Restoration: Book 2/3

Chapter 7

Another two days passed, and I camped out in the pantry with a big pile of blankets and pillows to fight off the chill. Naruto was elated to learn I'd broken free and assured me he'd be here by the end of day three. They'd started out driving, but once they got to the freeway, the roads were too crowded with broken-down or abandoned vehicles to use.

He said once they make it to Oto, they'll find more vehicles, and we'd all try to find some kind of backroad that wasn't blocked. My strength was returning steadily, and I slowly began stretching and super cautious exercises to prepare for the undoubtedly demanding journey ahead.

Expecting my friends to arrive at some point, on day three since my escape, I woke in the morning and started preparing to depart. I found a small backpack, filled it with rations and water bottles, put on some winter gear from the locker room, and went down to the first floor. Desks, chairs, and papers were strewn about the lobby, but I was pleasantly surprised to see no dead bodies.

My grip tightened on the straps of my backpack, and I took a strengthening breath as I headed toward the exit to get a breath of fresh air while I waited. My head throbbed, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the sunlight; even though it was incredibly cloudy, a smile came to my lips when a cold wind blew my hair around.

The asylum wasn't located in the downtown area of Oto, so the closest building to the facility was down the road, and it was someone's home. The weather here was notorious for being overcast and rainy, but I'd think any sky was beautiful after not seeing one for so long.

I sat down on the steps and rested my elbows on my knees with a content sigh. Was everyone actually excited to see me? I'd missed them more than I thought possible since waking from my coma. I was worried about what to do once I was rescued, though, because I'll try to find my sister regardless of what everyone else wanted.

Would they be upset that I wanted to do something so personal after coming so far to save me? Of course, I care about them all dearly, but Hanabi's my sister. Not only that, but she wasn't put through the rigorous training that we were. If she somehow managed to escape Madara and maybe even her mother, then she's likely somewhere cold and terrified, not knowing how to survive alone. Once I found her, I could teach her all sorts of things, but until then, she's in real danger.

Multiple footsteps met my ears, and I perked up, rising to my feet to look out into the parking lot. My smile faded when I saw that it wasn't my friends approaching but two unfamiliar men. Slowly, I took a couple steps back. I was getting a bad vibe.

As my instincts suspected, once they were at the bottom of the large staircase, one pulled a handgun out and pointed it at me blankly, "Put your hands behind your head."

Hesitation was the number cause of death in these types of situations. Orochimaru drilled that fact into all of our brains. I fell back on my training, swiftly turned, and hurried back inside, locking both double doors before taking cover behind one of the thick, felled desks.

If I hadn't gone outside when I did, they likely would've come inside and inevitably caught me off guard upstairs.

My breath was visible in the cold air as I breathed heavily. Not only was my body recovering from starvation, but I was still weak from a month-long coma before that, so lugging around a backpack in thick winter clothing quickly took its toll on me.

My breath hitched, and I winced in fright when I heard gunshots behind the doors. Luckily, government facilities like this almost always had bulletproof glass. When I peeked around the mahogany desk, I was relieved to see that their efforts had proved fruitless. Their bullets barely left a scratch against the glass.

With a slight grin, I sighed deeply and watched them continuously try to shoot through the door with no success. After a few minutes, the shorter of the two took off their backpack, and my smile fell when they pulled out something small that I couldn't see from how far away I was.

Feeling apprehensive again, I begrudgingly activated my byakugan for the first time in weeks. The blinding pain took me off guard for a moment, but my eyes widened once I got past it. It was a grenade. The man pulled the pin and set it on the ground in front of the door. Then the pair hurried away to avoid being caught in the blast.

I gasped before turning and dashing off in the direction of the back hallway so I could search for an alternate escape route, only to be thrown forward onto the ground by the explosion. My byakugan deactivated, and for a moment, I was rendered immobile by the exhaustion it caused, but after recovering, I stumbled back up to my feet and started moving again.

Tiny shards of glass had flown about the room, and I could tell a few of them had embedded into my back, but my priority was escaping the two armed men. The injuries weren't anything serious, either way.

It didn't take long for my lungs to start screaming for a break, and I was forced to duck into a closet to catch my breath. The explosion set the lobby aflame, and smoke filled the air at an alarming rate. Sweat dripped down my face as I tried to keep my gasps for air as quiet as possible.

After a minute or two, I recovered and put my ear to the door to listen for footsteps. When I didn't hear any, I slowly crept into the hall and snuck toward the emergency exit.

As my hand touched the handle, I heard a gunshot and turned to see one of the men at the far end of the hall. My heartbeat quickened, and I rushed outside before he could try again. The freezing air cooled my blazing skin, and I took off into the small forest area behind the facility without pausing.

I heard the door reopen as the assailant followed my tracks and tried to find somewhere to hide, but all the shrubs and bushes were bare because it was winter. My teeth grit. I couldn't outrun them, and I couldn't hide. There wasn't any other choice but to fight and hope my body could handle it.

I dashed behind a thick tree and swiftly dug through my backpack for the boxcutter I'd found. When my fingers grasped it, I saw the man step past the tree I was hiding behind and turn to see me standing there.

He raised his gun while I yanked my weapon out of my backpack and shot to the side to avoid his bullets. My ear rang as the gun went off just a foot away, but I managed to ignore it and swiftly leaped onto the man's back to put him in a headlock with my legs wrapped around the outside of his arms so he wouldn't be able to raise his gun back to shoot at me.

When you wrestle someone like this, they typically make some kind of sound, but the odd man was completely silent. He wasn't even breathing that hard. The headlock I had him in should've brought him close to fainting after just a few seconds, but it didn't.

That's when I looked at the back of his head and noticed an odd rash or bulge or something on the back of his neck. Little veins, tentacles, or something were raised beneath his skin, and they moved slowly, terrifying me to the core. Because I was so stunned, the man broke my hold, and I was tossed to the ground on my bottom.

My mouth fell open in disbelief as he turned to point his gun down at my face, "Are you what they call a human woman?"