The Dragon Queen // (Under Revision)

Making Her Suffer

"So, um, how's Chizu doing?" Tsuyoi asked, rubbing her eye.

"Could be better. Fukuo restored her a few times, but even that didn't fix all the damage. You guys really duked it out, didn't ya?" Tomoe replied beside her. Fukuo sat on Tsuyoi's other side, all of them perched on the edge of her bed.

"Yeah," she said, fiddling with the hilt of one of her father's swords. She had them both laid across her legs. She sighed and ran her fingers down the sleek finish of the blade. " We did."

"Well, it wouldn't have been the first time!" Tomoe laughed heartily. "Remember when she threw you into the wall in the training room! It took forever for us to get you down! And when we finally got up to get you, you were fast asleep!"

Fukuo giggled, a beautiful soft sound, like a bell.

Tsuyoi looked down at the small, petite woman, who looked back up at her and smiled. Tsuyoi smiled back, but then her smile faded.

Fukuo faltered. "What's wrong?"

"How come...you never stopped Chizu? You know she was doing...bad things to me," Tsuyoi said softly.

Tomoe was quiet for a moment. "We signed onto this job because we wanted to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. And once we got here, at the beginning of Hayate's reign, then we saw what had happened to her at the end." Tomoe leaned back and took a deep breath in. "We were mortified."

There was a pause.

"We have no excuse for letting what goes on, go on. And we've been frantically trying to find a way to make this not happen. But now, these shinobi are here. And I believe that they can give something to you and to this country that you, and it, desperately needs."

Tsuyoi turned and gave Tomoe a hug. But while she was hugging her, she couldn't help but think, She never answered my question.

//////

She was falling asleep when the night terrors came.

The screaming, the howling, the crying.

The blood. Thick pools of it, running through cracks in the cliff walls, the jagged walls that surrounded her on all sides.

She was drowning in blood.

"Chizu! Let me out! Let me-"

And her sobs echoed through the torture room that only existed in her mind.

/////

Naruto woke up in a cold sweat. He'd had the craziest nightmare. He couldn't even remember what was in the dream, just blood and screaming....and Tsuyoi.

He sat straight up.

Tsuyoi. That was Tsuyoi's dream.
Who is making her suffer like that?

He stood up, kicked the covers away from his legs, and bolted out of his room and into the hallway.

"Where's her room?" He said aloud.

Instinct said left, so that's where he went. As he ran, his brain tried to decipher what was going on.

Naruto, Kurama growled. It's Chizu.

"What?"