Into Another World (Naruto Fanfiction) [On Hold]

Chapter 23 (part 2): Loosing It

I gasped as freezing water washed all over my weak body. What the hell?! I opened my eyes slowly, the feat feeling like it was way harder to do than usual, and looked around to find myself in... darkness.

Oh, yeah. The blindfold. Chains. Torture...

How could I forget?

"Whew!" I heard Break, one of my torturers, exclaim in relief. "For a minute there, we thought you were gonna die on us, little girl."

"She already did, idiot!" I heard Beast say, then a smacking sound.

"Ow!" Break yelped. "That hurt!"

I groaned as all these familiar things—the bickering, the pain, the coldness of the metal around my wrists and ankles—revolved around me again. This is so not fair! What happened?! Why am I here again? What happened with the white emptiness? I'd be much more happier to be there—or anywhere, for that matter—rather than be chained to this goddamn wall!

"You gave us quite the little scare there, little girl," I heard Joker's voice say, obviously ignoring the bickering that was happening. For some reason, Joker's voice was something I couldn't get out my head. There was something weird and also familiar with it that I couldn't seem to put my finger on. And Batman knows that when I get these feelings, I should be fearing for another revelation. I mean, isn't it enough that I learn that I'm from a world I once thought of only as a TV show? But now I have to learn that we—my family and I—were supposed to "have something that is of great value to this world, if introduced"?

Life...

I felt a sharp sting on my cheek as my head flew towards the side with force. Great, somebody slapped me. What did I do now?

"Answer," Joker said with his usual calm-but-full-of-menace tone. "when you are asked, you wouldn't want to get beaten up for something so trivial as not answering someone, now, would you?" Even with a blindfold on, I knew he was smiling.

I nodded, not being able to talk since my throat was so dry.

He laughed dully. "Well, such a shame, though," he said. "that you are already being hurt because of just that..."

I gritted my teeth as dozens of very imaginative retorts try to claw their way out. I have to keep it together. Batman knows I felt enough pain to last me three lifetimes.

"Typical of her family, really," I heard the unknown guy say. This guy was always unknown. Nobody called him by his name. No one.

"Yeah," Beast agreed, breaking momentarily from his bickering. "Those rotten lot are too stupid and too full of themselves. Ha! Would've wanted to see their faces when they got murdered."

"Carrying priceless expressions of surprise, no doubt," Break continued. "They didn't think that they'd be defeated." He sighed almost regretfully. "Another clan wasted because of too much greed..."

Meanwhile, while they exchanged insults about my clan, I was furious. How dare they! How dare they insult my family like that! They don't have the right! These filthy bastards do not have the right to insult and make fun of my family like that! They were great people who cared for their children. No one has the right to taint that image. No one.

'But they are doing so in front of you,' a familiar voice said in my head.

I froze, everything around me stopping (or was it only my imagination?). That voice—no, voices were familiar. I've heard it before. It sounded like a thousand souls talking all at the same time. It sounded screechingly loud to my ears, but softly gentle at the same time. Not human. Unearthly. But strangely soothing...