Note : Enjoy your reading.
Chapter size : 12500 words.
The tower that lights up the valleys
Part 2
Eizan
December 1 1020, 2 :57am
Land of Earth
The dressing room was silent for more than five minutes. A mortuary, mournful lull.
Sitting on the central bench that separated all the lockers, he removed the iron plates that covered his shins, torso, forearms and wrists, then the bear-shaped white mask that covered his face and jet-black hair.
A long, tired breath escaped his body. Slightly aching, he stretched his neck and square jaw in an awkward motion, making him grimace in pain.
His gaze fell to his left, where a man much younger than he was, in his early twenties, mimicked his gestures almost identically. His lion mask lying on the bench, the young man watched the wound on his right forearm in pain.
To his right was another dark-haired man in his thirties. Blue-eyed and carrying a katana on his back, he was holding a lizard mask between his fingers and had just begun to change. Slow, meticulous movements so as not to awaken his cramps.
In a reflex that he managed to stop a second after he started it, his field of vision left the feminine curves to his right and focused on the young woman's brown hair and ivory eyes. On top of the locker was an oval, white and pointed shape. A lonely, abandoned bird. Her expression closed, the young woman had quickly discarded her mask and was changing, lost in thought.
"It was a job well done." he said in a much calmer tone of voice than he was used to.
He was... tired.
"Yeah, I guess so."
The ironic voice of the youngest of the group rose behind his back at his congratulations, and the remaining two he was waiting for remained as silent as those they had left to the Demons.
With an umpteenth sigh, still seated, his vision blurred slightly as he looked down at his hands, where fine crimson stains remained between his knuckles. He tried to rub them away with his thumb, but only smeared them more.
The sound of the locker opening echoed through the dressing room, inevitably drawing his frazzled attention. He turned his face to the young woman who, still dressed in dark pants and t-shirt, retrieved a neon yellow t-shirt, light blue pants and a gray towel.
The second life was over, once washed and wiped, they could return to their reality, their colorful world.
Realizing that separation after two weeks of missions was imminent, he opened his mouth.
"Tomorrow morning we'll meet at the same place as always to finish the report. I'll write it up overnight so you can read it before I send it, and then you can go home."
"Okay."
"Suzume won't be here, but I'll sign for her."
With a raised eyebrow, he watched the thirty-something to his right as the latter continued to change, paying little attention to him. Then he watched the silent young woman as she closed her locker and headed for the showers.
His hoarse voice sounded for the third time.
"Is something wrong?"
The woman paused for a moment, then turned in his direction. Without giving him a second glance, she quickly bowed her head before straightening up.
"My apologies, Eizan-senpai, I have an important appointment tomorrow morning."
"An appointment?"
With furrowed eyebrows, he watched the man, then the woman, one after the other, not understanding what was going on.
"Kohei, Suzume, what are you up to?
"I'm pregnant."
The mournful silence was born for the second time and lasted for a few blinks. Just long enough for him to open his mouth without uttering a sound, as did the young man sitting on the bench behind him... though the latter's silence was short-lived.
"You... you're pregnant? Since when? And how do you know about this Kohei? Don't tell me... you... you two are..."
Dressed only in his scarlet-stained black pants, one arm leaning against the lockers and the other hanging down the side of his body covered in bruises and cuts, the father-to-be sighed lightly before pinching his nose.
A bored breath, as was his question, but as the head of the group, he had to ask it.
"Congratulations to both of you, I assume you're retiring from the Section?"
After a second, short prostration, Suzume answered almost immediately. A small smile twisted the young woman's lips. The first real one in the last three weeks.
"To tell you the truth, Senpai, this was our last one, we've already sent our letters to Iwa, we didn't want to tell you before to ensure the success of the mission."
A similar smile was all he could offer the young woman. He understood. He understood perfectly. This was exactly what he had done twelve years earlier.
"Very well, that's very wise of you."
The father-to-be turned slightly in his direction and was about to say something. Gratitude or reproach, he would never know, because the man was caught off guard by the bursting of the checkroom door and turned back, as did the young woman, who did so with a jolt.
The cold air from outside blew into the temperate dressing room in an unwanted gust, putting an end to the congratulations.
The new arrival, out of breath, a crumpled sheet of paper in the clutches of his left hand resting on his wobbly knee, stood up abruptly. Beneath the stoicity of his short red hair, he immediately put the sheet in evidence.
"It's... it's directly from Iwa... it's... it's of utmost importance."
Sitting down on the bench, he stood up stiffly. The question on his back waited. The cabinet to his right closed with a stern creak. The neon t-shirt, the light-colored pants and the towel fell to the floor.
"What's all this about?"
And then the final orders came.
"They... they order all the nearest units to go to Ninohe... a... a village north of Kossori... there the man behind the Yariba attack is in... in a hotel with the prisoner three thousand two hundred and thirty-four."
Naruto
December 31 1020, 11 :11pm
Land of Fire, Natoma
For this technique, perfection didn't exist. He could visualize it, but he couldn't create it. When he materialized a clone, he could see it, feel it, but he could only hope to touch it. That's why each of his clones had its own personality to a certain extent. He had never been able to create a perfect copy. Not even one out of more than a hundred thousand. Every time the memories came back to him, whether for one clone or a thousand, he perceived it.
The imperfection, the slight difference.
It was a fact known to everyone who had mastered the technique. It was a word that all those who had begun to learn the Shadow Clone passed on to each other.
"If one day perfection comes, then you are no longer in your reality, but in the one your opponent has decided to plunge you into."
A simple and effective way to find out if you were in a Genjutsu.
His imperfection? He'd managed to separate it from his creator after a dozen breaths.
His first thoughts had been about the possibility that he was the one giving orders, but he had quickly come to the conclusion that this was not the case, that he was only made of chakra and that the demon trapped inside him was not really there. Then he felt it. Or rather, he'd noticed its absence.
He no longer felt fear. It was gone, vanished. The feeling that had caused him to lose so much was gone, and even though he didn't know how to explain it, he didn't care. It was strange, very strange. He could barely think about it. His arborescent thoughts were on fire, and the smoke prevented him from confirming or denying any of them.
In the two minutes of walking that had brought him to this darkened corridor, he had recalled all the moments of his life, all the times he had been frightened, all the memories he had shared with the half dozen of his copies in the illuminated labyrinth on their sides, gloomy at his feet.
He didn't understand. Why did he feel that way?
Why had he been afraid that day? Why hadn't he acted earlier? Why had he stayed paralyzed, why had he watched him fight, why hadn't he helped him?
Why had he let the fox run wild?
He... did not like these memories... his memories. They made him feel ashamed. He would have given anything to have that emotion gone and not the one that kept him guilt-free.
Luckily, he didn't have to think about it anymore.
Standing motionless, dressed in black, hands in his pockets, the conversation on the other side of the dimly lit white door whispered to his mind to simply listen. Just listen. It wasn't complicated, there was no need to interfere, no need to put himself in danger. All he had to do was report what had happened in a puff of smoke and his mission would be over. That was why he was created. The mission given to him.
Such thoughts... wasn't it fear that shaped them?
With a simple kick, the reinforced metal door swung open and tore off two large concrete blocks with a deafening noise. Tumbling around the room it enclosed in several random bounces, the deformed metal plate shattered the concrete it was carrying and slammed into a huge iron can about ten meters away.
In an instant, the shrill sound spread across the yellowed neon room, allowing him to hear its surface and realize, for the umpteenth time, that he'd made a mistake.
The last clap of thunder echoed between the concrete walls as he ventured inside, beyond the dust and the gaping hole.
Puzzled, he focused his attention on the darkness before him.
The energy this presence gave off was so... suffocating that he thought it was right behind the door. It wasn't. It was just over thirty meters away, and the small room wasn't really a room at all. In fact, it was a huge underground warehouse where thousands of crates and barrels were stacked in huge iron racks on several levels. Metal stairs as far as the eye could see, cardboard boxes, endless products.
What was this place?
Was the question on his mind.
"Go and see!"
Was the exclamation that rang out.
Just like his entrance, a yellowish liquid poured from the gutted can in front of him and spilled onto the concrete floor. Melting the paint on the metal door, the liquid evaporated instantly and seemed to have already reached him.
The smell of rotten eggs turned his stomach, and his first reflex was to stop breathing, which saved his chakra if he was to believe the first signs of dizziness that began to make him lose his balance.
He didn't know what this place was, but what it contained did not match the iron tower above his head. This place was older than the building above. Much older, as if the hundred floors had been built to hide it.
Breathless, his senses on alert, he skirted the vertical metal beams to reach the nearest aisle. The one where three black suits and opaque glasses stopped abruptly in the middle.
It was then that he noticed them. The few open crates containing sharp weapons of all kinds. And it was only after he took his eyes off the three men in front of him for a moment to look at the thousands of crates as far as the eye could see that he understood.
This place could supply an army or even several armies. Maybe it already had.
Slowly, he turned his attention back to the opaque glasses.
Having followed the orders of the authoritative stamp, the three men had rushed to the entrance he had pushed through - the thirteenth, if he judged by the floor markings and the number of the aisle - and now stood face to face with him, transfixed.
The first of them, a little taller, about two meters, looked to his right at the hole in the wall and the door in the green barrel, and his first instinct was to cover his nose and mouth. Too late. After a slight wobble, he fell hard, as did his companion... and the last one.
He sheepishly lowered his azure gaze to the three unconscious men at his feet.
For once, he had done nothing.
Taking care to keep his breathing blocked, he brought his face up to the se... three people about twenty meters from him. The dimly lit place gave him only a glimpse of their faces, their physiques, and most importantly, their attire, and that was all he needed.
At first he felt nothing, then, realizing the situation, he spat out the little oxygen in his lungs, forcing him to move forward to take another breath. Fifteen meters away without having blinked yet, his eyes dried up. At ten he swallowed his non-existent saliva, at five and under one of the rare yellowing neon lights, he stopped and looked at the three men, or rather two of them.
The first, to his left, arms crossed, eyebrow raised, half sitting on a wooden crate surrounded by huge stacks of cardboard boxes, stared at him.
The second, in front of him, arms crossed, calm and standing in the middle of the hallway in front of a desk, scrutinized him.
The first, with slicked-back silver hair and violet eyes, wore a long, dark cloak lined with crimson on the inside and crimson clouds on the outside, and a three-bladed scarlet pitchfork strapped to his back.
The second, wearing a gray hood, a black mask over his face and dressed identically, showed only his green irises and blood-red sclera.
The first, with his cloak open over his bare torso, wore a crossed headband around his neck, proudly proclaiming his ancient affiliation with Yu, the Land of Hot Water. Beneath the silk headband was a strange necklace, to say the least. A circle enclosing a triangle that in no way matched the white ring he wore on his left index finger.
The second, with his cloak closed to his chin and his arms hidden behind his long, hip-length sleeves, bore on his forehead the striped symbol of Taki, the Land of the Waterfalls.
Of all the thoughts that crossed his mind in that moment of surprise, one stood out above the rest, and it reminded him of two very specific encounters.
After the Pretentious and the Masked, the Ingenious and the Showman, here came the Impetuous and the Discreet.
The members of this organization never ceased to impress him.
Although the type of personality to his left - the bloodthirsty emotions that violet eyes would exacerbate - was often synonymous with danger, it was actually the second one from whom the aura emanated. The one who didn't seem to want to draw his attention was the one who attracted it the most.
Concentrating, he watched the green irises carefully and, in frustration, tilted his face slightly to the side.
This... man was on a completely different level... was he even human? Was it just a facade or should he fear him as his instincts were telling him to?
While he could easily sense the murderous desires of the man who wished to water his pitchfork, he felt none of that behind the black mask.
What could it be?
It wasn't multiple personalities, it wasn't a malformation of the chakra pathway, it was something else. Where the energy source of a living being was perfectly integrated with the surrounding nature, whatever their beliefs, whatever their impulses were, in this man's case, multiple sources were emerging and were trying to assert themselves.
One calm for four enraged. He'd never felt anything like it before.
Several fluctuations similar to the one he was dealing with. However, it seemed implausible that this man could have four tailed demons sealed inside him. Especially considering his affiliation with this organization. But if that wasn't the case, how explain it?
How could he explain that this man was emitting chakra impulses similar to those of a Jinchūriki?
"Who do you think you are, kid?"
Focused on the two cloaks, his face tethered to the gray hood less than five meters away, his pupils shifted hostilely to the third man before the latter had even finished his tirade.
Sitting in a wooden chair behind a desk that stood between the crates and the center of the aisle, the man wore a gray suit and had an athletic build. Dark-haired, clean-shaven, with a straight back, one arm resting on the wooden armrest and an unadorned hand resting on the edge of the desk in front of him, the man was staring at him with his silver irises.
Kid...
That word, he didn't like it. He didn't like it anymore.
His right eyelid twitched for a split second, holding back the anger that tried to escape his calm gaze.
The silence he maintained wasn't awkward, it was... suffocating? At least it was for the third man, judging by the way this one brought his right hand down to loosen his tie a bit.
All the pieces of the puzzle were now in his hands. He had unlocked the secret of the iron tower, of the silver irises. Both those at the top of the tower and those who watched him without batting an eyelid. He now understood why he had sensed the uneasiness between the father and the daughter. But it was of no use to him now. Natoma's real notary had become useless to him, even though he'd just found him. Well, not useless, but less useful. He'd found something better.
His azure gaze slowly returned to the crimson clouds.
Much better.
This symbol, this color that had taken everything from him. The least he could say was that he hadn't expected...
He suddenly shifted his gaze to the left, to the chakra source over two hundred meters away, far beyond the carmine fork and the psychotic thoughts, and his eyebrows furrowed relentlessly.
What was he doing? Why was he letting his chakra escape? He couldn't afford to lose control here.
- Interesting.
Slowly, and for the third time, his gaze returned to the black mask. At the man who had just spoken in a voice that would make many swoon. It was clear that the cavernous voice was a perfect match with the impulses the man exuded.
It was almost too perfect.
"I don't like your face." said the man with the brushed hair and the chaotic emotions.
The latter stepped down from his crate and made a few vertical motions with his hand in front of his purple eyes. "It's too arrogant." Before grabbing the handle of the weapon behind his back and resting it on his shoulder.
His azure irises had only a second to observe the flexible cord that connected the hilt of the weapon to the sleeve of the cloak before the man spoke again.
"It's for me, I haven't killed anyone in two days."
It was... astonishing
The man was a perfect copy of the emotions he was feeling right now. So far, the sociopath had expressed almost everything without realizing it. Joy, anger, surprise, disgust. Even sadness was present under a layer of excitement. Everything was there, everything but fear.
To absolutely no degree was the man's chakra frightened by his presence. By the danger it represented. On the contrary, he even seemed delighted that he was there, as if he were going to fulfill a need.
An impetuous sociopath and a discreet schizophrenic.
This pairing was... astonishing.
To absolutely no degree was the man's chakra frightened by his presence. By the danger it represented. On the contrary, the latter even seemed delighted that he was there, as if he were going to fulfill a need.
An impetuous sociopath and a discreet schizophrenic.
This pairing was... astonishing.
"He's just a clone, you idiot." the cavernous voice insulted, forcing the sociopath's attention in the direction of his partner, offering him the least of his vital points in the process.
Was he that confident, or was he as idiotic as the masked man voice had just suggested?
With a stern movement, the man moved his scythe in the direction of the red sclera.
"Careful with the words that come out of your mouth, you heap of string."
He really didn't know what to make of these two men. Normally, it only took him a few seconds to decide whether to run or not. But here, he didn't know. Two mysteries. But being part of this organization, he knew that they were by no means insignificant, weak. These two men were at the top of the food chain. All he needed to know was who was the predator and who was the prey.
Them or him.
The scarlet scythe returned to its original position, and with a simple movement of his head toward the darkness, its owner offered a semblance of an answer to his inner questions.
Fortunately for him, fear was no longer part of his vocabulary.
"I know he's out there, do you think I can't feel that kind of chakra?"
All that remained was adrenaline and excitement. Two sensations he shared with his creator as the white smoke marked his disappearance.
Sakura
January 4 1021, 7 :45am
Land of Fire, Natoma
"How do you know this man?
"I met him three years ago."
"Was he the reason why you disappeared after the war?"
"Yes, he was."
If there was one thing she liked about Neji, it was that he didn't talk, or at least... not much. Often deep in thought, just like her, this was the only conversation they'd had. At least she hadn't given any other advanced conversation a chance.
She hadn't stopped since they left Konoha and the Hyūga had followed her without flinching or complaining. A journey that should have taken two days had taken twenty hours less. Including the day before they left, it had been forty-eight hours since they had slept. All she could say was that she was tired, but the adrenaline and excitement coursing through her veins prevented her from feeling the effects.
Tilting her head to the side as she watched the sun rise over the horizon, she wrung out her candy pink hair before shaking her hands away from her bare body, chilled by the cool breeze.
She took a few steps out of the lake and walked over to the small tree a few meters away to pick up her underwear, which was drying on one of the many branches, and pulled on the black pants and the dark green round-necked sweater. Her teeth began to chatter as she grabbed the black silk jacket and put it on as quickly as she could. Barefoot on the earth and dead leaves of the surrounding forest, she sat down on the nearest rock and slipped on her pair of black open-toed shoes.
Arms crossed under her chest, legs clenched and lips blue, she watched Neji's silhouette getting dressed on the other side of the lake, more than forty meters away.
Her teeth chattered even more.
She didn't know why she'd suggested it when she saw the lake, but it had been a bad idea. Her last memory of doing it with a certain Hatake was now two years ago, in the summer of her eighteenth birthday.
Summer.
The faint light on the other side of the lake caught her frozen attention and she didn't think twice about getting up from the rock.
She still remembered her good mood and smile when she emerged from the water two years ago, clean...
Were her muscles warm enough at that moment to even form a smile?
Walking on the ten-degree water, she shook her face to chase away the memories of that summer night that only reminded her of a section of her life she wanted to forget. A Section she hated.
It took her only a few seconds to reach the improvised fire next to the Hyūga, who was just finishing dressing.
"How long before we get there?" he asked her, pulling on his t-shirt and getting his white tunic."
"Less than an hour."
A short silence, then Neji's dull voice echoed through the forest again.
"We could have stopped at a hot spring, Natoma is full of them."
Crouching down, her palms facing the flames, she sighed softly.
"I don't like it."
"It's still better than washing in eight-degree water."
Unable to contain her amused expression, she replied:
"It's good for the body, didn't you know?"
Her smile disappeared the second the man behind her opened his mouth.
"In that case, you should do it more often."
Closing her fingers again, she slowly and calmly turned her face to meet the white gaze, which didn't fail to warm the right side of her pink hair.
"I beg your pardon?"
Sitting on a rock similar to the one she had used on the other side of the lake, fully clothed, Neji watched her without the slightest fear.
He assumed what he'd just said, something that rarely happened after she'd given someone her offended, murderous look. The member of the Second Branch wasn't afraid of her, it was nothing new to her, she'd experienced it more than once.
"Half of your tenketsus filter your chakras poorly, especially those on your legs. How long have you been letting yourself go, how long have you not been training seriously?"
Her misplaced pride immediately took control of her every thought and action, and it only took a fraction of a second for her to fold one of her hands and point to the other side of the lake.
"Did you check me out?" she asked, her tone matching her gaze.
Impassive, Neji stared at her for several seconds before clearing his throat.
"With or without clothes, I see the same thing. I didn't have to wait for you to undress before I noticed."
She immediately moved her forefinger from the water to the opal and, without thinking, uttered the exact same threat she had uttered to the crimson irises.
"Don't you dare look at me again when you activate it, is that clear?"
However, unlike Sasuke, the reaction was not as expected.
"Very well, but since I can see everything around me when I activate it, it will be impossible for me not to look at you when you're standing next to me, so you'll have to move four kilometers and three hundred and eighty-seven meters in any direction immediately, can you do that?"
After a mocking grimace that reflected the absurdity of the request, she sighed before turning her attention back to the flames and her hands, bitter.
This was one of the reasons why she always tried to be alone. At least when she was, she always had the last word.
Slowly, silence returned, disturbed only by the faint but incessant crackling of the embers. Seconds passed, then a full minute, and almost dry, she stood up just before Neji spoke again.
"Did you know that Shino joined Sasuke in Mizu?"
With her hands around her neck to warm it, she turned around a second time and was surprised to find that he was still watching her, although not as much compared to the question.
Hyūga could read minds now?
"Yes, I know, he went to help the unit he's in."
The eyebrows in front of her furrowed inexorably.
"That's not what he told me, he didn't tell me about the section. Sasuke asked him personally."
Before, in turn, she frowned.
"Did you talk to him?"
"Yes, he came to see me before he left and asked me to take care of you, or at least..."
She laughed as the bitterness rose in her throat, interrupting her pretentious interlocutor.
"You are unbelievable, all of you, what is it going to take, huh? What's it going to take for you to stop taking me for a child? That I kick your asses one by one?"
She took a step toward Hyūga who, still sitting, immediately raised his hand and moved his leg on the rock, somewhat panicked and ready to dodge a blow that, of course, she would never land.
"I never said I was here for that."
Neji was not afraid of her, well... not very much.
She sighed for the umpteenth time to regain her composure, and to her umpteenth surprise, it returned as quickly as it had disappeared.
"Then why are you here? Why do you work for Utatane Koharu?"
"I don't work for her, not directly, we just have a common interest."
"Which is? Explain yourself better, and also explain to me how she knew where he was to take that photo?"
"Is this an interrogation?"
"Yes, answer."
"No."
A composure that vanished as quickly as it had returned.
She clenched her fists at Neji's characteristic impassivity. One that had a way of making her mad - even though she was mad quite often.
The stones at her feet began to tremble slightly, which the opal eyes noticed.
Against all expectations, or at least for those who hadn't witnessed her mood swings, she flashed a beautiful smile and the gravel suddenly stopped gravitating.
"I've been a little short on patience lately, forgive me." she apologized.
"I forgive you." he replied in a flat tone.
She walked toward the lake before turning back one last time.
"I told you we had an hour before Natoma, I was wrong, we'll be there in ten minutes."
Her white teeth disappeared, never to reappear. With a wave of her hand, she pointed to the two legs of the Hyūga.
"Four kilometers and three hundred and eighty-seven meters, you said? Try to open your tenketsus properly, I don't want you to lose sight of me."
With a leap, the ground disintegrated under the pressure of her chakra, and in the next second, she found herself sixty meters above the lake. The heat on her face disappeared against the wind of her fall as she landed on a branch of the tallest tree on the other side of the water before jumping again.
[…]
Vertiginous. That was the only word that came to mind every time she looked up.
She'd never felt like this before, not even when she first saw the unattainable conifers of the Shikkotsu Forest, or even the giant slugs they sheltered.
Here in Natoma, everything seemed out of proportion, and she had the strange impression of having been reincarnated as an insect. She had begun to see the buildings two kilometers before she arrived, and now that she was standing at the foot of them, she understood.
In the middle of the huge avenue, she randomly observed the many passersby to her left before tilting her head back to contemplate the huge rectangular metal building about twenty meters in front of her. Then the one fifty meters further on. One hundred. Two hundred.
As far as the eye could see.
Each building was two or three times the size of her apartment, even though her neighborhood overlooked the village. Never before had she seen such a structure with her own eyes. She still remembered her thirteenth birthday, when she had come on a mission not far from here... she couldn't imagine how it had all been built in such a short time. The buildings seemed to rise out of the ground.
Money was far more miraculous than her nickname would ever be.
A glance caught her eye: a young man in his twenties, dressed as a factory worker, walking down the avenue. He simply ogled her and continued on his way until she lost sight of him in the crowd near a nearby stall.
The simple exchange shocked her.
He hadn't looked at her hair color, but at her face. She'd met over a hundred people so far, and this man was the first to look at her. Too busy with their own lives, no one paid attention to her atypical color, and even if they did, it wasn't the reason they looked at her.
It was... a first in a long time.
Here, she was nothing more than a passerby, a woman. If she had been known in the hidden villages for the past three years, in the closed circle of chakra users, of ninjas, she didn't seem to be known in the one of ordinary people.
It was... soothing.
The sound of a steam engine buzzed in her eardrums and, concentrating on the train more than a kilometer to her right, beyond the buildings under construction and cranes so large their shadows reached where she stood, she watched the black smoke rise, then the horn of a second train thunder, followed by a third...
Now she understood how this place had grown so quickly.
As she stepped aside to let a horse and carriage full of goods pass by, tinkling with each movement of the animal's paws, her attention fell on the man standing straight as a post in front of a small alleyway between two buildings. Dressed all in black, the man wore an armband with a kanji sewn into it.
Police.
With a pleasantly surprised expression, she watched the other man on the other side of the avenue, as well as the one a block away.
Same equipment, same position, all separated by a hundred meters or so, in charge of maintaining order, and the civilians passing by unconcernedly as if they were part of the scenery.
Slowly, she began to walk in the cool breeze and perfectly centered sunlight between the buildings ahead and, gently, passed the policemen, who took no notice of her colorful presence.
Given the choice, she would leave Konoha in a heartbeat. Those two minutes in this street had been more pleasant than the last three years in the Leaf. But unfortunately, choice wasn't something that was offered to a newborn in a hidden village. If she didn't want to end up like the Great Sannin Jiraiya, hunted down wherever she was, she had to keep nodding and keeping her mouth shut. Something she'd had trouble doing lately.
As she began to sink into her thoughts, into memories of her youth beside a woman she wished to forget, she shook her face to drive them away.
It didn't take her long to find the fake reason for her visit; all she had to do was concentrate on the sounds the city made to find it. Beyond the neighborhoods where she stood and the river that flowed up to the Land of Iron. Where jackhammers, grinders, and men in reinforced armor lifted concrete blocks and made themselves heard.
For the first time, in an area of several hectares, no buildings were constructed. Forming a square, the area was surrounded by taller buildings and paved roads, but nothing was built in its center - or at least, not anymore.
Standing just inside the western entrance to the district, she looked up at the rubble and metal beams that had piled up to over forty meters, and where, like an anthill, hundreds of men and women were moving in and out of the rubble, through holes large and small, searching for survivors.
Passing several groups of people - who appeared to be journalists from the look of their equipment - discussing how this disaster could have happened, she walked up to the iron fence that surrounded the entire area.
Hanging every ten meters, the yellow and red banners stood out from all the rest.
No crossing.
Her attention was drawn to the hundreds and hundreds of colorless tents on the other side, moving in the wind. Set up symmetrically for three hundred meters from west to east, they showed hundreds of men and women in white gowns crisscrossing inside, trying to take care of the injured as well as the last survivors of the disaster that had occurred three days before her arrival.
Crouching in front of the fences, she picked up an oval stone at her feet before standing up and, in the next second, raising her arm at what appeared to be a member of the Natoma Police about twenty meters away. Seeing her almost immediately, he moved in her direction, both hands clutching the black Kevlar jacket he was wearing.
In one swift motion, she moved her right hand behind her back just as a puff of smoke took over the identity of the stone she was holding. Once the man was a meter away, she handed him the newly created badge.
She felt no source of chakra from the policeman, so there was no chance that he would notice her trick. Well, it wasn't really a trick, she simply hadn't taken her badge with her, it was just a way to save time.
"Hello, my name is Haruno Sakura, I'm a doctor, may I come in?"
Dark-haired, in his thirties, the man picked up the badge with a firm hand before focusing on it. Similar in every way to the badge on his desk on the other side of the country, the policeman alternated his attention between the photo and her emerald eyes to make sure it was really her before handing it back.
"Are you from Konoha?" he asked in a tone that spoke volumes about what he thought of her home village.
Despite the man's hidden motives, she retrieved the stone and nodded.
The Leaf was not a well-liked village, not known for bringing peace, even in the country to which it rented its services.
"What are you doing here?"
"I've come to help."
He watched her for a few more seconds before shaking his head and sighing. She couldn't quite make out the word that escaped the thirty-year-old's mouth, maybe it was "whatever" or "great," but anyway, he stepped forward to move the barrier.
"Follow me."
Passing between the iron bars that the man closed behind her, she followed him and entered into the shadow of one of the buildings of the district before throwing the stone aside.
The perfectly manicured grass was covered with a layer of dust and thousands of small stones that she could easily identify as concrete. In some places, as they reached the first tents, the greenery revealed more or less abundant, dry, scarlet patches that ants were trampling with gusto.
It was then that she began to hear them. Camouflaged by the din of the searches, the lamentations of the tents reached her.
Behind the first misery cover she saw was a desperate looking man. Sitting on the floor, the man was holding the hand of a woman lying on a blanket, her leg amputated and her body and face covered with bandages. Every three seconds, after catching her breath, the woman would moan in pain, and the man could only squeeze her hand tighter to soothe her, to no avail.
Farther on, past the six tents enclosing the cripples and overwhelmed faces, came the first mourners. Half sitting, half slumped on a white canvas covering the lifeless bodies, they were no longer able to cry.
Then came the protests between the comprehensive nurses and the reprehensible families: when the wind shifted, the smell of the dead made the living vomit, they had to move the corpses.
Accustomed to the smell, she did not notice it until she heard it when the policeman stopped in front of the two nurses and the five members of a family in yet another tent.
Gathered in the center of the tent, the mother and her three daughters were crying their eyes out against the two white gowns. Behind the mother, a white sheet covered a corpse that no one dared look at, and for good reason: despite the sheet, one could clearly see that the corpse was in several pieces.
"We'll have to move him, ma'am, I'm sorry."
Handkerchief in hand, the mother of the family, blond like her three daughters, pointed at the nurse in front of her.
"You're not touching him! Where are you taking him?! I... I don't want him to be cremated, he didn't want that!"
The policeman stepped forward between the two groups to bring calm. With tears in her eyes, the woman did so. Then the thirty-year-old turned to the nurse and her assistant.
"Doctor Midori, this woman seems to have come directly from Konoha, I take care with the situation, can you take care of her?"
Almost immediately, she met the brown eyes of the green-haired doctor. A notebook in her hand, a disposable mask over her face that prevented her from guessing her age, and dressed in white gown and dark blue spare clothes, the woman sighed before walking in her direction.
As the doctor and her assistant approached the entrance to the tent where she had been standing, she took a few steps back to leave when the mother's protests were heard again, this time directed at the policeman.
After another step, the protests became mere buzzes, and it was the woman behind the blue mask that caught her attention.
"What can I do for you? Are you looking for someone?" the woman asked in a frazzled voice.
She had no doubt that the doctor was used to asking this kind of question, because in a calm, muffled tone, she didn't wait for an answer and pointed to the path to her right. "The list of the injured is further on, if you continue in this direction you will find it, the list of the dead is right next to it, if you don't find the name you are looking for you will have to go to the other side of the field, over there are the people whose identities have not been determined. On the left are those who have not yet awakened, and on the right are those who have passed away. If you have trouble recognizing a face because it's unrecognizable, tell it to Yoshiyuki-san, he's standing behind a desk in front of the tents, you can't miss him. With that, I'll leave you to it."
Stunned by this monologue, she said nothing and watched the woman walk away, still closely followed by her assistant. She remained planted in the grass for over ten seconds until the doctor entered a tent a few meters away.
A shiver ran down her spine.
She had the strange feeling of having gone back in time by three years. The same soulless monologue she'd been saying for over a week under the drizzle of Ame.
Coming back to reality, the lamentations around her took control of her thoughts as she began to walk again. Like a ritual, every time she passed a tent, she looked inside, and like a ritual, she repeated the same thing to herself: she was useless.
As she had predicted and told Neji the day before, she was too late. Absolutely all of the injured had already been treated, and those found alive had more than forty nurses and doctors waiting for them. If they had been found after three days under the rubble, their wounds were not serious, and all that remained was to keep an eye on them. She had arrived too late to treat the most seriously injured.
She passed a long list of names on a wooden sign, but ignored it and continued on her way.
She wouldn't find anything in all those names, there was no point in looking, he wasn't in this city, in this country, she was sure of that. The name she was really looking for, she didn't know it.
Arriving at the spot the doctor had indicated, at the level of the two largest tents in the area, right next to a huge broken fountain filled with brown water and chunks of concrete, she stopped in front of a fifty-year-old man sitting on a chair behind a desk in the middle of the alley, right on the grass.
Gray-haired and wearing glasses, the latter was filling in papers with his fountain pen.
Standing in front of the desk and not wishing to interrupt him as he was so engrossed in his writing, she turned her gaze to the tent to her left, where a dozen nurses were examining the patients lying on the floor who still hadn't woken up, then observed the tent to her right, where a single woman was turning inside with a man and opening the black body bags one by one to identify the victims. As soon as the man, holding a handkerchief over his nose and mouth, nodded "no", the nurse closed the bag and moved on to the next one.
"Can I help you?" came the voice in front of her.
She turned her attention back to the man behind the desk before quickly tilting her face.
"Yes, please, I'm looking for someone."
The man immediately pointed with his pen to the path she had just taken.
"There's a list-"
"I don't know her name," she cut him off.
The fifty-year-old raised one of his brown eyebrows, surprised at what she had just said, but since he seemed to have heard a lot crazier things in the last seventy-two hours, he didn't care that much.
"Do you know what she looks like?" he asked.
"She looks like me," she replied immediately. "I've looked in all the tents, she's not there."
Squinting, the man studied her candy pink hair for a moment before shrugging.
"It's the first time I've seen such atypical hair."
A little disappointed, she tilted her face a second time.
"Thanks anyway."
As she turned to take another look around the tents, the man's voice came from behind her.
"Go and ask Nurse Kozakura, she might know the answer." he said, pointing with his pen at the huge tent where the corpses were decomposing.
Turning her face to the body bags, she fixed her emerald gaze on the nurse in charge of opening them before turning back to the man and lowering her face for the third time.
"Thank you."
If there was one thing she blamed herself for, it was having boasted a few seconds earlier.
She wasn't that accustomed to it. The smell was much stronger once she got past the clear plastic tarpaulins. In fact, they made her nauseous. The smell of rotting flesh was definitely not something she was used to.
Walking between the black bags on the ground and the thin metal poles holding up the tent, a sad thought crossed her mind as she observed the smaller bags at her feet. A thought that Nurse Kozakura interrupted as she entered into her field of vision.
With a polite gesture, just as she had done with the man behind her desk, the woman bowed slightly to her. Despite the disposable mask she wore, all one had to do was look into her chocolate eyes to understand what she was expressing.
"Hello."
That was all the nurse said. No other formality, not even knowing what she wanted. She greeted the dark-haired young woman with a similar gesture.
"Hello."
In this tent, words seemed difficult to choose, to pronounce, to express. The people still alive there knew exactly what she wanted, what she was looking for. There was nothing else to say.
"Have you seen someone with the same color hair as mine? A woman in her twenties."
The nurse seemed to think for a moment, then clasped her hands over her stomach and lowered her face.
"I'm sorry, it doesn't mean anything to me."
With a flick of her hand, she tucked her pink hair behind her ear and sighed, inhaling the smell of putrefaction.
The nurse bowed a second time.
"I'm really sorry."
The tent's tarpaulins opened slightly, catching the hospital worker's eye.
"It's nothing, thanks anyway."
And a man's voice came from behind her.
"Ms. Okada, why are you here and not in the hospital? You need to rest."
She turned to face the man less than five meters away from her curiosity, and just by looking at his green eyes, she knew he was talking to her. A second was enough for her to put all the pieces back together. The next second, the doctor in the white coat frowned and pointed at her.
"How... how did your arm heal so quickly? And... your head... where are your bandages?" he asked before widening his eyes in disbelief. "Did you cut your hair?"
For the umpteenth time, she lowered her face in front of her interlocutor.
"Sorry, you must have mistaken me for someone else."
The man behind the blue mask bowed in return.
"Oh, forgive me, you look very much like one of my patients."
She only offered a quick smile.
This place didn't allow for much more than that.
"Is this the person you seek?"
Slowly, she turned her face to the left and to the nurse's question.
"It could be, yes."
Before she turned back to the doctor.
"Could you tell me in which hospital I can find Ms. Okada?"
The man's answer was not what she had hoped for.
"I'm sorry, unless you're a member of her family, I'm not authorized to give out that kind of information."
And she thought for a moment that she would have to go to every hospital in the city, if not the region, but her lie flowed instinctively.
"She's my cousin." she lied, a little ashamed under the circumstances.
From the way the man had become defensive, she had understood that this woman seemed to be an important person, that the situation went beyond the professional sphere, and that even revealing her location could be compromising for him, but to what extent she didn't know yet. One thing she did know was that, for the first time in her life, she'd have to thank her hair color, because, rubbing the back of his head, the man hesitated for a moment, before giving up against the pink.
"She was taken to Sendai Kousai Hospital in Miyagi district, north of here."
She bowed her head in thanks, and the man, taking one last look at her hair color, did the same before saying goodbye. The plastic tarpaulins closed, the voice of the nurse behind her raised.
"Follow the train lines and you won't miss the hospital."
She immediately turned back to the woman.
"Thank you very much. "
In no time, the smell of putrefaction disappeared and she found herself back behind the fences, exactly where she had arrived.
Exactly where Neji was waiting for her.
"So?" he asked as soon as the policeman had gone.
"She's in the Sendai Kousai Hospital."
In a fraction of a second and without the veins on his face even having time to swell, he released a pulse of chakra and, the next instant, he nodded toward the north of the city.
"It's three kilometers from here, follow me."
Remaining in the grass for just the blink of an eye, she... finally followed him.
No train lines, then.
As the sun disappeared behind gray clouds on the horizon, she ducked into an alleyway not far from the main thoroughfare and followed the Hyūga as he used a garbage can to leap onto a wall and run vertically over it.
Ten seconds later, at the top of the forty-meter concrete wall, she looked out over the vast city of Natoma, one foot resting on the edge of the building.
The endless river that cut the landscape in two and skirted the mountain on the horizon, the smoke that rose to the sky and fed the impending rain, the monotony of the colors of the buildings that varied from gray to gray light or dark gray, as well as the thousands of civilians, horses, carriages that passed each other without ever looking at each other.
The wind blew her pink hair, and at that moment only one thing came to her mind, a joke that allowed her to forget, for a moment of inspiration, what she had just witnessed.
"It took you a long time to get here, did you get lost?"
"You're fast, I have to admit, I wouldn't have found you without my eyes," he confessed. "However, you are slower than before."
She took a step toward him, but he gave her no room to maneuver and leaped into the void, or rather, toward the river.
A breath of disbelief and a look that was both amused and angry later, she jumped toward the water as well.
"How will you get past her guards?"
was the question he asked her as they climbed a second building out of sight.
"Her guards? Can you see them?"
was the astonished answer she gave.
"No, there are too many people in there for me to tell them apart, it's just obvious to me that she has guards, considering who she is."
"Who she is? What do you mean by that?"
Once again at the top of a building, this time over seventy meters high, he stopped in front of her and, repeating the same gesture, the wind stopped whistling in her ears as she set foot on the gravel.
"With the death of her father, she is the sole heiress of the Okada family."
Faced with her silence, he turned to stare at her confused expression.
"You... don't know the conglomerate?" he asked her in a tone of astonishment... which, of course, she didn't take kindly, since it meant she was out of touch with reality... which, of course, she assumed that she was.
"No, I'm supposed to know?"
Turning his attention back to the horizon, he shoved his hands into his black pockets and sighed.
"What happened on your last mission that made you hate our world so much?"
The bead of sweat on her back gave her an unpleasant sensation that ended in a hot flush. Taking a few steps, her fists relaxed and her face impassive, she walked past the Hyūga to observe the anthill below.
"This is the third time you've asked me, and the last two times, even drunk, I didn't answer you, why do you think today will be any different? Just tell me who this woman is before I get really angry."
She heard him sigh a second time, but he complied.
"As of less than three days ago, she is the fourth richest person in the world, not counting the Eastern Emperors, which makes her a target. No doubt many of the shareholders want her dead. All her guards have to do is look at you for a second to jump on you, and it seems unlikely to me that there isn't one of them who knows about our shape-shifting abilities. Even as a doctor, they won't let you through."
"I can get in from the outside."
"There are cameras everywhere, so it'll be difficult, if not impossible, to avoid detection."
"I can turn into a guard."
"How long can you last?"
"Half an hour."
"That sounds doable, but what will you do after that? Why would they let you through?"
Her eyes wrinkled, she looked down from her perch across the vast avenue at Sendai Kousai Hospital, before sighing in turn.
"I can go ahead and kidnap her."
Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the black hair that had just appeared in her field of vision.
"After all she's been through, do you think she deserves this?"
And she couldn't hold back a bitter laugh.
"Since when does our job allow us to worry about what's good or bad? Is that something new?"
Hands still in his pockets, the Hyūga scanned the hospital over four hundred meters away.
"We're not on a mission, failure is a possibility, that's why we're debating, why we don't have a plan. If you wish, you can disable these men and kidnap this woman, I won't stop you, but they don't deserve it."
Turning her attention back to the civilians coming in and out of the hospital complex, she bites her upper lip, deep in thought.
Sasuke
January 4 1021, 5 :21pm
Land of Water
Deep in thought, leaning against the bark of the tree with arms folded, he stared straight ahead in perfect stoicism.
Behind the white fox-shaped mask he wore, his inky black irises moved slowly through the mist and forest as the sound of footsteps on dead leaves could be heard. The wind blew, twirling his jet-black hair as the fog swirled. A few rays of sunlight took advantage of the tumult to pierce through the foliage, revealing the two approaching silhouettes.
Leaving his position, he put back in place the thin metal plates on his forearms and torso that completed his black attire, and stepped out onto the dirt road that the merchants' wheels had scarred for years.
The first to arrive, a man in his twenties, stopped less than a meter in front of him and let him observe his usual dark attire. The shoes, the pants, the long coat that reached down to his face, the hood, even the glasses - everything was black, with only his white skin as a contrast.
The second, a slimmer man in his thirties, wore dark blue shoes and pants, and a dark blue sweater covered by a green vest. Unlike his colleague, the second man's face was not covered, revealing brown hair and a sooty gaze similar to his own.
A look he knew all too well.
For the last fifteen minutes, the only question that had bothered him was why the Insect was late, but now he only wanted to know one thing, and the accusing tone he let out spoke volumes about his last thought.
"I asked you to come alone, wasn't my message clear enough, Shino?"
With his hands deep in his coat pockets, the Aburame offered him nothing but indifference, unlike the man behind him who looked surprised at the metal plates protecting his limbs.
In fact, the thirty-year-old wasted no time in expressing himself and pointing this out to his fellow traveler.
"Oi Grasshopper, you didn't tell me this was a Section mission, I've got nothing to do with-"
In a fraction of a second, catching the grumbler off guard, he raised his arm and tightened his fingers on the hilt of his katana, which had just appeared in a puff of smoke, the blade pointed less than five centimeters from the Grasshopper's throat.
"Answer me, or I'll eliminate both of you."
A breath passed, and it was the more frightened of the two men who spoke.
"W-Who do you think you are, threatening us like that, huh?! I am part of the Uchiha Police, I was sent by Hatake as the leader of this unit, I am in charge of this mission, so watch your mouth if you don't want to deal with the Council!"
At the Jōnin's frightened yet authoritative tone, he lowered his blade gently and laughed softly behind his mask.
"Is what I'm saying funny?" the member of the Konoha Police asked in an annoyed tone.
A few seconds passed, and his laughter fading, he took his eyes from the opaque glasses to observe the surrounding fog, which calmed his nerves.
His tone was no less irritated.
"Hatake Kakashi appointed you himself?"
The wind swept through the fog for the umpteenth time, revealing the rain breaking over the steep mountains on the horizon.
"Just ask the Ladybird."
Despite the suggestion and bringing his attention back to the Uchiha, he did not do so and merely stared at the man.
"You said it yourself, this is a Section mission, why should the head of the Jōnins have any influence over us?"
About to answer, the man before him opened his mouth, but the words didn't come out. He... literally did not know what to say.
The ANBU didn't take orders from the higher-ups of the Leaf, regardless of its name. Although there used to be a person appointed to head the Section, for over twenty years, the ANBU had taken orders only from the Hokage, who had been the Section's head before his investiture.
Shimura Danzō had been the leader of the ANBU for more than fifty years.
With this thought, the Uchiha stepped in front of the Aburame to stare at him.
"Why are the Special Forces here? Did you know about it? Answer me, you insect!"
Behind his mask, he observed the two opposites in front of him, the loud one and the silent one, while the policeman's tone rose another notch.
"You'll see the report I'm going to write on your face when I-"
"Maybe you don't know him, but his name is Sadao Uchiha." Shino's voice thundered for the first time, cutting off the thirty-year-old who was threatening him with his finger.
Sadao... this name meant nothing to him.
With a little more than eight thousand men and women and three thousand registered ninjas - three thirds of which were police officers - the Uchiha were the most prominent clan on the Leaf. If he only knew half of them, that would be an achievement in itself, but unfortunately, that was not the case.
Sadao, surprised, lowered his arm as the Aburame continued, and it was at this precise moment that everything changed.
"Two weeks ago, he and his men blackmailed Sakura in her apartment in an attempt to silence and rape her." he added in a flat voice.
That, behind his mask, even his breathing stopped.
Sadao lowered his arm in surprise as the Aburame continued, and it was at that moment that everything changed.
"Two weeks ago, he and his men blackmailed Sakura in her apartment in an attempt to silence her and rape her." he added in a flat voice.
That, behind his mask, even his breathing stopped.
An hour earlier, he had wondered how she was, what she was doing, and now he had the answer. He had known Shino for over six years now, and although they weren't close, they had already shared several missions within the Section itself, and he was sure of one thing about the member of the Aburame Clan: even if his rough way of speaking sometimes suggested otherwise, he was no liar.
With a voice that had become strangely calm again, even if a bit surprised, Sadao reacted almost immediately to the accusations against him.
"So, you knew, I wondered on the way here," he said with a broad smile. "Why talk about it now? Were you afraid I would make you regret it on the way? Something else, perhaps? Don't tell me you thought the Section would give me a hard time?" he asked before starting to laugh out loud.
"Wasp, you have to wake up, don't you understand yet? There's nothing you can do, I'm an Uchiha, I'm a member of the Konoha police, I'm under the orders of Danzō, it was his order, if you touch me, it's the same as touching him, hasn't that sunk in your little dragonfly head yet?" he added, still laughing. "That bitch got what she deserved, all she had to do was keep her mouth shut. By the way, did you know your teammate was a real slut? Tell me, did you fuck her too?"
As the Uchiha argued in front of him, his mask began to tilt to the side, as if the weight of what was bubbling up inside him was beginning to weigh him down.
As strange as it might seem, he felt nothing at the moment. His emotions were so vivid, so unstable, that he was still struggling to decide which one to give in to. Anger, worry, guilt... hatred? He couldn't decide.
With his only free hand not holding his katana, he slid his right thumb under his mask and chin and pulled it out. The cool air almost immediately dried the sweat that began to form on his face as he dropped the mask to the ground. The noise inevitably drew the attention of the policeman, who turned around.
The haughty grin on the man's face simply vanished.
The handle of the weapon in his left hand snapped in two under the pressure of his fingers, and the blade joined the mask on the muddy ground. The pieces of magnolia between his fingers crumbled, and blood began to drip from his clenched fist.
"S-S-S-S-S-Sa-"
"Did you touch her?"
With his face still turned to the side and the incessant stuttering in front of him, he widened his eyelids as the seconds ticked by with no answer.
"Answer my question, did you touch her?" he repeated in a cold tone.
The man dropped to his buttocks and waded into the mud, trying to back away, but after two hand movements, the Aburame's legs prevented him from escaping.
"I-I-I-No, n-nothing was done to-to her..."
"He touched her."
When Shino's voice echoed through the forest, the grounded policeman lifted immediately his crazed gaze to the Aburame.
"You shut your mouth! I didn't touch that bi..."
Sadao regained his senses and stopped his insult just in time to abruptly turn around and start begging with his eyes again.
"S-Sasuke-san y-you're not going to blame me for a simple g-girl, are you? Y-You know very well how it-it works, it was a d-direct order from D-Danzō, we had n-no choice."
Releasing the wooden twigs, he took a step toward Shino and crouched in front of the policeman. Forearms resting on his knees, his scarlet hand dripped blood into the mud at his feet.
Plank.
"Did you touch her?"
"I-I just car-t-touched her hip."
Plank.
"'In the mission order, was it written that you were allowed to rape her?"
In an incomprehensible stammer, the twenty-year-old did not answer.
Plank.
In a gesture so quick that even the fog had trouble keeping up, his bloody fingers clamped down on the man's jaw, just below his nose, and squeezed so hard that the policeman let out a groan of pain.
"Answer."
The man nodded in the negative.
An inaudible gasp vibrated through his hand, and as the man's drool mixed with his blood, he abruptly released his grip as the man fell sideways, gasping for breath.
"You... you can't..."
Impassive, his jaw clenched, he watched the policeman's bloodied face.
"Our clan... the council... they'll banish you if you... you touch me, you... you can't touch me... Danzō will kill you."
Remaining motionless long enough to catch the thirty-year-old's inky black irises, he finally opened his mouth.
"Fuck the Council, fuck our clan. Fuck Danzō."
Terror was born in the policeman's eyes as he began to crawl in the mud.
"P-Please... I didn't do anything to her..."
Out of breath and rolling over in the mud with a flaccid sound, the fugitive watched him as he regained his footing and stopped directly in front of him.
The proud and feared Sadao Uchiha began to cry.
"Don't kill me, please, I don't w-want to die."
A cry that stopped when the policeman noticed the blade he'd picked up from the ground. He watched as the thirty-year-old grabbed his left foot and began to cry again.
"I-I beg you, Sa-Sasuke, I'll do whatever you want."
"Get off me."
Sadao released him immediately and, kneeled down, clasped his hands together.
"I-I won't do it again, you have my word, I-I will work for you, I-I will report everything I see and hear, please don't kill me, I can be useful, can't I? A-All right?"
"Are you right or left-handed?"
The man at his feet almost immediately raised his right hand.
"R-Right-handed, I'm right-handed, yes, right-handed."
"So that's the hand you touched her with?"
A look of disbelief spread across the policeman's face and he didn't have time to think about what he had just heard before he screamed at the top of his lungs and fell back to the ground. His left hand gripping his right wrist, the thirty-year-old watched the void before him as blood spurted out.
His scream of terror was loud, his scream of pain deafening. The scream was gone.
"You son of a bitch! What have you done?! Help me! Help me!"
Back on his knees, his fingers clenched tightly around his right wrist to stop the bleeding, the man let out an animal moan, unable to hold back the drool that escaped with each gasping breath.
Shock over, the tears returned.
With a quick movement, he wiped the blood from the blade in his hand and approached the Uchiha once more.
"I... you... kill... a... member... of... your... own... family... you... dirty... bastard...!"
The man raised his eyes to meet his, and this time the terror on the man's face increased a thousandfold.
"NO! DON'T DO THIS!"
Black flames appeared on the policeman's right leg and, howling, he tried in vain to extinguish them. No sooner had he placed his left hand on it to extinguish it than the flames spread to his arm.
With beastly screams, each louder than the last, he slipped into the mud, into the puddles, kicked, clawed, and tore his hair out before crawling away in any direction, too late. The flames had spread to every fiber of his body.
The smell of braised chicken wafted through the air, and with the last groan, the flames vanished.
Naruto
November 16, 1014, 4 :00pm
Land of Sound
Twenty-one hours, thirty-two minutes, forty-three seconds.
"I think we passed through here seven years ago, didn't we? Or was it before that? I can't remember."
It had been barely twenty-two hours since he'd left her alone on top of that mountain, and the least he could say was that it was making him sick, literally. His stomach was churning unbearably.
"There must be a village not far from here if I remember correctly, do you smell that chicken?"
This was a far more horrible sensation than recovering the memories of the physical pain of over a thousand clones. Because this pain wasn't fleeting, it lasted for a long time. It would last two months, for sure.
"How much longer are you going to make that face?"
Continuing to walk along the edge of the forest, he watched from the corner of his eye the endless white hair to his right. The sun setting on the horizon only allowed him to observe her for a moment, but it was enough to open his mood to anger... as well as his lips.
"She told me not to get mad at you, so don't talk to me."
A sigh later, the tired tone beside him rose into the atmosphere charged with humidity... animosity.
"Do you think I left her behind out of joy? It pisses me off as much as you."
Unable to control himself, his fists clenched, he stopped suddenly on the dirt road, and the getas in front of him did the same the next second. He watched his master's dark irises for a long moment before finally closing his eyes with another sigh. He tried to swallow his anger, to no avail, and the wrinkled, smiling opal gaze that forced itself into his field of vision did not help. On his next exhale, he opened his eyes again and his temporary temper flared all the more violently.
"Don't hide behind those pretty words, if it bothered you so much we'd still be there, and stop talking like you can see the future, the last time I checked you weren't a millennial toad, you don't know, you don't know what can happen, as usual you only think of yourself, I told you I didn't want to go, but you still managed to get her on your side".
A strange thrill, a humiliating feeling. That was what had just gone down his spine. He was ashamed to speak like that to the person who had taught him everything, the person he owed everything to. But he just couldn't hold it in.
"It's annoying. You're getting on my nerves."
He just couldn't do it anymore.
Lately, the former Sannin had been acting strangely, truly strange. It was... as if time was working against him, against them. The fifty-year-old was making hasty decisions, and from an outsider's point of view, his own, they seemed downright rash. For some time now, he'd even begun to wonder if his master was in the grip of a Genjutsu.
It really was the most rational conclusion, as were his next words.
"Don't talk to me, I don't want to hear you, take me where I need to go, teach me what I need to learn, get it over with."
He resumed his walk, passing by the impassive face of the fifty-year-old.
He expected to hear a sentence that would irritate him, but to his astonishment, this was not the case. Jiraiya made no reference to some sort of adolescent crisis, no suggestion that he was a spoiled little girl. Instead, only four words rose into the dry air.
"One day, you'll understand."
Four simple words that were enough to make him stop abruptly and turn back.
"Understand what?"
The six-foot silent man didn't answer his question, which only made him angrier.
"And you say I'm the child here?!"
Without a word, the former Sannin passed him by, leaving him standing next to the local flora.
With a heavy step, he resumed his walk and, arms crossed, turned his face to the side in annoyance.
Yes, he'd just been caught at his own game. The fifty-year-old had respected his request; he would not speak to him again.
Yes, he understood now how infuriating the silence was.
That same anger vanished as quickly as he could feel the pulse of the chakra in his satchel. In one swift movement, he lowered his face to his black pants and plunged his hand into the polyester hanging from it to retrieve the yellow book, which he didn't hesitate to open. Flipping through the words she'd sent him three hours earlier, the ones wishing him a good night, he read the last ones, the ones that had just been written.
"Where are you?"
Frowning, he raised his face to the gray smoke less than a kilometer from their position - his position - as a pen appeared between his fingers in a puff of smoke.
"We have just stopped in a small village on the border between Sound and Fire, why?
"Nothing, I was just wondering, I can't sleep. Which village exactly?"
"Tomioka, east of Nemuro. Weren't you supposed to go to bed three hours ago, you little liar?"
Yes, you're right, I'm going to sleep now, good night.
All right, good night."
He didn't know what the future held for him, but he hoped for only one thing: to return to her side as soon as possible.