Ironies and Things That go Bump in the Dark
Sakura's Story: What happened to the Ninjas
Sakura led Jack to an empty corner of the ship.
"Before I start your training I need to tell you about my people. I'm not going to have you trained half-assed. Its all or nothing. Got it?" Sakura said turning to Jack.
"Yeah!" Jack said eagerly.
"My people were known as the shinobi. The ninja. Almost ten thousand years ago a man discovered he could manipulate energy to perform amazing feats. He called this energy chakra. He was known as the Rikudo Sennin or the Sage of Six Paths. He traveled gathering people he believed could learn to use the same energy as him. He created a continent, he used powerful doton jutsus to make the land. Then he used genjutsu held by enormous arrays of seals to hide the island away from the rest of the world." Sakura took a deep breath. She was coming to the hard part of her story.
"Over around three thousand years the seals wore away gradually and the continent was revelaed to the rest of the world. I was fifty-two when the arrays failed completely." She paused at Jack's increduous look. "I know. I don't look a day over thirty." She said with a little smirk.
"Thirty?" Jack asked stunned. "You don't look a day over twenty." She replied.
"Ah ah ah. Flattery will get you nowhere." Sakura chided teasingly.
"Its not flattery. Its the truth."
"Anyway back to my story. I was fifty-two when the arrays fell completely. The Others, that's what we called all the other people on the planet who couldn't use chakra," She paused to explain at Jack's confused look. "They came."
"They couldn't understand us." She lamnated. "They wouldn't even try. We were ninja. Trained assassins for hire. They called us barbarians, because of our lifestyle. They demanded we stop. Demanded we hand over all our weapons. Demanded we stop using chakra. Demanded we stopped training our children to be ninja. Demanded we sign a treaty that stated we wouldn't ever use our ninja skills again."
Sakura sighed deeply. "We couldn't do it. We could no more stop using chakra than cut off our own heads. One of my best friends, Naruto, was the Hokage. The leader of our village. He refused, he told them what every ninja knew from the academy. Our chakra was a double edged sword. As long as we used it, as long as we pointed it towards our enemies or our surroundings it would serve us. When we stopped using our chakra for long amounts of time it starts to build up. It condenses, it crystalizes in our systems. We are eventually killed by it. Its an agonizing way to die. It would be like if your blood boiled you from the inside out." Sakura explained trying to make a comparasion that Jack could understand.
"They didn't understand. They didn't have chakra. They believed we were making it up so we could continue 'killing like the monsters were were' as one polition claimed. Bunch of crap, but the press and the public ate it up. They called for our immediate surrender. Then when we wouldn't give them that, our execution. They sent in armies from every other continent. Hundred thousand soldiers against all the able body ninja our world had. It was a disaster. They killed us with bombs and guns and other machinery. We killed them with metal weapons, jutsu and sometimes our bare hands. It was the worst massacre I had ever taken part it." Sakura drifted off along in her memories.
She raced through the radius of the bomb site looking for any of her people. She found poor Kiba and Akamaru close to the edge. They had almost gotten away but the bomb had sent shrapnel through Kiba's brain killing him instantly. Akamaru had all his ribs broken and one had been shoved into his heart, killing him. She wiped away the tears that had managed to escape. Ninja code #25: A ninja shows no emotion. She had always been bad at keeping that one.
That was six of her generation down. Kiba, Chouji, Shino, Ino, Tenten, and Lee had been taken out early in the war. Shikamaru had lost his leg and was no longer fit for field duty but he managed to help with tatics and strategies in a war room that was set up in a room beside the Hokage's office. Hinata was a medic nin now. She was also a mother three times over. A pair of twin girls- Aiko and Kitsu, and a boy Minato. Naruto was so proud of his little family. Aiko and Kitsu took after Hinata in hair color but got Naruto's cerulean eyes. Minato was practically a clone of Naruto, right down to the whisker marks. Apparently they were built into his genetic structure due to all the Kyubi chakra he used over the years.
Temari was married and had a boy, his name was Satoshi. Her husband had died in the first wave of the war leaving her with a grief stricken ninteen yearold to comfort. Gaara was still the Kazekage. Kankuro had managed to ask a suna kunochi out and they were going steady even with the war. Neji was the co-leader of his clan along with Hinata. They had gotten rid of the branch seal right before the war started. Naruto was the Hokage and a father. Sasuke had died in his twenties after trying to destroy Konoha so if you wanted to get technical it was seven of her generation down. And of course I was out in the field as one of the best field medics trying to save our people from destruction.
The Other's hadn't managed to attack our major villages because we hid them under a strong genjutsu. It was only a matter of time before they got a lucky shot though. Most of the civilians had been moved underground for their saftey. Of course they hadn't liked it but they went along with it anyway. Anything to survive.
She wiped her eyes dry and continued on her search. Everyone was either dead or too far gone to save and that was saying something considering her skills.
She snapped out of her memories. "Where was I? Oh yeah. It was the worst massacre I had ever taken part in." She repeated absently. "Finally they developed a poison. They were taking too many casualties and just wanted to end the war fast. They had managed to capture several teams of gennin. Genin were the lowest rank besides academy students who were kept in the villages. Genin were usually twelve or thirteen years old. Three kids a squad. One girl, two boys and are usually sent with a sensei who was usually a jounin. They changed that during the war. Chunin were given genin teams and the jounin were used on the front lines or used to sneak into the enemy camps to assassinate as many important people there were to be found."
"They had captured several teams of genin and expiremented on them. Testing their poisons seeing which ones had the most effect and only using the antidote when the kids were inches from death only to nurse them back to near perfect heath again only to repeat the experiments with different poisons. We didn't bother taking prisionors. If we had we would've felt tempted to sink to their level. Eventually they created the poison they believed was perfect. They sent it crashing down over the whole continent. They used airplanes, crop dusters to send the powdered toxin down onto our heads. The air was so thick with the poison it was impossible to breath without getting a lung full every time."
"It took a while for the poisons to sink in. The babies were the first to die. Then the young children and very elderly. Then the teenagers and the older adults. Soon all that was left was the middle aged and they also died slowly and in agonizing pain. My friend, Naruto, was the last of us to die. I had tried to heal the poison but they used herbs that just wouldn't grow on our own continent. I could extract the poison but it always came back stronger. Naruto died slowly, he withered away to nothing while I couldn't help at all." Sakura trailed off sadly.
"I think, in the end, he was glad to die. He had lost his whole family, his whole village, everything. All he had left was me and I was unable to die. I was practically immortal. I was never desperate enough to test if I could be killed by decapatation though. I imagine I'm not able to though, considering if I cut off a limb it grows back in a few minutes." She sighed looking down at the kid.
Jack had tears coursing down her face, it made two clean streaks on an otherwise dirty face.
Jack jumped forward hugging Sakura around the middle. Sakura stiffened slightly at the contact. She hadn't been hugged in thousands of years.
"I take it you still want to learn?" Sakura asked needlessly.
"Of course." Jack said.
"You'll have to keep it secret. You can never tell anybody you can use the energy unless you want to be hunted like an animal." Sakura warned.
"I know." Jack replied easily.
"Very well. Let's start your training now. How many push ups can you do?" Sakura asked.
"I dunno." Jack replied confused. What did push ups have to do with anything.
"Well we're going to find out. Start pushing." Sakura ordered slipping into her instructor voice.
Jack looked like she was going to protest for a second but quickly dropped to her hands and toes and started pushing like she was instructed.
"Count." Sakura ordered watching her apprentice.
"One...Two...Three...Four...Five...Six...Seven..." Jack said huffing, the low oxygen levels in the atmosphere making her tire quicker.
"Twenty...Twenty-one...Twenty-two...Twenty-three...Tw-Twenty-four... Tw-Twe-Twenty-five..." She panted harshly her pants interupting her counting.
"Alright, that's enough kid." Sakura said. "Catch your breath." Sakura paced. It was obvious she couldn't train the kid while they were still on this hunk of ground. The oxygen level was too low for her to exercise without worrying about sufficating. Not to mention the heat would cause Jack to dehydrate faster. She would have to wait for them to get off this piece of shit planet.
"Alright kid. Go play with the other kids while I work out your schedule. We'll have to start when we get off this planet." Sakura orderd.
"Yes, ma'am." Jack panted still out of breath from the short exercise.
Sakura watched her charge walk off the ship and followed at a slower pace thinking about how to go about training the girl.
"Maybe weapons first." She mumbled out loud under her breath.
"Hey! Medic-chick!" One of the survivors called.
Sakura's head perked up at her new nickname.
"Yeah?" She asked.
"We're going on a scouting party. You coming with?" It was Johns speaking.
"Sure, what are we scouting for?" Sakura asked.
"Riddick's escaped and we need to find water." Johns answered.
Sakura nodded in understanding.
"Jack!" Sakura called.
"Yes?" She asked jogging over to her teacher.
"First call me sensei or Sakura-sensei, and stay out of trouble while I'm gone." Sakura said as she ruffled Jack's short hair.
"Yes, sensei." Jack replied easily.
"Good. Off you go." Sakura dismissed.
Jack ran back to the ship to stand by Shazza to talk about something or another.
"So who is this Riddick?" Sakura asked turning to Johns.
"Riddick is the worst criminal in the history of criminals. He's a violent sociopath and a murderer. He's escaped from some of the best slams in the galaxy. Slam City, Butcher Bay, the Hubble Bay Penal Facility. The works. He likes to work his victims make them shake before he kills them." Johns said trying to frighten Sakura.
"Sounds interesting." Sakura stated before she moved ahead in the group so she was by the holy man and his sons.
A/N: So what do you guys think? Good? Bad? Okay? Any suggestions to make it better? I take constructive critism but flames are not welcome.