A.N: Everyone who has figured out who Sphere is up to this point gets a cookie!
Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Light To The Shadows and The Ignorance To Pain
I went out that night for 'shopping' when I also wanted to vent out some anger. I couldn't believe what had happened epically with Itachi, I felt betrayed and taken advantage of. Crying on Hidan's shoulder (of all people) hadn't really helped as much as I thought it would. Which sucks and I still felt sick to my stomach.
I had decided not to wear my clock just for the effort to not be seen. Of course it didn't work and I was spotted by once again Sound Temples as I was leaving the ramen place. But this time there where more. There were seven all together including Suigetsu and Karin from three nights ago.
"Hey there's that Akatsuki slut from the other night!" the red head yelled, "Remember Suigetsu-kun?"
"Oh right," said the purple-eyed boy with the sharp teeth.
"Let's get her!" said a scrappy looking red headed girl who wore a cap on her mess of hair.
My eyes widened as the mob charged at me.
My swords clanged the katana with what looked like a bone blade that came out of one boy's upper arm and my smaller blade holding back Suigetsu's meat cleaver of a sword. I was able to push myself off them and jump back a few hundred feet. But I couldn't rest; a big guy with orange hair that was poking up from the top and sides of head had a massive fist coming my way.
What the hells are you doing girl? Growled four very restless dragons that resided in my skull all at once. Why don't you let one of us out?
I don't need you, I thought as I parried the blow and pushed him back with the halt of my sword.
Are you crazy? Snapped the earth dragon whom I'd forgotten the name of but recognized his evil voice. Let me out!
I thought you hate me I thought angrily as the two red headed girls came after me with kicks and punches.
I do hate you but I don't feel like dying today!
Fine! God let me just get these idiots off me. I punched Karin again in the face and pushed the scrappy girl off me too. Oh wait crap what's your name again?
Ao Run you foolish girl!
Quickly I preformed the seals surprised at how fast my hands where going before I was holding the final seal of the ox. Then I opened up the scroll with the white tape around it and looked up at my enemies. "Spirit Transformation Jutsu: Ao Run!"
The white light consumed me and my body began to change painfully into the low to the ground form of Ao Run. My chin was to the floor as was most of my belly also. I felt my body curl around a near by building but I didn't care I was glaring down at my enemies. All four of my legs where on the ground and I couldn't do any hand seals which made me panic.
Your tail girl, I blinked on hearing this but suddenly realized that my tail really ended in two human-like hands, which I lifted up off the ground. The Sound ninja where all panicking wondering what the hell they where going to do now. Ram, monkey, snake, hands out in front of you, then monkey and then snake. Hold the last seal as you stomp your front legs into the earth.
I nodded to the voice in my head and began the jutsu. Then holding the last seal with my tail hands I stomped my feet into the ground causing it to crack open and send the Sound Temple students scrambling. My lips turned upward as I did the same thing again breaking into the cobble stone road once again and making near by shops shack and rip from there foundations.
Hope I don't have to pay for that I thought with a hiss as I felt someone pull down on my back leg. I glanced back over my pearl white scales and growled at the orange haired brute. I tried shacking him off but he held down my short leg as the white haired bone kid ran over to stab into my thigh.
I roared in pain my scream sounding like something from Jurassic Park. I pulled my lips up over my fangs and whipped my tail at the two grabbing each with one of my tail arms and with a flick of my tail sending both off into the horizon. They fell somewhere in the tree line of the training field. I gave an amused grunt that was suppose to be a laugh but my thick reptilian vocal cords made it sound like an angry growl.
I cast my gaze back to the last four fleas, the two girls, Suigetsu, and a pale guy with glimmering green lipstick. I was silently satisfied with Karin's swollen black eye.
"Where out of here!" yelled lipstick guy who turned to run. I was puzzled to see another head coming out of the base of his neck. I wanted to dwell on this oddity but I didn't have the time.
KABANG!
My three enemies where suddenly gone lost in the fires of a blast that had gone off between us. I looked up my mouth parted slightly and there was a giant pale brown bird flying meters overhead. I backed up coiling my body around a few small buildings and trying to keep low to the ground. My chakra supply was beginning to drain and I was unsure how long I could hold my dragon form, but the sooner I was human again the sooner I could get back to the safety of the temple.
I watched the bird circle a few times and heard the soft whoosh of wind as the rider of the bird dropped bombs on my. I growled and high tailed it out of there my body slinking back and forth quick on my short legs like a blue tongued skink (only hundreds of feet longer and many times larger.) Five bombs went off around me as I ran down the narrow street my girth filling the whole area. I felt the heat painfully begin to melt my plated skin but I ignored it. I knew Deidara could hit me if he really wanted to, if I where him I would have dropped the biggest bomb I had right on this ugly lizard's head.
Finally my chakra decompressed and my body shrank bit by bit until I found myself crawling on my hands and knees. I paused for just a second as I realized I was myself, the pain in my thigh firing up again but I didn't care I got up on my feet shifting my backpack filled with a week's full of dry ramen and sprinted for home, the bird was no longer in my sights.
Loren and Gaara where finally able to find Yashamaru's dorm room but they where the lasts ones to get there, the room was a lot bigger then there own but there where four beds rather then two and Loren was happy her living area wasn't so cramp.
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes as they walked in and Loren couldn't help but roll her own eyes at the elder. Everyone was very quiet and Yashamaru was sitting on a bed cross-legged like an Indian in his hand he held a bit of paper that had complex fold marks going through it just as the one in Loren's back pocket did. She sucked in a hard breath as if the air had suddenly gone very thin.
"Did you guys get one too?" Temari murmured holding up her own piece of paper that had the same fold marks. Gaara looked perplexed but Loren nodded solemnly.
"Do you think that guy…Sphere was telling the truth?" the third year medic asked looking to the other Council members. "About the Akatsuki?"
"It could be a trap," Elizabeth said practically "It is Akatsuki style." Loren couldn't argue with that. The Akatsuki where unpredictable and something like this could be a trick.
"But out of all the other classes, why would they choose the Wind to attack?" Gaara asked "we are not the strongest Tower but they have no fight with us. If they where to attack a Tower it would be the Fire."
"I'm just wondering who the hell Sphere is," Loren said making everyone look at her. "What? You're not wondering that too?"
"I don't see the importance," Elizabeth said and Yashamaru nodded. "We should be trying to figure out why the Akatsuki would contact us like this, who this person is well that's irrelevant."
"She's right," said the third year Loren still didn't know the name of.
Loren sighed and kept quiet as the others contemplated the authenticity of the notes. She closed her eyes thinking about who Sphere could be. She knew some how if she figured out whom that was then the rest of the puzzle would fall into place.
"Jen," Kisame said as I got myself through the window and collapsed on the carpet floor. I was so tiered I didn't know what to do with myself, my brain buzzed dully from lack of chakra but at lest that dulled the pain of my burns and of the deep tare in my thigh. "Kakuzu," the shark ninja growled, "get up we need you."
"I'm fine really," I said attempting to sit up but the vertigo made me lay back down.
"Let me see," I heard Kakuzu say and I felt his dry rough hands on my leg. "God, what happened?"
"I um…Oh the sound ninja," I said as Hidan helped me sit up and I leaned on his chest as Kakuzu used the threads that connected his body together to stitch back together the fibers of muscle in my leg. "There was a bunch of them and one of them stabbed me while I was in my dragon form…Where's Sasori?"
"He went out to look for you since you'd been gone so long," Kisame said.
"Sweet you got ramen!" Hidan said behind me and I rolled my eyes before wincing as Kakuzu used thicker string to bind my skin together.
"Your going to need disinfectant for your burns but that can wait for tomorrow," the dark skin ninja said inspecting my burnt arms. "My thread will clean your wound from the inside. You go take a shower just so the burns don't get infected to quickly."
"Okay," I murmured as Hidan slowly helped me up and walked me to the bathroom.
"I'll be fine Hidan," I grumbled blushing after he insisted to help me into the shower. "Now leave me be."
"Okay, okay," he said with a wide fake charming smile and I rolled my eyes as he left the small washroom.
Loren had wanted to walk for a bit after the meeting. The Council had decided to lie low until Sphere gave any more information if he was going to come back that is. She was in the courtyard now. Like promised the dig up for the garden had already started but now there was no one around and above was a small round tunnel of dark sky and stars twinkling prettily.
She closed her eyes and listened to the breezeless air and the crickets that made the courtyard home. In her hand was the crumpled list that Sphere had given her, she had a good idea of who Sphere was too, but she didn't let her mind even think of the name, she didn't want to give a name to faceless form even if she knew she was right. She had to be right.
"Hello," said the low voice from before, the old voice that had forever been swallowing tons of sand, the sound Gaara's voice would be like in twenty or so years.
"Hey," she murmured opening her eyes to look as the dark form standing five yards or so away. "I figured it out Sphere…who you are."
"I'm nobody," it replied and she gave a knowing smile.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked, "tell me the truth."
"I have to," it sighed turning slightly and a flicker of his pale skin could be seen in the dim lighting. He spoke again in his usual smooth young voice that she could now recognize; he had no more need to hide, not from Loren. "It is one of the rules Pein gave for the Akatsuki," he said walking over to her and sitting down next to her and letting the hood slide from his head. "The person with this ring must betray the others," he said holding the dull gray blue stoned ring, "it says Sphere."
"Oh," she said taking the ring from his long fingertips. Artist hands she noticed. "So it's not your choice to betray them?" she asked and he nodded. "You just have to?" she paused her brow scrunched and looking at the ring. "That's not right."
"Loren," he said making her look at him "a ninja has the duty to do as he is ordered. To kill, to steal, and to betray, we have to do all of it to get what we want, and I happen to want to be able to pass this test." His gaze was cast down. "I've done my job. But I trust that you will keep the Wind from attacking the Akatsuki. I chose this Tower because I know I have a shot to keep everyone safe until the temple gets back together."
"I'll do what I can to make that others to not attack the Akatsuki," Loren said with a determined nod. The sides of Sphere's lips turned upward slightly at her, knowing he could trust in her.
"It wont be me the next time we meet," he said standing up taking the ring back from Loren's hands and then pulling the hood back over his head. "It's amazing I was able to leave today with everyone so paranoid, and don't call me by my name, always call me Sphere."
"Okay Sphere," she replied as he disappeared leaping up the sides of the wall before leaving through the hole at the top.
The burns hurt like hell as the water hit my skin making me cry out. I couldn't stand very long on my bad leg so I sat down in the shower and let the water patter on my back. This sucked so badly. With not only the other classes on our tail but also the Red Team and with me being the only trust worthy one in the Black Team I was the only one able to go out for food. This needed to stop soon. We need to figure out who Sphere is now or the Akatsuki is doomed.
I closed my eyes the cool water beginning to sooth rather then inflict pain. When had I become so ignorant of pain? It was there but yet I kept moving. Was it when I got shot in the warehouse? Or the fight with Konan at the midyear exam, or rather when I fell from the sky went I was dueling with Deidara? Perhaps it was that very first day of school when Itachi had beaten me senseless to see how strong I was.
I couldn't recall when I'd stopped feeling pain. All I knew was that I had from there to here. A life time ago I'd been a meek girl just fresh out of middle school not ever wanting to get with a fight in fear of getting hurt. And now I'm a shinobi about to end my first year of high school now not thinking twice about fighting and never worrying about injury. Wounds will heal in time, but you can't fix death.
I guess in a way pain is no longer a frightening thing. Pain is welcomed when you're a ninja, because it reminds you that you're still alive.
PLEASE DON"T SAY WHO SPHERE IS EVEN IF YOU ALREADY KNOW. Please and thank you. i know it's rather obvious but I just don't want to ruin it for the people who still haven't figured it out.