The darkness was almost....suffocating. The rain even more so than that, like a hail of little pellets that peppered the face of the runner, bombarding her ears as she raced through the mud. Bright, white eyes with fiery red cores blazed through the darkness, with naught but memory and dumb luck to guide her through the deluge. The fate of the sound was not so sound these days, and after all, Nira never really was too...popular.
So many days of loneliness, what with her squad gone. The memories of blood and death, normal for any ninja, of all things haunted her and tortured the mind that had once so brightly shone until the battered little thing was dull and frail. The only thing that had saved her from being killed was the fact that she had somehow managed to take out her squad's killers, so she could not particularly be branded as traitorous or a coward, or so it had been decided. The pathetic excuse for a ninja had been left to her own devices and up until recently, had done on her own to carry out low-rank missions. But when the village had been invaded well.....that stuff had changed.
The soft Pat-pat, of sandals impacting on a nearby tree caused the Genin to turn to her right, eyes wide as she spotted the tell-tale flash of metal as shuriken were flung in her direction. She ducked out of instinct, the soft thud of impact behind her as the ninja tools embedded in the trunk beside her, the soft sizzle of something burning and she turned to see a bomb tag.
The concussion alone had knocked her out, and quite frankly she probably would have ben konked out immediately after anyway. But all that aside, waking up with a splitting headache was still, at the very least, waking up alive. Those soft red eyes slowly rippled open, those pupils drowsily shifting left and right as she did her best to try and get some semblance of control in her vision. Her endeavor was cut rather short by the blow to the side of her face, the hard sound of impact making her wince as the strike to her face made her dizzy all over again as a voice eeked out through the darkness.
"Looooot of shit happening, don't you think eh Nira?" That dark, taunting voice sparked memories almost immediately. Ijuko, at one time a friend of hers....oh so long ago. The second blow was about as expected a the first, making her reel her head as was impacted once more, accompanied as well by that jeering tone.
"I been waiting to do this for a real long fucking time. You know, every damn day.....I thought of Chojiro dying.....just pathetic, trying to protect you of all people. You sniveling little....BITCH" once more accentuated by a blow, the male's words continued. "The hell kinda ninja kills a....a GENIUS like Chojiro, but gets killed by a sniveling piss like you?! You horrible excuse for trash......of course, you really will be tras in a few minutes. Sanji and Uke? Those little...'friends' of yours? I been paying them to be all nice to ya. Make ya feel all fuckin safe....juuuuust for this occasion. Anything you got to say about that hm?"
She felt it of course, that small series of knives that those words drove into her psyche, knives that had been inside her mental flesh for a very long time, pushed in day after day by the other ninja that shared a common idea that she didn't deserve the second chance of living. Yuki and Chojiro had for certain been greater ninja than she, and her instructor even more so. A good amount of hatred had been earned, and it seemed her survival had not been free of consequence after all. The sharp, physical sting of a blade being forced against her shoulder shook her from her thoughts, that is until the blade met the hard pad of bone underneath the skin, though that kunai simply dug into it, making the kunoichi grit her teeth in pain.
"You really are just a sorry scrap, can't even make a sound.... why the hell a scud like you got such an insanely useful bloodline is beyond me." he muttered, shaking his head as his foot slammed into her cheek, knocking her to the ground before she heard a door open and then close, her bleeding form now resting on the floor of some room, cold stone felt glaringly on her shoulder and cheek. They were going to kill her. That much was certain. She was going to die for surviving when her comrades had not. Those crimson-red eyes opened slowly. To be honest, with the turmoil of the invasion, there was not a terrible lot that would surprise the other ninja. Her death could ever-so-easily be written off as a casualty of war. They could probably even stage some sort of suicide as a result of the additional trauma. Gritting her teeth she felt a very sudden......fire.
Her eyes snapped open and immediately began scanning the room. She felt them, sharp pain all over her body. Her shoulder, her cheek, her shins, and the center of her chest. He'd tossed the knife at her before leaving the room, the kunai having sank into the skin of her chest, her heart racing as she bit down slowly on her lip. A stark realization hit her all at once, that she really didn't want to die. It was one thing to think so, when death was so far at bay, not even memories of that fateful mission clear enough for her to remember if she had felt anything, or if it had simply been obligation to her squad that had driven her to survive. But this was quite different, she felt uninhibited, and really....really....REALLY, wanted to live. The sensation of new limbs growing was far more subtle than she could have thought, then again the feeling of chitin slithering over her skin was perhaps far more alarming. But even more than all of that the fact that she wanted the hell out of that room trumped anything else. She didn't pay attention to the long membranous forms that slid out of her back, nor the sensation of new limbs erupting from her armpits. She was far more focused on breaking herself from those ropes, watching as the bindings fell from the white chitinous shell that enclosed her body, and to the ground. Her pulse was intense and she could feel every pulse of blood flooding her body with fresh blood. However those blood-red eyes snapped to the door as she heard them....footsteps.
Her body froze in place, eyes wide as she kept absolutely still as that door opened. She felt her body grow cold and through sheer will alone, stared straight ahead as the male that had just moments ago kicked her to the floor stared at the pile of rope where she had been seated just moments ago. Curses streamed from the man's mouth and his fist connected with the wall as he began furiously searching the room. He couldn't see her. Rhyme and Reason escaped her, but he hardly cared about any of that. The fact that she was spared his vengeful mind was enough to please her right up until he ran right into her. Her heart skipped beat, and before she even knew it she saw a long, armored set of pincers reach out of her chest, racing outward and piercing the male's chest with twin ivory blades. She watched as those eyes of his went wide, the disbelief clear on his face as she proceed to back up and away from him and the look of horror on his face as blood sprayed from the wounds on his chest that peppered her front. She watched as the man dropped to his knees before promptly falling to the floor in a pool of his own blood. Looking down she saw, quite clearly, that she had indeed grown a tertiary pair of arms, if one could call them that. But she hardly had time to worry about all.....that.
She bolted out of the room, not even pausing as she crashed her shoulder into the door on her way out. She needed to find Aunt Kire. She didn't even notice the twin pair of eyes that watched in shock as she fled that hole that had intended o be her tomb.
She didn't remember if she'd made it or not. Had she made it all the way home? Or had she collapsed halfway there? The soft feel of fabric on her skin seemed to think she'd made it. Slowly those eyelids peeled back, those garnet hues shifting to look into the eyes of her aunt Kire.
"About time you woke up....here I thought you had crossed over." The old woman murmured as she shook her had slowly.
Nira simply stared for a few brief moments before she looked down. There, just below her normal arms, were that extra set. Memories flooded back into her mind, and only the sight of her own, smooth, uninterrupted chest, free of grotesque pincers kept her calm. But what she did notice was a scar wriggling down the center of her chest, breaking the lines of a tattoo over the center of her chest. The tattoo she had had for so long.
"I don't really think asking you what happened will get me anywhere particularly useful..... you've never been the talkative type since.....well...." The woma trailed off, shaking her head as she looked off to the side. " It really is a shame you're so....overdue. This is hardly a very good manner for you to find out about yourself like this. I told you long ago that you were special Nira...well I hardly needed to tell you tha- No no dear" she cut off the young ninja, seeing those lips part to start to speak, a hand resting on her shoulder as her aunt spoke. " You've energy enough to stay awake but really that's about it dear. Your friends Sanji and Uke saw the whole thing. That brat Ijuko....he had been such a nice boy.... well, I certinly didn't need to ask what had happened. The injuries in his chest were enough. He must have broken the lines of your seal when he was cutting you. A more......precise explanation is probably something you'll be wanting later. To be frank your father did not leave much behind to go on. So really, this is something you may well just have to accept for now. All I can offer is your father's last will and testament. A letter he left to you...." She explained softly, setting scroll in her hand and then rising from her feet and turning to leave the room.
She was at a loss for words, her eyes stinging with the threat of tears. Slowly, she swallowed and squeezed that paper scroll and began to unravel it. She'd never known her father, but it seemed....she was going to get to know, at the very lest, what he'd left behind for her. Taking a deep breath, she summoned her courage, and looked down, and began to read.
wc:1957
OOC:Leaving thread