AN: WARNING FOO!!!! There is some explicit material in this chappie that some may find gruesome and a little unpleasant. I realize that I haven't exactly been all that forth coming with other stories and their warnings so I am going to try an fix that from now on, lol. Do enjoy anyway!
Sakura sighed quietly to herself as she roamed aimlessly around the village. She was on break until her team was allowed on another mission, and believed it to be extremely boring, as most nin tend to do. Yet she was kind of grateful for the respite from Naruto's constant loud mouth and overly excitable behavior. She loved Naruto—like a brother, nothing else—and everything but it was like hanging out with a five year old who just got done chugging about five energy drinks. She flipped her pink hair out of her eyes and looked in on the Yamanaka family's flower shop with polite curiosity. Her best friend/rival stood at the register and Sakura considered buying flowers for...whom? She used to buy them for Sasuke all the time—even when there wasn't a real reason to—but hadn't for the past three years, since he had left, because he had abandoned his village for a revenge that would only end in pain and—most likely—death. She felt tears push through her eyes and threaten to spill right here in front of everyone on the street. Seeing him again was heartbreaking; an obvious reminder that Naruto and herself no longer meant anything to him. She remembered the old days, back before Sasuke had left Naruto and her behind with a childish fondness that made her feel hollow.
She walked on.
The green-eyed kunoichi wandered aimlessly for hours, browsing every shop but never buying anything. Her eyes looked over the novelties offered by the people in her village but she wasn't really seeing them, too far gone in her own thoughts that only Sakura would understand: her mind was jumping topics that connected in a way she could see and no one else. Her first day at the ninja academy; falling in love with Sasuke; kicking Naruto's ass for kissing Sasuke; beating Kakashi with Naruto in that convoluted way of his.
And suddenly her eyes did focus on three little plushies, a soft pink snail, a purple and red-eyed snake, and an orange and red frog stood in a line in front of a wrinkled old woman who looked blind but kindly.
Me, Sasuke, and Naruto...Sakura thought dully. Her eyes traced further to see a fourth plushie that had always been there—the woman's stall had been around since Sakura's early childhood—but she had never really seen the thing before. It was a strange little plushie of a sleek black cat holding up a mirror in its black paws. Sai? Sakura picked up the four plushies and bought them on impulse. She wasn't sure what had come over her but she had wanted those plushies fervently, so completely that she had not been able to resist.
The woman gently took her hand, smiling at her with a wise old face. "You forgot one." She pointed a gnarled finger weakly at a fifth plushie that Sakura just couldn't identify with any of her friends.
"Ah, no, I only want these four." Sakura smiled, even though the woman's eyes were covered in a thick film of cataract.
And the woman continued to smile as she picked up a plushie, one that had been hidden behind the frog. The woman's hand shook as she grasped Sakura and put the plushie in her hand, "You forgot this one, she is so important, much like the others, you just don't know that yet."
Sakura looked at the dark feathered eagle, its eyes a bright yellow, and in its talons was an object that could only be described as a metal spike that gleamed in the waning light from the sun. "But I don't..."
"Have it for free, then," the woman smiled, "You wished to give the frog to Naruto, the cat to Sai, and the snake to Sasuke, why not give the eagle to the princess?"
Sakura gave the woman a strange, fearful look: how had she known what Sakura intended to do with the little things now clutched desperately in her fists?
"Do not fear, child, just go, your destiny awaits you."
Saika glanced around nervously, the one called Yamato had joined them shortly after she had agreed to tell them everything that she knew, but she felt overwhelmed by their sharp eyes. Mostly because of Yamato, he had a scary face... "Ano...Yamato-san?" both Yamato and Kakashi had not really liked the way she addressed them in a way that she was their equal since she looked about fourteen, and that was pushing it, but neither had mentioned this, "Could you stop staring at me like that?"
Naruto glanced at Yamato and sweat dropped as he rubbed the back of his head, "Yeah, he can be pretty scary sometimes."
Yamato turned his gaze to Naruto and shined a light beneath his face, his black eyes accented by the shadows and his facial features took on a gaunt look that made Naruto jumped back and profusely apologize for saying something bad about him. The brown haired man laughed heartily and switched the light off as Naruto tentatively walked back to the circle they had all unconsciously made.
"Oi! Naruto, Sai-kun!" a high pitched voice suddenly yelled from the forest line. All eyes turned as Sakura emerged and walked over slowly, the animals clutched in her hands.
"Another one?" Saika looked annoyed and Sakura stuck her nose into the air at the sound of the green haired girl's tone. Sakura refused to admit that her flashing yellow eyes were creeping her out slightly.
"And who the hell are you?"
Both girls glared fervently at each other and none of the boys butted in, they were too afraid of Sakura's anger. "Who I am is none of your concern, whench." Saika snarled in response and Naruto prayed that Sakura wouldn't get mad and kill another link to Sasuke.
But she was already pissed.
"Why you little...!" she hissed as chakra gathered in her clenched fist (the one without plushies), the group of boys ran back while Saika stood her ground. "Take this!" cried Sakura and let Saika have it.
Naruto closed his eyes, not wanting to see what horrid damage would be done to that lovely face as the sound of skin slapping against flesh rang out across the clearing like a wave.
Have you ever wondered what would happen when an unstoppable force hits an unmovable object? An explosion occurrs, apparently: knocking the group of ninja back with force beyond what should be possible, creating a crater into the ground that Saika and Sakura were both standing in. the only reason why Sakura hadn't gone flying with the other ninja was because Saika had a very firm grasp on her fist.
"W-what the...?" Sakura was surprised, unable to believe what had just happened. The guys sprang to their feet, sprinting to the crater to see what the hell had happened.
Saika stood there, a slender white arm now exposed from her cloak of steel, her hand had caught Sakura's fist like it was nothing. Her eyes were flashing with light and excitement, even though her tone oozed boredom. "Was that it?" she snorted and released her hand, flinging the apendage at Sakura like it was just an annoying object that had barely inconvenienced her. Saika turned to the group of ninja watching with open mouths. "You are afraid of..." the rest of her sentence would never be heard as Sakura's furry let her fist fly again, crashing into Saika's exposed cheek without any warning.
The girl—obviously slight in body considering her height and arm thickness—went flying across the better half of the field before she flipped on her hands and landed on her feet in a crouch, her face pointed at the ground.
"What about that?!" Sakura yelled at the girl and puffed out her chest.
The moment of pride vanished as everyone felt the sudden shift in air pressure caused by an extreme killing intent.
To be able to make us feel it from way over there...incredible. Kakashi looked at his ex-pupil with wonder, How did you manage to find a girl like this, Naruto?
Saika stood slowly from her crouch, her head still not lifting, giving off the killer intent that put pressure on even the jounin. Naruto felt his heart flutter into his throat and it stuck there as the pressure from Saika's chakra began to grow to alarming levels. He had never felt this kind of intense chakra before. And to be wasting it confidently like she was...
"Saika-san...?" Naruto whispered just as her blazing yellow eyes looked up and locked onto Sakura with the glint of insanity inside of their depths. "Kuso!" the blonde cried as he rushed to Sakura's side, calling out to Saika not hurt Sakura-chan just as Saika disappeared and landed right in front of Sakura, her fist not even an inch from her face with so much chakra built up behind it that it made it hard for the group, ten yards away, to breathe. A gust of wind buffeted the group an entire second later from the displacement Saika had caused by moving so quickly. And they realized that no one would have been able to stop Saika even if they had jumped in front of Sakura to block. There would only be death to anyone who got hit with that much chakra compacted into such a small fist. It was amazing that Saika's hand didn't rip apart from all the pressure and turmoil there.
Saika breathed deeply, the insanity blazing in her eyes only moments before lifting slowly as Naruto approached, "Saika-san...?"
"Is she important to you or something?" Naruto's blue eyes widened in shock: Saika had heard his cry even in that frenzied state?
"Uh, yeah, she is a precious person to me." And then the final threat was removed as Saika let the chakra built up in her fist dissipate.
Even if a ninja were able to get that much chakra compacted to that small of a space there would be absolutely no way for said ninja to simply let it go, they would have to smash something with it or risk literally tearing their body apart. Who is this girl? Kakashi watched the dangerous teen carefully.
"I almost could not stop..." Saika sighed before she looked over at Naruto and dropped to her knees, the glint in her yellow eyes suddenly gone and her tone changing entirely. "Gomen, Naruto-danna." And Naruto frowned at the name.
"Don't call me that..." he groaned as the girl flinched like he had slapped and she looked at the ground with utter shame burning her face. "Please, could you just please tell me all you know about Orochimaru?"
"She knows...?" Sakura glanced at the green haired girl in shock. In Saika's rush to kill Sakura for making a fool of her, the girl's hood had fallen off of her head and now all of her gorgeously long hair flowed down her back and brushed the ground as she kneeled.
Naruto glanced nervously at Saika; she was strong, no doubt about that. "Yeah, she does. We just keep getting interrupted every time she begins to tell me about it." Naruto looked back at the others, "Will anyone else be dropping by?"
"Probably not," Sai mumbled quietly and Kakashi nodded his head in agreement. The silver haired man had walked over to Naruto and the girl that called him master earlier in an attempt to get close enough to banish her from Konoha and had stopped when he learned that she knew things about Orochimaru that may help them catch their missing-nin but, just now, he wasn't sure he would be able to banish her by force even if he used his Sharingan on her.
"Good..." Saika sighed, the nervous feeling coming back full force as she prepared to tell her most precious secret to her master and four complete strangers that her master seemed to trust a lot. "I do not really know how to start..."
"Well, have you met Orochimaru in person?"
Her eyes narrowed at Yamato's question, "Hai..." she didn't like answering questions that hadn't come from her master but she kept reminding herself to be respectful to those important to her aforementioned master. An image of the man who had taught her how to be a proper servant popped into her head but she let it go quickly.
There was no reason to think about them anymore.
"Then start by telling up how you met him, what happened then, and how you got away...if that's what you did."
Saika nodded her head yes but did not like his questioning tone. "When I was younger I lived in a village that I cannot remember, my parents were poor, they already had four kids and they could not possibly afford to take care of a fifth. Orochimaru was sill young in those days, still looking for strong subjects to test on. He told me that he had heard of them, of their strange ability with steal," Saika held up her hand and some of her cloak broke down, turning into little particles of steel that danced around a little before returning to where they belonged. "He had approached my father alone, in a back alley as he was crying with depression. Orochimaru offered to buy me, telling my father were to leave me when I was born and where the money would be. He said he stood on their leaky roof and listened to my parents argue for hours, my mother crying in the end with me kicking roughly in her belly." Saika looked down, clenching and unclenching her fists angrily. It sickened her to no end to know that her parents had been so weak. "In the end Orochimaru heard my father yell at mother: 'Because of your damn bloodline we have to hide and live like criminals so we are not killed. This could be our only chance leave and never come back.' My mother had agreed after that and Orochimaru found me a month later, wrapped in a worn blanket and tucked away while I was screaming at the top of my lungs for being so cold. Orochimaru took me to his very first base which had to be abandoned when we were found by Jiraiya." Saika looked up after the anger passed from her body and noticed that Sakura and Naruto were both very outraged. Saika coughed for a moment, her throat dry and scratchy after that monologue; she had never talked so much before in her life and they still wanted more...
"How could they...?" Naruto clenched his fists at his sides and began to vibrate with anger.
"It honestly does not matter what they did because they all died about three months later. In a way they saved my life by selling me to that monster." Saika walked up to Naruto and rubbed his arm with slender fingers, "Do not worry about my past or what others have done. It no longer makes me angry, or makes me feel anything by now. It is simply another event in my history and that is all it will ever be since I cannot very well change it.
"I will continue now: the very first memories I have are fuzzy but they center on me being in a lab made entirely of wood. Everything was made of wood; my restraints, the table I was strapped to, anything I could see was all freshly made. However, the blades they used, they were tempered glass, which they used to dissect me. They never dared to have any metal on them at any time; I could not sense it at all in those days.
"They were all very afraid of me. I could remember that most of all, I could smell it on them, fear pouring from them like blood from an opened artery. It flooded my senses and gave me the strength to stay alive because I had regressed into an almost animalistic level. Unfortunately, their fear and my pain sent me into madness; I do not think I have truly escaped from it even after all this time.
"Sometimes they would take me out of the lab though, to 'give me fresh air'. In reality, they were trying to test my limits on how much metal I could manipulate at any one time. I was usually heavily sedated though so I did not try to kill them as I did these things so I also never reached my full potential.
"My living conditions got better with time. They gave me enough food to live, let me sleep in a nice bed, and they even let me play with children in the village closest to the base in the village of Wind in my last two years. Nevertheless, it did not make up for what they did to me in those labs.
"I knew we changed bases because sometimes the tiles above me would have a different pattern; they changed in cycles for so long, I think it was every couple of weeks. They would drug me into unconsciousness before daring to move me... At the time, I would never do anything to harm Orochimaru, but that did mean that I would not kill every last one of those 'doctors'."
Saika's face saddened intensely, "Then I met Kyuui."
"Kyuui?" Naruto questioned instantly when she did not continue.
"Hai, she was a girl from the village Hidden in the Mist. She was training to be a shinobi and was my closest friend. She confided in me that she did not really want to be a shinobi; that her parents were forcing her to because she was their only child and they would not let Kyuui 'disgrace their family by being a wimp'. We played together every time Orochimaru took me to the base close to that village. I became so attached that I would actually ask to go to that base whenever I was not too drugged to think.
"Orochimaru had liked that I had gotten a new friend, one I really cared about, because it meant that they could test my abilities without sedating me into retardation. I would do basically anything they wanted in order to see Kyuui.
"It was foolish to get so close to someone who would have to go through the graduation test of that place." At the confused look from Naruto, Saika elaborated, "They pit you against someone equal to your level, often more than not they were best friends, but you fought to the death no matter what. I did not know it when I was with her, but she should have warned me...she should have realized that it was inevitable instead of pretending it did not exist." Saika paused, her eyes misting over for a moment, feeling like that awkward, abused child once more.
"Kyuui had this charming quality about her; she would never hurt anyone, no matter what they may have done to her or those she cared about. Once, when I was lucky enough to be visiting, she asked if I would be able to see her graduation. She had no idea the impact it would have on my sanity..." Saika took a steadying breath and sat down, the sound of steel mesh sliding as she did so was something Naruto had never heard before. Usually he could not hear her make a sound when moving but he supposed there were a lot of things he didn't know about her. Naruto followed her onto the ground, his eyes locked on her, never once wavering.
"She lost, didn't she?" Sakura crouched down next to the green haired girl and looked at her with genuine concern. Saika allowed a momentary touch on her shoulder before she twitched it off.
Saika nodded her head slowly, her hair covering her enigmatic eyes, "Orochimaru was standing right next to me, his hand on my shoulder and I remember thinking of him as though he were my father. I had never known a different life; I never knew there could be something different, not really. I just can't get it out of my head that he knew it was going to happen, knew what the graduation test would be and yet, he had said nothing to prepare me.
"When Kyuui refused to fight her best friend in the academy, he killed her: a singular hit to the jugular and we all had to watch her suffocate. I was numb at first, not really knowing if it what had happened was true or if it was some kind of sick joke. I kept waiting for Kyuui to stand up, to smile at me and tell me she was fine as though I had knocked her onto the ground while playing. Until Orochimaru sighed, 'I suppose that is that.' I could not believe it at first; I did not want to know what he meant. And all I can remember is screaming until my vocals would not work anymore."
Her pretty face twisted with disgust, "I remember that I used to love him, since he was always so 'nice' to me…"
She shook her head and the images it brought forth. "The matches were over by the time I was done screaming: the people there had not even been fazed by my sorrow, they were so used to mothers doing the same or worse. That is what I think messed me up the most; the fact that I was literally the only person in her entire village who gave a damn that she was dead. I turned to Orochimaru, who had long since stopped listening to my screams and asked him if I could kill these people. 'Kukuku, if you think you can.' I had shot him a look of anger and determination before walking away from him, losing myself in the crowds of cheering parents. I looked carefully at each of the faces laughing, smiling, relief shinning in their soon-to-be-dead eyes.
"I felt nothing for them.
"I walked slowly up to the little boy who had so heartlessly killed Kyuui, smiling a cracked smile at the boy's father who was patting his son on the back in congratulations. The little boy had no right to be so happy; I would take it away from him, happily.
"A little voice deep inside my heart wished for Orochimaru to look so proudly at me, to be honored that I had killed all these people. They were already dead to me.
"I remember my vision swimming, my heart hammering so hard in my chest that I could feel it. My hands were shaking with power, my chakra flooding the area to prepare for decimation. All I could think about was how this little boy had taken away my only friend.
"I found a new level of power in that massacre. One that I am afraid to use even now; it is so unpredictable, and I always black out...I usually do not know if I am attacking friend or foe." Saika slid her hands out from under her cloak and stared at them, scars an angry red covered most of the flesh that the group hadn't noticed before. "These are from that day, they are usually barely visible but I look at them whenever I loose control and I calm down almost instantly." Saika smirked at Sakura, "That is why I was able to keep from killing you, Naruto-kun's order helped too...
"I had sensed no metal around me, at the time, that was not covered with the blood of an innocent child and I did not want to use that metal. It was tainted and I wanted what killed him, and the others around him, to be pure." Saika pulled out a rusty kunai from within her cloak and showed it to the group; identifying it as the one she used first, the only kunai she hadn't changed. "I had held my arms out, as if to hug the little brat in congratulations and he turned to me. 'What the hell do you want, you little freak?'
"I was always so small for my age, because I looked like a child rather than the adolescent that I was; I was always made fun off. I remember feeling the iron in my blood begin to change, to become sharp clumps that cut through the skin of my hands and lower arms, hovering in front of me in the air.
"I do not remember how I removed the blood from my veins without permanently damaging myself, I have never been able to do it again, no matter how hard I might try, nor how ever hard Orochimaru might have pushed me.
"I remember shoving the kunai at the boy, along with a shower of the iron spikes, but my memory goes fuzzy, everything turns solid black and the next thing I remember is a hand on my shoulder and for a moment I had thought Kyuui was not dead, that the horrid images flooding my brain were not real. And then I saw with my own eyes the mutilated bodies of my victims, the entire village, dead eyes staring at me with fear, pain, agony. I could not breathe for a long moment. I had used the iron from their blood, their skin torn heavily, their limbs removed from their bodies, blood coated my entire form. I stunk of it; I stunk of their ironless blood..." Saika closed her eyes, her eyes flickering behind the sockets with the traumatic memory, "The boy that had killed Kyuui was still alive, his bottom half shredded to pieces unrecognizable as human. His upper half was staring at me, gurgling blood, trying to fill his lungs up with his own fluids so he would be able to escape the pain that he was in, that I had put him in."
Saika whipped at her cheek, "Orochimaru had patted my shoulder, giving me that smile that I had wanted from him, 'Well done, otome. You have made me very proud.' He walked away from me, waiting for me to follow before we got into his ornamental cart and rode away from the village."
AN: That took so long! I'm sorry for the wait, and I am very aware that this is pretty much a filler chappie, for that I am sorry, but it had to be done... I hope you enjoyed, and I should have the next chappie up soon...if you are lucky, lol