Lee was practically vibrating with anticipation as he stared at the muscles rippling on Maito Gai's back as the latter walked, said muscles clearly visible beneath his green spandex suit. Lee himself was wearing a plain white, short-sleeved kimono-shirt with a martial arts belt and dark pants—oh, how he probably wished he could emulate his revered Gai-sama by wearing the exact same clothes.
Or, at least, that was what Tenten supposed. And considering Lee was an open book and then some, she was pretty sure that she was right. Lee's eyes moved upward to the back of Gai's bowl cut, and Tenten could have sworn that his round eyes shone brighter than ever. It made her smile—it was nice to see her friend in such a good mood again.
"Like what you see?" she whispered to him, teasing.
"It's... so youthful!" Lee gasped, drawing some looks from nearby civilians. Frantically, he grabbed the messy, straw-like braid he kept his hair in, frowning. "Tenten, when we stop for the night, could you please give me a haircut just like Gai-sama's?"
She groaned, even though she was more than happy to give him that haircut. "Are you sure you really want to look like... that?"
Lee nodded vigorously. "Yes! It is my greatest wish at the moment, Tenten!"
He thanked her profusely before vowing to himself that he would get Gai to notice him. It was then Tenten inquired, "Why don't you just talk to him? We've been so close to him this whole time and you haven't even spoken to him once."
Lee's face drooped slightly. "Well… what if Gai-sama doesn't think I'm worthy enough?"
"Lee!" Tenten admonished. "You can't expect him to notice you if you just ignore him. And who says you aren't worthy enough? That's for Gai-san to judge, not you. And, personally, I think you're plenty worthy."
Tears sparkled in Lee's eyes. "T-Tenten…! Thank you! You are a true friend!"
At the front of the group, Shikaku and Itachi walked side by the side, the former holding the map. He had marked it last night, after dinner had passed. The Nara had travelled through this mountain before, and was able to name some old bunkers that been in use in a previous war. If they were lucky, there would be rations there, even if they were expired.
"We're here," Shikaku was telling Itachi, motioning to a place on the map. "At the rate we're going, we'll be able to make it to the bunker a few hours before sunset."
That was good news, and those who were close enough to hear the exchange murmured their approval.
Kakashi tilted his head skyward. "It looks like it's going to rain soon. It's no good travelling in that kind of weather. We should pick up the pace."
"Agreed," Hitoshi the civilian said, scowling up at the looming clouds. "Frankly, I don't want to be soaked to the bone and have this fucking wind blowing up my ass at the same time."
Someone snorted at that, and Shimizu Asagi shot him a dirty look, her son having been in earshot.
Chihiro was practically glued to Kisame's side. It seemed that the small kindness that he had showed her by taking interest in her training had earned him her loyalty. She was a little shy and withdrawn, Kisame knew, and never talked with the other children. It was shame, actually, that she was nine years old and therefore didn't fit in with any of the general age groups. Shogo, Itsuki, and Hikari were too young, all of them five or six; Moegi, Konohamaru, and Udon were twelve and too old, while Daichi, at eight years old, was still grieving over the death of his father and almost never left his mother's or sister's side. And, of course, Izuna was not even a week old yet.
As they traveled, Deidara tried to make herself familiar with most of their faces. She knew some of them from before the war, but the majority were almost an entirely new species to her. She wasn't sure how she hadn't heard of Mitarashi Anko before, considering how brash, rude, and loud the purple-haired woman was. Perhaps the woman had been living on the other side of the city. Kotetsu and Izumo, a pair of best friends who were always seen with one another, were also unfamiliar, but they had distinguishable features.
A strange huffing noise broke her out of her thoughts, and she narrowed her eyes at the woman wheezing in front of her. Her black hair fell limply over her face, and her back was slouched.
Steeling herself, Deidara sidled up to her and tentatively wrapped an arm around her shoulders, helping her forward this particularly steep slope.
"Is that you, dear?" the woman murmured. "My beautiful daughter... Ami..."
Deidara nearly choked. She... what the hell do I say?
"Ami, you don't need help mama... you're so young. Go have fun with your boyfriend instead... I'll still be here when you come back." Suddenly, the woman collapsed in a dead faint, Deidara sweating bullets as she carefully lowered her to the grass.
Sasori was there almost instantly. "What happened, brat?"
"I-I don't know, she just fainted, un. She thought..." Deidara lowered her eyes, puffing out a small sigh. "She thought that I was her daughter. Before she fainted, that is."
Sasori clicked his tongue, placing the back of his hand on the woman's sweating forehead. "Fever. She's delirious. This wind's not doing us any good either. You," Sasori turned his head to a random civilian, "go get get Sakura or Shizune."
"Y-yes, Sasori-sama..."
The entire group was forced to stop for her as Shizune knelt over her, and there were a few people that didn't appreciate having their journey stopped. Mitarashi Anko looked disgruntled, but she wasn't so heartless as to simply suggest abandoning the woman.
"Why can't we just leave her?" Hitoshi inquired loudly. "She's just dead weight anyway."
"Why, you...!" Naruto had never quite taken to Hitoshi, and the latter's cruel words were just wicked enough to rouse Naruto's ire. "You take that back! I'm sure she's a lot more helpful than you are, dattebayo!"
"Shut up, both of you," Sasori said bluntly, and then obliged, albeit reluctantly. They hadn't forgotten who had saved their asses from the vine monster yesterday.
"She'll need to be carried and kept warm," Shizune said after a few moments, standing back up. "Is anyone up to the task?" Her onyx eyes glinted as she shifted her gaze to the surly Hitoshi. "What about you, Hitoshi-san? You're as big as an ox. I'm sure a tiny woman like her won't give you any trouble."
Despite herself, Deidara couldn't help but grin at Shizune's sharp words. "Of course," she chimed, keeping her voice demure, "Hitoshi-san looks very strong—I'm sure he could show some of the men here a thing or two, un. I mean, unless..." Deidara shrugged, smirking. "All those muscles are just for show."
Even Sasori looked faintly amused. He was no fonder of Hitoshi than Deidara and Naruto.
Flushing, Hitoshi glared at all of them before grudgingly stomping over to the unconscious woman (Sakura had wrapped a spare blanket around her and was currently trying to bring down her fever using medical chakra; she stepped back when he got closer) and picked her up in an awkward bridal style. "What?" Hitoshi barked when he caught a few people ogling at him. "What're you looking at, you assholes?" They quickly turned away.
As the journey continued, Chihiro's brow furrowed in a worried frown. "Ne, Kisame-sensei, what's wrong with her? Why did she think that Deidara-san was her daughter?"
Kisame deliberated on the question. "That woman was in the Underground; I remember seeing her a couple of times. According to what I've heard, her daughter was raped and killed by enemy soldiers right in front of her eyes, the day right before she was due to get married..."
Chihiro became stricken. "T-that's horrible... Why would they do that?" Tears welled up in her eyes, blurring her vision, but she kept them back. "Why do such bad people exist?"
They were talking loud enough for a few surrounding people to hear—including Deidara and Daichi, who she was walking with.
"You ask the most difficult questions, don't you?" Kisame mused. "It's a terrible thing to consider, Chi-chan, but have you ever considered that they might view us as the bad guys?"
Her frown deepened as she thought about it. "But... we're not. Aren't we the good guys? We're not bad guys."
"Aa, I know. A cute kid like you could never be a bad guy." Kisame chuckled. "But those men were conditioned to fight for their cause, and to destroy the enemy because they stand in their way. In their eyes, we are the bad guys, and they're the so-called good guys. It's one of those realities of wars—it isn't good versus evil like you've probably been led to believe. At the end of the day, they're just people like you and me, fighting for a cause they believe in."
Chihiro was silent.
"What nonsense!" Itsuki's mother sneered. "Don't listen to anything that monster says, Itsuki-kun." Before anyone could reprimand her, she moved to the front of the travel pack, taking her son with her.
"Bitch," Deidara said loudly, relishing at the sight of the woman's back stiffening in anger, having not fled fast enough to avoid hearing the insult.
Chihiro knew that it was a bad word, but she couldn't help but add, "Yeah! Kisame's not a monster!"
Itsuki's mother's face soured even further as she turned around. "Maybe not to you two. But aren't you both equally as bad—one is almost too old to not be married, and the other is a dirty orphan." She turned her nose up at them, Deidara's cheeks coloring with rage, and Chihiro's face growing white; a muscle in Kisame's jaw twitched. "My poor Itsuki has to put up with people like you—"
"Hey, woman." A cold voice interrupted her tirade. Sasori stared at her with flinty eyes. "Do you want to be attacked and possibly eaten?"
She startled. "W-well, no, Sasori-sama, I would think not—"
"Then stop bitching and start hauling ass."
Nearby, Chiyo snorted, pleased. At least her grandson was doing well in securing a wife.
Successfully cowed, the witch hurried off, still dragging her son behind her. Anyone who had witnessed the exchange immediately pitied the tubby little boy.
Sasori glanced expectantly at Deidara, who huffed angrily and turned away. "I didn't need you to interfere."
"Please, brat," their shoulders brushed as he moved past her, "her guts would have been splattered all over the place if I hadn't interfered. And that would be detrimental to our progress."
She gave him a withering look. "Ever the pragmatic one, un..." Deidara noticed Kisame and Chihiro coming up behind her. "Don't listen to her, yeah, not when the only thing she seems to talk about other than you is her dead husband."
Kisame snorted wryly. "I don't need a pep talk from you, blondie. But thanks for the thought." He looked down at Chihiro, who was still silent. "Hey, kid, don't pout."
"... She called you a monster. Doesn't that make you sad?" Chihiro finally looked up from the ground, blinking at him.
"People have been calling me that my whole life. I'm used to it." Kisame's gaze softened ever so slightly. "So save your sympathy for someone else, okay? Someone else who's had it harder than me."
"She's going to self destruct," Deidara stated, drawing their attention. "People like her always do." And she could name a few more who were walking a similar path to Itsuki's mother. Funnily enough, it was the Uchiha that she had thought of who finally snapped.
Sasuke had had enough of Itsuki's mother running her mouth about her dead husband. "Can you shut the hell up?"
Gasping, the woman covered Itsuki's ears. "How dare you speak to me that way, you traitor!"
"Dumbass," Sasuke sneered, completely ignoring her words, "this is life. Your husband is dead, so get over it. No one wants to hear about him."
That shut her up for the rest of the trip, even when her friend, Masami, patted her back and whispered sweet, soothing words.
The journey continued. It was two hours to sunset when they finally found the bunker. Most of them cried in joyous relief, while others instantly entered the bunker without even considering what might lie inside. Fortunately, it was empty, safe, and had a supply of canned foods that were still edible (despite being past their time). There were even beds (which were unmade; they tried not to dwell on the fact that the previous occupants had likely not returned from the battlefield alive), but not enough for all of them. It was decided that the extremely tired, pregnant, nursing, or elderly would have the beds, while the rest of them slept on the floor, huddling close with their limited supply of blankets to keep each other warm.
It was too late to go hunting for fresh meat now, so they all settled for a cold, wet meal of luncheon meat, nuts, and other processed canned or dry foods. As they ate, it started to rain outside. It disturbed Izuna from his sleep, and he began to wail, forcing Izumi to take him over to the beds, Rin by her side.
Sometime during dinner, the topic of self-defense came up.
"Not all of us are able to use our fists," a girl no more than fourteen pointed out. Oddly enough, the back of her hair stood up on end like Sasuke's, though his was much flatter's. Her name was Yukari, and she had a twin called Sawako. "Do you have any weapons that we might be able to use?"
There were some murmurs of agreement (Tenten was especially vehement), a few more reluctant than others, and it was Kakashi who answered.
"We do, actually," he said, eye-smiling. Almost faster than they could blink, he had a storage scroll stretched out in front of him. With a small puff of smoke, a neat pile of weapons appeared. "Don't touch," he warned when Shogo reached for a kunai handle sticking out of the pile. Asagi pulled her son backward, and he landed lightly on the bump on her belly. "It's not much—"
"There's, like, eight," someone deadpanned.
"—but I'm sure we can put them to good use." Kakashi picked up a tanto. "Anyone good with these? Besides Shisui, because he's a wiseass who already has two."
Shisui snorted in amusement.
"Is that a bow and arrow?" Deidara pointed at something in the weapon stack. "I haven't seen one of those in a while, un."
"You don't really need it," Sasori pointed out, and the blonde shrugged.
"Let Sawako-san have it." All heads turned to Sasuke. Some glared at him. He glared right back. "She's been staring at it ever since it poofed into existence."
"Sawako-san?" Itachi prompted, breaking the ice that had suddenly gathered in the atmosphere.
"Well," Sawako started, hesitating.
"Why should she get it?" a middle-aged man demanded. "Why should we listen to this traitor?"
"You might all label him a traitor, but he is correct." Surprisingly, it was Sasori who vouched for Sasuke, his eyes never leaving the middle-aged man's face.
Yukari joined in, saying fiercely, "My sister is a great shot! In my very humble opinion, she may be the greatest markswoman of our time! So there."
"Calm down," Anko drawled, "No one said that she wasn't."
Tenten suddenly reached forward and grabbed the iron bamboo staff she had been eyeing. When everybody stared at her boldness, she lifted her chin defiantly. "What? Don't you know this is Grade-A Ferrocalamus?"
No one pretended to know what that was.
"Iron bamboo," she amended, looking disgruntled at the fact that these people didn't have any appreciation for good weapons.
Deidara lazily lifted her hand. "I can vouch for her. She's an absolute badass with that thing. You won't believe the amount of ass she'll be able to kick with that, un."
A sly smirk made its way onto Sasori's face. "If I recall, she also kicked your ass."
"Hrr, Danna!"
The rain poured even harder above the bunker as the weapons were sorted out. Tenten got to keep her iron bamboo staff ("You're saying it wrong, Naruto! It's Ferrocalamus, not—ugh, whatever, you're not even listening."), Sawako was given the bow and arrows after constant reassurances from her sister that no one had the energy to oppose, and the tanto was claimed by Kagami, who, in their own words, wanted to match Shisui. The rest of the weapons, all blades of some sort (most of them were kunai), were distributed evenly to those who wished for one. Naruto was very pleased with the three-pronged kunai he received; it was the only one of its kind.
Sasuke remained content with his katana, refusing the chokuto he had been offered.
Anko took the chokuto instead. The blade was named Kusanagi, apparently, and had been recovered from Obito's truck by Shisui and Kagami prior to them driving it outside the city.
When the weapons pile was diminished to two unwanted kunai, Kisame noticed something odd about the storage scroll stretched beneath the blades. Those symbols... "Kakashi-san, were you the one who sealed the wall?"
A shocked silence fell over them.
"It was indeed my Eternal Rival!" Gai answered with his usual enthusiasm, teeth flashing as he smiled. Not even the steady beat of the rain could dampen his youthful spirit, it seemed. "Combining ancient samurai techniques with his hip and modern mindset, my Eternal Rival Kakashi was able to create a seal that would have even the most brilliant Naras scratching their heads!"
There was a pause.
"Well," Shikamaru said, "he's not wrong." Nearly three months was a long time for a Nara to figure something out, testament to Kakashi's sealing expertise.
"Mou, you're making me blush," Kakashi said lightly.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Sakura demanded.
He eye-smiled irritatingly. "I was never asked, Sakura-chan."
Sakura held up her fist threateningly. "Hrr, Kakashi—"
"It makes sense."
Sasori's voice was so quiet that, had the rain been any louder, he surely wouldn't have been heard. He fixed his brown gaze on the side of Kakashi's head. If the silver-haired man noticed, he didn't say anything. "Your father was the White Fang, was he not?" There was a thinly veiled disdain in the question.
Kakashi didn't look at him. "He was, Sasori-san. I'm not surprised that you made the connection, considering your history..."
The puppeteer's eyes narrowed, something that Deidara didn't miss. She noticed that he had his hands fisted around the cloth of his Akatsuki cloak as well. "Kakashi-san." Sasori's voice was deceptively calm. There was a blur and a whine, and a kunai whizzed past the Hatake's ear and embedded itself into a non-metal patch of the wall. "There is no one else who knows my history better than I."
"And do you regret it—"
"Will you shut up?" Deidara snapped irritably. "You two are killing the mood here, un. I don't know what happened, but sort it out in private. You're making everyone uncomfortable."
Sasori and Kakashi held each others' gazes evenly before the former turned away. Discretely, Deidara kept her eye on him. Sasori was always taciturn, but usually he attempted to make some sort of conversation with her when they were together. Silence seemed to drag out—not just between them, but for all of them.
When it was time to sleep, the women and men (save for the few couples) naturally separated. Women and children slept closest to the bed, while the men kind of just shifted to the wall. One by one, they drifted off to dreamland, lulled to sleep by the steady rain.
Deidara found herself sleeping between Rin and and Izumi. Both of her friends were already asleep. Hikari was snoring lightly in Rin's arms, her brother flopped awkwardly over the two of them. He must have been very tired not to wake up from Hikari's elbow jabbing his ribs. Before she knew it, her eyes were drooping shut as well.
Sasori couldn't sleep. He wasn't an insomniac by any means, but he was used to late nights. He was standing far away from where the men stepped, closer to the woman's side than anything else. He contemplated pulling out his puppets from their storage scroll for some tweaking. But, being who he was, he doubted that there were going to be any flaws to fix. His eyes wandered around the dark room before finally landing on Kakashi's form. There was a lamp near where he was slumped (against Gai of all people), and Sasori could make out his sharp features beneath his mask.
Hatake Kakashi, huh? Sasori turned away. I hope for both of our sakes, you are nothing like your father. A breeze from the entrance of the bunker swept down the halls and into the room. His skin crawled in response.
There was so much blood and the White Fang stood over him, him, the cocky smirk wiped off his face as he considered how many he had fell for the last time, oh, but then his parents were there and even more unnecessary, innocent blood was spilled all over his front—
The wind died down. Sasori slumped against the wall, sliding down as he pinched the bridge of his nose. He'd been travelling for so long—he needed to sleep, or he would be dead on his feet tomorrow. Mentally, he made sure that they had gotten everything from the bunker already. The supply closets had been cleaned out, but there were drawers that still had't...
Sasori stood, taking his leave quietly.
Absently, he searched the bunker until he came across those drawers. He opened them, discovering fresh scrolls inside. He fingered the material, lips pursing when he realized that they weren't chakra conductive. Essentially useless, then.
He closed the drawers and returned to the bedroom with the scrolls.
Everyone's chakra levels were stable, which meant Sasori was free to do whatever he wanted with the paper—they wouldn't be stopping him anytime soon. So he took out an ink pot and a calligraphy brush from a storage scroll.
Then he began to write. It was meaningless words, really. It was like Deidara's art—utterly meaningless. His hand stilled, creating a blotch on the paper. Well, maybe her art wasn't the worst—the nonsense he was writing down right now definitely took the cake.
Nevertheless, he continued, eyes at half-mast. He wrote:
To be helpless is to suffocate in doubt
As child would in the untamed sea
Limbs sore—beaten by black waves
He cannot cry for help; the tears and noise are washed away
He can only swim further down in ease of pain
.
In unforgiving waters, child is alone
To bear the burdens of his exhaustion
And to throw them away in sight of surrender
In rolling, sweeping swells he slowly drowns
Passing on without a sound
"Why are you even up?" Sasori turned his head to see Kisame looming over him, eyes gleaming in the dark. The shark-like man held a canteen of water in his hands, and Sasori suspected that his lips were probably wet.
"Couldn't sleep." Sasori rolled up the remaining paper scrolls. Over his shoulder, Kisame read the poem at lightning speed.
"Huh." Kisame took a swig of water. "Depressing, but I see the point."
Point? It was just rambling. Sasori hadn't put thought into the words at all—he'd simply put down whatever felt or sounded right.
"It's those moments, you know?" Kisame said wistfully, closing his water canteen. "When you feel that you're in so deep, it feels easier to just swim down and drown, no? I have a feeling that you're familiar with what I'm saying. Well, goodnight. Not that it's going to do me much good, but I need my beauty sleep."
First, he was burning. Now, he was drowning. Sasori looked over his neat, pretty words. The urge to tear it apart was devilishly tempting, but he resisted. Instead, like the other, blank scrolls, he rolled it up. Then he placed all of them in one mass storage scroll, one he had uniquely designed, and one that also happened to carry pretty much everything, including other storage scrolls.
Fire and water. Sasori made his way to the edge of the men's sleeping group. How... awfully poetic.
Guards. They'd posted guards outside the bunker to keep watch for any enemy soldiers, dangerous animals, or...
Monsters. Not the Kisame kind, but the... plant kind, if Sasori's description was apt.
Izumo felt goosebumps crawl across his skin as a particularly strong wind blew against him. The rain had stopped a little while ago.
It would be dawn in perhaps and hour or two, and Izumo couldn't wait to return to bed for an extra hour of sleep. He was sure Kotetsu felt the same way. The relieving watchdogs (Izumo had to face it—that was all they were right now) were to be Iruka and Kakashi.
Kotetsu narrowed his eyes when several black lumps appeared at the edge of the trees. "Hey, hey, Izumo. Do you see that?" He nudged his best friend, who seemed on the verge of falling asleep. "Man, wake up!"
Izumo startled. "Wha? Oh, sorry, I must have just dozed off on my feet a little..."
Kotetsu pressed a finger to his lips, hissing, "Shh!" He had started to break into a cold sweat, and, with one trembling finger, he pointed at the black shapes that seemed to be emerging from the tree line.
There were white, glowing orbs in the midst of the darkness, unblinking. They were unmistakably eyes.
"Wolves?" Izumo sounded hopeful.
Ths shapes moved forward, a foul chakra filling the air.
Kotetsu swore. "Shit!" He ran back into the bunker, stepping on a pile of hair. "We're under attack! I think it's those monsters that Sasori ran into!"
The fighters in the group were immediately up, sleep seeping out of their eyes as they prepared for battle.
The civilians woke more slowly, rubbing their eyes, yawning, and muttering questioningly about the disturbance.
"I left Izumo back there!" Kotetsu cried, hysterical. "We have to hurry!"
It was a rush outside. Kakashi and Gai led the way, Kotetsu running after them. They were joined by people with weapons or fighting expertise.
Under the cover of the night, they charged.
They were damn ugly, that was for sure. Samehada, now unbandaged, shredded and tore at retractable monster limbs, but no chakra was ever absorbed by the sword. It was almost as if it were rejecting the chakra—Kisame had never once met anyone or anything whose chakra was so foul that even Samehada, born from less than savoury origins, refused to consume it.
With a war cry, Kisame sliced a monster's head off. It was different from Sasori's description. Were the monsters not all exactly the same? While it was certainly humanoid, this one had poison tipped spikes sticking out of its spine. At least he was right about one thing, though—even in its decapitated state, the monster was still thrashing on the ground. Without wasting anymore time, Kisame ripped its heart out with Samehada, shredding into black little bits of flesh. He leaped backward when a sort of greenish black juice began to gush out from the body, causing it to shrivel up.
Kisame took a second to observe his surroundings before stabbing Samehada through the chest of a monster, destroying its heart. He noticed that the chest of the beast was harder than any other part of its body. But not hard enough for Samehada.
Suddenly, blood splattered all over his front, and his eyes shot downwards. Less than three feet away, a civilian man who'd been fighting with a blade had just been murdered violently. His mangled remains hung in the monster's mouth before dropping to the grass.
Kisame readied Samehada.
On the other side of the battlefield, Anko was wielding Kusanagi as if it were a second limb. Her eyes widened when she saw a monster grabbing for a man that she knew—his name was Taro. "Taro, look out!"
The monster's elongated claws swiped across his chest, leaving bloody scratch marks. Taro had recoiled backward just in time. With a shout, he plunged his blade into the beast's heart, and it immediately began to die, splashing its revolting juices everywhere.
"You okay?" Anko demanded.
Taro nodded, grimacing in pain. "I'll live."
"You haven't fought for years," she reminded him. "Go see Sakura after we're done here."
He was agreeable, and they continued to fight their way through the monsters. They weren't easy to kill, but it wasn't tremendously hard. The most dangerous thing was their speed—it took a lot of energy to keep up with them.
Blood sprayed across the grass.
Sasori wondered if these abominations were evolving, or if the one that he had fought yesterday was just weak. He certainly hoped that it was the latter, even when his puppet, Karasu, sliced a monster with a mushroom growing out of its forehead into ribbons. Its heart was definitely not spared in that devastating attack.
There are so many of them. Sasori flicked his wrist, sending Karasu flying in another direction to aid a woman that had just bitten on the shoulder by a monster. And not enough of them. But they were strong. They would persevere, just like the philosophy behind his art.
A "Katsu!" drew his attention. Deidara, surrounded by three monsters, threw the explosive at her feet before jumping through a gap in the formation, allowing the clay creature to explode. It charred the monsters, causing them to shriek in pain and rage, and Deidara was able to thrust a kunai into one's heart.
Another swiped at her, and she ducked the blow just in time. Sasori joined her, using Karasu to cut down another assailant.
Once Deidara had killed the last one (plant juice sprayed all over her front but she didn't even flinch once; even so, Sasori could see the disturbed look in her eyes), Sasori spoke urgently to her, "Have my back. There's too many—I need to unseal another puppet."
As he hastily unrolled a storage scroll, Deidara killed another monster that got too close. She could smell its rotten breath as it slumped forward. She shoved it away before it could start leaking all over the place.
Kuroari appeared then, relieving Deidara of her duties. When somebody screamed, she glanced at Sasori expectantly.
"Go," he urged her, and she nodded, jumping away to help.
"Okaa-chan," Itsuki whined, sweating bullets as he squatted with his mother in the cramped bunker. Strange. It hadn't seen so cramped before. Fear had filled the empty spaces. "I'm scared..."
"Don't worried," his mother cooed. "Big, strong Takeda-san over there will protect us."
Takeda was a man in his late twenties holding a tanto, one that Shisui had randomly tossed him before rushing out to battle with Kagami by his side. He obviously had no idea how to use the weapon, if the way he was holding it was any indication.
Chihiro was on the verge of tearing the tanto out of his hand and using it herself to protect whatever might get in.
Almost thirty people held their breaths in a silence that made their insides twist in painful anticipation. Besides Itsuki's disturbance, nobody else spoke.
A crash sounded and all their hearts dropped at once.
One woman panicked. "RUN!"
It was pandemonium. Chihiro was nearly trampled as the people scattered, heading to different rooms in the bunker that they thought was safer. The bedroom was closest to the entrance, after all.
Takeda had abandoned them, too, the damn coward, even leaving Shisui's tanto behind. Chihiro picked it up. There were so few people left now—just her, a pale-faced Daichi, a wide-eyed Hikari, their mother, and the newest mother and her baby in the group: Izumi and Izumi.
Sweat accumulated on her hand, and Chihiro nearly dropped the weapon.
"Pass it here." Izumi's voice left no room for argument, and Chihiro almost had a hard time following what happened next. Izumi took the tanto from her and gave Izuna to Rin. The baby was thankfully still sleeping soundly.
Chihiro backed into the corner with Daichi and Hikari. She'd never been formerly introduced to either of her previous boss' students, though she had seen them walking around the cotton factory sometimes. They normally helped their mother at the dango shop.
There was another rush of footsteps and they saw the group that had just fled the room fly toward the entrance of the bunker, delirious with fear.
Outside, Anko swore loudly when a group of civilians charged onto the field, their brains obviously addled in their terror. They ran right toward a group of monsters that the fighters were trying to fend off, and, suddenly, Anko could see nothing as blood rained down upon the earth.
In the chaos, a monster wandered into the bunker unnoticed.
In the bedroom, Izumi tensed as the door was pushed open. A monster with black, soulless eyes stood in the entrance, saliva hanging from its curled lips.
Then, to everyone's horror, it smiled. "What pretty specimen. I shall enjoy feeding on your remains. Perhaps, I'll even let you become one of us."
Sweat beaded on Rin's forehead. 'One of us'?! What does that mean? It sounded so ominous that Rin didn't even want to dwell on the possibilities. She pulled Hikari and Daichi closer to her with her free arm, not complaining when Chihiro also pressed against her side in search of warmth and protection.
"Intelligent, huh?" Izumi lifted her tanto, eyes hard even though her entire form was trembling. She reeked of fear. "I don't care how smart you are, you monster. Unless you want me to run this through you, you better get the hell out of here."
It didn't budge. Izumi continued to stare it down, even when it was clear that she'd rather be looking at anything else. This... thing was truly the stuff of nightmares. Such things should not have even existed, but they did anyway.
The monster lashed out and Izumi barely blocked it with her tanto. For the first time in a very long time, she cursed not having a Sharingan to rely on. It just made things so much harder for her. She yelled over her shoulder to Rin, "RUN! TAKE IZUNA AND RUN!"
Rin was torn. Eventually, she nodded, rushing for the door as the monster's claws clanged against Izumi's weapon.
Tears pricked the Uchiha's eyes. Would this really be the last time she saw her child? It was a looming possibility, and one that she had not even considered before. And what about Itachi?
Rin stopped in her tracks, pupils dilating in horror as a clawed hand reached around the doorway, and another monster entered. She scurried backward with the children, up against the wall once more.
Izumi cursed herself for her weakness. "Just die!" She tried to slam the sword into its heart, but the monster easily sidestepped.
Suddenly, Rin screamed.
Izumi rushed to her, but was knocked to the ground by the monster, the tanto spinning away to the other side of the room, where it was unreachable. Her head slammed against concrete, agony bursting in the back of her skull. It was over. They were all going to die, and there was nothing she could do about it—
She squeezed her eyes shut.
Something wet and warm splattered on her face, and she knew that it had to be her blood. But why wasn't it hurting?
Slowly, she cracked her eyes open.
The monster that had just been about to kill her had been reduced to a bloodless corpse on the ground. Sasuke, katana drawn and covered in plant juice, stared down at the body with a cold vengeance.
Izumi blinked incredulously. Was this really the same boy who she had given tomatoes to? She would have shaken her head if she wasn't feeling so dizzy. Now wasn't the time to dwell on such things. There was still the monster attacking Rin and the children, and—
It was dead, too. Sasuke had taken care of it before killing the one that had been standing over Izumi.
"Why?" Izumi finally uttered.
Sasuke blinked, and Izumi could have sworn he looked surprised. "You're my family. All of you."
Izumi stood up shakily. "Thank you," she managed to choke out before rushing over to Rin.
They couldn't stay in the bedroom any longer. At this rate, it was probably safer outside than inside.
Sasuke seemed to agree, leading them to a bloody battlefield. The fight between martial artists and monsters was nearly over. There was only one monster left. Kakashi killed it before they couldn't even call it out.
Miraculously, most of them hasn't even gotten injured. The only injured warriors were Taro and a woman who wore her hair in a ponytail.
Tiredly, a head count was done.
There were forty-nine of them.
Out of sixty-something odd people, only forty-nine had survived.
Nobody could even cry. The numbers were... staggering.
Somebody threw up all over the bloody field.
And then Taro and the woman both collapsed.
Shizune and Sakura were instantly by their sides, breaking out of their shocked stupor.
"This..." Deidara trailed off. This was—
"A massacre," Shisui finished.
It was over, however, for now. They would never rest easy again, but for now—
Taro jumped upward and lunged at Sakura's neck, maw opened unnaturally wide and teeth sharpened to points.
The medic didn't even get to flinch when Itachi was there, slicing Taro's head off. The head toppled to the ground, still snapping its mouth.
"Wh-what," Naruto stammered, shaking. "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!"
"That's what I'd like to know!" Anko shouted as well, distress pitching her voice. She had known Taro.
When Itachi stabbed what was once Taro in the heart, it answered all of their questions.
"My god," Gai said, stunned to point where he wasn't even talking at top volume. "He's been..."
"Turned," Sasori concluded, his tone grim.
Deidara whipped her head over to where Shizune was standing over the woman. "Does that mean—"
The woman let out a low moan as her skin started to change, flecking away.
A blanket of stifling silence fell over them.
Then, his steps heavy with remorse, Kakashi stepped forward. "... Sorry." He plunged a blade into her heart, and she stilled.
As the sun peered over the horizon, the blood of the fallen dripped into the sky, highlighting the clouds shades of pink and red.
Silently, Anko picked up Taro's blade and plunged it into grass. Then she turned to face the sun, just like everyone else.
The wine of the living, the bane of the dead
It is the blood of the fallen that stains our skies red
When everything is said and done
What else is there to do, but watch the sun?
Sasori promptly snapped the scroll shut.
A/N: I took a lot of elements from this awesome AOT fanfiction called The Western Passage. It's too good for this site, and I based almost the entirety of Part III off it. I don't remember all the details. Rest assured, it is most definitely not the same.
The other source of inspiration is a Webtoon called Sweet Home. Poems were made by me with inspiration from things I like (think: Hamilton).
Sorry for any typos or spelling errors.