File #1; Chapter 15

The world around Sasori and Genma went dark. Screams around them made even Sasori cringe. A blood red moon shone in the sky and eerie glowing white clouds streaked by at an alarming speed across the sky. Howling winds swept by them, kicking up imagininary dust that both ninja thought was real. Around them, demons of indescribable grotesque-ness laughing and howled with pleasure as they killed indescriminate Leaf nin. Genma had to force bile back down his throat when he saw one demon grab Kakashi by the hair and carve out both of his eyes with one sharp claw.

Genma cursed himself for not telling Sasori that she shouldn't have screwed around and just killed Gensou when she had the chance. He punched his fist into the ground for not telling her about the 7 misses rule with Gensou. Now, he had doomed them both probably. He looked around for Sasori and saw her hugging herself not too far from him. He got to his feet and struggled against the cursed wind towards her, praying that this was the real Sasori and not some illusion that Gensou had cooked up. He hit his knees beside her and threw his arms around the kunoichi without a second thought, hugging her to him and forcing her to lock her eyes with his.

"How precious."

The amplified voice of Hirata Gensou echoed around them in the darkness, the source of his voice being inascertainable. The two ninja looked up and saw Gensou standing before them, seemingly unhurt. For tendril of blue-black hair hung in his face as he regarded the pair as he would two children. He spread his arms to either side of him and smiled simply.

"Welcome to hell," he said with a smirk," Please enjoy your stay and remember not to feed the demons."

A large snake curled over Gensou's shoulder and flicked it's tongue at them. Gensou smiled and disappeared, the snake dropping to the ground. Sasori and Genma blinked at almost the same time and when they opened their eyes, the snake had encircled them several times. It constricted its body around them, crushing the two ninja together. Breathing was becoming difficult. Under other circumstances, Genma might have made an off-color remark about how he rather liked being pushed together and if her hands were free, she might have been able to slap him for the comment as well. 'Dammit Kakashi, why couldn't you have told me how to get out of this rather than how to avoid getting into this?' He wondered but then again, Kakashi would have told him how to get out of it if he knew the answer. Perhaps Kakashi had been rescued from Gensou's grip and that was why he didn't know. Then again, if the pieces of information were switched, he would probably be cursing Kakashi anyways for not warning him.

Gensou circled the pair who were hopelessly locked in his illusion. From his sleeve, he produced a pair of hypodermic needles with needles so thin that he could barely see them in the moonlight. He whistled lightly as he jammed both hypodermics into Genma and Sasori's necks. He did it with little ceremony and depressed the plungers. Now, it was only a matter of waiting. The Shiyuri poison would weaken them and eventually kill them. Shiyuri was Gensou's favorite poison and the flower that he derived it from, the Death Lily, was his favorite flower. All of the Leaf ANBU that had been sent after him had died of this very same method. Get them ensnared in the illusion and then shoot them up with Shiyuri. The poison was much more potent when injected into the neck and sped up the dying process.

The illusion master took a seat at the bar, retrieved a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his jacket, and lit up a cigarette. Since he was a master, he needed very little concentration to keep his illusion up. He inhaled sharply on the elegant cancer stick, letting the smoke fill his lungs before exhaling it out both nostrils like some strange dragon with the grace and elegance of an aristocrat.

Sasori in the meantime was trying to finger a shuriken out of the heel of her shoe. Gensou couldn't see her do this since her right side was towards him but she smirked when she managed to yank one out of her shoe. In the illusion, she couldn't see it but in the back of her mind, she knew she had it in her hand. Breathing was getting to be such a chore. At least Genma had the presence of mind to shift his needle to the side of his mouth so he wouldn't poke her like he did two nights ago.

"Genma-" she choked out.

"Right here," he choked back.

"No shit," she said.

Genma smiled at her ability to have a sense of humor in a perilous situation. So he returned wit with wit.

"How may I be of service?" he asked.

Sasori wanted nothing more than to wipe that smirk off his face at that precise moment but she let a pained expression cross her face. Her heart lurched as she felt something start to attack her very being. It was a strange feeling that she had felt only once before and as her mind snapped to what it was, she felt as though her heart had become encased in ice.

"Shiyuri..." she whispered.

Genma felt it too as soon as the words had left her lips and he heard the word even above the racket from the howling demons. Keeping their eyes focused on the other made it easier to block out the din and horrifying images around them.

"Shit-" she choked," Genma... my groan right hand... grab it."

Genma did and felt something in her palm- a shuriken. In an instant, he understood and closed his hand around hers. He rubbed their palms together and then pressed hard. He gritted his teeth as white hot pain shot up his arm. Blood dripped from their clasped hands as one point of the shuriken potruded rudely from the tops of their palms. This pain, plus the one they felt in their bodies, was real and as the demons started to partially fade, Sasori realized that this pain wasn't enough! It was almost there but not quite! She squeezed Genma's hand, willing the shuriken to push right through their hands if necessary.

Then another idea seized her.

"Genma-" she choked," Needle... forward..."

Genma didn't have enough strength to question her. He shifted his needle to the front of his mouth. He almost snatched it away when he realized what she was going to do. However he didn't most fast enough as she bit her lip and pushed it onto the senbon needle. He could tell she was biting back her pain (no pun intended) and he saw her skewer her own lip on the in end of the needle. Suddenly, she was gone from his sight and the snake tightened around his form.

Sasori snapped out of it. It had been enough pain and when she opened her eyes, she didn't see the horrors from earlier, but the quiet night of the garden. Quickly, she reached up and plucked Genma's needle from his mouth and in one deft motion, had skewered his lip as well. Genma blinked and the horror was gone, replaced by Sasori's smiling face. They had beaten the genjutsu.

But not the poison as their bodies painfully reminded them.

Gensou felt Sasori slip from his genjutsu and turned around in time to see her get Genma out of it. He yanked the cigarette from his mouth angrily and extinguished it in an ashtray fiercely. His blue eyes were wild with anger. How the fck could they escape his Hell on Earth technique? Only three people had ever been able to escape his technique, one of which was dead. Gensou had personally killed the man but was not able to track down the bstard he was with, the infamous Copy Ninja Hatake Kakashi. The other was Shinzui Arashi, the current Raikage of the demolished Kumo and had temporarily taken up residency in Konoha with her small band of survivors of the disaster. The clever little minx had stabbed herself several times with her own kunai and released his genjutsu, fighting him to a draw. His mind worked furiously as he put two and two together. That explained her Cloud headband. And her name was Sasori...

Realization washed over him as to exactly who she was and he blanched. Dokugamoto Sasori, one of the four strongest retainers of Shinzui Arashi. Oh Kami, this wasn't good. What if she countered the poisons!? his mind screamed. Genma was nothing compared to this woman and he had to eliminate her- now.

Gensou charged Sasori. He was down to very little chakra and was going to have to rely on taijutsu. Instead, Genma appeared in his way. Sasori had been weakened by the poison since she had already been exposed to it and was trying to get to her feet. Genma was bigger than her and a lot stronger physically. His body screamed in pain with every move he made as the poison slowly killed him.

'Gotta... end this..' he thought desperately. They couldn't survive a second assault of Gensou's genjutsu. Genma was still good as far as chakra was concerned. He just needed to put some distance between him and Gensou so he could do the seals. The two men were breathing hard as they started to beat the hell out of each other, neither even trying to avoid hits. They just took them and kept on going. Genma threw as much force as he could into a punch to send Gensou off-balance and then used the punch's momentum to spin himself around and deliver a kick to his chest that sent Gensou back about 15 feet. Gensou recovered quickly, but it was enough time for Genma to do the seals as Gensou closed in on him. He bladed his body to the enraged and approaching Gensou, hiding the seals from his view.

"Shiranui Style! Genshibakuhatsu Ken!" Genma cried. (Atomic Explosion Fist)

He threw his both his fists forward into Gensou's chest. Gensou hadn't seen it coming and this fact was displayed over his face. Gensou's fist hung in the air and an eerie silence engulfed them for about 10 seconds. The two men panted from exertion.

"Bastard," Gensou rasped.

A low, wet explosion was heard as Gensou's back exploded outwards. Blood coated the grass and mixed with bone fragments and various pieces of viscera that had been caught in the way of his punch. Genma gently pushed forward with his fists. Gensou was dead before he hit the ground.

-End Chapter 15-