Ai, ai, ai, my poor Naruto...what will happen to you?
Chapter 14: Sudden Death
The Next Day
Eyes flashed with a steel-clad gleam of defiance as Naruto rolled up his sleeves and stomped determinedly into the university with an attitude of Neji-or-bust pasted across his face. The blonde ferreted across half the campus until finally, finally his target loomed into sight. Naruto deftly slipped behind a nearby tree and peered out suspiciously at the back of Neji's head. Sure enough, the telltale twin buns were bobbing beside the Hyuuga, and Tenten's overly fake, cheerful voice could be heard wafting on the wind. Naruto nearly gagged.
It suddenly appeared to him that Neji wasn't acting normally. Granted, after the apartment incident followed by the memory crisis, he'd hardly expect Neji to be normal, but now it seemed that the Hyuuga was a whole different person. Neji's back was unusually stiff, his arms were down at his sides in a rather uptight position, and his fists were clenched. His gait had also changed; Naruto could see him taking short, choppy steps instead of his normally fluid, striding pace.
He was never one to think things out carefully, mostly being one to improvise on the spot. He'd always deemed it a rather beneficial skill, as it had saved his sorry ass one time too many, and he suspected—or at least hoped—it would again save his sorry ass from whatever complications he would experience in the next three to four minutes. Popping out from behind the tree, Naruto took a deep breath and bee-lined his way towards Neji, taking extra care to make a lot of noise as was his usual fashion; after all, he didn't want Neji to think anything was wrong.
"NEJI! How are you this—"
He was cut off abruptly by an iron-clad grasp upon his throat. Stunned to the core, Naruto swept shell-shocked eyes over Neji's rigid form. Liquid black flowed over the Hyuuga's eyes, shading it from view as the alabaster hand gripping the blonde's throat slowly tightened its grip. Neji's normally serene aura seemed to shift and change to an alien, icy demeanor which wrapped itself around Naruto and sucked the warmth from his body. Naruto choked and gasped, clawing futilely at the hand that drew his life, but Neji paid no heed to the gashes embedded in his skin and continued to squeeze, nearly crushing the blonde's windpipe. Naruto inhaled in a feeble breath.
"Neji…what…why…."
His throat was spared destruction as Neji propelled him backwards with a violent shove. Naruto landed unceremoniously on the ground and lay there in a heap at the Hyuuga's feet. He struggled and sat up, only to be pushed back down with a foot upon his ribs. Neji's mouth curled into a sibilant snarl as he pressed down upon the blonde's chest.
"Why are you…doing this?" Naruto managed to choke out, sky-chipped eyes clouded with confusion and hurt. Neji's mouth warped crazily as he answered.
"You're a despicable eyesore. You don't deserve to live." There was a dull cracking sound and Naruto cried out as a sharp, stinging pain exploded in the region of his torso. He looked up as tears clouded his vision at Neji's cruel form.
"You…"
"SHUT UP!" The words ripped a gaping slash right through Naruto's heart, and that itself seemed fourfold more painful than the aching throb of his broken ribs. Neji shook his hair out of his eyes, and Naruto gasped in horror at the sight before him.
Neji's eyes, once a pure, mystical shade of pearly white now bore a distinct shade of dull brownish-red.
"Neji…" The foot came down cruelly on his mouth, stifling his words. Neji cocked his head to the side, smiling fanatically.
"Would you like your mouth to suffer too, bitch?"
Naruto twisted out from under Neji's foot and recoiled backwards, regaining his footing. Pain-shot eyes roved over the Hyuuga's tall body, then suddenly focused on Neji's hand, which was wrapped around Tenten's waist. The girl herself had a most disturbing look on her face as she spoke.
"Your words won't reach him now. He's mine, mine to do with…as I please." She turned and fixed Naruto with a sultry, sardonically triumphant glance as she pressed her body against Neji's and trailed her tongue seductively up the side of his cheek. This action more than anything else seemed to slice through Naruto's last ounce of reserve.
"NO!"
A sudden explosion rocked the campus, sending a sonic blast reverberating around the face of the earth. Tenten screamed and staggered backwards, Neji still in her grasp. Another blast cut a path just centimeters shy of her body, and the smoke cleared to reveal a magnificent sight of raging magnitude. Naruto stood in the middle of the clearing, engulfed entirely in a raging typhoon of red, swirling power. And yet…it wasn't Naruto…no, the Naruto just moments before had been one of purity and mild joy. This Naruto had a feasible, almost solid thirst for blood.
Fangs had exploded crudely from his gums, sharpened, elongated fangs that dripped with saliva and called for Tenten's flesh. Veins throbbed fat with blood throughout the whole of his body, standing up like ropes under his skin. His hands twitched spasmodically with the desire to tear; foot-long needle-sharp claws had sprouted in place of nails, curving over with a cruel, hooked lust for carnage. His hair had grown longer and more wild, undulating spastically with the wind that the red, swirling substance called from the earth. But all the changes in his body couldn't hope to hold a candle to the changes in his face, which burned brightly with a terrible light that promised suffering and bloodshed.
Naruto's features had changed completely from the pure, gentle countenance to one of crazed intelligence and madness. Three black gashes cruelly marred both cheeks, and his features had become more defined. The black around his eyes had suddenly magnified, amplifying the twin wicked slits that corrupted his darkened, crimson irises. An insane, rhythmic snarling had started low in the back of his throat as Naruto crouched down, every muscle strung to the breaking as he prepared to draw blood.
Tenten uttered a guttural shriek that didn't sound human and scrambled from the terrible vision before her. One hand clamped roughly over Neji's wrist and hauled him haphazardly away from the scene as the girl frantically strove to put as much distance between her and the wraith, but it proved in vain. With a spectacularly malicious burst of crimson-tainted power, Naruto exploded from the ground, leaving a gargantuan, smoking crater, and painted a cruel, circular path around his targets. Tenten screamed in mortal agony as scarlet gashes drew themselves around her arms and down her legs and torso; Neji made a valiant attempt to protect the brunette, but proved to be no match to Naruto, who plunged a hand screaming for blood deep into Tenten's stomach.
Crimson libation exploded out of the girl's innards as Naruto withdrew a blood-soaked hand. Tenten screamed again, a long, loud, howling scream as she clutched a hand to her entrails, which threatened to spill to the ground. Gritting her teeth, she withdrew a small packet of powder which she hurled to the ground, igniting a monstrous explosion. Naruto was thrown backwards and landed harshly on his back, and in that moment of distraction, Tenten melted into the musty vapors of the smoke. The mist cleared, and the grounds were devoid of all life save for one. The blonde bit down on his lip in exasperation. Curse it…the bitch had gotten away….
Not a moment had passed when an unwonted smirk caught the edge of his mouth. He WAS notorious for having a vast knowledge of multiple escape routes, and given the origins of the brunette whore, he had a pretty good idea where she was headed. Black-rimmed eyes flashed with a latent spark of determination. After all…was he not of the same genesis as she? It was most ironic really, but it served as an asset, for after all, at least he knew where to begin his pursuit. And he, unlike her, he thought as he sent out a silent calling that scraped across the earth….
He, unlike her, had reinforcements.
Hiashi looked up, imperial features marring faintly as a thrice-bloodied Tenten staggered in with Neji's dead weight upon her shoulders. Hiashi repressed a grimace; the girl was a mess, with her clothes ripped to shreds, blood flowing freely from multiple injuries and what looked like a gore wound in her stomach. The stench of dried blood was almost overpowering as well; Hiashi's left eyelid executed a slight twitch at the sight of the crimson liquid oozing glutinously onto his normally impeccable floor.
"Clean up and report here in five minutes." His tone was tartly curt, but Tenten knew better than to disobey. She gritted out a pained response, then deposited Neji's comatose form on a nearby table and dragged her pathetic form from the room.
Hiashi rose and crossed to the younger Hyuuga's form, passing a hand over Neji's forehead. Obsidian eyelashes fluttered, and the younger Hyuuga awoke, blinking sporadically to clear his muddled mind. He sat up, then caught sight of Hiashi and abruptly sank to one knee.
"Hiashi-sama." The addressed man inwardly marveled at Neji's consistent show of loyalty.
"Neji."
Neji looked up and affixed his eyes onto Hiashi's own. The older Hyuuga barely managed to conceal his surprise; Neji's eyes were flushed a dull, brown-red and showed no emotion whatsoever. Well had the drug taken effect. Hiashi smiled, a sweetly sibilant smile that didn't seem to align with his features.
"Come. There is much work to be done…"
xXx-----xXx
He landed catlike on the ground, shoulders hunched in a feral position. There it was; the lake, at the new moon. He slowly uncurled his lean, lanky body, vertebrae by vertebrae, ever so slowly, until he stood erect at the lips of the waters of the lake. Raising one straight, rigid leg with the grace that rivaled a dancer, he pointed his toe and slowly caressed the unbroken surface of the water, drawing in the welcoming coolness up to his chest. With maddening ease, he stepped onto the surface of the water, then slowly brought his other leg to come in contact with the first. And so he walked, with slow, measured steps to the very center of the lake.
Like a lithe, mystical water faerie, he raised his arms high, stretching them out so that he looked almost feminine. Each finger he straightened, arching his wrists, letting the line of his arm flow down to the tips of each alabaster digit. He tilted his head to the heavens, bathing in the nonexistent moonlight, lashes closed, expression serene as a passing breeze blew through the wheat-bronze gold that encircled his head. His blue-white, weightless, sheer silken robe floated gently around his body as the breeze caressed him as a lover would his partner, slipping in and out of all the forbidden, secret orifices. He raised himself up, balancing elegantly on his toes, then slowly, ever so slowly, brought his hands up to meet directly above his head.
The stirrings began. At first, the ripples on the lake of deep, black wine were ordinary ripples, created by the wind, but suddenly they changed, becoming agitated, urgent, fearful. The ripples became frantic, and eventually merged into waves, waves with crowns of deep, white-hued pearl which coalesced and combined until the lake had become a raging vortex of turbulent, elegantly violent water. The figure in the very epicenter lifted his arms to the heavens like a great, terrible god, and from the sky descended a white-hot power that engulfed the figure completely in its awesome magnificence.
He stood, bathed in his own power, as ribbons of energy encircled his figure. Rotating wildly in the middle of the lake, he grasped the power, tore it to shreds, and mended it, repeating the cycle over and over until he was engulfed in a whirlpool of seething, teeming white. The earth seemed to shake and teeter on its eternal orbit as the power pulsed once, then dimmed into a pulsing, white light that disappeared to sleep inside the figure's chest.
Then they came.
They came, all of them, entities of all shapes and sizes. They arose from the earth, from their eons of slumber, and laid down their lives at his feet. They formed ranks around him, the tall, imperial figure, and from all over the earth, from the cold, arctic ice shelves to the fierce, burning deserts, they paid tribute to their leader. And once they were done, they started their terrible, macabre march down to one set destination, to complete the calling for which they had been summoned.
Haha, cliffie...plz review peoples! Oh, this story might go a bit slower, because I have this great idea for a one-shot SasuNaru (FINALLY! SILVER WRITES SOMETHING OTHER THAN NEJINARU! )
