In Darkness, We Hide [Naruto Fanfic]

Chapter 1 - Humanity

Chapter 1 - Humanity

It had been a really long trip. Her feet were hurting, her hair was matted, her clothes torn and covered with who knows what and she was just tired. It had been a good week or so since she had stopped moving for more than a few hours just to eat and rest. She had avoided all major and minor towns and villages, knowing that getting seen would be enough trouble.

She had heard that there were hunter nin in the area, and she didn't know who and what they were here for, so it was best if she just stayed well out of sight. About two hours ago, she had felt two very faint, but monstrously strong chakra signatures pass by her a few kilometres away, probably not close enough to have felt her own, or they may have mistook her for a scout and decided to attack.

Either these hunter nin were here for them or her, she didn't know, but either way she wasn't ready to risk it. She had been trying to get away from places where she knew shinobi patrolled, even though they weren't in a country that had a hidden village.

Her head snapped towards the east as the two chakra signatures she felt earlier surged, and she felt a few others rising, more than likely the hunter nins. Thankfully that meant they weren't trying to find her, but her curiosity was piqued by the severe weight that the two large chakras put on her shoulders, even from here.

The black-haired woman couldn't help but follow it, keeping herself hidden in the shadows with her jutsu and got close enough to see two men in Akatsuki garb fighting four hunter nin, with another four already dead on the muddy, and now bloody ground. There was a clash of steel here, and whiz of a kunai there, but the remaining four nin were no match for the other two, who killed them within a minute.

Both Akatsuki didn't even loose their hats in the scuffle, so she couldn't tell who they were, but she could see that one of them was huge, and carried a large sword and the other, while smaller, didn't seem any less intimidating with the aura he gave off.

She watched from the tree-tops to see one of the first cell of hunter nin who didn't seem quite dead yet aim a kunai at the much smaller man's head. Without realising she was moving, her arm came out from the shadows laid on the ground by a nearby tree to stab the man in his heart with her own kunai, and the one he had prepared to throw landed on the ground with a clink.

The two Akatsuki knew that someone else was there now, since her chakra had flared to stop the hunter nin so there wasn't much point hiding herself. She leapt down from her place in the tree's and pulled her kunai from the dead ninjas body before looking to the two Akatsuki, who she imagined were staring back at her blankly, though she couldn't see their faces from the hat's and high collared cloaks.

If they weren't going to thank her or even speak, she wasn't going to bother either. As she turned to walk away, one of them spoke up, in a gruff voice that she faintly recognised as someone she had known a very long time ago.

"Kenai, is that you?" they said with a brief chuckle, as if laughing at their own private joke.

"Fish-fucker?" she turned her head just enough to see him lift off his hat and give her that cheeky, smug and point-toothed grin that she had enjoyed all those years ago.

"Nice to see you too, shadow bitch." he responded as she walked over to him and gave him a light tap on the arm in greeting, which he returned by smacking the top of her head. He always found it amusing how small she was, when really he was just gigantic.

"Kisame, I presume you know the lady." the other man said, with a blank and quiet voice, but it was heard over Kisame's chuckles.

"Lady? Hah! I've seen more men with less balls than this one." Kisame replied with another one of his usual chuckles, just a bit louder this time.