Chapter 25-Windows to His Soul
Tobi was having a hard time to stay awake.
Sitting under a dark and huge tree, he was staring hard towards the gleaming river, his back leaning against the tree's wrinkled trunk, arms neatly crossing in front of his broad chest. Every now and then, he felt the weight of his eyelid was trying to overpower his own strength, no matter how much might and vigor he had mustered in keeping his eyes open. Gentle, cooling wind caressed his skin softly like a loving touch. As he was about to shut his tired little eye once and for all, his heart jolted. Eye as wide as a saucer, Tobi yelped out in a hurried whisper,
"Tobi can't sleep! Tobi must keep an eye on that pretty lady! Tobi…musn't…" His eyelid was coming down and down with each word he mumbled, "Sleep…"
O O O
"What have I done wrong to be punished like this?"
Eva muttered in a flat, resented tone, as she tossed a small rock into the calm river, prompting a huge ripple to shape itself on the surface of the gleaming water. She then turned to look down at her weary, poor legs, which were soaked in the soothing water, and they were no longer in their best condition. Scratches and ugly marks were all over her soles due to the simple but harsh fact that she had no more slippers to wear. One was broken by the fall, and another one was left at the theatre, if the theatre was still in one piece when she returned.
Eva breathed out a long miserable sigh. If this was the fairy tale of Cinderella, she would rather be sweeping the filthy floor for the rest of her life than being spirited away to God-knows-where.
Things got worse when the sudden itchy sensation swelling on her thigh was killing her inside. Too afraid to give the bite mark a scratch in fear of making it worse, she sprinkled some water onto the teeth-print, which did nothing to help; it was still stinging and itching to no end.
"Who does he think he is?" Eva bit her lips with hellish fury, "My Princess doesn't even dare to lay a tooth on me! That jerk-face better don't give me any rabies!"
As soon as the last word left her mouth, she felt as though something slimy was sticking beneath her gum. It had been leaving a bad taste in her mouth, and she had not realized anything about it until that particular moment. Wondering what it was, she gingerly dug it out with a finger.
On her fingertip was a tiny, moist piece of clay.
At first, she did not know how to react. Her heart was hammering hard against her own ribs, her throat swallowing a bitter lump of saliva, head swimming with anxiety.
"Did I kiss a guy who eats clay bombs for breakfast?" Eva paused when her stomach took the chance to growl loudly for food, "Speaking about 'breakfast', I only had Gaara's ice-cream this morning, if that can be considered as 'breakfast'…"
She closed her eyes miserably. While trying hard to avoid hearing all kinds of noises made by her famished stomach, she suddenly heard a fizzling sound. Eva opened her eyes to find herself staring at bubbles popping up on the surface of the river, somewhere near her soaked feet. She would have wanted to have a nice, perfumed bubble bath, if only she was at her home sweet home.
Sensing something amiss, she was going to get her feet back onto the grassy ground. As she was starting to lift her legs up, the mysterious water pulled her feet and dragged her down…
Splash! Eva regretted joining the drama club instead of attending swimming lessons.
"H-h-help! S-s-s-somebody-"
Eva gasped for air, her arms flailing for the river bank which was already out of her reach. Water began racing through her throat and filling up her lungs by force, causing her chest to become so tight she could no longer breathe. Strangely, she could feel her eyes started to water, even though she knew that the freezing water from the river was getting in her eyes.
She looked up aimlessly at the bright light, which had begun to fade away from her. As she was sinking down like a broken and forgotten doll, she was squeezing her eyes painfully, thinking that her wish would finally come true…
"Mommy…Daddy…I'm coming…"
"I'm going to be away for a while, un. Don't go anywhere, you hear me, yeah?"
"Deidara?" Eva opened her eyes, "I made a promise that I would wait for him. I can't die...not yet...not now..."
Holding on strongly to her words, Eva slowly raised her hand up to the gleaming surface, waiting for a miracle to happen. She believed that no fairy-tales should end with sad endings, and she wanted her ending to be a happy one. When the last breath of air was about to leave her dying lungs, Eva shook restlessly; she just felt a powerful surge of waves went rushing her to the edge of the flowing stream. The waves were as mysterious as the mass of water which had dragged her down into the river.
She thought the waves looked much like a shark....
O O O
Cough! Cough! Cough!
"I never thought..." Eva panted violently, her palms wiping the water off her pale emerald eyes, "I'll be...alive...thank-"
Eva looked up to thank her life-savers properly. However, she ended up staring at them with her lips parted open with no sound-not even a puff-came out. She froze onto the wet grass, scanning the two menacing figures from head to toe with her large, frightened eyes.
Both of them were donned in cloaks which bore the same crimson clouds that Deidara's cloak had, meaning that they must be S-ranked criminals. Eva found it hard to keep staring at the taller man, whose shark-like face was complete with distinctive white eyes, fish gills and sharp fangs. On the half-shark's shoulder was a gigantic, bandaged sword, which he wielded with much ease and pride; Eva could immediately relate his evil smirk with the flaming-red-costumed old man hanging almost-lifelessly on the massive sword.
The raven-haired man beside him was not any better. His eyes were so weird and red that Eva was sure he was a non-ordinary human being.
"You must be Deidara's sweetheart!" The shark-man grabbed Eva's jaw and pulled her face near to his, "Don't you think you're too cute for him?"
"Don't-touch-me!" Eva slapped his hand away, "For God's sake, get some facial treatment for your skin condition, dirty old shark!"
"Hah! She's a feisty one!" The criminal shark's smirk dangerously widened, "I like it!"
Before he could snatch Eva's wrist, much to her huge relief, the man with crimson red eyes spoke without much concern,
"That's enough, Kisame. Leader-sama is waiting for us. He won't tolerate it if we delay the sealing of Yonbi (four-tail) any further."
"I'm sure that Leader-sama would understand, since he put us in charge of being 'babysitters' to these lovebirds. Why can't he give the babysitter's role to that bipolar vegetable, Itachi-san? This job is perfect for an exotic creature like him," Kisame responded with jest.
"Our job here is done. Take that Jinchuuriki to the base before he gets weaker, Kisame," Itachi's Sharingan eyes fixed on Eva, "I shall come back to you later."
Half-surprised by Itachi's sudden interest towards the trembling girl, Kisame laughed flippantly, "Have fun. Tell me about it later, Itachi-san."
Eva was getting terribly-tired with disappearing ninjas. After Kisame vanished out of sight, the heavy bricks on her shoulders were lifted. In less than a second, they came crashing down into her stomach with a loud thud when she instantly remembered a suspicious portion of Kisame's sentence.
"Have fun?" Her biological alarm blared alarmingly in her brain, "What fun?"
Eyes remained cold and intense, Itachi made a few steps forward in Eva's way, his hand underneath his cloak pushing his zip down to its end. He calmly took it off, prompting a bump in Eva's chest. Her drenched self moved slightly back, trembled even more when Itachi was just three more steps away from her.
"If you try anything f-f-funny, I-I-I'll scream!" Eva quickly shielded her bosom defensively, her hands clutched tight at her collar.
Itachi took no notice of her reaction, "Change to this, or you'll catch a cold."
"What?"
Eva kept her blank gaze at Itachi, who tossed his Akatsuki cloak towards her. She caught it with a confused state of mind, not being able to say anything sound. Still wordless, Eva studied the criminal's face once again, this time more thoroughly than before; unlike Deidara's eyes which were much easier to read, his ones were strangely-empty. Somehow, she could see unforgettable sorrow hidden behind those mystical, strange patterns in his dark crimson eyes, but perhaps she could be wrong. Yet, she was very certain of one thing from taking a peek at those windows of his soul; he definitely had compassion.
Itachi locked eyes with Eva's for a brief moment, before closing them and turned behind to make his departure. Making a disappointed face, Eva called out as loudly as she could,
"Hey, wait a minute!"
Itachi halted and looked over his shoulder, his eyes glowing red with soft warmth.
"Whatever your motives are, thanks for your kind thoughts," Eva nodded with an appreciative smile.
"Hmph."
Eva almost screamed when Itachi transformed to flying black crows. How come he was so different to Deidara? She would never know....
O O O
"We are already behind schedule. I won't forgive you if any of you screw up."
Pein's foreboding rippled eyes pierced intensely through the sinister darkness, scanning all his members on their respective fingers. Most of the holograms had their eyes shut in concentration, focusing in sealing off the four-tail beast into the giant statue of a humanoid monster at the centre of the chamber, not giving any faintest thought to the elderly man floating in the mid-air. His gaping eyes and mouth were projecting bright pink effigies towards the mouth of the disfigured statue. The only sound that could be heard at that place was the sound of the deadly transfer, until another sound-a high-pitched, masculine voice-barked out of a mixture of boredom and dissatisfaction.
"If not for that pansy Deidara-chan, we would have sealed Sasori's Bijuu by now."
"Be grateful you're an immortal, un. You don't want me to blow you up into meat powder as an offering to Jashin, yeah," Deidara opened his eyes to glare at the silver-haired man on the left index finger.
Another voice, deep and serious, came from Zetsu, "Sorry to say, but Hidan's right. Isn't it your fault that we had lost Sasori to Sunakagure?"
"But it's not such a bad thing after all," a different voice was spoken by the very same plant-man, "We've seen that Jinchuuriki did quite some huge damage to that village. No one would have thought that he would be that powerful..."
"So powerful that even one of the Konoha's finest medic ninjas almost died fighting him," Black Zetsu ended his report with a proud note.
"Who?" Pein demanded with great curiosity, "I assume it is the same person who defeated Sasori in the cavern. Tsunade's apprentice?"
"Unfortunately, yes," Zetsu coarsened his voice, the black part of him giving a disappointed grunt, "Sasori could have helped us get rid of that Konoha slug..."
White Zetsu explained briefly, "She's only half-dead. What a shame really..."
"What the fuck? Only half-dead?" Hidan roared, "That godless Sasori shall be damned in hell for-"
"Shut up, Hidan."
Ignoring Hidan's endless curses for him, Kakuzu continued with poisonous green eyes gleaming in Deidara's direction,
"The problem doesn't lie with Sasori or you, Deidara-kun. It's that girl you're keeping. I'm afraid she got you distracted."
Deidara smirked dismissively, "I don't think so. Don't simply jump to conclusions before you get them right, un."
"Someone's in denial again. No offence, Deidara-kun, but that pretty lass has to go if you don't want to keep screwing up. Letting Itachi-san save your butt whenever your life is at stake...is not so cool."
Kisame laughed out loud in a derisive manner, rather satisfied by the same flabbergasted look on Deidara's face that he had seen when that 'spunky' bomb terrorist lost to Itachi a few years ago.
"This should be interesting..."
End of Chapter 25
That's all for Chapter 25. I still have more to write for the conversation, but I have to save it for the next chapter. Hopefully, Chapter 26 is going to be the final one. I have the plot ready, so I hope everything goes well.
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Hmm...do I have anything more to say? Oh yes, thanks for reading! :D