Humming a familiar melody to herself, Lucy walked to the outside of the compound. She'd been feeling something unsettling for the past several minutes, something that clawed at the back of her mind, an incessant buzzing that reverberated in her head like a horde of wasps whose nest has been overturned.
Ever cautious, she refused to ignore her trepidation, minor though it might be. She'd long since acquiesced to the fact that it was kill or be killed; anyone who believed otherwise was a fool, deserving whatever grisly fate awaited them for their naive idealism.
And so, Lucy hovered in midair, taking a vigilant reconnaissance of the immediate area. Nothing, not even the whisper of leaves rustling in the breeze. It was as though the entire forest had come to an absolute standstill. That, she decided, was far more ominous than anything.
Lucy's instincts were proven correct as a slew of kunai hurtled toward her just as she'd turned around to re-enter the building. They of course, proved to be ineffective as she halted them in midair before dropping them into the dirt. Hiding in the trees like the primitive apes they are, she thought to herself. In that case, it's time to rid them of their hiding place. With that, her vectors swarmed out, tangling up against each other in their frenzied descent towards their target.
Massive hands, maneuvered deftly by arms that looked as though they could encircle the planet tore viciously at the forest, razing the earth, uprooting trees, and smashing through boulders in their mistresses' search for the as-of-yet unseen enemy. In less than a minute, the entirety of the woods had been demolished, reduced to little more than a desolate wasteland of toppled oaks and uprooted dirt. To Lucy's satisfaction, there lay several corpses in the center of the ruin.
Out of morbid curiosity rather than genuine interest about who she'd killed, Lucy floated over towards the bodies before landing near them. Roughly turning the nearest one over with her bloodstained vectors, she was unsurprised to catch sight of a Konoha headband. But of course. A wry smile flitted briefly across her lips. Ever since they'd made the discovery that Orochimaru had not only emerged from Kabuto's body but moreover had used his Living Corpse Resurrection jutsu to swallow the hapless teen's body, Konohagakure had been sending countless ninja on missions to track Orochimaru's whereabouts . Inevitably, these turned out to be no more than suicide missions for whatever ill fated shinobi who happened to be given the assignment.
Shaking her head, Lucy proceeded to tear apart the bodies, not even bothering to glance at the faces of her other two victims. They were but animals to her, their murder as insignificant as though she'd simply swatted a fly. Emotionlessly, she continued to plunge her vectors into the corpses, oblivious to the blood that splattered against her, filling her nostrils with the redolent stench.
Whereas a lesser person would have been repulsed, Lucy was enthralled, and now she ripped into them with abandon, former apathy forgotten, her wild laughter cutting through the air just as her vectors cut through their flesh.
Caught in the grip of the voice of her instinct, Lucy continued to mutilate the bodies beyond identification, disfiguring them to the point that they could never be recognized as human, which she had never viewed them as even before she'd reduced them to bloodied masses of torn flesh and scattered organs.
The wet snapping of bone, the ripping of sliced skin...It was music to her ears, a tune far sweeter than the one that she'd been mulling over earlier. Though this song brought no promise of pure lilies and blessings, it still resounded throughout her being, albeit in an entirely converse fashion.
But none of that mattered to Lucy as steaming viscera slipped through the fingers of her vectors, as organs ruptured, as flesh was pulled from bone. Not even Orochimaru mattered. Right now, she was too preoccupied in singing the song of her people, the requiem of eradication, the elfenlied.
Ten minutes later, having finally satiated her desire to reduce her adversaries into little more than gristle and bone fragments, Lucy at last managed to grab a hold of herself. "Well, that was... entertaining."
Bored, she sat down next to the remains of her artistry, occasionally sending out a vector to poke at the tangled mass of flesh, which quivered as though it might have back when it was still living. It wasn't difficult to imagine that those idiotic troglodytes had had to use the entirety of the pluck they could conjure up just to avoid soiling themselves once they felt the caress of her hands.
Fear was what caused one to tremble, was it not? Lucy wouldn't know. She'd never had the luxury of feeling afraid. It was a waste of time, an idiotic response that caused you to delay, to question your instincts and countless times she had used that momentary slip to slice the head off an enemy's shoulders. Fear, she had long since decided, was something that she could not afford to have.
Slowly, Lucy eased herself on to her feet, sparing a final glance at what used to be her would-be killers. She was done here. Her duty completed, she turned on her heel, kicking aside what appeared to be a heart in the process, and marched back into the lair, leaving a trail of blood dripping behind her.