A Hummingbird's Prey (TLU Book 2)

Chapter Five- Fear and Wrath

CW: The following chapter has intense elements regarding assault (specifically, attempted SA). Please do not read if you do not feel comfortable or are not in a good headspace, and skip to the next chapter.

Hours before...

Meilani's body laid with her eyes blindfolded by a tattered red handkerchief. She told herself to keep her breathing steady while she and Ino communicated in their minds.
"Your mind is different from every other one I've seen." Ino looked around at the lavish architecture representing the inside of Mei's mind. "Usually it's pitch black in here."
"Focus, Ino." Meilani sniffed the air. "It smells damp, possibly has fungus growing... I can hear water dripping with an echo."

In the outside world, Itsuki sharpened his blade while stealing an occasional glance at the Princess' back. Even in the dying light the cave managed to let in the last sun rays of the day. His eyes roamed along her sprawled deep teal curls resting over her bound wrists and face.
"I wonder where Meiji finds the time to purchase such costly fabric in these lands." He muttered to himself, chuckling when he looked past her waistline. "Then again, I would wrap up my precious things nice and snug. Wouldn't you?"
Ino listened intently, alarms screaming in her head. Meilani breathed unevenly,
"Ino, get out."
Jade green eyes looked at her fearfully. "What about you?"
"Don't worry about me, honey. Now, just-" Mei flinched at the feeling of a hand brushing against her arm. "I'm sorry."
Ino's body jolted, signaling to Choji that she returned. Ino cried out while holding her stomach. Looking up and seeing Asuma, Haru, and a handful of Memory Shinobi, she hung her head down and sobbed.
"I don't know where she is. It smelled like fungus, and there was water dripping."
Choji patted her shoulder gently. "We'll find her, Ino."

Meilani whimpered when her hair was roughly snatched up by the roots. She slid her knees under her and leaned away. Only to be pulled back to his chest
"How long have you been awake?" He sneered. Istuki watched her clench her jaw with curiousity. He didn't notice her fingers pinch the end of a small blade. Cautiously, she wiggled the blade as deep as she could at such an awkward angle. "And you didn't even try to escape. I'm touched..."
Prickly goosebumps spread across her body, starting from behind her right ear where he smelled her hair. Meilani threw her head back as forceful as possible. At the sound of a crunch and a stifled cry, she smirked.
"Little bitch." She was slapped hard across her cheek, the metal of his ring instantly cutting her. Mei pressed her lips together firmly when he gripped her chin with one hand. She felt the tip of a kunai poke the center of her chest, just under her necklace. "You're being quite stupid right now for someone who is bound."
"And you're quite the coward if you have to blindfold me. Why don't you just kill me now?"
Mei continued to work with the blade as quick as she could without giving herself away. She turned her nose away in disgust when she smelled stale tobacco on his breath.
"Ingyo wants to make sure you burn alive in front of your father." His harrowing black eyes trailed Mei's facial features in the dim light of the dusk. As they trailed down to her chest his kunai dug deeper into her skin. "Despite my perspective, he thinks you need to be... Whole, before you're made an example of."
She pressed her back into the cave's wall, fighting the wave of nausea that came with the warmth of his body leaning closer to hers.
"It's a shame, I think you'd be quite useful before your time. Not for me, of course... You're too old."
Her hands paused while her mind processed his words. "I'm 25. What do you-"
She tried to pull her chin away from his grip as he examined her further.
"You could pass for a few years younger. Though, I think after this is all over, I'll ask Ingyo about that little blonde that was after you earlier."

Mei's stomach churned as she thought of Ino. "You sick fuck."
"How old is she, 13?" She felt his thumb brush her lips. "That's a little better."
He cried out when she pulled her wrists free of their binds and stabbed upwards. Meilani pulled her blindfold off and quickly jumped to the ceiling after using a substitution jutsu.
Mei's substitution punched Itsuki while he yanked out the blade. He used the same blade to slash across her cheek, before he threw it towards the ceiling.
Gasping, she dodged it. She then felt a strong force kicking her into the side of the cave. Meilani coughed out the rest of the air in her lungs from a gut punch before she collapsed to the floor.
"I think," he growled, flipping her around and slashing her chest in an upwards motion. "You need to be a little broken in before you get to the island."
Mei cried in fear, instinctively covering her chest from the cold air. She kicked in protest of her ankles being dragged, and screamed in anguish when she felt a blade puncture her thigh. The pain increased when she tried to move it, and realized that the blade went through the bone, pinning her to the ground.
"Too bad you're next," Her hands scrambled for anything nearby. "I would've preferred Blondie to be lucky number 19."

Mei let out a terrified shriek before she was cut off from a hand grasping her neck. Her panicked fingertips brushed a jagged rock, and she gripped it tight. Itsuki was so determined in removing his belt that he failed to see her swing the rock at his temple.
As his body convulsed on his side, she yanked out the blade pinning her to the ground and wobbled closer to him. She endured his arm swinging and hitting her face one last time before she turned him over and began stabbing repeatedly.
With each stab and gruesome squelch Meilani simply tightened her grip on the blade. Even as blood pooled out of the holes of his chest at a deadly rate, including the splats from each puncture, Meilani kept going.

She didn't even hear Shikamaru run in and grab her arms.
"He's dead, Sensei!" He stumbled back when she shoved him off roughly. He sat there petrified, unable to look away from Meilani's blood-stained face and wrathful eyes.
"Not yet," Meilani gripped the kunai with two hand and kept going, this time with more force. As she got closer to the end the stabbings became more like reckless slashes.
17. 18.... 19.
She gave one final stab before throwing aside the blade.

The two sat in a stunned silence, the only noise being her ragged breaths. With an unsteady hand Shikamaru reached out to the front of her vision. Meilani snapped out of her daze and looked at his hand, and then his face. Wordlessly, he used remnants of her cloak to bind her injured thigh.
"Let's go."
Mei took the Nara boy's arm and stood with wobbly knees. He moved her arm to his shoulders and together they moved out of the cave.
"I don't know where Asuma-sensei is," he mentioned, offering his back. Begrudgingly, she accepted the piggyback ride. "We're gonna have to find some Memory Shinobi, and hope we avoid any more enemy."
"No," she pointed to a thick branch above. "We're waiting there for Yuri. The sun is nearly set, and recently I noticed her eyesight sucks in the dark. That's when I'm taking her down."

Shikamaru hesitated. "The best course of action would be to retreat, and come back with reinforcements."
She stared at his side profile. "And we'll come back to nothing."
Shikamaru exhaled through his nose, but jumped up to the branch regardless. While they waited in the pine trees he watched her cautiously. Shikamaru checked for shallowed breathing and clammy skin. He offered her his water canteen, which she shakily held to her lips but took a long, much needed sip. She then gave it back, and he poured a few drops over a clean cloth. Folding it over his hand, he reached towards the drying blood coating her face. Meilani flinched from him assertively. His frown deepened, but he leaned back regardless. It would be a waiting game for most of the night, with no conversation and only the eerie silence of the darkest hours.