Of Turtles and Transformations (A Naruto Fanfiction)

Chapter 2: Turbulence

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She was running, but she couldn't seem to see anything. The trees were a blur, her head spinning as she ducked around their outstretched branches. A set of kunai shot towards her, and this time she managed to dodge them. She stumbled, only just catching herself. Run, a voice whispered in her head. Her legs sped up, chakra coursing through her body like a lifeline, pulling her along the beeline she cut through the woods.

There were three nin chasing her, she thought blurrily. Legs burning from the pure amount of chakra being pumped through them, she ran. She had no clue where she was heading, only that the air was getting thicker, headier, and that something within her was acting like a compass.

Her mind seemed to be getting foggier the longer the chase went on, she was having trouble seeing her surroundings, her sight narrowing to tunnel vision. The trees were getting thinner and thinner, forcing Rin to continue on the ground lest she be stopped by a snapping foothold. She cursed Kiri and their sparse growth, a longing for the great Hashirama trees of Konoha suddenly flickering through her mind, before all traces of shrubbery dissapeared, and the ground beneath her feet turned to stone, Rin finding herself out in the open. It wasn't a clearing though.

No, in front of her, spread out for as far as she could see, was the ocean. The waves were tall, splitting against the shore, and there seemed to be no landmass anywhere in sight. It should've made her tremble, but instead, she was filled with an entirely different feeling, something that she could not explain. Safety, it seemed to say to her. Home.

She didn't even hesitate. She took a single step on the rocky shore, and was off. The spray from the waves began to soak her shorts, and she was barely managing to keep on the surface of the waves. She had practised at the lake, but even experienced ninja had trouble crossing rapids like this, what with the water constantly shifting and breaking. Somehow, however, she was managing to move forward. She couldn't spare herself the luxury of looking over her shoulder, but even her measly sensing abilities were able to detect the three signatures behind her, given that they had no interest in concealing themselves.

She had been on the waves for less than a minute, and yet already she could feel her grip beginning to waver. Her chakra control truly was horrible at the moment and she cursed under her breath, willing her body to move just a little faster, a little further. The next step she took had too little chakra, and her foot sank down a little, but somehow she was able to yank it out and keep going. That brief mistake cost her, and yet another kunai made contact, this time embedding itself into her calf.

The pain cut through the fog in her mind, and her chakra went wild, lashing out at the surroundings. The water under her feet exploded, and for a moment she was airborne, disorientated, and then she hit the surface of the water, hard. The breath was knocked out of her, and she began to sink. There was a coldness beginning to set into her limbs, both from the freezing water, and something else, a numbness originating from inside her body. Ah, she thought with a strange sort of detachment. The kunai were poisoned.

She tried to swim, to do anything to get back to the surface, but her limbs were limp. The water around her was cloudy with bubbles, but as she sank deeper, the water began to darken. Her lungs were burning from the effort of holding her breath, and she had lost control of her body. Black spots began to appear in front of her eyes, and she felt frantic. Her body was immobile, but her mind was racing.

She was going to die. She didn't want to die. She couldn't let herself die.

Something flickered within her, a spark of something that originated from her stomach. It grew, and she pulled at it with all her might.