Chapter Text
(SIX)
The only thing that makes her feel anymore, are her dreams (memories). An escape to a different world where she isn’t anyone’s toy. At first she is resentful towards the woman she dreams of (her past self). One who didn’t know the pain of almost starving to death, only to have to fight against others for the privilege of eating. When she knows only the life of surviving and fighting, the real torture begins.
There's an itch under her skin, she’s always known it was there. Now it’s a burning fire as the man with eyes like gold (snake he’s a snake) constantly pokes and prods at it, until she pushes back. The World lights up in a blinding array of colors and feelings, enough to make her pass out from it all. When she awakes, it’s from a dream that made her cry with emotions not her own. The girl of her dreams had her family broken by one she loved.
She forgets the dream (memory) as survival once again becomes all too important. By managing to pick up words and learn, she knows she is six out of eight other children. That is what they are, isn’t it? She knows the word, knows the meaning, but it somehow doesn’t feel right. The word she remembers presents an image of innocence she knows she cannot claim as her own. They call her Roku and command her to be the last one alive.
All eight children (so young really), an uneven mixture of males and females, are thrown into a cement pit with several inches of brown, murky water. Roku refuses to think on it, but her traitorous mind whispers that the coppery smell burned in her nose is not a coincidence (blood of those before). She takes up a defensive position, and moves away from the pile of animals (babies forced to kill) biting and clawing each other on the hope that they may be the one to live.
Until there is only one left, the biggest and strongest of the eight (no older than five). He was the one dubbed Shi, and Roku waits until he turns to her. Some deep part of her screams, that if she is truly going to go through with this, his face must be scarred into her mind until she can make it right in the after life. There's no savage look like she was expecting, in fact, there's just nothing behind his dark brown eyes. As if he had died long before now.
His fist lands against her right cheek and she becomes truly acquainted with the vile liquid her bare feet were soaking in. Maybe he would have had a chance against her, if that had been the first hit she had received in this world, it would have stunned her. As it is, he seals his fate when he slams his bigger body onto her smaller one, and snakes his hands around her throat. Roku ignores the nausea and pain, (she will earn the pain shortly) she had been waiting for the perfect moment.
Dead inside or not, every man (boy he was just a boy) reacts to a knee to the groin in the same way. The boy was no different. His hands lost their grip as he automatically went to hold the pain, and she moved. The woman in her dreams, had known many different ways to take a life, but lacked the experience. Using the knowledge she had, Roku wrapped her legs around his face, keeping her hands free to hold his (smothering sheds no blood). After he stopped struggling, she still held tight (unconsciousness comes before the end). Death would be the only kindness she would be able to give in this world.
Her reward for being the last alive, was to be given to a man with one eye. He commanded absolute loyalty from her, (he can’t be trusted) and she was willing to obey. His mark (seal) underneath her tongue burned her constantly, but at least the itch under her skin (chakra) began to feel natural. As natural as the blade she was given, along with a set of clothes that tickled her memory. She was to be his tool (pawn), and as such, he needed to sharpen her.
***
Part of her training was to be put up against more and more opponents (only kids), for each one she failed to best, she was punished (abused). Roku collected several scars, but at least the one eyed man was making her stronger. Fiercer (angrier). She had no idea how long she had been in the dark tunnels, before he sent her off to take a life. No words were given, just a picture with a name on it. That’s how it went. A picture, a name, then blood on her hands.
Roku had no sense of time, no idea how old she was (twenty-one). How long she had survived the world so far. Until one of her targets (victims) had a mirror in their room. Because her body was still so small (it was a mercy to die in your sleep), she preferred to end them while they slept. Movement caught her eye and she found herself locking eyes with a ghost (she’s just a little girl), deep blue eyes and hair like the night.
Something was happening to her mind, she was fighting something from the inside (past memories). Something just under the surface of her own mind (her real self). It was suffocating, there were words she knew, but she’d never learned them (not in this life). She knew she was panicking, but she’d never done so before. Roku (not Roku, never Roku) found herself struggling to keep her own mind.
In a daze, she wandered into a forest. It was in no way recognizable, but somehow, it made her feel peaceful. Until she started hyperventilating as flashes of memories not her own stated playing in her mind. The taste registered first, before she belatedly
realized she had vomited on the base of a tree. (That always happened after her panic attacks). Roku had never had a panic attack before.
She felt them on the edge of her senses, before spotting the young boy and the deer. The kunai slipped into her hand before she consciously decided to grab it. (Just a boy, not a threat). Roku put it back only a second after she pulled it out of her back pouch. He was confused, she could tell by the way his spirit flickered (chakra sensing emotions). Then, he actually noticed her and she could see his surprise on both his face and his aura (chakra).
He had to have been around the same age as her (so painfully young), but his eyes had something in them she’d never seen before. (Innocence.) It was so pure and untouched by the darkness that surrounded and filled her. The late afternoon sun made his brown eyes practically shine with life. Time froze as both children regarded each other, as soon as his lips started to lift into a sleepy smile (she didn’t deserve to be seen as a child), she left.
Fear was coursing through her as she ran out of the forest she had stumbled into. It took a moment to realize she wasn’t afraid for herself, but for the boy. (She was too far into the darkness to be near something so pure.) Pureness stood no chance in this World. Roku (NOT Roku NEVER Roku) knew this. (Kindness is stronger than terror) Terror made this world, (No) she had to (change can happen) stay away from innocents. That’s why she ran away from the strange (familiar) boy (he was so familiar) with shining eyes (the hair, the eyes, the deer he walked with).
“Shikamaru.” His name left her lips without thought and suddenly she was falling to the ground. The pain didn’t register in her mind as she stared up through the trees she had been running on and into the sky. How did she know the boys name? Why was she so sure his name was Shikamaru Nara. “This world shouldn’t exist.” Her voice sounded wrong. It was too young, too empty. She slowly flexed her body, part by part, and it was too small. Everything was wrong.
After laying on the ground until the sun disappeared, thinking of nothing in particular, she felt the seal on the bottom of her tongue burn. A call to return to her master. The longer she prolonged returning, the more painful the seal would become. Danzo Shimura was waiting for her, she had to shut down thoughts of killing him. “Master.” Her mind wasn’t fully reconnected, but by the second she was remembering things. Pieces of the future she should not have.
“Roku, you were late returning to me.” His voice contained a false note of concern, as if he cared if she struggled. But Roku was not her name and she knew him for the liar he was. No fake sincerity would sway her. “I apologize Master. I completed my mission without fail. As far as anyone will be able to tell, the target was murdered for his riches.” Danzo hummed at her, a deep gravelly noise that made her stomach tighten.
“What delayed you.” Her tongue burned, a careful reminder that she was unable to lie to him. “I was seen by a boy and a stag in an unfamiliar forest.” She waited to see if he wanted more, or if this was all he wanted. He waved his hand for her to continue. “The forest had a chakra like I had never experienced before, Master. It was alive, and didn’t want me to leave.” That was mostly the truth.
The Nara forest did indeed have it’s own chakra, that had felt alive and as if it wanted her to stay. But it had been easily ignored as she had laid on the soft moss flooring. She didn’t dare meet his eyes, but she could hear the smile in his voice. “Yes, you would be wise to avoid the forest from now on, Roku.” There was no dismissal in his voice, so kneeling on the cold stone is where she stayed. Once, he had her kneel there until she was sure she would pass out, only then did Danzo allow her to leave.
She was conditioned to keep her mind empty and only focus on the next order he would give her, but she couldn’t help but think about how she had killed for this man. The blood of seven people were on her hands because he had commanded it. Four were ninjas whose crime she didn’t know, and three were merchants who had been Danzo’s spies, but he feared betrayal.
While she had done all of the merchants in their sleep, two of them had looked like they had died naturally in their sleep, and the last one looked like a robbery. Of course, a shinobi with a healthy dose of suspicion would look closer and see foul play. She knew the Military Police wouldn’t look that closely at a civilian death, so she was perfectly in the clear. She wished she wasn’t.
Danzo was still having some kind of power play, so to punish herself further, to keep the fire burning, she re-lived the deaths of the shinobi as well. One had been a novice poison user, so it was easy to nick him without him knowing, of course the idiot hadn’t carried an antidote on him. The most deadly mistake a poison user could make, and she had taken full advantage.
The other two didn’t make her as guilty as they should have, but still, she would own their deaths. One day, if there was a God, she will reap what she has sown. Death would come for her in the most painful manner imaginable, then perhaps she would have suffered enough to be able to glimpse her lost loved ones beyond the veil of life.
He struck while she was reminiscing, a hard blow dealt with the cane he carried but had no real need for. It took all the training she had survived, not to react. To allow him his anger and disappointment. Each blow was exactly the same as the one before, controlled and precise. Afterwards, when she was bloody and barely conscious, he stopped. Her reaction to pain was anger, the lethal kind. A calm, controlled rage. “Don’t be late again, Roku.”
As soon as he left, hands came to lift her away to be healed. It hurt all over, and she was certain a rib or two were broken. Danzo didn’t punish her, just to teach her a lesson, the lesson was for all of his little shadows. The other children he was training to die for him and the Hidden Leaf. As she fought to stay awake, a stray image floated into her head. A pale boy who was a painter.
So, as she drifted into unconsciousness, she decided Danzo needed to die sooner rather than later. When she woke up, it was to the realization that she would need to heal before doing anything. The medic, not the one with gray hair and glasses she was dreading to meet, but a woman with pale hair, confirmed that two of her ribs were broken. With chakra, she would be able to help the healing process, however, if most of the healing wasn’t done naturally, her ribs would forever be weaker than the rest.
Every breath hurt, but she wasn’t given any pain medication, not that she asked for any. Her only respite from the crackling pain, was unconsciousness. As her mind drifted to escape the pain of the real world, she saw more of what her soul had previously gone through. Memories revolving around a life she can no longer claim. Images of the boy she saw in the woods make it obvious she had knowledge of the world she’s now in. She's given a week to recover, after all, a broken tool is useless. Still, when she escapes from the pain into unconsciousness, her soul slowly shifts into place in this new body.