A/N: Oh, to elaborate on what I said in my last end note, I'm essentially moving over to Archive of Our Own. I'll finish this story, but all my other work will be posted to AO3 from now on. My penname there is Etsu_Nara, and I actually already have three stories up. One is a one-shot, but the other two I'm going to try and update weakly. One of them is called One Messed up Family (which I actually started on here, then passed onto a friend, then reclaimed, third times the charm, right?), and the other one is called Star Crossed, which focusses on Etsu and is basically her coming of age story.

Disclaimer: All OC's belong to their respective creators. I do not own Naruto, all rights belong to Masashi Kishimoto.

Chapter 25

Killer

Akito's POV

"These sound ninja are a pain in my ass," Kankuro complained for what felt like the millionth time.

"Here we go again," I grumbled.

"What was that?"

"Nothing," I said. "I just wish you would stop complaining.

We had fallen back to the edge of the desert. Or rather, the sand ninja had been pushed back. But this worked in our favor. Well, in the sand ninja's favor. All over the place, sand walls were rising, and sandstorms were brewing. We almost weren't needed, which was a bit of a disappointment, I had to admit.

"Quit your bickering," Kakuzu ordered.

"I'm sorry, who's in charge of this team?" Kankuro shot at him.

"If you were paying fucking attention, you'd see that we're needed over there," Hidan said.

"Pft," Kankuro said in annoyance. "Let's go.

We approached a battle of two sand ninja again six sound ninja.

"I can handle this, those guys need help over there," Kankuro commanded.

I nodded, and Hidan, Kakuzu and I hurried over to a pair of sand ninja facing off against ten sound ninja. Just as we were approaching a wave of sound ninja charged through an opening.

"You two get those guys!" I shouted. I didn't wait for their response. I transformed into a wolf, and tackled the nearest sound ninja. I bit his arm, and headbutted him. Leaving him unconscious, I moved onto the next sound ninja. The two sand ninja jumped into action, backing me up. In no time, the sound ninja were either dead or unconscious.

"Secret Art: Striking Shadow Snake!" My ears twitched as I caught the jutsu coming from Kankuro's battel. Knowing my work in this battle was done, I turned towards Kankuro's fight. He was doing well, except for the fact that the ninja that just performed the jutsu was behind him. I sprung at the ninja quickly, not letting myself think about what I planned to do after I reached her.

She was closer than I calculated, and with more force than I intended, my paws hit her back. I was vaguely aware of the crack I heard from the impact. I bit into her neck as we fell to the ground.

I jumped off the crumpled body, looked around to see the battled was over, and then looked down.

The girl I had just pounced on couldn't have been older than eighteen, though I guessed she was closer to sixteen. Her eyes stared up at me, still alive, but barely.

I forced my gaze away, and looked up as Kankuro turned to face me. He had a strange look on his face, as if he was worried. Was it because of what I had done?

What had I done?

"Look out!" Kankuro called, running to push me out of the way. Out of the way of what, I wasn't sure.

As I fell to the side, I saw the girl had used the last of her strength to send a snake at me – which would have hit had Kankuro not saved me.

Moving quickly, I grabbed the snake with my mouth, tossing it away, but not before it had a chance to bit Kankuro's leg.

The girl let out a short laugh that quickly turned into a cough. "My parting gift to you losers. Orochimaru cannot be stopped." Her body went limp.

I hesitated a moment before transforming back into a human. I hurried to Kankuro's side, not really sure what to do.

"I'm not a medic, I'm not trained for this," I said.

"It's okay, I'll walk you through it," he said, his voice sounding strained. I noticed the blood had drained from his face, and he was ghost white. "Make a tourniquet."

"A tourni-what?" I asked.

"A tourniquet," he repeated. "You'll need cloth or something."

"But I don't—" I started.

"Move aside," Kakuzu said, appearing out of nowhere. "What happened?"

"A snake bit him," I said as Kakuzu got to work making a tourniquet with the threads from his body. I scanned the ground looking for the snake I had tossed away. "That snake! Hidan, grab it!" It was slithering past him, trying to escape no doubt, but Hidan was quick and had it in his clutches.

"Don't let it go, Hidan," Kakuzu grumbled. "We'll need to know what kind of venom it has. This will hurt." Kakuzu had finished the tourniquet, and pulled out a kunai. Where the snake bite was, he sliced open Kankuro's leg.

I winced slightly, but Kankuro didn't seem to be effected.

"You didn't feel that," Kakuzu said.

"Feel what?"

"That's not a good sign." As he let the blood drip from the wound, he examined the snake Hidan held. "I don't recognize this kind of snake. I won't be able to give an antidote." He began rummaging through one of his equipment packs.

As he pulled out a vial and a syringe, my eyes drifted to the now dead sound ninja. Her back was bent in an unnatural way, and there was dried blood on her neck that had seeped from fang wounds.

What had I done?

This is war, a voice tried to reason in my head. It can't be helped.

But it can. I managed not to kill anyone in the last fight, and the fight before that.

She would have killed Kankuro.

He's probably dead now anyways.

"Akito." My head snapped towards Kakuzu.

"What?" The word came out harsh and short, like a bark. I hardly recognized my own voice.

"We're sending Kankuro to the medical tents with the snake. We need you to contact Shikaku, or someone at headquarters to tell them what happened."

"Me? Why?"

"Kankuro is a little unconscious and a little too poisoned to tell them, and they won't necessarily trust me or Hidan," Kakuzu explained with an exasperated sigh. "Whatever's going on with you, push it back until at least you take care of this."

"Fine," I snapped, a small growl mixed in with the word.

I closed my eyes reaching for the mental connection Inoichi kept active. How he managed to do that constantly was beyond me.

Akito, what is it? Inoichi's voice rang in my head.

Kankuro's been poisoned. We're sending him to the medical tents with the snake that bit him. You'll need someone there to take care of him and figure out the antidote. We don't know what kind of venom it is.

Okay. Thank you. This will put you in charge of your team, got it?

Understood.

The connection broke and I opened my eyes. Two sand ninja had appeared and were carrying the unconscious Kankuro away.

"I'm in charge now. Let's move out." Hidan and Kakuzu went to leave, but I paused there a moment longer, staring at the limp body, before stiffly following after them.

They both glanced back at me, but I wasn't really paying attention. Half my attention was dedicated to glancing around at battles, trying to decide where we were needed, while the other half couldn't get the image of the dead girl out of my mind.

"Okay, what's going on?" Hidan asked, coming to a stop and Kakuzu following suit.

"Nothing."

"Bull-fucking-shit," Hidan shot back. "You're not focused, you can't lead a mission if you're not focused!"

"I'm. Fine." I said, knowing full well I wasn't convincing anyone. I wasn't even convincing myself.

"If you're worried about Kankuro, don't," Kakuzu said.

"I'm not."

"Then what is it?"

"Nothing."

"Honestly, we don't give a shit about what's wrong," Hidan said. "But you're in no state to be leading us. Not that anyone could actually kill either of us, but if you make a bad call, it could be pretty detrimental."

"Then I won't make a bad call," I shot at him. "Let's go." I took the lead, and did my best to push the image of the dead girl from my mind. No matter how hard I tried, though, she was always there.

A/N: Look at me, forking out chapters! I deserve a cookie! Even though I'm trying to cut sugar out of my diet (unnecessary sugar that is). Anyways, hope you enjoyed!