Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Masked ❯ Chapter 3 ( Chapter 3 )

It's been about a month since I've become a genin. My team and I have been doing pointless and boring D-rank missions, most of which are chores for people who have disposable income and are too lazy to weed their own garden or to clean their own gutters. I know that my teammates despise these missions with all the hatred that they can muster, and I agree that they are worthless when it comes to training a ninja, but I take the time to do them anyway. For one, the more time I spend with Sasuke and Sakura, the more they can become accustomed to me…the more they think I am normal.

 

Thankfully tonight I don't have to worry about gutters, weeds or cats that have run away from their smothering owners. No, tonight I've got my own mission. Normally I can last a lot longer than a month between outings, but the voice is a bit incessant tonight, and I am not one to argue with it.

 

She's not much to look at, my next playmate that is, average height, average weight, brown hair and eyes. All the better to blend into the crowd, something I can defiantly understand. She has this nasty little habit of abducting young girls and then selling them to wealthy out of towners who are in need of servants…or worse. She's stopped at a store and I know that now's my chance to get to her rather upscale house, it's only a block and a half away, and wait. It doesn't take me long to find the building, far too extravagant for a supposed nanny. She obviously isn't worried that someone might come after her, if the opened windows and unlocked rear door are any indication, and within seconds I'm inside and waiting for the guest of honor to arrive.

 

I don't have to wait for long before I hear the sound of a key in the dead bolt of the front door. As soon as she's inside her abode and steps out from the foyer I'm behind her and holding a knife to her spine while my left hand is clasped tightly over her mouth. I feel her stiffen in shock and her eyes go wide as she feels the sharp steel in my hand puncture her back and lodge itself between her vertebrae, paralyzing her from the waist down. As her legs collapse out from under her I lower her to her tiled floor and lock eyes with her. She has no emotions besides fear and that is exactly what I want.

 

“Did you really think that you could sell human lives to the highest bidder and not suffer some retribution for it?” I whisper threateningly.

 

Instead of intensifying her fear, I notice that she actually becomes a bit more relaxed. I'm not the most terrifying thing to her right now?

 

“You were expecting someone else I see.” I let up the pressure on her spine, leaving her a limp pile on the floor. “Tell me.” I say as I step around her so that I can point my knife where I want it, where she knows that there is no way out of this, right at her throat.

 

“Tell me, what scares you enough that you would welcome your own end?”

 

She smiles at me…actually smiles! Her spine has been severed and she knows she's gonna die, yet she's smiling at me!

 

“Could' a been a lot worse.” She gasps out, grasping at her back, trying to slow the spread of her own blood. “If I failed him, he'd do to me what those stuck up princesses-“ I cut her off…well, at least her ear off. I don't care about her human cargo, there is nothing I can or would do about it anyway. “As much as I'm sickened by what you did to those kids, I'm a bit more interested in this `he' you mentioned.” The malice and intent in my voice is unmistakable and a bit more fear floods into her brown eyes.

 

“He came up to me and offered me money! More money than I'd ever imagined!” I cut her off with a quick slice to her cheek, just underneath her left eye.

 

“A name please, I don't like it when people carry on.” The pain of that little cut seems to have startled her back into a straight train of thought.

 

“Gato! His name is Gato!”

 

“That's all I need.” I smile as I begin my work, cutting through the veins in her wrist and watching as the blood flows, the pocket watch comforts me with its ticking as I take it out and begin my countdown.

 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

I get in later than I would have liked that night, it was our day off tomorrow, so it wasn't like I would have to meet my teammates or anything like that, but I do enjoy my days off and wasting an hour of one is something I don't like to do.

 

On the bright side, my little excursion did garner me a new trophy as well as a new target to consider. I've heard of Gato, probably the richest person in the world right now and he has a reputation for using less than legal practices to get what he wants. I've just satisfied my craving and already the prospect of a new plant in my apartment is starting to stir up some dangerous feelings for me. I know I should be sated…be happy, but as usual I just feel empty. Well, happy isn't the best word, but normally after I do my deed I at least feel less empty. It's kind of an inside joke to me. `On a scale from 1 to 10, how empty am I today?' I should be well into the two or three range, but instead I feel like I'm back at five. I wonder if this is how Sasuke feels after he spends hours and hours practicing and training, trying to surpass his brother, but deep inside knowing that it isn't helping.

 

I'll have to wait a while before I can go out and buy a new plant to bury my new trophy, but I don't mind, really, I like just sitting in my tiny living room and letting my thoughts drift away…

 

The knocking at my door breaks what little tranquility I've managed to find and replaces my previous thoughts of my next outing with thoughts of who the hell interrupted my day off?

 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

Standing in the Hokage's office isn't where I want to be right now. I'd much rather be back home doing nothing, but you can't just blow off a summons from the old man. Well, one would make the argument that Kakashi does that daily, but he shows up eventually, so it's something you just have to live with.

 

Anyway, the rest of my team is here, save for Sensei, but then again, no one was expecting him, so why wait? Team ten is also here, not sure why, but it's a Sunday, I shouldn't be having to think on my day off!

 

“I've received a pair of urgent mission requests that have to be filled today, so I'd like to apologize to both teams for dragging you in here.” The Hokage is trying to calm us down before Sakura has an aneurism or Ino snaps and bites the head (literally) off Shikamaru.

 

“One is a C rank escort mission to Wave country, a bridge builder has been having some trouble with `bandits' lately and has asked for our help.” We can all feel the sarcasm roll of his tongue at the mentions of bandits and Wave country. Anyone with a brain and access to a newspaper knows that Gato has been putting a choke hold on the tiny island nation and where the rich are concerned, only ninja will do as body guards.

 

I'm already liking the sound of this mission, one it's a C rank, which means absolutely no cat chasing, garden weeding or fence painting, and second of all, it puts me close to Gato…and I've heard such lovely things about him too.

 

“The other one is an investigation and if necessary extermination mission, but it's a bit…strange.” Now this in new. A mission that the old man considers odd? As far as I knew, he didn't think any thing was `strange' after he took me in when I was three.

 

“It comes all the way from a small village on the boarder of the land of water and the land of lightning it's mostly a vacation spot for merchants and their families and there have been a number of incidents as of late that they want taken care of as discretely as possible, less the town loose its main source of income.”

 

“Is it a really difficult mission?” Sakura asked, a bit worried that maybe we were being asked to go on a B rank mission or something.

 

“No Sakura,” The old man chuckled. “It's not difficult; it's just been labeled as an F rank mission.”

 

Ok, forget Wave, this mission is mine…or ours…but I/we have to have it! The F rank mission is an anomaly that occurs when there is severe doubt as to the parameters given by the filing party, but not enough reason to turn the mission down.

 

Anyway, the reason they're called F rank missions, regardless of the actual rank, is a bit of a joke. Some people say the F stands for `phantasmal' as in ghosts, and just about half of the F rank missions turn out to be just that, ghost stories that spook a village into paying us absurd amounts of money to go pull a sheet off of a teenager.

 

The other accepted explanation is that it stands for `Fucked up' which is also appropriate. Of the remaining fifty percent of F rank missions, those that are accepted usually revolve around particularly gruesome or violent murders committed by civilians on other civilians. In other words, if the Hokage hadn't taken me in, I was an F rank mission waiting to happen.

 

Of course, to me the F stands for fingers, because that's exactly what I'm hoping to get out of this and the Hokage knows it.

 

“Since Kakashi isn't here, team Ten will get to choose.” Of course they'd get to go first; their teacher is the Old man's son!

 

“We'll take the C rank mission.” Sarutobi Asuma assured his father. “I think Ino would go ballistic if we didn't take it.”

 

My fellow blonde just nodded her head and gave a snort saying `damn right I'd kill you for making me do a mission that's below a D!'

 

The old man called for their client to come in and meet the team, The `Master bridge builder' as he introduced himself was obviously drunk and probably had been when he requested the mission, but Team ten was now stuck with him and quickly left him to gather their things for the mission, just as Kakashi-sensei walked in, face buried in his smut, and calmly asked what was going on. Before the Hokage, Sasuke or I could try and explain, Sakura caught his attention.

 

“Sensei, what's an F rank mission?”

 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

We were told to go pack for approximately a week's worth of travel, though it might be less, and meet up in about two hours, that would give us time to eat lunch before we left, meaning we wouldn't have to take as much food with us. Kakashi-sensei would brief us on the specifics of our mission as we traveled.

 

Well, it's been two hours, we've all eaten and packed and of course, Kakashi isn't here yet. No one is surprised by that, and we had just sat down in preparation for a two hour wait, when got a surprise.

 

“You brats Team Seven?” A hard feminine voice queried.

 

Mitarashi Anko stood before us, her purplish hair swaying gently in the afternoon breeze in her usual garments of a micro-mini skirt and a tan trench coat.

 

“We are, but who are you?” Sakura asked seeing as Sasuke never speaks unless it's something that can't be communicated via grunting and hand signals, and I was a bit more preoccupied with the fingers I still hadn't had time to stow away.

 

“Kakashi got called in on an emergency A rank mission, so I'm going to be your temporary Sensei for this little excursion into the deep dark underbelly of our world.” All of this was delivered quite deadpan and with a smirk on her face, “My name is Mitarashi Anko, but if you brats call me Anko-sensei you won't like the consequences, we clear?” To emphasize her threat our temp unleashed a small dose of killer intent, enough to make the other two not question her words at all, but I knew better.

 

You see, in some ways, Anko is as damaged as I am; she's just dealt with it differently. After her Jounin sensei gave her a cursed seal and committed some less than ethical experiments on her, something inside her snapped. According to the Sandaime, before she was abandoned and basically left to rot, she was considered a true prodigy and was on the fast track to become the first female ANBU captain in, what was at the time, the new assassination division, but then Orochimaru happened and since then, she hasn't been able to kill a single person or even an animal. Rumor has it, that she's even become a vegetarian so that she doesn't have the death of her food on her conscience.

 

Now that's not to say that she wouldn't follow through on her threats, amputations are generally non lethal, so I'm going to watch my behavior anyway.

 

“We'll do introductions on the way, so don't bother right now, first I've got to brief you small fries on the mission, so let's get going.”

 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

It would take us about four days to reach our destination, and since we would only get in a half day's travel today anyway, we walked at a normal pace in silence until Anko decided it would be a good place to stop for the night.

 

Apparently it hadn't occurred to Sakura or Sasuke that she hadn't briefed us on the mission yet, despite having had well over seven hours to do so while we were walking. It wasn't until we had our camp set up and a small smokeless fire going that she decided to give us a peak into what were heading into.

 

“According to whatever idiot filled this request, there's been number of murders recently and the main suspect is a ghost OR a demon OR it's a mixture of the two, but it's so violent and gruesome that they've all but ruled out people as the culprit.”

 

She pulled out the scroll with the mission request on it and handed it to me. Underneath the short explanation of why they were requesting the mission, there were some rather graphic photos of one of the victims of this `demon'. It made what I do seem like a very humane way to go out. There were over fifty individual stab wounds on the first victim, only three of which were deemed fatal, meaning that they suffered through forty-seven stabs before they MIGHT have died. Then, just so the killer was sure, the through had been slit and the skull crushed. To top that off, large sections of skin had been removed, so that just a thin layer was absent, leaving the underlying muscle and organs in perfect condition. I handed the scroll over to Sasuke, who sat to my right, and feigned illness at what I had seen.

 

Inside, I began to make a list of what I knew from the photo and the request. There were seven confirmed victims right now, three were women and four were men, and it changed, so that every other death was of the opposite sex than the last. He was due to kill a woman next, and it was causing quite the stir amongst the townsfolk. Besides the skin there was nothing else taken from the victims, so there was his trophy (and I'm certain it is a man), now it was just a matter of finding the common thread. These people were between the ages of nineteen and thirty-two, so not much there, there weren't any common hang outs, and as far as the locals knew, the seven people had never met in their lives.

 

The sound of vomiting breaks me form my listing and I look over to see Sasuke spilling his lunch while Sakura looked worried and quickly hurried over to support the upchucking Uchiha. When his heaving stopped Sakura turned to where the scroll had fallen from Sasuke's grasp and moved to pick it up. I was surprised at the movement, apparently Anko was too, if the look on her face was anything to go by, we both thought that anything that would freak out Sasuke would have Sakura running for the hills. It wasn't until that she moved to dump the scroll in the fire that we both realized that our hope had been misplaced, and had to stop her before she destroyed what little information we had.

 

Anko grabbed Sakura's shoulder, hard, and stopped her just before she reached the edge of the fire.

 

“What the hell are you thinking?” She asked harshly. “If you destroy that, we don't get paid for this mission, plus I'll have your ass removed from the ninja ranks!”

 

My pink haired teammate stopped and tried to stare down a hardened ninja. Comical, but ineffective to say the least.

 

“If Sasuke-kun can't handle this mission, than what hope do we have?” She argued, still eyeing the fire, trying to gauge the distance.

 

“Our chances are irrelevant!” Anko firmly yelled. “As ninja, there will be times where you are asked to go on missions that seem to be, or actually are, suicidal, and just because one person can't stomach this mission, doesn't mean we can give it up. Uzumaki over here didn't vomit and he actually looked through the entire thing!”

 

I gave one of my grins. “Yeah, Sakura-chan, that just means I'm better than Sasuke-teme!”

 

“Shut up Naruto!” She screamed back at me before she noticed that Sasuke had rejoined us.

 

“They're right.” Was all he said, wiping a bit of crusted barf from the corner of his mouth. “Whoever did that isn't human. There is no way it could be.”

 

For whatever reason, this seemed to calm Sakura down, probably just because Sasuke seemed to be in control of himself again. She actually opened the scroll up and took a glance at the written report before she came to the first picture. As one would expect, the first thing she did was drop the scroll and then turn around and fall to her knees before loosing her lunch.

 

Neither Anko nor I said anything, and it seemed to me that she was waiting for Sakura to finish heaving what little she had eaten back up. She finally managed to regain a little control over herself and stood back up shakily. Her eyes fell to the scroll on the ground, exactly where it had fallen from her grasp and then quickly snapped back to Anko, pleading for confirmation that this was just a bad dream…that mommy and daddy would wake her up and make it all better.

 

“I agree with Sasuke-kun, th-that can't be human.” She whispered, not trusting herself to say it, probably because somewhere, deep, deep down, she knew she was wrong.

 

“Hmm…could be, could very well be actually, most murderers don't disfigure their kills as much as this. Now, Uzumaki, care to tell them why it is a human?”

 

Crap! What is it with Jounin and their uncanny knack for seeing past my mask! Hopefully she hasn't seen too far, or I might just be screwed.

 

“Um...well, where the skin was removed…it's far too neat and surgical and…well almost caring.”

 

“Not bad kid.” Anko praised my analysis.

 

“So, we're dealing with someone who knows their way around a knife, maybe a cook, maybe a doctor or even a butcher, hell, maybe even a retired ninja. Guesses? Anyone?” Now she's turning this into a game? Or is it a test?

 

“Surgeon or doctor.” Sasuke spoke! Actually spoke!

 

“Butcher, it's got to be a butcher, it's too brutal to be anything else.” Sakura chimed in, actually disagreeing with Sasuke for the first time in recent memory.

 

“It could be anyone.” I spoke up. “Just because this person can use a knife, doesn't mean that their job requires them to use one.” If this is a test, I'm going to pass it and if Anko finds out, then she knows better to go squealing it to our teammates.

 

“Score another one for the boy in orange!” She smiled at me, a glint in her eye. “You keep this up; I might actually not hate you by the end of this mission. What else you got for us?”

 

She's ignoring Sasuke and Sakura now, probably not good if she hasn't already seen past me, the more she looks, the more she's bound to find.

 

“Um…well…this is just guess (no it isn't), but well, wouldn't skin decompose pretty quickly? They'd have to hide that smell or else it's in a place where it just blends in naturally.” (Hence why I take bone and no skin)

 

Another Cheshire grin from Anko and suddenly it's off to sleep for the night.

 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

Understandably, Sasuke and Sakura seem weary of me in the morning, but a few `flubs' and spills on my part reinforce the image of the helpless idiot and they forget that I've just profiled a serial killer in one glance down a sheet of paper.

 

Of course Anko, being A) not an idiot and B) a jounin, has continued to question me and ask what else I gleamed from my once over of the mission scroll. I tell her most of what I can think off, I'm not going to endanger a member of my team just to MAYBE get a chance at adding trophy number 10 to my collection.

 

We agree on most points, it's definitely a guy, has exposure to ninja and their tools, that the bodies were dumped at their final, public locations, that the kunai or whatever knife was being used would help us limit our search, but ultimately wouldn't finger a culprit.

 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

We get to our destination, Kokoro, it's a very nice town, emptier at this time of the year than they would like it to be, I'm sure, but what can they really expect with a homicidal maniac on the loose?

 

Since our mission is to do this as unobtrusively as possible, we can't just go in asking around. Instead, we'll have to do it the sneaky way. Just outside of the village, Anko had given us places to check out, see if anyone knew anything, or if anyone seemed suspicious. She would be checking out the hospitals, yes hospitals, plural. In a vacation town that can swell in population from about 36,000 to over a million, it was good to have multiple hospitals…and restaurants…and grocery stories. Sasuke was to stake out the grocery stores, and because it would be too dangerous for Sakura to go out alone, she and I would be staking out the restaurants…as a couple.

 

Of course she had tried to convince our `captain' (as she now wanted to be called) that Sasuke would make a better date than I, Anko calmly told her to stuff it where the sun doesn't shine and suck it up.

 

We were having no luck, and we were running out of money, time and stomach space. We tried sushi stalls, ramen carts, full scale seafood places, ramen stalls, vegetarian only restaurants, high class ramen places…and the ramen places weren't even my idea! Not that I complained mind you, but even I have a limit when it comes to ramen.

 

But through all this walking and eating and talking, we couldn't find anyone who was a retired, exiled, disgraced or washed out ninja.

 

We were passing by our seventeenth eating establishment when I felt a pair of eyes on us. I moved my hand from within Sakura's clammy grasp and wrapped it around her shoulder, bringer her closer to me, protecting her from view, should someone try and snipe at us. In plain view of so many open air eateries, I should have expected to be watched, but something felt different about this gaze, and the voice in my head, my inner passenger, agreed. Our killer had been watching us, was still watching us actually, if the steady prickling in the back of my mind was any indication, and Sakura or I might have just been made the next target. After all, just because a body hasn't been found yet, doesn't mean someone isn't dead.

 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

The watcher let the young couple go on down the street, noting how natural they seemed to be around each other, as if they had been together nearly all their lives. How it sickened him. That pink haired bitch would make an excellent mark, and the thrill just from the thought of doing them at the same time was just exquisite. Her boyfriend, the blond, was a bit worrisome however. A fine mark he would be, without question, but for someone who had spent as much time watching these puny insects as the watcher did, the boy was a tightly raveled mystery, the joviality and kindness that he exhibited didn't make the watcher stomach twist and knot like normal.

 

`For some strange reason,' the watcher thought, `this kid is all right.'

 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

I felt the eyes leave our backs as we turned towards the hotel we were staying at, free by the way, and they didn't return. When we got to `our room', Anko and Sasuke were already back, and asked us for our meager findings.

 

“We couldn't find anything, there's no former ninja of any sort in the town, there are only a handful of people from a ninja village, and they're all old enough to be the Hokage's father!” Sakura complained, rubbing the soles of her feet to relieve some of the sores that develop when you walk around all day eating food and acting like love struck teenagers.

 

“Uchiha struck out as well.” Anko filled us in on their parts for the day. “I didn't get anything out of the hospitals, no admittances for knife wounds around the time of the murders and nobody that was suspicious enough to warrant further looking into. We still don't know what tools this bastard is using, how he picks his victims, or even if there is a reason, what if they are just random people?” She threw the question out there, trying to get our input on the subject, had she finally been stumped or was this a test again? It was becoming impossible to tell what was what with Anko.

 

“That…well, I guess…it's something we need to think about, right?” Sakura ventured, looking to Anko for validation.

 

“Uchiha, your thoughts?” Our leader prompted. It was a test after all.

 

The only thing Sasuke did was grunt in what was probably agreement. I shook my head in disagreement.

 

“They can't be random targets, he's going guy/girl every other kills, there is a pattern and a reason, we just don't know it yet. I mean, how can we, these people didn't so much as eat at the same time of day, let alone at the same restaurants!” I gave off the impression that I was exasperated and disappointed with the lack of information we were gathering, there just wasn't any connection. Inside, well, I have much better patience than I show, and I knew it was only a time before this person made a mistake, they all do after a while.

 

A knock at the door got the other's attention, but not mine. I was so focused on finding out the commonality I didn't hear the frightened server scamper down the hall without asking for a tip. In fact, I didn't even register that Anko had started to eat her room service salad until I heard Sakura complain about not getting to order room service in such a nice hotel.

 

My eyes snapped upwards, looking at Sakura as if she had just told me the meaning of life. Room service, of course! Except it wasn't room service, it was restaurant service! There was no common thread between our victims, but I bet there is a common thread between restaurants, their supplier! I just had to find the supplier that was killing people, and my job would be half over. The only dilemma now, was weather or not to tell the others. Anko's still eating away and Sakura seems as obsessed with Sasuke as usual. I think I'll hold this little nugget of info to myself for now.

 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

Another day, another twenty restaurants to check out. It might not be very snappy, but hey, it does have the benefit of being true. Each moment I have to hang around with Sakura is another moment that I'm wasting. I can't go around asking about suppliers with my `girlfriend' when were supposedly on a date. It's not exactly like I can ask her to give me a moment alone either, after yesterday, I know that someone is watching us and this someone has a certain penchant for killing people in as bloody and painful a manner as possible.

 

“Naruto-kun, I'll be right back, I need to freshen up a bit.” My `date' tells me. In all the time I've spent around her, I don't think I've ever heard Sakura sound more like a girl.

 

“Okay, don't take too long.” I smile and let our hands unclasp as she walks towards the bathroom. As the door closes, I release a huff of air, but even without her near by, I can't afford to let my/our characters slip, even a bit.

 

“Is everything all right?” Our waitress asks me. Fuck! I hadn't even noticed her coming back!

 

“Oh yes, everything is great.” I tell her thinking on my feet. “Would you be able to tell me who your supplier is? My uncle runs a small ramen stand and I thought I'd pass the name on, it's so fresh!” I gush; this is my chance to find our killer after all.

 

“Oh sure! We buy all our proteins from this small farm just outside the city, Jirou farms, it's owned by two brothers, Kenji and Kenta, and then we get most of our produce from Chika Farms, the owner, Emi, is very nice, though her son is a bit rude sometimes. I think he resents the fact that she never let him go off to become a ninja.” As she's writing the addresses down, I smile a smile that very few have seen and even fewer have lived to tell about. I have my target…

 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

That night I was especially on edge, having to sit through hour after hour of Sakura blathering on about whatever, and forcing myself to agree and act as if I gave a shit was more tiring than I thought it might be. And then of course, there was getting through another day of reporting to Anko and convincing her that I had nothing. Not nearly as hard as I thought it might have been…truth be told, I was a little disappointed in that, I expected her to be at least as good as I was at hunting, but apparently I was wrong.

 

I snuck out the window of the hotel room I was sharing with Sasuke. I'm going to have to do something about him sooner than later. He needs to learn that there are people out there who are much worse than Itachi…people like me.

 

It takes me just over a half an hour to escape the city unnoticed and make my way to the side of a large barn. This has to be the place; it fits all of the criteria I made earlier. Secluded and quiet enough to complete the job, and no one, except maybe an Inuzuka would recognize the smell of decomposing flesh in the confines of a barn filled with manure, feed and rotting food.

 

I reach out with my chakra, feeling for any presences inside the edifice, but there are none. It is a talent of mine that I'm better at than anyone I have ever met, including the Hokage. I take a look up to the old farm house uphill from the weather beaten barn I'm about to break into and notice no lights on. There is a festival in town tonight, and if I find what I need to convict in my own court, than I might just get to have a party of my own. The big door is too heavy for me to move, but climbing through the loft door is all too simple for a ninja.

 

The inky blackness of the barn is easily broken by the small beam of my flashlight as I begin to search. There is no overtly damning evidence, no manacles or bloody knives just laying about the barn, no, that would be too easy. Besides, it's not why I'm in the barn. I drop from the hay loft and begin to inspect the pens of various animals, from horses and goats to pigs and cattle. Nothing in the pens and again, no obvious signs that this is where the butchering is taking place.

 

It isn't until I check out the troughs that I find the needle in this particularly messy haystack. You probably wouldn't notice the piece of flesh in the pigs feed, except for the black ink of a tattoo on the decomposing skin, what with all the teeth marks on it. It makes me glad I had beef while we were in town…I decide it's probably better that I not tell Sakura about it though…she thought beef was too fattening for her…

 

I put the rotting flesh back into the wooden bin and begin to head out of the barn an up the hill to the farm house. Tonight will be bloody and I can't wait.

 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

She's alone right now. All alone, and out at the festival. Great for him, not so much for her. That pink haired girl from yesterday, and today, if he wanted to be proper about it, but where was her boyfriend? The blond was not to be seen, and again, it worried him a bit. It didn't matter, not in the long run. Boyfriend or not, she would be his and then they could spend some quality time together…

 

His movement was fast, and just as the bitch took a gasp of air in shock, the watcher slapped a rag soaked in chloroform, dosing her heavily with the chemical and she slumped quietly into his grasp. She would be out for a while, which was good, it would take a while to get his prize back to his territory. He smiled as he hid her dozing form in the wagon he transported meats around during the day. No one had connected the gruesome killings that happened around town to him, and it was unlikely that anyone ever would. Not after the message he was going to send with this beauty…

 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

I watched from the kitchen windows as a lantern light moved slowly from the town up to the farm. Soon the fun would begin. Time became so very slow, the warm yellow glow crept at a snails pace as it wound itself up hills and towards it, and its drivers, final destination. I could almost hear the soothing sounds of my pocket watch; I could almost feel the calming sensation of my knife slicing through flesh.

 

The wagon finally made it up the final hill, the last obstacle between me and a sweet end to a boring night. It stopped next to the barn door and the hulking driver got down and walked around to open the heavy barn doors. They moved easily, like they were made of paper.

 

`Better take him out quickly.' I thought as I crept downhill from the farm house.

 

As my target came back to the wagon, my plans went to hell in a hand basket. Because out of the back of the wagon, the younger brother stood up and was helped down by his much more imposing brother, before they pulled a clearly unconscious (she would've been making a hell of a lot more noise if she hadn't bee conked out) Sakura.

 

Damn it! Now they had to die! Not that they weren't going to before, but now…if Sakura had been abducted, than Anko would know about it, and that meant I had maybe, maybe, five minutes to kill both of them and get what I need. This wasn't as fun anymore…

 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

 

Jirou Kenta was everything his name suggested. He was the oldest of the brothers, and by far the stronger one. His brown hair was kept short and if I wasn't watching him tie my teammate to the side of a barn, I never would've thought of him as a murderer. Sure he was gigantic, but he seemed to be calm and not prone to the savage and emotion filled knife strikes that littered the other victims. This is where his younger brother Kenji steps in. He was weak looking, and even though he was younger, he seemed to be the leader of the two, ordering Kenta around, telling him what to do…how to restrain my teammate.

 

I climb up to the hayloft and move around until I'm right above Sakura and I watch the brothers. Kenji's black hair is long and stringy, hanging down in oily clumps. He's watching Sakura's inert form intently…appraising her worth as a mark.

 

“Kenta, go bring me my tools.” He orders and with no sign of hesitation, the older, hulking brother does as he's told. Too bad he won't find them, at least not where I found them. The kitchen drawer really wasn't a very smart place to hide Kumogakure kunai. Stuck out like a sore thumb. It'd be a little more…poetic, if Kenji dies by his own blade, wouldn't it? So do I do him now, or surprise the big guy as he comes back in…decisions, decisions.

 

It's been only a couple of minutes, but Anko must be half way here by now, so I don't have much time. At least Sakura hasn't shown any signs of waking yet, things would be far too troublesome to deal with if she saw me kill these two.

 

I can feel Kenta sprinting back from the house now. He knows something is up and is coming to warn his brother, how…revolting. No, I'm afraid that you won't get that chance my dumb comrade. I create a couple shadow clones and send them to intercept the lumbering lackey, before he can alert Kenji.

 

A moment later the door slides open and Kenta's form is silhouetted in the doorway, the full moon providing enough light to see properly.

 

“It's about time you got back; I've been waiting long enough.” Kenji snapped, not turning his back, just holding out his hand over his shoulder, expecting an implement to be placed there. When one isn't offered, he turns around to yell at his accomplice, but doesn't get the chance. Kenta's large body seems to hand in air for one moment before crumpling like a puppet with it's strings cut, kunai embedded in each arm and leg, and the distinctive line of red around his throat. That's my cue to act as I jump silently down from the loft and sprint behind the little weasel.

 

“I've never done two in one go before.” I whisper menacingly, the rigidity of his body pleases me. “But you and your oafish brother over there made too many mistakes, fifty stab wounds and a crushed skull? If that doesn't scream over kill, I don't know what does.” I slit his throat with a smile on his face before he can utter a response, arterial spray gushes forward, landing on the crumpled body of his brother. In a flash my pocket watch is out watching as the great crimson liquid spurts from the small body of Jirou Kenji in rhythm with his own, fading heart beat.

 

To my utter disappointment, it was hardly ten seconds into the countdown when I heard a gasp of surprise before I became enveloped in the steely coils of a large snake.

 

“What the hell did you do?” Anko was half angry and half scared. I didn't answer her; my attention was still on the dying/gasping form of Kenji.

 

`Thirty Seconds.' The mental clock has continued to go on inside my head, even if I can no longer look at the face of my watch.

 

She must have forgotten about Sakura, until we both heard the unmistakable sound of retching coming from the girl. One of the side effects of chloroform use, I'm just guessing that most of the brother's victims never got to the vomiting stage. Anko rushes over so she can get Sakura down, minimizing the chances that she will choke on her own vomit.

 

`One minute-ten seconds.'

 

It doesn't take much time, she was only held up by rope to begin with, and soon I hear a thud as Sakura is dropped to the floor.

 

`One and a half minutes.'

 

“Uchiha.” I hear Anko say, but when I don't hear a reply, it dawns on me that she must be using radios. “Meet me outside of Jirou farms, I got Sakura, but she needs to see a doctor and I've got some snooping to do.” She waited for a reply and apparently got what she was looking for because she walked out of the barn with Sakura, who despite throwing up all the food she had eaten with me earlier, was still outside.

 

`Two minutes-forty seconds…three minutes…three and a half…four minutes.' It takes Jirou Kenji four minutes to breathe his last breath, for all that rich blood to drain from his body.

 

Another five minutes and twenty six seconds later, I heard Anko berate Sasuke for taking so long when his teammate's life was on the line. He must have grumbled something, because I couldn't hear it, but whatever it was, Anko wasn't having any of it, and so by the time I felt Sasuke and Sakura's chakra signature leave the area, Anko had really torn into the boy, using some four letter words that I didn't even know existed.

 

`And he hasn't even killed someone.' I think. `I wonder what she'll do to me?' I don't have to think about it for long, because she soon back in the barn, but this time she closes the doors behind her before turning around to face me.

 

The look of surprise on her face when she see's that I've freed myself from her large python is almost worth the beat down I know I'm in for. I've got three of my four well earned trophies done already, and I'm almost done with the fourth when she locks eyes with me. She pulls a kunai on me and raises it threateningly.

 

“What the hell Uzumaki, what the fuck are you doing with…are those fingers!?

 

“Yes.” That's all I say, all I need to say at this point. She staring into my eyes more…my dead, soulless eyes.

 

“Shit! Fuck!” She starts to back up, she's seen into the deepest darkest part of me, the deepest part of the thing called Naruto…and she can't handle what she's seeing.”

 

“You're just like him. JUST LIKE HIM!” She screams at me, and now I know why she's afraid. She expects me to turn into Orochimaru, turn into her former teacher, the one that damaged her so much.

 

“No, I'm not.” I say in a monotone. There isn't any need for fake emotions right now. She knows just about everything and me lying to her isn't going to help her. “I have never killed anyone who hadn't already taken human life, and I have never raised my knife against anyone from Konoha, not a civilian, not a ninja.”

 

“And how am I supposed to take the word of a sociopath?!” She screams. “Why should I trust you?”

 

I slip my newest trophies into my utility pouch before I answer her.

 

“Do you trust the Hokage?” I ask. At first she doesn't answer me, she just keeps on staring.

 

“Of course I trust the Hokage; he's done more for me than I can ever repay him for!” She snaps.

 

“Well he trusts me. He took me off the streets when I was three, he taught me how to be a better me, how to harness what I can't control. If you trust the Hokage, than you just have to believe me until we get back to Konoha.” I don't move forward or backwards. If I scare her now, she might not be able to hold herself together in front of Sasuke and Sakura.

 

Slowly her breath slowed and returned to normal, her posture fell back to a non frightened stance and she quickly regained her normal (still sadistic, but normal) mindset. Her eyes squeeze shut and she takes a deep breath before she opens them again.

 

“You're right. I'll have to take your word right now.” It's then that I notice a smirk on her face. “Besides, you're much neater than those Neanderthals.” She motions to the recently departed brothers. “But in all seriousness, I have to ask you how you got here before I did. No offence or anything, but I'm much faster than you are, so you must have already been here, right?”

 

I nod my head, glad that things have cooled off.

 

“I suspected that the murders were being committed by one of the food suppliers, and when I asked around and found out that this was the only two person operation in the city, all I had to do break in here and look around. They were feeding the skin to the pigs, hence why no one ever noticed it.”

 

“Ah, and you knew that if it were a bigger company than the chances of someone finding out were exponentially higher.” She deduced.

 

“Actually, I figured that for one person, all the knife wounds and crushed skull was overkill, but for two people it was just two different MO's.”

 

Anko's face turned into a full out smirk before she turned around and opened the barn doors again and motioned for me to follow her. As we began our trip back into the still celebrating city, she asked me just one more question.

 

“So, do you not feel anything all the time, or just when you kill people?”

 

“Whatever made me like this, it just erased everything inside. Although I once thought I felt love.” I tell her.

 

“You thought?”

 

“It turned out to just be an upset stomach from eating too much ramen.”

 

That got her laughing all the way back to the city.

 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA