Hello everyone! n.n First off, I'd like to give a huge hug to Nobukane, ( who's stories you should go read! n.n) for reading over this for me
I apologize for any cheese...and OOC ness... it ended up sounding waaaaaay too fluffy for my liking XD
And yes XD a new character -hides from the tomatoes and rubber chickens being thrown at her-
And guys, I really want to know if this is worth continuing... like, if you guys like it. So, if you enjoyed it at all, please tell me! It's a real help writing when I know that there are people who like reading it:3
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto
And points to anyone ( I'm sure that's all of you XD) who guessed where Zabuza WAS.
Misao groaned, pulling his coat tighter against himself, bracing against the frigid wind, and icy rain. This had not been a good day for him. Of course, July was always his least favourite month of the year, but that was because of today.
He cursed whoever it was who had decided that he would make a good referee for the fourth year's brutal final exam.
No, referee wasn't quite the right word. Because there were no rules, or regulations to enforce. All he did was signal the end of one match, and the beginning of the next. Besides that, all he could do was... observe.
The fifty-one year old sighed, his breath visible before him in the cold. "What the...?" Something had made a soft crunching sound beneath his large foot. He stepped away carefully, examining the thing on the puddle-infested pavement. A sandal. A tiny, tiny sandal. He stooped down, picking it up, and broke away the thin sheet of ice that had formed on it's side. Misao quirked an eyebrow, recognizing it as standard issue footwear for the ninja trainees. Why was there an academy student running around barefoot? More puzzling still, why was there a live academy student running around at all?
The sandal's brother was a few feet away, off to one side of the street, and he could see a discarded, fleecy, mauve sweater farther still, near the entrance to a grimy looking alleyway. He stepped closer, scanning the darkened corner quickly for movement, detecting nothing. But something did stand out as unusual. There was a soft pitter-patter of falling rain, that didn't correspond with the sound of water against the stone of the walls and ground, or against the rusty metal dumpster occupying much of the right hand side.
He took a few sweeping steps into the obscure, dead end corridor, his bright green eyes closing as he sighed, peering behind the garbage bin.
That explained it. The child nestled up between the metal and stone was much to small to be one of the year's expected graduates, who were usually aged eleven to thirteen. This one looked to be about eight, or nine. She was huddled close to herself, deathly pale, with patchwork bits of puffy red skin, blue tinged lips and fingernails, and of waxy grey frostbite beginning on her fingers.
He had heard that some of the trainees liked to visit the village, on this day, and could only assume that this one hadn't made it back. "Froze to death, did you? Poor thing," Somehow, though he knew it was morbid, the fact that her death would have been infinitely more peaceful than the others who had met their end today, seemed almost comforting. Misao knelt down next to her, moving to pick her up, before the rats decided that she would make a good meal. The jonin pulled back, as his hand brushed her cheek. She flinched, and let out what was undoubtedly, though soft, and strained, a breath.
A smile split his face, and he chuckled as he brushed a bit of loose, platinum blond hair from his face. "Still alive? You certainly are full of surprises, little one." He scooped up the dark haired girl, noticing with a frown that her skin felt like ice. "Let's see about getting you somewhere warm, hm?"
Misao grabbed the other sandal, before breaking into a run, heading towards a large building several blocks away. He had to leave the sweater behind, though.
It had frozen to the pavement.
vvvvvvvvv
"No! I'm not exaggerating, honest!"
Kotone groaned, eyes fluttering open and shut again, as bright lights from overhead blinded her momentarily. Where was she? She found that she couldn't really remember what she had been doing for the last long while, either. She coughed weakly, trying to recall a time when she felt worse than she did right now. Her entire body ached, it hurt to open her eyes, it hurt to breath, and it even seemed to hurt to think. Her head felt like a brick. Wost of all, she found that she was absolutely freezing. In that horrible sick way. From the inside out.
After a short moment, she felt a small bit of her strength returning to her, and eyes still closed, felt at the ground beneath her. Soft. And there were soft things over her, as well. And there was something firm, but with give, beneath her pounding head. A bed, she realized. She was in a bed, though not her own.
She turned her head to the side, to avoid the direct glare of the flourescent lighting above, and slid her eyes open. Her vision, and with it her head, swam, but once it had cleared, she could easily see three men standing at the front of the room, conversing heatedly. Two wearing flack Jackets, she established. One chunin, a jonin, and someone with the medical nin's insignea emblazoned on the arm of his pale, cream-coloured, uniform. Her still-clouded mind was able to process this, and assess that she was in Kirigakure's hospital.
It was the chunin who had spoken first, the medical ninja crossing his arms skeptically. "Honestly? You expect me to believe that? He's just a punk kid. All of them? Please, tell me another one."
"He's telling the truth," the jonin confirmed. He seemed to be the youngest of them, perhaps fourteen or fifteen. Had Kotone been fully awake, his impossible blue tint may have alarmed her, but in her weakened state, her mind came up with it's own conclusion.
'He must be as cold as I am right now,' she thought sympathetically.
"Really? Kisame san, you mean that boy...He really...? All of them?"
"Every last one." The boy, who's name was apparently Kisame, assured. "He just walked in, and went completely ballistic."
"He's only nine years old-"
"He's almost ten," Kisame answered disparagingly, flicking at his thumbnail, clearly not impressed.
"But still...That's impossible," the medic nin shook his head. "To have faced off with a hundred students, with a year's more training than himself... And to have slaughtered them all... And His wounds were bad," He pushed his brown hair from his face, sighing. "I mean... He's lost a lot of blood, too. Way too much blood. Technically, he should be dead. I can't understand why he isn't."
"I'll tell you why," The chunin said, smiling hysterical. "The kid's not human, that's why. He's a demon, that's what they're all saying. A freaking demon."
"Humph. I could have done that at his age."
The others looked at Kisame warily, and he shrugged, changing the subject. "What about the other one?"
"They found her lying in some alleyway, and brought her in. Advanced hypothermia, and a really bad case of the flu. I think there's been a bug going around the little twerps. She must have caught it. The flu weakens her to the hypothermia, and the hypothermia feeds the virus. High fever, and lung congestion. Lots of difficulty breathing. Fairly simple stuff. She'd have to have been exposed to that crappy weather outside for hours, though. And here's the weird bit, we're pretty sure she was out looking for him."
Kisame burst into a hearty laughing fit. "Honestly? Wow, how pathetic can you get. Who brought her in?"
"Misao Senpai himself."
"What?" The chunin's eyes widened. "Why is Misao Senpai wasting his time on dumb little runts?"
Kisame snorted. "Hey, be grateful. We're gonna need every kid we can get for the next little while. Even if the entire next year becomes genin, we won't have made up for today's losses. Stupid little bastard certainly did a number on the system, didn't he?" He sighed, almost amused, and chuckled to himself.
"Kirigakure no Kijin, eh? That's quite a title for a brat his age."
There was more hushed muttering, though she couldn't catch any of it, and the men soon took their leave.
The room had become silent, aside from the sounds of her own laboured breathing, and the hum of machines from somewhere behind her, and took her a moment to hear another's ragged gasping over it's steady monotonous drone.
The girl took a painful breath in, the seals the medic-nin had painted around her rib cage to break up the blockage in her lungs tingling with chakra, as she forced herself to turn to the other side, eyes squeezed shut. Somewhere in the back of her mind, the awake portion of her psyche had realised what the men had been talking about.
Kotone knew full well what she would see if she looked, but hesitantly slid one pale blue eye open anyway.
He was glaring at her through one half closed eye, breathing heavily. Bandages covered most of what she could see of his body, and there was a band of them around his forehead, causing his normally spiky hair to stuck out at even stranger angles.
"Zabuza Kun," She breathed, eyes widening sympathetically.
"Don't." His hoarse voice echoed faintly in the otherwise unoccupied area of the hospital. "I don't want, or need, your stupid pity."
"Why?" Kotone blinked weakly, hurt deeply by his exasperated rejection.
"Why what?" He rolled flat onto his back, eyes turning away from her. "Why don't I want you concerning yourself with me? Or why did I kill them?" He chuckled, but with less ferocity than earlier that day. The fiery hatred had died down, leaving a cold, smouldering resentment in it's place. "The answer's the same either way. It means nothing. Not your life, not their lives, not mine. Half of them were going to die anyways. The rest would have followed soon enough. I just sped things along. It's their fault for being beaten by a third year, after all."
"What?" She planted her hands on the mattress beneath her, palm down, and painfully pushed herself to her knees, head spinning as she did.
"The exam, Kotone. It's why we're in twos." He bit his lip, and she could see his wounded fists clenching at the sheets. " They make the partners fight. To the death."
"They have to...?"
"Kill their partner. Hiraku and Shinju... you and me. Doesn't matter to them."
The girl's head slumped slightly, her dark hair, that was down, her pigtails gone, falling around her shoulders. "That's horrible."
"No kidding," he muttered sardonically. "It's funny. You should have seen the way they all looked at me. As though I really was a demon. They were scared. The jonin were afraid of me." He chuckled softly. "It's so backwards. Before, they looked at me like I was nothing. Now they hate me. Fear me. In some ways, I think that's worse. You must hate me too, now, ne?"
She shook her head.
"I don't regret it, you know. If anything... If anything, it felt good."
"I don't hate you." She repeated, eyes half lidded.
"You will. Just you wait. You should see yourself now, you look half dead. Come morning... Once you're awake enough to actually process this... you'll hate me like all the others."
"Never."
"And why's that?" He frowned, eyes narrowed.
"You're my friend." She inclined her head slightly, looking thoroughly dazed. "You promised me we'd always be friends." Her arms gave out on her, and she fell back pathetically, struggling back to a sitting position, mewing quietly in pain.
"Damn it, Kotone. That kind of weak minded thinking's going to get you killed."
The nine year old was silent for a long while, examining the tube that was running from a bad hanging on the wall to her supposedly demonic partner's wrist. She supposed that it was perhaps a alimentary thing, or perhaps a painkiller of some sort. Or perhaps the medics were keeping him sedated for safety reasons.
A shiver passed down her spine, and her hands slid up her arms, over the pink fabric of the pajamas the hospital had dressed her in, trying to warm herself. "Zabuza Kun?"
"What is it now?"
"I'm cold."
The heavily bandaged boy started, before he regained his icy composure. "You have a temperature, idiot. Of course you feel cold."
"Please?"
"Sure, fine, whatever." He retorted, rolling his eyes, his expression changing as she tumbled out of bed, hitting the ground with a dreary thud. "Hey! Don't actually- you're going to hurt yourself,"
He could hear her scuffling against the tile floor, before slowly getting to her feet, a few staggering paces bringing her over beside him. "You're insane," He appraised. "I was just kidding." Her face fell, and he groaned. "But since you went through all that trouble-"
She smiled, though sleepily, and clambered over the metal sides of his hospital bed, collapsing limply beside him. He hissed, the movement had jarred him, causing a flash of blinding pain from his wounds. "Oh damn it, be careful!" He snapped, from between clenched teeth.
She made a small apologetic whimper, as she nestled herself beside him more carefully, laying her head against his shoulder, resting only slightly on his less damaged arm.
"They weren't kidding," He exhaled noisily as her forehead rested against his cheek. "You are burning up. No wonder you're so out of it right now."
She didn't answer, but tried to cuddle closer, in that way he found so annoyingly cute, to find that her efforts were in vain. For once, his warmth did nothing to relieve her chill, and she simply lay next to him, shivering pathetically, drifting off to sleep.
His trapped hand began to stroke her blue-black hair absently, as he found that sleep was evading him. "They're making me a genin as soon as I'm well enough to go back to training." He told the sleeping academy student, though she couldn't hear. "And I heard someone say that they're putting you with another set of partners. So...I won't be seeing you anymore, Kotone. I guess this is it, then."
Zabuza sighed, laying his head down, and listening to the little kunoichi beside him breathe peacefully as she dreamt, as he had countless times before. But somehow, this time was different.
Because this time, it didn't make him feel any better.
A huge thank you to everyone reading this:D And especially to everyone who's reviewed. I love you guys! I really hope you guys are enjoying this n.n;; please review, and have an awesome day.