Disclaimer: trust me, if ownage was even barely within my grasp, it wouldn't be suited for younger viewers…
Oh my goodness, it's been forever since I last updated D:
DemonKittyAngel: oddly enough, while I was reading the new reviews and came across yours I was eating ramen, I just had to mention that :3
Chapter 8: What a Catch
"Things change, they always have and always will. And that's exactly what terrifies me Gaara that I'll be helpless against it, that eventually I'll be whisked away with it, just another nameless face that history couldn't bother to remember. I'll just fade away into the background, and no one will even recall how I laughed or cried, that I'll become just a wisp of memory, like dust that just gets swept under the carpet."
Gaara had no words that could possibly counter those, so he settled for his usual stoic silence, merely sitting next to the trembling body beside him. His eyes stayed fixed on the desert sunset when he finally spoke.
"You will never be a mere memory to me."
When blood flecked haphazardly across his cheeks he didn't so much as blink, merely let the sand crawl up his face and absorb it into its grainy depths. The silence of the woods was only punctuated with the labored breathing of their captive, whose blood muddled mouth spouted obscenities and screams for mercy alike. Neither ninja was moved. Neji continued onward, the steely edge of his kunai dashing into the tender skin of the man's thigh, copious amounts of blood gurgling forth. Gaara idly noted that he must have hit the man's femoral artery from the amount of blood gushing out in a steady, unending stream. He'd most likely die from the blood loss in a little amount of time, time which they didn't have. That gave him a thought.
"Hit the femoral vein* next." Neji paused slightly at the first words that had been spoken between them since they'd arrived in the clearing, before giving a consenting nod. The aristocratic blonde's high-pitched scream was incredibly satisfying.
"Now, let's try this again shall we? Where are you keeping him?"
The blonde didn't answer; head lolling backward and forward, blood dripping from his bitten lips. Neji's pale, lilac eyes narrowed into slits before his palm came crashing down with seemingly brutal force only to just slow down mere inches from the thigh, lightly tapping once more. A soundless scream ripped out of the blonde's throat, bound hands scraping and struggling against the sandy binds. In response the sand merely tightened its grip, grains chaffing against the wrists and ankles of their victim.
A flying glob of blood was spit onto the ground at their feet. Gaara's expression didn't change as he walked closer, feeling the sand tighten itself around the man's limbs.
"Tell us, Lucius Malfoy, or we shall not be so kind next time." The extreme widening of his eyes at the use of his name would have been comical if the situation had been different. The silence continued and Gaara felt the last of his patience dissolve. His hand snapped forward, clenching into a tight fist. Instantly, the sand responded, tightening around and crushing the man's leg, the grinding crunch of bones just barely rising over his screams. It continued for several seconds before the sand melted off of the now useless limb, revealing his mangled leg, a sharp shard of bone protruding from the devastated skin.
His eyes fluttered with the beginnings of unconsciousness, and Neji's hand clenched in his hair, jerking his head backwards. A shuriken pressed dangerously close to his jugular.
Finally, he opened his mouth, teeth flecked with blood, answering in a voice raspy from screaming.
"A safe house, we kept him in a safe house….but he was taken from us in a raid by the Order several weeks ago." Gaara's eyes were steady as he directed the sand towards the other leg, tightening it marginally.
"Continue."
The blonde gulped audibly, before ploughing on. "They are our enemies, we have no idea how they found out about him but all we do know is that they have him now, what they intend to now that he in their possession none of us know, or if they even have any idea what he is or where he's from." Neji's eyes narrowed cruelly.
"Then we no longer have any use for you."
As they left the clearing, Neji shifted closer to Gaara, his hand coming to rest on the other's shoulder. They shared a look before jumping back into the trees, flitting soundlessly over branches for hours before the rays of daylight lit through the leaves. The larger concentration of brightness in front of them alerted them to the fact that they were nearing the end of the forest.
Coming to a stop only just inside the edges of the forest, Neji's eyes surged to life, scanning up ahead of them. "There is only open space ahead of us, no signs of life that I can detect, but…," he trailed off, his brows furrowing in confusion. Gaara silently regarded him in question.
"There's a strange rock formation ahead of us….its imbued with layers and layers of their strange chakra and…..." he stopped again, a glimmer of hope shining in his pupil-less eyes.
"I can feel Naruto's chakra signature, he was here."
He wondered if Akumaru felt this way all the time.
As he rolled around in a thick, mossy patch of grass, he thought that, yes, he most certainly did. An amused bark-like laugh sounded behind him, and he rolled over, meeting gazes with the lean tawny colored wolf who sat patiently in between two gigantic trees that shot so high into the sky he could just barely make out the leafy tops. Rising to his paws, he galloped over, prancing proudly as he fluffed his tails in the others face. Playful nips made him yelp, causing him to hurriedly whip his tails out of reach.
Lupin trotted after him, his yellow, amber flecked eyes filled with mirth as he watched the younger clamber around the forest in obvious delight.
Naruto barked as he caught sight of a squirrel, barreling towards it and snapping at its fluffy little tail. It gave a squeak of alarm before dashing up the nearest tree. He released a dry huffing noise that could only be described as a wolf version of chuckling. Lupin came to stand next to him, nodding his nose up ahead over a sloping hill that was shrouded in a heavy blanket of mist.
Naruto yelped in agreement, bounding forward without a moment's hesitation, soon disappearing into a blanket of white. Lupin hastened after him.
Naruto didn't possibly think that turning into what literally amounted to an overgrown fur ball every time there was a full moon could possibly be so enjoyable. As he all but frolicked through the mist, unknowingly leaving Lupin far behind, he slowed to a halt.
A terribly familiar scent reached his nose.
Severus Snape growled faintly as he bent down, his back creaking in disagreement the further down he went. The smell of mushrooms suffocated the air around him, and carefully he plucked them from the ground, his gloved hands masterfully moving them from the ground to his collections bag. The Death-Cap mushroom, while incredibly useful in the fabricating of potions was, as its name suggested, incredibly poisonous and had to be handled with the utmost care. As he reached down to grab another he froze. His hand twitched imperceptibly, and his wand slid from the special holster on his arm and into his hand. The low growl of the creature rang in his ears, and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as he recognized it.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he turned, and came face to face with the most unpleasant creature he'd ever had the displeasure of seeing in a textbook, and now, unfortunately, in person.
Graphorn's are creatures that are usually found in more mountainous areas of Europe, and what one was doing in the Forbidden Forest Snape would never know, but all he did know was at the moment he had a very good chance of dying a most painful and messy death. His wand felt utterly useless in his hand, because damn them, they had skin tougher than a dragon's making most spells ineffective, and he briefly entertained the thought of throwing it like a stick and hoping the creature was dumb enough to chase after it like a common dog.
As it stalked ever closer he concluded that, no, that definitely wouldn't work.
The smell flooded his nose, sharp, metallic, and fresh.
Blood.
He ran faster, his paws slapping the ground with more force than he knew he was even capable of, unsettling dirt and rocks alike. His tails lashed wildly behind him, knocking away drooping pieces foliage and plants as he went. The scent of blood became stronger as he neared, and he felt a sick sense of satisfaction at the sight that greeted him as he broke through the trees.
A hooked nose, long black hair, and a lanky, sallow body laid sprawled out against the trunk of one of the thick trees. The man he didn't know as Severus Snape shakily raised his wand at his sudden appearance, his already dilated eyes widening as they looked upon him. He cursed loudly, and scrambled further up the tree, entangling himself in the thick, above-ground roots that rose from the soil, forming a cage-like, woody barrier between them.
The smell of blood wafted from him thickly, emanating from a part of his black sleeve that was darker than the rest of his robes. But his wasn't the only source of blood. An acrid, cloying scent drifted from the other side of the clearing and Naruto's nose scrunched in distaste at the stench. It came from a grey-ish purple lump of…..well something that had been alive, but at this point was mostly mush that radiated an awful smell of burnt flesh and mushrooms and had two wickedly curved horns atop the mess where its head might have once resided. He wrinkled his nose at it.
He turned back to the black haired man, his hackles rising accordingly, and took one threatening step forward t-
CRASH.
The trees erupted behind him, sending him crashing and sliding along the ground. He landed near the tree that housed his greasy haired former captor, and dizzily got to his feet to face the…thing. Whatever the hell it was, it was one of the ugliest things he'd ever seen, and guessing from the same deadly looking horns that adorned its head, it wasn't all to happy with the demise of its mushy friend. Together, wolf and potions professor turned to look at each other, each one conveying the same thought.
Oh shit.
With an ear shattering howl, the creature charged forward, large thumbed limbs leaving huge depressions into the ground wherever it stepped. Snape sprang from his make-shift fort and ran along behind the tree, his steps awkward and limping. Naruto followed after him, teeth catching on the billowing material of his robes with viscous teeth and a hate-filled growl, he kneeled down before the other, silently offering escape. Snape stared at the wolf for all of three seconds before sliding on and taking two firm handfuls of fur.
Naruto ran harder than he'd ever run in his short time as a wolf, and already he could feel exhaustion creeping in, stretching from the edges of his claws to the tips of his tails. With a snarl he quickened his pace, limbs extending even farther in an all out sprint, the sounds of trees crashing behind them spurring him on. The mist seemed to thicken the farther he went, and soon he couldn't even see past his own nose. Whispered words met his heightened ears, and the distinct wash of magic moved around him. The unexpected spell almost had him coming to a complete stop in paranoia that the other had done something until he fully deciphered the words.
"Point me."
Instantly, there were sharp insistent tugs in his fur, steering him to the side, a compact thicket of trees to the left of them. He skidded sharply towards it, his passenger clenching painfully onto his fur, knees digging hard into his sides. They burst through the trees, dramatically slipping and sliding right into a stream. A very, very cold stream.
Naruto yelped in the sudden shock of cold, and he could hear his rider utter the same at the unpleasant surprise. Suddenly Snape lunged forward, his hand clamping over Naruto's huffing maw. The rampaging of their pursuer rushed by them, making the trees and ground around them shudder. They waited there with bated breath, neither daring to move lest they disturb the water and give away their positions. So there they stood, man and wolf-hybrid, in waist high freezing water, with twin looks of strain on their very faces, for what seemed like hours, until the creatures noises eventually melted away.
When they finally moved apart, they seemed to come to a standstill, neither making any move to get out of the stream. Cautiously, Snape moved forward, his hand extending forward until it came into contact with the top of the other's head. Shakily, he bent down until they were eye level, the water surging up to his chest, and bowed their heads together.
He hesitated; tongue slipping out to wet his suddenly chapped lips. He opened his mouth to speak when-
The early morning rays of light broke through gaps in the trees, lighting along the stream, its water shimmering and reflecting the light onto its surface and onto the Potions Master and a suddenly very naked blonde with whisker tattoos.
Ahhhh I know, it's terribly short, especially after such a long time without updating, but don't worry, I'm already fast working on Ch. 9, and it's looking like it'll be a long one, so hopefully that will make up for this one's rather abysmal length.
Anyway, reviews warrant cookies, so be sure to do so. -Cherry