♡♡♡
You activate your eyes and dart your eyes everywhere as you jump from tree to tree. "There are too many animals out to sense any heat sources accurately." You announce.
At this point, you're extremely annoyed. It's been 15 minutes and there's still not a single lead.
Seno smacks his lips and signals for you all to stop running. "We're splitting up." The idea sounds very stupid in your opinion, but he's the team leader so you do as he says. The other man in the bird mask, Yotoka, and you both nod while everyone heads separate ways.
As you go East all you can think about is who this group of people is. There's an extremely high chance it's your mother and you know that.
Actually, you're certain it's your mother. It would be too much of a coincidence if not.
If it was her, that means she's associated with Orochimaru. You aren't exactly sure what that means for you. Is it still the best idea to go to her?
You push all of your worries away and focus on the sounds around you. You're slightly afraid that your hearing will leave you again. You still aren't sure why that happens, but you have a strong feeling it is connected with your mother.
You run for only a few more minutes until you hear a bomb go off in the North; the direction that Seno ran to.
You immediately turn around and spring in that direction, knowing that Yokota should also be headed that way. As you jump from tree to tree you feel your heart start thumping in your chest, finally excited to get into some action.
"I'm so ready." You whisper and pull a kunai from the pouch on your lower back, a smirk under your mask.
But that excitement fades when you get to the area that the bomb went off and immediately spot Seno, extremely hurt with his mask broken on the floor.
Not hesitating, you get over to him and put him over your back and take him away from the smoke.
"Where are they?" You ask as you set him safely against a tree. He lets out a wince of pain and holds his side. "West. There are only 3, not sure where the other is. All wearing cloaks."
Your eyes widen and you immediately run as fast as you can toward that direction, knowing they're definitely caught up with Yokota now.
You arrive in a matter of seconds to see Yokota struggling with keeping them off. Keeping your distance, you plan a tactic, which only takes a matter of seconds.
Saru, tora, inu, I
You dive into the ground and make your way to the middle of the fight. You pop out of the ground directly under one of the cloaked people, using your fist to punch the underside of their jaw.
"Well well, we have a new friend." A man laughs. You ignore his comment and let out a breath and wipe dirt from your arm.
Your excitement quickly comes back because now is the perfect time to use a jutsu. You're not in the village and Kakashi can't stop you.
But before you do so, one of the people around you already has a jutsu headed directly at you. You're suddenly hit by a ball of wind, causing small cuts to slash your body as you tumble backward, harshly hitting a tree.
The micro-cuts sting and you curse at yourself for having to deal with wind jutsu in the pitch-black forest.
You get into position next to Yokota and stand beside him, the group of people standing in front of you both. He subtly kicks your ankle to grab your attention. "You get the one on the left, I'll get the two on the right." He speaks lowly enough so only you can hear.
With that, the two of you simultaneously leap toward your opponents, ready for a fight.
As you run toward the figure on the left, you watch them do hand seals and the ground beneath you starts rumbling.
"Shit." You curse to yourself and leap into the air. Just as you leave the ground, it gives way and a deep hole sits where you just were.
Inu, Toru, U, Inu.
Mud from the ground grasps the person's limbs and hardens into stone, making it impossible to break free from.
You load chakra into your fist and come down from the air, landing a solid punch to the side of their head. Their hood knocks off and it reveals a middle-aged man with no hair.
As he stretches his jaw from the pain you focus chakra into your fist again, only to sense someone behind you.
So, you turn around on your heel and punch the person that was about to attack you from behind.
Well, at least you thought it was a person.
A huge boulder crushes to bits and pieces to reveal another cloaked person crouched on the floor, doing hand signs at a pace that's unable to read.
You quickly throw shuriken behind you, knowing you hit vital areas on the person that was still trapped in your earth jutsu, and move around while doing hand signs. The stone has surely broken their bones by now and your ninja stars killed them.
Ushi, inu, tora, ushi, inu, saru. "Earth style: Rock Daggers."
You stop moving and shoot chakra into the floor. When you gather enough sharp edges of rock, you send it toward him and jump into the air once again, planning to use one of your new jutsu's you have yet to try.
Ne, Inu, Tori, Mi, Mi, Tatsu, U, Ne, Tora, Saru, Ushi, Tatsu, Ushi, Hitsuji, Saru, Ne, Saru, Mi, Ushi
You do those hand signs the required amount of times and firmly set your two hands on the ground. "Rock Finale." You announce, not sure what to expect.
At your words, huge pieces of the earth all around you are picked up into the air and when you tap the floor they all shoot to your target. The person tries to jump out of the way, but when he does he only clashes with one of the chunks of earth and it smashes him to the floor.
Dirt continues piling on top of him and you stand straight with an unimpressed face. It was dirt, he can easily pop out any second.
Unexpectedly though, the dirt transforms into stone and you hear a blood-curdling scream come from the mound, not affecting you in any way.
"NORTHEAST!" Yokota yells at you as he struggles with his own fight.
You nod and spring that way, wondering why he was struggling so much when he was the one that wanted to fight two of them in the first place.
You run for a few seconds and come in contact with another cloaked person. This time they have the scroll on their back. They try and use their agility to their advantage and swerve away from you, but your agility is far more worked on. You easily corner them and prepare to do hand signs.
Until they take off their cloak.
"You wouldn't kill your own mother would you?"
You find a smile on your face and you put your hands down, shaking your head. "How'd you know it was me?" You ask, your voice shaky from happiness from seeing her again.
You see, manipulating you isn't easy. But when it comes down to something you've searched your entire life for? You'll give up anything for it.
But your happiness fades once you realize what she's done. "Y-you took the scroll. I need it back." You're not too confident because you don't want to upset her. You just want to make her happy— you want to make her smile.
She disappears for a second, only to appear in front of you and punches you into a tree.
The impact from your back slightly makes it raise out of the ground. Before you can even blink away some of the pain, her hand is around your throat and you're being raised off the ground, your back still to the tree.
As her cold hand squeezes your neck, you bring your hand up to try and release some pressure. But when you touch her hand, you realize her skin isn't skin, it's metal with a literal mechanical grip.
She laughs and holds your neck tighter. "You little brat. Why the hell would I give it to you? I should simply kill you. You're so, so much weaker than expected."
As you start to lose more and more oxygen and shut your eyes and focus on your breathing. Which isn't happening.
"I'll bring it to you when I see you at the Mist!" You suddenly shout.
This seems to be approved by your mother. She drops you to the ground and crouches down to your body that is gasping for much-needed air. "I like the sound of that. Now I need you to listen closely, I'm only hard on you because I love you, you know that, right?" Her tone is gentle and warming. You nod and she takes off your mask, pressing a kiss on your forehead.
"Now, you're going to come to the Mist in ten months and we will train you for one year. By then, with all of the skills you'll get from me, you will help us take revenge on Konoha. For forcing me to kill our clan."
Your eyes widen and everything in your life turns around. "T-that's what happened?"
Your mom gives you a manipulative empathetic look. "Yes, they told me to kill them all. We will go to war with Konoha, I already have my own army. We're just missing you." She says and brushes her left hand, the one that still has skin, against your cheek.
You nod in understanding and she pulls out the scroll from her back. "Now here, take this back and I'll be seeing you in 10 months. I love you. He and I will be waiting."
With that, she disappears again.
You wish she didn't though. You want her to stay because even with her mean words, they seemed to lose meaning when she spoke to you softly. Besides, you know she's only being hard on you because she loves you and knows what's best.
She is your mother after all. Something you've never had. Not only that, but you don't know a true mother's love.
You sit there for a bit grabbing your breath, and wondering who 'he' is. She had a sense of excitement in her voice when she said that too. No way are you not going to see.
Once you've realized that you have wasted enough time, you get up and put on your mask, heading back into the direction of Yokota. He should be finished by now.
And you were right, about halfway there you run into him and you both stop. "You got the scroll. Are they dead?" He asks.
You give him a simple nod and the both of you head to get Seno.
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
You trudge to your front door and rest your forehead on the cold, hard wood. The sun is barely waking up and everyone else is still fast asleep.
Lucky them.
Picking up your head, you take a breath and use your tired fingers to open your front door, which you realize you'd left unlocked. Sometimes even you know that you lack common sense.
But you're far too tired to care. You simply walk into the apartment and shut the door behind you, making sure to lock it this time. You sit down on the couch and strip down to your underwear so you aren't in your dirt and sweat-covered uniform.
You let out a groan and throw your mask onto the coffee table, the material clanging against the wood a bit.
Once you finish spacing out, you forcefully push yourself up from the couch, headed toward your room. As you open the door, you half-expected Kakashi to be in your room hopefully sleeping on the bed and waiting for you.
But he's not. Your room is empty exactly how you left it with the scent of sex still slightly present.
You kind of wish he was there though. He would have cuddled you and fallen asleep with you. You love him holding you as you two lay together, it feels intimate and you feel cared about. Something you could really use right now with how sore your body already is.
A frown grows on your face and instead of going into bed, you head to the shower, which is probably a better idea in the first place.
As you turn the water on, you find yourself humming your comfort tune; Just the simple 'You Are My Sunshine' tune. As you do so, you kind of hate yourself for humming it. You know that you only subconsciously do it when you're in a tough place. And you don't want to be in a tough place because your life seems to be slowly piecing together.
Once the water is extremely hot, just to your liking, you step under it and a smile approaches your face as the steaming water hits your face. It relaxes your aching, tired muscles and everything fades away except you.
While you lather the soap all over your body you continue to hum the sweet song.
After about 20 minutes of just standing in the shower, you decide it would be best to hurry off to bed before your thoughts gather. You quickly dry yourself off and leave the fogged-up bathroom, slightly shivering when you hit the cold air conditioning.
With a sigh of relief that you're now clean, you go to your bedroom and drop the towel, slipping on a pair of your underwear. But just as you go and grab one of your shirts, you spot Kakashi's shirt laying on your bed.
"Don't mind if I do." You whisper with a smile and throw it on instead. It still smells of him and it slightly makes you sad. You really do wish he was here, but you can't do much about it.
So, you go into your bed and grab a pillow, holding it in your arms and lacing your legs around it. With a deep breath in, you slip into the peaceful bliss of your much-needed sleep.