A Glass Of Crimson Souls

26) rights

"Now."

She was lying on a bed. The sheets were cold and there were no indents on the mattress save for the one she was making. There was the sound of people breathing around her and the stench of rainwater filled the room. She felt very cold, despite the layers piled on top of her…and very empty.

Miho opened her eyes slowly, blinking the grime and salty residue of tears out of her eyelashes. The room was full of people whose chakra signatures she recognized, most vaguely but one, very well. Five, six, seven Konoha shinobi…plus a dog.

She made no movement to acknowledge their presence. She merely remained still, gazing up at the ceiling, her body feeling as if it were carved out of the stone mountain surrounding Konoha. The drapes to her bed had been pulled aside but the room was still dark; she could not tell if it were night or day, as outside, a thunderstorm brewed and the rain viciously pelted the walls of the cabin.

She was neither hungry nor thirsty. In fact, she felt absolutely nothing—no panic, no fear, just a stale kind of numbness. Normally, she would have been able to guess how long she had been trapped in a genjutsu based on the condition of her body; now, though, she had no idea.

"…Miho?" said Kakashi's voice, sounding very far away.

She did not answer.

"Is she okay?" said a voice she did not know.

Miho closed her eyes again, finding her state of mind somewhat surprising. It was as if she were having some kind of out-of-body experience—everything seemed so distant, and the overwhelming sorrow she expected to feel was nowhere to be found. Perhaps after what had seemed like an eternity in that genjutsu, when Itachi's figure had disappeared into crows and she had been left with a rewinding film of their life together, she had lost the energy to cry or feel anything any longer. Perhaps that had been Itachi's intention. Perhaps he'd given her some bizarre form of closure, though nothing in the genjutsu suggested that numbness was what she was supposed to feel now. Itachi had lingered on the sentimental memories that they had always tried to avoid—if anything, she should have been curled up in a ball and crying. Instead, she felt like a stale piece of bread—picked up by someone mildly hungry but cast aside once found inedible. This feeling should have made her at least angry…but even if she dared to try to feel anything, she could not.

"Miho-san?" said a female voice.

Finally, she turned her head. Closest to her was Kakashi, then Sakura and her much-too-vibrant hair. She was guarded by Naruto, and behind them were shinobi she only recognized from the Chuunin exams three years ago: Inuzuka Kiba with his dog, Hyuuga Hinata, Aburame Shino. The last was a jounin whose face she did not recognize, but whose chakra she realized to be similar to the cells of the Shodai Hokage that Orochimaru had experimented with often. The team consisted mostly of children Sasuke's age, though Miho knew Kakashi was Hokage-material and the Senju copy seemed equally formidable.

Listlessly, she turned back to the ceiling.

"Hey, don't just ignore us!" snapped Naruto.

"…How did you find me here?" Miho heard herself asking. Her voice was hoarse and her throat dry.

"We followed Uchiha Itachi's scent here," answered Kiba. "We thought it would lead us to Sasuke, but judging from the looks of it, he's not here."

Miho sat up slowly, vertebrae by vertebrae. How very, very tired she was.

"Well, where is he?" demanded Naruto. "We tried following him but got caught up with this damn Akatsuki bastard who fled when another Aloe Vera dude said that the battle was over and Itachi—"