The Lineage

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.


The Lineage
By 11


Chapter 21
Traitor: Tribulations

Stone and iron bars surround me. I could break them, but then I’d have to deal with the mini-army of vampire Haku-clones lining the hall and only-way out.

That was stupid.

Very stupid.

I’m an idiot.

That you are.

I let out a sigh and rub my thumbs hard into my temple. I am sitting in a cage and feeling pissed at myself while no-doubt everyone I know and don’t is being told of the idiotic thing I did and not the reason behind it.

Honestly I should I expected it. I should have seen this coming from a mile away – the moment he gave me the cell phone. I mean it was only a matter of time really.

I really hate this needled thing in my neck, it’s there to disrupt my molecular flow if I attempt to mist or change shape. And they confiscated my phone – so good luck explaining to Shika and the chick I haven’t attempted to call them because I’m in a cage.

He’s smart though, he’ll probably figure it out. But then what? I can still kiss my ass goodbye. Tsunade’s going to be furious… I haven’t even seen Jiraiya since I left, he’s going to want me flame-broiled too probably.

Oh shit… what’s Sasuke going to think? I shudder at the thought just when he finally started to trust me enough to do stuff, and then he almost started explaining crap and I still don’t know jack!

I hang my head and sigh again. I am an idiot – that’s all there is to it.

So now I am being detained here by the Order under suspicions concerning the leak of the whereabouts of the High Lair to the Hunters.

Honestly, I should have known that Shika and the hunters would be using the calls to figure out where the big vampire nest was located. At least Kabuto’s gone now and Haku’s not here to leer and gloat over my imminent demise.

Don’t think it, you’ll jinx yourself.

Oh speak of the devil.

The sea of darker forms parts and I recognize the scowling androgyny at the front of the guarded group that steps to the gate of the cage and opens the gate. “Come with us.”

Wow, he’s actually being impersonal. I glare a bit at his impassive face as I step out into the group. Haku lashes thick rusty-looking rope around my arms and then turns to lead the way away. The guard presses in close with belligerent beady eyes.

“What the hell Haku? Not going to laugh?” Not going to sneer and say ‘see, I told them so’? Do I want to know?

He stops before the doors and his back is bears a similar rigidity to the wood and stone. “I can’t believe I expected better from something like you.” An almost gentle hiss and with an angry shove he bears the doors open.

The cavern seems to swallow us and I am let into the center – a thousand eyes staring down at me. It feels like so long ago that I stood in this room before the Order and assembled sannin.

The air is thick and heavy as I breath in disappointment, anger, justified hatred. Disdainful eyes, glares, scowls, all faces stand hard and drawn. Did I feel this small in this grotto before too?

It’s so cold, and I find my mouth sewn solidly shut as I look up into flinty hazel eyes. Tsunade’s lips drawn thick and red drawn tight and angry.

I catch the shaking of Sakura’s arms as she holds them tight across her chest, as if she’d charge at me if she wasn’t holding her body still. Orochimaru is impossible to read.

Sasuke’s eyes are carefully trained on the pillar in front of him. Does he hate me now? He must. I can hardly flicker my gaze toward Jiraiya. Whether I saw it that way or not, I betrayed them.

The soldiers all fall into place around the prisoner. Tsunade stands, glaring hard at me. “Naruto Uzumaki, you are charged with contact with hunters.” Her voice is dead, even hearing her speak in fury would be better than this empty resonating tone.

“This contact is suspect of the leak, so the hunters now know the location of the High Lair.” She finishes, hard eyes seeing through me. “Do you have any words for your defense?”

Silence falls, and my parasite growls menacingly forcing my throat open. “I am not guiltless.” I start not sure how else to explain myself. I have no excuse for them. I have no excuse.

“A human friend of mine joined the hunters, I was aware of this,” I snort again at my own stupidity, “I guess I didn’t expect him to trace the call. It was not my intent to betray the Order.”

“Right.” Tsunade echoes. “You just acted selfishly for yourself and yourself alone without regard for anything else.”

Pretty much. I silently agree, my mouth sealing shut again. This can’t be good – don’t you dare tell me the penalty for this is death, not under these circumstances!

The softest buzz of murmurs exchanged, and Sakura’s emerald eyes bear down on me in anger and indignation – ‘how could you?! Idiot!!’ I know, I know. I don’t know either.

I glance toward Sasuke, his eyes are still trained on the pillar instead of me, but when I turn my eyes to him he looks down. A flash of sadness and understanding seem to cross his features but then the abyss breaks from me.
Does he understand at least? Maybe… maybe he doesn’t completely hate me.

“In light of these circumstances, Naruto Uzumaki is guilty as charged.” Tsunade intones, “The execution will take place forthwith --”

“That’s too hasty.”

I jump a little hearing Jiraiya’s voice break her off, his words resonating around the huge chamber. “Excuse me?” Tsunade’s voice bites out as her eyes roll towards my master.

“Execution?” Jiraiya shakes his head, and his crimson orbs lock on mine. The ghost of a smile only there for a moment, “I move that he undergo the trials.”

“What would be the merit of that?” Tsunade scowls, but letting him speak. He only shrugs.

“Well he is my heir for one thing, not that I care, really,” Jiraiya suddenly smiles like he’s about to watch me be torn apart, all teeth and glaring red eyes, “Besides that it’d be a lot more fun, don’t you think?”

Tsunade hesitates. “In light of Naruto Uzumaki being a sannin heir, he is sentenced to three tribulations. If he survives all three tasks then his charges will be overlooked.”

Nice!

“In the event of cheating, or otherwise the sentence is immediate death – in the event of his demise during the trials it will be noted that justice has been served.”

Yeesh.

“The first trial will commence forthwith.” Tsunade declares loudly, her voice a commanding presence in the peopled cavern. “If that is all then the trial is adjourned.”

Crimson eyes lock on me, and my body freezes as his cold grips hard around me. A ghost of his clawed fingers curling around my shoulder and I stare back silent.

Foolish brat. I won’t stick my neck out there again for you.

Thank you, master.

I grin back at him and with a smirk he turns away as the sannin leave the dias. Haku turns back to me, with a sharp movement of his head, motioning for me to turn and move back. So I am led back the same stupid way to that rotten cell of stone and steel.

“So when did she say the first trial would be?” I ask Haku as he shuts the door.

“Two hours.” His eyes careful not to meet mine. “You’ll be told what it is, wherever they drop you.”

“Drop me?” I repeat in question, “Does that mean anything?”

He ignores me and walks away, standing outside the cell with the rest. This is stupid. There’s a whole small room back here why do I have to sit in a cage too? This whole setup has been so archane…

I thought so too, remember?

Yeah I remember.

I still say we should do a hostile take-over. We’d run it so much better – and you could get out of this. Just let me out for a while. Three hours, maybe five. Six tops.

No. I’ve already caught a break thanks to Jiraiya. I’m going to do my best not to mess this up.

It’s you. You’re going to mess it up.

Shut up. What do you know?

A lot.

Great, I have two hours to ignore the parasite. This is just peachy.

`

It must have been close to dawn. Because I’d been sleeping a while and my body felt stiff when my eyes snapped open. What had disturbed me was the sizzling sound of something burning, or melting, or evaporating. A dense chill had settled in the room as well.

The guards were currently away, down the hall, I can still feel them, and before me stood Sasuke. In his hands dark cloth unwrapped a glass-like sphere in a puff of steam, the colder air falling from the orb to the floor. It was pale blue and ghastly.

He stepped further into the room and I curled back against my cage, my parasite curling inside me, wary. The sound hisses louder and I realize that this sphere is what’s making that sizzling sound and making the room chilled.

My eyes dart back toward Sasuke’s face, his expression carefully schooled, calm and detached. My shoulders hunch themselves and my mouth curls in distaste. “Don’t tell me this is the trial?” my voice comes out a whisper, “You expect me to touch that or something?”

“I wouldn’t advise it,” his soft voice cuts through the chill and my eyes fix on his lips curling slightly upward. “It’s so cold it would burn your skin off.”

In a quick motion he tosses the cloth back over the orb and wraps it tightly back into the cloth. The cold recedes and after a moment I can barely even feel the sphere’s existence.

Sasuke’s hand pushes the orb through the bars, forcing it into my hands. My fingers brush his; he’s wearing gloves again.

“Hide it.” He instructs curtly, “It could save your life in the first trial.”

This thing? I snort, “What, are they going to drop me into a volcano or something?” I ask incredulous. He smirks.

No. No, no… don’t tell me…

The rest is a blur before I’m shooting through the air in a swarm of bats. We’ve gotta be at least a couple thousand feet off the ground. They are insane making it so I can’t mist. My feet falter and they screech and swarm so I’m half falling half flying through the air.

Shit they better not drop me.

Below it’s the thousand of hills and mountains and I can’t even tell the difference between them – we’re making a bee-line straight to the tallest one. The sky is light and getting lighter – I’m losing altitude as several of the bats just start taking off back the way we came.

These bastards – and if I forcibly try to remove the collar it fucking shocks me! They drop me I’m dead from a thousand feet up!

The sun just begins to spill over the horizon. Then the swarm retreats completely letting loose a thousand shrill cries as they spin back toward the shadows. I’m falling again and my cry joins theirs before my body collides hard with the ground. And my body is fucking broken.

I could have sworn that one of these rocks pierced itself into my spinal cord, but given that after a couple of agonizing minutes I’m able to stand, I very much doubt that my spine is irreparably broke. Looking out, it’s really very flat on this top part here.

I walk to the edge to look down, and I can’t even see the bottom it’s a blur of green like a hallway in a dream where I’m running down but I can’t get any closer to the end. But it gets worse – on every side it’s pretty much sheer cliff straight down.

Some mountain! More like a tower. How am I going to get down if I can’t mist or fly?! I mean honestly!

I look down the edge again and feel with my hand for jutting edges, if there were a couple ledges anywhere or pockmarks maybe I could try to climb down, but I can’t feel anything. There’s not enough edge to stand on, not enough jutting out places to grip either.

So that plan’s impossible without a failsafe of mist or flight if I can’t or fall. I might live given what I am, but I have no desire to test that theory. It would probably still hurt like a bitch even if I lived.

I walk across the top and check out the places that stick up and dip in – there’s gotta be a way down, even if it’s through the mountain. I find a small hole, maybe made by some snake or rodent, but digging into it the surface starts to crumble away with enough pressure.

It caves away to a thin cranny – and there’s a breeze, so it must go deeper in. There’s already a way down I just have to use it. I sink myself into the earth edging down the nook.

As I thought, after sinking through a couple feet it opens up into a tunnel like construct that winds off through the inside of the mountain. They’ll probably be waiting for me right outside too… some trial – just find my way out/down a stupid mountain.

Big freaking whoop, I won’t even need that shiny ice-ball. Though I wonder how that thing was going to help me in this place anyway.

The tunnels wind down and around and they get smaller and smaller, then larger, then smaller again as it starts to drop steeply downward. At this point I’m kicking away the stone under me so I can keep the opening big enough as I inch downward.

There’s rock and gravel at my back and my chest and it keeps constricting tighter. My legs are getting sore and it’s becoming harder to breathe. My chest expands to let in breath but the stone pressed back keeping my lungs compressed. I try again but it hurts too much, and a squirm and the rock seems to press in closer.

It’s too dark and too small – fuck! Fuck! I scream out. My chest starts to collapse in on itself. My heart beating too fast. My ribs are cracking.

I try to mist. But I feel the sharp collar sliding steel into my throat. My molecules can’t come apart. I’m being squished! I’m going to die!

You’re not going to die. Shut up. Breathe.

I can’t.

You can. Slowly now, calm down.

My parasite seems to curl icy claws around my hard thudding too loud and I swear he’s sedately killing me. But the chill passes and my heart thumps calmly my breaths short and shallow.

Fuck but you’re claustrophobic. That’s what’ll kill you, not this tunnel. You’re almost there.

I kick away the ground beneath me and my body slides down, ever down. It’s getting smaller, I’m going to get squished. My parasite curls cold around my heart keeping my pulse low and my breathing short.

The tunnel gives way and my body falls down into the relative open. I fall to my back and fill my lungs with stale air as my parasite retreats it’s claws from my beating vessel. It feels like forever.

How long has it been?

Barely an hour. Keep moving.

I take a few more breaths and then get up and start moving on through the tunnel. At least I have someone to talk to.

Thanks.

Don’t mention it.

It opens further the deeper down I go, until the stone starts to actually take shape, arches, stairs, pillars, carved slabs of rock across the walls. Familiar pictures across these as well, scenes I can recognize from the older caves back at the High Lair.

I spot Kyuubi again, the colors here are gone but the visage of an animal of fire and blood is unmistakable. Here the god has a chosen clan, the clan splits into two, only one of the split remains in favor of the god.

Then the path winds out across an open space and the wind picks up in the cavern. I wonder if I’m at least halfway down by now. The stairs spiral down and around and there’s cliffs nearby I could leap to. But the open darkness beneath still makes me wary – I don’t’ want to fall; it still looks a long ways down.

I’m hallways across the gaping dark before my parasite starts to hiss, and looking down a light seems to be coming from below, and heat. My eyes catch molten red – since when was there lava below here?!

It is a volcano! And it’s erupting!

No, if that were the case I might have actually been better off. The spitball of lava tore up past me and then engulfed the path behind me – better than in front of me – but that still leaves me with the predicament of a huge angry lava monster in front of me.

It bubbled and roared and the sound compounded in the cavern echoing off every wall back into me and my lungs almost busted with the sheer force of it. Which makes no sense at all! Its lava, it has no vocal chords!

Argue with it about that, after its dead.

It’s lava it can’t die!

Then kill it!

I can’t fight it! It’s “lava”!!

It oozes out toward me, lightning fast and I reel back as the stone grows hot and starts to melt from under me. I leap off to a side ledge but it follows after, and I dart off across the cavern fleeing as it melts away the rock and stone behind me.

Fight!

I can’t fight! There’s nothing to tear! Nothing to rip apart and stab!!

The ice-thing you dolt!!

Ice thing?

It roars again and I leap to attach myself to the last few hanging ledges of the ceiling, staring back down at the rage of red and heat.

What ice thing?!

The one darkeyes gave you, dumb fuck!

I remember! I reach into my pocket and take the whole cloth bundle out chucking it toward the lava beast! It sinks into it and disappears in a wisp of cold air.

The thing pauses and seems to mumble to itself as if considering a bug-bite. Its way too hot in here now and my heart is pounding, but my blood feels like liquid ice.

Ah, that was smart! Now it’s dissolved!!

The lava thing seems to growl as it reaches forward toward the ceiling to me and I take off to another ledge the previous one overtaken by a mass of molten fire and brimstone. Fuck now what?! Looking closer though, its body is starting to solidify.

The thing tries to move back the way it came but can’t make itself turn all the way – slowly it’s body is hardening over into volcanic rock. I leap down to the stony part and the lava thing reaches for me.

I’m not even really thinking about it before my fist slams hard and burning into the stone cracks and thick breakage strike through the stone and the thing howls, reaching harder for me. I leap to the next part that’s starting to break over – and break that part to cracks as well.

It screams and I break it apart again. I can’t mist, so I can’t use that technique Tsunade taught me – I have to strike the same place twice after it’s moved on and the cracks in its stone body become more pronounced and eventually it starts to crumble under me.

Thrash, punch, launch and crush – its screams die as the stone overtakes the rest of it and I crash my fist through its head, shattered stone.

I leap toward the last ledge remaining but it’s too far from where I am – I reach and my bloody hand slips and I fall. I try to mist, try to change, but the metal bites into my neck and my molecules hold together. I can’t come apart.

My feet catch the last of crumbling stone as I fall and I take off from there leap back up toward a ledge – another one, far deeper down, but this time my feet catch the edge and my body falls forward to the ledge opening.

I cry out in a thick snarl as the dirt and stone cuts back into my broken hands and arms. I know the skin’s broken and I could have fractures. They’re nothing but bloody masses of flesh and bone now. That’s nothing new – 24 hours and I’ll be fine.

I hiss at the sharp twisting pain in my palms as I press back against the stone lifting my body to a stand. It’s a tunnel here and I can feel fresh air ahead, a pique of green brightness.

I stumble forward through the dark toward the opening. I’ve reached the outside, it’s still a ledge above the ground but I could probably jump down without hurting myself too bad.

I quick jump and it’s all over. A moment of peaceful weightlessness in the plummet, then my legs crumple under me and the hard earth and gravity bear themselves full force upon me. The sun is just setting, it’s already evening, but I made it.

I feel them before I hear them, coming forward from the shadows. Haku’s eyes glaring back at me from beneath his dark cloak – all of them still young but older than me.

“Two left.” He mutters.

“Yeah,” I agree, “Two left…”

`

I didn’t sleep long. I wake to his presence. My eyes linger on every angle, every curve, every line of him. I missed his shape, my arms are mostly healed already but his eyes are hard as dark onyx orbs take in the slashes of red and indentations of missing skin.

“Hello Sasuke,” I greet him with a smile, but it feels tired. I wish it was over already. Dark eyes travel up to my face and he nods.

“I’m glad you made it.” My ears catch on his words.

“Yeah, me too.”

He steps closer and I move toward the bars. I reach toward him, only able to extend past the iron cage so far. His attention turns from me and he pulls from his pocket… well it’s shiny. He puts it in my hand.

It’s a spool of thread.

Yes it is; brilliant deduction.

It is a spool of silver thread.

Well I’m perplexed.

I unwind the end of it and look at the thread by itself in my hand – it’s really fine, I can hardly see it except that I’m looking for it. The way it catches light is too subtle. “Well it’s finer than the one you use in battle. Will it still work?”

“I am hopeful it will serve its purpose.” He tells me, “Hide it.”

I tuck it back into one of my pockets, and as he turns to go my arm lashes out to seize his wrist. He starts, even though there’s no skin contact. But I can’t stand this… I hadn’t seen him since the trial and then he gave me that ice-ball thing and now this… it’s too distant and I don’t like it.

I want to ask him a million things but somehow the only thing that leaves my mouth is this: “Why are you helping me?”

Does he understand my reasons? Does he know I didn’t intend to betray anyone, especially not him? He regards me carefully.

“It is not in my best interest if you die.”

That kills me. “ ‘Not in your best interest’? ” I repeat in some irritation. My hand tightens on his wrist, my nails digging in, but he doesn’t react. “What am I to you?” A tool?

His eyes darken and I’m already staring into them when they swallow me, and I begin to drown. Then I really am drowning because I can’t breathe, and somehow he’s moved through the cage a cloud of mist that solidifies against my mouth.

His hand still cased in leather now buried in my hair. His soft lips cool then burning against mine – and I reach to crush him to me – my tongue again allowed the taste of him, metal and winter, bitter and sweet.

I hardly realized how much I missed him as I drink him in and war his tongue. His body still so hard and still so soft – and I growl at the back of my throat, unable to pull him completely to me. I hear his blood begin to pulse and he moans as my hand moves to stroke his neck.

A growl rises in the back of my throat as my hands can only roam so far. I want him against me, I want to cup and touch him. But I can’t so I devour his mouth, and fuck hard this only part of him that I can reach.

I feel him moan against me as I thrust inside him, stroking his neck, grasping his shoulder and arm. I can feel his body start to burn and he whimpers slightly as his cool blood starts to heat. I break apart from him for a moment if only to taste the rest of him, his skin, the beating vein beneath.

Flesh so thin I could bite through and scrape my teeth across his bone. He whimpers and his mouth drops to my shoulder. His cool tongue tentative and hesitant against my too-hot skin, so I devour him again – and I can feel him start to shake just so slightly.

Then he’s a gust of air across my face and the mist pulls back through the bars and he reforms, turning to leave – too quick steps. “Sasuke…” I growl after him.

He stops at the doorway and turns his head just slightly to glance back at me. An intangible darkness shades his voice. “Don’t get lost.”

Then he’s gone and I can hear as the guards begin to approach – then it must be time for the second trial. But I still have no idea how this thin little thread will help me in a fight.

`

Now I understand.

I’m looking at a wall of weed and green, and stone and rock. I didn’t think of this before, but I guess it counts. The walls rise too high, I couldn’t jump over them unless I really wanted to hurt myself.

It’s a maze they’ve dropped me in. With the thread, provided I can see it, I can be like Theseus and tie it to a rock then have it mark my back, so I can find my way back if I need to.

But that’s stupid!

I laugh a little to myself as I take off down the path, turning right. Then right again. And right again. Just follow the wall.

Everyone knows if you follow one side of a maze and just keep going eventually it wraps in on itself anyway and I’ll find the exit! I mean honestly, what a stupid trial, especially after that ruinous mountain! Pfft!

Even without my powers this will be a cakewalk-!!

I barely have time to react to what I’m seeing before a jet of flame spirals toward me. I run back the opposite direction and that thing leaps ahead of me. It’s second eyelid snapping closed then sliding open from the sides.

It’s a giant lizard.

It’s a giant lizard that breathes fire.

It seems to grin and lets loose a snarling guttural whine before lunging toward me, and I take back off in the other direction. I haven’t so much as turned the next corner though when it’s leaped around.

Another stream of fire shoots its way toward me torching the walls of green. Then something starts to scream – but it’s not me, I’m running again!

Then the ground gives way from under me. My hand latches hard into the above earth. My body hovers above the darkness, muscles straining. A thick hissing emanates from below – a pitfall of snakes?!

My other arm grips the aboveground and I haul myself back to the grassy maze. I hear the lizard snarling again, not too far away – and there’s more snarling. A pack of them? I take off again – running the way down the maze until it grows quiet again.

What kind of maze is this? Damnit! I lost track of the wall I was following! Now what?! A seam in the wall suddenly snaps open and I’m looking into a slimy glassy part of the wall, with a disk of sickly mottled gray and black color. A second seam opens and I can see through the other side.

A pack of angry red and purples and grays and shining black scales glints from the short distance away. Oh god no!

Then the wall begins to scream! It’s the same screams as earlier, but so much louder and I cover my ears as the sound bellows through my body resonating in the hollow cavity of my chest.

The lizards heads turn toward me and their snarls take off as they slither forward at breakneck speed. I take back off through the path of the maze not even paying attention to the wall I was supposed to be following.

Then the ground slopes steeply down and I’m sliding down a curved path through brambled past pillars and floors and ceilings and side and stairs. Stone holding up stone and green and blocks and the world slopes and turns and caves back in on itself.

Darkness converges over me and then is ripped away – a tunnel?! – then my body is deposited quick and hard to a second stone floor. I moan as my muscles protest at movement, trying to uncurl my body so I can sit without twisting my arms and legs around in a mangled mess.

Finally laying on my back, above me a thousand different paths and tunnels snake – a floor above and one above that. I can’t even see the sky anymore. It’s a three dimensional maze, up down, side to side…

I groan as I turn to my side again and realize one of my ribs could be cracked. The stone creaks and moans as it twists around and the vines and masses of green shrug around their directions and create new paths and erase old ones.

I shut my eyes and screw them shut willing the pounding in my skull to decrease. Great, just great. It’s a maze that moves, changes it’s paths there’s monsters and traps, and who knows what else.

Lot of good following the wall did me, but lot of good laying down the thread would have done too. What if a lizard burnt through it or something? It wouldn’t have done much good pulling me out of a pitfall either – too thin it’d break.

Great, well now I know what I’m up against.

I take a moment to breathe and figure out where I’m going to try and walk next before I pick myself up and just start moving. I don’t have a game plan, I have no idea what I’m doing – but as long as I’m moving I have less of a chance of running into something big and scary.

Oh look something big and scary.

Beady black eyes fix on me after I’ve walked around the curve that led straight to this thing. It regards me a moment surprised by my sudden appearance. I wonder if I have enough time to run before it starts chasing me or breathing fire in my direction.

Its mouth whirrs and clicks and its black armored body turn toward me, as its dagger shapes tail raises behind it menacing toward me. Lunging forward, it’s tail stabs down from above as I take off back the way I came.

The clicking sound continues and I can hear the trample of its many legs on the ground as it scurries after me – giant cockroach, giant scorpion!

It looks and sounds a lot like that thing Jiraiya put me and Shika up against before though. Finally a stone wall! I take off back toward my pursuer and run up the side of the wall, just enough to slip to the side of the beast.

It clicks and snaps and stops and coils toward me and I drop down by its side – slipping my claws beneath its plates of armor to the disgusting fleshy underside. It screeches in a high pitching whirr as it lurches away from me, slamming its own body against the opposite wall.

Its tail stabs downward toward me and leaping back I yank out it’s blue and silky innards – letting the dagger stab through it’s own precious organs. It howls and writhes and the sound becomes a deafening one pitch tone over and over and over like a broken siren.

I step to its front and smash its head in with my foot – the crunch of its skeletal skull beneath my shoe. Just like a bug. The pitch stopped, but after a moment I hear the clicking and whirring again, faint but growing clearer.

A thousand tiny feet scurrying as hundreds of those things rush to aid the dying cries of the one I killed. Just great – I should have took out its voice-box first!

I take off down the path away from the whirring sound of a thousand giant angry insects – but I wasn’t careful and the ground gives way beneath my feet again.

I cry out as I lurch downward to a bottom floor where the green walls eyes snap open, and there’s so many eyes bearing down on me and the walls open up and start to scream falling over themselves onto me.

Branches and leaves like knives and needles that batter and cut into my skin – I cry out and run again, until the ground falls again and I plummet down, swallowed down thousands of feet into the earth.

At least that’s what it feels like before my body is jarred hard against the stony ground. When I open my eyes I’m in complete darkness, and the rock and ground all smells like death around me.

There better not be some monster down here too… shitty walls – what kind of maze it that?!!

A shitty one?

I curl in on myself in the darkness and attempt to assess the damage. I don’t think I broke anything that wasn’t already broken. But everything still hurts, feels so sore. I remain sitting and try to think through what I should do next considering the whole fucked-up situation.

I feel a burn at my eyes and my parasite flares up past the bones in my face around my skull. I can see where I am now, another stinking cavern. Looking up though, there’s no immediate way to climb out.

I suggest you stop moping and check out what darkeyes gave us. He growls in my head, exasperated. Honestly, it helped last time.

I take out the spool of thread from my pocket and look it over, it’s not any different than when he gave it to me. It’s not even doing something magical like glowing or pulsing or anything. I sigh and shake my head.

It’s still just wire… it doesn’t do anything. It’s useless.

That’s not true. You can tie up something with it. You can wind it around several points and make a spider web. You can toss it at someone’s eyes! You can stick it up your ass!

You know what? You’re also useless!!

I could have done two things at that point, shove it back in my pocket and keep walking. But hey I’m an idiot so I threw it down on the ground to leave it behind. Yes it usually comes around to bite the protagonist back in the ass in the movies. So I’m glad I’ve never been in a movie.

Kit! Idiot!

Yeah fine, I’ll go get it later.

No fool, look.

Oh big deal, the thread’s uncoiling on its own and snaking off down the maze. So what?

If I had eyes to roll I would roll them. If I had a head to smack it would be yours. Follow it.

Honestly it’s not like we have anything better to do. I pick up the spool and start following. As I move it starts meandering again, leading down different paths and turns through the maze. I got to wonder if this thing’s purpose was to function like a compass of some sort.

It’s mostly quiet, and I haven’t run into anything yet, so I don’t mind following the thread to an upward slanting tunnel – but it begins to irk me as it thins out to a tiny space I need to crawl through. I’m darkly reminded of that damnable mountain.

I stop it stops, I move it moves. This is the slow progression as I half crawl, half climb my way up the tunnel. It feels like hours, but my parasite insists it’s barely been a minute. There’s light ahead and I can hear water running.

The thread spirals out and moves forward over green grassy paths. We’re back into the green walls. The seams in the weeds open slightly but gelatinous surfaces don’t open long before drowsily falling shut again.

Stone stairs lead past the fountain and the walls of green, and I follow the thread up and higher up. I can see parts of the sky above me peeking through layers of bramble and stone. The thread tugs on and so we move.

We’ve reached an overhanging of stone, the path ahead leads around and down then forks outward. The thread stops here and doesn’t move again.

I jerk the thread a little and my parasite curls up agitated. I wind the dead thing back up again and flick it hard with my finger. It still doesn’t move. I hiss and curse to myself in frustration. What the heck just happened here?

You broke it.

How’d that even happen?!

No wait… listen. I can hear the harsh snarling of those fire lizards from before I duck down to the ground and watch as one of the paths pours out a sea of giant lizards. They move closely, a seamless quilt all black and red and orange and purple.

A pack of scaly things grunt and gnaw at each other as they move through the fork down another path. I breathe out as the last of the herd passes by. So the thread stopped so I’d stop, it’s purposely trying to find the safest path? I have no idea how this works, but it does.

After a moment and the sound of the lizards snarling dies away the thread takes off again and I follow it up and around. I pass a few more beasts, stopping and going at the motion of the thread.

Through the walls I can hear a ways away when the green begins to move and scream, but I’m always far away, and I don’t need to pay attention to it.

More stairs, another turn, and then I see it. The exit is just ahead, another green walk, it’s even open – the path is clear. But the thread has stopped and falls to the ground.

I take the edge and wind the thread back around the spool as I step forward. My parasite growls harshly, echoing on the inside of my skull.

Naruto, you listed to the fucking thread of I’m going to bloody kill you!

But it’s right there, there’s nothing in the way. I assure him as I put the spool of thread away, and he growls on my inside.

It’ll be fine.

I stop and listen for myself, but I can’t feel anything. Nothing’s coming. I crouch low, my eyes set on the target as I prepare for a sprint.

I’ll move fast.

In a second I’m off, running for it, just as fast as I might have started a run with Gaara – which is probably why I didn’t even see it coming. An enormous snake’s head lashed out in front of me.

Giant gaping jaws opened up for me to rush right into. I caught my hands and feet at the corners of its jaws as it writhed upward moving my body over the gaping whole of its throat.

I braced my arms and refused to fall – refused to let its maw shut on me. But then its tongue snakes up and the slimy appendage rends itself around my middle.

It squeezes a good hard yank, and my body is pulled out of its jaws and down its throat. I am swallowed and my parasite is screaming in rage.

Idiot!! Colossal idiot!!

Can’t mist!

No you can’t!

Can’t change shape!

Idiot! How the hell are you getting us out of this?!!

My body strains and I can’t hardly breathe and the walls of it’s inner body pressed around me, choking the life out of me, swallowing me back down, deeper into it’s belly.

I am not dying with you!

I hiss in pain as my parasite begins to burn through my body and every muscle flares to agonizing fervor.

That thing in my neck slides a sharp metal needle through my throat and I gasp as I feel it prick into my jugular vein – and something cold and cloudy is injected directly into my bloodstream.

I can hear my parasite’s cries grow fainter. Stop it Kyuubi, that thing’s going to knock us out otherwise…

His angry laugh fills my head as he retreats back into me attempting to stem the flow of the sedative, and my throat burns with an aching soreness.

Who wants to bet with this feeling that Hinata made this?

I fight to breathe and press back against the slick pink walls of the stomach – then I howl as the gastric juices begin to burn through the cloth of my legs and burn hot oil against my skin – turning it red and started to eat it away to the bone. Fuck no – I like my limbs thanks!

So what are you going to do about it, kit?

This is going to taste gross.

I fasten my hand hard around the stomach wall – bunching it up to form ridges. I sink my teeth hard into the soft flesh – a quick motion and rip back out. The wall spills dark red and I begin to see past to the many ribs encasing this creature’s body.

I feel it howl and twist. Its body must be thrashing hard against walls and ground. I thread my fingers through the skin and tear away the stomach, ripping up the skin along its spinal cord. The stomach contracts and heaves around me.

Its body shrinks and constricts around me, trying to squish me down, but as I rip away its walls of contracting skin soon it won’t have anything to constrict with. The bile rises up past the gastric acid and it buoys me up and forward, past the beasts maw.

My tired body spills out on the ground in a mess of foul smelling liquid and pus. I stand before it as the beast dry heaves the rest of the bile up its throat before lunging back towards me in a fit of rage. I meet its head my hands closing hard around its jaw and projecting myself diagonally upward.

My foot crashes through the roof of its mouth and I feel the sickening squish of it’s brain as my foot tears through the vital organ and it’s eyes fall lucid clear as it’s body’s muscles loose and it falls to the ground.

Blood and flaked scales spot the ground and I turn back toward the exit. I step outside and I’m not surprise to find this place descends into the earth from a precipice surrounding it, a thing bridge connecting it and the rest of the earth.

Haku stands with the group of guards on the other side. The day is setting once again and they all wear cloaks to conceal their burnable skin from its dying rays.

The androgyny steps toward me as I reach the other side, looking in my face something seems to have unnerved him, a hint of worry, and then it’s gone again. With a motion of his hand the others step forward and again my body is bound up enough to pose no threat.

I don’t bother standing for it, my legs hurt. I think the acid really hurt them – but I’m not going to bother looking. I don’t want to see them yellow and full of pus or swollen or red and skin-eaten and raw.

Looking up towards the coming darkness my eyes lock on a single still shadow shaped like a person. I see Sasuke in the shadows there, his jaw set firm and unmoving.

I focus in but his eyes are so hard and fierce that it hurts to look. I allow my eyes to close and I can hear his voice whisper in my ears.

I can’t lose you.

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