Chapter 18: Angel
Drowning. Tenten is drowning in a sea of molasses. She screams but hears only the vague buzz of static. No. There is another sound. Like a tendril, unfurling down into the depths. She reaches for it but it eludes her turbid grasp, retreating back into the amaranth lights dancing at the surface. Tenten drags herself after it, clawing herself free of the congealing sludge until she bursts into cognizance with a gasp.
Reality is surreal enough to make her question its truth. Twin obelisks of translucent rose quartz spiral elegantly around each other, forming a tapered double helix several hundred feet tall. They are slender, only just large enough to contain a dark, human-sized blur in each base. She struggles to her feet, stumbling forward far enough to peer past the crystalline glow.
Pale eyes stare back, flat and dead, and blood thrums in her ears as the floor seems to fall away. But no, despite the similarities in the jaw and brow, it is not Neji. He is taller, weathered and older. She knows with a chilling kind of certainty that it is the body of Neji's father and knows what must be trapped – who must be trapped – within the other side.
She scrambles to circumvent the two towers. Is the crystal permeable? Can Neji breathe? Is he still alive? As she rounds the structure, she sees Neji's gaze slide towards her in panic, but it is not for himself. A massive coil of leathery rope slams down over her shoulder and constricts her torso before looping around her legs and wrenching her facedown to the ground.
"And just what did you think you were going to do, little girl?" Orochimaru asks, dragging his words like greased chalk over a too-smooth board. Tenten strains against her living chains, but the bonds tighten with a reptilian hiss until she is left gasping for air.
"Your friend isn't going to die. He is the resonator, the amplifier, that will cripple Konoha's last bloodline limit and bring it to its knees," he smirks, raising a hand. The monument hums to life in response, saturating the air with overflowing light until it reeks of ozone. She sees Neji cry out in muted torment, his cursed seal scorching an angry black welt into his alabaster skin.
"You did this," Tenten snarls, the curtains of confusion falling away as all becomes clear, "You coerced Neji here. That's why he used Kimimaro's body. He knew you were controlling the seal."
"Ah? So what?" Orochimaru drawls, unimpressed. His eyes distort with crazed triumph as he goads, "It worked, didn't it? The fool came alone, abandoned his village and forsook his team to reclaim his honor and now I win."
"He didn't come alone!" Tenten screams out over the shrieking winds that whip her bangs against her face, "I'm still here!"
One last time. One last time she taps into the power of the seal and it surges through her veins, rips through her nerves. Metal spires erupt upwards from her spine, shredding the python holding her fast, and spider slickened fingers into the earth, lifting her to her feet.
"You're making a big mistake, little girl," Orochimaru leers, his tongue rolling out, "You're a thousand years too early to challenge me."
But Tenten is already beyond comprehension, already launching herself at him, her bladed wings slashing through earth and air with equal savagery and equal ease. Orochimaru dances to the side and smashes his shin into her face. She hears a crack, but powers through, her next cut blindly taking his left arm. It is a good scent, rich with iron and copper and she thirsts for more.
Her vision only partially clears as she pursues the blur of white before her. It takes her several delayed moments to realize her left eye has been damaged beyond immediate use, but she can track him through smell alone. Foul. Oily. Rancid. His trail is there and she hunts him down.
A palm strike to her right – hadn't she torn off his arm? – and she feels her eardrum rupture. She catches his hand and tears it free again. Dizziness pounds through her inflamed brain, so she splays out her articulated wings to act as helping legs. She knows which way down is. It's the direction in which her hemorrhaging ocular retches fluid.
The usable half of her vision sees him spring back as his arm regenerates. Hatred boils in her and she rushes forth like a sea of swords, one in each hand and three dozen more on her back. She will rend him to gobbets and stamp them into the earth, burn the earth, salt the earth. Bits of him fly every which way, but he grows like a plague so she keeps cutting. Cut away the disease, tear him to nothing.
She catches him as he retreats, impaling his thigh and jamming the vengeful point of her weapon into the floor. Instantly, another two find their marks, crucifying him in the mud made from his own fluids. She lays him open with one slice and his torso bursts open like an overripe melon, spilling crimson life for her to drink in. One eye goes for revenge, the other for good measure, shoulder, throat, groin, hand.
The smirk remains, and she is about to take it when he becomes one with the muck and melts away.
An impact.
Tenten does not understand. Hadn't she won already? Why is her strength draining away? The berserk rage in her core settles at an alarming rate, replaced by a too-cold feeling of inevitable doom.
Comprehension pierces the fog of her mind like the steel feather through her heart and she falls to her knees.
【[_|[__§__]|_]】
Tenten knows the figures. She's seen them demonstrated in living color often enough, sprays of crimson on a black canvas. Her breaths, labored and bloody, will number fewer than her fingers. They tremble, her hands, as they try to close over the iron that transfixes her.
Her efforts are stymied as Orochimaru's foot grinds her face into the dirt. She grits her teeth against the humiliation, but they chatter from cold and weakness.
Cold. She has never felt so...
Cold. Tenten feels the thrum of Neji's life force within her on her tenth breath, and it is perhaps the only thing keeping her anchored to her shivering body. Faintly, she can hear the Orochimaru's distasteful gloating from somewhere far away. She feels something flaring at her fingertips.
The seal has not abandoned her. Or, rather, relinquished its hold on her. It merely cannot reach her, held off by Neji's frosty prudence and the icy shaft. Her heart is... safe.
No.
She did not come here, fight here, drag herself here, for her own safety.
The roiling emotions spark and a burning aura of power rolls off of her skin, first in wisps and then in crashing cataracts. Orochimaru steps away hastily, but he is no longer important. Tenten understands.
With renewed resolve, her fingers clench around the weapon and revels in the inspiration that filters through the chill mist.
Passion replaces hatred.
Faith replaces bloodlust.
Hope replaces desperation.
A blooming aura of white light permeates her being and the feather comes free of her pulsing heart, molding itself in her hands into a winged spear.
Tenten shoots from the heart.
【[_|[__§__]|_]】
Orochimaru looks surprised.
He has every right to be. His left arm has been disintegrated from the elbow down, where he tried to guard himself. His right lies on the ground, separated from his body by the hole in his chest that has simply erased half his torso. The crystal pillars behind him are in a similar state, each sporting a clean circle of empty air.
He falls, and the structures weep crackling fissures from their new eyes for their creator.
Tenten has barely a moment to smile before the world comes crashing down.
Feedback is welcome.