Impossible to Forget

Chapter 28: Show a Little Backbone

The tension in the air was so thick that a kunai would have had trouble cutting through it.

Sadao stepped back to avoid wetting his feet in the growing pool of blood. It always amazes me just how much of the fluid people have in them whenever it is spilled. Like a dark beast, it consumed the dirt at our feet until Bijonko laid in a sanguine void. Tadao and Anzu's eyes were locked onto the body. I realized that this was probably the first time that they had seen someone they know die. A surge of fierce, maternal protectiveness flared through me like a fire. How dare Nori do such a thing in front of my daughter? How dare she take away Anzu's innocence like that?!

I felt Kakashi place his hand on my shoulder in an attempt to calm me down before I did anything rash as waves of pure hate flowed out of me towards my "mother."

Nori completely ignored me as she turned to Tadao, "Rebind the girl."

The young boy's eyes grew wide, and he looked like he was going to be sick again. His gaze flickered from Nori to Bijonko's bloody remains to Anzu's angry glare. I could practically see the war waging within him. But then I saw him gently touch the Leaf Village forehead protector tied to his left bicep and knew that his decision had been made. A small smile curled at the corners of my mouth.

Showing more backbone than I had thought the boy capable of, Tadao put himself between Nori and Anzu.

"No. No, I can't. This is wrong. All of this is wrong."

The sword was out of Nori's scabbard again, and I nodded at Kakashi. He clapped his hands together before slamming his palms to the ground. A wall erupted in front of Nori, separating her from the genin. At the same time, I threw my shoulder into Sadao, sending him backwards while clutching his sternum as he gasped to regain the breath that I had knocked out of him.

"Follow the road northeast. Get help from the Cloud; tell them what's happened. Run!"

Anzu and Tadao glanced at each other before taking off as quickly as their tired legs could carry them.

Before Kakashi and I could even think about joining them, Nori smashed the wall in a single blow and watched the two silhouettes disappeared over the horizon.

"That's a hindrance, but not one that I can't overcome," she mumbled under her breath.

I retook a defensive stance, "You've lost your hostages."

"Have I?" Her eyebrows raised tauntingly as she threw a kunai at Kakashi. Without even thinking, I reached over and grabbed it out of the air. 

I was about to throw it back at her when the grip on the handle wiggled.
Startled, I dropped the kunai on the ground, but the white wrappings were slithering around my hand, hissing angrily.

Wait, hissing?

One end of it lifted from my wrist and turned its diamond shaped head towards me, pink tongue flicking out quickly as if to prove the point further that it was a snake. 

"It seems that I still do have a hostage. And really, three is too many to keep track of so maybe things are better this way," Nori explained while returning her katana to the scabbard on her back again. "You see, I've been watching, studying the two of you for quite a while now. I was there both when you were taken by Sasainako and Kanaye. You," she pointed at Kakashi, "will use your jutsu to do anything to keep Kaiyo safe. While you," she turned her hard eyes on me, "will come up with some escape plan and use the Eight Inner Gates to win a battle where you otherwise would have been hopelessly outmatched. The snake on your hand is an old gift from Orochimaru for services that I rendered before the war. Try to mold even the slightest bit of chakra, try to open up the Inner Gates, and he will bite you, injecting you with a neurotoxin that will first paralyze you, make you blind, and then kill you slowly and painfully. There is no antidote. Kakashi, if you do anything rash, I will give the command, and the snake will kill her. If I die, it will kill her, and you try to run away, it will kill her. If you preform a jutsu, guess what, it will kill your precious Kaiyo." She laughed lightly, "You know, I don't even have to bind you. There is nothing that you can do. The great Copy Nin, now as docile as a kitten."

I gave the small serpent weaving its way up my arm a hateful glare. I have to admit, Nori had done a wonderful job of backing us into a corner.

She clapped her hands together, "Now, I want you two to remove all of your weapons, and I mean all of them. I know that ever since Sasainako tried to capture the two of you that you keep weapons sewn into your clothing."

With a sigh, I unsnapped the weapons pouch from my hip and removed the wrappings holding the shuriken holster to my leg. The damn snake hissed at me the entire time like it was challenging me to do something dumb and then die of neurotoxin. Kakashi was disarming as well, and there was an almost comical number of thumps and clinks as we continued to remove weapon after weapon from our persons. Lock picks, knives, wire, and senbon were pulled from the hiding spots in my clothes. The very same assortment of goodies that had saved me from Kanaye. After carefully looking over us and the piles of weaponry at our feet, Nori gave a smirk and a small nod.

"Well then, it seems like everything is in order for our departure. On a second thought, there is no need for baggage."

She began to walk slowly towards Sadao just as he began to get up, coughing lightly. Fear flashed through his eyes as Nori looked at him with mock sadness.

"My lady, please. I can go after the genin. I-I can go ahead and prepare things for you. I can-"

"Stop groveling, it's disgusting."

His mouth snapped shut with an audible click of molars as he swallowed a wobbling Adam's apple. "You've out lived your usefulness."

Before he could begin to pull out a weapon to defend himself, a kunai was pushed up under his chin. He was still alive and shaking as Nori adjusted her grip so that her palm was under the weapon.

"You were a good pawn while it lasted."

He mouthed something that looked a lot like "fuck you" as she pushed the blade all the way up into his head so that it disappeared into his skull with a spurting fountain of blood. Nori smiled as the red liquid gushed around the fingers under his chin. Slowly, she removed her hand to let him topple bonelessly to the ground.

There were now five bodies scattered around us. The three ANBU, Bijonko, and Sadao, who's blood was still squirting weakly out of the wound under his jaw. A chill ran down my spine and I felt like I was going to be sick. I shared half of my DNA with the monster that had done this. This was my mother.

Nori turned back to us while wiping off her bloody hand on her shirt that was already coated with the blood of the others that she had murdered.

"Now we're ready to go."

A/N: I can't tell you how excited I am to be getting close to the climax of this book. I've been building up to this for so long, and I hope that it can live up to your expectations and the vision that I have in my head. Updates are probably going to be pretty frequent until we get to the end because I am just so excited!!