Thank you to my beautiful reviewers, you guys make this little venture all the more sweeter.

It's like, 12:45am and I'm wide awake. So instead of sleeping I'm writing a chapter and updating. Yay for priorities!


Chapter seven: hierarchy

They're coming. The fighting is getting worse. I've stayed out of it until now, not willing to risk my neck for them unless I have to. The war has been raging for months now, but it's coming to a head tonight. People are tearing each other apart with their bare hands. Even Itachi's involved. You know shit's serious when Itachi's involved.

But it's my duty to my makers that I assist. I take a while to prepare, the ink on my forehead still fresh and sore. It's performed like a ritual, this assemblage of myself. Transforming myself from a nameless, faceless person into Gaara. Gaara the demon. Gaara the killer.

There's not a single part of me that isn't equipped with a weapon. Two guns. A lot of ammo. A machete and a lot of throwing knives. Let's watch them try to kill me now. I have no past and no future. In a way I'm already dead; a walking corpse with a mission to fulfil. No past that they can use against me, no future they can steal from me. A man-child with nothing to lose and nothing to gain. And isn't that the most terrifying man of all?

A bell tolls midnight, beating alongside my heart, a death march. A call to arms. I step out in to the night, ready to look death in the eyes and knowing, somehow, that I will not die tonight.


I wait a few moments after the muted shot has been made. Her room is dark still, and my heart is beating faster than it should be. I've done this a thousand times before, yet this insignificant girl gets my heart beating fast. How stupid.

I don't move, muscles locked in to place. I should be packing up by now. But I'm not. Eye still glued to the scope, I see nothing but the darkness of her room. I can't see her body, but I know it'll be on the floor. There'll be a hole in her temple, oozing blood, staining the thick white carpet. Probably a bit of spatter.

Move, Gaara.

I need to move. My trail needs to go cold before they can have a hope of finding me. The gun needs to be destroyed, ammo dropped out at sea or something. It'll rain a bit later, I can feel it in the air, and that'll wash away every last trace of my being here.

Muscles finally unlocked, I begin to move.

Her light turns back on.

I notice it like a halo in my peripherals, and at first I'm a deer caught in headlights and then I'm diving for my scope, clumsily holding it to my eye to see what's happening.

It takes me a moment to realise I've missed her, as impossible as that seems. There's a trail of blood along her temple where my bullet scratched her, but I know I've missed. She must have moved last minute, as soon as the lights went off, in that fraction of a second between total darkness and a bullet being fired.

I should fire off a second round but people are slamming their way into her room now. She's crying, hysterical, holding her fingers to her temple and pulling them away to find them blood-soaked. Screaming, sobbing, she's in shock. The countdown above her head is spinning, unable to settle on a number.

I shift focus to a man who is a little older than Hinata and obviously a Hyuuga as he makes his way towards the window where the bullet made entry. It's a small hole surrounded by a spiders-web of cracks. He looks first at the hole, then through it, trying to work out the trajectory, trying to see who did this.

He can't see me though. It's nightfall, I'm dressed in black, laying on my belly behind a small wall two-hundred metres away. But I can see him and I know that's my queue to leave.

I skid back, still on my belly, dragging the gun with me. It only takes a few minutes to disassemble it, and I scour the area one last time to ensure I've left nothing behind. It'd be hard to do considering my full body suit that leaves only my eyes uncovered, but mistakes can be made. That was proven only a few minutes earlier, and I curse my stupidity. I've left a hell of a mess to clean up.

I leave the building quickly, take the stairs and the back way to avoid cameras, and step in to the black car that I knew would be waiting for me.

Itachi is inside, seemingly at ease, and I should be nervous because I just fucked up big time, but I'm not. I avoid looking at his face though, and he can interpret that however he likes, but at the end of the day I refuse to look at those numbers above his head.

"You missed," he states, his voice nonchalant.

"I know," I reply, setting the gun case down. I'm only disappointed that I missed because now my suicide will be put on hold until I can kill her. And that just got a whole lot harder.

"What are you going to do about it?" he asks me, and I'm already thinking about how to clean up this mess.

"They'll step up her guard from here on out," I say, knowing the basic protocol that will be followed. "Keep her away from windows, guard her something chronic." I'm talking myself through the steps that'll be followed, looking for a way to insert myself into the situation. "Added security means more guards," and then I get my idea. "I'll apply to be a guard," I say. "I saved her once, she'll vouch for me."

"Good," says Itachi, his voice emotionless. "What are your qualifications?"

"Trained with the army reserve for two years," I answer immediately.

"We can do that," Itachi confirms. "Why are you going to be there?"

I know what he's doing. Getting my story straight. They'll interrogate me about all of this, but I've been trained for this situation. My brain is running a thousand miles a second, and I'm conjuring bullshit from thin air.

"I'm broke and need a job." A basic, generic answer. Nothing too complex, I'll have a lot of shit to remember.

"Family?"

"Orphan."

"Mental illness? They'll do a background check."

"No mental illness. You'll need to wipe my hospital record."

"It's done. How long have you been in Konoha?"

"Grew up here, got back a month ago."

The questions continue along those lines. I'm building up a profile in my head of this character I'll play, working out the kinks in my story. Itachi questions me ruthlessly, repeating questions, posing them differently, ensuring it's bullet proof. I know that once we're done he'll contact the necessary people who can verify my story in real life, whether it's by altering current records, making new ones, or deleting old ones. It feels like a lot of trouble that they're going to, but I know that Hinata's no ordinary target, either. That was proven the minute they asked me to get her.

There's a hierarchy of hitmen within the Uchiha Clan. I'm second only to Itachi. They only send in Itachi when they have literally no other alternative. Itachi is their last resort, but they send me in when they can't trust anyone else to do the job and they can't risk Itachi. They send me in because the chances of me missing are a million to one.

Hinata just happened to be that one in a million.

In fact, they would send in Itachi for this if he were anyone else. But fact is, the Hyuuga would recognise Itachi in an instant. But me, I'm like smoke. They know of me, but they don't know my face. They don't know my name, either. Outside of the upper-cadre of the Uchiha, I'm known only as "demon". I'm nameless, faceless, and the second best weapon the Uchiha have in their arsenal.

The car stops, and I step out, Itachi's voice following me. "Do what you have to to clean this up. We'll do what we have to to get you in. Don't fuck it up again, or father won't give you death for a long time yet."

"Understood," I say, and walk towards the stirring horizon, where dawn it just beginning to take hold. Around me, it starts to rain.


I'm still fleshing out parts of this story. Anyone have ideas, hit me up. Like, I've got the majority of it down, but other parts I'm still figuring out. Oh well. I'll get there eventually. It took me like, 30 chapters to figure out what the hell I was doing for Blood of Ivory and that turned out pretty well, so it can't be all bad, right? Ugh, this indecision is making my stomach church. Or maybe I'm just hungry. Probably hungry.

Thanks for reading, leave me love/reviews? I'll love you back, promise!

Lots of love, Alia xoxo