This is another one, I guess. It's supposed to be the last one, and I'm really not happy with it. I wrote it in under an hour and on a last minute whim
I think, I might, I MIGHT move the number of one-shots up from 3 to 5, becuase I think this ones a pretty crappy last addition, and 4 is a stupid even number XD
Anyway, this was inspired by a guy who came to my school to talk about the English Civil War. I'll tell you why later, cause I don't want to say much up here right now.
Thank you to Miss0made, sailormarsfire93, Neji's fangirl, and Haruka-Hyuuga for reviewing. You guys are great! XD
Read on, dude!
After what seemed like an eternity, she lifted her head to look at who had sat next to her. His eyes were closed and he had leaned back onto the door, exhausted.
Kiba stared on at the scene in blood stilling shock. A scene that caused his heart to stop, his jaw to slacken, and his pupils to dilate in an instinctual reaction to what he was now literally faced with. His lunch would be on its way back up soon, and he knew that he should try whatever it took to hold it down; until it was safe to even breathe again. Akamaru was whimpering violently behind his leg; trying to vanquish the smell with something as familiar as him.
He wished more than anything that he could be so ignorant and do the same.
He liked to think that he had managed to grow up in the slightly rougher part of Konoha, and that he had a certain street sense that Hinata or even Shino didn't have. He hadn't spent his early childhood inside playing board games with his family next to a warm fire; neither had he learnt to ride a bike with his seemingly non-existent father.
Kiba knew the streets of Konoha inside out, and the great outdoors had taught him more than he needed to know in terms of natural occurrences, but nothing…nothing would have been able to prepare him for this.
In the back of his mind, an alarm bell was ringing violently as he vaguely took in the information that was being spewed at him by a melancholy voice that could only ever seem to drone on in the background the way it did now.
The almost fully dismembered corpse that lay in front of him was like no dead animal he had ever come across, and he'd been a ninja long enough to realise that people did these things to other people for reasons as simple as beliefs, or even places of birth.
This entire town had been massacred; an event that was apparently not uncommon in the business of a shinobi. He had heard talk of the Uchiha mass murderer that had escaped Konoha bearing the blood of his family on the once pristine Anbu uniform that the village had been proud to give him. He'd then seen the last survivor of said clan at his school; seen how this unspeakable event had affected him to the point where his childhood would be forever lost in a sea of hatred and target-specific bloodlust.
It had shocked the town as well as his family.
Something like this had once happened on his doorstep.
But nothing as horrible as what he was standing in right now.
Shino watched from the side as Kiba fought a losing battle to keep it together long enough for them to move the bodies.
He had to admit, it was disturbing. It may have been the last time they saw something like this for a long while. Thanks to this unexpected outcome, Team 8 would most probably not be getting another C-Rank mission for a long, long time.
In theory, this should have been the simplest thing to do. Hiking across the country just to check on a remote village in the middle of nowhere had seemed easy enough. The Hokage had received word of it just last week, and Shino would say that by the look on her deceivingly youthful face, she had thought nothing of it. Naturally, to find such an isolated place with such questionable sources would take some work, so the next best thing would be to send one of the best teams in terms of tracking that she could get a hold of at the time.
No doubt when she got wind of this, the Hokage would have them all sent gift-baskets and a welcome place at the hospital's mental health clinic. The murderers must have wanted to commit such a barbaric crime without being noticed, probably just by taking advantage of the village's elusive location. Well, if that were the case, then the anonymous tip-off they had received concerning the town's state was still a mystery. Or so Kurenai had told them.
But there was no doubt in Shino's mind that the message was sent by the same sick people, or person, just looking for another thrill as they watched the news spread around the country like wildfire. Some kind of sadistic ego boost, maybe.
No, it must have been something more than that, because not only had this massacre been efficiently planned down to the last screaming infant, but the nature of the killings would have allowed them to get away with anything before finishing off their pray in the most gruesome ways imaginable.
Shino realised that he was mentally contradicting himself; something he knew would not go down well if he didn't manage to get his thoughts under control in time to go home. Because that's really all he wanted to do right now. Be sick and go home.
"Hinata…"
A gaunt, stern face looked up from his status report to look at Kiba shortly before clearing his throat and reading once again from the top of the page in a voice that not even a therapist would listen to.
The sky outside had turned dark just hours after they had arrived. They weren't that surprised when they didn't receive a cosy welcome upon entering the isolated village, what with the people probably not used to seeing strangers. But there wasn't anyone there to even stop them before they entered or glare at them as they walked past with other wary spectators looking on.
It was so unlike what they had experienced in the last town they stopped by on the way. Even if it was a couple of days ago now.
"Shino…Shino, where is Hinata?!"
He looked up again as yet another inquiry was released from the boy who couldn't seem to take his eyes away from the very corpse he was trying to explain.
The other boy, with the unnecessarily high collar, inclined his head almost unnoticeably at the man with the clip board before answering his team mate.
"…She's outside…"
Door after door, every one of the inhabitants was dead, blood seeping out from the windows as various hand prints smudged thick crimson on the dirty glass, desperate screams still echoing off the walls that were stained with the blood and flesh of the dead.
Kurenai's breath hitched as her footfall crunched with the dislocation of an already lifeless hand, still gripping on to the door frame; it's only escape.
The older Shinobi - the one that Kurenai managed to steal from another mission that took place not thirty-miles west of where they were now - painstakingly went back over the pages to find the starting point of the report once more. Although he wasn't from their village, he had been intrigued by the fact that there had been a massacre that he didn't know about, and so close to there temporary base as well. A message had been sent back to Konoha for more help, but for now, he would have to do.
Shino listened to the report for the first time.
The stench of the dead hung heavily in the air. It would seem the further they went, the darker it became. Another dimly lit corridor ended with a door that couldn't open fully; more dismembered corpses still trying to get away, to escape.
A girl, the body of this girl, had been raped so many times that her ribs and pelvis were broken, and she died from choking on a splintered piece of bone from her jaw.
She was raped because she was beautiful. She was tortured because it was fun. She was killed because she had been a part of this village, just like everyone else.
She looked so much like someone he knew.
Shinohad watched Kiba slowly back away from the body and stumble out the door - Akamaru following closely behind, no doubt also looking for Hinata. She had disappeared after the first three houses. He assumed that she had gone with Kurenai to look for a suitable place to bury the dead. That would be the least bloody thing he could think of.
Kurenai had found a small wooden bridge that crossed over a dried out river. From what she could see, it looked like the best place she had found so far.
She slid down the bank haphazardly, dead leaves fluttering slightly as she past them. Everything was dead around here. It was lucky, if anything, that there were no bodies around here either. She looked back up at the bridge and sighed; the moon half hidden behind the rotting structure as if it was guilty for killing all those people.
The jounin wondered how the rest of the team was fairing, especially Hinata, who would no doubt be feeling the after affects of this the most.
She let out another sigh. This was going to make one long mission report.
Her scent was difficult to trace, to say the least. His system was being bombarded with dozens of uniquely disgusting smells that were replaced every time he past another house.
He could hear her sobbing quietly to herself, and when he finally found her, she was sitting on the door step of the smallest house a little ways away from all the others.
His harsh panting ghosted in front of him in the cold night air, his chest burning slightly. More out of worry than anything else, he was sure.
"Hinata."
No answer.
"Hinata!"
Still no answer.
He sat down heavily next to her as she continued to cry, the soft shudders and hiccups she let out on occasion sounding more pained to him than any muffled scream ever could.
"Hinata…" he wasn't sure how to handle these situations, and what was even worse was that she wasn't even answering him. He could only sit there as both Akamaru and Hinata seemed to wait for him to do something.
He had only ever held her once, during the Chuunin exams when she had collapsed, and he would do it again now to comfort her. But he couldn't. He just couldn't.
No matter how hard he tried, Kiba's arm would not raise and the words would not flow as he sat there next to a slowly dieing Hinata who needed more than anything to find some source of comfort. She needed a friend. She needed him.
For now all he could do was be there as he waited for her to stop crying – his teeth clamped down into his fist while his eyes gazed listlessly at the floor, trying to figure out what to do.
Akamaru let out a long, painful howl; the sound haunting over the still air of this ghosts town.
I don't know XD I got the inspiration for this from a guy who visited my school for a history thing yesterday. Kevin Hicks (the guy) used to be in the army, and at one point he told us about when he went to Ireland as a new soldier, in the civil war between the Catholics and the Protestants. A bomn had gone off, and amongst the dead they found a what looked like a pile of fabric, but was infact, a girl. She had been tortured and raped by so many different men that her ribs and pelvis were broken, and she actually died from choking on a piece of splintered bone from her jaw. Just like I put in the story there,
His exact words after that:
"She was raped because she was beautiful. She was tortured because it was fun. She was killed because she was engaged to a protestant - the enemy"
Her fiance was found across the street with a bullet in his head.
Very sad story.
Oh yeah, and when Shino says that the body reminded him so much of someone he knew, he means Hinata, and that's also why Kiba was so freaked out by it too.
I know, I know, the ending was stupid and crap. But, if you read the beginning properly, you would have found the real ending. XD Put it there cause I was finished with it, and bored too.
The writing in italics are supposed to what has already happended, except for the ending at the top...which is after the story stops...okay...
Anyway, review and I'll reply!
Let's see now, I'll need around...4 more reviews before I think about writing the next one-shot :3