We have yet to find out if Hina-chan's dead or not… I'm still twitching, just at the thought of NaruSaku… I am going to rip Kishi's throat out if it happens. ESPECIALLY after why he said he created Hina-chan in the first place! RAWR.
Disclaimer: My story line. Not my characters.
Dedication: To good, heavy metal (Rammstein), and to alternative punk (Hot Hot Heat). …Wtf, that's a weird mix…
---
I stared out of the stuffy car's window in the night. It was lightless, starless, moonless, and I smiled in grim satisfaction.
Tonight was no night to be out, not even if you were a star.
There was a pounding in my entire body, tension that was wound and coiled like a snake about to strike. I didn't like it. I only got this feeling when something was going to go wrong. Someone, someone was going to die tonight.
I just hoped it wasn't someone I cared about, as heartless as that sounds. I refuse to think that someone else I love is going to die. Someone is going to die tonight.
And I'd much prefer it to be someone I don't know.
But, if someone I do know has to die tonight, it had damn well better be me dying-isn't-something-we-can-share-share-share.
I needed something to pound through me, the same way the tension was pounding through me. I needed music, something, anything, just to get rid of this bloody tension.
"Sasuke, turn up the volume, right now, please." I whispered into the still, cool inside of the car.
His fingers flicked to the volume control, and turned it up loud. Heavy metal in a different, harsh language ripped through the speakers, and the eerie notes dripped along my spin. I shivered and started slightly swaying to it.
Tenten, behind me, was whispering along to the lyrics. She'd obviously heard it before, and loved it as much as I was quickly beginning to.
The edgy riffs of the guitar, quick-slow-quick-slow, made me shiver. It was the perfect music for tonight. I shuddered again, and Sasuke's cold fingers closed around mine, and they locked there.
The tension in my body increased, the coils of the snake in my stomach gripping my innards tighter. What had Silver said? Be wary of snakes? Why snakes?
"Princess?" Sasuke murmured softly to me, and even over the pounding music, I heard him.
"Just drive, Sasuke. Just drive," I whispered back, and he jerked his head in affirmation.
And so we drove, the night speeding past us, and I went back to staring out at the street lights that whizzed past my face. The light flashed over my face over-and-over-and-over-and-over and I licked my dry, almost cracked, lips.
Here we go again.
We drove and drove, for what felt like days, but had really only been half an hour. It was almost panic-inducing, watching the city slide past us at such a rate.
But soon, we were slowing.
And we got out at a hotel. At least, that's where Shikamaru's directions led us, and we stepped out into the night with his scribbled "Good luck," to cheer us on.
Not very much, if you actually think about it, but it was the best we had.
None of us were touching each other. We had to portray that we knew nothing, cared nothing, for each other. If we didn't, it might give the leech, Kabuto (hmm, I need to pick a nickname for him…), a slight upper hand.
And in this world, a slight upper hand gives you the advantage, and right now, I was in no mood to have the advantage turned against me. All I wanted was my parents. That's it. That's all I wanted.
I dropped my voice to Kakashi's cold monotone. "Come on. Let's go. We don't have time to waste."
And then I walked into the building, the others following me. I had no wish for this to be slow and torturous. I wanted it over. I wanted it over, now.
I pushed the revolving door open, distaste staining the inside of my mouth when I saw the luxurious inside of the place. It was all white-threaded-black marble and black-threaded-white granite and onyx and ebony and ivory.
It made me sick.
I walked straight up to the receptionist, a dark-haired woman with almost-black eyes. But they weren't black. They were just a deep, deep red, the colour of ancient wine, and when she saw me, she smiled slowly, her eyes hooded, and her fangs curving lowly over her lower lip.
"You must be the ones the Mistress sent, to take care of Father, correct?"
I smiled darkly at her. "Yes, I think we just might be."
"Highest floor, room twelve-eleven. If you need anything else, you can ask me. I'm Charlotte."
I sent her a sharp nod, and then I walked with the others to the elevator, and we slipped in. It was twelve floors to the top, and we waited as it rose, silently silently-silently-so-not-to-wake-those-that-ought-not-be-woken.
Room twelve-eighteen, twelve-thirteen, twelve-twelve, they past by in a blur as the six of us raced down the hall. And there we were, in front of a white door, with eleven-eleven printed on it, neatly, in pretty cursive script.
I was reminded of Hinata's writing from the first day we met, only a few weeks ago, and I thought that I had come a long way in those two weeks.
I cast a look at the others. Hinata's jaw was set, and her fingers were lightly touching Naruto's palm. I couldn't see Naruto's eyes, but I knew that he, too, was ready to fight for the death of this… thing. Tenten had that calm, cold look that one acquires right before one is about to do something unpleasant. Neji, on the other hand, seemed quite comfortable.
I saved looking at Sasuke for last. I always do.
His gaze was slow and steady, and it held my own forever.
I raised my right fist, and I pounded on the door.
---
It was opened, almost instantly (right before my second knock) by a tall-ish young man. He had white hair, tied up in a low ponytail, black eyes tinged with a deep red, and he was wearing glasses. There was a sardonic smirk on his lips.
I hated him instantly.
It was like my entire being was repulsed by being in his mere presence. My stomach tried to heave on me, but I controlled it. His aura was unnaturally dark, and saturated with evil. I'd never felt anything like it.
He wasn't just a leech. He was something else, something else entirely.
And I suddenly knew who was going to die tonight. It was going to be me. The way he was looking at me, like I was a piece of meat, told me everything I needed to know. He'd been waiting for this.
And so had I.
But I smiled at him, just as I knew Hinata and Tenten were, slow and sugar-sweet and thick and dark, like molasses trickling down a freezing glass.
"Hello there, we've come to collect what you ended up taking from us."
He smiled back, and I almost shivered as I saw the inch-long fangs in his mouth. 'Snake', I thought, and I suddenly knew what Silver had meant. He had wanted me to watch out for this man.
Gay best friend, indeed.
"Ah," he murmured, his voice like velvet "So you've come. I wasn't expecting Kendra to send anyone so soon… but it'll have to do. Won't you children come in?"
Sasuke, beside me, stiffened as Kabuto spoke to us as though we were three years old, but he didn't move until Kabuto had turned his back, and showed us in. When the white-haired leech wasn't looking, I shoved my elbow into Sasuke ribs as hard as I could.
I knew it was going to hurt him, but it was necessary. I didn't want him fucking this up.
And I'd already seen the phial that Kendra had been talking about. It hung around Kabuto's neck, a tiny little thing, no bigger in length then the longest links of my pinkie finger put together, and very, very slender.
Whatever was in it, it couldn't have been more then a half a mouthful, so whatever it was, it was valuable. It was probably also a very deadly poison.
Like snake venom.
I shuddered again, when Kabuto's fingers brushed against my arm. Accidentally or not, I whipped my arm back as close to my body as I could get it, and Sasuke growled softly in his throat.
Kabuto smirked, and I realized he was purposefully pushing Sasuke's buttons.
What the hell…?
"Come," he said, "Sit for a while. I'm sure you're all very tired and very thirsty." He motioned to large, round table sitting in the center of the lavishly-furnished kitchen, and then he turned his back on us, and went and sat down.
Either he was very stupid, or very arrogant, or both, to be turning his back on us. I think it was mixture of both, but I didn't reach for my knives, or my guns, and I knew the others were as frozen as I was. There was something very unnerving about the slimy bastard… Something in the way he moved, the way he spoke. And we all felt it, enough that we knew that angering him at this point was probably not the best idea we'd ever had.
He turned around, and eyed us all. "I thought I offered you to sit…"
So we sat.
He smiled at us, and he continued to look at me and Hinata and Tenten like we were a very sumptuous dinner, to be consumed at leisure.
I think I hated him more then I hated Silver, right at that moment. And I'd never hated anyone more then I hated Silver.
"So, may I ask why you're all here? I wasn't really expecting any guests, tonight."
Naruto answered, his voice low and very unlike himself. "Like she said, we're here to collect."
Kabuto gave him an innocent look. "What could I possibly have that you want?"
Tenten smiled, and I watched hatred flicker behind her eyes. So she thought he was as slimy as I did. Well, there was his nickname, anyways. Slimy might work pretty damn well. When she spoke, her voice held vicious tones to it. "Oh, I think you very well know. A couple of people, here and there, no one notices, but six at once?"
Hinata grabbed her sentence, and continued it. "And hunters, of all people? Did you think they'd not notice?"
He stared straight at her, his black-red-black eyes boring into her lavender ones, and I honestly think it was the most violent staring contest I'd ever seen in my life. And I was proud of Hinata. She did not look away, the way I would have (and that's because I fail at staring contests. Sigh).
"I've taken no one of importance."
"Really?" I asked, my voice full of deadly amusement. "Really, really?"
"Really, really," he answered me, and I was reminded of mine and Sasuke's conversation from yesterday. I knew Sasuke was reminded of it, too, because the skin around his eyes went white, and he clenched his jaw.
"I've taken nothing that did not already belong to me."
"Then what about Kakashi Hatake, his wife, and the other hunters that have recently disappeared? If you don't have them, then who does?" Sasuke asked him, his voice deadly and soft and silk-smooth.
Kabuto continued to give him the I'm-innocent-don't-blame-me look, and Sasuke simply glared at him coldly. Wow, either Sasuke really doesn't like him, or there is some seriously bad blood between Kaeleo and this slimeball…
"Ah," Kabuto whispered, his eyes flicking back and forth over Sasuke face. "So that's where you've been hiding, Kaeleo. They said you were dead, but I knew you wouldn't die."
Sasuke's eyes glazed over for a fraction of a second, and it was Kaeleo who spoke next. "You fairly murdered me," the noble hissed.
"Ah, I know. It was such an unforgettable sight, watching you lie there, on the ground. So… beautiful. I take it for granted you made a quick pact with this boy to save your own life?"
"I had to."
"And I also take it for granted that Kendra was angry with you?"
Kaeleo paused to consider these words. "Not at me, perhaps. At you, very definitely. At the boy, even more so. But when Kendra finally gets her way, and she will, it will be very painful for the both of us."
"I still hate you, you know."
"For what, saving that girl?"
Kabuto's voice grated on a hiss. "She killed my Orochimaru-sama! She ought to have died."
"She was just a child!" Kaeleo let a snarl etch itself onto his lips, and I was struck at how different he and Sasuke were. Kaeleo's snarl was a flaring of nostrils, and a grating of bared teeth. Sasuke's snarl was a low, guttural growl, but he, too, tended to bare his teeth at whatever he was snarling at.
But Orochimaru… why did that name strike a chord in my memory. It came to me in a gasp of cold realization. Anko.
I had to break into the conversation. "Where is she?!"
They both looked at me, startled. They'd obviously forgotten there was anyone else in the room, in the middle of their stupid little fight.
I glowered at the both of them. "Where is my mother?! If you don't give her back to me this instant, I will make your life very painful." By the end of the second sentence, my voice had ripped through two octaves, and was a high, grating sound that I instantly hated.
Kabuto smiled at me. "Oh, so you're the pretty little Anko's daughter… That's what she screamed about, you know, when she was sleeping, that I better not go near her daughter."
I lost control of my five-year-old then, right about the time when he was in the middle of speaking, and by the time he finished, I was standing behind him, a sharp knife poised at his jugular in my right hand, and a cocked gun at the bas of his skull in my left. I had moved fast right then, faster then I'd ever moved in my life, but it didn't mean anything to me right at that point. It meant nothing at all, not if my parents were dead.
"You will take me to her." I murmured in his ear, my voice lullaby-sweet. He didn't move, but from the looks on the other's faces, he hadn't even moved a muscle.
"And if you kill me, do you really think you'll find them?"
"I know they're in this building. If I have to rip it to shreds, stone by stone, to find them, I will."
He sighed theatrically. "Well, you must let me get up, if you wish to see your family ever again, little Hatake."
"Fine."
I pulled back, but I kept my gun trained on his skull. One was dying tonight, and it wouldn't be someone I cared about. It wouldn't be. I wouldn't let it be.
He pointed to a door to the left of the kitchen, but he didn't move, not until I prodded him in the side with the barrel of the gun. "I said take me to her."
He sighed again, still as poised as before, but he led the way. The others, who were still quiet, seemed suddenly nervous. "What if's" ran through my mind, and my pulse raced in my chest and at my wrist, and I bit back a squeak of terror.
I am not scared, I told myself over and over, but it didn't really take, and part of me was shaking in something like anticipation, and something like horror at the unknown, at the same time.
He led us into a dark room, and flicked on the single light in the place, even thought it wasn't really necessary.
I could see my parents from here.
Horror screamed through me as I saw them floating, suspended, in thick, glowing green liquid. I screamed and screamed and screamed, until I felt Sasuke clap a hand over my mouth.
Kabuto was grinning, in a sick sort of way, and I completely lost control again.
Knives clashed as I aimed for his jugular, my guns forgotten. This was personal, now, and even though shooting him would have been more efficient, it wasn't the revenge I wanted, the revenge I needed. And the others, they knew it too.
I danced around him, slamming quick, random stabs in his general direction. I laughed when I got him, once in the shoulder, and once in the stomach. Neither wound was fatal, but they would be causing him extreme pain for a very long time, and that was what I wanted.
I slammed the hilt of one of the knives into his face, and he howled in pain as I heard his nose break, and his glasses crashed on the floor. While he was preoccupied with trying to find them, and I grasped him by the neck, and held him there, pinned to the floor.
"I will kill you for this."
He laughed breathlessly, and I pressed down on his windpipe harder. I was going to kill him.
"Oh, little one, what good luck you have…"
I snarled, and pulled the phial off his neck with a sharp tug. Kendra wanted it, and it seemed important, because Kabuto's eyes narrowed as I pulled it away from him. He couldn't even move, with the way I had him pinned, and I was taking something important away from him.
Then Sasuke pulled me off him, and held me while he got up, rubbing his throat, and staring at all of us tersely.
"I'm letting you live, because I think Kendra will be less merciful then Sakura is. Get out of my sight, Kabuto." Sasuke said, his voice low, and I knew that it was Sasuke talking, not Kaeleo.
Kabuto laughed, his breathing ragged as he fled the room.
But I'd already forgotten about him, as I rushed to the glass tanks that held my parents in something like suspended animation.
"How do we get them out?" I demanded.
"That slime-ball knew."
I looked away, shamefaced. He might have even told us, but I lost control and fucked up. Damnit, I hate it when I lose my cool…
Hinata was staring at it, her gaze inquisitive. "Sakura, break the glass."
"Are you sure?!"
"Break. It." Her voice was sure, and I believed her. I pulled out my gun, and pointed it, wincingly, and the bottom of the tank that Anko was in.
And then I pulled the trigger.
---
The glass cracked as soon as the bullet impacted. Spider web-thin cracks ran along the entire surface of the glass, but it had only broken through in one place, and already, the thick green liquid was gushing out.
As it drained slowly, it gently deposited Anko at the bottom on the tank, as gentle as a mother putting her baby to rest in a crib. I shot the glass again, and watched the spider web cracks shatter, and the glass fell all around my mother in a glittering shower.
But even as it fell, it should have shredded her to pieces. It didn't touch her at all. Not a piece of glass even touched where the green liquid had previously been.
Hinata turned and looked at Naruto. "Naruto-kun, could you please pick her up, and get her out of there? We need to get them to Tsunade as fast as we possibly can. I'm worried about them…"
Her forehead creased as she looked at the rest of us. "Well? Get them out of there!!!"
And so we did.
My heart was breaking, of course, but I shoved it off into a corner, to be dealt with later on in life. Right now, my parents lives hung in the balance, and all that mattered was time.
We didn't know what the hell the gunk that Kabuto had kept them in was, and so we didn't know long they had to live. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Hinata collecting samples of the guck in a couple of phials that mysteriously appeared.
That reminded me.
I looked down at the little phial in my hand.
It was a glittering, shiny, sparkly white that hurt my eyes, even in the dimly lit room. Kendra wanted it. I didn't want it. It scared me. There was power pulsing through this thing, and I hated it. It was weird.
I looked over at the other, and I saw that they had all the adults out of the green-guck-glass-cylinders, and that they were looking at me.
I sighed, grabbed Anko's lifeless arm, hoisted it over my shoulder, and dragged her from the room, panic speeding my every step.
---
The leech at the reception desk wasn't there, and so the six of us pulled the six missing adults from the place without anyone knowing we were ever there.
I shook, as I clipped the seatbelt around Anko's waist. I wrapped my arms around her in a hug, and listened for her heartbeat.
It was there, very faint and fluttering like a baby bird, but it was there. I nearly cried, I was so happy that she wasn't dead. But I knew that we didn't have long. They needed a hospital, and fast.
So we wouldn't be sleeping tonight.
As I got into the passenger seat next to Sasuke, I looked at him, and I started to cry silently.
It was the first time that night that I'd had the time to feel.
Before, it had just been mind-numbing fury. Now there was time to feel everything, not just the fury, but the horror, and the sadness, and the fear.
But I was thankful for one thing. No one that I care about died tonight.
For once, I was happy that I'd been wrong. For once, I was so happy that I'd been wrong, I was crying with it.
But then, I was crying with a lot of things, fear and fury and hatred and horror included.
I sighed as Sasuke fired up the engine.
"Hurry…" I whispered to him, and he nodded, and we smoothly pulled away from the curb.