Chapter 2

"What the hell is going on?" I was shocked. I quickly jumped off the bed and went straight to stand in front of the mirror so that my back was visible. Tisha also hurried towards me.

"But this looks hot!" she said and then raised her arms to touch it. Everything looks hot to her. I thought but then I agreed to it that time. As she traced her hands on my back in a spiral fashion, I felt a strange shiver running down my spine and then...she fainted.

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Tisha's Point of View

Her tattoo looked awesome. It had a mysterious aura. It was glowing. Deep red. Also, it felt as if it was attracting me, intriguing me; piqueing my curiosity. There was something which was drawing me towards it. It felt as if...as if it was telling me to do something.

Unconsiously I extended my hands, as if someone else was controlling me, and I found myself moving towards Naeko. She stood there, in front of the mirror, pretty much amazed by seeing her own tattoo as I traced my fingers around the mark and I felt her shiver.

Mark? Yes, mark! It wasn't a tattoo, my mind screamed as I felt everything around me start to swirl. The ground beneath me shifted and the surroundings changed. I wasn't with Naeko anymore. I was somewhere dark and damp. I could feel my eyes burning. There was a sudden change in my view. I extended my arms in front of me and looked at them, they were not normal...I felt animated.

The dingy place gave me creeps. I was standing somewhere in the middle of it. There was water everywhere which reached about halfway up my legs. My jeans was soaked in it, or that was what it looked like. But in reality it was as if the liquid didn't have its propery. Even though my clothes should have been soaked halfway up by the water, they were not wet. It all seemed ,well, not real and somehow, it felt wrong.

I turned around and squished my eyes to have a better look in the dark. Where am I? There was nothing in view. Just darkness. It was like a horizon, a never ending sight.

I thought about closing my eyes and shaking off the bad feeling buy then I saw it. Two big yellowish red eyes stared right into mine. I was hypnotised by the depth of sorrow I could feel.

The eyes bore into mine until I felt like they were calling me.

Unconsciously, I walked towards it and found myself looking directly at the face of an enormous looking fox beast. It was resting his head on his fore paws and glaring at me. The big and sharp claws were pointing straight at me. It had more than one tail. It's orange body moved up and down slowly as it breathed.

It looked at me through his big freaky eyes as I shivered. It had five tails resting on the floor and the rest of the four tails were on top of then. I think I saw it smiling.

My lips twitched, with fear because of it staring down at my comparatively extra small figure.

"Brat..." it said, in a freakishly ghost type way, giving a clear view of its sharp fangs.

"W-What are you?" I tried to shout.

"Are you afraid of me?" it talked making me go weak in the knees, "I am Kyuubi and you shall free me."

Now that would have been enough to have me running but my feet were jammed of fear. Finally my knees gave out and I drooped down.

"No. That is certainly not what I want. Get up!" it ordered me but I couldn't obey. Suddenly changing the way of his talk, he called out to me again, "Look at me, do I look something dangerous to you?" A devil's curve forming on it's face.

What was it talking about? Of course it is scary. I want to run! Save me! Save me! I screamed in my head as I mustered the strength to look at it again.

I gave it a closer look and I felt numb. My thinking went irrational. I realised it did not look dangerous at all. Infact there were many rods which blocked it from going anywhere. It was locked and lonely. What a pity!

I looked in it's eyes, this time with more courage, but the mistake was done. It drew me closer to itself. Closer till I was able to touch its muzzle. It snorted. I guess, it didn't like anyone touching it. It growled under it's breath but didn't move even an inch. It was such a harmless thing. Why was it locked? I thought. "I need to free you."

"Yes. And thats why you are here...to free me!"

"Don't worry, I'll help you to get out..." The words were uttered in a monotonous way.

No! No! My inner self kept warning me but I had no control over my body. It was working on its own.

Almost unknowingly, the water that surrounded me started to gather underneath my feer and took me upwards. I reached straight towards the lock.

It was nothing like a normal lock and key stuff. Instead it was just a paper with a swirl on it. All that was needed to be done was to tear it and then...

I reached out for it..

"Tisha?" I pulled back my arms at the sound of my name.

The voice was familiar and sounded full of concern but my mind wasn't working at all. I couldn't recognise the owner of the voice.

"Who's there?' I replied back but was met with silence.

I waited for a second or two before Kyuubi's voice interrupted me. "Just go ahead and tear that off!"

"Yes." I nodded and continued to tear it. Again as soon as I touched it , the same voice called out to me.

"Who is there!?" I shouted this time. My head had started to feel dizzy and the back of my left hand burned. I was all sweaty and nervous, for some unknown reason.

As soon as I thought of giving up on discovering the source of the voice and instead help the fox to get free, I found myself drowning in the water which surrounded me.

The level of water had suddenly increased and reach up to where I floated. I was immersed in water at a very high speed and I clutched my throat as I couldn't breath. Everything blacked out.

The next time I opened my eyes, I was not there anymore. Instead there was Naeko, looking worriedly at me.

I swore to myself that I won't tell anyone about this. Not even to Naeko... she would think I was insane.

† † †

Naeko's Point Of View

"Tisha?" I kept patting her cheeks and sprinkling water on them. I didn't know what else to do. Tisha had fainted all of a sudden. I saw her lay down on the floor, her straight black hair which were tied up in a high pony tail were spread over the cold floor. Her eyes were closed at first but she stirred after the cold water hit her face.

When she opened her eyes, she had the kind of expression one would give after witnessing a ghost. And she was still shivering like hell.

"Thank god you are okay! You almost gave me a heart attack!"

"Ummm..What happened?

"I don't know, you just fainted..."

"Did I?" she questioned me and scratched the back of her head as she lifted herself up.

I helped her climb the bed and got her covered with a sheet of green velvet cloth.

"Whats up Tish? You seem as if you are just out of a coma or something." I inquired, relieved that she had regained her concsiousness.

"N-Nothing..." she almost whispered.

"Oh god." I said as I tucked her properly in the bed, "You are shivering alot. You will get a cold if we don't get out of here soon..." I took her hand to comfort her but the corner of my eye caught something.

"W-What's that?" I asked her looking at the mark which was on the inside of her hand. It looked strange yet familiar. It was almost the same as mine. The one that Naruto had, the eight tiagram seal. Except that it was elongated and not a circle and that hers had four comma (,) type seal binding it.

She looked at it and then I saw her eyes getting wider. "Its-Its just a tattoo I got for myself when I saw yours in the gym...."she said and turned red.

"Oh! I see..." I heaved a sigh of relief. I thanked god it was such a silly thing. "I'll get you a cup of coffee and then we will leave!" I said and went outside.

She had gone all red when I had asked her about it. She must have thought about what will I think about it. But it really did surprise me at first. I was wondering how come we had the same mark? But hers was really just a tattoo.

I gave her a brimming hot mug of mochá and in the next fifteen minutes we were ready to leave. The walk towards my car was mostly a silent one.

"You will not tell about this to anyone, right?" she asked me, suddenly.

"About you fainting because of the cold?" I tried to joke and lift up thr mood. "You are such a weakling."

"And my tattoo?" she raised her eyebrows indicating an obvious answer.

"And...your tattoo." I trailed off with a laugh, " No, I won't...unless you want me to." I teased her. "And please, you as well, don't tell about anything to anyone." I paused and then added "Not even to Shun!" I glared at her.

"Okay!"she announced in self defence and then the silence continued. Niether of us spoke. Well..there was nothing to talk about.

When we reached my car, I realised a lot of time had passed and there was no need to get back to school now.

I dropped Tisha off at her house. Before she got out she asked me that whether she could visit that place again, and I readily agreed.

"Of course you can, but you dare not tell about it to anyone! " I reminded her with a wink.

She just shook her head and made a sign of promise. We wrapped our little fingers around each other's and grinned. Then she went off and closed the main gates behind her.

After that everything went as normal as it could, or so I thought.

I was sitting besides the window of my room. Balnkly staring at the peaceful looking full moon. It was shining brightly as if it had its own source of light. I wondered why it had to use the sun's light to get so beautiful, if only it had it's own...

It was almost twelve. I would be finally turning 16. I thought with excitement.

I was not able to sleep as the mark on my back kept troubleing me. It had never happened like this before. I was becoming restless. I didn't want to think about it so I kept looking outside, trying to take my mind off the mark. It was very silent outside. Not even a single soul lingered anywhere. I wondered if it was even humanely possible for the surrounding to be so still that it looked like a painting.

As soon as it struck twelve, two wierd, big , bloody red eyes appeared directly in front of me and there was a loud sound of growling.

"Aaaaaahhh!!" was all I could say and I fell off my chair.

It all happened too fast for me to figure out what it was. Just as it had come, it disappeared.

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A/N

I think, you all know what happened next? Well, anyway, stay tuned for the next chappy ^_^

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~Sassy