A/N: Sorry it's so short. I've had school and sports. Thanks everyone for reviewing and being so positive! I don't own Naruto.
Chapter 28
Waking with a start, I realized just how hot it was. Throwing off the blanket that I had snuggled up in the night before, I clambered to my feet and got dressed and refreshed in the bathroom. Exiting it, I saw Sai's bed empty, but that wasn't a major concern. He was probably off somewhere, drawing a picture or something.
As I made my way outside, I wondered how on Earth I was going to keep my madness at bay. The night had been pure hell for me because my chakra kept taking the shape of my worst or most admired and respected things and combining them. Ultron had been a genius in Avengers, but pride had been his downfall.
And was that the end of my most admired, yet feared things? Not by a long shot.
My chakra had also taken the form of Bloody Mary from The Wolf Among Us, the Other Mother in Coraline, and Latts Razzi and Asajj Ventress from Star Wars. All of whom had tried to get me to join them, to relinquish my power over myself. When I said no, there had been hell to pay.
But I didn't want to remember that right now.
As I stepped outside, the cool morning air rushed to greet me, helping me get over the terrible night. Spotting a lake, I also spotted Sai and Sakura sitting down on the pier together, looking at Sai's sketchbook. Sakura wasn't really sitting down; she was leaning down next to him.
Tentatively, I stepped onto the pier, wood creaking under my first step and unveiling my presence to Sakura. Sai had already known that I was up. The pinkette stood up and turned around, hair swaying with the cold morning air that seemed to rush through everything.
"..." What was I supposed to say? 'Good morning?' After all, I didn't really know how to handle the situation; the tiniest hint could give me away to Sakura... but wasn't that what I wanted?
"Did you know he can draw?" She finally stated, breaking the silence with her semi-high pitched voice. Looking at my shoes for a second, I was reminded of how hideous they were before staring at the pinkette, who wasn't as hideous.
"Yeah," I replied quietly, earning a curious glance from Sai, who had looked away from his drawing for a rare moment before returning to his art. "Good morning," I added, trying to seem polite. I had learned from experience that it wasn't fun to get ignored. Smiling lightly, Sakura returned the phrase with a little chirp in her voice.
"We have to leave in an hour or so. I'll go wake Captain Yamato and Naruto," Sakura informed, walking back inside the cozy inn. If they had Yelp, I would probably give this place a 4.3 on a 5.0 scale.
Taking my time, I leisurely strolled down the small, wooden pier on the lake. Stopping next to Sai, I observed the beautiful view granted by the lake. A sun almost above the horizon, frogs croaking, lake shimmering, a view nobody could resist. Letting out a sigh, I sat a foot away from the pale shinobi.
"What is it?" He asked tentatively, not looking up from his beloved art. This time, he was drawing the view of the lake, making sure to get every detail in and making it seem as real as possible.
"I'm not going to be using my chakra for awhile." Instead of asking why or when this happened, he simply nodded and added a few more strokes to his painting.
I tried to put myself in his place and the only logical reasons for him not responding were because Captain Yamato was a stone throws away and I would solve the problems soon. How he trusted me this much, I haven't the slightest idea. But I knew it wasn't healthy for someone like him to trust someone like me and for that reason, I suspected he had his suspicions about my humanity and loyalty towards Root.
This of course, wasn't a problem; at least it hadn't been in the past. But now, things had changed, the tables had turned. Sai didn't know it, but without my chakra he could defeat me and I think he knew that.
But he didn't know what would happen if I used my chakra and that was good.
"Why?" The lone question hung in the air, slicing the calm mood in half. Looking at the dark-haired boy, I stared into his eyes, those unending eyes and asked myself the same question, but at the same time, giving myself an answer.
"Oh come on... Don't you wanna' play...?" The demented and drawn out voice of Bloody Mary stayed with me, even as I ran away, far, far away, from the madness. Step by step, sight going fuzzy and then clear, as if it never happened. The water under my feet reached up and tried to absorb me, to catch my foot, anything, but I was faster than free-flowing, wet, slow water. Despite the odds, I had to try to get away, after all...
this was my mind,
and what were the odds?
Shaking my head, I quickly got up and walked towards the inn, leaving Sai and his bothersome question in the dust. Behind me, his eyes narrowed at my retreating figure, but I payed him no mind. He couldn't control me; he couldn't control an immortal, nobody could.
Whispers in the back of my head told me this wasn't true, but seeing as those voices were the ones I had heard in my dream last night, I ignored them and kept walking, remembering the dream that had ruined me.
"Oh, come on," Ultron asked, appearing in front of me. Halting myself, I glared at the sudden thing with hatred. "Stop... toying with us. Together, we have unlimited power, but you keep pushing us away. Why?"
What had he said...?
"Unlimited power, you say?" I repeated, sounding intrigued, but Ultron wasn't fooled, after all, I hadn't tried very hard.
"I bet you're tired. Yeah... you're real tired, aren't you?" Not talking I shook my head, but I knew that was a lie.
I was very tired. Wasn't the point of going to sleep to get well rested?
"Stop fighting them!" He roared, shocking me. Stepping back, I realized I had forgotten about the trap water, but it was too late. The water had molded itself around my feet and was currently trying to wrap itself around my arms, but I held them at a safe distance.
"Alright," Captain Yamato started cheerfully, breaking me out of my flashback. "Let's get started." Gradually waking up, the four man team got ready to reenact what the plan was, but instead of focusing, I tried to keep my thoughts organized while not being seen as the weak link. It wasn't until Naruto got tangled up and Sai had disappeared had I realized that I was still under observation by Sakura.
"Let me out of here, stupid!" The blonde yelled loudly, irritating my nerves. "Hey, why're you two even on this team?!" Snapping out of my daze, I organized a well practiced hurt look on my face.
"Sorry if you hate us. I can't change the team arrangements." By this point, Ymato and Sai were back, and Sai had cut the bonds off of Naruto.
"Naruto..." Sakura started, being as useless as I remember. She wasn't helping, so why didn't she leave?
"No! These two clearly haven't experienced loss before! They're emotionless! Can't you tell?" With this accusation, a stirring started in my chest, but the real war was in my head.
"This child clearly doesn't know loss," Ultron's voice said softly.
"Actually, I have." Thanks, Sai. With him stalling the inevitable, I tried to piece together worthy lies, but nothing was coming to me.
"What about you?" Yamato voiced, directing the question at me.
"I don't like to talk about it," I answered immediately, waving it off with a small smile, enraging Naruto to no ends.
"Bullshit! You've got to have lost something!"
"Teach him a lesson," Ultron suggested. Knowing I shouldn't, I kept my temper down, as to not alert Yamato.
All at once, I took a breath and calmed my mind. There was no hurry to do anything, I didn't have any pending homework, no friends to worry about, no relationships to treasure. This gave me time to think. As we waited for the mysterious person to show up, I went over my mindset.
"What's your plan?" Ultron asked quietly in my head, to not agitate me. Observant.
"Why do you want to know?" I thought, playing with a few leaves while Yamato watched Naruto call Sai a bastard. As usual, Sakura had her eyes glued to me and looked away when I glanced over at her.
"You don't have a set motive, but I know you've got a general goal. However, your mind hasn't touched on the subject and for that, I can't see what the plan is," he explained. If he was real, he'd be waving an imaginary hand around to help move the conversation, like he did in the Avengers.
"I tend to deal with my plans when the opportunity arises or... it depends on what mood I'm in."
"Mood?" Ending our chat, I caught a kunai aimed at me thrown by Yamato, who was staring at me twirling it in my hands. Catching a kunai in midair had been my greatest accomplishment, in my opinion because it was neat.
"Stay on your toes," he ordered calmly. Tossing it back to him, I went back to fiddling with the leaves, which weren't getting any more interesting.
"Gotcha.'"
"Looks like someone doesn't trust you..." Ultron trailed, watching the scene through my eyes. Unable to resist the small smile that manifested on my lips, I crushed one of the leaves and let its remains flutter to the ground, like a dead bird being ripped of its feathers.
"With good reason." His hearty laugh echoed softly in my head.
Now, we were waiting for Yamato's signal. The mysterious figure, whoever it was, was telling Yamato details of something. Names like Akatsuki and Sasori emerged from the conversation, but I didn't know what they meant. For all I knew, Akatsuki were a bunch of famous pop stars or a brand of shoes that weren't very popular. It wasn't until a pale dude showed up did things get interesting.
"The deal... just expired," the mysterious figure stated, beheading Yamato's disguise. Raising a hand, Yamato gave a thumbs up and wasting no time, the team- minus me- jumped out.
"Why are you thinking of the movie, Bolt at a time like this?" Ultron asked curiously, looking into my thoughts.
"Well... he did steal that line from that cat, didn't he?" I thought back. Ultron chuckled and went silent.
"Well, well, well. A four man team? To what do I owe the pleasure?" Kabuto asked, removing his hood and revealing his stupid, smug face.
Everyone else was stuttering in shock, unable to believe that good ol' Kabuto had betrayed the village. It wasn't much of a shock, seeing as how the dude had kidnapped me and after that, I hadn't exactly considered him a loyal soldier.
Yamato and the rest of the team listened while the pale dude, who I now realized was Orochimaru, talked about his experiments. Nobody questioned why I hadn't jumped out with them, but I think Sai was the only one who had an idea as to why. I didn't want to ruin the fight by ending it quickly and I didn't want to give away the fact that I had massive power.
"I wonder," Orochimaru drawled, smirking as he stared at Naruto. "Who's stronger? You... or Sasuke?" At this, I felt a massive spike of chakra coat the air, making breathing a little difficult. It felt... excited.
How could chakra feel excited?
Naruto's form started flowing red and orange and I took this moment to step out, revealing myself. In my head, I could feel Ultron's curiosity at what I was doing, for he couldn't see my thoughts. I never thought during fights.
"Oh...?" Orochimaru querked. "Another weakling?" Ignoring the long-haired freak, I turned my sights to Kabuto, who had a thoughtful look on his face, like trying to piece this revelation together. A few feet away from the duo, Sai's eyes had gone wide but seeing my gaze fall on him, he quickly recomposed himself.
"I'm not your opponent." Dodging Naruto's attack, Orochimaru gritted his teeth at the new factors that had just appeared, a la me. When they fought, I saw Kabuto backing into the tree line.
"What's the plan?" Ultron asked, amusement laced in his voice. "If you try to stop Kabuto, you'll reveal your skill, but if you don't, he'll get away." Clenching my fist, I realized the robot-form of my chakra was right. I couldn't risk revealing myself, but he would get away.
Watching Kabuto inch further and further back made my blood boil. If only there was a way to get over there or do something to him...
Grinning, I started channeling chakra outside my body, not having to use handsigns because I'd mastered the technique long ago, under Danzo's instruction.
"What're you doing?" Ultron questioned, feeling a little bit of himself being depleted.
"You're the plan." With this being said, (in my mind) Ultron or my chakra, sped up the technique with excitement and next to me, appeared Ultron, just how I remembered him.
"Much better," he voiced. Turning their heads, Yamato and Sai's eyes narrowed at the robot clone.
Ultron looked just like he did in the movie, except a little bit bigger. His blue optics locked onto Kabuto's form and he started running.
"What did you do?" Yamato demanded, not looking too happy with this new revelation.
"I made a clone, duh." Accepting the answer for now, Yamato focused on more important things, like Naruto, who now had four, orange tails on him and looked a little different. Launching a few feet from Naruto and Orochimaru's fight, Ultron did a flip in the air and landed on the other side, making a small crater appear in the ground.
"Why do they always run?" The dark robot asked, shaking his head.
Ultron's P.O.V.
Taking appearance, I flexed my new hands, and looked at my strange feet. How strange, I thought, to have my own body when my sole purpose was to protect someone else's. For a brief second, I silently questioned why She had manifested me into existence. Had her dream not been scary enough?
No, she had been terrified, and that was what I had wanted, but I couldn't help but wonder... Why had she sent me into action when I clearly warned her about doing such a thing?
Was this part of her plan? And who sent out something evil on their own will? Was this foolish action of her's in my favor? Feeling her irritation begin to grow behind me, I realized she had done this on purpose, and maybe I didn't have as much power as I thought.
Focusing on the white-haired man that had kidnapped her... us, I started running and heard Yamato shout something to Teagen, but that was none of my concern. As I leaped over the fight transcending on the bridge, I saw Orochimaru look up in pure shock and maybe awe, before having to shift his attention back to Naruto.
When I landed, I realized Kabuto had started running away, probably in fear of me or maybe, the guy was running just to run.
"Why do they always run?" I asked myself without a hint of concern in my voice. I could take all the time in the world and I would still catch him. The thing about being someone's clone, is that you get all their attributes depending on how much chakra they had, but this was Teagen.
She had a never-ending supply of it.
And it wasn't necessarily her's to begin with.
With that in mind, I took off in the direction I had last seen the white-haired traitor run.
Not bothering to hide myself I quickly caught up with the weakling, staying a few feet behind him, hidden in the trees. When he realized he wasn't alone, he stopped and smirked, brandishing those strange looking knives that glowed a light blue and began to look around.
"Come out, Ono-san. I know it's you." I didn't say anything in favor of watching the man try to coax me out of hiding.
"You want revenge, don't you? I ruined your life and now you want to kill me. Well now..." Snapping his head to my now revealed location, his smirk transformed into a malicious grin that stretched from ear to ear. "I'll make sure to capture you myself!" With that, he sped towards the spot at a painfully slow speed. I wasn't sure how Teagen had such fast reflexes or eye to brain coordination, but it was definitely something I wanted to figure out.
The scene playing out reminded me of the Quicksilver scene from X Men: Days of Future Past. I guess if I knew everyone's name, then I also retained some of Teagen's memory, too, or maybe, that's just how clones worked.
Waiting till the last possible moment, I watched Kabuto's eyes go wide with shock at the unexpected sight before him: me. When his blades almost touched me, I extended my scaly, metal arm and grabbed the man by the neck, fingers tightening around the soft flesh in my hand.
"To be honest?" I asked, liking the sound of my voice and realized it was the same one from the movie Teagen had compared me with.
"I don't know what she wants."
