Luvs2smooch: Yay! Read on.
The Free and the Hated
It happened. I felt it, it was coming, I just needed to give it a moment…it was coming…
Then the time was right.
I jerked up and slammed my palm into the swirling dust and stones at my feet and shouted, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!", then leaped back and up. Twisted in mid air. One fluid motion, took me 1.5 seconds, I was still airborne.
Then, something shiny. It flickered below me, something metal shooting past, to where I had been moments before. Then, a bang. An overgrown toad, fat and squat with amber skin and a heavily tailored robe, materialized out of a foggy white cloud and fell a foot or two to the ground, landing on the fire with a bouncy blump sound. The light was gone in seconds, totally extinguished. The thrown kunai, meant for a little spot just between my shoulder blades, bounced harmlessly off the creature's jiggling buttocks. Everything was black, the dancing shadows gone as pure night fell into existence.
Which was exactly what I wanted.
After all, it was classic. A battle around the campfire, they were damn sure that I would just come out and engage them. They needed the light, but figured that I did as well, so they left it alight and assumed I would too. The fact, though, was that my vision was not limited to sunlit days and flickering fires as theirs were.
In layman's terms, they needed the fire's light. And I didn't.
My regular vision faded with the light, then flickered back, only replaced by the monotone, reddish bleach that I knew resided only in my own eyes. I could now see the sweat dripping down their brows, individual beads glowing bright. I could see the shock, the mingled stress and surprise wiping the pleasant smiles from their stupid faces. Hell, I could see the ants crawling on the trees 500 yards behind them. Thanks to that furry friend I kept, restrained deep in my mental recesses, I could see better without the sun than I ever could with.
All this ran through my mind as I landed on my feet, facing my opponents. Four or five of them, in identical clothes, forming a tidy semi-circle. I smiled. They were awestruck.
I leaned down and hit all floors. The dest clouded around me as I slapped the ground once, then twice. Threw my eyes around, savoring their stunned faces, just before a shining band across each forehead stole my attention. Headbands. Sound Village headbands. Before I knew what I was doing, an anger not entirely my own surged with ravage speed through my veins, and I exploded at the foe closest to me, charging, on hands and feet, head first.
I caught him hard in the stomach. Felt his soft gut compress around the shape of my skull and heard him gasping as the air was forced from his lungs. I flipped and landed on my feet again as he was thrown backwards, hard, into a tree. I heard it shake, heard leaves fluttering down from the old limbs, invisible to anyone but me.
I paused for a beat, felt my heart pulsating with adrenaline. I stole a glane to my left. The ninja standing there was still out of sorts, and I did no more than point at him. Within milliseconds a blubbery, pinkish tongue shot at him ith a wet schlurp, from out of my field of vision. It struck him, wrapping around his body before he had a chance to resist. His lack of reflexes had finished him. The fat tongue swung up briefly, then down, then up again, hard, flinging the man high into the air. His scream gradually died as he disappeared into the gleaming stars.
Then, a noise. From somewhere to my left. The stuttering babble of a man too stunned to run or even speak coherently. I whipped my head around. Smiled. Another Sound ninja, standing out against the wild forest wall like a match flame. I charged him, yelling. Vaguely, though, I heard someone else shouting something, just behind me…shouting something familiar…
I realized what was happening a moment later when I was blown back by a wave of heat and a massive flash as the man was engulfed in a blazing fireball. He screamed for a moment, then collapsed to the ground as the flames slowly extinguished themselves. Sasuke's conscious, I thought, and not a moment too soon. I pivoted around on a heel, but was disappointed again. Sakura had the last enemy wrapped up in a headlock. He was bent over, gasping. Veins stood out on his neck and her arms, and I could see she wasn't going to let go. The battle was over. Not that it had been much of a battle. Just a warm-up, really, although for what I knew not.
oo00oo
A loud bang from behind me, then another flash. My toad was gone, I knew, and Sasuke had relit the squashed firewood. I smiled to myself. To be expected.
I glanced about in the woods around me, using the last remnants of my night vision to discern if more opponents were near. I saw nothing, and as the red faded to the orange glow of firelight, I turned back to Sakura and her victim. Waltzed slowly, arrogantly, to the man she had captured. When I was in front of him, I gazed about lazily, as though he were the last thing I cared about. Then I bent at the waist, down to his level, and asked him a simple question, into his face:
"Orochimaru?" His face tightened and his heavy breathing dissipated at the name. He slowly turned his face up, to look at me. I could see the painfully puzzled expression in his wide eyes and quivering chin. I repeated myself:
"Is it Orochimaru?"
"N-no…the chief…we were sent on—on—" He cut off. I slapped him across the face, hard.
"On what? Spit it out." He stared at me for a moment, incredulous, stunned.
"Reconnaissance…" He cut off again, and whirled his head around, as if he expected to be reprimanded for this vital revelation of information at any moment. I laughed.
"I'm no fool. Do not annoy me with your silly fibs. Your village and leader have been inactive for years, and now you wish to tell me that you captured high-level mission information on your own?" Sure, the mission wasn't exactly under high-level security, but he didn't know that. Such a tale would only further whatever insecurities he had about the information.
"I--"
"So who gave you the information?"
"Am I supposed to--"
"It was Orochimaru, wasn't it?"
"What makes you--"
"Say it!"
He paused. Whipped his head around again, then leaned towards me as much as a man in a headlock can, and whispered, tentatively, his voice shaking.
"How did you know?"
I was silent for a moment as his eyes burned holes in my head. I straightened up and smiled at him.
"I didn't."
There was a small whupp as my hand struck the back of his neck, then a pained gasp and a thump as he fell limp to the rocky terrain below. There was not a noise for several minutes more, not until a man came hurtling back down and smacked the ground with a light crunch. Then silence prevailed.
Luvs2smooch: Well?