Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Bathing in Blood
4. Diversion
The unreal never is:
The Real never is not. This truth indeed
Has been seen by those who can see the true.
-The Bhagavad Gita
Ino raced up the narrow street, with the air of one not accustomed to running. Her boot-clad feet slapped the ground with painful irregularity; her breathing was rushed and ragged-shallow. Her lungs felt scorched, liquid-filled and yet dry as a bone . The blonde ponytail bounced and slapped the nape of her neck accusingly. It was true that she hadn't done all the laps Asuma-sensei recommended, but she was busy. Very busy.
Very busy reading love stories and imagining her Sasuke-kun.
And she didn't regret that. Not a bit. (What is there to regret!) Of course, it was rather late to be regretting things now. (I tell you, there's nothing I'm regretting!) Not with the Chuunin Exams coming up so soon. Not with the application folded in her clenched fist. (I'm not regretting anything, dammit!) Rather late, indeed.
Letting the disgrace of exhaustion overcome her, the girl collapsed onto a nearby bench. Her thighs felt numb, but her unused arms burned ferociously. Gradually, she uncurled her hand from around the paper she held. Unfolded it and stared blankly at the columns and columns of text, looking intently at the characters without reading them.
How many words in this sentence? How many sentences on this form? How many dots in each line?
5. 9. 14.
The numbers did not connect. This made no sense.
She crumpled up the sheet again. Better to fill it out at her own house. Yes, much better. With a sigh, Ino stood and stretched her arms toward the clouded sky, walking slowly and methodically homewards.
Konohamaru knew he couldn't take this much longer. His fragile nerves fizzed with shocks of electricity that shot straight as an arrow through the center of his bones. His feet swung as he unconsciously arced away from his captor, away from the gloved hand that squeezed his collar all the more tightly. Silence was the name of the game. But he no longer wanted to play.
"Put him down!"
From the corner of a watery eye, he watched as an orange blob-like amoeba scrambled towards him. The amoeba tripped over air, rolled into a ball, fell and fragmented into countless shards. And Konohamaru remained where he was, hanging helplessly and haplessly like a criminal on the gallows. Shifting with the winds.
By now Naruto had managed to get up. How did I trip?
He looked in confusion at the scrapes on his hands and the dirt on the knees of his pants. Then at the smooth, uninterrupted ground behind him. Nothing to trip on there. Am I bewitched...?
It took a pitiful squeal from the one he had intended to save in the first place to break the self-induced haze of thought. The lean, black-garbed figure stood there still, dangling the boy so his trademark trailing scarf brushed the earth.
He observed an unfamiliar young girl with her hair in four messy pigtails walking up behind the intruder, scolding him, or so he hoped. He caught a name, 'Kankurou', but the rest was a blur.
He was no more than a spectator now, relegated to the sidelines.
Relegated by his instinctive fear.
"We still have to look for him, Kankurou!" Her voice was high and thin. "I don't intend to be held responsible for this!"
Though he shuddered slightly at the mention of the mysterious 'him', the dark stranger seemed unmoved.
"The brat bumped into me, for Chris'sake!" He raised an undecided fist to the mop of brown hair. "We can go get the nuisance after I finish this one off."
Konohamaru's friends screamed and hurried to hide behind each other as Kankurou took an unnecessary fighting stance. Their voices made mincemeat of the doom-ridden silence. All was still.
And then the game was over, suddenly and without fanfare. Its end marked by a sharp intake of breath from the stranger in black, matched by the reflexive exhale from the onlookers as the boy was dropped into a sniveling heap. The blonde-haired boy started to run over to him, but stopped at a low, pained growl from Kankurou.
"What the hell happened now?" shrilled his female companion, annoyed and bewildered. He grasped his wrist, trembling, but other than that hiding the pain quite well. As the girl shook her head in disgust and all but forced him to follow her down the road, nobody noticed the small stone that clattered to the pavement. It glowed red for a moment, and then faded away.
