Ayame's P.o.V.
Orochimaru. That damned snake is staring me down with sick, malicious eyes. He's such a goddamn sadist. I see the smirk tugging at- the corners of his lips as he runs his tongue across them. I want to kill him, I've never wanted anything more in my entire life. I want to sink my teeth into his throat and dig my claws into his chest and gouge out his eyes. But I can't move. I'm frozen in place and all I can do is watch as he picks something up from the ground. I can't see what it is.
"Have you learned your manners yet, dear?" Orochimaru teases. I growl at him like the animal I truly am, but I say:
"Go to hell, you monster!" Orochimaru chuckle at me.
"Tsk, tsk," he mock-scolds. "Am I truly a monster?" He pretends to sound hurt. Now, I can see what he has in his hands. It's someone's limp, motionless body. No, not just someone's. It's Sasuke. I gasp. "I'll show you what a monster really is."
"NO!" I scream, but it's too late.
Orochimaru sunk his teeth into Sauske's pale neck. I can hear Sasuke groaning in pain, gurgling something out, but I can't hear him clearly. His blood is spraying all over the place and it even splashes onto my cheek. The warm, crimson fluid rolls down my skin painfully slowly and I watch in terror as Sasuke bleeds out before my very eyes, his face contorted in pain.
"And now," Ororchimaru says in a deep, evil voice as he wipes the dripping blood off of his chin. "It's your turn." He lunges at me. I scream, knowing I'll have the same fate as Sasuke, but my vision ripples away and I forget everything.
. . .
My eyes opened slowly, the artificial lights high above my head were blurry. I blinked until my eyesight focused, revealing that I was inside a building. I realised I was under a blanket and my head was being cradled by a pillow. I moved to get the covers off of me, but I found that my arms were throbbing with soreness. I bit back a groan of pain as my muscles cramped up. I tried to move my legs, but those were also failing me. I coughed once.
"Hey!" I called. I used my abdominal muscles to pull myself into a sitting up position, which was a lot harder than it sounded. When I was erect, I discovered I was alone in the room.
I was laying on a bed, it resembled something of a hospital bed, so I assumed I was in an infirmary. I looked around at the white walls and the white floor tiles and the white cabinets- the only colour in the room was me, with my violet top that had one short sleeve and one long one. I looked down at my purple clothes and saw a splash of red that wasn't there before. When the coppery scent filled my nose, I knew it was blood. But whose was it? I didn't feel like I was bleeding anywhere.
Why was I in here, then, if the blood wasn't mine? I didn't remember much from the previous night, but I guessed we had made it inside safely. But where was my team? Why was I all alone in this Arctic white room? I felt fine aside from the soreness and the fatigue. I wanted to get out of that room, without a doubt. I wanted to find my team and figure out what happened last night.
Ignoring all the waves of anguish, I swung my legs around the edge of the bed. I slid down until my feet found the ground they were searching for and planted them firmly on it. Cautiously, I put all my weight on both of my legs. Much to my surprise, I managed to balance myself fine. The next step was trying to walk forward. I just put one foot in front of the other and it worked. I walked to the door and slid it open, peeking out into the hall before moving out. I leaned against the wall as I went down the hallway, not a single life form in sight. Until I heard an all-too-familiar voice.
"Yo, Ayame!" I turned around and saw none other than Inuzuka Kiba, with his faithful companion Akamaru zipped up in his jacket, jogging to catch up with me. I frowned, but stopped anyway, resting my back on the cool wall. "You're up and about already, huh?" Akamaru's white-furred head was poking out of the top of Kiba's jacket, panting with a smile. I raised an eyebrow.
"Where am I?" I asked, as if Kiba had never spoken. "Where is my team?" I was only a little mad at him for coming onto me back then, but I really did try to forget it. The dog whisperer rubbed the back of his head.
"You really don't remember?" He asked. I shook my head, wincing a little. "Here, let me take you to them," Kiba offered, extending a hand out to me. I didn't even look at his hand as I said:
"Thanks. Start talking." Kiba furrowed his eyebrows and revoked his hand. He gestured for me to follow him and began to explain.
"You guys got here last night, you and Sasuke were both passed out. Naruto and one of his clones were carrying you guys away by the time me, Hinata, and Shino got to you all. Sakura was freaking out about something, but I didn't catch what it was." We rounded a corner that led to another corridor with a large opening of light at the end. "All I know for a fact is that you were taken to that one room and Sasuke was hauled off to the other."
"How many other teams are here?" I asked, absorbing the information I just recieved.
"Yours, mine, and that freaky team from Suna with that red-headed guy." I hesitated. Gaara Temari, and Kankuro are here? Already? "And, because you guys got here in the knick of time, Anko allowed you guys to stay in the infirmary to rest. Though, they didn't perform any medic ninjutsu." I felt the confusion on my face.
"The knick of time?"
"You got here on the first day. Within the first twenty-four hours," he stated as we neared the end of the hall. "That's impressive. We all got special treatment because of our timing, but they won't do it for anyone else now that the first day is up."
I just nodded. What happened last night? I didn't remember a thing. What happened to Sasuke? What didn't happen to Naruto and Sakura? The last thing that came to my mind from the previous night was taking a pause from our travelling, then just waking up in the medic bay. This sense of uneasiness came over me, like the answer was being dangled right in front of my face, but no matter how hard I strained my eyes, I couldn't see it.
"Onee-san!" I heard when I stepped into a large room with light pouring in from high windows. The room had pale-green walls and dark-brown wooden floors with white moldings along the walls. There was a large mahogany table in the centre of the room with four matching chairs. My entire team was there, with a worried Sakura, an energetic-as-always Naruto, and Sasuke, whose face I couldn't read. Naruto sprinted up to me and wrapped his arms around me in a tight embrace. The air was sucked from my lungs as my muscles throbbed in response.
"Itai, Onii-san," I muttered.
"Sorry!" He quickly retracted. "We were just waiting for you." I nodded at him. I looked at Kiba, who was watching me thoughtfully.
"Thanks for the walk," I said. Kiba waved his hand and smiled, flashing those pointed teeth of his.
"Don't mention it." Akamaru yipped in agreement. "I gotta get back to Shino and Hinata anyway. Be seeing you." Kiba turned around on his heel and started down the hall. I watched him go for only a moment before turning back to my team and walking to where they were.
"What in Kami's name happened last night?" I asked in a low voice. We were all around the table, Sasuke and I leaning against the edge, Sakura sitting on top of it with her legs crossed, and Naruto sitting perched on the closest chair. Sakura shifted uncomfortably.
"You lost it," she said bluntly, but the shimmer of fear in her green eyes. "There was this guy a-and a huge snake and Sasuke-kun was-"
"Sakura, calm down," I said, noting her shakiness and laboured breathing. "Start from the beginning. Sasuke-kun, do you remember anything?" Sasuke gripped the edge of the table with his hand, knuckles turning white from how hard he was holding on.
"Pain," he muttered. "But when I woke up this morning, I felt so . . . powerful." He seemed to hiss out the last word with a hint of an emotion I couldn't quite put my finger on.
I looked at Sakura, who was shifting her weight guiltily. As I watched her, she refused to lock eyes with me, telling me that there was something being kept secret. I turned back to Sasuke, trying so hard to read his eyes- his dark, mournful eyes that were so alive two days ago. I wasn't getting anywhere with trying to crack Sasuke with my look, so I turned my gaze to Naruto. His beautiful blues locked eyes with my grey ones. He was caught in my trance.
"Onii-san, what-"
"Sasuke told us not to tell you, but when that snake dude- Orochimaru- bit him it left a mark that made him go nuts and there was a lot of chakra and he trashed his medic room and we blamed Kiba and Akamaru!" The blonde boy explained in one breath, forcing him to suck in a deep breath. Naruto's voice went so fast I was straining to keep up. I turned back to Sasuke, who was glowering at Naruto, now holding onto the table so tightly, I thought the wood would be crushed under his grip. I stepped in between them.
"Why didn't you want me to know?" I asked, neither angry nor disappointed. Not lowering his glare, Sasuke replied.
"You're stressed enough as it is. This affliction can be dealt with later so it won't be a distraction."
"We are a team," I reminded him with a shake of the head. "As a team, we can't afford to keep secrets. Let me see it."
"No."
"It's not a request," I said, eyes narrowed. "It's an order."
Sasuke's glare vanished and turned into his regular look of indifference to avoid showing surprise to the others. Without a word, Sasuke moved his right hand to the high collar of his shirt, pulling it back to reveal the pale-grey skin of his neck. That's when I saw the marks Naruto was talking about. Three not-quite-circle shapes that looked like tattoos with black ink stood out in Sasuke's complexion. I blinked, shock sending a shiver up my spine.
Those look like . . .
"Mine," I whispered aloud. Catching the looks from my team, I cleared my throat. "I mean fine. Do you feel pain now?" I asked. Sasuke shook his head.
"It comes in waves."
"What do those waves feel like?" Sasuke took a moment to think.
"Fire. Like my skin is being seared off by hot coals."
I could feel my heart hammering inside of my chest. That's just like me. Those marks are just like mine. What was our common factor? Was it that Orochimaru character? Did he give me my marks, too? Like a tsunami, everything from last night came flooding back to me. Behind my eyes, it looked like a movie in fast-forward. The crash, the snake, the ninja, the bite, the wolf's chakra- I remembered it all. My head started to pound. I held onto the table as my knees began to shake and weaken. My mouth felt as dry as cotton and my palms were sweaty.
"Did anyone else see it?" I asked softly. Everyone shook their heads.
"No way," Naruto said with the shadow of a playful smirk. "We can't let Teme get in the way of the Chuunin Exams."
. . .
Four more days passed and the remaining teams arrived to the building. Shikamaru's team made it, as did Neji's, Yuki's, Kabuto's, and two more teams I didn't know, but one of them seemed familiar enough. One of the guys was glaring at me, so I must have made a poor impression. There were a lot of people left over from the Forest of Death, and Anko had assumed most of us would die, so we had to face Preliminary trials to eliminate any extra canidates.
"Who cannot continue on to this round?" Anko asked the crowd of the twenty-four remaining ninja. There wasn't any hesitation when a hand popped out of the crowd.
"Me," the familiar voice of Kabuto said. "I took quite a beating. I quit." I blinked at how willing he was to submit to failure.
After four days of recovery, I felt just fine. In fact, I felt great. But there was this sensation inside of me- this type of yearning or need or desire of something, but I didn't quite know what it was. I had a feeling that Sasuke was feeling it to, just by the look on his face when we were alone, but he never said anything about it. I didn't mention it either.
Kabuto walked off to the side. Anko asked again and another ninja boy raised his hand.
"K-Kito!?" I girl- probably his teammate- shrieked. "What are you-"
"Shirai, look at me," Kito said. "My leg is messed up. I can't go any further. Good luck." Kito limped away with Kabuto. I could see the make-shift splint his leg was encased in.
I had to wonder how it got that way.
"Anyone else?" Anko asked in that loud, assertive voice of hers. When no one else objected, she let an amused cackle escape her lips. "You've all done pretty well so far. This next round is specifically designed to weed out the best of you twenty-four. The matches will be decided out of a random lottery. So, without further ado," Anko made a grand gesture with her arms. "May the odds be ever in your favour!"