A Measure of Darkness - indefinite hiatus -

FOUR

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The Red Eyed Man: A Monster
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It's eerie being alone. No one is behind me, able to tell me if I'm loud or visible. To pick up on things I missed. I travel by the shadows cast by buildings until I can see the Hokage Tower decently. One of the busiest buildings in this country is empty. No lights are on. I'm pretty sure there are shattered windows. Some kind of attack took placed and wasn't recent.

Among the bodies of ninja decorating the ground to the tower, I search for Uro. I spot a few I've seen before in my peripheral vision, real people with lives outside of mine, now no more. One of the bodies rots on top of another, possibly died trying to save the person underneath. That person turns out to be Enkou, expression eternally calm, almost sleeping, before livor mortis sets in.

My ears pop without warning. A pressure builds up in my head as I struggle to stand. There's this reverberating thunder that shakes my insides. Never ceasing. My heart might crumple under the strength of the noise. Yet despite the roaring, there is no lightning.

A funnel made of air sucks up the dark fog, an artificial tornado. It tries to pull me into it as well, and so I stick myself to my spot. Light debris fly into the vortex, nicking me.

On top of the tower... is that orange and green frog legs? A frog sucking up fog?

Something like hell stabs me from behind.

Not literally. Feels just like it. It sends hot magma through my veins as heavy as boulders and sends me crumpling to ground in a pathetic display. I have double vision and even blurred vision, possibly because of tears in my eyes. It hurts to breathe this heated, heavy air.

Ch-king. The sound coming too close behind me reminds me of the clinging of knight's armor. Sounds like it'll crush me like a pancake if it fell on top of me.

A hot, metallic thing snakes around my shoulder and goes for my throat. My toes no longer touch the ground. This hurts. A neck isn't built to support the human's weight. I want to claw my neck free, but my nails do nothing against this thing feeling like bricks.

I peel open an eye and see red.

A richer red color than the Sharingan. A less rose shade than Kurenai's. A pupil-less red stares me down.

(All else fails, if he hurts me, I'll just pop.)

"What are you doing here?" His voice isn't as angry as I expected. I think he's been repeating himself quite a lot.

I'm a stupid flesh puppet dangling from his giant hand. How absolutely tall this monster is, probably clipping two hundred centimeters no sweat.

He wears a hat similar to Hakushi's sandogasa, even added white cloth to drap down the sides. A mask conceals everything except for his eyes. I don't know who this is. My foreknowledge and my present knowledge fails to help.

"Answers," I squeak out. "I need to know... who's okay..."

"You have a morbid curiosity, boy," the monster wearing human skin and armor tells me. "You could have died."

Out of curiosity, I get out, "Are you... an ally... to the Leaf?"

"I am Han," replies he, face still blank. "I am an ally of the Rock."

-which is the only warning I get before I see his armored fist headed for my head. That explains some of shattered skulls and rib cages I saw. No thank you.

While he responded, I had been forming one-handed seals out of his sight, and so I Body Flicker out of harm's way. Something gets smashed behind me as I stagger on the roof, clutching at my sore and itchy neck.