"Not The Needle?" Kisame procured the device from his cloak once more to take a better look at the mechanism. It was all the woman had been mumbling about in her unconscious state. The blue man glanced at his partner, Itachi. The latter glanced up from the woman to also observe the slice of metal in his partner's hand. It resembled a senbon needle but was shorter and slightly thicker, as if to house a form of lesser substantiation.
He couldn't have been more correct.
"Hatake!" Like lightning, the woman shot from her rest against the ground, pushing herself to a sitting position. Her hand immediately covered her eyes, which had taken on a similarity to that of a snake's. "Mustn't look into my eyes. . ." She mumbled in a warning tone, facing away from the criminals that had shot to their own feet in prepared defense.
The air around her finally stilled, and she slowly turned to face them, a solemn look lining her face as rivulets of gold seeped from her normal eyes. She then caught sight of the mechanism in Kisame's hand, and her face paled in recognition.
"This," noticing her pallid fear, Kisame held it out, "what's so fascinating about it? Scared we'll call that devil of a beast out here to take care of your suicidal ass?" He spat venomously. Elvinia had yet to witness Kisame in an angry state. Least to say, she was highly unperturbed.
It was then she remembered. Why wasn't she dead? She recalled having the dagger, plunging it toward her gut, feeling bliss while falling out of the world. So why was she still here? Sensing her bewilderment, Itachi intervened on the conversation.
"I knocked you out." He offered monotonously, seemingly uncaring. It made sense as to why she wasn't wet at least. But Elvinia found herself so angry that a calmness stirred her insides.
"I can only go so far alone. But it seems having companions is a weakness in and of itself. Death is my only way of victory. It would have done us all a little good." She growled dangerously low, a baleful aura seeping around her. A glimmer of something gentle dotted Itachi's otherwise cold eyes as he glared down at the woman that had caused them so much trouble in only a couple of days.
"Well, that's not what we're here for. Answer the question." Kisame barked back, holding out The Needle once more. Elvinia sighed contemptuously, holding out her hand for the mechanism. Kisame rose a suspicious brow but dropped the slice of metal into her palm nonetheless. Immediately, her wrist jerked to the side, and the weapon flew toward a tree, impaling itself in an unsuspecting woodpecker.
The small, feathered animal screeched terribly, falling to the ground in a writhing heap. With puffy feathers, it whaled and trembled in pain, making Elvinia cringe in regret. But the point had to be made. Slowly, the bird's feathers fell to the ground, leaving a red, stressed skin behind. On the skin crawled lines of runes, wounding like a snake around the creature and gradually choking the life from its form. Finally, its cries lessened, and its trembling descended into stillness.
The poison had won.
Elvinia watched Kisame's jaw slacken from the distasteful clench it had been in during the disturbing scene. An incredulous look glinted in his eyes until he finally looked at the elf below him, her daunting eyes staring him down. In the least, he was highly perturbed.
"So the bastard meant to kill one of us?" He grumbled angrily, slightly seething at the prospect of dying without understanding. It was then a cackle broke the silence, and all attention was thwarted to the ethereal form of Vipirus.
He was nothing but air, odd vapors working together to form a wispy cloud of the diabolical elf. But his eyes were very substantial, burning holes through Elvinia's head.
"Don't be such a dramatic. You're much larger than this bird. It would have taken longer to spread, and I might've gotten here in time with the antidote." Vipirus winked playfully at the fuming Kisame. It seemed he had no concern for how murderous the blue man appeared.
"That's not the point!" He screeched incredulously, his hand reaching for the hilt of the impressive sword on his back. Vipirus held up a halting hand before turning a livid gaze my way.
"Now, you," he spat, stomping imposingly toward Elvinia's weak form and snatching her head by the hair, "you are not a tool so you can kill yourself! Now complete the mission I've given you, or I'll force you to do much worse." He growled lowly, insinuating what she had feared the most: being sent to destroy the people of Konoha.
He released her head and rammed his foot into the side of her face, sending her flying into the nearest tree. A wind picked up, and his form disappeared accompanied by an eerie chuckle. Moaning in dull pain, she pushed herself to her feet, dusting herself off and regaining her blurry eyesight.
Once upright and recovered, she noticed Kisame retrieving a second Needle from the ground, where Vipirus had left them with another. He seemed reluctant.
"Why would he give you reign over us?" The blue male chose not to meet the woman's gaze. As she caressed the aching side of her face, she scrutinized the uneasiness of her companions' demeanors. She debated on whether or not answering his question was even necessary. How had he not figured it out?
"Not keen on sacrificing lives." His partner, the enlightened, more observant male, laid out the obvious. It had the woman shifting uncomfortably. She didn't enjoy being taken apart and analyzed so accurately.
"Whaddya mean?! She just tried to kill herself!" Kisame bellowed, still missing the point. Elvinia instantly sighed, rolling her eyes in annoyance.
"Look-" she began.
"She doesn't care for her own." Itachi interrupted sternly yet emotionlessly. It seemed he was use to having to explain deeper meanings to his simpleminded partner. But an understanding alighted in Kisame's eyes, and putting away The Needle, he finally stared at the woman who threw her head back in aggravated embarrassment.
A part of her was embarrassed for bowing to such weak emotions, and it used the excuse of not obeying Vipirus as justification. Yet the other half of her truly believed it was right to respect life no matter the quality, and Vipirus's life might even have been apart of that philosophy. She was torn on which to really accept as herself, having been molded into two personas by Vipirus himself. Which one was she? Ainivle or Elvinia?
"Vipirus is a monster, and killing you to escape was just what he expected of me. Now I have proven him wrong. It is a small victory in many to come." She shrugged it off as coolly as possible, appearing insouciant and aloof. She didn't care, or did she?
A tense silence accompanied her declaration, a pair of intense gazes observing her very body language. She knew out of the two, one very well knew the truth. And like he could hide nothing from her, she could hide nothing from him. She could see his soul and him, her deceit.
"Now, for this dragon." She gladly escaped the silence, bringing in a new topic for discussion. "I'd rather dispose of myself before handing such a delicate creature over to that monster, but it seems the fight will be bigger than that. Being an elf born of fire, naturally, water isn't my friend." She averted her gaze shamefully, knowing full well that displaying her weakness was not prudent.
"The beast is in the lake, isn't it?" Kisame butted in, an arrogant display of rows of teeth forming a smirk on his square face. The woman closed her eyes in restraint. Of what, Kisame did not know.
"Yes."
"Hah! My specialty!" He exclaimed in excitement, clearly enjoying the aspect of taking down a foreign entity. What he did not know was that they were not taking it down.
"We're not here to kill it, Sharkboy." The woman growled frustratedly, obviously not keen on dealing with hyper, murderous maniacs. Kisame stiffened at the nickname, seemingly dubious on whether or not he found it insulting.
"What is our role, then?" Itachi inquired in that soothing yet aggravating tone of his. The woman folded her arms in thought.
"My plan is to go down there myself and find the lair. Only I can sense him. The part I cannot ensure is waking him. . . safely that is. And if I die, obviously, there will be no taming." She paced back and forth during her explanation, only stopping to stare at an anxious Sharkboy.
"And?" He goaded.
"You will stir him, make him show himself." The woman finally provided, rolling her eyes at the male who presented her with a proud conglomerate of deadly chompers. "I will then proceed to tame him with whatever instrument or tool necessary to resonate most effectively with his soul." She nodded positively, then turning toward Itachi.
The male watched her with his sharingan, still distrusting of her actions. He knew she was lying earlier, and he realized she really was a pure hearted individual, yet the world did not allow her to accept such a state. It furthered his deepest melancholy.
"You're going to be my trump card, my backup if something was to go wrong. Say I become incapacitated," she offered thoughtfully, "the beast will then rampage until I am able to consciously tame him. In which case, you will contain him with your. . ." she paused on her instructions, seemingly searching for the word. "Speridia. . ." she mumbled.
"His what?" Kisame blurted, raising a brow.
"Kekkei genkai!" She exclaimed, a brightness claiming her if only for a moment. "I couldn't think of the word." She admitted shamelessly, shrugging it off as unimportant. Itachi nodded nonetheless. "Now," the elf turned from the two, making her way to the lake, "time to find a dragon."
In an instant, her body was shrouded in a blinding light, and as it died down, her former clothing was replaced by an unusual, fantastical outfit. On her head was an intimidating headdress, complete with a set of sleek, black horns that formed into a circle. With a glance back at her partners, she gesticulated for a speechless Kisame to follow.
Soon, they were in the deeper section of the lake, kicking their feet to stay afloat. Kisame had discarded his cloak, keeping his odd sword strapped to his back. It had been then that Elvinia noticed the gills on his neck and the sleek surface of his blue-gray tinted skin. He truly was a Sharkboy of sorts. They nodded to each other in sync, sinking into the lake simultaneously.
Under the darkness of the water, Elvinia was forced to blink her eyes numerous times in order to adjust. The armor she had dawned gave her the ability to breath underwater, and at her command, the fitted skirt wrapped around her legs, morphing them into a sleek, black fishtail. Gathering her bearings, she swirled around, finding Kisame a few feet away with numerous sharks swimming around him. How he summoned them in fresh water, she was unsure. But there was no time for interrogation.
"Follow me." Her voice carried eerily over the space of the water, tidbits of bubbles floating from her mouth back to the surface. Kisame nodded in response, his gills flaring with life. He was excited. She could tell by the boisterous behavior of his little pets.
For a while, the swim seemed to have no purpose other than recreational. She could feel the dragon's presence but could not pinpoint exactly where it was wafting from. The beast was so dormant he was on the verge of nonexistence. So she ceased her unsuccessful swim and gauged her possibilities.
With the dragon's waning presence, she would have no way to continue downsizing his location. All she knew was that his scent permeated the lake. There was only one way to do this, and only one thing stood - or rather swam - in her way. She turned to Kisame.
"Reign in your sharks. It's gonna get slightly bloody." She didn't understand why he felt the need to have them out. Maybe let them have a little swim? After all, she too had once been the owner of a beautiful companion - one that, like Kisame's sharks, had been deemed as beastly. And she'd never denied him a good flight.
The man nodded, a wicked smile dominating his face as he ordered his companions to stay close. Chuckling to herself, the woman disappeared into the darkness of the depths. Finding a nicely sized rock at the bottom, she procured a small dagger, running it along her palm.
Golden liquid seeped from the cracks in her fingers as she squeezed her palm shut, reserving as much of the blood as possible. It'd be needed if her spell was to work. Taking a deep breath, she readied herself for the procedure.
Placing her palm to the rock, she focused her energy into the earth, closing her eyes and accumulating the necessary magical energy. On her head, the jewel at the center of the horns began glowing an eerie purple light in response to her magic, and she commenced the chant.
"Great guardian of all that flows," she remembered the call from her mother's lifetime, "I call on your wisdom and grace. Grant me the wildness of leaping streams and the slow strength of wide rivers. Help me see deeply into the mysteries hidden in water and hold far within the treasures offered by this world. Swim gently in the ocean of my heart until the time comes to lift your head and unleash the waterfall's roar." In response to her chant, the lake's floor pulsed as her magic seeped through and searched for the slumbering dragon. She figured speaking in her native tongue would do no good, for this dragon was of this land. And as such, she added a slight ounce of chakra with her magic, unsure of which would perform better in this instance.
After seconds of her magic's flight, she instantly recognized the location she'd been searching for. In haste, she swam her way back toward Kisame, silently telling him to follow.
She'd found the dragon.