Title: Sparkles of Light

Author: Fenikkusu Ai

Rating: T

Fandom: Naruto

Characters: Kabuto, Orochimaru, Sasuke, Ibiki, OC

Words: 2,231

Genre: Suspense/Hurt/Comfort

Summary: What had Misaki done to be locked away? The man with the glasses wouldn't tell her, the sullen youth doesn't want to get involved, and the man with the sweep of dark hair sent chills down her spine. Amnesia. Kabuto x OC x Orochimaru.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

The bitch wasn't talking. Which was fine with him.

He bared his teeth at his opponent to sneer at her. Ibiki didn't scare easily. No, he had always made certain that everyone else was scared of him. So far, that attitude had worked in his life.

He wove the hand seals quick and sure. Boar-Dog-Bird-Monkey-Ram.

"Kuchiyose: Gōmon Heya."

"Summoning: Torture Chamber."

Little had Ibiki expected that he would be the one tortured. It had been years since that happened. His skull was living testament to that.

Yet, no matter how he twisted and contorted her body, the scarlet-haired witch stared at him glassily. It was as if she were a doll. No matter how brutally he worked on her, it prompted no reaction. Insolent.

Up here in his jutsu, he was hidden from the eyes of others. Far from being ashamed, he found that doing his job, his duty to the village, was best done in private. There was something so...palpable in the sense that no help was coming and no one was watching. No one cared. It really facilitated in the breaking process.

After enduring all of his ministrations, she finally spoke. Ordinarily, anyone male or female would be incapable of speech except for mewling pleas of mercy.

"The likes of you would never understand true pain."

When she touched him, he fell unceremoniously in a heap.

In moments, his jutsu faded and his failure was visible for all to see. However, all he was aware of presently was the raw agony surging through him. It started deep in his abdomen and radiated to his eyeballs.

Apparently, the pain hadn't been bluffing about "true pain."

"Ibiki!" s feminine voice called out.

Tsunade's healing slugs slithered over him, and he was at last finally able to catch his breath. The pain was starting a fade.

Ibiki had failed. He would have to leave his business to another. Perhaps to the Hokage herself.

In the depths of his shame, it occurred to him to wonder how his relation was doing. The thought was accompanied with a pang of concern.

Was she all right? How long could she survive out there?

She was with Inoichi now. All he could do now was rely on his colleague.

Outside of the deciphering center, Misaki knew that they were too exposed. But, she was sure that the others knew better than she. Her comrades were unconcerned.

The conversation was quickly turning morbid. Apparently, several people had come back from the dead including the woman that had been in the Rhino's mouth. She learned that multiple pains were on the way. Soon, Konoha would host an army of pains.

Even now, at times, Misaki wondered why she couldn't live in the fields as her parents did. As she had been raised. Why couldn't she have remained in the ground as an unpicked root vegetable would? Alas, she had been farmed and now she could be eaten. Whether her parents had raised her right was up to speculation.

But, before she could bury herself in her thoughts, there was someone there. Another pain. Yet another beast that had caught the scent of blood.

This is where it ends.

Misaki began breathing heavily.

This pain was different. He was a stocky male with long flame red hair. His cheeks and nose were adorned in piercings-six in all.

"Don't make any sudden moves or the woman dies," the walking corpse warned.

His hand grasped her head, and Shizune's mind visibly froze. She trembled and couldn't make a sound. Misaki couldn't fault her for that her; her own nerves were taut and ready to snap.

Helplessness was the only emotion Misaki was wearing. Perhaps paired with the cowardice of yellow.

"Mount Myoboku," he said suddenly.

Misaki had never heard of such a place, but apparently Ino had.

"He managed to read her mind in seconds without any equipment, dad!" Ino exclaimed. "She knows where Naruto is!"

Could the boy in orange handle this powerful a fight? Misaki hadn't even known that he was missing. Sometimes, it surprised her what she was aware of. She was like a fish in a bowl in Anko's apartment. However, it was too late to change her fate. She was to die here. They all would.

However, at the moment, Misaki was more concerned about the purple from her head attached to his hand. It was important. Shizune needed that essence to live. She wondered if anyone else could see it. Had something happened to her vision? She was beginning to see...color. Hazes of light.

It occurred to Misaki to reach out and take the liquid purple substance back, but did she have the power to wrestle it away from the pain? Even so, Shizune needed that essence to live. Without it...

...her soul would be rended from her body.

Misaki knew that she was dying. The light around Shizune's body grew duller and sparks of it began to drift away to the boundless sky. She wondered what these tiny sparks of radiance and flashes of intuition were. Was it a new ability beginning to form? What was it? What had caused it? Blind terror?

"Shizune-san!" Ino lunged forward.

"Feel pain," the man intoned over the dead Shizune. "Contemplate pain."

Misaki cringed. She didn't know what other depravities would come out of his mouth. She wanted to plug her own ears with dirt. Misaki could detect no light around this man. He was a...husk. And, he probably wasn't even truly aware of it.

"Accept pain," he continued. "Know pain."

Misaki watched in amazement as he then floated into the air on invisible wings. He wanted them to devote their entire lives to pain, or what was left of them as they had. Then again, they were corpses and couldn't choose. They still could.

She watched him continue ascending into the sky. A vacuous cold sky. In hindsight, perhaps the clear blue skies weren't as beautiful as she had thought.

Far off into the distance, yet another figure rose into the air. He looked powerful. Regal even. What if he was the original pain, Pein?

Misaki swore that she caught this vengeful god's gaze. In that moment, she swore that he hated the village more than the pale man Orochimaru did.

His red hair stood on its ends exactly as spikes of blood would. Piercings rode down both sides of the bridge of his nose eyes and his eyes radiated power. Could he see into her nebulous unworthy soul?

He raised his arms, and suddenly, there was a blinding flash of light.

Just like that, there was an explosion. A shock wave, a conflagration of light, that spread over everything. Buildings were ripped out of the ground like carrots. The village was being torn apart at its very foundation. This jutsu was a maelstrom of destruction. Misaki hadn't even been aware jutsus like this even existed. Her experiences were quite limited compared to her peers. How sheltered had she been in her life? Too much. It was all too much. Misaki couldn't even process it.

It slowly occurred to her that Konoha was gone. Her home was gone. Again. The academy, her apartment, even T & I. All at once, she mourned it all.

Misaki sank to her knees. Her legs would no longer support her. Apparently, she lived in a state of permanent flux. Had even she inadvertently angered the gods?

At least she still had presence of mind to push herself out of the wreckage. Was anyone even alive?

Suddenly, she sensed someone nearby. An aura pulsed near her. It was like the rhythm of a heartbeat. Was it her imagination? Hysteria from what was going on around her was beginning to cloud her thoughts.

Misaki watched Ino appear. The ANBU that was with them carried the fallen Shizune over her shoulder.

"Is everyone all right?" Inoichi appeared.

He stared at what remained of their party. Everyone had been silently accounted for.

"We have to get going," Ino shouted.

They trotted into the village except that the buildings were under their feet. There was chalky rubble everywhere. Nothing had been spared.

"Ino!"

Misaki could see Shikamaru in the distance. Around him was his father Shikaku and a woman with round glasses.

And, his eyes were on undeniably on Ino. He looked right past her.

Ino stumbled towards him. The two instantly began trading information. Inoichi and Shikaku greeted each other as well. Misaki stuck out like a tree stump.

After all, the two were friends. Squad members. She rarely saw the members of the very squad, Team 7, that she had been assigned in. Sai was always elsewhere, and Sakura and Naruto had their own lives. Sakura was a medical nin, and Naruto was...different. A category by himself from what she heard.

Misaki would always be inadequate. She realized that already.

Fingers of emotion twisted around in her guts. Pain. Grief. Eventually, she was left simmering with anger.

What had happened to her?

"Pein's real body should be at the highest spot in Konoha's vicinity," Inoichi reasoned.

Misaki was no longer listening. Pain. There it was. Misaki herself was engulfed in pain. Deep emotional pain. And no one knew or guessed.

It would be better if she were gone. She would be less of a burden.

She took her own advice as she sped away towards the trees. Her own feet had made the decision for her. The others watched her run. No one offered to help or inquired where where she was going. Maybe they thought that she had a plan. They would be wrong.

Here and there, sparkles of light emanated from the other villagers.

The strange lights must mean something a language all their own, but Misaki wasn't fluent in it. It was the wrong time to try to decipher in any event. She didn't even know if she would live to see dawn.

All she knew was that she had to get away. Away from the noise and choking clouds of dust. Away from the churning emotions.

But...where to go?

She squinted her eyes to search for more lights, but none appeared. She couldn't use them as a guide. She would have to feel her path instinctively. Sometimes, that was worse than merely standing still.

So, she ran dead north away from the village to the wilds that she loved. Her best course of action would be to leave the village.

At last, Misaki broke into a proper ninja's run and didn't look back at the carnage. There was nothing that she could accomplish here anyway.

Yet, maybe she could find help. Information.

A miracle...

"We should move in groups of two," Shikaku put forth.

"Good. And having a sensor type with us should get us faster results," Shikamaru rationalized.

"You should stay near Katsuyu with those injuries." His father eyed him.

"All right. I can't move anyway," Shikamaru relented helplessly.

He knew that he wouldn't put up much of a fight. Shikamaru supposed that his strength was in his brain after all.

"Hey, where's Misaki?" Ino's eyes widened.

Shikamaru huffed in annoyance.

"She was here a moment ago." Inoichi glanced around.

"Misaki?" Shikaku's eyebrows knitted together.

"Ibiki's niece," Shikamaru supplied. "She's a little hard to get to know Spies usually are."

"We should find her," Shiho urged. "Maybe she's still around. She couldn't have gotten far."

"Or, she could have just stayed with us," Shikamaru snapped. "The safety of the village comes first."

"Konoha's going to become unrecognizable," the scientist observed as her attention shifted.

"We should also find shelter away from the area," Katsuyu advised from her perch on the ground. "There's a strong aura building. It's from the Kyubi."

Though the topic went unspoken until now, everyone gathered had noticed this. Naruto was gradually losing control. Too much. It was too much for one teenaged boy to fight.

"All of this from the Kyubi," Inoichi nearly spat. "Didn't Kakashi and Yamato place a seal on Naruto so that this wouldn't happen?"

Shikamaru and Ino nodded in reply.

"Where is Captain Yamato at a time like this?" Shikaku mumbled.

"Seeing Hinata-san fall in front of him was the trigger," Katsuyu reported. "One of my clones is on his back."

As time marched onwards, the destruction would continue to swallow the village.

Shikamaru knew that all of them were painfully unprepared.

Yamato was torn apart from Anko and Sai. It couldn't be helped.

"Six Tails is just crazy!" Yamato peered into his palm at the seal that was connected to Naruto. "I have to head back to the village immediately."

Without waiting for a reply from his comrades, he tore away through the trees.

However, in the opposite direction, a blonde girl was charging towards him uphill. She seemed fragile and distressed. Hardly surprising wit had had just happened to Konoha.

Maybe she needed help. She seemed troubled. Her eyes were wide from the horrors she'd witnessed and were as green as the leaves above. She reminded him of a fellow forest being. Someone who saw what was in the shadows.

A sigh escaped his lips as he ran towards her.

He supposed that he could spare a minute...