Blood In The Sand

A small breeze rustled through the canopy of trees above a squad below them, a minute or so away. Massive tree trunks had seemingly been broken to reveal a small clearing, one perfect for an ambush. Suno's ears flicked as he took in their speech. "There should be a few that pass this way. Don't worry, we'll get that Earth Scroll." The boy had his hands on his hips, grinning widely in anticipation. "Su! You're in charge of trapping our victims!" The girl he was speaking to smiled softly as the boy laughed boisterously.

"They have the Heaven Scroll we need," Suno affirmed. "Something tells me they won't be as easy as our previous target."

"You got it, we'll be done with this quicker than the rest." Her voice sounded happy, elated. She made a few hand-signs and suddenly, she stopped. Her teammates stood in shock, watching as a man had come up behind them.

"Little sister..." The girl named Su seemed to freak out, moving to attack the person who had touched her. He delivered a swift kick to the middle of her back, tripping her balance and sending her lurching forward.

"Asahi...? What.. what are you doing here? Where are Hayato and Oomori?!" The panic in her voice was apparent, and all Team Jumping Scorpion could do was watch and wait as her teammates surrounded her, trying to snap her out of it. It seemed like they didn't hear her, however.

"To think I thought of you as my little sister... a disgusting abomination like you." His voice sent chills through Suno's spine. He turned to Rena- he had to get her out of here. That girl was done for. "I sent them home before you had a chance to corrupt them, as you do all things." All Su did was sit there, paralyzed with fear, as he took one step closer. "Get up, abomination."

The girl complied, rising to her feet. It was as if she was hypnotized by her brother. She grabbed hold of one of her teammates, ending their lives with a quick snap of their neck. Her other teammate looked on in horror, before brandishing a kunai. "Please, Su, snap out of it! I don't wanna do this to you!" The teammate slid the kunai into her side, narrowly missing embedding it in the girl. Su lurched in for another attack, barely missing the kunai that her poor friend had thrown.

The fighting continued as the man who was supposedly her brother laughed, chillingly. Her friend was striking against her, trying to snap her out of it, stunned by the sudden death of their teammate. Su cursed, her breaths coming in heaving paces as she slammed into the trunk of a tree.

"I can't believe it took me so long... to see what you truly are."

Rena had gotten closer, wondering what was happening. Her head began to hurt, an alien memory of her rushing to the surface.

Disgusting abomination. You don't deserve to live. I can't believe it took me so long... to see what you truly are.

"I don't know what you're talking about! I'm your sister!" Su cried, her desperation a sinking abyss.

P-Please... brother, I love you! I'm your sister... you have to stop!

"Like hell you are!" He yelled.

You are not my sister. You... are a monster.

Her teammate rushed in, only to be trapped in what seemed like an invisible trap. "Su, no! God, no! Don't listen to him, Su! Snap out of it! Please!" Tears streamed down both her and her teammate's faces.

Her teammate struggled, kicking her back- but seemed to only get further trapped. The teammate thrashed, even more, begging and pleading. "Su... I'm sorry, god, I'm so sorry!"

"Dance of crimson threads.." The girl whispered. Blood splattered against her face and clothing; she looked as if she'd been defeated. The body before her was trapped in a cocoon, one that she didn't even bother touching. She sobbed, dropping to her knees as her brother finally moved to approach her himself. He pulled at her hair, yanking her head back as he placed a kunai at her throat. "But...you..."

"You stupid bitch. You've been sick for years... your touch is off and all it takes to convince you of something is a well-sounded Genjutsu." The blade dug into her neck, a thin line of red welling up beneath the sharp edge and trickling down. "You'll die knowing the deaths of your squad and family are on your hands."

A sudden kick to the face caused the kunai to jolt away from Su's neck, lightly cutting into her but no major damage as Rena stood up. He glared at her, gritting his teeth."Who the hell do you think you are?!"

"I'm interrupting you, you sicko! Abomination?! How can you make that judgment when you're doing something like that to your sister!?" Suno and Tsukiyomi stood on either side of her, both poised to fight.

"You understand nothing! Stay out of my way, you don't have to die here!"

"I think it's you who doesn't understand. If you get lost, I won't make you eat your shoes!" Rena's claim was bold, only aggravating Su's assaulter more.

"You're picking a fight with someone way above your level, little girl!" He charged forwards, aggressively toward Rena.

"Suno! Tsukiyomi! Let's go! We're taking a detour!"

"Dammit, Rena! Why him?! Although, I guess it's better than some boring asshole."

"Understood. I'll fight with lethal force." Rena blocked a kick with her shoulder, wincing at the pain. That would bruise. On the other hand, Suno approached from the other side only to be backhanded in the opposite direction. He was sent flying, back into a tree. Tsukiyomi glided across the floor with swift and fluid movements, coming in on the other side and striking him firmly, causing him to fly back.

Rena cracked her knuckles, giving the man a cocky smile. "It's not too late to run away, you know!"

"You're going to regret this." He began to run forward yet again, making hand signs. "Hidden Mist Jutsu!" A mist began to fill the area, obscuring everything from sight. Rena paused, backing up. She couldn't see her teammates and there wasn't any plan from here on. She looked around the mist, waiting, watching, when the familiar tinkling of a bell hit the ground at least a few meters away from her. The area the tinkling came from exploded, no doubt an explosive tag. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!" It was one of Suno's distraction weapons. The mist in that area, however, seemed unaffected and didn't clear, which meant that the man was controlling it and it wasn't normal mist. More bells rang through the air and they exploded one by one.

Suno had been in the mist, his ears and tail flicking. He took a stance. Steps to the north. Steps to the west. If the man knew where they were, he wouldn't be going after the bell senbon he was using. He had been holding the bells and tying a very thin strand of his hair around them, so they wouldn't make a sound until they hit the ground and the hair snapped. So, he was safe, as long as he didn't give away his position. It was clear the man was using sound to determine where they were, as the bell senbon were the only thing he was hitting. Another explosion rang out- damn it, who'd he try and hit?! It was time to go on the offensive. He began to run, hearing steps following behind him. He was quickly engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a man he could barely see, strikes coming from everywhere and anywhere, most of them unblockable and unforeseeable. He needed to get the knowledge he could to the others while still having the guy's attention. "HE CAN'T SEE YOU! HE DOESN'T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE, HE CAN ONLY KNOW BY HEARING YOU!"

"You fool." The man's biting words were completed with a series of attacks that sent Suno flying. As he hit his head off a tree with a crack, his last thought before slipping into unconsciousness was that, at the very least, Rena and Tsukiyomi would do what they could with that information.

Rena, on the other hand, was anxious. His yelling that out meant that he'd been found and she didn't like the empty silence that came after it. She crept forward, careful to avoid making sound, crawling along the ground on her hands and knees until she bumped into Su, who scrambled back. "Woah!" She hissed. "It's alright, it's just me. We're gonna get you out of here, all right?" She offered a hand to the girl, who didn't take it. "I get it. Stranger danger, but we need to go." She wrapped Su's hand in her own and then began to run, taking off in any direction. However, a knee to her stomach stopped her and she slammed backward into Su.

"You're all idiots. Challenging me when you knew nothing about me. There's no reason you could ever believe you'd win against me." Another swift kick to her head caused her to fall to the ground as he grabbed Su's hair, pulling her up off the ground. The mist cleared a little, exposing the party of three as he stepped forward. "You're going to die after her, knowing that you're the reason these innocent Genin died." He spat bitterly, before breaking into laughter.

"Overdrive."

"Huh?"

He hadn't noticed the girl behind him. Her hair was no longer tied up in twin-tails, but swirling around her in a strange, mysterious pattern. Steam escaped her body, chutes flipping out of her body. Her eyes seemed to glow in the steam, a bright, golden yellow, different from the original blue she had before. She dashed forward at a speed none of the Genin were capable yet, kicking the man while grabbing Su and safely putting her on the ground. In that same movement, she dashed to the man who had barely just touched the ground, slamming into him over and over, not giving him the chance to recover. She was like a demon, striking again and again without tiring or relenting. "You threatened my creator. I will not allow such heresy." The waves of bloodlust radiating off of her sickened him. Her fingers twitched and her hair wrapped around him, throwing him and slamming him into the trunk of a tree. She blitzed forward, raising him in the air by his neck and squeezing. He began sputtering and choking, unable to escape her grip.

"W-What the hell are you..? You're not a Genin!"

"I'm not, no." Tsukiyomi replied. "I am a mere creation of the Empire of Blood. A remnant from the previous days... I am no Genin. I am barely human." A smile crossed her face, light, pleasant, fake and terrifying at the same time. "I am a forbidden technique."

"W-what?! Impossible! You can't... you can't create life...! There's no way that Genin did something like this..." More steam exhaled from her body.

She was close to crushing his windpipe as he struggled. "No. That Genin did not. It is a remnant of my Master. I will serve her until she returns." Having enough of this unsettling conversation, the man twisted the girl's arm that had a hold on him, stabbing it over and over and over with a kunai. Blood coated the floor, but still, she held no expression other than her usual one. After a moment, her arm went limp and she dropped him inadvertently.

"I'll be back, mark my words!" He screamed, disappearing into the forest. Moments later, the mist cleared, revealing a rather beaten up clearing. Rena was recovering, Suno was out cold and Su was sobbing. Tsukiyomi walked toward her, dropping to her knees and placing her head in her Master's lap. There was a Whrrr-click-click, whrrrr-click-click.

"Tsuki...yomi?" Rena breathed, trying to catch her bearings.

"I'm sorry, Master. My Self Puppetry was enough to dissuade him from staying, but I can't... I'm shutting down, Master." Her hair was mixed with the dirt, splaying out all over the ground and Rena's lap. Rena slowly petted Tsukiyomi's hair as the girl's eyes closed and she moved no more. Bonking her head against the tree, Rena winced.

"I dunno... what we can do, but we can't stay here. He might come back and my team is in no shape to fight him off again." Rena said, her breathing heavy.

"I... thank you." Su's voice was quiet, soft. Full of emotion.

"It's gonna be alright. But, we need to start going and fast..." Su made a few hand signs and began weaving something. It turned out that it was some kind of web, similar to a stretcher, that they could both hold and carry the unconscious bodies of Rena's teammates in. "Su...I'm sorry, I overheard your name... can you stand?" Su nodded, appreciative that Rena's voice was gentle. As Rena pulled Su's teammates' bodies into the stretcher, she looked back at her. "Um... I'm sorry. About your teammates. And I'm sorry we didn't interfere sooner."

Su shook her head wordlessly. She picked up her Heaven scroll, offering it to Rena. "I don't think... we'll be needing this anymore. But... I don't know if I want to go on."

Rena looked down at the Heaven scroll, sighing before looking back at Su. "I think... I may need your help now. It may be a bit difficult for you, but Tsukiyomi... she's not waking up anytime soon. I need a third team member. Would you...?" Su's eyes widened. She didn't know what to say. Surely, things had looked different to her. Maybe she had even seen her killing her teammates... but she still wanted her? Even though she was dangerous? She stood to her feet, walking up to the stretcher and placing firm hands on it. Rena herself propped Tsukiyomi over her arm and Suno over her piggybacking; she struggled to move. "Gaaaaah! So heaaavy!" Still, she was a shinobi, after all. "All right, let's go. We should keep to the treetops, really- otherwise, we might get a nasty surprise ambush."

She watched as Su let go of the stretcher only for her threads to fly up in the air and wrap themselves around a tree branch, swinging from branch to branch alone. Rena watched in awe as Su took to the branch with ease despite her tears. She didn't know what to do to help her, but... she'd at least help her bury her teammates somewhere pretty.

"That's cool, Su!" Rena said, cheerfully, giving her the brightest smile she could. Su blushed, her expression turning to something more confused. "I've never seen Jutsu like that, and you're amazing for being able to do it! I wish I had something special about me." Rena sighed, looking to the side. "Nothing feels right, ya know? So when people like Tsukiyomi, Suno, you, Gaara, Temari, Kankuro... when you all have such special abilities... I wonder where mine are." Rena snapped out of it, jumping on up to the tree branch Su was on. "Don't worry about it! Let's go!" She smiled at her and started to move, Su following closely behind as they ventured through the Forest of Death.

It took about maybe thirty minutes of them pushing forward to finally reach their goal. Rena struck up a rather one-sided conversation the entire way, talking about the direction they were supposed to go and who they were supposed to meet. There wasn't a sign of any other shinobi around, so it seemed like luck was going for them.

Rena decided that, along with Su, they should probably start walking on the ground. Rena was getting tired from carrying the dead weight on her back, nearly slipping off of branches multiple times. They were close to the calculations Tsukiyomi had made at the beginning. As Rena walked into a clearing, she was met with a puppet rushing toward her. She shrieked and it pulled back at the last second, revealing Temari, Gaara, and Kankuro, "Don't freak us out like that, Rena!" Temari scolded, placing her hands on her hips. However, when she saw Su, her expression changed. She placed a hand on her fan, ready for a fight. "Hey, who's this? And what happened to Suno and Tsukiyomi?! Are those...people alive?" She rushed over to assist, Kankuro following. They laid the two out on the ground.

Rena looked at Su, then back to Temari. "It's a bit of a strange story." She wasn't so sure she should tell Temari about the whole thing. Su killing her teammates... they wouldn't let her stick around. "You see, it seems like someone got into the Forest of Death... her brother. And he started doing the most terrible things I've ever seen someone do... he killed her teammates." She glanced at the half-cocoon stretcher, Temari grimacing. "And he was gonna kill her, so I stepped in. And then... there was mist, and I guess Suno couldn't fight him off. He found us, and then Tsukiyomi chased him off, but ended up like that." Kankuro was tending to her as they spoke. "I don't think that Tsu will be in any shape to fight in the Chuunin exams.."

"So you're going to fail, then...?" Kankuro was sympathetic. He knew how much these exams meant to Rena... it wasn't like she was gonna pass them anyways, but to have come this far only to fail mid-way...

"No!" She said, sharply, "I'm not about to just give up. Tsukiyomi and Su are similar, and it's not like anyone remembers what they look like either way! They're easily forgettable in these kinds of situations, which means-"

"You're not thinking of cheating and switching them out, are you...?" Temari's hesitance showed in her voice. "That's impossible, nobody will ever fall for that.."

Rena shrugged. "Might as well try."

"Well, we got you a set of scrolls. I guess it's fine to see if it'd work." Temari offered her the second set they had retrieved from their enemies. "We got some for you on the way. After picking up these, we kind of just started leaving them on the ground." She gestured to Gaara. "There's no point in taking any more; might as well save some for the competition. Gaara's suggestion." Their confidence was almost inspiring.

"It's fine. Su.. had a Heaven Scroll and we have an Earth Scroll." Rena's eyes moved over to Gaara, who looked away from her. Their moment was interrupted by the earth beneath them shaking. Su's threads shot to the trees, Kankuro and Temari picking up either of Rena's injured teammates as they shot to the sides. The earth split into quarters, thrusting everyone into different directions, including Rena, who slammed against the trunk of a tree. The pain made her go dizzy, struggling to get up. Shuriken came from multiple directions and Rena had just barely dodged them by sliding further down the trunk of the tree in a moment of luck. Where her head had been previously, metal was embedded in wood.

She was having a poor time recovering and rolled out of the way of more shuriken thudding into the ground. She couldn't pinpoint the location of her attacker, but she saw sand swarming around the clearing. "Sand coffin." A scream of confusion came from whoever had been throwing tools at her. A wall of sand separated her and her saviour, but she didn't have to guess to know who it was. "Sand burial." The target screamed in agony, blood raining down from the sky. Red flecks and droplets of blood dripped onto her face, running down her cheek and staining her clothes.

The sand that had been circling flowed back into his gourd, as pleasant to watch move as always. Gaara turned around, walking toward her, watching her as she struggled to stand. She suddenly hit the ground, her face crashing into bloodstained dirt. She whimpered, a sharp pang of pain coursing through her leg, where she noticed a strangely-shaped shuriken. She put her finger through the hole, attempting to rip it out as fast as possible, but screamed. "Damn it!" She winced, her fingers raking through the dirt. "It's a barbed shuriken! These are one of the banned items!"

Gaara's arm rose in front of Rena's face and she paused to stare at him quizzically. "Bite me. I'll do it."

"Gaara, I'm not going to-"

"If you bite me, it will hurt less. Either way, I'm going to rip that out of your leg. If you screamed any louder, we'd have shinobi hunting us down." There was no threat here. If it was Rena, even if she drew blood, it was fine. He was in control. He was the threat.

There was a rather strange feeling as Rena's teeth grazed against his bare skin. She looked as if she was the rabbit in the situation, despite being poised to bite him. He half expected his sand to swarm to his aid, but it didn't. Gaara had never truly felt physical pain before, but if it was Rena, he supposed he could put up with it. He took hold of the shuriken. She squeezed her eyes shut and he tore it out in one swift moment. Expecting his first blood, he was surprised to see tears trickle down the girl's face, She held her jaw open, her teeth lightly tickling his flesh. "Why didn't you bite me?" He was angered that she didn't obey him, as she promised she would, but she didn't scream, so it should be fine.

"I don't want to hurt you." She replied, "I don't want to draw blood from you, Gaara. And I don't want to be... the first one."

The first one? Was she referring to his history? "Surely it was painful."

"As painful as painful can be, but if what people say is true, you've never sustained an injury before... except that time at the park."

So it was his history. "That was nothing." That was the truth. It'd been a soft hit that he'd barely felt. He determined she was truly no threat to his existence; she was as weak and pathetic as she'd been yesterday and the day before. He shifted through her things, withdrawing a roll of bandages. His touch was uncharacteristically gentle as he wrapped the gauze around her leg, one, two, three, four times. Breaking it off, he slipped her bandage roll into his pocket. He stood up, beginning to walk away, but stopped when she made another sound.

Turning around, he saw that she had moved maybe an inch from where she'd been. She was trying to get up, but the bandages were already soaked with that familiar shade of red. "I don't think... I can walk." She said, looking up at him, her helplessness clear. Why was she always such a thorn in his side? How dare she keep him waiting like this?

Determining that to support her would slow him down more than he liked, he knelt on one knee, his back to her and arms out. "Get on."

"But, Gaara...!"

"I'll leave you here." Taking this as his way of saying that he truly would, she inched closer to him, climbing onto his back. He firmly took hold of her legs, acknowledging that she felt like she weighed almost nothing. Perhaps she had some sort of issue with eating. She strapped his gourd to her back. As he walked on, she held onto him. Her head pressed lightly in between his shoulders and she began to speak.

"Gaara, what happened to you?"

He tensed up, stopping momentarily. He didn't want to get into this, not with her, not here, not ever. "Several things." He replied, trying to dodge the question and hoping that she'd stop asking.

"But.. what?"

"Stop trying to worm your way back into my life, Rena." His words were sharp. Pointed. She winced. "You're the one who abandoned it. You don't deserve to know." His grudge ran deep. In the end, with her back, by his side, he had almost forgotten the pain of the past. How could she have left him when he needed her most? The assassin being his uncle, the fact he was a curse. Nobody loved him. Where had she been all that time? Not there, not with him.

Perhaps he should have just let her rot with her wound, left her behind for someone to kill. But, no, he was going to make her the same as he was; that's the only result he'd accept, the only type of 'forgiveness' he'd give. Her only path to redemption was to lose this notion of love that she had.

After all, if she could become like him... then his world would never change. Then he would never change. Then he'd know his true path was correct...

He was snapped out of his thoughts by the remaining team members grouping up in a nearby meadow. It seemed like Tsukiyomi was still out of it and Suno was slowly waking up, doing stretches. Su stood under the shade of a tree, her hair lightly blowing in the breeze as she looked up at it. A cocoon covered in blood lay at her feet, with her teammates' stretcher on the other side.

"The final area is just beyond this meadow. Let's go. There's no time to waste." Gaara pressed forwards, but Rena tugged on his sleeve.

"We can't go yet. Su's teammates..."

He glanced over to their bodies and sighed. His gourd began to shake on her back, sand bursting out of it and digging into the soft earth, pulling out a chunk of it. Su stood over the hole, the threads she was controlling latching onto it and gently lowering them into it. "I'm sorry.." She murmured, under her breath. It seemed like she'd cry one last tear before careening her head upward. The dirt was shoved back into the hole by the sand, which flowed back into his gourd. It suddenly got a lot heavier on her back.

"Thanks... Gaara."

The team began to advance into the hall. They were the first arrivals. The cameras panned as they moved, watching them intently...