Naruto Fan Fiction / InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Stains of the Heart ❯ Chapter Nine ( Chapter 9 )

Chapter Nine

 

The forest swarmed around her, as she easily moved past the defenses that had been posted around Konohagakure. Her mind was set onto one thing, stopping her from taking even a moment to perhaps look at her surroundings, or check for possible danger. She wanted something, and she would have it. Not because she had been pushed to try and obtain it by a very annoying voice, but because she had been pushed to the point that she wanted it. She needed it, and thus she would have it. No one, even if they were the most skilled shinobi, was going to stop her.

 

Her footing never faltered, not as she past many spooked animals, nor when she flew around a figure that could have ended up being her victim. She ignored them, though, in favor of continuing on. The further away from that damn village she was, the more likely chance she had of killing someone without interruption. She was not stupid, she knew that any of them, should they hear the screams of death, would come running in order to investigate. Those nosy shinobi would also end up dead, and then she would find herself in a situation she did not wish to have herself within at that moment. She was not fond of the idea of being chased everywhere for the rest of her life simply because they could not keep their nose out of something that did not concern them. Not that that wasn't a pleasing thought, so many people to kill.

 

A snicker rose in her throat, her vision becoming sharper, as she was used to it doing after so many years. The laughing inside her head increased, but she convinced herself she was going this for herself, not because it wished for her to. She'd always done it for herself, for she needed, not anything else. That was why she trusted only one thing, and one thing only. Herself. She could never find it within her ability to trust, love, or cherish anything that did not have to do with herself. Once she had been told she was far too self-centered, but she cared not for the words of pitiful beings and she had killed them, washing their blood over her flesh as she delighted in being true to herself. Delighted to show that she was willing to put another in their place when they stepped out of turn, thus showing that she was the top shinobi.

 

Besides, no one had ever cared. Her Clan had written it off as another poor soul to simply vanish whenever she'd killed. One by one she'd taken them out, for sometimes they would try to treat her with respect, being the daughter to their head, but other times they would simply glare at her. They had known, truly known, that she was the one to cause such a thing to happen, but they had kept their mouths shut. Even those related to the person found dead or simply missing, as they'd said, would say nothing, but deep down she knew that they knew if they said anything she would have snapped sooner. She would have killed them long before she did, but she was happy she'd gotten such a long time to prepare for it. It simply meant their fear become so great she could taste it, and they paniced when they finally learned she was going to do it at last.

 

Quickly, she spun on her foot, her body easily maneuvering around the large tree in her path. Without a sound, she pushed off the ground, and found herself in the branch of the next tree, crouching low. Her body was pushed forward, her feet landing onto another branch not far off as chakra was channeled into her feet, effectively keeping her balanced and attached to where she landed for brief moments in time. Her eyes shifted, her senses searching, and a grin tilted her lips when she found something familiar off in the distance. Just far enough that the screams would not be heard, and just in case they may be, she had ways of keeping them muffled. Afterward, she would simply leave the area, find some place to wash, and return to Hokage Tower as if nothing had happened.

 

That fool Naruto would never know the difference.

 

“Good girl,” she heard, “but move faster.”

 

Her eyes narrowed to mere slits. Do not tell me what to do.

 

A chuckle was her first response, before she felt like she was being stared at by large black eyes. She blinked it away, and the voice quickly returned. “If you do not do it, then I will be forced to do it for you,” it snarled. “You will go faster.”

 

A strange prickling sensation erupted underneath her skin, and she shivered from the power rushing into her system. She instantly grabbed hold of it like a starved individual who'd had a ripe piece of fruit placed in front of them. The power, which she had a feeling she had felt before, quickly increased her own, and she laughed menacingly from just the feeling it created. Her speed tripled, her feet moving much faster then before, until her eyes caught sight of her prey. The strange power continued to ripple through her body, but she came to a complete stop without making a single sound, as she hid in the shadows of the forest.

 

Her eyes shot over each of them, counting nine all together. Then, her eyes caught sight of the headband wrapped around the arm of one, and a small smirk formed onto her lips.

 

“We move at the first sight of dawn.”

 

Another smirked, his cocky attitude easily noted. “That bitch they chose as Hokage won't know what hit her,” he laughed.

 

“Shut up,” another said. “Our mission is to form an assassination, not go around signaling to others that we're here.”

 

“Tch, not like anyone is actually this deep in the forest,” the cocky one snapped.

 

“This forest could still have ears, though,” the first growled. His sleeve shifted, showing off the kunai he had drawn, as he turned toward her positioning. “Isn't that right?” he said. His wrist moved, and the weapon snapped out of his hand, moving straight for her head.

 

She moved, quickly and silently. She barely made even a flutter on the forest floor, as she moved to the other side of the small clearing they had chosen to inhabit. The fallen leaves moved only the tiniest bit with the change in the wind she'd created, pushing her away from the approaching weapon. Her ears picked up the sound of it hitting the trunk of a tree not long afterward, but she knew that she had had plenty of time to escape that attack.

 

The cocky one glanced up, “What the hell are you doing? No one is out here.”

 

“You're wrong,” the first snarled, drawing another kunai. “There is someone. Someone who is obviously very skilled at keeping to the shadows—all we have to do is draw them out.”

 

The others tensed, while another smirk formed onto her lips. Her hands moved together, beginning to make the signs that she wanted. It was quick as lightning, and then she made the final one, her eyes taking in each of their stances as they rose to their feet.

 

OoO

 

“How do you know she went this way?” Sasuke asked, his eyes closing further against the wind hitting them. It had increased not long ago, almost at a frightening level, but he was used to the wind picking up quickly. The frightening thing, though, was that it hadn't been blowing in their direction when they'd first entered the forest, but had hit them the instant a strange chakra had washed over them, before disappearing. He was positive it wasn't gone, but the person who possessed it had simply hidden it somehow.

 

“The sand,” came Gaara's blunt answer.

 

Sand? Sasuke thought, turning his head toward his current companion. He knew of Gaara's ability to control the sand, but he also knew that it could have been diminished to a certain point when Shukaku was extracted from him. He knew from Naruto that Gaara had been revived from death, though the explanation had come out so quickly that he only knew half of the story. However, he wasn't sure exactly how Gaara could use the sand to follow another person, unless he had purposely planted it on the woman in case something like this happened.

 

Gaara glanced back toward the forest floor from the branch he landed upon, his eyes taking in the sand he'd sent to pursue her. It had followed her chakra signal quite a long distance, but it seemed she'd somehow managed to move faster. He felt the branch dip as Sasuke came to land beside him, and narrowed his eyes. He knew that he could still use the sand to track her in a similar fashion, but he knew that might take too long with how fast she'd suddenly moved. Though, that certainly didn't mean he didn't have a quicker way of finding her, since she hadn't even flinched each time his sand had examined her.

 

He leapt after the Kazekage when he finally moved again, and noticed the way his eyes flickered around the forest. Sasuke paused for only a small second when he felt chakra wash over his skin, and distantly heard the sound of metal flying through the air. It had taken years, but he knew the sound well enough to recognize it even from the distance. Since Gaara had picked up speed, continuing to travel in the direction he heard the weapons slicing through the air, even if only faintly. His footing never faltered afterward, but he felt that something was going to happen, and he was positive his instinct was correct.

 

As they came closer, they were able to make out her form standing at the edge of a clearing. Inside there were people, which caused Sasuke to silently pull out a kunai, not knowing if he would have to use it. However, as they neared, they slowed until they were some distance away, far enough that they wouldn't be detected, but able to see what was happening. Sasuke watched, as she seemed to lean to one side, taking in the people in front of her, before moving faster than the eye could see. He blinked in surprise, for nothing moved, a kunai embedded itself into the tree she had been standing in front of, and then she appeared silently on the other side of the clearing. They narrowed their eyes, and Sasuke went to take a step forward until Gaara's arm moved in front of his chest, stopping him from doing so.

 

Her hands moved quickly, making a sequence of hand signs that he wasn't familiar with. When she made the last one, she merely allowed her hands to fall to her sides, and watched the people in front of her. Sasuke scowled, and turned his attention to the Kazekage stopping him from helping the people that were obviously going to become her victims. It wasn't hard to still feel the bloodlust she was radiating, even when she'd masked her presence so well. How, he wasn't entirely sure, since usually a small trace of a person was still left behind, though it was hard to follow, impossible in certain conditions. Somehow, somehow she had made it so that she seemed to simply disappear, though.

 

Trying to take another step forward, his grip tightening on his weapon, he felt Gaara's hand grab ahold of his jounin vest. Stopping, he turned his scowl toward him, and noticed that he wasn't even looking at him. “What are you doing? She's going to kill them,” he snapped.

 

“Look at the symbol on their headbands,” Gaara replied. His eyes narrowed, his thoughts more on the shinobi she had obviously engaged in battle than the woman. His first question had to be why they were so close to Konohagakure, but his second was why no one had detected them so far.

 

Sasuke did so, his eyes squinting against the wind blowing toward them. Leaning forward a bit, his eyes not as sharp as the Kazekage's, he searched for the symbol as he had been told. His eyes widened when he finally caught sight of one, and he snarled. “Iwagakure shinobi! What the hell are they doing here?” he asked, knowing he sounded much too like Naruto for his own good. He felt the urge to use the sharingan, but stopped himself before he did, shaking the feeling away.

 

Gaara shook his head, deciding the question didn't need an answer. There were a few reasons the enemy of Konohagakure would be so close to the village. He didn't like any of them. And, this was a perfect way to analyze the woman that had his mind turn. Something about her was familiar, something that he knew he should be able to figure out, but she hid herself so well that it was hard for him to do so. She was strange, yes, but she was an intriguing creature, as well. He felt that she was very similar to him in some way, but not how he was now. She was similar to him before Naruto had managed to help him escape the darkness that he had once been within. That made her interesting.

 

Her eyes were sharper than he remembered them being, and he noticed that the black markings he'd seen before, or thought he had seen, were beginning to appear onto her skin. They were like the rings around his own eyes, except they had a single point just to the outside of her eye. As they came into full view, he noticed that they extended away from the outside of her eye onto her cheeks, much like curved claws. Three all together; the highest one very thin, before it curved back in toward the eye, and right before touching extended back out into the thickest and longest one, before it too curved back in a ways, and then extended into the final one. A small black marking was underneath the final piece coming off the rings around her eyes, shaped much like a small frown. After the markings appeared completely, he watched as she blinked, and when her eyes opened again, they would have resembled the Hyuuga's eyes if they were black in color. The markings around her eyes were darker than the color her eyes had become, but they were very close in coloration, making it hard to tell where the eye ended and the markings began.

 

Gaara and Sasuke narrowed their eyes just a little further when they noticed the white looking substance coming off her skin. It resembled chakra in a way, but from the distance they could not be certain. The change that had occurred made them think that perhaps she had been hiding her true appearance with a Genjutsu that they hadn't noticed. An illusion would probably be the only way to hide those strange demon-like markings and black eyes. But that white substance looked like chakra far too much for it to be anything else, but not normal chakra, if there was any type of chakra that couldn't be considered normal.

 

Her lip lifted into a very sinister smirk, what looked to be long canines slipping over her bottom lip as she shifted herself, easily kicking up the dead material on the forest floor, and then disappearing once again. Kunai and shuriken embedded the trees where she'd once stood, before she appeared in a tree just off to their left. For a moment the pair wondered why she was playing with her opponents, since it was obvious the Iwagakure shinobi were there for a reason and would kill anyone that got into their way of doing whatever they were there for. They were saying things to each other, but from the distance they couldn't pick up the words, as the strange woman finally dropped down from her perch.

 

The Iwagakure shinobi instantly turned toward her, but her hand lifted, and her chakra flared. Though they had lifted their hands in order to blast her with different jutsus, or impale her upon their weapons, they were frozen in place. A dark shadow moved from the woman's feet, spreading out into the forest and into the clearing the enemy had taken refuge within. The shadow moved until it became a large circle, kanji symbols glowing around the outside edges, and around the center where she stood. Not a moment after the circle formed, a wall shot up from the outside edges, forming a solid barrier around the area.

 

As soon as the barrier formed, Gaara moved closer, Sasuke right on his tail. Once close enough, they could see the wide smirk that had formed onto Kagome's face, as she said, “You were fools to be so easily caught within my Death Circle.”

 

Death Circle, they thought. They had never heard of such a thing.

 

“You see,” she continued. “In here, I get to decide how you die. I get to decide exactly how your blood spills upon the ground.” She chuckled afterward, her hand coming up again. Her eyes seemed to glow through the barrier, and the markings around her eyes seemed to turn a bright red. As her hand came up, the white chakra they'd seen before once again leaked from her body, slicing into the ground as it spread out from her position. It formed what looked to be tails for a moment, but the figures faded away as it filled the circled completely.

 

“B-bitch,” one of them snarled. “H-How a-are you d-doing this?”

 

“I learned this jutsu at the age of eight,” she murmured. “It is considered forbidden because of the torture one could place upon another while they are within this circle. However, my father was a very sadistic man and wished only for me to learn the forbidden arts so that one day I could become the Kage of our village. It is a shame that he didn't get his wish.”

 

One of them managed to take a step forward, but instantly the circle became darker in color, stopping his moments. She tilted her head to the side, her hand coming up. With a wave of her hand, though the human eye could not see it, chakra entered the shinobi's body at the exact level her hand was raised. When her hand past over the shinobi's body enough that chakra could no longer enter their body, they suddenly choked, blood dribbling down the side of their mouth. They others stiffened, and flinched when she once again sliced her hand as if slicing the shinobi's neck with a kunai, and their head snapped backwards, blood bursting through the skin. Even from the distance it splattered against her face. Even dead, the shinobi did not fall to the ground, though.

 

Sasuke stiffened, “How did she do that?” He was used to vast amounts of carnage and death, but he'd never seen anything similar to what was happening before his eyes. Especially when she lifted her hand, and a crackling sound began to fill the air. “She's not doing any…” his voice trailed off, as a black material formed in her hand and up her arm. “Is that…?” He glanced down at his hand, “That looks almost like my chidori.”

 

She mumbled something under her breath, but they were only able to catch something that sounded similar to `lightning'. The black substance around her arm pulsed, becoming larger in size, and the white chakra burst from her body out toward the edge of the barrier again. She moved quickly, the remaining eight shinobi unable to protect themselves as her arm was shoved straight through the chest of one of them. The black lightning was no longer on her arm, which lead them to believe it had entered the body of her victim. Her eyes glanced up, and then she pulled her arm back through his chest, and the blood that had not left the shinobi's body when her arm went through the shinobi's back finally splattered onto her clothing. As she turned her back to the shinobi, the black lightning burst through her victims flesh, whether it was male or female, sending the pieces of the body flying, as they were caught on fire.

 

As quickly as she had turned away, she turned back to where her last victim had been standing, and flung her hands out. They moved quickly through the air, chakra entering the two Iwagakure shinobi standing close together. She sliced the air many times, and then thrust her arms to her sides with so much force that the places where her hands had moved over instantly split open. Blood flew through the air, but this time she did not stop to allow it to hit her, but instead turned on her heel and bent her knees in order to put more force behind the kick that she sent toward another shinobi standing to her right. The shinobi was lifted off the ground, and her hand moved, his neck slicing open as soon as she did.

 

Gaara stood still, wishing to keep their presence a secret from her. He was not sure if she would extend the circle and kill them as well. He was not one to take that risk, and he hoped that the Uchiha would not be stupid enough to do so. He did not even blink as she thrust her hand through the chest of another shinobi, and the black lightning returned to her hand, as she moved her hand upward, splitting his head in two. The strange thing was the body and organs seemed to simply dissolve, while the blood was untouched, covering her body from head to toe.

 

Narrowing his eyes, he decided she had to be the jinchuuriki of a demon. There was no other explanation he could come up with for the way she acted, the way she moved, the way she used jutsus without making any hand signs. The most likely reason why he felt he was like her, too. Now, the only thing to do was figure out what demon she housed and possibly find out more about it. Then, his curiosity would leave him, and the woman would be nothing more than something he'd studied for a short time. Yes, for no woman should be able to make him wonder so much.

 

She froze as Sasuke shifted, and her black eyes turned toward them. A smirk formed onto her lips, before she turned her attention back to the shinobi before her. “It would seem we have guests,” she laughed. “So you must die more quickly! We do not wish for them to lose interest, after all.”

 

The barrier shifted, and the kanji took on a different color. The center where she'd once stood moved instantly to where she was standing, as the rest of the area inside the barrier burst into flames. She laughed, her head tilting backwards. Her fingers came up and she snapped them slowly three times, watching as the blood of her last three victims went flying within the fire, their bodies turning to ash within the black flames. Once the blood hit the ground, the laughing stopped, and the barrier instantly retracted back into the circle she stood in, disappearing along with the blood that should have been spilled upon the ground around her. However, she was still covered, the wet substance dripping from her fingers and clothing.

 

Gaara stood, his eyes watching her closely. Once she turned toward them, her eyes had returned to normal, and the markings had disappeared from her flesh. She had not made any sign in order to put an illusion up, but he could now see the white chakra that hid her true features, before it was sucked back inside her flesh as if it was never there. “Woman,” he said.

 

“Gaara-sama,” she smiled. “Did you like what you saw?”

 

Sasuke stood soon afterward, his hand slightly shaking. He would have killed her if it weren't for the fact her victims had been Iwagakure shinobi. Still, he couldn't help but wonder just how dangerous she could be as he tongue slipped out and she caught some of the blood sliding down her face onto the appendage.

 

“How about you, Uchiha-san?” she chuckled.

 

“Come,” Gaara stated.

 

“Oh, are we going back to the village now?” she asked like a little child. She giggled afterward almost like she was drunk, but came forward, appearing beside them with a great amount of speed. “Yes, I believe that is where we're going!”

 

Sasuke cringed at the laugh that left her mouth.

 

Gaara simply blinked, watching as she brought her hand up and spread the splattered blood on her nose and lips onto her cheeks and down her neck. She appeared to take pleasure in it. His eyes narrowed, knowing that she could easily turn her circle against Konohagakure or Sunagakure. He would kill her should she do so.

 

“Yes, I simply cannot wait,” she said. “I heard that there are some excellent hot springs that I should try!”