Hello and welcome :D

Sadly, this is the last chapter D'X

I feel so sad about ending this…dammit, I can't even describe how weird it feels to not be thinking about what will be happening in the next chapter -_- this story will always be the most special, since it was the first one I uploaded…I think I should stop with all the sentimental bullshit now…

And to all my special readers and reviewers…this story would have been nothing without you guys! Thank you so much for all the love and feedback you've given, and the time you've all taken to read this :D I really appreciate everything you've done X3

I've started brainstorming the sequel, so hopefully we won't have to wait long for it to be uploaded :D I say 'we' because I can be quite prone to writer's block at the most inappropriate times :/

But it will be up soon! Please, if you've enjoyed this story, read the next one :3 think of it as this story's illegitimate child or something like that…LOL XD but really, it's like a continuation of this, just following the story of a different set of characters :3

Midnightheart XxX – the time for wondering is over! :D

**Chapter twenty-four**

It had been four weeks now. Four weeks since Shannon had vanished into thin air. Shikamaru hadn't gotten more than three hours of sleep during those four weeks, and it was starting to show. Dark rings had formed under his lackluster eyes, his movements were sluggish, and his normally unequally bright intellect was considerably dulled by fatigue.

He had been searching day after day, night after night, for any sign of where Shannon could have been taken. The only thing he knew was that she had been kidnapped by a highly organized group of criminals – that much was apparent from the fact that they had used heavily-dosed sleeping darts on Kiba and managed to kill six highly-trained ANBU without so much as a scuffle.

The others were also starting to show the signs of exhaustion. Scouting teams had been sent out by the Hokage nearly every day to scour the forest for any clues to the kidnapper's and Shannon's whereabouts. Teams had even been sent as far out as the border of the Land of Waves. But still, no sign of them.

Ashley and Josephine were emotional wrecks. After all they had been through with Shannon back in their home universe, this was worse than a physical blow to them. They had wanted to go with every scouting team to help look for Shannon, but Tsunade wouldn't have it. The last thing she needed was something to happen to the two civilians.

She had actually had to resort to physically restraining the two when search teams went out on patrol. Ashley and Josephine tended to get quite…violent when it came to Shannon's well-being.

Shikamaru sighed loudly and ran a hand over his face, trying to rid himself of the constant tiredness that plagued his mind. He slumped back on his couch. He had been ordered to go home and get some rest by the head of one of the ANBU search teams, but he didn't see how he could when Shannon was still somewhere out there, in the clutches of some unknown evil probably doing unspeakable things to her.

His blood started to boil at the thought of the danger she might be in. Shikamaru forced himself to his feet, determined to go out with the next patrol and search for her again. He wouldn't rest until he found her and had her back in his arms again. His legs shook unsteadily and his knees buckled, sending Shikamaru crashing to the floor. The fatigue was getting too much – he could barely move.

A defeated sob managed to work its way out of his sore throat. He hung his head, tears gathering in his eyes. His shoulders shook.

They had to find her. Soon. He wasn't sure if he could hold on much longer.

…

Four weeks. Shannon had been cramped and chained up in this pitch-black cell for four weeks. She was pissed. More than pissed. She was furious. She knew that her captors were keeping her in the dark on purpose. They knew how uncomfortable it made her. She knew they had had an informant in Konoha. That's how they had known when she and the others had arrived back. That's how they knew of her fear of the dark. They had told her that much. They were trying to break her; make her give in so they could use her and her powers for their own sinister intentions.

But she wouldn't give in, not to the likes of them.

After four weeks kept in the dark, with only brief breaks of light when she was taken out of her room to be questioned, she had managed to eradicate her fear of the dark. The blackness didn't faze her anymore. If anything, it comforted her. The darkness meant she didn't have to see the faces of her tormentors.

She suppressed a shiver of rage when she thought about the people holding her hostage. They called themselves the Demons of Fire. Shannon snorted in disdain. What did they know of demons?

These thugs were boy-scouts compared to demons.

After the first week of being kept here against her will, and trying to keep her bad side in check, Shannon had finally given in and had let her alter-ego take over.

That's why the dark didn't faze her anymore. She knew there was nothing in it to be scared of.

But they used other tactics to get to her. They tried to break her down psychologically. When she had first let her alter-ego take over, Shannon had lashed out and killed about four of their members before they could restrain her.

They tried to make her feel remorse for what she had done; tried to make her let the guilt of taking those lives eat her alive until there was nothing left and they could mold her mind as they saw fit. Shannon just tuned their pathetic voices out of her head, listening to her own conviction instead.

Remorse for what? You people have done everything in the world to me.

You spit in my face, smack me in the mouth and throw me in solitary confinement for nothing. What do you think's going to happen when I get out of here?

And she would get out of here. Mark her words, she would. And today was the day.

Shannon heard the heavy thud of footsteps coming down the corridor outside of her cell, getting louder with every footfall. She guessed it was time for her routine questioning. She smirked in the dark. Perfect.

She heard a key turning in the lock. Her eyes snapped open. They shone a deep blood red, literally glowing in the darkness. The door was thrown open, and a rectangle of bright light was thrown over Shannon's form as she sat sprawled on the floor of her cell. Her hands were chained to a hook above her head, limiting her movement as she leaned back against the dirty cement wall. Her hair was once again dirty and matted, and the semblance of a prison uniform they had forced her into was ragged and torn from her numerous beatings.

Though, as much as they tried, they couldn't stop her shadows once she decided to let them loose. Bloodstains covered the tattered brown material, most of them not her own.

Shannon blinked rapidly, trying to get her eyes to adjust to the bright light of the whitewashed corridor outside. A single shadow stood silhouetted against the stark whiteness, a pair of handcuffs dangling from his grip.

"Ready for more punishment, maggot?" he sneered as he hauled her to her feet.

Shannon didn't even dignify the Fire member with an answer as he unchained her wrists from the wall and savagely slapped the handcuffs on in their place. She was roughly shoved out into the corridor and pushed in front of the man as he propelled her towards the interrogation room. Shannon was well acquainted with the route to the room – she had been there enough times to find her way there and back in her sleep.

The corridors of the facility were whitewashed and slippery, a stark cleanliness that contrasted sharply with the state of her own cell. Not that she cared much. She would be leaving this place soon enough. It had taken her these past four weeks to figure out a perfect escape plan, and now she was ready to use it.

Without a word, the man pulled her to a stop outside a different interrogation room. He opened the solid steel door and pushed her inside, slamming the door shut again. Shannon stumbled slightly, but regained her footing, shooting a venomous glare at the door behind her.

She turned her attention to the room she was in. She had never been brought to this one before. It was just as white and clean as the other, but the difference this time was that there was someone else in the room. That she had never experience before.

The other prisoner was also bound in handcuffs, standing against the wall opposite the door. He had short brown hair, and a Mist headband slung diagonally over his forehead. Dirty white wrappings covered the lower half of his face, and he watched her with suspicious brown eyes. Shannon noted that he too seemed to have been beaten by the Fire, much like herself. He had a black eye and what looked like a nasty cut on his left cheek.

Shannon, with some surprise, recognized him as the infamous Zabuza Momochi, Demon of the Mist. What he was doing here, she had no clue. Maybe they Demons of Fire didn't like competition, she thought with a dark chuckle.

"What's so funny, kid?" he growled, narrowing his eyes.

"Oh, nothing," Shannon replied, sniggering as she shook her head. "Just a funny thought I had."

"You shouldn't be laughing at a time like this," Zabuza scoffed. "You do know what they're gonna do to us, don't you?"

Shannon smirked at him. "Oh, I do. But I don't intend to stick around for it."

"And how do you intend getting out of here?" Zabuza asked incredulously, astounded by her confidence. "These are chakra blocking cuffs, remember?"

Shannon let out a laugh so dark that even Zabuza got the chills. She cast a demonic look at the door, smirking wildly. "These retards forget that I don't use chakra."

Before the speechless Mist shinobi could query her lack of chakra, Shannon produced a shadow tendril from her wrist and neatly sliced through the metal cuffs. They clattered to the floor and Shannon rubbed her chafed wrists, wincing slightly. They may not have affected her shadow abilities, but they still hurt like a bitch.

Shannon raised her eyes from her hands to meet Zabuza's inquiring gaze. She snorted, not in the mood for explaining anything to him. She regarded him silently for a moment before making her way towards him. She saw his shoulders tense apprehensively, and she laughed.

"You look pretty interesting," she scoffed. "Might as well take you along for the ride."

Shannon stopped several feet away from the wary missing nin. His shoulders relaxed slightly when he saw she wasn't making any further advances, but his guard was up again just as quickly when a shadow tendril shot out from Shannon's hands and neatly sliced his handcuffs off in a single shot.

Shannon smirked at his shocked expression and turned to face the door. She knew each of the interrogation rooms were under surveillance and Fire members would be flooding the room any minute to subdue them. She flexed her fingers in anticipation. She had been itching to hand these assholes their asses for a long time.

"You might want to get ready to bust some heads," she said over her shoulder to her companion as she heard rapid footsteps outside.

The door was suddenly bust open and a whole troop of men surged into the room, not looking too impressed with Shannon's earlier stunt. She smirked, rolling her shoulders. She had been waiting for this. Her plan was coming together rather nicely.

The first man came at her from the side, but she blocked his punch and swiftly countered with one of her own, sending him spinning back into his team mates. Two more aimed simultaneous blows at her head and stomach. She sidestepped both of them and dropped low, swinging her foot out in a roundhouse kick parallel with the floor. Both her attackers, plus some other suckers who had been unlucky enough to be on the receiving end of her attack, tumbled to the ground. Before any of them could move, she snapped three of their necks with harsh kicks to the head.

Behind her, Shannon could hear Zabuza taking on a few men himself, and she smiled. It was paying off having another person to help take these idiots down.

While she was distracted, someone took the opportunity to knock a swift uppercut to her temple, sending Shannon spinning into a wall. Before she could even move, the man had her pinned. He twisted her left arm painfully up her back, threatening to dislocate her shoulder.

"D'you enjoy murdering people, you sick little bitch?" he hissed into her ear, smacking her head forcefully into the whitewashed wall. Shannon growled, gritting her teeth. This asshole was really starting to get on her nerves. "Huh? Do ya? How many have you murdered now?"

Shannon's snarl morphed into another sadistic smirk as she replied in a deadly sweet voice.

"Believe me - if I started murdering people, there'd be none of you left."

Before the Fire member cold reply, Shannon's shadows burst forth from her back, skewering him through the midsection. Her smirk widened when she heard his last gurgling breath wrenched from his throat. But her shadows didn't stop. They continued on their destructive path, impaling everyone in their way. The rest of the sadistic bastards in the room, the dumb idiots who thought they could run in the corridors…everyone they could find.

In a matter of seconds, the screaming was finished.

Shannon retracted her shadows. The man that had pinned her to the wall fell to the ground, lifeless. She stretched her sore shoulder, pushing herself off the wall. Shannon looked around the once clean room. It was now bathed in bright red blood and littered with the bodies of the people who had dared rip her away from her family and comrades back in Konoha.

Her eyes eventually found Zabuza, standing motionless in the corner of the room. Shannon laughed at the expression on his face. He looked so shocked it was funny. Like he hadn't done his fair share of killing in the past. She supposed he just wasn't used to the…brutality of her methods.

Shannon cleared her throat, bringing Zabuza back to the proverbial world of the living.

"Come on," she motioned to the open doorway, stepping over a few mangled corpses as she made her way out of the room. "There's no use in staying here."

Zabuza followed. Shannon could feel his probing gaze on her back as she picked her way over the bodies in the corridor.

"How the hell did you do that?" he queried after a few moments. "I've never seen a jutsu like that before."

"That's because it's not a jutsu," Shannon chuckled. "It's more like a…kekkei genkai, but without chakra."

"A kekkei genkai, huh?" Zabuza mused thoughtfully.

Shannon looked over her shoulder at him as they approached the exit to the facility. They smirked at each other.

"Hey kid, I could use someone like you."

Shannon snorted as they reached the door. "I've got other duties, sorry to break it to you." She paused. "But you could always come with me to Konoha. I'm sure you'd be able to find someone there to help you out."

"I might just take you up on that," the missing nin replied with a smirk as he followed the younger girl out into the daylight.

The two of them disappeared into the thick line of trees, making their way back to the Village Hidden in the Leaves. For Shannon, it was like going home again.

She would be seeing her mother and Ashley soon, and Lee and the others would be there too. And she would finally be able to be with Shikamaru again. It had been torture to be apart from him for so long.

Shannon smiled genuinely for the first time in a month. Yup, it was definitely like going home again.

Once again, thanks so much to everyone who took the time to make this story a part of their lives :) it means a lot to me :3

Until next time!

Believe in Fairy Tales