A strange new life. [Naruto]

[okashihime]

I remember a time in the before when all I wanted was to sleep. Dad had passed away not long before. Mom didn't have the mental bandwidth to worry about all the trouble that followed, her job, the press attention, and the death threats. It was, now that I think about it, closer to how I felt after finding the clones.

No, wait. That example got away from me. Point is, for a time, I just couldn't care about caring for myself. It took Kimby's literal bitch slapping me into action to leave that funk. Huh, dear chubby Kimberly. I hope that bitch Veronica didn't mess with my bae too much.

Argh, no, that wasn't what I wanted to think as well. The real point is, at that time, I felt like I had no control over myself. I knew what I had to do, I just couldn't. After our first kiss, Kimby had asked me about that time, and no amount of words was enough to explain how I felt. I think she never had the frame of reference to understand.

But for the last time, the real point of this strange monologue was, I knew I had to do something. And I couldn't. But this time, it wasn't some sort of mental fugue keeping me down. It was just physical abuse.

In the brief moments my consciousness surfaced from that haze, things just turned worse. I learned pretty quickly that moving was a bad idea, circulating chakra was an even worse idea. Trying to look around only earned me punishment.

I remembered bits and pieces. The ambush, getting separated from the team. Meeting up with Sai, his betrayal. Why?

As far as I could piece together, things took a strange turn. I was a bonafide kunoichi in distress now. Captured and kept under constant physical strain. That one took me a while to puzzle out why. A conversation helped me understand.

It was one of brief moments when I surfaced, half lucid, and still confused. I tried to lash out, move and get away. The hit to the head left me reeling and seeing stars. The comment after was illuminating.

"Again?" A voice I didn't recognize asked.

"Third time today," another voice answered.

I groaned, which was a mistake. Something else hit me.

"She's tenacious." A third voice said.

"She can regenerate, use jutsu without hand seals, can use shadow clones, and will murder everyone here if she ever wakes up." An emotionless voice said. It felt familiar, but I couldn't place a face to the voice.

At the time I remember thinking that I wouldn't murder everyone. I wasn't a murder hobo, after all.

That bit of information got stuck in my head. Each time I woke up, that conversation kept returning. I think I know why this is happening. Whoever was keeping me prisoner was well aware of what I could do. How do you keep captive a shinobi that doesn't need hand seals, can clone herself and is a regenerator? They went with the brute force approach, I guess. Keep that shinobi on the brink of death.

After understanding that, I tried to fake being hurt. Not that I really need to fake it out. I was hurt. But I was trying to get a few needed moments to center myself, and assess the situation. It didn't help. Those bastards seemed to be on a schedule. Punishment would come on a timely basis, even if I tried to play the fake card.

There was more conversation I heard, that helped with more context.

"… not sure when we can move…" a voice said.

"…Kirigakure ninjas up in arms…"

"…routes guarded, civil war preventing…"

"…a giant wall of trees blocking the way…"

"…reinforcements sniffing around…"

It was strange that even when not in any condition to do anything, my mind still roamed. Those tidbits helped me come up with a few assumptions. I'm guessing the kidnap attempt ended up going up in flames when Yamato summoned wood to help him escape. That would put the whole of Kiri on alert, not to mention the reinforcements from Konoha. I wasn't sure about the civil war one, but maybe it was something related to their Kage being a puppet? In the end, my guess was that the kidnappers had no choice but to go underground and wait until the fires died down.

That at least gave me some hope that Yamato was still alive. But what about Hayase?

Again, I wasn't sure how much time had passed, all of it was a blur. Most of my mental faculties were busy contending with the pain. There were a few acute points that worried me. First and foremost, my head. Even trying to think was agony. It felt like they cracked my skull and scrambled my brain. I didn't even know brains could hurt, but I swear it did.

Then my arms and hands. I think they were broken. The position I was in, I think somehow I was hanging from my hands.

Two other problems were the injuries from the battle. My sides where that shinobi managed to stab me with a kunai was pure fiery agony. The smallest of breaths was like lava spreading from there. The other was the puncture on my thighs. Had these savages removed the embedded shuriken? It didn't feel like they did, not with how much pain radiated from there. My eyes were swollen and closed shut.

All in all, I was thoroughly fucked. In a real bad way. But I had a plan. I just needed more time.

Even with all their preparations, one thing they couldn't prevent was me sensing the chakra around. I had a good impression of this hidey-hole layout. It was easy when the whole complex was surrounded by a layer of chakra that felt dangerous. This same layer also prevented me from sensing anything outside the complex. That let me know how many people I had to contend with. I also had a fairly good idea how strong they were. There were two I would consider jounin levels of chakra, five that I was thinking of as chunin. There were more chakra signatures around, but those were low ones, genin, probably, and given how they didn't move, I was inclined to think they were also prisoners.

My plans didn't involve saving any of them. Yes, that was brutal, and by all accounts of morality, I should help these people. I felt bad that I was following in Orochimaru's footsteps here and choosing to not burden myself with the traps of morality, at least for this instance. I wanted to live, I was going to live.

Peeking on shinobies through chakra perception let me learn a few of their patterns. Every few hours, a three man cell— jounin and two chunin— left. They never stayed away for long. Sometimes one hour, sometimes less. Sometimes, they took some of the imprisoned genin with them; other times, they brought more. I had my suspicions about things but, back to my plan.

Maybe because my lack of visible resistance lulled the enemies into going easy. Maybe they mistook how much my regeneration was capable of. The more time passed, the more alert and aware of my surroundings I was. That gave me an urgent feeling that I had to get the hell outta of here. The sooner, the better.

It wasn't going to be easy. Careful probing told me a few things: I don't think I was naked— thank god— but I wasn't wearing my shinobi gear. My weight seals weren't on me anymore, my bag of supplies was awol. My hands were tied to the walls, maybe ceiling. The feelings from there left me thinking about Iron chains, maybe.

No explosions, no kunai, no shinobi gear. Impaired vision, hurt, thirsty and hungry.

Thankfully, it wasn't the worst-case scenario. If I could release the shackles from my arms and legs, I could puppeteer my body with threads. I was also planning on using them to get a good feel for my surroundings. Made me think of a spider spreading her silk.

Timing was going to be of the essence here. I was on a clock. The three-man squad had already left, taking two genin with them. They would be back soon. I already had my chakra primed and ready, a single thought away from creating a beacon nearby. Now I just needed my jailer to piss off for a moment. Perhaps Fate-kun heard my pleas. The jailer left the cell, and the replacement was still a few rooms away.

I pushed my chakra. It burned, most of my reserves tanked. The beacon blossomed in my mind.

For the first time ever, I activated my jutsu. There was this brief moment of confusion. I was hanging by my hands, then I flopped on the ground on top of the wood kunai. My chakra exploded around with countless threads. I couldn't see, but I didn't need to see.

I wasn't confident I could move on my own. Threads wrapped around my limbs. Jerky hand swatted the hardwood kunai, my beacon. I heard voices from the other side of the door, my escape hadn't been unnoticed. Wood kunai in hand, I flickered forward, appearing behind the chunin that had just left the cell.

He might have been too surprised to react. My hand grabbed his neck. The other pushed the kunai below his chin, up to his brain. The man flailed, I let the body topple.

There was this moment of silence, before the place turned to chaos. The replacement was now rushing my way. The jounin and one other chunin were fast approaching as well. The trapped genin started screaming. Some cursed, others yelled for me to help them.

With my threads, I forced my swollen eyes open. I was doing my best to ignore the horrendous amount of pain I was in. If I stopped to think about that, I might just pass out, which wouldn't do. With hazy vision, I noticed the place looked like a dank, dark cellar. There were several small cubicles barred by metal. Inside, children and teenagers yelling and screaming for help.

A flash of red behind one of the cubicle doors caught my attention, but I had other things to do before anything else. I had a few precious moments to assess the situation; a quick scan didn't reveal anything I could use as a weapon. I doubled over and snatched the tool belt from the dead chunin. Smoke bombs, shuriken, kunai, wire. Useful, but nothing vital.

I was out of time. The replacement chunin was about to enter the cellar. The door burst open, I threw the hardwood kunai. The kunoichi, a girl this time, walked in, and I pushed my flying thunder god prototype again. She tried to dodge the kunai, unaware that the real threat was me. I teleported in the air near the beacon. I snatched the weapon before it collided with the walls. With my other hand, I stabbed the kunoichi with the kunai I stole from the dead guy. Or I tried. My hand was empty. The kunai hadn't teleported with me. The stab turned into a punch, which gave me time to move my other hand and stab with the beacon.

I felt around with the threads. Yes, my clothes were left behind.

Huh, look at that. That emotionless voice person was right. I was absolutely going to murder the fuck out of everyone. In my birthday suit. Murder-exhibitionist-hobo me, I guess.

---

Spoiler: AN

Thank you for reading. Next chapter Monday.
Proofreader: CakeEight.

An update about my backlog: I finished on wed writing arc6. It goes up to 6.19. There is one chapter on that bunch I'm still on the fence about, but I liked how most of them turned out.
Now I need to write another chapter, this one from Naruto's POV.

Sunshine brat in: Where is this granny-ttebayo?

I will admit I'm kinda excited to write arc seven. Ooh, I do see many nice things in my head. I hope I can put them to paper! Or to the page, in this case.

 

[jayofgrey]

Yes, time for some nice fun relaxing ultraviolence!
/insert let the bodies hit the floor.mp3 here/

 

[RockLake]

My hand grabbed his neck. The other pushed the kunai below his chin, up to his brain. The man flailed, I let the body topple.

Click to shrink...

She's blind, bleeding, hungry, tired and in pain; yet did this to a chunin...bruh...

 

[Petrox]

In before Ino sees a naked mauled Hinata with branches controlling her movement bathed in blood and bile. There would never be a point when Ino would see her at her ugliest than this.

 

[okashihime]

The murdering turned out to be easy, in a certain definition of easy. After killing the kunoichi, I threw the smoke bomb through the door. Right now, I was navigating with my chakra sense and threads—thread-vision? Thread-sense? Blocking the enemy vision gave an advantage for this next confrontation.

On the other side of the door, it seemed like a bigger underground storage sort of room. It was a large square shaped room, with a lot of wooden boxes and sacks inside. Now that I could sense the room, I noticed there were two more doors. From the mental layout I constructed, I don't think I ever saw anyone using the one at the side of this warehouse. The important passage was the one on the opposite side from where I was, from where the jounin levels of chakra just entered through. That was the path that led out of the complex.

By my count, there were still two more shinobi in the complex. Kill the jounin, kill the chunin waiting two rooms down, don't die, escape. Easy.

I waited inside the smoke for my moment. I considered if I should use more clones, but my chakra levels were too low to divide it even more among clones. This one would have to be close and personal.

The jounin took their sweet time approaching. The wait would have been nerve wracking if I couldn't sense their position through the smoke. I won't lie here. I wasn't about to try anything fancy. I had no idea what the enemy was capable of, and my Kuro Raikou no Jutsu had already scored me two easy kills. Why change a winning strategy?

I threw more smoke bombs, this time away from the jounin. The bombs hit the wall, exploded. At the same time, I threw the stolen shuriken, stolen kunai and my hardwood beacon. In my empty hand, I created a rasengan.

The shinobi swirled toward the explosion, then again to deflect the thrown weapons. Again, like magic, super op, no one expected me to appear from the flying wood kunai. At the same time I did, I brought down my rasengan. I hit the jounin, another man with no visible village markings, on the chest. Pushed all the chakra I could manage on my jutsu. The enemy reacted fast. Even under my attack, his hands flashed, he spewed fire all over me.

The op combo worked better than I hoped. The ball of chakra expanded on my hand, flew forwards, carrying the jounin away. The man hit the opposite wall, the rasengan expanded, things got shredded. It was gruesome. I was suspicious before, but I was certain now. These guys weren't the same ones that ambushed us. It was not just the different way of dressing. They were just too weak when compared to the ones that ambushed us.

The impact of the jutsu dispersed most of the fire and smoke. The remaining enemy had just entered the room to see the end of that fight. I stood at the center of the room, my back to them, still smoking; at the other side of the room, a dying jounin.

Perhaps, the enemy decided the better part of valor was to wait for reinforcements. They turned around and bolted. Blew away the passage behind them, trapping me inside.

I would have gone after the fleeing ninja, and tried to contest that retreat. I didn't. I couldn't.

Like I said, easy, for a definition of easy. I stood at the center of the room, burned, hurt and with another kunai stuck to my chest. Fucker jounin didn't even have the decency to die and leave me alone. Had to burn and stab me. Blood poured out of the injury. I didn't pull the kunai, no idea if the man had hit anything important. It was already bleeding like a fountain. No need to make it worse.

That complicated things, a lot.

The collapsed passage was the only path I knew that led outside. We were, by my accounts, a few dozen meters underground. I could try to doton the shit out of here, but the faint chakra lines lining the complex gave me the feeling it did a lot more than just hide the place.

I walked closer to the jounin. The man was still alive, barely. Had to remedy that. A quick stab finished him off. The amount of injuries I suffered didn't matter when I wasn't moving my body the normal way. Puppeteering my own limbs made it that I just needed to endure the pain, to fight. But the lightheaded feeling told me the loss of blood was more dire than I thought.

The jounin had more supplies than the others. I stole more kunais, an exploding tag, bandages and other bits and ends. A keyring with several keys inside his pouch gave me an idea I could try. Release the prisoners, let them help themselves escape. Look at that, I was going to play the hero.

I shambled my way back to the cells, pressing the bandages around the kunai in my chest. Found myself trying to fit a key in the lock. Even with the puppeteering, my hand shook. It wasn't easy. The yelling was deafening. A hand sneaked from inside the prison, grabbed my wrist, steadying my hand. It looked young. Right, I remember, these were children. I forced my head up, and was greeted by despairing eyes and a mane of red hair.

Not only red hair, but red eyes as well. Her hair was on the short and spiky on the right side, while somewhat longer and straight on the left. She wore some sort of worn out shinobi uniform, but I couldn't see any village markings. One side of her face was marred by scars that resembled claw marks. It was a surprise how she didn't lose an eye, given the scar placement. I think she was saying something, but I couldn't understand. I tried to fit the key a few more times, shoved it into the girl's hand when I realized I was about to check out.

Damn. All this effort to drown at the finishing line.

Darkness claimed me for the second time. I hoped I would wake up again. I wasn't confident.

---

Against all odds, I woke up again. I couldn't make sense of things, but there was this voice, insistent, annoying, demanding. It was a girl's voice. I just wanted to sleep.

"You have to bite." The voice pleaded again. "You'll die if you don't."

Something was pressed against my mouth. I groaned, trying to push it away. The pain in my hands stopped me. I might have whimpered, which only caused more pain.

Cruel hands pried my mouth open, and something soft prevented me from closing my mouth.

"Bite," the voice asked again, "bite!" She yelled when I tried to push away.

That was really annoying. Fuck it, have it your way. I chomped down. Hard. The girl shrieked. I tasted something warm and coppery. But more than that, another type of warmth spread through my body. It was like a refreshing breeze, and sweet candies. Or maybe vanilla ice cream. I wasn't sure. I wanted more. I bit again, tried to drink, but the thing on my mouth wasn't the nice feeling. It just left me feeling grossed out.

The voice's owner cried out again. My hands moved, holding up the arm to my mouth. Huh, I could move now. The pain, I also noticed, was all but gone. The puncture on my chest and side smarted but was the weeks old kind of smarted. The injury on my thigh stopped demanding my attention.

"Stop." The annoying voice sobbed.

I didn't listen. I kept biting.

"Stop!" The girl shrieked. Something slapped my face when I didn't.

That, I think, broke the spell. I opened my eyes to find myself holding the red-haired girl's arms. There were several bite marks on her arm. Bleeding bite marks. My mouth tasted strange. There were a few other kids around. They were looking at me like I was a monster.

I turned my attention back to the girl whose arm I was still holding. She glared at me, eyes full of tears, cheeks rosy. She pulled her arm free. I let it go.

I looked around. The cells were open; no other enemy was in sight. I was lying flat on the ground, head on the red hair's lap. Someone, thankfully, had laid a shirt over me. I wasn't flashing everybody here. Meanwhile, a mental checklist appeared in my mind.

• Red hair? Check.
• Red eyes? Check.
• Glasses? No, but due to circumstances, a maybe.
• Scars? No. What was this one about?
• Heals people by letting them bite her arm? Double check.

Three in favor, one against, one undecided. I guess I could make this assumption.

"Karin?"

Spoiler: AN

https://i.ibb.co/HLph1QwY/Genin-Karin-1.png

 

[Petrox]

Nice to bite meet you!

 

[okashihime]

Nice to bite meet you!

Click to shrink...

Haha. Lol, I hadn't thought about that. xD

 

[jayofgrey]

Abused healer waifu GET?
A bunch of traumatized children GET!
Looks like the murderhobo arc is a go. Or will it be a merc arc? Track down traffickers and murder them and take all their shit arc?

 

[Eastiling]

Nah, feels more like hunt a pal bitch ark. Gotta make sure Sai becomes the corpse he was always meant to be.

Also it was already mentioned that track lead in all directions and Hinata went off alone. Or maybe just with one or two people? I'm betting that fully recovered due to biting and with having experienced the Flash jutsu she could probably manage to use it for a small group now to break tracking attempts. Just launch the kunai at full strength into the distance, wait until it lands, teleport and rinse/repeat.

Or even easier, just give it to Karin, let the girl run off, go make tracks elsewhere and then jump to Karin later on at a preplanned time. Since noone else knows she has the jutsu yet it would be a nice trick to play.

Also given Sai, prick, I'm assuming Danzo was responsible for all this. Hopefully he's in the nearby hideout and can get his deserved reward. Along with Sai. Please, no redemption ark for him!

 

[okashihime]

Karin's eyes were a mix of startled, scared and curious. She pushed me back. My head flopped out of her lap onto the ground.

"What? How do you know my name?"

Oh, right. I wasn't supposed to let people know I knew this stuff. Goes to say I wasn't fully recovered yet if I messed up this bad with my most guarded secret. Hadn't something similar happened with Ino-chan as well? No, not the time. It was thinking-very-fast-no-jutsu time. I had no idea how to answer Karin. Change-subject-no-jutsu, made a surprise appearance to save the day.

"How long was I out?" I rasped out, felt the familiar stinging on my throat. The healing healed the injury, but it hadn't fixed the root cause. Talking was still a chore, and it still hurt. I didn't wait for a response. I got up, and under a half dozen pairs of wide eyes, I got dressed in the rags that had been covering me until now.

I mean. What else could I do? I wasn't going to show how shy I was about this whole stuff. No, my face wasn't burning. My ears weren't red. That just didn't happen. I was a badass strong kunoichi who just kicked a lot of ass, in her birthday suit, then just decided to traipse back into the cells. Nothing out of ordinary here. Move along, citizens.

Dressed and not flashing anyone, I looked at my injuries. The stab in my chest looked like a months old injury, same with the side and leg. Most of the small injuries were gone, the burning had faded, leaving a barely visible scar on the worst parts. No wonder Orochimaru kept her around. I wanted to keep her around myself.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I tried to check the others. Aside from Karin, there was one more girl and four boys. The girl looked like a very thin fifteen year old, dressed in dirty rags. There were some sort of markings on her face that looked like a clan mark, but I couldn't place them. The boys were a mix of young and older. There was this one kid that looked like ten, while the oldest around seventeen. All of them looked rough, dressed in hand-me-down type of clothing. They also looked roughed up, but I was guessing that was courtesy of our captors.

Between the boys, two of them also had some sort of markings that made me think of shinobi families or clans.

That sparked a memory. Wasn't this a thing in Kiri? Wasn't that Haku's whole situation as well before they met up with Zabuza? The persecution and discrimination against bloodlimit shinobi families due to the constant wars and violence and how those shinobi were used as tools of war.

Was this whole bunch all kekkei genkai shinobi?

Like a reflex, I tried to pop out my comms board, only to glance at my bare arm in a bit of confusion. Ah, yes, taken, prison, bad. My brain really wasn't working properly. I had to talk with these people if we were to have a chance to leave this place alive. A small sigh escaped me. I had only one choice left if I didn't want to keep hurting myself. My hands flashed with seals. Out popped another me.

The kids all around took another step back. I saw a few looking for ways to escape. Even Karin looked startled now. Why? I mean, yes, here I was using clone jutsu, but that wasn't bad, right? I nodded to my clone. Communication-chan had only one job: talk with this gaggle of people and make them ready while I prepared for our escape.

Communication-chan squealed, threw herself at Karin in a bear hug. "Oh my gosh, Karin-chan! I love you! Even if you have the worst taste ever in boys. Emosuke, really? Why?"

I face-palmed. Right, out of control clones, lower inhibition head injury. What else was I expecting?

---

It took a while to calm down Communication-chan and placate Karin. While my clone tied the bandage around the bite marks on the girl's arm, it ended up falling to me to explain things.

"Chunin exam." That was the excuse I blurted out. I knew from Karin's story she had participated in the same exam as me, even if I hadn't seen her there. I hoped that was still true.

"Konohagakure's Chunin exam?" She asked, her hand going toward her face in an unconscious gesture, fingers tracing the scar.

I nodded. The scar wasn't as bad as I first thought, or maybe Karin's healing abilities worked on that as well? The mark looked fading, like it had been years since the injury, and not months. My guess was that those marks were a gift from Forest of Death Bear-kun, since Sasuke wasn't there to save her from it in this timeline.

Karin didn't seem willing to let me off the hook.

"Emosuke, who's that?"

Communication-chan, the traitor, giggled. I shot her a glare to make sure she kept her trap shut.

"Is this really the time? We have to escape."

I played the deflection card again. I might have over played the throat injury card as well, letting a trickle of blood escape my mouth along with a bit of coughing. Take the hint Karin, I'm hurt here, can't keep talking.

That might have done it. Karin looked startled, offered me her arm again. Communication-chan decided to do her job. Finally, thank god.

She pushed the offered arm down.

"It's not something you can help with," she husked out.

I had to shake my head at that. Why was Comm-chan using our Seduce Best Girl voice with Karin?

Karin looked from me to the clone, and I took the chance to leave them while explanations were given.

I left the cells and scoured the underground rooms for anything we could use. There wasn't much. There wasn't much time I could spare. None of my stuff was here. Back at where I faced the other shinobi, I salvaged all the weapons I could, picked up the used kunais, shuriken wires and all that. Ran back to the cells and shared it with the other prisoners. It wasn't much. Four kunais, a dozen shuriken, two spools of wire, two exploding tags. That would have to be enough.

While I was scavenging, Comm-chan managed to get others on board with the escape plan. Among the other prisoners, only Karin had shinobi training. The others were mum about it, but by the looks of it, yes, they were descendants of bloodlimit clans. I think only the tall girl actually knew how to use her bloodlimit. A misty hazy cloud that could be used to block vision, and other types of perception. Could be useful, but that also somehow interfered with my chakra sensing, which was less than ideal.

The escape plan was simple. I was going to blow up the blocked passage, and we would storm out of the complex before their reinforcements arrived. Time was of the essence here. There were lots of questions being thrown around, none I had the patience to answer.

I mean, how would I know where that kid's pet was?

While the others bickered, I went on with my preparations. First, I created another beacon. I pushed my chakra, and a hardwood kunai formed on my hand. One of the downsides of using a modified mokuton clone for this was showing up in a ugly way. When I passed out for a few minutes, the kunai dispersed, just like a clone would do.

If Karin hadn't healed me and let me suckle on her arm for a chakra top up, I'd be screwed right now. No, who am I kidding? If it wasn't for her, I'd be dead right now. I owed her big time.

Now, while Comm-chan wrangled the kids into some semblance of order, I was about to start stuff. We spent enough time already. For this part, I was almost chakra depleted again, even after being topped up by Karin. Why? You ask? Well, the reason was simple. I had to reinforce the walls and pillars with mokuton for what was about to come. I couldn't sense anyone in the complex above. The remaining chunin was nowhere near my perception range when I woke up.

With one last glance, I got a nod from my clone. It was time. I approached the blocked passage, found a place where I could inscribe my seal. Only the best explosions for our escape. I pushed my chakra, black lines drawing the shape of freedom. Then I ran back to cover.

Yes, I know, blowing stuff underground was a bad idea, which is why I made sure to reinforce the whole thing with hardwood. Now I just had to deal with I don't know how many more enemies outside, without using chakra.

If everything went to shit, I could always sacrifice Comm-chan like a chakra refuel package. I hope she didn't catch me thinking that. That would be so much trouble.

Blow stuff up, kill anyone trying to stop us. Escape.

Should be easy, right?

---

Spoiler: AN

Thank you for reading. Next chapter Friday.
Proofreader: CakeEight.

Hinata at a grocery store buying baking ingredients?