Ningyo (Doll)

Chapter 5- Lullaby of the Whip

"Haa, haa, haah." Saya panted, breathing her hot breath onto the snow in her hands, melting it into water before feeding it to the tree. She looked over, animals of the mountain awkwardly walking over with a large leaf of water, and helped water the tree she was bound too. It's roots greedily drank up the water, happily turned from a withered husk to a beautiful tree, as the dried up roots were fed. She smiled, her breathing problems beginning to reside. The animals laid down about in her home, sheltered from the howling winds, and kept it toasty and warm in the igloo, leaving her to day dream of sugary thoughts. Before they were ruined.

"Oh, Miss Witch!" The animals began to growl and she pet them as she gently shushed them. They'd be killed if anyone knew they had helped her. Only Yukamaru appeared, and she grimaced, black tribal paintings on his arms, legs, torso, and face, as he stood outside her newest home. "It's good to see you're here, Ningyo! Have you noticed it yet? I'm talking in full Japanese." She looked away, and he knelt down, "Will you…listen to my story, Ningyo? I have a feeling you won't be here for very long." She glanced over,

"Long ago, when I was a little boy, I ran away from home and became lost in the vast snow of the Mountains behind my home." Yukamaru said, pulling out an unfinished, had-made coat, and began sewing. "Afraid, I curled up under a tree and began crying, scared of the howling winds, but as the howling died down, I noticed someone standing before me. It was a girl around my age, with long white hair and indescribable eyes that took my breath away. She pointed in the direction behind me, and when I looked back, I saw my village not too far away. Without a word nor a sound, she helped me up and nudged me back towards my home with only the echoing of chain links to let me know she was behind me." The snow leopard from the day before, nudged it's muzzle into her lap, and she scratched it behind the ear. "When I asked about this beauty who seemed untouched by time, the members of my village told me she was the 'Witch of the Snow' and 'Bitch of the Blizzards', but none of these described her. They said she never had a name other than 'Ningyo No Yuki' or in Japanese, 'Doll of Snow/ Doll of the Snow'." Saya looked away, "Every day, I'd watch this girl, chained to an old tree, sleep and test the limits of her chains. One day, I worked up the courage to confess my feelings to her, and when I went to the tree, baring blizzard and howling winds alike- I met only severed chains with a ruined bouquet of flowers. She had been taken by a wanderer to our lands that the Villagers had seen only a few times. I was too buys trying to summon my courage and think of ways to approach her." Yukamaru turned the coat to another side. "I told myself that, if I ever met that girl again, if she was still breathing, I'd marry her. Even if she'd never say a single word to me, I wouldn't care." Saya sighed.

"I think…you're that woman, Ningyo." Saya stood up abruptly and wrote something on her side of the igloo, backwards so he could read it.

'I have a name."

Yukamaru looked at her, not pausing in his handy work. "What do you want from me, Ningyo- no- Yuki. What do you desire from me? Do you wish to test my worth? I'm the strongest warrior in the Village, and the best at everything. Am I not worthy of your affection?" Saya looked away. He was nothing compared to Orochimaru. He forced his opinions on her, but she was given a choice. She might as well marry Madara.

~O~ Elsewhere ~O~

"ARRGH!" Madara roared, flipping his desk angrily. It ripped apart upon impact on the floor. Papers slowly wafted back down to the ground, and other more unfortunate trinkets, lay broken upon the cold ground. He panted heavily, groaning, as he doubled over, grabbing his stomach as he dropped to a knee. Kabuto came back in and helped him into a chair, as he panted, before Madara's hand lashed out and grabbed his shirt. "Get away from me." He growled, but Kabuto ignored him, pushing his glasses up and began to put more chakra into his wound as he had before Madara's out burst.

"Relax." Kabuto grunted moodily, before fully healing him. "Do you remember which way she was taken?" Madara caught his breath and relaxed, looking down in thought. He pulled something out of his shirt- a head band with a symbol on it. "You're a lot more useful than I thought. This doesn't look like a village I know of, but I think It was on the clothes Saya came to us." Kabuto remarked, before returning to healing the unhappy Uchiha, who hissed and batted his hands away, "I can always leave by myself to find her. You'd be nothing but dead weight."

"I'd grab your ankles as I die so I'll be stuck to you even in death." Madara responded, giving up on avoiding the man's healing efforts, and allowed him to continue. "I want her back."

"As do I, but if we got everything we wanted without effort, we'd be corrupt." Kabuto said bluntly, stepping back to admire his handy work, before beginning to heal himself. "We'll figure it out." Madara took the headband back, looking for a village with the matching symbol that the band had. He pointed to a small, very, very small village. "The Village doesn't even see to have a name. Guess we're going there when you're better." Madara groaned and got to his feet before falling down to the ground. "Once again, I said 'when you're better'. We'll heal in a day and then we'll leave. For now, take it easy." Madara pulled himself back into his chair and groaned.

~O~O~O~

"What are you saying?" She asked, as he stood there, sword in hand, "Ah- I should have known that this was really the cause of you getting to know me so well." She knelt down, hands on her knees, and tilted her head back. "If it's what you want, then go ahead. I don't have much to live for anyways." The man stared at her, before bringing the sword down over her. But only the sound of the clinking of her chains could be heard. She opened her eyes and looked down, in shock, as her collar and ankles lay broken upon the snow.

"I came here, as promised, to liberate you, Saya." He offered his hand to her and she took it, letting him help her to her feet. "I only ask that you never bow down to anyone while you live with me." She stared at him, before nodding and hugging him. "Don't let others be able to twist your words either." He wrapped her in a cloak of his own, "I'm sure you must be cold. We'll be at my home soon enough, so just bear with me for a day or so."

~O~O~O~

Saya woke up, looking around, still in her igloo. She heard growls and looked up, as the animals chewed to the chains to her shackles, before she sat up and shooed them off as a couple of the villagers barged into the igloo. They savagely beat off the animals, before unchaining her, "Come on, Blizza-Bitch, we're going to give you your 'treatment'." One groaned, as they dragged her by her hair, kicking and struggling, through the snow, before chaining her up to a blood-stained rock by her ankles and wrists, upside down. "This is for my cousin who died last winter!" One of the five yelled, before pelting her with a metal pipe as she coughed, "For my wife!" Another pipe age into her, this time, to her rib cage, and she gasped as the wind was knocked from her lungs.

This was their enjoyment. They took pleasure in the fact that she could not defend herself, and beat her daily of their own selfishness. Even if she had free will, she would give them a chance to forgive themselves. But only one. "Look, the tree's blooming leaves! It must be from beating her!" No. It was from the water she fed it. But did it matter? The blood tricking down her throat gargled and twisted the words, but she sang. Through the tears the pain brought, and the pain that she'd only tried to ease their minds brought, she sang. "She's casting a spell on us!"

The wordless song rang through the snow and the mountains its a sorrowful chorus of silence, as she was beaten. When they left, after beating her and dropping her back off at her at igloo prison, she sang once more, too sore to move. The words she swore she'd never utter, stayed playing like a heart-broken music box in her head, as tears streamed down her face. This living was not 'living'. It was an empty, hollow existence.

~O~O~O~

Saya flinched awake, her eyes snapping open. Yukamaru was kneeling over her, placing band-aids and healing ointments. She lashed out at him and he chuckled while dodging her nails. "Calm down, I'm only treating your wounds, my love." Saya gasped, the snow wrapping around her arms and turning to solid ice, holding her in place. "Don't look at me with such a frightened expression." Saya looked away, but he smiled and continued to bandage her up. "Look how they've treated you. Beating you for their own personal benefit. How shameful." She looked away from Yukamaru as he worked, "I was busy, but next time, I'll protect you."

She made sure to stay away from him as much as he could, but with how he had iced her arms and legs, she couldn't do much. After he'd finished dressing her cuts his palms slid up the sides of her thighs. "I finished my present for you. I hope you'll accept it." He grinned, ad a cloth was thrown to the other side of her back, before he pulled his present over her shoulders. It was the jacket he'd been working on earlier with a thick fur trimmed hood, on the edge and inside. "I'm sorry, the hunting season is over and I wasn't able to find to many animals to make it with. If you want, I can make you something with the skin of an animal you'd rather prefer." Saya blinked, and thought about it. Her hands shook and she leaned forward, writing in the snow.

'Albino snake. If you make me something with a hundred white snakes, and I want the hundredth to be the largest one you can find, but I want it as a pet.'

Yukamaru smiled excitedly, "Th-That's what you want? I can make anything for you as long it's white snakes?" She returned to leaning against the tree, thinking, before nodding me.

'But they all must be killed naturally by a predator. Otherwise, I will not accept it, and I can tell when you lie to me.'

She wrote, and Yukamaru smiled, "Yes. If it's what you want, then, I will do it." Saya looked down as he got up and left, going to work on what she'd requested. She pulled out the waist rope and hugged it. If she could not live this life with the man who had saved her from the darkness of the hatred in the people who'd damned her, then…

"I am," Saya stared at the moon over the igloo as her eyes flickered in color, "-numb." Her eyes turned dark blue, and the moon copied her. The villagers in the town trembled, as one of her anklets shattered and turned into dust, flying away on the wind. "I am the silence that eats at the heart. The Decay that sets into the soul. I am the cold, blistering winds. I am…numb." She gripped the waist rope, embedding it with her own once-happy-memories. "I am…silence." The snow turned into a needle and thread and she drove it through her bottom lip, grunting. As she sobbed, she continued to sew her lips shut so that such depressing speak would never disturb the hearts of who it had when she did speak.

'Sir, don't throw yourself into your work because your wife cheats on you. She only does it because you don't pay her attention. She only wants your love, Mister.' Saya had said when she had gotten lost from Orochimaru's side before he appeared and pulled her away from the stunned man, picking her up like a parent would a child.

'Saya, you can't speak when you're away from Kabuto and I. Your words make the hearts of men quiver in fear.'

Orochimaru had told her, but she didn't understand at that time. Kabuto didn't seemed bothered, nor was Orochimaru, but in that man's eyes, she saw something that made his heart stop. It had been described to her as 'someone seeing their death'. She saw it in Yukamaru's eyes too, when he visited her. Blood dropped upon the floor, as she continued to sew her lips, cutting the string when she was done. She stared at the waist rope Sasuke had tied for her. Maybe she needed to give up on this life entirely, or maybe she needed to find another way out of it. She asked for snakes, didn't she? She did.

Saya nervously and bashfully twitted her fingers. If she didn't move for the next few days, and ate a lot, she could reserve enough strength to use a jutsu on the snake she expected to be receiving from Yukamura. If not, one of the snakes in the surrounding area would be happy to help, she was sure. With the piece of soul she had, if she saved up enough strength, she may actually be able to use the jutsu to it's maximum potential with out a substitute body. Saya giddily clapped her hands in excitement. She'd get the hell out of this place if it was the last thing she did!

Then, she fell over, exhausted from the left over anklet, and fell asleep in the snow. The animals came in once more and snuggled around her and the tree, then fell asleep as well.

~O~O~O~

"Fuck off, Kabuto, I'm fine!" Madara snarled moodily, swiping at the Medic, who dodged the blow, "When the hell are we getting there?" Kabuto resurfaced, coughing and pushing up his glasses as the carriage rocked.

"The horses can only take us so far. To the edge of the village, we'll have to continue on foot from there." Kabuto informed him and Madara groaned, "Don't give me that. The Village is a lot farther than the Leaf Village, and it's practically completely isolated." Madara looked at him, "The village itself- I wonder ho it stands still. Considering this region is known to be plagued with horrible blizzards that could destroy any town or village in a few minutes time."

"Saya." Madara murmured, "She's stuck in those conditions?" Kabuto pushed up his glasses.

"She is, originally, from those 'conditions'. According to the reports and archives I read, the blizzards have been going on for only the past couple decades, but before, it was full of grass and farm land. I think she'll be fine. It will take us a few days t get there, so just try to think positive." Madara sulked and looked down.

"The girl can't even defend herself! How should I think positive!" Madara demanded angrily, and Kabuto frowned,

"You sound like her mother. True, I haven't seen her fight before, but I'm sure she'll be fine. Orochimaru took personal pride in her problem solving skills and intelligence." Kabuto remarked, Madara calmed down, "We'll settle this once and for all, Madara." the Uchiha nodded, tugging at his bandages before the Medic slapped his hand, "Leave those on, you tool." Indeed, it was going to be a long ride for both parties.