At first, all I felt was this unusual feeling in my stomach. I wondered if perhaps our server had somehow managed to spike my dango, or if my partner had done something to me whilst my attention was elsewhere. And then, all of a sudden, I realized that the funny feeling was humor. My partner had entertained me enough to extract a smile from me.
I can't remember the last time I'd felt the urge to smile or laugh at something other than a human being's pain. The fact that a mere joke could get this reaction from me was interesting. A bit worrisome, but interesting nonetheless.
Not wanting to show too much emotion, I decided to focus on consuming my dango quickly, so that we could soon return to the road. Kisame, for whatever reason, seemed to pick up on this and hurriedly ate his own food. We finished our meal, paid for the consumed items, and departed once again for our target.
If the sun had been unpleasant when we began our journey, it was completely unbearable by the time we exited the teahouse. I decided that it would be in our best interest to forsake the beaten path, and led my partner into the forest. In only a matter of moments, the two of us were racing through the treetops. The only downside was that Kisame was again following me, meaning that I was unable to keep my eyes on him. Still, I highly doubted my partner had half an idea as to where we were going, which left little choice in the matter of who followed whom.
Our trek was both long and uneventful, thus presenting me with the perfect opportunity to construct a decent plan of attack. We would be infiltrating a fortress this time, and had been told to murder everyone inside. These particular people had done little to deserve this sort of retribution, but the Akatsuki's influence over the region had waned as of late, and a message had to be sent: fear the Akatsuki, or perish.
From what I understood, the easiest way for this mission to succeed would involve Kisame charging in and using a combination of his water jutsus and swordsmanship to directly attack our enemies, whilst I stayed back a distance and used a combination of fire and gen jutsus to annihilate the remaining men. Not the most complex of plans, if you put it in those terms.
Add in the fact that the compound is nearly impossible to enter undetected, filled to the brim with trained soldiers, and if even one man escapes you'll have reinforcements coming out of the woodwork, and suddenly it doesn't seem so pleasant.
I shook my head, and began planning the exact details of our attack.
After several days of travel, we finally reached the compound. Thick, stone walls nearly as tall as those protecting Konoha surrounded the giant steel tower we'd been sent to conquer. Sentries walked along the top of the barricade, eyeing the ground for any signs of movement. Even my Sharingan eyes couldn't find so much as a crack in the walls, nor any signs that the guards were anything but completely alert to their surroundings. It's a good thing I made us wait until late in the night to move in; a single ounce of daylight would have given away our position in an instant.
I could hear my partner shift his weight, trying to control his breathing. I almost smirk at this; even the most gifted ears in the world couldn't have heard us from this distance.
Kisame grabbed the handle of Samehada, and froze. He was waiting for my signal. We wouldn't move until I gave the go-ahead, no matter how long that took, or how unbearable our bloodlust became. We were killers, through and through, and had been stagnant for far too long. It was time for us to battle and spill the blood of our enemies once more. Just the thought of their tortured cries was nearly enough to make me lose it. But, as always, logic won out, and I beat back my desire to kill. At least, for the time being.
I watched the patrolmen walk past two, five, and finally ten times before I was certain about their routes and how long it took each of them to get from point A to point B. I leaned forward, and took off for the gates.
Kisame followed, fast on my heels. We'd moved in; now, we were free to kill as we pleased.
The battle itself was long, gruesome, and filled to the brim with death. Just as I'd hoped it would be. I was able to trap several people in the Tsukiyomi, but most fell victim to been burned alive.
I turned my head to watch my partner fight below me. As soon as we'd cleared the wall, he'd gone right in and started hacking away within the center of the compound. I had remained on the wall, running along the edges and quickly massacring any opponents that I caught sight of.
I inwardly smirked as Kisame drowned yet another man. This so-called impenetrable fortress had made a horrible mistake by surrounding itself with a circular wall; it allowed Kisame to summon huge amounts of water, which now made the tower appear halfway submerged in some sort of great lake. It also forced all of his opponents to fight on the water. Heaven help whatever doomed soul has to fight a shark on or in the water.
As the battle raged on, the number of enemies dwindled quickly in a considerably short span of time. I thought I was on my last man, when a flicker of movement caught my attention. Cursing silently, I finished off my current adversary and chased after the shadowy form.
The hunt eventually led me to the ground outside the grounds of the fort, and onto the forest floor, where I was able to find, capture, torture, and kill the fleeing soldier. I would not mention this, were it not for something that happened immediately afterwards.
As I was turning to return to the battlefield and help my partner finish up (if there were any people left to finish, that is), a sudden cracking noise caught my attention. I turned, and with the help of my Sharingan eyes, was able to locate a crack in the wall, with water steadily pouring out of it.
It seemed that the wall wasn't as sturdy as I originally thought, since all that was needed to break it was the pressure of a few thousand gallons of water.
The crack grew in size in only a short while, and before I realized it, the rock wall had shattered completely, and I was about to be swept away by the surge of water.
Except that I wasn't. Because at that moment, something slammed into my side and yanked me away to safety.
When I finally realized that I was not about to drown, I took a moment to observe my surroundings. I was in a tree. As was my partner. My partner's arm was wrapped tightly around my waist, and he was holding me close to his chest. A chest that my face also happened to be buried in.
Never have I been more grateful for the darkness than I was at that moment in time. Had it been daylight, Kisame would have been able to see the blush covering my face that I could feel, even if I couldn't see it. My heart was thudding, mostly because I was certain that if he held me any tighter, he'd snap my spine. "Kisame, let go," I ordered in the calmest tone I could muster at the time.
He released me as if I had burned him, and began muttering a stream of apologies. To which I not too politely told him to quiet himself, and began walking in the direction of our base.
This was going to be a long journey.