Okay, chapter four is here!! Thank you to all of you who review. But I have a question for those who don't review. Why not? If you like it enough to favorite it and put it on the alert list, then why not say something. For those of you who are also writers, you know what I'm saying. And to those who don't write and are only here to read, please realize that a writer's favorite thing is when they get commented on there writing, even if the review is bad. It gives them something to work forward to. So, yeah I'm done. So enjoy the fourth chapter of Kidnapped!
Chapter four: What can we do?
It was dark. That was the only word that could describe where he was. Dark and cold. Then he realized that it was dark because his eyes were closed. He then realized that pain was present. Nothing that he hadn't faced before, but pain enough to hurt. He now was aware of metal and stone. Different textures became present as he regained his senses. He opened his eyes.
The first thing that Naruto noticed was steel bars across from him. Then, he noticed that he was in a roughly carved out cell that was embedded in rock. No light entered the cell except for a flicker of flame from a candle resting in a bracket on the wall. The flame threw eerie shadows onto the walls, and since Naruto was in the back of the cell, no light reached him. He then noticed that he was on his side. He attempted to sit up and achieve a more comfortable position, but to no avail. That's when he realized his ankles and wrists were chained together with inch thick iron cuffs, which had strange symbols etched into the metal. Chains attached to the wall, keeping him from moving. He also noticed that all of his weapons were gone. Everything that could possibly be used for escape or attack had disappeared. Even the file he kept in his shoe had been taken away. He also had a strange sensation throughout his body, as if something was missing. He imagined it to be hunger, so he left it alone for now.
Two other things were missing from his person. The first was the most noticeable. His Konoha hitai-ate was gone. The other, which you wouldn't notice was gone unless he removed his jacket, was his priceless necklace that Tsunade had given to him when he had won their bet. Naruto wasn't sure what distressed him more. The headband that he worked so hard for or the necklace that stated that someone believed he could become Hokage.
Footsteps broke Naruto study of the cell. A person, hidden by the shadows of the room, stopped in front of the bars of his cage.
"Ah, Naruto-kun, finally up eh? About time. Leader-sama was wondering if maybe you had broken your neck or something," The voice dripped with sarcasm, and by the deepness it was male, and oh so familiar.
"Hiro," Naruto growled out. He was mad. He was now in the possession of Akatsuki, without his teammates. Were they okay? He wanted answers, and he wanted them now. "Where am I teme? Where is my team? They better not be in any danger, or you are definitely dead," He added another growl for accent. But the man outside the cage just laughed.
"Ah, how naïve you are Naruto-kun. The second that you were not out, your team practically begged us to take you. Did you seriously think they would care about you? A demon? Someone that is the scum of society? Believe me Naruto-kun, they don't care, they never did. Half of your village, is probably sighing with relief, the burden has left them. All of your so called friends are happy that they don't have to deal with the dobe and loser anymore. Face it Naruto-kun, they don't want you," The candle on the outside flickered, casting a shadow on Hiro's face. A triumphant smirk rested on his lips. "Well Naruto-kun, I'll leave you to ponder a little bit," True to his word, Hiro left Naruto's view, and he heard a door slam, prompting that the man had left the dungeon area.
On the surface, Naruto just had a blank stare. But inside, Naruto's mind was raging. The villagers had finally accepted him right? His friends no longer thought that he was dead last right? And Kakashi and Sakura, they cared about him right? Just like he would do for them, they would risk everything to save him right?
Naruto wasn't sure how to answer these questions though. The seed of doubt had been planted in his mind, and it was a hard weed to exterminate. After spending so much time vying for attention, hoping to be noticed, was it true what Hiro had said? Was it true that he had no one?
No! That's not true! I have Iruka-sensei, Baa-chan, Ero-Sennin, Kakashi-sensei, Sakura-chan, and everyone else back in Konoha! At least… I think I do.
Naruto spent hours pondering this. Most of the time, he probably would have given the thought up and realized it wasn't true, or convince himself it wasn't true, but when you are trapped in the cell with no end in sight, what else are you to do but think about this kind of stuff?
After a while, Naruto started to feel his eyes droop again. He tried to stay alert, to keep himself from thinking dark thoughts. But sleep is the only entity besides death that all must adhere to, and Naruto eventually fell into a deep slumber.
-(.),(.)-
While Naruto had been pondering the things Hiro had presented him with, Hiro himself walked into a room with a looming figure seated on a high up chair looked down on him.
"Well?" The voice was cold, dark, blood-thirsty, and… sane. Like the man completely knew what he was doing, that he was destroying people's lives to gain ultimate power. He just didn't care at all.
Hiro bowed to the imposing figure. "Leader-sama, I think it is working. The Nine-tailed fox jinchuuriki is thinking about what I said. If we continue feeding him that and don't let any news leak through about Konoha, his mind should be broken by the time we collect the other jinchuuriki. He shouldn't put up a fight once the next step commences," He looked up at the figure to try and guess an emotion. Unfortunately for him, figure's face was so hidden in shadows that nothing could be said of it.
"Alright," the figure started to reply to Hiro's statement, "continue to break his mind. If there is no struggling during the extraction of the Kyuubi's chakra, things will be much easier. You are dismissed," Hiro nodded his head in a deeper bow and walked out of the room.
Once Hiro had left, the figure rose from his post and walked over to the tall window on the wall. Outside, a constant rain fell. The sun behind the clouds shown through a slight bit, throwing relief on the figure's face.
Spiky hair and several piercings now could be viewed. A cold, merciless face graced the man's features. No emotion seemed to show through; even his eyes were just bottomless pits of nothing.
"Only two more, and then you Naruto-kun, and it will all be over. We will finally rule the world. It will be all ours," He closed his eyes and lifted his head slightly, to listen to the rain that held a steady rhythm against the glass pane.
-(.),(.)-
Naruto was at this moment, dreaming in his cell. No, dreaming is the wrong word. Having a nightmare is more like it.
He was remembering the past. From before he had Team Seven, before he had Iruka-sensei. Everything was dark; everything was cruel and harsh to the poor child living on his own. Inside Naruto's mind, incidents from his past kept playing unbroken and without a good moment.
Naruto was five, playing in the park by himself. He stared silently at the other kids playing just a few feet away, hoping for an invitation to play. But the children to even say hi to the boy their age. The phrase monkey see, monkey do applies well in this situation. The children saw that their parents hated Naruto, so they repeated the action. They ignored the poor boy, leaving him to somehow entertain himself.
Now he was six, but the same things were pretty much happening. It was nighttime now, and Naruto sat on the curb, dejected and alone. The few friends he had made had left hours ago, escorted away by a father or mother, calling out that it was dinner time or that they had homework to do. When the last one had disappeared, Naruto wasn't sure what to do. Go home to an empty apartment, where no one was waiting to give him a hug, or to ask why he was late? So he did the only thing a six year old could do. He ran, even if it was just to his house. H couldn't call it home. His heart just wasn't there.
That same year, Naruto fell and hurt his knee in the park. It wasn't healing instantly either, because it was deeper than normal. So he stood there crying, no one to ask if he was alright, to give him a kiss and a band-aid. Adults with their children stood around Naruto, looks of disgust and disdain on their faces. The kids were all hidden behinds the parent's legs. Some looked around to see why they were standing there, and then wondered why kaa-san or tou-san wasn't helping out the boy standing there, crying. But the parents were always right, so when they were pulled away from Naruto, another seed was planted in their minds that Naruto was someone you couldn't be around.
Now, it was Naruto's seventh birthday. He had heard about other children's birthday, from when Kiba or Shikamaru or Chouji would tell him. They would have a party where everyone came over, and they would play games and eat cake and open presents. Naruto was never invited of course, because even though the parent's of the before spoken children were kind enough, no one else wanted their child around Naruto. So when his friends would ask if he could come, the parents lied and said that there were already too many people coming. But now it was Naruto's turn, but no one could throw him a party, and he didn't tell his friends because he knew they would forget. Even though they called him a friend, they tended to forget about him a lot. So he sat there, curled up in a ball to hold in the pain, listening to people pass on the street and shouting out welcomes to each other. He hummed "Happy Birthday" to himself, hoping for someone to remember him and take him to a place he could call home.
Finally, the day to enter the ninja academy had arrived. The Sandaime Hokage, or oji-san in Naruto's eyes, had said that he would take care of the enrolling, and all he needed to do was show up on the first day. So he had, and was probably more excited then the rest of his class. Finally a way to prove himself, to make everyone notice him and if possible, accept him. But that didn't seem to be so. When he sat down in the back of the class-because no other seats were available- he realized that this was going to harder than he thought. The teacher, the one before Iruka-sensei, rambled on and on about making sure to study and get your homework done. He then commented that tonight's homework would be to ask their parents questions about their careers, preferably a ninja parent. Naruto deflated at that. Who was he going to ask? He could ask Oji-san, but he was too busy to help him. So after class, he went up to the teacher and told him he couldn't do the assignment. When he talked to the teacher, all he got was an icy stare and a reply saying, "So? Its up to you get the assignment done. If you don't you fail the assignment. It's not my problem if you fail gaki," Naruto looked up at the man in disbelief. This was someone who seriously wished he wasn't living at all, and also someone who was willing to show it. Even though he had been ignored before, now he was actually being shown the resentment he faced. It broke him inside, seeing yet another adult not help him like all the other children. Naruto ran out crying, the Chuunin sensei with a huge grin on his face.
Outside of Naruto's dreamscape, his physical self was trying to thrash about, only restrained by the metal chains holding him. His eyes spilled tears, as memories he thought he had buried a long time ago resurfaced, and brought back the pain tenfold. More memories continued to stream out, now jumping around from different ages, but maintaining the base of suffering. He wanted it to end, he wanted it to stop. But it wouldn't, the images of pain didn't stop. So he just lie there, dreaming of his life from years ago.
(.),(.)
Okay, I know you all want to kill me right now for not getting this chapter out sooner, and then you want to resurrect me and kill me again for not making this longer. But I have been having such a major writers block on this chapter, plus my friends are forcing me to write a fic for them. You know I love you guys (Have to say it, they read this one too…XD). But I know what's going on next chapter. Next time, we see what happened to Sakura and Kakashi. Until next time, Hail the Wolves is out!