(A/N: I'm baaack~ Thank you so much for sticking with me through this fanfic. I have no idea when it's going to end. -.-' …Well, I'm going to try to finish it within the next six or so chapters, but no promises. I have a poll posted on my profile and I need to know what you all think. Please check it out. I really need people to tell me what they think should happen. If no one will tell me what they want, then I won't be able to continue Snake's Legacy. I don't own Naruto. BTW: Tell me if you need the definitions of any of the Japanese words I've used.)
Chapter 7: Sneaking Away
Sasuke lay down and thought over what Snake had told him. So Itachi is dead. My lifelong goal has been completed for me. All my training was a waste of time. I thought Naruto would have at least given me the chance to kill him. He knew the only reason I left was to get stronger so that I could kill Itachi. Why did he order her to do it instead of letting me complete my training? Sasuke fell asleep with these thoughts and others swirling around in his mind.
So the Uchiha is finally asleep. I'd better make sure that Hikari is asleep, too, before I put my plan into action. Snake looked into the tent she shared with Hikari and found that the girl was out cold, probably exhausted from staying up half the night without being used to it. Good. Now I can begin work on the strategy. Snake left the tent without a sound and walked nearly a kilometer away from the campsite so that no one would be able to sense the chakra spike her plan would create. She made a shadow clone of herself and began instructing it on what to do when everyone awoke the next morning.
"When Hikari wakes up, make sure to inform her that you are my shadow clone and that you are there to make the Uchiha think that I'm there with them. I will be searching for and fighting Kisame tomorrow, so I will need you to stay with them for as long as possible. When I finish, or when I need to concentrate solely on the fight, I will have to call you back. But until then, I need you to put on a good act so that Uchiha will not be suspicious. Understand?"
"Hai." The shadow Snake responded positively.
"Now, I need for you to go back to the campsite and keep watch for anything that doesn't seem right, okay? Let me know if Kisame shows up there and I'll get back as fast as I can."
"Hai." The shadow Snake turned and raced through the trees back to Hikari and Sasuke.
"Good." The real Snake turned the opposite direction and began to search for clues as to where to find Kisame.
A good distance away, Sasuke shot up from his sleeping bag. This was the second time that night that he had been awakened. He had felt a spike of chakra and was trying to figure out to whom it belonged. He stood and walked out of the tent.
He looked around, trying to find Snake to ask her if she felt it also. He didn't see her. I wonder where she is. She should be out here, watching for danger. He walked to the tree stump he saw Snake sit down on after she left his tent. She should be sitting right here. I wonder where- His thought was cut off as he heard a slight rustle in the trees.
Instantly, he brought out a kunai and looked around, ready to dash to Hikari's tent and wake her, then prepare to protect her. Sasuke activated his Sharringan and looked around. The bushes rustled to his left and he immediately turned that direction, while still being sure to look around him.
A person stepped out of the undergrowth and Sasuke sank into his battle stance, even though it didn't look like this person was prepared. Looks can be deceiving. Sasuke thought, his mind wandering to Hikari.
"What are you doing Uchiha?" The voice asked with a chilling -bordering on emotionless- tone.
"Snake-sama?"
"I asked you what you were doing. Why are you standing outside your tent, raising a kunai against me?"
"Did you feel that chakra spike?" Sasuke asked the snake ANBU, lowering the kunai slightly, aware that this could be a transformation jutsu to make him lower his guard.
"Hai. I went to check it out, but whoever created it was already gone. Now answer my question." Snake said with an iron edge in her voice.
"I felt the chakra spike and I came out to see if you felt it too. You were gone though, so I stayed out her to keep watch until you got back. You were behind the bushes and masking your chakra signature, so I didn't know who you were."
"Well, now you know, so put that kunai away and deactivate your Sharirngan." Sasuke did as she said, realizing that this was indeed Snake as she tossed away the chakra masking jutsu. "Now go back to bed. We have a lot of traveling to do tomorrow."
Sasuke reluctantly turned started for his tent. Before he stepped in though, he realized something. "That was your chakra out there." He said, finally identifying the chakra signature he felt.
"Iie. That was not my chakra signature."
"Yes it was. I know what it feels like. I've felt your chakra surge before. You know, when you fought those Oto ninja. The chakra out there was the same signature as then."
"You must be mistaken."
"Prove it."
"I don't have to prove anything to you." Snake said, her emotionless whisper muffled by her mask.
"Then how will I know you're still loyal to Konoha? That could have been you out there, activating a jutsu to let Kisame know that we're nearby."
"You know, you are a smart little fool. That wasn't me. I can assure you that if it was me, Snake-chan would have woken up immediately. She is trained to sense my chakra, and when on missions, she can tell you if my chakra spiked, even if she was asleep. Shall I go wake her to put your fears at rest?" Snake asked in a voice that would have been a taunt had there been emotion in it.
"Iie."
"What time is it Uchiha?"
Sasuke was surprised by the sudden change of subject, but answered her question after looking at the moon's position in the sky. "Around four in the morning. Why?"
"Go back to your tent and get some rest. Now. We leave in two hours." Snake ordered.
Sasuke turned and reluctantly made his way back to his tent. Even though Snake seemed perfectly normal, Sasuke was sure that was her chakra out there, and he was positive that something was amiss. He pondered what could have happened for a few moments before deciding that he would stay up and keep watch over Snake to make sure that she didn't go anywhere for the rest of the night.
Hours later, after many unfruitful dead-end searches, Snake thought, Where could he be? I don't remember him as being the smart one. He couldn't have hidden himself this well. He must have a new partner. Though I wonder who it is. Hokage-sama has killed most of them. Uzumaki-sama and myself, also. I believe Hidan, Kisame, Leader-sama, and Konan are the only ones left. I suppose Hidan is Kisame's partner now, although, I don't remember Hidan being so good at hiding. She continued to travel, looking for any sign that the Akatsuki member had passed. There was not a single one.
She was beginning to think they had been fed incorrect information. She had been searching for several more hours when she came across a large, odd village. Odd because there was no one in it, though it looked as though it had been occupied recently. When she entered one of the houses, the sight that met her was one that was, in an understatement, horrid.
The bodies of a man and woman who looked to be in their mid forties were lying on the floor, gaping holes where their hearts and stomachs should have been.
Snake continued to walk through the rooms of the house, searching. She came across more bodies, this time of children. There were two of them, both around the same age of nine. Snake quickly left the room, unable to stop a tear that rolled down her cheek, though no one would know because of her mask.
She decided to search the entire village for survivors, though in all the houses she checked, much the same sight met her eyes each time.
She came to the final house and entered with her katana held ready. Though only the dead were in the past houses, she had no clue whether Kisame or Hidan might have stayed behind in a house, hiding. She knew it had to be the two Akatsuki members who did this because no other assassins were this strong – or cruel. Only Kisame and Hidan could destroy such a large village as this one.
Or they could have been waiting for her. Even Kisame would be able to figure out that they were being followed by her chakra swell from last night. I can't believe I was smart enough to mask my chakra when I sneaked out of camp but forgot to muffle it as much as possible when I used that jutsu. I'm so stupid. I hope I didn't wake Hikari. Though I know it would have made it easier, she needs to sleep. Worse even, I hope I didn't wake the Uchiha. I really hope I didn't wake him up. How would my clone explain her absence? Oh well, no one has followed me yet, so I guess everything went smoothly. She discontinued her line of thoughts there as she walked carefully onto the porch, looking and sensing for traps in the house.
Finding none, Snake entered, still careful to keep her weapon in front of her. Searching each room more carefully than the rest, she found nothing.
Surprised because she was positive she had smelled blood from this house, she came to the furthest room in the house. The door to it was slightly ajar and the scent of blood was strong from within. So this is where the people are. Snake thought just before she opened the door.
Slowly, carefully, the door swung open. Snake found the bodies of what she thought were a man and woman lying on the floor, but they were only recognizable by the color of the clothes they wore. The bodies had been shredded, probably by Samehada or Hidan's scythe. Glancing around the room, she saw something move from the corner of her eyes. Raising her weapon once more and sliding into her battle stance, she moved toward the direction the movement came from.
"Hidan, I know you're here, stop hiding like a coward and face me." Snake said as she once again spotted the blur of movement.
Hidan stepped out of the shadows. "Curse Kisame for making me stay behind and make sure everyone was dead!"
"Why such a fuss?"
"Shut up! Who are you anyway?"
"Snake, leader of the Konoha ANBU. You are going to give a message to Kisame for me."
"What in Jashin's name makes you think I'll do anything you say?"
"Because if you don't, you die here."
"What makes you think you can kill me?"
"I killed Itachi, and I almost killed your leader. Konan came and saved him though. I swear I will find a way to kill your immortal body."
"Ooh. I'm so scared." Hidan taunted. "An ANBU from Konoha has come to give me a death threat. Her and her stupid little village are such softies. You can't kill me." Hidan smirked as a clone he had created earlier stalked up behind Snake and slashed just below her shoulder blade with his scythe, creating a deep gash.
Snake cried out and fell to her knees, desperately grasping at her back, trying to staunch the flow of blood. She silently berated herself through the pain that she had let her guard down. "Is this the full power of the mighty Hebi no Konoha? You're pretty pitiful."
Snake smirked as she saw a second shadow looming above her, just behind Hidan. Hidan didn't notice the shadow, as he was too busy focusing on the hand signs that would allow him to make her his sacrifice to Jashin.
Suddenly, his eyes widened and he froze mid-sign when the shadow stabbed a kunai through his stomach at the same time that Snake whirled carefully around to slash a kunai through his clone. He swiftly turned around and looked at his attacker.
A second clone of Snake's stood behind him, smirking. "No. You haven't even seen half of my power yet. Right now, I'm concentrating on keeping up a shadow clone jutsu for the one behind you, and one back at my camp." Snake said from in front of him, though still in pain, she was smirking like her counterpart, carefully getting to her feet.
Snake jumped out from in front of him just as her clone slammed him up into the wall. She quickly took her clone's place and held Hidan against the wall with her kunai raised. She slashed the weapon across his face, nearly gouging his eye out. "Take this message to Kisame or I will chop your body into little pieces and feed you to the wolves, I swear." Snake said menacingly as her clone disappeared.
Hidan nervously laughed and looked around. He muttered foul language under his breath. "Alright, I'll take your stupid message!"
"Tell Kisame that Hebi no Konoha is coming to murder him."
"Is that all, your highness?" Hidan sneered with mock loyalty.
"Yes. He'll know what you mean. Just tell him you ran into a Konoha ANBU and she gave you a message. Then, tell him she's the Snake of Konoha, and is on her way to kill him. Clear?"
"Tch. Whatever." Hidan replied. Snake let him go and he quickly left the village.
She turned around and dropped to her knees in pain. That win had cost her a lot of blood. She was loosing it rapidly and, at this rate, she would die if she failed to patch up her wound. As she reached for her medical supply bag, her vision began to get fuzzy. Just after she had found her bandages, she blacked out, falling to the ground in a heap of blood, bandages, and flesh.
Back at the camp, Sasuke was beginning to get suspicious of where Snake had really gone last night. It was already ten o'clock in the morning and they had yet to clean up camp. "Don't we need to search for Kisame? I thought it was an urgent mission; besides, you said we were leaving four hours ago."
"It is, but Snake-chan didn't sleep well last night. She needs to rest if she's going to keep up with you today."
"What did you really do last night?"
"Exactly what I told you I did."
"Oh, really? Tell me one more time exactly what you did, onegai?" Sasuke said sarcastically.
Snake hissed. "Last night I went into the woods-" Sasuke gaped as Snake disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Suddenly, Hikari shot out of her tent. "Uchiha, pack up. It's time to go." She said, frenzied.
"What's wrong?"
"Snake-sama's not here. She left late last night to search for Kisame. Her clone was supposed to stay here and stall until she was far enough away that we wouldn't be able to find her unless she wanted to be found. She knew you wouldn't appreciate being left behind, so she left her clone here to make sure you didn't try to follow. But the clone wasn't supposed to disappear until noon. It's only ten now, so something must have gone wrong. Either Snake-sama has found Kisame and the fight is going in his favor, or she has been hurt and has fallen unconscious. We need to find her now."
Sasuke's eyes widened. Snake-sama, hurt? Sure, he didn't care too much for the woman, but he couldn't imagine her being injured after the fight between her and the Otogakure ninja he witnessed. He quickly packed his things and took off running with Hikari just ahead of him.
Hours after her clone disappeared, Snake slowly sat up and looked around. She remembered getting slashed by Hidan's scythe and sending a message to Kisame through him after besting the man. Then she remembered she needed to patch the wound and nothing after that. Did I pass out? If so, then how am I alive? Wait a moment… Snake trailed off as she noticed the daylight was brighter than it usually was in her sensitive eyes. Slowly, she reached her hand up to her cheek, only to touch skin.
Frantically, she looked about the room, locating her mask on the dresser beside the only bed in the room. Snake lifted herself to her hands and knees from her prostrate position on the floor, carefully stood to her full height, and walked across the room to retrieve it. She looked on the bed and found that her outer ANBU uniform had been laid out there. I wonder who did this. Her head was spinning and she felt woozy.
Snake snapped out of her thoughts when she heard a noise coming from inside the room, to her left. She looked to find a chest that was closed, but not locked. Cautiously, Snake walked over to it and carefully lifted the top open with a kunai held against her chest in defense.
"Onegai! Onegai, have mercy! Don't kill me!" Snake looked into the chest to find a boy of about seven or eight cowering away from her, droplets of saline liquid running slowly down his tiny cheeks.
"Shh. It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you." The ANBU said. She gradually lowered her hand to pat the kid on the head. He flinched every time she touched him. "Come here, chiisai kodomo. There's no reason to be scared." She said gently.
"But you're a ninja! Mommy told me ninja are only killers. Isn't that all you do?"
"Iie, Hanii. We get rid of the evil people who hurt other people. That way everyone stays safe. That's why I'm here. Those men that attacked this village need to be taken down before they make more villages hurt like this one."
The young kid whimpered before turning to look at the pieces of bodies on the floor. Snake picked the boy up and carried him into a different room after collecting her supplies. "What's your name?" She asked gently.
"Takeshsi Keigo." The boy whispered.
"Keigo, I need to know whether you lived in this village or not, and what happened."
"I did. That mean fish guy and the white haired guy you fought attacked us. They were scary. They went through every house and killed everyone they found.
"Okaa-sama and Otou-san hid me and were about to go hide themselves when they broke into our house. The blue fish man killed Okaa-sama and Otou-san right there." Keigo said, pointing to the room he and Snake had just left. "Thank you for making the white haired man leave. He was about to find my hiding spot when you came into the house. He hid when you walked into the room. What do I call you? Do you want me to call you The Snake of Konoha? Or do you want me to call you by your name?"
"My name is Snake. It doesn't matter what you call me though." She replied, patting Keigo's head, this time with him not flinching, and gently picking him up.
"Where are we going?" He asked her.
"We're going to go find my friends and I'll leave you with them. I left a clone of me with them, and when I passed out, it disappeared. My friend knows that when that happens before the time I told her, something went wrong. Oh! By the way, were you the one that bandaged me up?"
"Hai, Snake. I didn't want to see anyone else die, but I didn't expect you to look for me."
Snake smiled. "Before we go and find my friends, I need to go get my mask and uniform back on." Snake started to open the door to the room they were in previously when she thought better of bringing the boy back in there. "You stay out here, okay. I'll be right back."
Keigo nodded and Snake opened the door and slipped inside the room. She slipped back into her ANBU armor and lowered her mask over her face. She ghosted back out of the room and closed the door once more. "Ready, Keigo-kun?"
"Hai." He said. Snake reached down and picked him up, knowing they could travel faster that way.
"Have you ever wanted to run really fast?" She asked the boy in her arms.
"Mmhmm!" The boy nodded to emphasize his statement.
"Good. Because your wish is about to come true." Snake said as she began to run back in the direction of the campsite she had left. She was sure to run into the two Konoha ninjas if she went in that direction. The little boy laughed, delighted to feel the wind whipping past them, momentarily forgetting the trauma of the past day in a way only a child could.
She had not traveled for more than ten minutes when she felt the head of the little boy she was carrying fall on her shoulder. He fell asleep. Poor Keigo, he must have been up all night because of Kisame and Hidan. Curse those heartless monsters. She kept pace, running through the forest, back toward the campsite.
(A/N: I appreciate all of you out there who have read my story, and those of you who have reviewed it. Thank you so much! I know there are lots of people reading this! I have a ton of hits, but not that many reviews. I know you're probably getting tired of seeing this but please, please, please, read and review! ...You've probably already read it though, so there's just one easy step left. That little review button down below needs some love! ;) Teehee.)
Definitions:
Chiisai – small
Kodomo – child
Onegai – please
Okaa-sama – mother
Otou-san - father