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A brittle silence fills the cavern as dust notes drift through the air and my-her-our? blood drips off the knife. Now you may be wondering, “Percy, what are you doing in a dusty cave with a bloody knife?” I have no clue. See, as the son of Poseidon, Greek god of the sea, my demigod dreams are always confusing and/or ominous, but this one takes the cake. This girl (Rin?) has been stuck in this cave for the past two hours and is being “interrogated” (read: tortured) by some guy with knives and a snazzy metal headband. Man. His acne must be terrible.
“What is your mission, Konoha scum? Why are you heading to Kannabi Bridge?”
I feel the girl open my-her-our? mouth and she-me-we? spit out a mouthful of blood from her-my-OUR bloody lips. “Nohara Rin, Konoha chūnin. ID number 010885.”
The warm light of the flickering torch glints menacingly as Mr. Acne-Headband raises his knife.
“I won’t ask again, girl . Where is your te—”
Unfortunately, our new friend is interrupted by a pair of boys. One has a serious eye infection and the other has the worst dye job I’ve ever seen. I mean, seriously, who bleaches their hair crispy and then gives themselves old person hair? It’s like he’s trying to fake his way into the senior citizen discounts.
As Crispy Dye Job Failure leaps at our metal headband clad friend, the other boy, the one with what looked like an eye infection, but upon a closer glance seems to be a pair of moving (yo what) demonically red contact lenses, undoes our restraints, peels what looks like a tattoo off our skin, and hustles us out of the caverns.
“Rin, thank God you’re alright. He didn’t hurt you too badly, did he?”
We shake our head and open our mouth to respond, only to be cut off by Dye Job Failure leaping out of the mouth of the cavern. He pauses to look at us. “Dead Last. Nohara. The cave is clear. I’ll take point. Nohara, stay in the middle. Dead Last, guard the rear. We’re headed towards Kannabi to finish our mission,” he bites out.
Nohara was obviously us so “Dead Last” had to be Eye Infection. Demon Cosplayer. Whatever.
A rumble sounds from the empty cave behind us. In unison, three heads snap back as Demon Cosplayer whispers, “Run.”
And we do. We run like hell, like our lives depend on it, because they do. We’re not fast enough. Our leg gives out, unable to take both the strain and the injuries, even with a strange energy bolstering it. Dye Job scoops us up, tosses us to Demon Cosplayer (man, I just can’t get that out of my head), and continues sprinting towards the exit of the underground system. My head aches a my vision flickers and my grasp on reality begins to slip.
Blink.
Dye Job’s locked in combat.
Blink.
We land outside the system’s entrance.
Blink.
Rocks are falling on Dye Job.
Blink.
Demon Cosplayer is under the rocks instead.
Red, red, red blood seeps out from underneath the rocks as the dust settles. Oh gods.
“Heh. Kakashi (who?) , I never got you a present for your promotion. Take my eye. See the future for me—” So Dye Job’s name is Kakashi .
Demon Cosplayer coughs, clearly in pain from the rockfall crushing half of his body. I watch, numb with horror, as our body steps forward to remove Demon Cosplayer’s one intact eye and implant it into the damaged eye socket of Dye Jo—Kakashi. Gods. These kids can’t be any older than fifteen.
“Obito—,” we choke our over our tears as Demon Cosp— Obito gasps once, twice, and his breathing sputters into nothing.
The cave entrance rumbles again as more people with metal headbands and some sort of horrifically ugly matching outfits appear and engage Kakashi in combat. He’s clearly overwhelmed but our body is frozen in some horrible amalgamation of grief and horror. My head’s pounding resumes with a vengeance.
Blink.
Kakashi is on the ground.
Blink.
A blond man appears in a yellow flash.
Blink.
The enemy combatants are dead at Blondie’s hands.
Blink.
There are gentle hard on our shoulders and a soft voice speaking to us.
Blink.
The nightmare slips out of my grasp, delicate and ephemeral as frost.
I wake up, clutching my blankets, gasping for air. Just like Obito— . I cut off my trail of thought and stumble into the bathroom with damp eyes and a roiling stomachs and, and—.
Oh gods.
I vomit into the toilet and sob.
Oh gods.
It was just a dream—.