The Demon They Once Feared. {BOOK 2}

|23| Broken Dam

First, her fingers became numb, unable to feel them from the coldness, then her feet started to lose the warmth. Thin needles of frozen ice picked at her skin, her muscles, her bones, crawling upwards from her feet and fingertips, numbing the limbs on their way. Her arms felt as if they disappeared, then her legs, then... everything.

Why do I have to feel? She questioned herself, it's such a tedious thing, emotion, it's just tiring to feel things. Having to care so much... Naruto this is all your fault, you care way too much and I guess I picked it up. Damn.

Suddenly, a light humming sound infiltrated her ears, buzzing through her brain and out the other. But the tune stuck with her, repeating, and with a click of her tongue and a groan from her throat, she rolled her head sideways, silently complaining that the tune stuck, deciding to stay without her permission.

Na na na na na na na na na na na...

"Oh!" The unexpected voice appeared closer to Mina'sear than she expected. But she couldn't move, as if frozen to the ground, immobile. "Hey, you okay?" It asked and Mina heard shuffling before a hand was placed on her shoulder. The person of the voice shook Mina and she opened her eyes in response, "good your alive." The voice responded before an obnoxious laugh rolled out from the woman's head (Mina had decided it was a woman speaking), and Mina groaned, "thought you were dead for a minute, ya know?"

Ya know. Ya know?

And Mina was standing, ignoring the ache in her head, she was on her feet. Even though she was dazed and dizzy from standing up so quickly, she noticed one dominant characteristic of the woman. Long, flowing bright red hair, it was longer than Mina's, reaching to the woman's ankles. Time froze as Mina's mouth hung open, her heartbeat so loud it was the only thing she could hear, eyes wide in shock as the woman's facial expression morphed into a confused one. Their eyes met, violet meeting violet and nothing else mattered.

~~~

Naruto was breathing heavily as he clutched his thigh, hoping to slow down the profuse bleeding. But he wasn't able to hold onto it for long as those damn puppets came flying in the broken ceiling. Clangs of metal and an array of purple chakra strings made it difficult to concentrate, not to mention the throbbing pain in his thigh was making it hard for him to think.

Suddenly, in a flash, he was crouching down a towering ledge watching what was happening down below. "I've never seen puppets like that before, ya know," he spoke more to himself than to the man sitting next to him, although he was sure the blonde man could hear him.

"Seems like their power by chakra from the layline," the man responded without looking at Naruto.

The whiskered boy looked at the man, squinting his eyes up at him as a thoughtful expression crossed Naruto's face. "And you guy's," He started, sounding quite rude but the man showed no reaction to his tones of voice, "who're you?"

The man was silent as he turned to look at Naruto, the beady eyes of the mask staring at Naruto in an uncomfortable manner. "You're a shinobi from Konohagakure," he said, ignoring Naruto's question, he then proceeded to take the mask off, but only enough for the Uzumaki to see the swirly leaf symbol. "We're shinobi from there too." He placed the mask back on his face completely, "we really should tend to that wound of yours."

~~~

Clutching onto the cloth of the woman, Mina growled as she pulled the woman closer to her, a glare so intense that it could put anyone in a grave, however, this woman was more confused than scared at Mina. Her eye twitched as she spoke, "Who are you and what do you want from me?"

The woman only blinked her, as what Mina thought, her beautiful shining eyes. "I said," Mina started at an even lower tone, almost sounding demonic, "who are you?" Cold metal pressed against the woman's neck with a somewhat blunt special kunai, and as she glanced down at the familiar looking three-bladed kunai, the red-haired woman's eye began to twitch harder than Mina's.