"Hmm?" I raised my eyebrows, slightly irked.
"You can't honestly want to hang around there, though." Ryota was taking much smaller steps now. He was hunched over so that he could talk to me at eyelevel.
"What… what are you saying?" My heart gave a small flutter. "You don't mean to say…" I could feel perspiration beginning to prickle on my brow.
"Eh?" Ryota gave me a quizzical look.
"No… continue what you were saying, hmm." That was the first time in awhile I'd found myself suggesting someone else should speak.
"I found the wickedest sort of marsh ever. There's something really weird about it… I dunno. I suggested bringing you along to analyze it when I brought my discovery to the admins. Funnily enough… they agreed. They agreed that you were probably one of the only shinobi here who's got an education and some pristine chakra control."
Now I really broke out into a sweat. They knew they were giving me an opportunity to escape. I didn't doubt for a second that I would be able to defeat Ryota in battle, but there must have been a backup plan… if indeed they did intend to cash in my bounty when we reached Iwagakure. I couldn't be sure that an escape would be wise at this time. I was being backed into a corner… I was running out of time and had to make my exit now. Maybe Ryota wasn't in on the plan (whatever that was), but I wasn't able to take chances on his trustworthiness or ignorance.
"What's… strange about the marsh?" I asked in an even tone.
"You've got to tell me. I can feel power coming from it… Does that make any sense?"
"Uh…" I froze in my tracks, breathing heavily. A sharp pain had erupted along the left half of my body. It had come and gone in a flash, leaving a numb sensation in its wake. I suddenly fell to my knees, all strength gone from my legs. I pitched over and vomited in the grass, gasping and coughing until there were only dry heaves left. The chest-mouth awoke in an explosive fit, gnashing its teeth and reaching around the border of my kimono with its tongue, trying to devour all within reach.
"Hey, what's wrong, man?!" Ryota dropped down beside me, putting a hand on my shoulder. I lashed out at him, crawling away like a wounded animal.
"Don't… touch me!" I hissed through gritted teeth.
"What is that?!" Ryota reached for one of my pant legs and caught it, dragging me back with surprising strength. I thrashed around weakly, seeking my clay pouch, but he flipped me around none too gently, revealing the gaping chest-mouth's fight. "What is it?" Ryota repeated.
"Let go…!" I kicked him feebly, and he released me. "It's… just another of these." I waved a palm-mouth around in the air in front of him.
"Right, right. That's why you can barely stand and you're barfing up last night's miso and dumplings, which were delicious, by the way…"
"Don't talk about food right now, hmm!" I groaned, averting my gaze from my last meal.
"HA HA HA! That's right, off to the bog we go!" said Ryota, hauling me to my feet by the scruff of my kimono. I was not fond of being touched… not at all, but there was little I could do to resist in my lethargic state. A massive amount of chakra had just been absorbed again by the mouth. I hoped that I'd be able to regain enough energy to hold my own against Ryota by the time we reached his discovery.
I felt like I had a ticking time bomb inside my chest, one that wouldn't just go out with a bang, but instead stole my life little by little, chronically wasting me away. There was never a good time for an attack, and they usually came whenever I was in an aggravated or heightened emotional state. I had dared to hope that I'd gotten over them. It was not so. Hoping was a pointless effort; things either worked or they didn't. There was no ambiguous grey area… it was only a matter of time before the line was revealed.
"Moving on…" Ryota gripped my shoulders firmly. I couldn't tell if he did it to keep me going in the desired direction, or if he was afraid I'd make a break for it.
I slipped through the grass in silence, hardly stirring the thick blades. An air of urgency hung over Ryota, and I vaguely wondered if he sensed the same desperate cloud emanating from me. My movements were forced, mechanically graceful. I was running on empty, but I felt as though I had to maintain the façade of endless vigour.
"Slow down," Ryota cautioned. His warning had been needless; the underbrush had become so thick that it gradually hampered my progress.
The ground had abruptly turned to peat. My feet were already coated in a pasty mud. A forest of bulrushes surrounded Ryota and me, obstructing our view of the border we had left behind, and also hiding us from wary eyes.
I wrinkled my brow; I had begun to discern an ominous chakra in the air. It had the mute, yet clearly sentient feel of nature. Like foliage or primitive animals… but there was something slightly sinister to the power. There was too much of it. It was stiff and unchanging, but still complicated enough to be a human's chakra. I found myself getting absorbed in its intricate web, letting my mind wander up the thick waves and spirals of energy. I sank to my knees in the mire, crawling between the stubbornly rooted plants.
"Heh…" Ryota chuckled. I heard a faint splick as he slid down into the muck. "I see you don't mind getting up close and personal with the dirt."
"I was raised in the dirt," I muttered scornfully. Ryota fumbled with a pill bottle somewhere behind me, swearing as he spilled a few of the soldier pills into the swamp.
I stopped the trek when my path was suddenly overtaken by a plant-less void in the murk. A jagged expanse of shallow water broke through the vegetation to stand stagnant and solitary amongst the bulrushes. The chakra was most concentrated in this area; it was where all the disembodied power stemmed from. The energy hung in such dense layers that it had smothered any other living things' chakra. There was a familiar nuance within the frozen rays, one that distinguished them as… earth chakra. I sank a palm-mouth into the depths, drawing the immobile power into my chakra network, tasting its characteristic tang and raw strength, but keeping it from spreading further.
"What do you think…?" Ryota asked me after some hesitation. "You can feel it, right?"
"Better than you can." I frowned. "Maybe…" I had almost completely forgotten about the tremendous risk I was still taking in being outside of the camp… almost neglected the fact that I was surely being sent out on a leash. This amazing force I had come in contact with absorbed my attention.
"Crazy crap, isn't it?" Ryota said in an undertone.
"Hmm…" My submerged fingers twitched convulsively.
"Wouldn't it be something fine if we could harvest it?" Ryota smiled thoughtfully.
I leered back at him. "You're not compatible. This is earth chakra. You must feel weaker here, being a water type." My face stretched still wider, my mind drawing conclusions from the statement.
"How'd you know…?" he asked, a hint of suspicion behind his words. It was the first time I'd heard him genuinely worried.
"You manhandled me a lot back there. I got plenty of time to register your chakra type at such close range. I'm very good at manipulating and recognizing chakra, hmm." I didn't bother to cloak my boast under some pretence of humility. "…And it just so happens that I am perfectly suited to this chakra."
Well, maybe not precisely attuned to it… it was strange, no matter how I tried to look at it. Weird, half dead chakra.
"You don't say, huh…" Ryota popped another soldier pill into his mouth, rolling it around on his tongue. I tried to ignore him for the time being. I focussed on the swamp's chakra I still held in my palm-mouth. I had had enough of just probing it. Now I really wanted to absorb it; let it flow through me!
I put both hands on the surface of the tranquil water. "What do you think you'll accomplish by fighting me? Honestly…?" Ryota queried casually. I lost my concentration, allowing my palm-mouths to break beneath the translucent filth. My hands hit the bottom of the pool, sinking into silt and condensed mud.
"What?" I snapped rudely. "What do you think I'm trying to do, hmm?"
"You want to get away, right?" Ryota said nonchalantly. He didn't seem the least bit concerned by the idea. "You think I have some part in a grand scheme to use you against your will?"
"Do you?" I asked bluntly. A belligerent expression was marring my features. "Let's cut to the chase, shall we? I took you for an imbecile, but I'm having my doubts."
"I'm crushed!" Ryota threw his grimy hands up to his face in mock disbelief. His neon irises were still doing a mad dance around his eye sockets. It struck me how collected and coherent he remained, even while clearly inebriated with drugs. His easygoing attitude didn't hide that he was alert and very much in control of himself.
"Deidara, I'm just doing the math here. I'm not the only one who knows how high the bounty on your head is, and I'm certainly not one of the people keenest on cashing it in."
"Shut your mouth right now!" I hissed. My stomach contracted.
A soft sloshing sound had reached my ears, masked at first behind Ryota's voice, but becoming clearer by the moment.
I attempted to get up as quietly as possible, but Ryota knocked me back into the muck. My fingers dug into the thick filth, instinctively tearing chunks of viscous swamp from the pool's bottom. Before I had time to think about what I was doing, my palm-mouths were furiously processing the earthy substance. I vaguely registered that it had a very similar feel to the clay I usually used. I tried to direct a slight amount of chakra into the material, but found myself absorbing the ambient chakra already contained in the mud. I had forgotten to tweak the tenketsu in my palm-mouths back to "export" and had accidentally left them at "import".
I flinched as the malevolent chakra invaded my system. I attempted to drive it back out with a barrage of my own energy, but my chakra was too depleted to have much effect. This wasn't what I had been anticipating. I had only wanted to test a little of the chakra in a controlled environment, but here it was overtaking me while I was almost positive that we were being surrounded by other shinobi. I remained frozen in a crouch, grasping the… clay? That's what it must have been…
I was paralyzed while the foreign chakra invaded my body. I felt its penetrating tendrils searching my keirakukei, burning through the network's tubes, seeping into my sinews and bones. It was alive.
"Sorry, didn't mean to bump you… Come on- get up! I think the guys are checking in on us." Ryota grabbed me by my kimono.
"Tch!" I gasped. The alien chakra was wrapping its way around my organs, surrounding them in loops of barbed wire. Every muscle in my body was taut as a board; my spine a steel rod. Strands of crimson saliva clung between my parted lips.
"Twenty-four…" a bass male voice addressed Ryota.
I mustered all of my remaining strength to fight back, gathering my chakra into a concentrated mass at my core. The limbs I had robbed of chakra went limp. I fell face first into the marsh. My nostrils began to fill with water. Ryota leapt away; I heard the sucking sound made by liquid filling the void left by his feet. My eyes saw nothing, my ears went deaf. There was only a terrible suffocating darkness.
My reinforced chakra surrounded the delicate strands of fire, then wrapped around them in coarse bands. I constricted my chakra into even more concerted rings, and with a sudden spasmodic burst, I severed the horrible chakra's hold. The filaments of power whipped around the inside of my body like a firestorm, disconnected from their source. They were still violent, but they no longer held that probing or intelligent feeling.
I released my chakra, allowing it to flood through my entire being once more. It mingled blindly with the smouldering chakra. The two entwined themselves into a single entity: a new chakra.
My eyes were suddenly flooded with light and my eardrums were being bombarded by a series of rapid vibrations. All of my senses tingled. I expelled a fountain of water from my lungs, sucking air in with greedy gulps.
"What is it?!" a voice broke very near my ear. Ryota had his arms around my chest, supporting me from behind. At first I thought he was asking what had been wrong with me, but it didn't take me long to realize what he had really been talking about. I peered at the source of the commotion from between clumps of dripping hair.
"MY CHAKRA!" wailed a keening voice. A slender, dark figure was rising from within an oscillating vortex in the middle of the marsh. The pull of the swamp beneath us had Ryota hopping backwards, trying to lug me with him. I squirmed free of his grasp, surprised this time by how easy it had been to break his grip.
"Doton: Ganjo Ikizumaru!" I shouted, recklessly forming seals. I slapped my hands down onto the churning water's surface. Immediately there was an ear-splitting crack and the swirling mire's vicious pull died down. The water level sank as quickly as if someone had pulled the plug on the whole thing. The ground became visible beneath our feet; firm and cracked, sucking the fluid deep into its crevices.
"Very nice…" the older boy said in a reverent tone. A profound energy had wrapped its coils over every nerve ending in my body. The ethereal life-force billowed outwards from my form. I stood with my shoulders squared and my feet firmly planted. I felt a hot ribbon of moisture creeping down my chin. Paid it no heed.
"INSOLENT MORTAL! I WILL TEAR THE LIFE OUT OF YOU!" the spectre yowled, demanding attention from all those assembled.
"Twenty-four, what's going on here?" The source of the deep male voice assumed itself to be that of a newcomer. A great, broad ox of a man stood a little way back from Ryota, and behind that man was Number 33 in his moon mask, and behind him… loomed the pelvis-man. It was clearly Pelvis-face who had spoken.
"I… I don't know," Ryota stammered, clearly shaken by the unfolding of unexpected events.
"It's a mutiny!" hissed Cheese-man, jabbing two fingers aggressively at the pair of us. The angle at which his head was tilted threw hundreds of tiny shadows onto his porous mask. "Didn't I tell you the Iwagakurian wasn't to be trusted?!" His voice had taken on a hysterical note. He reminded me of the man who had stood up in the lounge and insisted I be driven away. Maybe he was that guy.
Was "Iwagakurian" even a word?
"Keep your trap shut, 33," the other huge man commanded. He continued in a hoarse whisper, "You were lucky to escape with your life today. And, further more, you are fortunate to be included in our filter program… underling!"
These words seemed to take the curb off of Cheese-man's agitation.
"YOU!" The ghostly apparition appeared completely oblivious to the four other men milling around its domain. It had fixed a glazed eye in my direction and its whole body was leaning in towards me. An oily black substance flowed freely from the being's pores, coating its leathery skin in a slimy sheet. I was hardly ten feet away from the monster.
"Why have you disturbed the Guardian, 24?" Pelvis-face said gruffly.
"What guardian?" asked Ryota, dumbfounded. I might have been the only one to notice the hint of suspicion that had now crept into his voice. "You sent me to investigate this place with Number 67." He paused to half glance at me. "What are you doing here?"
"I gave you no such orders," Pelvis-face sneered behind his mask.
"Permission!" Ryota started to snarl, but he was interrupted. Pelvis-face cut him off curtly.
"Neither permission."
"That's a crock of crap!" Ryota yelled indignantly, his temper flaring up.
"They're obviously framing me, hmm," I finally spoke up. My voice was barely higher than a whisper. "Us…" I corrected myself.
"Like hell they are!" barked Ryota. "Not if I can help it."
"Let's calm down, boys," Pelvis-face said, as though he was an academy teacher breaking up a disturbance between two disreputable school children.
"Let's not," said Ryota, bending into a fighting stance. I couldn't agree more with him.
"You've disturbed the ancient Guardian and strayed from camp. For what purpose? It doesn't matter. No one gave you the authority to leave camp; no one is ever permitted to leave camp."
Well, he's lying, of course… I thought to myself. I had seen people come and go as they pleased plenty of times before now. What he really meant was that no one with a bounty on their head was ever permitted to leave camp. Goodness knows, someone else could cash it in.
I had been keeping half of my concentration centered on the fiend of the marsh, and now I found my vigilance paying off. The creature, whatever it was, had grown impatient with the namby-pamby accusations and bickering. I ducked and less than a nanosecond later a tentacle-like arm had shot into the space my head had vacated.
My hands balled up into fists as I somersaulted away from the ghoul… towards the ill-boding men. I was momentarily surprised when I felt my weight mash the sticky, warm clay still jammed within my palm-mouths. A snap of intuition flashed across my mind as I dodged a blow.
The monster sent another attack my way, and I stepped swiftly out of its line of fire. The beast's sinewy arm came raging in uncontrollable spasms towards the three men. Pelvis-face and the Ox easily evaded the misdirected assault, but Cheese-man didn't get so lucky. Haven't stood a little behind Pelvis-face, he hadn't seen exactly where the creature's arm had came from. Though, he certainly did now. A powerful limb, brimming with unseen chakra had bore straight through Cheese-man's abdomen and come blossoming out of the back of his vest like some grisly, parasitic flower.
Realization took a few seconds to hit Cheese-man, but we all knew when it had. The screaming started. It began at a muted pitch, as though he didn't quite believe that the pain was real, that he had failed to block such a blunt attack. His mask hung askew off his twisted features, of which only tufts of sandy hair and bloodshot eyes were visible.
"Was no better than he deserved." I could hear the sneer in Pelvis-face's voice.
Cheese-man's wails reached an unbearable crescendo, then abruptly died off. A deep hum resonated from within the monster's chest, vibrating down its arm, causing the lifeless corpse hanging off its arm to tremble violently. I noticed with a slight shock that Cheese-man's cadaver was now completely emaciated, sucked dry of all moisture and chakra.
Then, so quickly that I barely perceived it, the creature's arm whipped to the side, Number 33's body slipping off the end of its tentacle. The shrivelled remains hit the Ox with enough force to send him reeling several hundred feet out of the field of reeds.
"NOW THAT'S THE STUFF!" boomed the spectre. It made an odd gurgling noise, then turned back to me. "YOU TOOK WHAT WAS NOT YOUR OWN. THERE IS ALWAYS A PRICE."
"Certainly is…" I murmured, taking a step towards the thing. The borrowed power within me bubbled to the surface of my conscience. I grasped it tightly with a mental fist, finished moulding it like the clay within my palms. I had as much of a right to steal chakra from the monster, as the thing had to rob other shinobi of their energy.
All is fair in… something… and war? I couldn't remember the rest of the saying.
Here goes…
AN:
Doton: Ganjo Ikizumaru - Earth Release: Sturdy Standstill