A/N: Okay, I really have nothing to say as far as the story goes, I'm just using this as a moment to give mad shout outs to my reviewers. Especially Sightlines (your reviews have been encouraging since the beginning, thanks so much!) and 8DRainbowManVan8D (thanks for the reviews and the fanart!).
I love you all! Please, enjoy!
"Mrm... Ow..." Kyuubi muttered as he tried to open his eyes. "I really need to stop being knocked out like this..." There were a few more attempts of getting up, Kyuubi finally managed to open those crimson eyes.
The images that greeted him were dizzying at first but soon he was able to make out that he was in a small, dark room. The young demon tried moving his arms, just to be yanked back down to the floor. "Correction," He growled, seeing that his arms and legs were chained to the floor of this room, "Trapped in a small, dark room."
Jostling and clanging filled the room as Kyuubi tried to tear free of the restraints. Even if, from appearances, it would seem futile. Just as he was about to start experimenting with how many bombs the chains could take, there was a voice from his hair. Kyuubi shook himself, just like a dog after a bath, and he was soon rewarded by the sight of a familiar ball of light.
"Kyuubi!" Sakura coughed out, "I knew that Kakuzu's stupid disguise wouldn't fool anyone!"
"Well, it's too late to think about that now. We have to get out of here!" Kyuubi replied before he tried and, once again, failed to get his arms freed. "I can't believe I let myself be caught like this. I don't even want to imagine what the humans plan to do with me." The thoughts of Madara that flashed through his mind caused a shiver to crawl through him. "Sakura... I'm scared."
"Don't worry..." Sakura sighed, "The humans can't have anything that bad up their sleeves." Kyuubi sighed,
"They have Madara."
"... True." While the demon and his fairy were talking, they didn't notice the large window high up in the wall. The humans made their windows and doors extra big so that air could circulate and give some form of relief from the searing heat. This would be a pain in the night when the desert winds would be freezing cold, but they had to deal with it.
However, someone had another idea of how to use the windows.
Silently, a figure stealthily made his way up before they got to the window. It was with the same stealth, something flew through the window and landed in Kyuubi's chains.
"What was that?" Kyuubi gasped as the item made impact. It was a kunai with a red tag attached. "Great, they're not even going to wait until I get out of here to try and pull something?" Abruptly, a sizzling interrupted him. He looked and saw that the tag was burning away. "Ah!" He screamed, covering his face just as the kunai exploded.
When the smoke cleared to a breathable extent, Kyuubi coughed out, waving his arms to get the smoke out of his eyes. But, that was just it. "Hm?" He blinked and saw that his arms had been freed. "I'm okay?" But, how..?" There was a hiss and he looked over towards the large window, where a hand was waving at him to come over.
"And how would I even get all the way up- oh, that's right." Kyuubi brought his Longshot out from his satchel and, after a good aim, he shot it to where it landed on the window ledge. It was a quick ride to the window, yet Kyuubi almost fell out of it when he realized that there was nowhere to really stand.
Thankfully, before he fell to the populated ground below, the same waving hand grabbed him and pulled him to the roof. "No! Let go of me! Stop!" Kyuubi tried to break free of this stranger's grasp, not even caring to open his eyes. It wasn't until Sakura yelled,
"Kyuubi, stop! Would you open your eyes?" The young demon stilled long enough to turn around and see a familiar face.
"Shisa!"
"Small world, isn't it?" The mysterious demon smiled as he helped to younger demon to his feet.
"What are you doing here?" Kyuubi asked, bewildered but happy to see the other male nonetheless.
"To tell the truth," Shisa began, looking around to make sure that they hadn't been seen, "I followed you here." Kyuubi opened his mouth to ask why, just to have Shisa state, "Because I knew that these damn humans would try something. Just think of me as..." Shisa began, trailing off in a hum as he let his eyes observe just how Kyuubi's attention was keyed onto him. He smirked before, in an instant, he was right in front of Kyuubi's face. The two stared into each other's eyes (Kyuubi thinking that if it weren't for that mask, he could see the Youkai Ninja better) before Shisa whispered, "..Your own personal guardian."
Kyuubi gulped, backing up with a blush. "A-alright then." Shisa smiled (mostly at the demon's actions).
"Good." He began, looking down and making sure that the coast was clear, "Then we can get moving and..."
"Rescue the bridge-builders!" Kyuubi and Sakura interrupted, causing Shisa to raise an unseen eyebrow.
"Excuse me?"
"We have to rescue the Shion Village bridge-builders that were kidnapped and taken here!" Sakura explained. But Shisa shook his head and sighed,
"Wait just a minute there. I have to get you to the Spirit Temple!" Kyuubi simply shook his head in response,
"I'm sorry Shisa, but you know how the humans are. If we don't rescue them soon, we might not make it in time to rescue them at all." At first, it seemed as though Shisa was going to protest further. Yet, when he looked into those beautiful crimson eyes, he broke.
"Fine..."
"Yes! Thank you Shisa!" Kyuubi laughed out, hugging the older demon.
'If it weren't for these humans, I could have used this opportunity for something better than saving a bunch of bridge-builders...' Shisa growled internally. But he smiled softly and whispered, "Alright then, just follow me and we'll find the prisoners." Shisa looked around real quick before he nodded for Kyuubi to follow him. They both jumped off the roof and quickly made their way into the building closest to them.
They found themselves in a stone-hewn room, complete with a crude cage built into one of its walls. "Well," Shisa began, "This is as much a prison as any." As if on cue, a voice stated,
"Hey! You young men! Over here, in the cell!" They rushed over and saw a demon trapped in the cell. "You two must either be nuts or brave beyond belief to come into here. What, with all the guards and all."
"Are you one of the bridge-builders?" Sakura asked. The demon nodded before he continued,
"All of my fellow bridge-builders are trapped in here somewhere." He hummed before he begged, "If you get us out, we'll be eternally grateful! But watch out, they had guards in here earlier and... there's... sure to be one... around here... AH! Here they are!" After the scream, the two demons turned and saw a young man, readying two blades for an attack. Kyuubi was about to extend his claws but Shisa held him back with a,
"Don't worry yourself."
It was so fast. One instant, Shisa was telling Kyuubi to stay still as the human male rushed towards them, the next, Shisa had the poor male in a vicious hold, about to rip the human's throat out with his sharp teeth. In a panic, Kyuubi yelled,
"Shisa, stop!" The Youkai Ninja growled back,
"Back away Kyuubi! He more than has this coming!"
"He's just a human. He's still young, he doesn't know any better!" Kyuubi begged, "Please Shisa, don't kill him?" Shisa growled, seemingly ignoring Kyuubi's plea. Until he grabbed the male and slammed him into the cell door.
"Open it. Now!" The young man trembles as he struggled to get the key to the cell out and open the door. When the door clicked open, the bridge-builder jumped out,
"You guys are life-savers! My name's Ichiro, by the way."
"What happened to you guys? The bridge-builders, I mean?" Sakura asked.
"Well, you see, we were working on the bridge, like Kakuzu hired us too, when out of nowhere, the humans came and attacked us. They dragged us to their fortress and, well..." "Honestly, just because we're demons-"
"Monsters..." The young man huffed out but it was interrupted by a yelp when Shisa slammed him against the door.
"They feel that they have to treat us like this?" Ichiro finished before he sighed, "There are three more builders trapped in this Fortress. If you could please help them!" Kyuubi nodded and Ichiro took his leave.
"We should get to searching for the other builders." Kyuubi stated. Shisa, on the other-hand, smirked.
"I have a better idea."
Thanks to Shisa's firm grip on the guard, they were able to get through the rest of the Fortress unharmed. When another guard would come, Shisa would simply threaten the life of the guard he had in his hand. They freed the other two builders, Jiro and Sabooru, with ease and were now in front of the cell containing the final bridge-builder.
"Open it." Shisa growled to the poor guard. When the cell opened, the demon rushed out with a,
"Wow! For a second, I thought that you were going to forget about me and leave!" He smiled, "Thanks to you, Shiro the bridge-builder is free to live his life!" Just as he was about to bid his farewells, he stopped, "Oh, before I go, there's some interesting secret that the humans keep talking about."
"Well?" Kyuubi urged him on.
"It was something along the lines of, 'In order to cross the Haunted Wasteland, you will need both to be able to see with Eyes of Truth and to gain the interest of the soulless guardian.'" And then Shiro left. The room was silent until the guard at Shisa's mercy whined,
"Are you going to let me go anytime soon?" To which Shisa replied by smacking him into the wall.
"Shisa, you said you wouldn't kill him!" Kyuubi cried out. Shisa looked at the groaning guard and replied,
"He's still alive."
"E-excuse me?" A soft, timid voice broke through the chaos. Kyuubi and Shisa looked towards the doorway and saw a young woman with navy-blue hair, pale skin, and pale eyes.
"You're not supposed to be out of Lord Madara's mansion!" The guard yelled, causing Shisa to slam him into the wall again before he tried to get a kunai to repel the intruder.
"Wait a minute, Shisa!" Kyuubi yelled, holding the Youkai Ninja back. "Now, who are you?" The young woman yelped and shrank back, shivering,
"M-my name's H-Hinata." "Please, you two have to have been strong in order to get through this Fortress. You h-have t-to help me!" "Madara has convinced us that all of our problems were due to the demons who live in Kon. Everyone has s-such a strong belief in this that we've forgotten about fixing our problems and just follow his orders. No matter.." Hinata choked back a growing sob, "No matter how wrong or d-demeaning they might b-be!"
"You still haven't told us what you want, human." Shisa huffed, getting irritated with this girl. Hinata whimpered and, after more than a few breathes, pleaded,
"Please! Get rid of Lord Madara!" The statement made the two demons and the fairy gasp, Shisa stated,
"Isn't that a bit blasphemous for you to say?"
"I can't take it anymore!" Hinata sobbed, "It's not just the poor life, it's not the war... I can't stand him forcing me into his bed every night... The way he forces my cousin Neji to do his bidding... It's too much. I'd rather things go back to when we were all starving in the desert than live another day in this hell!" Hinata fell to her knees as the tears became too much to control. Something in Kyuubi broke and he knelt down to Hinata's level and hugged her.
'Someone up there hates me...', Shisa thought, 'I'm betting that it's Juubi...'
"It'll be okay." Kyuubi whispered, "I promise you that Madara won't be hurting anyone anymore. Just give me some time." Hinata giggled softly,
"You sound like Neji..." They both stood up and Hinata took something out of her sleeve: a scroll of paper. "I have to go, like he said, I'm not supposed to leave the mansion. This," She handed the scroll to Kyuubi, "Will allow you to access all the areas of Heartlight Fortress. I hope it will help." She then stepped back and, with a nervous bow, rushed out of the room. Shisa finally let the guard go in favor of going to Kyuubi.
"Are you alright?"
"Yes. It's just becoming clearer that Madara has no soul, no conscious. What kind of creature Is he, Shisa?"
"He's going to be a dead one soon." Shisa replied before adding, "Come on, we should go." As the two demons walked out of the prison, the stubborn guard hissed out,
"Alright! Go on, you demon bastards! Even if no one else will do anything to you, Lord Madara will have your hides. And another thing-!" While he was ranting, Shisa took a Bombko out of his own satchel and activated it, a small kitten walking over and brushing against the guard. "Oh, this has not been my day..." The whole room exploded.
"Shisa!" Kyuubi growled.
"He deserved it."
A/N:
Next time on The Legend of Hoshi: Metronome of Time:
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Revering you of course!"
Are things not as they seem with the 'wind god'?
-Tyranno's girl.
