Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Bathing in Blood
27. The Impact
They sank into sleep. The price of that evening's
Rest was too high for the Dane who bought it
With his life, paying as others had paid...
And now it was known that a monster had died
But a monster still lived, and meant revenge.
-Beowulf
Strong.
Yes, strong.
Not weak.
Never weak.
Strong.
Strong for simply knowing.
Strong for simply having.
Strong for surviving an explosion of inner energy that would have meant the self-destruction of anyone else.
And stronger still, for what she could do with that energy.
The red glow surrounded her, trailing from her fingers in tendrils of garnet mist. Reaching out to the trees, into the trees, catching the leaves in bloody flame. Crackling happily, and spreading in a cheerfully lethal blaze.
She smirked, kept walking, her puppets in her wake. Flanked by the scarlet fire dancing around her and scattering ahead, with her crimson aura ablaze, you would have thought she was bathing in blood.
They heard the fire before they saw it.
Anko gasped theatrically as she stared up at the orange-red wave. The kunai fell from her hand. Orochimaru raised an eyebrow, vaguely regretting having chosen this year for his invasion.
Perched on a branch not all that far away, Kabuto was waiting for a team that would never come. Engulfed by the scarlet, thinking that one pondering thought he'd been conditioned to think.
I am sorry, Orochimaru-sama.
It had become almost habitual.
I am sorry, Orochimaru-sama. This was a failed mission.
Shikamaru glared at nothing, hunched down with his teammates in the bushes. He glared at the sky (overcast, grey, smell of smoke in the air but otherwise normal), then at the ground; at the prickly foliage tickling his nose, then at Chouji (eating, as always).
Then at his other teammate, who was not crouching near them after all. Was instead leaning over a patch of bright-white blossoms, pulling at them fervently and muttering under her breath.
How troublesome.
"What the hell do you think you're doing, Ino? We've got people to ambush!" His words, spoken in a stealthy whisper, should have reached their destination quite easily. They did not, he observed, slipping into a strategic mindset. This anomaly, of course, could be explained, with two possible reasons.
Reason A: Ino could not hear him.
Solution to A: Talk louder.
Or Reason B: There was a wall of fire looming dangerously over them at the moment, making for a suitable distraction.
No solutions were offered to Reason B.
"Ino! This is no time to be picking daisies, you idiot! Run for cover, Chouji!" He decided to wing it, relenting control. Nothing had a prayer of being in 'control' anymore, not even close. His 'normal' had spun into a painful illusion. His 'always' was a blatant lie.
Chouji munched his chips contentedly.
The flames roared.
Slowly, Ino turned to him, a crumpled bloom in her outstretched hand. She beamed, sweetly sinister.
Her blue eyes glowed in the backlight of the blaze.
"Do you want a flower, Shika-kun?"
"Good God, Gaara! We spent hours trying to find you!"
Gaara glanced at Temari in obstinate silence as she paced back and forth in circles, whining and ranting and waving her hands wildly. The bloodlust pounded in its cage inside his forehead. The Shuukaku's ever-changing mood had swung once again, from passive contemplation to compulsively aggressive daydreaming. Daydreams about what they could do to this Temari, this Kankurou, these people who had taken away from them a perfectly good game of cat-and-mouse.
"Imagine how good she'd look shish-kabobed, or him boiling in his own blood and bodily fluids, or maybe even..."
Siblings were not to be eaten. The Shuukaku knew this, and knew it well; abided by it, for the most part. But nothing could stop the vicious fantasies.
Shut up. Gaara growled inwardly, trying to quell his half-approval. She's my sister. He's my brother. My own blood.
"...Is that so? How convenient-"
And the demon rambled on and on, in a singsong voice, bouncing from orangey depths to loftily screeching heights. Valleys and mountains, mountains and valleys. Over and over and over again in an endless loop. Chinese water torture, for the mind. How he wanted to do what he always did during times like this; to collapse and find some stability on the tantalizingly solid ground, to clutch his skull with his fingers and somehow stuff the sanity back in.
But he couldn't. He couldn't break down in front of his siblings. They expected more of him.
He needed an escape. He needed a miracle.
And a miracle did come, in a flowing red typhoon plowing angrily through the green. He ignored Kankurou and Temari, their shocked expressions and their shouts. Looked up into the ocean of scarlet fire with the gracious, grateful smile he'd been saving for so long.
