Mmmm... tired. Need sleep. Long, boring day tomorrow. Enjoy this chapter.
disclaimer: Naruto's not mine, just this story. Oh, no swearing this time! (I think...)
As the storm waned, Hinata Hyuuga arrived at the outskirts of Roventia. She was soaked to the bone and felt as if she caught something, but it would all be worth it if she found Uzi there.
She stood in awe of the metal gates of the city. The entire wall around Roventia comprised of ill-fitting metal structures somehow fitted to broken concrete bases. The wall of metal looked as if it were built from a hodgepodge of items that were never meant to fit together yet were attached as if by magic. Even the gate gave her this impression, as it comprised of long smooth interconnecting metal shafts that lifted off the ground one at a time.
She walked through the strange gate and was met with an amazing sight. The city looked very much like its wall; a handful of familiar structures giving way to fitted metal and attached technology. Everything seemed to glow a faint but noticeable blue.
She immediately approached a passing civilian. "Excuse me," she caught his attention, "Where can I find the Raver?"
His eyes widened at hearing the familiar name. "Raver? Oh, he's over in the largest tower." He pointed to a series of blue metal skyscrapers that Hinata couldn't believe she missed.
"Thank you." She continued towards the towering hunks of glowing metal. She was amazed at the makeup of her surroundings. Every single building had structures that looked to be forcibly attached. She could even see that some of the smaller skyscrapers' sides were actually buildings that had been uprooted and inserted into the metal frames.
The one thing that caught her attention more than anything else, though, also happened to be her current destination: the central tower. It was easily twenty stories above the other behemoths of steel and was the only object that was completely comprised of the smooth blue metal. When she got closer, she could see intricate pieces of sharp angular metal curving around the superstructure partially concealed by large singular shafts of the illustrious alloy. Coupling the tower's appearance with the faint colors that seemed to radiate from the cast shadows made it a breathtaking sight.
She arrived at the presumed entrance just as it became too dark to see anything else. It was hard to miss, as the massive doorway was illuminated by uncountable thousands of bright neon lights and the ground thumped harder as she approached. She walked in amongst a group of youth who were strangely dressed.
The inside was every bit as impressive as the exterior, if not more. The deafening catchy beat made her wince before she became accustomed to it, and she activated her Byakugan underneath her sunglasses to tone down the unhealthy amount of flashing lights. She looked up and saw that the tower appeared hollow all the way to the top, the interior sides lined with strings of glowing neon lights and heavy duty audio equipment.
Her bloodline detected a large amount of chakra being generated at the center of the immense room, and focused her attention to the source. She saw odd clingy metal equipment that glowed upon an equally flashy platform. This was a source of the colorful chakra, but not the main one. The majority of energy was flowing from the man standing in the center of the strange equipment, dancing in the most theatrical manner while operating the machinery around him. She began to notice that the pattern of lights and music corresponded with certain movements he performed. She figured he was her current target.
She shoved her way through the crowd towards the central stage and was stopped just short by a man with mirrored glasses.
"Who are you?!" He yelled over the music.
"White Eyes of Death!!" She yelled back.
"Do you have business with the Raver?!"
"Yes!!"
"What kind?!"
The Hyuuga remembered the phrase that Trench had whispered in her ear. She leaned forward and yelled, "Red neon and blue lights make us dance all night!!"
The bouncer's brow went up in recognition. "Alright!! Come with me!!" He said while ushering her to somewhere away from the crowd.
He directed her down a flight of hidden stairs and into a messy room. It looked fairly normal as it lacked the metal fixtures that dominated the rest of the city. Personal items were strewn about as if a tornado hit the place.
"Have a seat," the man suggested, "It could be a while before the Raver's done."
"I don't have all day," she said with annoyance in her voice. "I need to talk to him asap regarding a missing person."
The man shrugged and replied, "Okay… I'll let him know. Still might take a while, though…" He trailed off as he shut the door on his way out.
Hinata was left sitting in the relatively quiet room for ten minutes. The walls barely shook at all even though there was a city-sized party going on overhead. She observed the items around the room to pass the time and figured out that someone must live in this basement. She was alerted to a presence when she heard the door open and the noise level increase significantly.
"So you're the White Eyes of Death, huh?" said an unfamiliar voice. She turned to view its owner.
"Yes," she responded simply while eyeing the strange figure. His hair was dyed every color of the rainbow plus a few others and wore clothes to match. His eyes had strange metal pieces with luminous blue lenses concealing them. "You're the Raver, I presume?"
"Yep!" He said enthusiastically. "Welcome to my home, Miss White Eyes of Death!" He bowed deeply. He seemed to enjoy flashy theatrics.
"Please, call me Hinata. I was told by one of your comrades that Uzi was here. Is he?"
"Sorry, babe, you just missed him. He skips out right after every broadcast so he can avoid being triangulated by the military. They're gettin' pretty good at it, too."
Her eyes lowered to the floor in disappointment. "I see."
He flipped up one of his ocular lenses to reveal a blazing red eye and leaned forward to get a closer look at her. "Say, you aren't the one who busted out some of our pals down in Servo, are ya?"
"Yeah, that's me."
"Oho! That explains why you knew he was here!" He seemed to pick up on her downtrodden mood. "You may have just missed him, but I do know where he's headed if you'd like to know."
The blue haired Hyuuga's spirits lifted slightly. "Yes, please."
"He's headed east towards Hive City to meet up with some other buds of ours."
"Hive City," she repeated the name and turned it over in her head until she recognized it. "Isn't that a red-eye city?"
"More or less. It mainly consists of the Agende Vhansin family."
"Wait," she remembered hearing the name. "You mean that family of cannibals?!"
"One and the same!" He seemed pleased that she heard of them.
The woman could only cock her head in confusion. "Why would Naruto want to go there?"
"You wanna take a break here before headin' out?"
"No… no, I'd better head out immediately."
"Well in that case, we got someone who's headed out there as soon as she's done wrappin' stuff up here. Wanna meet her?"
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The Raver directed Hinata through a series of stairwells that went deeper and deeper beneath the surface. They eventually exited at the bottom into an extensive hangar-life room filled with assembly lines and studious workers.
"This," he waved his hands in a sweeping motion, "Is our weapons room. We're makin' the best of the best weapons right here. Wanna tour?"
"No thanks. I want to get going as soon as possible."
"Oooh," he pouted, "Spoilsport. Alright, follow me." He led her across the room and into another hangar brimming with vehicles. "Okay, she should be here somewhere…" He scanned the room.
Hinata also began looking around even though she didn't know who to look for. Her eyes settled on a red-eyed woman walking towards the pair. She spotted a pair of familiar eyewear dangling from her neck.
"Shades?!"
"Ah, White Eyes of Death! Didn't think I'd see you so soon!" She slapped Hinata on the shoulder. "How're things?"
The Raver observed the reunion in surprise. "You two met before?"
"Yeah, back in Servo. I gave her the equipment to bust out Trench and the gang."
"I see. Well," he turned towards Hinata, "You got all you need now. I gotta split. See ya later!" With that, he disappeared into the subterranean weapons factory.
"So…" the white-eyed bounty hunter wondered where to begin. "What's going on?"
"I'm movin' all these new weapons the Raver's building to our forces." She smiled in triumph. "It helps having the best smuggler in the west transporting sensitive stuff like this without getting caught!"
"Raver told me you were headed towards Hive City."
"Yeah. Our freaky friends there have some new drug. Supposed to make the user real frickin' tough! I'm headed out there as soon as my boys finish packin' all this stuff!" She yelled out the last part of her sentence and the red-eyes packing the new weaponry sped up. "You and I'll head out in a minute. My truck's already prepped to go." She turned to give orders to one of her underling smugglers and returned her attention to Hinata. "Now we're ready! Let's do this thing!"
As the Hyuuga climbed into the passenger seat, a thought crossed her mind. "Shades, is that your real name?"
"Nah," she said as she started up the engine.
"What is it then?"
She gave a sad smile. "Don't know. I got abandoned as a kid and grew up on the streets until I got taken in by the red-eyes."
"Oh… sorry…"
She laughed. "Don't worry about it! Best thing that ever happened to me!" The truck started to climb up a ramp towards the hidden exit on the surface. "You know, I never did catch your name."
"It's Hinata Hyuuga."
"Cool. Nice name." Silence passed between the two women as the truck neared the surface. "You know, it's kinda funny. I mean you bein' here right after saving Trench's hide and just after Uzi left. And now you're headed towards Hive City. You lookin' for Uzi by any chance?"
"Yeah."
"For real?" Shades seemed only slightly surprised. "Mind if I ask why?"
Hinata breathed in deeply. "He left our village in the far east when we were both ten years old. I left to find him as soon as I heard he was exiled."
"Ten years old?" Her voice carried sincere interest in it. "How long ago was that?"
"About fifteen years."
"What?!" The truck jerked as she got over the surprise of the white-eyed woman's answer. "That long?! Seriously?"
"Yeah."
"I see," Shades regained her composure. "What are you gonna do if you find him?"
Hinata hesitated. "I… I don't know." She had never seriously contemplated the subject all these years. It would cross her mind from time to time, to be sure, but she would never reach a determined answer. A part of her mind had accepted long ago that she may never see the blond again, and that seemed to put a permanent damper on her personality. She knew what she felt in her younger years was akin to love, and that she actually did love him all those years ago, but now that boundary was no longer clear to her. Her mood saddened while she thought about it.
"You know," Shades started talking with a previously absent seriousness in her voice. "Uzi's a real nice guy. All the red-eyes know him, and he's pretty popular with the loyalist population. Needless to say, there probably isn't a woman alive who could resist his charm, but he never goes beyond being friendly. I met him once, and I like the guy. I really wouldn't mind spending the rest of my life with him, but I know it ain't gonna happen. It's like he's carrying a burden that he won't let anyone else share." She let a moment of silence pass between her words. "Who knows, maybe an old friend could be what he really needs."
Hinata smiled. Shades was a tough woman, so compassion to her was obviously a difficult emotion to portray, but she was trying. "Thanks, Shades. I needed that."
"No sweat," she replied with her tomboyish tone returning. "So, care for some porn?"
"What?!"
(flashback)
Hinata's search for Naruto had taken a new turn ever since she discovered he joined the ranks of the red-eyes. Not only was it easier to gather confirmed sightings of him, but the frequency of sightings easily doubled. She was hearing rumors about him at least twice a week.
Another aspect that changed with him that she noticed was his power. She began to see more scenes of destruction with Naruto as their cause, and each incident differed from the last.
To be more specific, she saw a change in the destructive force the blond was capable of producing. To make a similar comparison, it was like an explosion versus a blast furnace. Before turning into a red-eyes, Naruto's power was like that of an explosion; sudden, chaotic, and unfocused. Afterwards, though, it was becoming more and more like a blast furnace; compressed and controlled. Compression of such power only made it more intense, but his control of it was slowly becoming more precise, leaving fine lines of destruction.
The Hyuuga girl honestly didn't understand the relationship between Naruto's powers with his becoming a red-eyes. "There has to be a connection," she thought, "But what could it possibly be? I still don't even know where he got that power in the first place!" She was frustrated by the situation at hand, but she never let it get in the way of her search.
She was leaving a bank he had recently robbed with several other red-eyed bandits. She had observed the familiar pattern of evolving destruction on the annihilated vault door, and the security team was more than happy to give her a copy of a picture of Naruto in action with his trademark Uzi in hand.
The girl stared at the recent picture as she strolled through the town with her newest lead on her red-eyed target. She felt happy that he was healthy and not too far ahead of her as well as sadness at his absence and outlaw behavior. "Well, let's just hope I find him before the authorities do," she reassured herself.
Once again, unsure of this coming week's workload. I might be able to knock out a couple of chapters, but keep your expectations low (always a good thing by the way...). See ya on the flip side!
