Wrath of a Woman Scorned
By: EDelta88
Rated M for: language, violence, adult situations and concepts, lemons, and graphic imagery
[Insert disclaimer here]
Chapter 14: Unto The Tower of Death
Konoha, Outskirts of Training Ground 44…
It had been a strange Chunnin Exam for anyone who had helped proctor one. To speak nothing of The Incident during Ibiki's portion of the exam, the sheer lack of Konoha teams had unsettled everyone.
"It feels like we're in another village," Aiza said to her partner as they stood guard outside the forest.
"No shit," Mirikumo replied as he gave the forest an uneasy stare. "What do you think's going on in there?"
"Nothing good," Aiza answered with a frown.
"It's been so quiet since the first day," Mirikumo muttered, eyeing the forest distrustfully.
And it had been. After the rush of power from… her, fighting something way bigger than should have been in the forest, the place had been silent like the grave. Usually, they could count on there being at least some activity to break the monotony. Teams sticking to the perimeter, gennin getting disqualified or forfeiting, the occasional tiger testing the fence...
No matter what, there was always something going on in Training Ground 44.
Not this time. This time was different. There had been none of the usual activity during this exam. With the exception of exam staff and security forces, there had been no one in or out of the forest in five days. No greenhorns chickening out. No technical knockouts from the scrolls being triggered too early. No forfeits for medical attention.
Nothing.
"This feels like punishment duty," Aiza murmured, remembering the times the Sandaime would assign people to guard empty training grounds for annoying him. It was like there wasn't even an exam going on at all. Even the wildlife was quiet! As if the place were simply…
It just wasn't right.
Snap!
Both chunnin spun toward the sudden noise, hands on their weapons, to find a boy in ragged Kumo BDUs stumbling out of the underbrush, dried tears carving tracks through the filth that stained his face like a cruel parody of war paint.
"Gods and powers," Mirikumo whispered, rushing forward to catch the poor kid as his legs failed him.
"Shit, kid," Aiza murmured, pulling out a canteen and pressing it to the boy's lips. Then, glancing back at the forest. "Where are your teammates?" One of them was already out. There was no point in leaving the rest of them in there if they were already this rough. Especially with her running around.
"She wouldn't let me leave…" the boy mumbled.
"What? Who wouldn't let you?" Mirikumo asked, fearing that he already knew the answer.
"She got Toru. Kaoru…" His voice trailed off as he lost consciousness.
Aiza and Mirikumo shared a look as the gennin's words sunk in.
He was alone.
Aiza handed the canteen to Mirikumo before going for the mic on her radio. "This is Aiza, north by northeast exam lookout. Come in Exam Actual, over."
There was a burst of static before, "This is Exam Actual. Go ahead."
"We've got a forfeit. One of the Kumo teams. Mentioned his teammates' names were Toru and Kaoru… someone find his sensei. Two of the kids are MIA, assumed KIA. Over," she spoke as Mirikumo picked the kid up and set him down in the shade.
"Confirm, two Kumo gennin MIA? Over."
"He said, 'She got Toru' and that she wouldn't let him leave, Actual. Over."
The response when it came was measured and tense. "Confirm, two Kumo gennin missing, assumed KIA. Medics en route. Over and out."
As the line went quiet, Aiza glanced at the kid and back at the forest. "This is going to be a shit show," she whispered as her partner nodded in solemn agreement.
Ichiro Shota of Kumogakure was the first to stumble half-dead out of the forest on the last day of the second exam.
He was not the last.
Training Ground 44 Observation Tower, Exam Actual...
"We've got another one," Anko's radio operator sighed. "Iwa nin, late teens. She's alone and… shit, they're saying she made them fight to the death with—Fuck."
"That makes six," Anko sighed, shaking her head. Honestly, they had expected a massacre but this? This was… something else. 'What a fucking shit show,' she thought, silently thanking the gods that she had made all the participants sign those extra forms. Missing brats? No problem. Dead bodies? Comes with the job. Sole survivors? That was another beast entirely and it looked like Red had grift wrapped a whole slew of them for everyone involved in this three ring circus. If this didn't cause at least an international incident she would eat her coat.
"Incoming. Intake twelve," the intake monitor called from the other side of the room.
"Finally," Anko growled, stalking over to the monitors. Then she paused, blinking bemusedly. "What the hell?"
Walking into one of the receiving rooms was a team of Kusa gennin… that looked like they had just taken a long but leisurely hiking trip. They barely even had any grass stains on them!
"Are you fucking kidding me!" Anko hissed through her teeth. How! They should be at least a bit muddy! This made no sense! Even without the Chunnin Exams, no one came out of Training Ground 44 that clean. No one! She had the laundry bills to prove it!
"Another One," the intake tech said with a frown.
Anko blinked, turning to the indicated monitor. That was quick.
"Uh…" the intake tech, turned to her confusedly. "Incoming in Intake Three… Intake Six and Intake Nine as well."
Anko's eyes flicked between the screens, feeling suddenly uneasy. One after another, teams filled the intake rooms. All of them suspiciously unmolested and looking as confused about it as she was.
"Incoming. Intake one," the visibly nervous intake tech said almost as soon as the doors closed behind the first team. "Teams approaching intakes four, seven, and ten. What the fuck?"
What in all the hells was going on in that forest?
[AN: I strongly suggest pulling up "Come Little Children GOTHGAM08" on youtube for this next part. Right-click to play it on a loop]
Training Ground 44...
"Come little children I'll take thee away, Into a land of enchantment…"
"This way, do you think?"
"The voice seems quieter this way so yeah, sure, why not?"
"Come little children the time's come to play…"
"What the hell is that anyway?"
"Some kind of genjutsu?"
"For almost five days?" Who the hell could maintain anything that long? Just the chakra requirements would be absurd! Never mind you had to actively hold onto the genjutsu as the target's body fought you or the fact that you would need to sleep at some point.
"Maybe there's something in the air?"
"Here in my garden of shadows…"
"I don't know but—Wait, is that… is that the tower we're supposed to find?"
"But what if—"
"Who the hell cares? Get inside before some other weird shit starts happening."
"You don't have to tell me twice. Fuck this place," their last member muttered hurrying into the tower and away from the voices that haunted this gods forsaken forest.
"Follow sweet children I'll show thee the way, through all the pain and the sorrows…"
"By all the little gods, I'm going to have nightmares about this place for years."
"You and me both."
"Weep not poor children for life is this way…"
They jumped as the voice whispered from a point to their left this time. Keeping a wary eye on the foliage they moved on, leapfrogging through the woods so that one of them was always watching behind them in case the source of the whispers made itself known.
"Murdering beauty and passion…"
"We're going to war with people who live here?" she whispered, glancing over her shoulder into the gloom.
"Just keep moving. It seems to be getting weaker as we get closer to the tower."
"Whatever this is."
"Hush now dear children, it must be this way. Too weary of life and deceptions…"
"Anything new?" one of the boys asked.
"No," she murmured. "It's still there but I don't feel anyone."
"Come now my children for soon we'll away…"
"You'd think they would have attacked by now. We found that Heaven Scroll so..."
"Yeah. We have both."
"It's herding us."
"I noticed."
"Into the calm and the quiet…"
"Maybe it's just the… What the hell?" he gasped, as they suddenly came out of the trees and into a large clearing
"The tower?" the second boy wonders, staring up at the structure "but… why would they take us here? Aren't we enemies?"
"There's a chance it wasn't a person?"
"No," the girl with red hair whispered shakily. "I could feel the chakra everywhere. It… whatever this was, it wasn't natural."
"What in all the hells was that?" one of the boys muttered.
"I don't know, and I hope I never find out," the second replied, marching toward the closest set of doors.
The girl nodded, quivering as she stared back at the forest as the last wisps of the miasma that had hung over the forest finally loosened its hold on her team.
The boys thought they had escaped.
She knew better.
"Come little children, the time's come to play. Here in my garden of shadows …"
She swallowed thickly, taking no comfort as they entered the tower. Why would she? Because, even though the voice had finally finished its song and the air had cleared releasing them from the forest, the chakra remained. It had let them go. Not only that…
It was here.
Training Ground 44 Observation Tower, Exam Actual...
"It's strange…"
"What is?"
"Considering the number of teams walking out of the forest right now, we have an unusual number of teams coming through. Honestly, we've already reached our estimate of teams that would make it to the tower this year, and almost half of the teams are already accounted for."
"Really? How many have come through?"
The tech gave an exasperated sigh. "It's… well, have a look for yourself, ma'am," he said, pushing away from his terminal.
Anko scowled. "What the hell?" she demanded as she marched over to the computer to look at the screen. After a moment she blinked, confused. "That's just… This makes no sense," she murmured as she scrolled through the list of arrival times and accompanying photos. The number of teams that had arrived within the allotted five days (most of them in the last couple of hours) was impossibly close to half. Even accounting for a gluttonously generous portion of collaboration, cheating, and bribery that was absurd.
It was also a big fucking problem.
"With the… girl, in the Exams, we estimated much smaller numbers," the tech muttered lamely.
"We aren't even prepared for a prelim!" Anko growled, glaring up at the ceiling toward the guest rooms where she imagined she could hear the culprit chuckling sinisterly as she ate all the dango Anko was going to miss out on in order to fix this cluster fuck. 'That little shit! She did this on purpose!'
The tech started fidgeting nervously. "You don't think…" he started only to let the question trail off.
"What?" Anko demanded impatiently.
"Well…" he muttered, refusing to meet her gaze.
Anko rolled her eyes. "Spit it out!" she barked. Honestly, these new chunnin had no spine to them. It was so frustrating.
"It's just that she would do something like this to piss off the brass, wouldn't she?" he finally finished, scanning the room as though the accusation might summon Aki out of the shadows.
Anko gave a derisive snort. "What? Red? Do the exact opposite of what everyone expected her to do in order to disrupt months of planning at the very last second so that we have no hope of gracefully recovering? Yes, that sounds exactly like our precocious little monster." She almost sounded fond.
Almost.
"But…we did write it into the rules that participants had to stay in the tower after arrival, right?"
"You think she has to leave the tower to fuck shit up?" Anko chuckled. "Boy, you have a lot to catch up on if you think something that trivial is going to stop Red from getting her way."
"But…"
"Boy, unless you want to be the one to tell Red that she has been disqualified on a technicality (that she has likely accounted for), you are going to shut the hell up and get started on the paperwork to help fix this, or I'll deliver you to her myself!"
"Yes ma'am!"
Training Ground 44 Observation Tower, Exam Housing...
"How's it coming?" Kakashi asked as he walked into his students' room.
"Find me a half-dead fish and I'll let you know," Sakura grumbled, glaring down at the scroll on medical ninjutsu. By all the little gods, she had known medicine was complicated but, apparently, ninja took it to a whole other level because not only did they have medical science, but they also had medical ninjutsu, medical fuinjutsu, and a list of unholy permutations of all three!
A simple cut that a normal physician would close with stitches? Ninja had seven standardized methods for treatment. Seven! For a shallow cut!
"Oh, so it's going well then?"
"I will carve a gash in your arm to test that theory if you keep interrupting me!" Sakura growled, brandishing her highlighter like a knife.
Kakashi rolled his eye. Well, at least she wasn't a love-struck waif anymore. He'd take it. What were a few death threats between friends? "Stick with the fish for now," he quipped. "Though, you might want to start with just keeping one alive out of water first. I'm told revivification is significantly harder. That's what… that's how a friend of mine learned."
Sakura shrugged absentmindedly. Technically, she needed to practice on healthy bodies first to get an idea of the state she needed to return her subjects to first and they both knew it.
Satisfied, Kakashi turned to Sasuke as he stood, staring broodily out the window. "You good?" he asked.
"Hn," Sasuke grunted.
Kakashi sighed. Well, at least nothing... interesting had happened while he was checking in with the exam staff. Redirecting his gaze to the corner of the room. "Any change?" he asked.
Sasuke turned away from the window, following his gaze, an odd look passing over his features.
"No," Sakura replied, glancing up for only a moment. "I'm… starting to get worried. She hasn't moved since we got here. I haven't even seen her get up for water."
In the corner of the room, Aki sat in a meditative trance, the slow rise and fall of her chest the only sign that she was in fact alive.
Omake: Aftermath
"Nothing," Anko spat out bitterly. Her Where in all the hells was he!? This wasn't fair! She'd been waiting for an opportunity to kill that bastard since-
Suddenly a flash like lightning lit up the forest, blinding Anko.
"What the fu-"
KrackaBOOM!
Anko screamed, startled as the shockwave sent her tumbling. "What the fucking fuck!" she screamed, channeling chakra into her hands and feet as she scrambled for purchase. A moment later she found her feet and saw a giant cloud of dust rising to the north. She smiled. "That way, got it." Anko tapped her throat mic. "Exam Actual, this Mitarashi. Come in, over," she said as she took off through the trees toward the rising dust cloud.
"This is Exam Actual. Go ahead Mitarashi, over."
"I'm approaching the site of whatever just happened. Over," Anko reported.
"Acknowledged," the voice crackled in response. "Anbu teams are en route. Secure the site once you arrive. Over and out."
A vicious smile played across Anko's lips as she leaped over the carcass of one of her master's summons. He was here. He was here and that meant she had a chance. Even if he was just distracted with Red that would be enough. She'd die in the process, but if she could take him with her… well, maybe that was enough. With that thought in mind, Anko pulled her chakra close and dove headlong through the dust cloud that was still rolling away from the fight. Slowing her pace, she began to circle, hiding in the semi-darkness as she searched, circling ever closer to the epicenter of the blast.
'Like a noose,' Anko thought, relishing the image, her palms itching in anticipation as she replayed the sealing sequence over and over in her mind. Then, suddenly, Anko burst out of the dust! 'Shit, I need to-' she started to think only to lose her train of thought as she got a clear view of the forest. "Holy..." Anko breathed, eyes wide. Stretching out below her was a cone of destruction where the forest was simply… gone. All that was left were twisted, splintered ruins of trees and a smoldering trench carved into the earth as if a god had simply reached down and scooped it away. And at the head of the destruction, just a few meters below, Aki stood alone, her coloring a stark contrast to the forest behind her as she stared pensively into the settling dust.
There was no sign of Orochimaru.
Anko sagged, her disappointment a physical weight as she stared sullenly at the clear break in the destruction where someone had managed to conjure some kind of defensive technique.
In the distance, a tree fell over.
"You know, you're not actually supposed to look at the explosion," Anko quipped, trying to break the silence. "It's not good for your image."
Aki rolled her eyes.
Then she was gone.
A/N
I live! Kinda. Sorta. Acutely sick, chronically exhausted, and still doing physical therapy but I think therefore I am.
Happy Holidays everyone!
First things first, shout out to the reader who pointed out that I missed a golden opportunity to use Sarah's Theme (Come Little Children) in the last chapter… As I'm sure you all have guessed. It gave me ideas.
Secondly, I am now also on AO3. I like what I can do with the formatting there and am in the process of posting fully revised versions of Wrath of a Woman Scorned and Naruto of the Nine Tails (I will be posting the revised versions here too at some point).
Finally, I'm sure everyone has been wondering why I haven't been updating like a madman while sitting at home with nothing better to do than write? Well, I wasn't. I was an essential worker and I got moved into management right as things got bad… put simply, until recently, I was working like a dog and barely had enough time to do laundry, much less write. Hell, I only just got around to reading everyone's reviews. For the record, thank you. With the way things have gone the last few years I genuinely considered giving up writing entirely but you guys have kept me going.
Anyway, I have some… ideas about my writing going forward but we'll just have to wait and see. At the very least I'm working on some things to try and be a little more communicative about what's going on and find more time to write more consistently again. For all that's worth. Life and Plans don't seem to mix well lately.
Take care! Stay safe! Live well and be happy... or tune in to watch the misery I inflict on these poor murder brats. To each their own ;)