The Living Doll || Sasori

Ch. 3 - Confrontation

Shizuka had found herself laying on a hard surface when she finally woke up, her head throbbing. Groggily, she opened her eyes and looked around. When she had passed out, she remembered looking at her fallen village, but now she was in what looked to be like an underground cave. It looked like she was by herself as she couldn't sense anyone near. There were a couple of dim lights around the room from candles, but overall, it was really dark. Looking down at herself, she gasped when she noticed her traditional chunin garb had been replaced with a simple, loose fitting beige dress and her sandals were missing. Her left leg was still fully bandaged and her hair was no longer in a bun but out, loose and cascading down to her mid back. She felt a small sense of panic when she noticed her forehead protector was nowhere to be found.

The ten year old swung her legs over the stone block she was on and slowly got down. Aside from the outfit change, she didn't see anything different on her and she breathed a sigh of relief. The only opening to the room was sealed off so she figured she was stuck here. After snooping around the room to find any other way out, Shizuka was unsuccessful and retreated back to the table, pulling her legs to her chest as she sat leaning against it. She was about to nod off when she heard the seal to the room be released and the entrance open. Quickly moving, she hid behind the backside of the table so the new person wouldn't see her.

"Lord Orochimaru asked me to bring you to him." The voice spoke. It was a male's voice, but sounded young, like he was her age. "But we need to move now."

The female assessed the situation in her head. She could try to attack then make a run for it, or she could follow the boy and see about this 'Orochimaru' person. "Who is Lord Orochimaru?" She asked timidly, trying to find the strength to use a jutsu if she needed to protect herself.

The boy walked over to where she was and the female immediately brought her hands up to guard. "He's the one who saved you." Taking one of her wrists, he pulled her up and proceeded to take her out of the room. Shizuka stumbled behind him and tried to pull her wrist out of his grasp.

"I won't go anywhere until you tell me who you are." She resisted his pull before she started screaming and hitting his arm with her free hand.

"You don't have a choice. There's no point in screaming; there's no one around here." Kabuto grabbed her other wrist so she would stop beating him. "My name is Kabuto." Once the female stopped trying to hit him, he continued to pull her down the corridor. Since Lord Orochimaru's defection from Konoha, they now had a lot of ground to make up in order to catch up with him.

The sunlight blinded the girl as she stepped out of the underground cave and into the familiar surroundings of the real world. She'd been in Kusagakure the entire time? They immediately started running and Shizuka started to lag behind as she didn't know how long she had been passed out, but it felt like it hadn't been just a couple hours. Kabuto's grip on her wrist was the only thing that kept her close to him. Her stomach growled lowly and she frowned, reluctant to ask for food.

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It was a couple days before the two children reached their destination - the Land of Rice Fields. Kabuto led her through the trees as if he were his own personal compass and the two finally reached an opening in the ground. The opening was reinforced with stone and had the engraving of snakes at the top of it. The sight scared her and the fact that Kabuto was leading her down there made her even more fearful.

The corridors were similar to the ones she had seen before - dimly lit with candles. Finally, they reached a steel door and Kabuto released the seal, opening it up. In the center of the room were two chairs made of stone with a machine in between. There was someone sitting in one of the chairs who looked severely injured. He looked like he had lost a lot of blood, amongst other physical injuries, as his head was down and long black hair shielded his face. There was one thing that really stood out to her - the man looked so pale.