Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anyone from it. But I do own Tsukkio. :)
Chapter 3: Smooth sailing.
We were instructed on what to do, and given our scroll. I yawned, today was just not my day to be awake. He were handed the heaven scroll and put at a gate.
"Akamaru! Are you ready?" Kiba was excited, and the bark the protruded Akamaru indicated that he was also pretty excited. I looked over to Hinata who was looking into the fence, fists clenched. She was a marvelous kunoichi, but she didn't trust in her abilities. Poor child... I always just want to give her a hug.
"Tsuki-chan..?" She was now looking at me, confused that I was staring.
"Yea, Hina-chan?" We've gotten relatively close, so have nicknames for each other, we got along pretty well.
"You've been staring at me.. Is something wrong?" Her question caught me kind of off guard, so I just grinned and rubbed the back of my head, my sharper than normal canines probably showing. I didn't smile much because of this.
"Sorry, I was spacing out.." Lies. I hate the fact the I end up lying to people because I'm a just an odd person.
"Guys stop chatting! They're going to open the gates soon!" Kiba always just insists on being rude. I hear Shino sigh, he's not much of a talker, and we're all okay with that. He's a great teammate.
Suddenly, the gates open, and we just look at each other, and take off.
"Guys I'm going ahead to scout for shinobi with an earth scroll, it's shadowy here, I bet I can get one with no confrontation" They all nodded except for Kiba who looked deep in thought.
"Kiba, what do you think?" I asked trying to read his expression.
"What do we do?" I sigh at his question, he wants action.
"Find cover, and blend in, if you see shinobi with an earth scroll, ambush them. Actually, If you see any group that looks like you can beat, take them down, the less competition the better." He smiles at my statement, he loves the idea of a good ambush. He nods at me and jumps into the trees with Shino and Hinata.
"Shino, if you need me send a bug!" and with that statement, I jumped off into the trees.
About five minutes in, I sense people and smile. I get up against the tree I'm in and summon shadows to cover my body. I'm nearly invisible in this shady area, perfect for a stealth attack, or better yet just to steal a scroll. I spot some hidden mist genin, and smirk. They were in a very shady spot and I could crawl to them and use a shadow to grab their scroll. It was holstered on one of them, and was definitely an earth scroll. I get on my stomach and start to slowly crawl into their direction until another presence causes me to stop. I inhaled and recognized the scent as Gaara's, I saw sand and knew that he was trying to get their scroll.
'I may be trying to make him my friend, but there's no way he's getting this scroll'
The sand moved towards one of them and I hop up and decide the normal shadow manipulation wasn't going to cut it. I close my eyes quickly and re-open them feeling empowered, my wolf tattoo is glowing, my eyes tingle as they change from violet to a bright gold, and I take every shadow in the area and knock it quickly against the sand; almost like a wave of darkness. There's almost always a shadow somewhere, and some shinobi can manipulate it to stop people, but I can take a mass amount of it, and turn it into matter. I can do it without activating my Kekkei- Genkai, but it's not as useful in battle. I have the spirit of the wolf directly tapped into my physical being, all of it's properties and I don't even have to make a hand sign. The shadows just listen.
"He was my target first. No stealing." Gaara seemed shocked at my statement, but even more shocked were his teammates. Temari and Kankuro looked as if I had signed my death certificate. Funny thing is, in this coomotion the mist genin started to move away. Gaara grabbed two with his sand and I bounded the other with shadows.
"Stay! I'll come back to you in a minute!" They looked shocked, they were being fought over.
"What makes you think I'll leave them without a fight? I'll be glad to take four victims right now.." His voice was very eerie, what happened to him being kind to me before? Still, these men were mine to take down, that scroll was mine. I'm too proud to give them up. I found them first. Plus, my Kekkei-Genkai was still activated, it was rearing for a fight. Even if it was with the boy I'm so interested in.
"Fine then, give me all you've got." I too my katanas out, and got into a stance. I didn't move, I'd let him take the first shot. Suddenly, sand came at me and I lifted my arm telling the shadows to shield me.
I then jumped to the side and swiped mt katanas into the air sending a sharp X of shadows at him. His sand blocked it and I saw my opportunity, I sent shadows over his sand and trapped him in his own defense, he wouldn't stay like that for long, so I made my choice. I jumped over to the mist genin, and took their Earth Scroll, and ran like the wind. No one would ever catch me at this speed.
As soon as I thought I was a good distance away I sat in a tree and covered myself in shadows. I breathed and closed my eyes, the tattoo on my body cooled down and my appearance returned to normal. I sighed, that definitely was not the way to befriend Gaara. But my competitive side got the best of me. Suddenly I heard a scream coming from the direction I just arrived from.
'I really should get this scroll back to my team-mates.. ' Another scream.
'Aw hell...' I turned around and started my way back to where I left Gaara with the Mist genin. I perched in a tree where I could see the sight without revealing my presence. The shadows were still called to my body, so I just observed. Gaara was standing in a cave of sand that was covered in needles, moving his hands. Sand engulfed the man who I assumed was his attacker. Next thing I knew his fist clenched and the man imploded from inside the sand, and it rained blood.
Blood is everywhere, the smell of burning flesh and crimson liquid hits my nose. I'm dizzy, I want to throw up. "Emotions make us weak, a tiger doesn't feel, it survives."
My head starts to spin. I see vividly in my mind the memories of the massacre. My brother's body. I see the blood on the ground, and it get's worse. My head hurts.
My brother, sister, father, dead. Mutilated bodies litter the floor of our home, and our village.
This is too much, I look back on the blood on the ground. The vivid images get worse, I feel my head get light. I move on the branch but stumble, I can't feel my senses. I fall.
Survive. I try to summon shadows to catch me, but all I see is my mother's mutilated body. I scream. I expect to hit the ground, but I am encased in something soft and gritty. The last thing I see is a pair of sea-foam eyes. Everything goes dark.
My eyes open, I look around. My body seems to be okay, other than my splitting headache. I notice this isn't where I fell, I'm behind a bush, or very tall leaves. Well covered. I soon remember what had occurred and I encase my head in my hands.
'I really need a therapist'
Suddenly, a thought occurs to me. I look inside my side pouch and see that both the heaven and earth scrolls are still there.
'He saved me, and didn't rob me, and yet he attacked me earlier, and made a man explode..' I pushed the last part of the thought out of my mind, and pondered still on what his problem was. I closed my eyes to think, but I heard a buzz and came face to face with six bugs. They were just flying in front of me, and a few landed on me calmly. These were Shino's bugs.
'Shit, I need to get back to them.'
I get up and my splitting headache gets worse, I crouch low and grasp my head. I luckily came prepared and grab a bottle of major painkillers and shove about four into my mouth and dry swallow. I gave up on using the right dosage awhile ago. I breathe in and hope it goes away fast, and then take off into the woods. The bugs lead me, and they're fast, which is good. The quicker I get to them the better.
After a good while of running I come onto the scene of my team fighting of three other genin, of what village I wasn't sure, I wasn't being very observant right now. My team wasn't fending well. They seemed to have been keeping this up for awhile, but they looked worn down. They were obviously caught off guard. I still hadn't been seen yet by the enemy but Hinata had spotted me because of her Byuakugan, I put a finger to my lips and then pointed to my neck. She needed to provide a distraction. She jabbed the man in his neck's pressure point and he screamed, spitting out blood. This made the other two turn to look and I then shot out from behind them and pulled out my katanas and stabbed them both in the lower back, not killing them, but paralyzing them. Hinata then hit the other man's pressure point and his stomach. He coughed up blood and fell to the ground.
"Took you long enough! I hope you were luckier than we were, we got worn out taking down three teams and only got three heaven scrolls. No earth scrolls.." Kiba looked worn out. I knew just how to cheer him up. I swiftly went into my pouch and threw the earth scroll right in his face. He caught it after it fell from his face and looked at it for a moment until smiling.
"Yata! We did it! Let's go to the tower, come on Akamaru, guys!" He didn't look so worn out anymore. I laughed slightly at him, and then looked at Shino and Hinata. No one was injured, just very tired.
"Yea, let's get the hell outta here." We jumped up and I pulled my shadow to cover us all. We couldn't really take more fighting. I took as until the next morning to reach the tower, and we were all relieved to see it. We hadn't taken a break, for the fear of losing a scroll. When we entered the door I noticed a feeling of bliss fall over their faces. I however, wasn't so happy. Earlier, the relapse of the massacre had actually caused me to faint. I felt sick about it, just by seeing all of that blood. I've seen blood before, it never affected me like that. I sat down against a wall and put my head back.
'What's wrong with me?' With that question, I slowly drifted into a dreamless sleep.
