6.5 Announcement

    Heya, sweet ones.

    I did, after a lot of deliberation, create a page. It has about ten advanced chapters, for anyone who wants to read ahead, and help me get sweets.

    Thank you. 3

    I remember a time in the before when all I wanted was to sleep. Dad had passed away not long before. Mom didn’t have the mental bandwidth to worry about all the trouble that followed, her job, the press attention, and the death threats. It was, now that I think about it, closer to how I felt after finding the clones.

    No, wait. That example got away from me. Point is, for a time, I just couldn’t care about caring for myself. It took Kimby’s literal bitch slapping me into action to leave that funk. Huh, dear chubby Kimberly. I hope that bitch Veronica didn’t mess with my bae too much.

    Argh, no, that wasn’t what I wanted to think as well. The real point is, at that time, I felt like I had no control over myself. I knew what I had to do, I just couldn’t. After our first kiss, Kimby had asked me about that time, and no amount of words was enough to explain how I felt. I think she never had the frame of reference to understand.

    But for the last time, the real point of this strange monologue was, I knew I had to do something. And I couldn’t. But this time, it wasn’t some sort of mental fugue keeping me down. It was just physical abuse.

    In the brief moments my consciousness surfaced from that haze, things just turned worse. I learned pretty quickly that moving was a bad idea, circulating chakra was an even worse idea. Trying to look around only earned me punishment.

    I remembered bits and pieces. The ambush, getting separated from the team. Meeting up with Sai, his betrayal. Why?

    As far as I could piece together, things took a strange turn. I was a bonafide kunoichi in distress now. Captured and kept under constant physical strain. That one took me a while to puzzle out why. A conversation helped me understand.

    It was one of brief moments when I surfaced, half lucid, and still confused. I tried to lash out, move and get away. The hit to the head left me reeling and seeing stars. The comment after was illuminating.

    “Again?” A voice I didn’t recognize asked.

    “Third time today,” another voice answered.

    I groaned, which was a mistake. Something else hit me.

    “She’s tenacious.” A third voice said.

    “She can regenerate, use jutsu without hand seals, can use shadow clones, and will murder everyone here if she ever wakes up.” An emotionless voice said. It felt familiar, but I couldn’t place a face to the voice.

    Peeking on shinobies through chakra perception let me learn a few of their patterns. Every few hours, a three man cell— jounin and two chunin— left. They never stayed away for long. Sometimes one hour, sometimes less. Sometimes, they took some of the imprisoned genin with them; other times, they brought more. I had my suspicions about things but, back to my plan.

    Maybe because my lack of visible resistance lulled the enemies into going easy. Maybe they mistook how much my regeneration was capable of. The more time passed, the more alert and aware of my surroundings I was. That gave me an urgent feeling that I had to get the hell outta of here. The sooner, the better.

    It wasn’t going to be easy. Careful probing told me a few things: I don’t think I was naked— thank god— but I wasn’t wearing my shinobi gear. My weight seals weren’t on me anymore, my bag of supplies was awol. My hands were tied to the walls, maybe ceiling. The feelings from there left me thinking about Iron chains, maybe.

    No explosions, no kunai, no shinobi gear. Impaired vision, hurt, thirsty and hungry.

    Thankfully, it wasn’t the worst-case scenario. If I could release the shackles from my arms and legs, I could puppeteer my body with threads. I was also planning on using them to get a good feel for my surroundings. Made me think of a spider spreading her silk.

    Timing was going to be of the essence here. I was on a clock. The three-man squad had already left, taking two genin with them. They would be back soon. I already had my chakra primed and ready, a single thought away from creating a beacon nearby. Now I just needed my jailer to piss off for a moment. Perhaps Fate-kun heard my pleas. The jailer left the cell, and the replacement was still a few rooms away.

    I pushed my chakra. It burned, most of my reserves tanked. The beacon blossomed in my mind.

    For the first time ever, I activated my jutsu. There was this brief moment of confusion. I was hanging by my hands, then I flopped on the ground on top of the wood kunai. My chakra exploded around with countless threads. I couldn’t see, but I didn’t need to see.

    I wasn’t confident I could move on my own. Threads wrapped around my limbs. Jerky hand swatted the hardwood kunai, my beacon. I heard voices from the other side of the door, my escape hadn’t been unnoticed. Wood kunai in hand, I flickered forward, appearing behind the chunin that had just left the cell.

    He might have been too surprised to react. My hand grabbed his neck. The other pushed the kunai below his chin, up to his brain. The man flailed, I let the body topple.

    There was this moment of silence, before the place turned to chaos. The replacement was now rushing my way. The jounin and one other chunin were fast approaching as well. The trapped genin started screaming. Some cursed, others yelled for me to help them.

    With my threads, I forced my swollen eyes open. I was doing my best to ignore the horrendous amount of pain I was in. If I stopped to think about that, I might just pass out, which wouldn’t do. With hazy vision, I noticed the place looked like a dank, dark cellar. There were several small cubicles barred by metal. Inside, children and teenagers yelling and screaming for help.

    A flash of red behind one of the cubicle doors caught my attention, but I had other things to do before anything else. I had a few precious moments to assess the situation; a quick scan didn’t reveal anything I could use as a weapon. I doubled over and snatched the tool belt from the dead chunin. Smoke bombs, shuriken, kunai, wire. Useful, but nothing vital.

    I was out of time. The replacement chunin was about to enter the cellar. The door burst open, I threw the hardwood kunai. The kunoichi, a girl this time, walked in, and I pushed my flying thunder god prototype again. She tried to dodge the kunai, unaware that the real threat was me. I teleported in the air near the beacon. I snatched the weapon before it collided with the walls. With my other hand, I stabbed the kunoichi with the kunai I stole from the dead guy. Or I tried. My hand was empty. The kunai hadn’t teleported with me. The stab turned into a punch, which gave me time to move my other hand and stab with the beacon.

    I felt around with the threads. Yes, my clothes were left behind.

    Huh, look at that. That emotionless voice person was right. I was absolutely going to murder the fuck out of everyone. In my birthday suit. Murder-exhibitionist-hobo me, I guess.