Caranril: I think it's been a week since my last post. Has it been a week?
Legolas: Do I LOOK like a calendar to you?
Caranril: I think I'm pretty much on time. Good, cause things are starting to get crazy here what with my sista moving to college.
Legolas: Viele Danke to: Meira Evenstar (Glad to know you were being so faithful despite my insanely long absence. Huzzah for patience!), manga-gurl-latte (hopefully when you get to this chappie you'll see that I'm thanking you for your review. I lurvs Iruka too, although he kinda falls out of the picture, in case you couldn't tell by now.), darkitachi666 (I must say I'm impressed that you read so much in so little time. Though I do that too. I plan to keep writing as long as I have the inspiration.), Grammatical Error (For some reason I had "Monster Mash" going through my head when I read your review. Weird.)
disCLAIMER: While I do not own Naruto nor any affiliated subjects therein, Kishimoto-sama does and therefore he owns my soul.
Chapter 11: Created by a Monster
Another yell followed shortly, this time one of anger. Sasuke moved as fast as his flesh would allow towards Kaori's shout. She hollered again, this time in pain. There was a dull explosion and a column of smoke arose from camp. Sasuke's eyes stung in the smoke, but he refused to blink as he tried to penetrate the blackness. It smelled like steel. A grunt of frustration and pain sounded by his feet, and he squatted. Kaori held her right arm, which was pierced in several places by needles.
"The bastard took Sakura," she managed between coughs. "Then the smoke..."
Sasuke growled and formed seals. "Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu!" His Grand Fireball enveloped the thick smoke and swept it away. Small balls still smoked in various parts of the camp, which Sasuke crushed underfoot. Kaori ripped out the needles and Kakashi wrapped her arm.
"Did you see what happened?" Sasuke asked as he scanned the area, looking for signs to track.
"Sakura screamed as soon as I got back," Kaori grunted, suppressing her pain with clenched teeth. "Kaoru stood over her and she was stuck full of needles. He said if she moved at all she'd feel a lot of pain." She smacked her forehead. "If I hadn't yelled, I could have gotten right next to him before he stuck me like a pig."
"Where'd he go?" Kakashi asked, forming his seals to summon his dog-nin.
Kaori shook her head. "After he threw the smoke bombs, he must've grabbed Sakura and taken off. I couldn't see a thing. He hit me right in the head with one of the bombs." Kaori gingerly touched her swelling temple. "Ow."
"Yo, Kakashi. Long time no see." Pakkun saluted the Shinobi from his spot on top of the dog pile. Kakashi held up Sakura's bedding for the dogs to sniff, then sent them on their way. Kaori couldn't help but be impressed by the technique. She'd never seen Kakashi use it before, and it seemed to be very useful.
"Seems we must delay our mission yet again," Kakashi said apologetically.
"Who cares? I wanna know what he wants with Sakura," Kaori growled, emulating Sasuke's earlier snarl. "Hey where'd Sasuke go?"
Kakashi looked around, startled. Before he could even think about finding him, a dog returned with a hot trail left by Kaoru. He might be flashy but that made him horrible at escaping covertly. They packed what they could as quickly as possible and followed the hound. Kakashi's own nose was a little stuffed up from the smoke, but he could still smell a bit of Sakura on the wind. The other dogs joined the pursuit as they picked up on the trail too. Kakashi could not sense or smell Sasuke anywhere, which could lead to problems when regrouping. Kaori focused intently ahead, waiting for Kaoru and Sakura to enter their line of sight. They must have run several kilometers before the dogs lost the trail in front of a great sinkhole. Not really a sinkhole, more like the results of an underground explosion. Kakashi thanked his dogs and let them go. There was a distinctive hole in the middle of the ruins, one big enough for even Kakashi to climb into. As they carefully picked their way to the hole, Kaori started sweating profusely.
"Kakashi-sensei," she groaned, standing still, "I think there was something in those needles. I can't move." Her jaw stiffened too, and all that she could do was mumble. Of course, their medical nin was gone. Kakashi rooted through Sakura's bag, hoping she'd left something useful behind. There were several injection containers, one of them labeled "anti-paralysis." Kakashi silently thanked Godaime that Sakura was so well-prepared and gave Kaori a dose. After several minutes she was finally able to move and they continued to the hole. A shuriken lay next to a sheet of metal upon which was scratched the Uchiha fan. Sasuke was already there. They plunged into the tunnel, which smelled quite rotten. The loose ground squelched beneath their sandals, each step causing more stench to erupt in little puffs. The tunnel grew narrower and narrower until the two Shinobi were forced to walk sideways. There were drag marks all along the walls and ground.
Kaori nearly fell forward into Kakashi when they suddenly entered a large underground cavern. She couldn't help but bitterly notice how these cave-themes kept popping up. They could hear voices not too far ahead, a faint glow of artificial light revealing shadows. The closer they crept, the more clear the conversation became.
"Good work, Kaoru. She is indeed a virgin."
"Will she satisfy Ryuu-sama?"
"Oh. Most definitely."
Despite the echo effect the cave had on the voice, it sounded strangely familiar to Kaori. A woman's strangled cry of pain came from within.
"Shut it, bitch," the familiar voice spat, followed by a smack of a hand against flesh.
"Saris-sama, is that really-"
"You can shut up too. I don't need your help anymore, you can go."
"I'd like to stay for the ritual..."
"It takes many days to properly prepare her for it, and I have more things I want you to do."
"What is that?"
"This will make her sleep while I show you what needs to be done."
Sakura sighed softly as she passed from painful consciousness into a serum-induced sleep. As the voices faded away, Kakashi gestured Kaori closer.
"We should be able to just grab her and go," he whispered. "But we must be prepared for traps. I sensed a Chakra field from the one Kaoru was talking to."
Kaori nodded, letting Kakashi enter the room first. His hand waved her in. Kaori stepped into room and sucked in a sharp breath. The walls were stained with blood spatter and the floor coloured from who knew what. Sakura was strapped to a table by well-worn leather bindings attached to the floor. Her skin had a puckered look from where the needles lay inside her flesh. Kaori stepped forward, but Kakashi hand snapped out and stopped her.
"The floor around the table holds a charge." He nodded to the box against the wall that hummed slightly, sending a current of electricity into the tiles. A well-aimed kunai took care of that. Kaori proceeded to remove the senbon, furious that Kaoru had gotten the best of them all. They'd show him just who he was messing with...
"Kaori. You realize that he uses needles and smoke bombs as weapons?" He found another anti-paralysis serum and gave Sakura a dose.
"That doesn't make him a ninja."
"True, although who else do you know uses such modes of attack?"
Kaori fell silent, knowing in the pit of her stomach that Kakashi was right. Unless used by a person who trained hard as a Shinobi, needles really weren't much of a weapon. So was Kaoru a Shinobi or had he received the training from someone else?
Sakura stirred, responding to the injection Kakashi had given her. She woke silently, awaiting a signal to indicate she could speak.
"It's him," she said quietly. "The man we're looking for. He's Kaori's father."
Kaori dropped the needle she had just removed from Sakura's knee. That couldn't be possible. The cruel man with the familiar voice was her father?
"He looks a lot like you Kaori-san, only paler." Sakrua winced as she sat up, pulling more senbon from her arm.
"No. That can't be right," she murmered.
"You'd better believe it." Sasuke's angry voice startled them. He stood at the doorway, dragging an unconscious Kaoru and roughly handling a tall man with long silver hair and grey eyes. He could easily be a male version of Kaori. His eyes flashed angrily as he took in the situation until they landed on Kaori. They went from surprise, to disbelief, to epiphany. Then he started laughing like mad.
"If you are who I think you are, then your existence was something I never thought possible." He leaned forward eagerly, at least as far as Sasuke's vice-like grip would let him. "Are you Rene's daughter?"
"I don't know who you're talking about," Kaori said defiantly, still refusing to believe that he could be her father. He was just too creepy.
"Aside from that, why don't you explain the blood and stains to us," Sakura said, her green eyes hard and unforgiving. The man was taken aback at first, then he held his head high.
"Subjects. Willing or unwilling. I used them to research the path to eternal life. And for a few side experiments."
"Eternal life?" Sakura glanced at Sasuke and Kakashi, who knew that that was Orochimaru's very same pursuit.
"I haven't completely perfected it yet, but I've found some very effective means of living longer." He grinned viciously.
"Are you by chance a colleague of Orochimaru?" Kakashi's question froze the man's grin. The grey eyes grew even more angry. If looks were kunai, Kakashi would be in shreds.
"Is that bastard still alive?"
"Ah, so you do know him."
"Course I do. He's my son."
Then it hit Kaori: this was the man she dreamed about after being close to Orochimaru. The man who tortured his own son and got off on it. Except he was...
"That's a lie. Orochimaru's over fifty years old, and you couldn't be a day over thirty," Sasuke growled. The man rolled his eyes.
"Didn't you hear what I just said? I've spent my entire life searching for a way to lengthen it. You think in all that time I wouldn't have found something?"
"Guess Orochimaru's lust for eternal life came from him," Sasuke said bitterly, "though I see no family resemblance."
"That's cause he took after his mother." The grey eyes looked at Kaori. "But this one looks like me."
"N-no way." Kaori stepped back.
"Tell me, child. Does it live in you?" Eager eyes scanned her body. "Do you have it?"
"Have what?" Kaori felt she already knew the answer.
"The demon."
The Shinobi froze. Somehow this man knew of Juubi no Tokage.
"Were you the one that put this in me?" she said hoarsely.
He started laughing hysterically. "It's true! It worked! It really worked!"
Kaori snapped. She grabbed the man by the throat and squeezed, his eyes bulged as his air supply was suddenly cut off.
"You ruined my life! Why would you put a demon inside a little girl?"
He couldn't answer. Kakashi grabbed Kaori's arms and pulled her back. She was seething.
Cough. "I didn't put it inside you." Gag. "Legend had it that the Dragon's spirit lived within a woman after its defeat. It's been centuries, but ideally it should have passed down through generations of women. I traced it to Rene, although she couldn't confirm whether or not she had the demon in her. Because her mother died giving birth to her, I decided it had to be true. So I coupled with the girl and kept her locked up until she showed signs of being pregnant. Course when she was eight months pregnant she managed to escape, and I never heard from her again. Not that I expected to, but I really wanted to witness the birth of a monster." He eyed Kaori greedily. "I'm glad you take after me."
"I'm not glad." Kaori pulled out a kunai and pointed it at him. "You're going to pay for what you did to me and my mother, and all those innocent people you experimented on. And for what you did to your son."
"What's this? You know Orochimaru?" He squinted his eyes. "Ah." As if seeing right through her shirt, he focused on the area where the cursed seal lay on her chest. "Seems he's made his mark on you. Mind you, I was the one who first developed a cursed seal. He's just copying."
"Who cares if it's copying? It's evil either way!" Sakura was able to move completely now. "And how did you come up with these techniques? Are you a Nukenin?"
"Beg your pardon, but I have no idea what you mean." He sniffed. "I discovered long ago that I had powers, all members of the Ryuu no Shou do. In fact, that woman who I wanted Rene to name you after, Kaori, was the very first container of the Dragon's spirit. She was a member of the order too."
"Who cares?" she burst out. "You-you made my mother pregnant just so you could have control over the Dragon's demon?"
"Well...yes," he replied matter-of-factly. "I could easily take over the Land of Dragons if I had the actual Dragon spirit to grant my wishes and see my fortune. Then I was going to try to find the other demons and use them too."
"You would have gotten along well with Akatsuki," Sasuke said dangerously. "Let's take him back with us."
"Oh, did you enjoy my little town?" That grin again. "I used the corpses of all my former subjects and created sort of dolls out of them to live in the make-believe town whenever someone came by. That kept people off of my trail."
"Genjutsu. I knew it." Sasuke whipped the man around. "You may be powerful, but I can reduce you to a mindless hunk of meat with my Mangekyou Sharingan." The man actually looked excited by the sight of Sasuke's red eyes.
"I see. You would have made a very interesting subject."
Sasuke slammed his fist into the side of his head, knocking the man out. He'd had enough with people like Orochimaru.
"What are we going to do with this trash, Kakashi?" He spit on the unconscious man for emphasis.
"We'll take him with us," Kakashi promptly responded. "He's been causing problems for many years, by the looks of things."
"We should leave him on Orochimaru's doorstep with a note saying 'here's the man who ruined your life'," Kaori muttered bitterly. She wondered if the snake-man would remember that this was his father.
"Let's just get out of here," Sakura suggested quietly, her face pale as she still suffered from the needle wounds. Plus the gore-coated walls and floor were disturbing. Sasuke bound the man up with wire and hoisted him over his shoulder. Kakashi tied up Kaoru and followed suit. Kaori lent her shoulder to Sakura, who winced with every step. She would wait til they resurfaced before healing herself. For someone like Sakura who dealt with illness and death more often than most Shinobi, the stench of death lingered everywhere in that underground cavern. They set up a camp so Sakura could rest and heal. Kakashi took the watch while Sasuke and Kaori went back into the cavern to search for any survivors. Or perhaps some clue to Kaori's past.
The farther they ventured past the first room, the more apparent the man's sick mind was. Chains lined the walls, a couple still holding decaying corpses. No wonder it smelled like death. One room contained various barbaric torture devices, though fortunately years of rust and dust coated them. There were several other doorways, but the decay was too great for the frames to support the ceiling. The crumbling hallway led to a single accessible room. Shocking white walls and immaculately-tended furniture formed an office. It was surprisingly neat and tidy, especially in comparison to the rest of the underground abode. Another smaller room branched off from the office, holding a bed, a kitchenette, and a bathroom. The man live down here.
"Creepy," Kaori said to herself. Sasuke was perusing the file cabinet. It contained thick folders with pictures. He looked slightly green as he peered into them. He refused to let Kaori see.
"The before and after pictures of his 'subjects'," Sasuke said, shoving the folder back in. He kept rifling through them, looking for a particular name. There. Rene. He pulled out the surprisingly thin folder. The man probably didn't get a chance to perform too many experiments on the pregnant woman. He pulled out her picture. He half-expected a monstrous-looking, pathetic creature of a woman. His breath caught in his throat: the woman in the picture was beautiful. It must have been taken before she was forced to bear the man's child. Her black-and-white photo smiled at him, her eyes genuinely happy. Sasuke glanced at Kaori, whose brow was furrowed as she concentrated on the notebook she found on the desk. When she was happy and smiled, she looked exactly like her mother.
"Look at this," she said, handing the notebook to Sasuke. "It's a journal. Mostly about his experiments."
"It's in code."
"I know. I'm guessing there's a key somewhere."
"Or we could just ask the bastard when he wakes up. Hope he's got a mother of a headache when he does."
"That's my father you're talking about," Kaori said, meaning for it to sound sarcastic, but it came out defensive. Sasuke gave her a look of disbelief. She hid her discomfort by rummaging through the desk some more. The question that formed on his lips had nothing to do with the situation, but it came out anyway.
"What does loyalty or love mean?"
Kaori glanced at him, then returned to her busy work. "I don't know."
"If you make a prediction about someone, shouldn't you know what you're talking about?"
"That's not how it works." She wouldn't look at him.
"Then how does it work?" Sasuke grabbed her arm and made her look at him. He let her arm go as if it scorched him; tears glistened in her grey eyes. His mouth went dry and he felt very disconcerted. Without thinking, he took a step back. Kaori blinked rapidly then looked back down. She took a deep breath.
"Someone's going to die. Either way you choose, someone will die. You will have two lives weighed in your hands, and one will be Loyalty and the other Love. That's...that's all." Kaori gathered what documents she thought were important and left the office. Sasuke cleared his dry throat and stared at the notebook in his hands. Death was nothing new to him. Neither was killing. He'd chosen between things plenty of times, either choice resulting in a fatality. But never had he received prior knowledge of those choices. It was...powerful.