Chapter 10:
"Genjutsu." Temari growled the moment the girl disappeared.
My kunai struck the bark as Temari turned to look back at me. "She's gone."
"No!" I protested, jumping up to the tree branch, my chakra flowing like fire through my veins. I squinted between the foliage around me, searching for at least one of this useless and stupid crows but instead saw the leaves rubbing against each other in the passing breeze.
"It's over." Temari called up to me. "We don't have time to go after her anyway, we have the clear to go into the building."
"But what if she's an important piece?" I asked.
"Or what if she was just passing through until you attacked her?" Temari challenged.
I turned to glare down at her. "We won't know for sure until we find her and force it out of her!"
"You can't just—" Temari cut herself short as she pressed a finger against her ear piece. "We're coming already so cool it!"
I had forgotten all about my headset but when I looked down at my walkie, I quickly found that my headset was missing and had probably blown away in the winds. I jumped out of the tree, landing a few feet away from Temari who sighed heavily as she adjusted the volume on her headset.
"Kyoske is such a pain." Temari grunted. She looked up at me and nodded to the north, where the compound was. "C'mon, we have to move."
I looked back at the direction the girl had run and struggled to sense her chakra. But, nothing was out there. She was long gone and she hadn't left a trail behind either. All that was out there were animals scurrying around, shaking tree leaves and a gentle breeze.
It took me a minute and another sharp command from Temari to get me to move again. I couldn't shake the girl from my head or even get a grasp on her jutsu. She was strong, that much was for sure and she was skilled too, stealthy like a cat and able to hide her chakra. Even during our fight, I had never been able to get a clear read on it.
Temari and I reached the compound and found Baki kicking the shaky front door in. Kyoske was the only to turn back and look at us as we approached.
"Bought time you two strolled in." He said, shaking his head.
"We got caught up." Temari answered before I could.
"It had a seal that Megumi-sensei broke." Hideki said.
"Child's play seal, something put in haste." Megumi-sensei said as she reached into her pouch and pulled out a mini-flashlight. Everyone but Gaara followed suit and Temari of course, drifted to his side, flashlight raised.
The compound looked just as terrible and sketchy as it did on the outside. There was a lot of space though and some light debris and other junk littered the floor in a few places. Cobwebs hung low from the ceiling and glistened with our lights. There were a couple of cables and cords hanging from the ceiling, attempts at creating some sort of light in this dark mud heap. There were even attempts at making what I assumed was furniture, and it featured a shaky table in the corner and a three-legged chair in the other. There were eight dark hallways to follow down and I could only imagine where they all led to.
"It's like no one has been in here for a long time." Kyoske said as he moved his light along the length of the room.
"There are tracks on the floor." Gaara grumbled, his eyes closed.
We all looked down and sure enough there were tracks on the floor, as if something had been dragged through. The shipment, I thought and allowed my light to travel the length of it, vowing to be the one to follow the path until I realized the tracks split down all eight hallways.
"Let's split up." Megumi-sensei suggested as she started down one of the hallways.
We all nodded and as I started down my own, the air grew stuffier and thicker the further in I got. I could hear the other's distantly behind me, Kyoske and Kankuro arguing as they walked down their respective hallways, until their voices faded completely. I gripped my flashlight tightly in my hand and bit my bottom lip as a new thought struck my mind, Sasuke.
It was not the best time to think of him, of all people, but I couldn't help it. I could still see his face in my mind, the shock and anger as he watched my team walked away with the Sand ninja. Then there was last night, the fire in his eyes fading back to his usual uninterested expression. He was mad, there was no denying it and I dreaded going back to Konoha like this, knowing that he would be on me almost immediately. I had to think of what to say, that the mission and the people who came with it were out of my control, but I knew if I were in his place it would do little to ease my suspicions.
A sound echoed from my hallway and I stopped walking and listened. I couldn't place what the sound was, but I knew it had come from somewhere up ahead, down the curve of the hallway. I ran toward it, adrenaline pumping back through my veins. I turned the corner and found yet another hallway but this one had makeshift doors that lead to what looked like rooms. I started going to each door, my hands turning and pulling on each knob. But the doors that gave didn't lead to anything special, just damp and dark rooms and the ones that didn't, didn't lead to any room, just showed the wall. I was near the end of the hallway when the sound echoed again and I felt my body tense up as I looked further down the hallway. The sound was closer this time and it sounded like a creek, a rusty creak. I shut the door of the room I was investigating and ran toward the sound. I turned another corner before I spotted stairs leading down. I ran down them and found myself in a dank and dripping basement. Muggy didn't even begin to describe the air and I noted that the walls were dripping themselves, the mud seeming to melt in the humidity. I moved my flashlight through the room and found that I wasn't only in the basement but that I was standing in the middle of two walls worth of holding cells. Metal cages, some rusting, others looking brand new and locked with shiny padlocks.
I stepped further into the basement, moving my flashlight into each cage, but quickly found that all the cages were empty. It didn't make sense that a few of the cages were brand new and it also didn't make sense that a few were locked as well. I was about to turn back up the steps when I spotted something in the corner of my room. I aimed my flashlight at the corner and my eyes wide. Fresh crimson was splashed on the wall and it was in the outline of a body. It was dripping down into an even bigger puddle of crimson and it looked as if something, no, someone had exploded.
My breath left my mouth shakily and I started to take steps back, my light shivering over the spot. Blood. Blood. So much blood. I backed right into one of the closed metal cage doors, the rods digging into my back as my eyes widened even more at a memory bursting into my mind. It was one of the few I had had with Orochimaru and it was every bit as fuzzy as the rest of them. But, it was a memory either way and it began with the two of us standing in the middle of an empty and dark room with a shivering child before us. It was a little boy, a scared and ashamed little boy, and Orochimaru's hand had been resting on my shoulder reassuringly, his head lowered to my ear as he whispered commands to me.
"Kill him. Destroy him. Rip him to pieces. Make him suffer."
It had sounded reasonable in my head and I felt the harsh sting of what this boy had done to me, no to us, and though I couldn't remember what happened exactly, I just knew that he had messed up and he needed to pay in the worst possible way. Something dark had been snaking in my belly and the more Orochimaru had whispered in my ear, the faster whatever was inside moved around.
"Kill him. Kill him. End him. Break him." He chanted into my ear and I remembered balling my hands into tight fists at my sides, anger exploding in my chest as I felt a sharp pain in my stomach and doubled over. It was coming out, whatever was snaking around inside of me, was coming out and suddenly I couldn't breathe. The boy whimpered, his body positioned to run, but his limbs were numb with fear. I had let out a cry as whatever was inside felt like it had burst out, but it wasn't from my stomach, it was from my back. I couldn't breathe as Orochimaru's voice became even darker, becoming one inside of me. Suddenly, I was chanting the words in my own head, fully and firmly believing them. I wanted the boy dead. I wanted to crush him, destroy him, feel his blood run between my fingers. I wanted him to pay.
I remembered his sharp screams, his pleas for help, for mercy. My head was low to the ground, my teeth clenched tightly together and between his screams for help there was something else, a low grumble coming from deep within my chest. My mouth pulled back into a tight smile as the grumble left my mouth and I realized as I lifted my head to see the boy's limbs pulled from his sockets, his blood splattering in every direction, on every surface, that it was laughter. That I was laughing.
The boy's cries stilled and the little that was left of his mutilated body slumped to the ground and was just as bloody and messy as the walls. Orochimaru's hand had left my shoulder just as footsteps sounded from behind us, coming from the side. A little girl burst into the scene, her body darting from the darkness, toward the spotlight over the boy and I had watched as she threw her small body onto the ground, her hands reaching for the bloody body, but not touching it. Tears lit her eyes and she turned to shoot me a hateful look.
"That's enough, Miyuki!" She screamed at me. "That's enough!"
Orochimaru's hand was back again and there was a burning on my neck, the flare of the cursed seal, a feeling like no other, like a thousand blisters rising on my skin. I gasped, feeling my insides twist as I continued to laugh in the little girl's face.
"I SAID THAT'S ENOUGH!" Her voice echoed throughout the room and my laughter cut short almost instantly. I felt stuck, my eyes wide, my breathing stilled. She was panting from the sheer exertion of her words, her eyes dark as they took me in.
"Kill her." Orochimaru commanded and I remembered the effect those words had on me, how it made my blood run cold. The girl's eyes widened at them and she stared up at Orochimaru as if he had ripped her heart clean out of her chest. But, it was only for a fraction of a second because a second later the darkness and venom returned to her eyes and she fixed him with a hateful glare.
"She's your favorite now?" The girl screamed. "How can she be your favorite?"
I gasped, the memory rippling to an end in my head and then there was the pounding headache that came after. I reached a hand up to my head and let it rest on my forehead as the pain trickled throughout my skull. I took a shaky breath and felt my body sliding down to the ground as I began to shake and a cold sweat began at the back of my neck, spreading all over my back.
The girl, so familiar and yet the moment the memory ended I would never be able to place her face. I knew that I had known her and judging by the sickening feeling that had come over me in the memory, she had been close to me. She had been an important part of who I had been back then. As for the little boy, he didn't ring any bells, but he had been even younger than me and it was his youth that struck me the most along with the burning question of what he had done exactly.
I was blinking and shivering, my arms wrapped tightly around my body when I heard the distant patter of small feet and suddenly made out a body standing in front of me. It bent down to look me straight in the eye and I found the the little girl from my memory staring at me with a smirk on her face and a distinguishing feature on her face.
The red eyes, the same ones that had stared down at me just a few moments ago in the forest. The same pair I had fought with in the forest, that just so happened to belong to the body I had seen walking away from the compound.
...
I awoke drenched in my own sweat, distant voices around me, all of them laced with worry. My eyes fluttered open and I made out Kyoske's face hovering about a foot away from mine.
"She's awake." Kyoske said, as he pulled me up to a sitting position. I placed a hand softly against my forehead and sucked in a shaky breath, my head still reeling, my body shivering.
"You passed out." Temari's voice drifted from somewhere beside me and I groaned in response, burying my face between my legs as I hugged myself tightly.
"It looks like something imploded." Kankuro observed, standing in the corner where the blood was pooling at the floor and the stain of a body hung just above it.
"Someone more like it." Temari said, hands on her hips as she walked beside Kankuro to observe.
"What happened?" Hideki asked.
I shook my head, not wanting to speak about it. The red eyes. The memory. I was sure I had been hallucinating, a part of me not over the fact that I had let a possible suspect get away. But the other part burned with familiarity. It was as if the girl fit perfectly into the memory, and just thinking about her helped solidify the fuzziness that was my memory.
"What was kept in these things anyway?" Hideki asked.
"It looks human." Kankuro said.
"Someone's here." Gaara's voice was low but loud enough to force everyone into silence. We all looked at him, the furthest away, standing alone beside the wall, his eyes fixed on the hallway.
"It's probably Megumi-sensei and Baki." Kyoske said.
"No." Gaara said almost immediately and turned to face the hallway.
I struggled to sense then, make out another body close by. But there was no chakra trail and there were no nearby sounds. The hall was empty and if I heard anything it was Kyoske's ragged breathing from the thickness in the air.
I pushed myself up to my feet when suddenly a few shiny objects darted past my line of vision and landed on the back wall. Our eyes all drifted to the corner and it was only when we saw the flaming seals at the bottom of the kunai that we scrambled.
"Explosives!" Kyoske shouted right before the seals exploded. It was close range, close enough to singe clothing and skin and I was sure we wouldn't be able to dodge it in time. But, when I opened my eyes, Gaara had covered us all with a sand dome of his own impenetrable sand. It began to sink to the ground, its contents sliding back into his gourd. Slowly, we looked up and found that sheer force of the explosion had blown out the whole back of the dome building. Above, the sky as clear and cloudless but there was something in the air, a lingering string of chakra and as I turned my head to the source, a body was flinging toward me.
"Miyuki!" Temari managed a warning a few minutes too late and just as the body slammed into me, nocking me clean off my feet, I was too slow to defend myself. We flew back, into the clearing and the body pressed an arm against my throat. I coughed, blinking, struggling to make sense of the body above me. It was a person, but the gender was out of my grasp. There were thick bandages covering their eyes and chest, old bandages that were dirty and spotted with blood. Their mouth was strong, yet feminine in the chin and their mouth was pulled back into a snarl just as markings rose out from the underneath the bandages on the body's neck. They barely flinched as the black markings spread and I heard it, the sound of something breaking free from the flesh.
I blinked and could see it, a straggled-looking claw of a hand, heavily distorted but also incredibly sharp and it was looming just beyond the outskirts of the body's head. I blinked back at the body over me, my heartbeat accelerating in my chest as I realized that the markings were a byproduct of the cursed mark and that this person, this teenager was one of Orochimaru's pawns.
Kunai whizzed past the person's head and they growled as they looked back toward where everyone stood. It was all the opening I needed to wiggle myself free of their grasp and I did, raising an arm and bringing the elbow down hard against the side of the person's head. I crawled out from under them as their body rolled to the side and jumped a few feet away, raising a kunai from my pouch in defense.
"You alright?" Kyoske asked, his eyes not on me but on this new lightening quick threat.
"They're pretty fast, aren't they?" Hideki noted. "I didn't even see it when they came in."
"Yeah, well they're here now." Temari growled under her breath and reached back for her metal fan.
"What are we going to do?" Kyoske asked.
"Engage." Kankuro grunted just as a torrent of sand whished past their heads. The torrent was aimed right for the body who blocked it with their strange hand, but was sent flying back by the sheer force.
"Gaara." Hideki called as Gaara stepped forward, his eyes narrowed.
"We can handle this." Temari said, her voice soft.
Gaara gave no answer and if he had heard her, he gave no response. His gaze was fixed on where the body had flown back and he stood there, waiting as the rest of us held our breaths. I knew what Hideki and Kyoske were thinking. How stable was Gaara? That chip on his shoulder was growing and suddenly I wondered if his worse than usual attitude was tied to this body. He he sensed it a mile away?
The body darted out from above the trees and let out a vicious roar as the distorted hand bursting out from its back clenched into a tight fist aimed at Gaara. Gaara didn't even bat an eyelash as the sand came to his defense, blocking the hit that sounded like crumbling rock. The force of the attack made my hair rustle and I knew, deep down before this could get any worse we had to stop Gaara from fighting.
The body pushed off of Gaara's sand just as it spiked up. As the body landed a few feet away, the sand spikes shot forward and hit the ground as the body expertly dodged.
"What are those markings on its body?" Temari asked.
"There's a giant hand poking out of its back and you're asking about the damn markings?" Kankuro growled as he free Crow from his bindings. "C'mon, we can't let Gaara have all the fun."
"Stay out of this." Gaara growled.
"Gaara, no." I called just as the body turned to face me. It let out a straggled cry that sounded just above a normal human's voice, before it started running toward me. I braced myself, ready for the impact when suddenly, Gaara's sand moved in front of me. The body reared itself to a stop but it was too late. Gaara's sand had drifted throughout the entire area, making the ground beneath the body's feet his territory, an inescapable prison.
"Sand Coffin." Gaara grumbled and the sand shot forward, imprisoning the body. The hand struggled the most, thrashing around within the sand until it tightened, making it and the body immobile. The body grunted and Temari shot in front of Gaara, her hands up.
"Gaara, please." She begged.
"Don't you dare kill them!" Hideki growled.
"Gaara, stop!" Kankuro said, his voice weak.
Kyoske pulled out a kunai.
Gaara lowered his head, the vein in his forehead pulsing as his body began to shake.
"Stop it! You're going to get him worked up!" I shouted and took a step forward. That was when two things happened. One, the hand within the sand, attached to the body's back burst free of the sand and shot toward our small group. Two, a fiery pain shot up the length of my neck, a throbbing, pulsing pain that made my vision blurry. I gasped, dropping to my knees, a hand shooting up to cup the side of my neck where the mark burned like an intense fire.
"Temari!" Kankuro shouted and then there was the sound of the hand's sharp claw piercing flesh.
I blinked through my blurriness as my body fell to the ground and watched as Temari fell to the side as well, her shoulder gushing with blood, her teeth clenched as she writhed in pain.
"Sand Burial!" Gaara growled.
"NO!" Someone shouted as the sound of bones being crushed filled my ears right before something wet came down on my cheeks.
…
We had failed.
We never failed missions but this one, this marked the second one, and even though Baki and Megumi-sensei wouldn't include the bloodshed in the report, it didn't help any of us forget. I couldn't sleep and was wide awake at 3 in the morning feeling every bit as restless as I had the night before.
I rolled to the side thinking of Sasuke and imagined all the questions he would shoot at me, his dark eyes demanding answers I couldn't even begin to give. I thought of the red-eyed girl with the dark hair and the cloud covered cape. I thought of her blistering rage, at the accusation burning in her eyes as her small, frail hands reached for the dripping pile of what was once a little boy. I shivered and pressed my palms into my eyes, trying to rub the memories away. I hadn't mentioned the girl or the memory to my team yet and any chance that I had of ever mentioning it to them was gone. We were all in our own little worlds, the boys probably thinking about all those poor villagers from our last Sand mission and Megumi-sensei, so angry and disappointed in us she could barely stand to look at us. It was the weight of her rage that made us feel even lower, the one person we always wanted to make proud and there we were merely standing back as Gaara had his way, too stunned to move.
I pushed myself out of bed, pushing my covers back as I climbed out and headed out of our hotel room, hoping that some fresh air would help get not only my head right but allow some sort of sleep to form in my body. The streets were nearly empty and I was walking in any direction, just focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. I was consumed by my thoughts while struggling to find something else to think about altogether. But it seemed that everything I could possibly think about proved to be even worse than the one before it.
"Hey." It was a voice from above and I stopped in my tracks, my head slowly turning up until I realized where my feet had led me. Sasuke's apartment. I felt my stomach drop as I locked eyes with him above. He was staring down me, his arms leaning on the railing of his balcony, his body hunched over as if he had been trying to get a better look at me. He still wore that same uninterested expression, but there had been a softer tint in his voice.
I held my breath, pulling my hands behind my back as I felt my cheeks warm at the sight of it. Seeing him was the last thing I needed and yet there I was standing outside of his place and getting caught in the act. I wondered briefly how else my day could get any worse. "You gonna stand down there all night?"
My blush deepened and I looked away. I thought back to the sternness of his expression the other night, his dark eyes cutting into mine, demanding answers. I remembered watching it all fade away, into an unreadable expression and wondering if he cared. If it was possible to stop caring in the span of ten seconds.
"Hey." His voice was closer now and I looked up to find him standing in front of me.
I looked up at him, my eyes widening with slight surprise as I hugged myself, rubbing my hands up and down my arms.
"I just wanted to say sorry." I said.
He didn't say anything, just blinked down at me.
"For the other night." I said, feeling shy. "I-I get those from time to time and I'm so used to it that it's always nothing b-but I know it scared you when I scre—"
He placed two firm hands on my shoulders and I stopped talking, my voice hitching in my throat. I looked up at him, unable to form even thoughts and slowly, ever so slowly, he pulled me against him. I was too shocked to even move and felt my body tense in response as I breathed in the scent of him, clean and fresh, his shirt feeling a little wet. I rested my forehead against his chest and exhaled a breath, my body relaxing as the air filtered out of my lungs.
"Stop apologizing." He muttered.
A few moments later I found myself lying beside him on his bed, our gazes locked on the stark whiteness of his ceiling, silence drifting between us. I felt my exhaustion then, slipping from my tense muscles, slithering out from my thoughts. My eyes were heavy and I could feel a yawn building in my chest. I folded my hands over my stomach and closed my eyes.
"I take it that mission of yours was fun." Sasuke said. "Had a good time with your buddies?" I stiffened and I knew when I opened my eyes that the small movement had shook the bed and I could feel his eyes on my face, studying my expression.
"It was everything you could possibly think it was." I sighed, lifting a hand up to my forehead. "And we're not buddies."
"Tch." Sasuke muttered and I could hear his head shifting back to look up at the ceiling.
I turned my head and looked at him, at the moonlight spilling over his porcelain skin, noting the nearly perfect shape of his ear, the firmness of his jaw and the subtle curve of his lips pressed into a tight line.
I flushed and he turned back to face me just as my eyes averted his mouth. I fought the rush of scarlet that wanted to shoot up to my face and knew that despite my struggles I was still blushing even if it was lightly. Slowly, I looked up and met his gaze, our eyes locking as a tightness pulled in my stomach.
"What was the nightmare about?" Sasuke asked, his voice low.
Just the mere mention of it brought back the feeling of her in my arms, her small body on my lap, the lightness of her giggles in my ear and the softness of her fingers smoothing through my hair. I could almost picture her eyes gazing up at me and the smile that spread over her lips warmed my heart just before it began to hurt. I bit my bottom lip and turned to look back up at the ceiling, taking a breath. I was losing him, I knew that. I was putting the mission at risk because Sasuke Uchiha wasn't letting me in. There was no need to mention Orochimaru but if they were communicating, I was sure I wouldn't be the one he would tell it too. My trump card was in play now but as the ache in my chest spread throughout my body, I knew playing it would only plunge me deeper into the heaviness over my body. I would feel more disappointment, more annoyance, at a past I could hardly remember.
But I didn't have a choice. Our stories, so similar and yet so different. Two people who had lost everything and while one had found someone, something to live for, the other sought revenge and was walking down a dark path, a path the one that found the light had teetered on. I looked back at him and sucked in a breath before beginning.
