Why

(Heads up for the second half of this chapter. I'll probably get some flak for it because Cole is being a 'pussy'. But to be clear, the guy almost died and you don't walk away from that experience with a smile on your face. So, be ready to read some 'pussy-ass-shit' that no normal macho man would EVER go through after having his neck sliced open like a christmas roast.)

(If you enjoyed this chapter anyway, even with the above disclaimer, leave a comment.)

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Cole went down and Yuya could only watch.

Time slowed to a crawl and the air became thick like molasses. Her vision encompassed Cole, falling to the ground, thrashing and wheezing. Her mind played back the past seconds, to mock her.

He walked away - she watched him. He stood still - she was chuckling to herself. He walked back - she became alert. He screamed - she bolted towards him. And then he bled and the red bursted from his neck as links of silver parted his throat. Two devils surfaced from their hiding holes within the waters, sniggering as they stepped over Cole's prone body. Their weapons whirled through the air like steel dervishes.

There was so much panic in her chest, such pain, yet nothing in comparison to what Cole must be going through. Then there was rage, a consumate wrath that she had once been the victim of, and she wanted to tear the devils apart. But the chains wouldn't let her pass. Living and writhing things that danced through the air in a deadly performance of clangorous metal. She barely evaded the whirlwind of blades, strange weapons that whipped around her kunai and limbs alike if she wasn't careful. And they did so with impressive force; she had parried once, a sudden lashing from a bizarre angle, and her hand still shook.

Their companions had just sprung into action, though the youngest, the girl with pink hair and the boy in orange, were left frozen in fear around their startled patron. Tenten sent a volley of kunais and shurikens at the whistling chain, trying her best to pierce through the gaps but their defenses proved too strong, kicking up a storm that rent grass and leaves to specks of green. It was a wall of whirling death.

"Hyaaahahaa! Was that guy supposed to be your teacher?! This' gonna be easy!" One of them cackled. Yuya couldn't care less which of the two bastards it was, but she didn't like the way they gained ground on them. They were prowling closer with every word they spat.

"You tell 'em brother. We'll dice them u-!" The words caught in the demon's throat as the bushy-browed kid - to the astonishment of Yuya - stepped up at him, chest to chest with just an inch to spare and with the speed of wind. She barely caught the tail-end of his movements.

The men dashed back in a hurry, away from the aggressor and with their chain following noisily. It sped at the boy from behind and Yuya saw another victim in the making. However, he weaved through the metal without looking. He passed the brothers' wild onslaught with grace and nimbleness. And when the chain overextended he ducked low, stepped forward, spun like a top and delivered a kick to his opponents chin. A thunderous kick from the ground up, one that snapped and cracked loudly, loud enough to be heard over the disorienting rattling of the chains. The man's head snapped back, blood and teeth sprayed from his cleft face, and his entire body was led into the air. He became a puppet without strings and crumpled like wet tissues.

"YOU BASTARD!" The remaining brother roared and janked on the static chain, sending it in a careening, chakra-fueled wave of steel at bushy-brows. The attempt was ultimately a desperate gamble, one that saw the man defensless against the Hyūga and Uchiha heirs.

The first struck like snakebite, leaving his opponent's right half paralyzed, while the latter dislocated the remaining good arm, kicked the man's legs out from under him and pushed the assassin into the dirt.

Another flurry of weapons from Tenten, spikes the length of a handspan, embedded themselves into the revving chain with incredible precision and nailed it to the ground. Harmlessly the chain flopped against bushy-brows.

Yuya supressed her amazement and ran past the downed enemies, her eyes leading ahead, frantic and hurried. She saw Kakashi and Guy stand above Cole, curiously staring at his still body, and her dying rage came back with a vengeance. The curses and accusations drew up to her lips and she was about to let them free - if only to forget her own weakness, to drown out her own incompetence - when a groaning and pale Cole, but a Cole that was very much alive, waved them both away.

The masked shinobi shrugged his shoulders and mumbled. "If you say so." Before he waved at her. "He says he's fine, a bit out of it, but fine."

And he was, although Guy had to sit him up.

The idiot wiped away at his throat with a tissue, his hands shaking and his fingers bone-white where they weren't stained an ugly crimson. He regarded her with a wan smile and his otherwise twinkling eyes sat deep and hollow in their sockets. Wordlessly she took the towel from his weak hands, carefully dabbing away at the sticky blood pooled around his nape and on his chin and his shoulders. She could always beat some sense into him later.

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[Vitality increased by 11!]

[Perception increased by 3!]

[Strength increased by 1!]

[Repose increased by 2!]

[Lay on Hands increased by 2!]

[Aeon increased by 1!]

He had been lucky, incredibly fortunate even, that the Demon Brothers falsely assumed their attack was fatal. To most it would have been exactly that. An half-inch deep score along your main arteries meant a swift, yet excruciating death in most cases. Blood would flow freely, your very life rapidly draining away in a red fountain. And he experienced it firsthand.

The few seconds where he lay face-first in the dirt, where he felt his strength sapped from his body and was turned into an unliving husk, those seconds were pure hell. To witness yourself be unmade, your essence unravelled, was a horror without compare.

Repose kept the terror and onset of shock at bay long enough that Lay on Hands took effect. Aeon assured that his head hadn't been seperated from his shoulders from the get-go.

It was so close, the darkness, so very close. He had tasted the end on his tongue already. A sheer cold. So. Very. Cold.

And the pain. How could he forget the pain. It had been an almost cozy warmth at first, one that climbed higher and higher and higher. Nerves laid-bare stoked the heat more and more, until his entire throat was a single blaze. A wildfire of agony that ran over his shoulders and his chest and ravaged his mind. It branded his psyche like an animal.

Death had beckoned him and brushed its spindly hand over his face, all because he was an idiot.

Just like he didn't know all there was about his new companions, neither did he know the first thing about his enemies. He was so self-absorbed, so selfish, and what was even worse, was that Yuya got implicated. Unlike the group of genin, she didn't gain anything from this endeavor. For her it was a constituent part of their friendship, good-will extended to its absolute limit. And he spit on it by being utterly unprepared and unqualified. Neither of them had a place in the field, neither of them should have been here in the first place.

It was so much that he had no memory of the moment when he had been brought back to camp.

Cole closed his eyes and breathed. He squeezed his eyelids harder, enough to make his face scrunch up. He pressed his hands onto his eyes and focused on the pressure. He did that until he saw flecks of light, until his mind was ringing and he could finally swallow the lump in his throat.

His tent was a haven of quietude, safe for Yuya's soft breathing. She had helped him a great deal today. She had cleaned the blood, the disgusting blood, off him. She had lend him her shoulder, carried him into his tent when he was too frightened, when his mind was too broken. She rested with him, put a hand on his shoulder when the Demon Brothers - real demons of fire and brimstone - visited him in his nightmares. No dreams, he only had nightmares now. He was ravaged by the visions, by the ghostly pain that only existed in his head but plagued him all the same. Visions of steel and metal and chains, wrapped around his neck, hanging him from a darkened sky, biting into his skin, bleeding him dry and spilling his blood like water. His memories stank like an abatoir.

He squeezed his eyes tighter still, if only to keep his mind from wandering those dark halls.

Dying was as unpleasant as people portrayed. The loss of breath, the fading of your sight, the numbing of your touch. And it had been over in just a moment, but a moment infinite long.

Being so helpless, a victim of an uncaring fate, was something he would never want to experience again. But did he have the strength in him to pursue strength? Whichever way you looked at it, the thread rewarded danger, it granted power in exchange for risk.

Cole would love to say he had the mentality that complemented that idiology, the tenacity to keep on keeping on when the going gets tough. He couldn't though, because he was a quitter. A meddlesome fool that put his nose into matters that didn't concern him! He looked down at himself, using the energy of the thread for an Insight.

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Name: Cole Marin

Title:

Sex: Male

Age: 22

Health: 400/400

Vitality: 40

Strength: 23

Agility: 24

Perception: 25

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That was all his half-hearted training amounted to. It sickened him. And it hurt.

Tomorrow he would let Yuya decide on what to do. But for now he would sleep, nightmares be damned.