Welcome to chapter 9 of my story. The reviews and responses are at the bottom because then it takes up a lot of space up here, and then when you're finished the chapter, you can just skip the responses if you want. Anyways, right now, I'm listening to Nami Tamaki's "Believe". What a catchy song, eh? (I am actually listening to "Invoke" by TM Revolution now, I LOVE THIS SONG!)
Disclaimer: I own Akiko, Hiro, Hisaki, Masumi, Aiko, and all the fake jutsues and fake characters in this story.
---------------------Chapter 9- The Plan is Activated-------------------------
Akiko slumped down on the ground and sighed. She was tired and sick of being the center of attention. It wasn't ever like this in the Sand village. She could hear a faint rustling noise in the distance, but didn't think anything about it. She stared at her hands and thought 'Why me? Of all the damn people out here…this is so pathetic.' She stared up at the sky before slowly getting up again. Her clothes were all torn and her arms were bleeding badly.
She thought back to what Masumi said to her about Gaara…Akiko shook her head and thought to herself 'Nah, that's crazy, He so wouldn't come here, I don't even think any one knows I'm here…'
But she was wrong. She could suddenly wisps of sand trailing past her, circling around her.
"It's been a while, Akiko," A familiar voice said from behind her. Akiko froze. Masumi was right…
Akiko's shock turned into sadness. She didn't turn to look at Gaara, nor say anything. The sand around her circled more closely to her.
She blinked slowly and looked in front of her. She sighed; she couldn't take it any more.
"Why…why is it…that you always know where I am…or…when something bad happens?" she asked Gaara. Gaara said nothing and closed his eyes. Then, something Akiko thought would never, ever happen- Gaara pulled her closer to him and whispered in her ear.
"Do I need to explain?"
"Dammit! Where is she! Sakura-chan, we've looked all over! That's it, we should have just stayed where that freaky Gaara was! I'm going back!"
Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura and Hinata searched (once again) all over Konoha. Naruto was so fed up at this point, that he couldn't take it any more. No one tried to stop him when he left. Hinata ran after him.
Sasuke looked over at Sakura. She looked very tired, but she seemed like she didn't want to give up.
"Sakura…are you okay?" Sasuke asked her. Sakura looked over at Sasuke and smiled wearily.
"Yeah, I'm fine Sasuke-kun," she replied happily.
He looked down at the ground for a minute and then walked over to Sakura and gently held her hand. Sakura stared at Sasuke and then smiled.
"Sasuke-kun, I have something I want to ask you," Sakura finally said. This question had been on her mind for ages, and she still didn't have the answer to it. "Um…how to say this…Are you still in love with Akiko?" she asked him. Sasuke looked mildly surprised at her question, but he didn't say anything. He pulled her into a hug and kissed her gently on the forehead.
"Sasuke…kun?" Sakura asked. Sasuke looked away from Sakura and then looked back at Sakura.
"I think he should go now, Naruto must be waiting for us, don't you think?"
"Alright, it's done Papa, she's gone."
Masumi sat down on a rock in the same cave Akiko had been in and smiled. The cuts on her arms slowly dug out of her arms and began bleeding again.
Hiro floated past Masumi and chuckled. Everything was going according to plan. He would human again…he would be able to come back to life once again…he was getting excited.
"Finally…I've waited for this for years…" he muttered to himself.
"But Papa, why a girl? And why that particular girl?" Masumi asked confusion in her face.
Hiro smiled. "That girl is strong…Also…her brother has the demon fox sealed within him…the jinchuuriki are hard to control…so she was perfect…"
Masumi looked down at the ground and thought about the things that she had said to Akiko. She hated being in that same place with that girl for a whole day. She hated doing stuff like that for her father…she didn't want to make friends, she wasn't even alive.
Akiko pulled away from Gaara and turned to face him. Her dark, little eyes scanned him. He looked the same…Akiko on the other hand…her hair seemed almost black in the night sky. She looked down at her torn clothes and her arms. They stung with pain.
She shook her head.
"No, that can't happen. It's not supposed to. I'm going home Gaara…this place is way too…strange for me, I think someone's after me, Gaara…I always see things and end up getting hurt," she said. She looked up at Gaara's eyes and then looked away. She then thought about what she just said and blushed.
"I mean, no that's not what I meant, um, I mean, forget what I said Gaara, oh shit…" she trailed off. She sounded like an insane person (no pun intended).
Gaara pulled her closer to him again. He wrapped his arms around her waist and closed his eyes.
"Shut up," he whispered to her. He himself had no clue what he was doing. He never felt this way with any other girl. Was it because he knew Akiko for a long time? Or was it because he felt that he needed to protect her all the time? He found it confusing…he didn't know a lot about things like this.
Akiko remained silent, once again, shocked. Who was this guy! Gaara would never do this to her…Or would he? Akiko snuggled closer to him. She was realizing something to at that moment. That she…never wanted to leave Gaara in the first place.
Neji, Tenten and Shikamaru stopped running. It had been hours since they split up with Naruto. Had Naruto succeeded in finding Akiko by now? Neji tried using his Byakugan for searching for Akiko, but he didn't see any trace of her. They had stopped many times, but hadn't found any trace of Akiko. Shikamaru was beginning to think about some other plans, but none came to his mind yet.
Right now, they were resting on the forest floor, trying to think of something else. Night already settled in. If they didn't hurry back home, people would start to worry, but they needed to find Naruto and the others and find out what happened.
Tenten was breathing heavily. They had been running and searching all day, she was tired. But she didn't want to act weak in front of Neji, or he would probably say something mean to her. And she didn't want to seem weak in front of Shikamaru either. She had never been on a mission with him before, and she didn't want to seem weak in front of him so fast either.
She glanced back at the two boys and found Shikamaru sitting on a log, deep in thought. Neji was looking up at the night sky, thinking. Tenten sighed and looked down at the ground. She was sure that she was holding them both back, they would be better off without her, and plus she was really tired, she really wanted to rest.
But she didn't want to seem depressed or weak in front of Neji either. So, she decided to stop being so gloomy and think in high spirits. She didn't want to disturb Shikamaru's thinking, when so many people said he was so smart, so she walked over to Neji.
Neji sensed her a few feet behind him, and he turned around to look at her. Tenten smiled happily at him.
"Hey, what's up?" she asked him. She smiled again at him. He narrowed his eyes a bit and replied with "Nothing,"
Tenten's smile vanished for a couple of seconds. She looked down at the ground. She had to think about something to talk about!
Neji looked over to her when she was looking down at the ground. He never noticed how pretty Tenten in the moonlight…Oh God, what was he thinking! This was Tenten for Pete's sake! He quickly looked away and lightly blushed.
Tenten glanced over to look at Neji. He was looking back up at the starry night sky, deep in thought. She never admitted it, but she had the biggest crush on Neji. She never knew why she liked him. Maybe it was that personality of his that drew her towards him. He was one of those guys who never really told you anything about them; they didn't care much about anything.
She looked over to Shikamaru who was still deep in thought. He was drawing what seemed like some sort of plan in the ground with a stick. He didn't even notice Tenten was looking at him. Tenten looked down at her hands and noticed that she had small, catlike cuts on them. She probably got them while she was in the trees. The cuts didn't even hurt, no wonder she didn't feel anything.
Neji looked back at Tenten and noticed that she was looking down at her hands. He saw small cuts slowly bleeding their way out of her hands and he turned to her.
"What happened to you?" he asked. Tenten looked up at him and blushed.
"N-Nothing…It's nothing," she said. She put her hands down and quickly looked away.
'Shit! Now he'll think I'm so weak that…that…dammit, I can't think about it!' She yelled at herself in her head.
Neji noticed her blush and smiled to himself. He looked back at her and wanted so badly to be alone with Tenten right now. There it was again. That annoying feeling! It kept on crawling back to him every now and then.
He shook his head and tried to clear his mind.
'Geez…this girl…'
Gaara held Akiko for a couple of minutes. The wind picked up and Akiko shivered a little. Gaara held her tighter. Then, he noticed something on the back of Akiko's neck.
There was a long cut on the back of her neck, it wasn't bleeding anymore though. The cut stretched from one end of her neck to the other. It looked like someone had used a knife against her neck. Akiko didn't even notice this on her neck though.
"What happened here?" Gaara asked. Akiko broke away from Gaara and felt the back of her neck with her hand. She had a look of confusion on her face.
"I…I don't know…" she said. It didn't even hurt, she didn't even feel anything. But the strangest thing that happened was when Akiko removed her hand, she looked at her hand, it was covered with blood.
"What…what the…what's happening?" she asked, her voice slightly rising. Gaara walked around her and looked at her neck. No blood was coming out. How could this be happening?
Akiko could feel something strange happening to her. She thought she was going to be sick. She turned towards Gaara and looked into his eyes.
"Some...something…" she started. Gaara grabbed her before she fell down. She started feeling so weak. She closed her eyes slowly.
"Akiko!" Gaara asked. As Gaara held her in his arms, he could feel her skin growing cold.
"I…I don't know…Help me, please Gaara…" Akiko whispered. Then, something strange happened.
The cut on the back of Akiko's neck did open up this time. Blood flowed out. Akiko grabbed Gaara's hand with the last ounce of strength she had left.
Suddenly, Akiko could see nothing. She could hear nothing. Everything around her went black. She stayed like that for a couple of minutes.
'No…what's happening? Someone help me!' She thought. But no one could hear her cries. Suddenly, she could hear someone laughing. She had heard this voice before….
"Finally…after years of waiting…" it started.
Akiko suddenly awoke with a start. Gaara was kneeling beside Akiko, his head bowed down. Sand was swirling around him, rapidly.
Akiko sat up suddenly and looked around her. She was where she was before. But…what was that voice that had spoken to her before? Gaara looked up at her. The sand stopped swirling and fell to the ground. Akiko looked around wide-eyed, breathing heavily. She put her hand on her chest and tried to calm down.
She felt so different now. She didn't feel like Akiko at this moment…No, she felt different.
Gaara sighed and looked at the night sky. Who was doing this to Akiko? Akiko suddenly felt completely different now. She couldn't speak for some odd reason now. She got up and walked a few steps. She looked up at the night sky. Suddenly, Gaara could see what was wrong. The cuts and scrapes on Akiko's body were growing bigger. More blood flowed out. Akiko's eyes clouded with darkness. Gaara could see a dark aura form around her. Her eyes turned into dark pools.
Her back was still turned towards Gaara, but Gaara knew something was wrong with her.
Suddenly, out of no where, Masumi walked towards Akiko. Akiko put one hand towards her eyes and cried. Masumi walked towards Gaara and stopped in front of him.
"We'll be taking her back now. My papa has finally taken copy of her emotions, thanks to you, maybe we'll see you later," Masumi said. She picked up dirt from the ground and threw it towards Gaara. The dirt instantly turned into long spears with blood covered on them and they raced towards Gaara. Gaara easily crushed them with his sand. When the sand went back into his gourd he saw Akiko standing towards him. She kneeled down and pulled out a long, silver metal pipe out of the ground. The pipe had long spikes attached to it. The spikes were curvy, some were straight. Akiko got up and didn't look at Gaara again. Instead, she looked towards the side. Someone was coming…
Naruto raced towards the spot where Gaara had been. Hinata was somewhere close by, following Naruto. Sasuke and Sakura were back somewhere, following Hinata.
'Damn that guy…I'm gonna kill him!' Naruto thought angrily. Finally, when he reached the place where Gaara was standing, he could see Gaara staring wide-eyed, staring at Akiko. When he looked over at Akiko…she was completely different from when he knew her. Her face showed no emotion and she was holding some sort of weapon…The freakiest thing about it was that…Akiko was looking at him.
Naruto landed down on the ground, followed seconds later by Hinata and minutes later by Sasuke and Sakura. Naruto looked at Akiko with fear in his eyes. What was going on?
"A-Akiko? Wh-What happened?" Naruto asked. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Akiko didn't respond to him or even blink.
"Yes…kill him…Let's see your power…let's see you kill one of your own..." A voice whispered in her mind. Akiko couldn't think at all. She couldn't speak. She couldn't move her own body. In fact, she didn't even know herself. All she knew what that she had to obey his commands. Whatever he says, you do it. Whoever he was…
Akiko stared into Naruto's blue eyes. She raised her hand, and threw her weapon towards him. It sped with amazing speed towards him; he couldn't even see it in the air anymore. He knew it was somewhere…suddenly, he could hear a whirring sound from above him and he looked up. The metal pipe was racing towards him. He was going to be hit any second now…
Masumi chuckled as she saw Akiko attack her brother. As soon as Akiko let go of her weapon, Masumi disappeared into the air again. She reappeared in the same cave and sat down on a rock.
She held open her hands and a crystal ball formed into her hands. Suddenly, a ball of white shining light raced towards the crystal ball and landed softly inside the crystal ball. The crystal ball closed over the white ball and Masumi smiled. Akiko's soul was now hers. Hiro's plan had worked. Akiko was dead. Her soul had been ripped out of her body and Hiro was now controlling her with his soul. The needle had worked.
When Masumi had kicked the sand at Akiko, she hid a small needle inside the dirt. It cut Akiko on her neck and inside crawled a special beetle Hiro had made. It recorded Akiko's emotions so Hiro would be able to use them.
Now all that was left…was Hisaki's part.
Neji, Tenten and Shikamaru left the forest behind and were heading towards the edge of the forest that was on the edge of Konoha village. They had heard yells coming from the there and they were going to investigate. As soon as they arrived there, they found two dead leaf ninjas on the ground. There was no sign of a struggle anywhere…
"What…what happened here!" Shikamaru asked. His eyes were wide open. 'Something is here…' he thought. Neji was using his Byakugan to see through the trees to see if there was anybody else there.
"No one's here…" he said. Tenten looked horrified at the bodies. They had been sliced up pretty bad…
Suddenly, all three of them stopped doing what they were doing. They heard an eerie chuckle wisp through the trees. The temperature started to drop; it suddenly became as cold as ice.
"What's going on?" asked Tenten, scared. Neji activated his Byakugan again and looked through the trees once more. Nothing was there.
"See me yet…? Heh heh heh," asked the eerie voice. Suddenly, thick fog surrounded them; they couldn't see anything through it.
"Neji! Where are you?" yelled Tenten. Neji didn't reply, he was trying to see through the fog, but for some reason, he couldn't.
"I have the ability to take away your powers…" started the voice. Neji could hear the voice coming seemingly close.
"…and give them back to you,"
Suddenly, Neji could see through the fog using his Byakugan. He gasped, horrified at what he saw.
"Neji! What is it!" Shikamaru asked, through the fog. He couldn't see anything either.
Neji saw a man dressed up as a jester. Neji squinted his eyes, was he seeing things? The man had white paint on his face and he was wearing a hat with bells. His hands had large cuts on them, which bled freely and he was wearing small, strange shoes. He was also carrying a large axe in his hand and a small knife in his other hand. He was grinning at them, showing his large white teeth. Blood dripped out from the corners of his mouth. He had blond hair under his hat.
"Hisaki Motou…is my name," started the man. He raised his arm that held his axe. "And I'm here to kill you…" he finished in a sing-song voice. Suddenly, Neji could hear Tenten screaming. Shikamaru was cursing under his breath. The fog drifted away, and Neji could see Tenten and Shikamaru with looks of fear on their faces. When he looked up, he saw two more duplicates of Hisaki standing in front of them, their axes raised.
The main Hisaki spoke up.
"Welcome to the realm of my world…"
Masumi looked up at the ceiling of the roof. The roof opened up again. She held the crystal ball carefully in her hands, and floated to the top.
"My turn…"
And that's it for chapter 9! Sorry if there was some Gaara OOC in here O.o;; And there's some weird parts in here...er...yeah. Oh my God, school starts tomorrow -.-;; I am so very scared. My first day in High School (I'm going in grade 8). Anyways, here's the question…hmm…
Do you think Gaara has a favorite animal? O.o;; I know it's a silly question, but…it's…so…interesting to know… .
Ahem, anyways…
Aznpuffyhair: Yes, she's dead. The clown's name is Hisaki, he's Masumi's cousin. Lol, nothing is wrong with him, he didn't get into a battle. Sakura stopped Naruto from fighting him. And the girl's arm was covered in blood because her dad cut her up and…well, maybe you don't want to know.
Agent Vash: PFFT, yeah. And she like, hid something in it. What a clever girl, lol. Not. Shikato and Shikamaru? I wonder what their mom's name is then. Shi…um…laru? LMAO. Yeah, that's him. LOL, if they had maids, Kankuro would probably not be virgin by now then…either that or they have some pretty ugly maids. Rofl!
Kagome13Chan: XD thanks!
Rikki-Boy: Lol, if he does all the work, then shouldn't he have lost some weight by now then, or has she been recently made him do the chores? LOL sexy shirtless men! Ha ha ha!
FanstasyFreak: LOL, yeah! She would be like "Kankuro, wash the dishes!" and then he's be all like "Why me? Make Gaara do them!" and she's be like "hell no, are you crazy? He'll kill me!" Ha ha ha.
Anonymous: LOL yeah XDD like Akiko "Hey, I'll pay you if you do my laundry," Like taking candy from a baby. Strangely, it does also remind me of The Ring, I haven't watched that movie in a while though. And yeah, they really don't like Naruto, makes me sad. Though, Hinata really loves him. You should read my sisters stories, her pen name is Complexity66 or something like that. Lol, everyone has a good side Gaara so does too. Lol.
Sephynarutocloud: Yes! I was wondering where you went! Lol!
Thanks everyone else for reading and reviewing! Review please!
