I really should've noticed how slow everything was a long time ago. Something about how my body felt like it was wading through a syrup of molasses, or how everything felt so far away. It was like I wasn't even there. Even my eyes felt sluggish in their sockets, roving in futile, small movements that couldn't really make any good sense of anything of they did manage to spot something. If it wasn't for the insane vision from the Hyūga eye in my right palm gave me, I would effectively be blind to the world that ran perpetually slow. And with the eye, the world was so much more. I could even see the ever changing state of the air around me. The sudden breezes to shocking waves that echoed out. All of it felt like I could reach out and change it, but something felt off whenever I tried, causing nothing to happen for my efforts. And nothing was seeming to speed up. As novel as it was to see everything in slow motion, this was actually rather boring… Well, this accelerated perception aside, I felt like I had time to understand how to use this new eye. It worked oddly like I was trying to flex muscles I didn't even know I had. A sphere of absolute vision appeared when I flexed some, and that sphere could even peer through everything in my sight, as if layers of material suddenly became permeable when I wished. There were still some mistakes, but when I pretty much was moving at a snail's pace, I had all the time in the world. I would get it right eventually. Hopefully. Okay, I couldn't quite understand how it worked, and gave up after a bit. Eventually, after what felt like hours, the two of us arrived back into the carnage. I could see a pensive Hinata behind me, her eyes flicking to me in frightened stutters. She had seemed to be much more terrified after the world had slowed down to me. Her mouth was moving as well, small waves traveling through the air. She was speaking, I realized. I couldn't understand her. I couldn't speak either, or not in the sense that I could understand what I spoke. My voice didn't quite make sense to me right now. It didn't matter, though. We really didn't need to talk as the Jōnin came into view. His imposing height towering over a scene straight from someone's nightmares. The arm Gensei had cut off was still dismembered, though only a tiny dribble of blood leaked. I briefly breathed a sigh of relief knowing that his healing was either shit or he had normal human levels. Body parts littered the ground in equal amounts to blood. Trees had been cracked open, split, cut apart, and strewn all about to create a small clearing full of stumps. It was a scene of destruction. I stepped forward, the world so very slow. The air was vibrating. Speech? Screams? Yelling? It didn't matter. There were only four samurai that were intact. They were opening their mouths, and vibrated the air, pushing it over towards me in singular waves. I ignored them. Even as their eyes slowly grew wide, and faces paled. One even began to fall into a prayer. So dramatic. Hinata was actually rather proactive in throwing kunai. As soon as we neared, she had already nervously gathered a bunch of them, and began chucking them as hard as she could. I could see as they entered my sphere of sight, and flew in the general direction of the Jōnin. He was also trying to say something. The air vibrated. It was too slow for me to understand. Everything was too slow. I wanted to put my mind into splitting, but I couldn't move my arms. Oh right, my right arm was broken then sliced open. I shifted my shoulder. There was pain, dulled and also so very slow like my nerves couldn't quite catch onto the fact that it hurt. My knife was still held in my right palm, but I felt like I could swing my entire arm if I had to. Though, my arms seemed longer than before. Was it blood loss? I can't even think too hard right now. My head itched. My horns were peaking through my hair. Oh right, Jōnin. I looked over to find him moving at me, faster than everyone else, but so stupidly slow. I was a little embarrassed that I had forgot about him for a second. He was speaking again, or laughing. Or screaming I couldn't really tell. Though, again, that really didn't matter. He ran at me, minutes dragged on as I continued to advance in my speed. I was obviously so much slower; where he was a racehorse I was a snail in terms of bodily speed. Still, I didn't think I was scared. In fact, what was I feeling? Why was I so calm? I should be reasonably terrified at how slow everything was, but all I felt was… emptiness? No, it was hunger. Yeah, I was pretty hungry; I hadn't eaten in days. My body growled with anticipation for the approaching meal. Wait, what? Where did that come from? The Jōnin had appeared in front of me, my lapse of self seemed to have taken longer than I thought. Which, considering how slow everything was, was fairly long. His arm was raised. Muscles flexed, contracting and releasing as he controlled the massive blade in one hand. Energy flickered along the entire edge as I noticed the energized plasma was superheating the air around it, forcing my winds to curve around the blade. He had created a vacuum-like environment around the blade itself to reduce the air resistance the huge piece of metal had. I marveled at the physics of it. Jutsu that could achieve an artificially created semi-void, and the man just used it to swing an abnormally large sword. There was a flicker of electricity that I saw travel down his arm. Briefly, I tried to look into him, finding another set of veins that ran along his cardiovascular system. Huh, so that's what a Chakra system looks like. I wanted to study it in more detail, but the electricity had already traveled down his arm. Like his 'supreme' technique implied, I watched as all the muscles in his arm were shocked into obeying the one command of swinging. Looking at it now I realized how horrible his swordsmanship was. I wasn't someone who was fairly proficient in any weapons or anything, but the Jōnin's entire attack was horribly open. His legs were not even square as he swung, leaving him a horrible base to stand on. He only used one arm, electrically controlled, to swing his blade in a path that was too easy to read. The tip went supersonic somewhere in the middle of his swing, and I was already tilting my body out of the way long before he had even put the motion in. He couldn't adjust his swing now either. His technique forced him to commit to ever time he swung. Still, when all you needed was one swing to take down every enemy you come across, that is some grounds for arrogance. Yet, he would never hit me now. Everything was too slow. His attack missed, confusion beginning to form on his features. They twisted into some facsimile of something else before I changed that. My head tilted out of the way of an approaching kunai, one Hinata had quite luckily thrown such that my body had hidden it. However, it didn't matter if she aimed at me, they wouldn't hit anyways. Instead, the kunai was in perfect alignment to strike the Shinobi right in his last working eye in the brief moment his nerves were too overloaded with electricity to work. Vibrations echoed from him. Swirling air cascading into my range, and I belatedly realized that I had understood screaming again. Wonderful, now I can make that a signal if this annoying super accelerated perception doesn't wear off. Hmm, no, I can definitely tell it'll wear off. There was a headache building up, but instead of just my head that hurt it was also my body that was absolutely burning. Scorching even. I needed to finish this faster. My body moved, slow as ever, but I got the sense that I was using all the muscles I could have possibly ever had. The Jōnin was vibrating the air again. Another monologue? No, probably just some inane death threat. How boring. Still, I didn't count on him being completely helpless without both his eyes. In my brief stint of using Chakra, my senses became much more pronounced, so I expected the same from him. I expected too much. Instead, of simply running away, or adopting a different strategy, the Jōnin charged the nearest noise there was and began slashing around like crazy. Luckily, the nearest noise was me and not Hinata. She certainly wouldn't have been able to dodge any of these. I, on the other hand, could easily see how his shoulders flexed right before he swung, or how he kept his front most foot angled just slightly out of the way of his next slice. He was no longer using his 'almighty' attack anymore, too. However, I think that this new way had made his attacks much more precise and rapid. Sure, they weren't going to be breaking any sound barriers, but with how many he was sending my way, one was sure to hit. I could see each attack coming miles before it actually did, and while I willed my body to dodge just barely out of the way sometimes, they were getting too close. Cuts opened up along my skin, purple flesh parting before his cool blade. They stung, but the pain was distant. I was more annoyed by the fact that my pure white gown was being destroyed by this cretin. This was a gift I didn't like ruined. So I began to block. The knife in my hand was unbreakable under all the circumstances I put it through. As such, it was a very useful tool for defense. I just had to swing my arm with all my body to parry any strikes that I couldn't dodge or came too close. It didn't matter if my arm was too wounded to move; I used the limp limb as an extension of my knife, swinging it around like a whip with a knife shaped shield on the end. However, my stamina wasn't infinite, and my body had turned from scorching to absolute agony to even move. It was like something was clawing away at my insides, trying desperately to escape. I had to finish this fast. Hinata was still throwing kunai, but she wasn't really hitting him anymore. I think it was the fact that she actually injured him that caused her to become more timid with her throws. Irrelevant, I told myself. She was meant for merely a distraction, and taking out his other eye was a definite bonus. Then an opportunity presented itself to me. As I had stepped past one errant swing, I delivered an attack of my own. I plunged my knife into the Jōnin's stump, and watched as it buried itself into his flesh. Now, I knew that my knife couldn't really cut, but that didn't mean I couldn't deal damage with it. I was just a weak toddler when I did hit things. Now I'm… What am I? Wait no, I'm human, right? My head throbbed and the world spun faster by a few seconds. Nausea settled into my throat as I felt myself gag. Someone was screaming nearby, but it still sounded distant. I hurried to turn and face my opponent, and grabbed a kunai from off the floor. The Jōnin was in agony from the knife that I had jammed into his healing wound. My world was still a little bit slow, but I felt like this speed was much more handleable. My body still felt like it would drop at any moment. Though, I still had enough energy to throw all my weight onto the kunai I held, and impaled his singular flailing arm into a tree stump. He was screaming too much. What kind of Shinobi was this? Overly arrogant, only one discenable, powerful ability, and an overall dramatic who cries at every injury someone 'inferior' inflicted in him. If this was a storyline, then he would be a beginner level boss whose only redeeming trait was to spurn character development and realistic growth. What a joke. I nailed down another of his legs through his ankle when he was still screaming his annoying scream, just in case he tried to run. Then, for good measure, I got the last one. My line of sight was slowly sinking, and, with it, my accelerated perception. It was nice to finally not absolutely see everything, but now everything just felt too fast. It was really disorientating when suddenly my arms moved like I wanted them too instead of having to wait minutes before I raised a hand. My head was throbbing, blood was basically more on the outside of me than inside, and all my limbs pleaded me to just rest. I could finally hear voices and words instead of vibrations and waves. I would never give up talking, but it was actually rather nice whenever you couldn't hear everything, a sort of calm, ringing silence. "...maki-san!" My head swiveled to the voice that had said my name. Their own tones were hoarse as if they had been screaming till their throat was raw. I found Hinata surrounded by the last remaining samurai, their swords held in my direction. On their faces were a bunch of expressions that I had experienced a great deal of in Konohagakure. Anger, pure anger, directed at me for reasons outside my comprehension. Then there was another emotion that pervaded them, fear. Their arms trembled as my gaze ran over them, and I could simply taste the terror they felt as our eyes met. "Don't hurt Uzumaki-san!" Hinata screamed again within her little entourage of bodyguards. Her eyes were leaking again, but this time I felt like she was more angry than anything. "...monster." One samurai whispered, the other three shivered as if that word rang true for the rest of them. His voice raising as more words tumbled out of his mouth. "Don't let it fool you, girl! That thing is not human! It's hiding under its disguise now, but when it gets hungry again…" His voice cut out, face falling into one of pure terror. Another samurai looked like he had had enough, and didn't say anything as he just dropped his katana and ran away. The other two quickly fell behind in his steps. The last one held onto his shaking katana, glaring at me. I was absolutely confused. What was going on? I was even more astonished when Hinata, whom I had pegged for an innocent, shy child, stamped down on the pit of the samurai's knee, twisted his wrist and stole the blade from his hands. She then held the dangerous weapon straight at the man's neck, hands only slightly shaking. "Y, you listen to me! Go away, and st, stop bothering Uzumaki-san!" She yelled and it would've been rather impressive if she didn't stutter in the process. Was this girl actually a three year old? Oh wait, probably trained in a house of Shinobi... The samurai looked even more shocked at the turnaround than me. He eyes bulged and his teeth clenched, but he didn't try anything and just left as well. When he was finally out of sight, Hinata looked at me, blushed in embarrassment, then looked away. I think I was gaping at this point, but seriously I never expected this. Wasn't this the girl who went around stalking the original Naruto? It's always the silent ones, huh. Still, I had to cover my bases, and avenge a good man. Turning around while trying not to think of happy thoughts, I faced my crucified victim. He flinched when my eyes landed on him. "Please… please…" he mumbled incoherently. I stared at him harder as I grabbed a nearby kunai. I don't think he would be a threat later down the line, but I wasn't taking chances. Plus, it was slightly personal. I jammed the sharp weapon down without any hesitation this time. My remorse had died for him long ago. "Please… not the… those black eyes…" the man mumbled between bubbles of blood. "...help." My body was shaking, whether it was exhaustion or the pleas I had just heard I had no idea. Would the killing ever get easier if I continued down this path? Would I ever get his desperate pleas out of my head either? When I received no answer, I finally let all my tension drain out. I was burnt out. As if a switch had been flicked, I tumbled to the ground head first. My body didn't seem to want to respond no matter what I did, and I was forced to just lay there, taking deep, chest burning breaths. "Uzumaki-san!" Hinata cried, her voice was a little dull. I was beginning to lose consciousness. The last thing I remembered was that it was all over. I didn't have a fight I needed to go to, or something to fix at the moment. All I wanted was some blissful rest, and dreams came smoothly.