Making Heads Roll

Alex saw the bleeding man and stared blankly at his screams. The other women cringed while others looked pale at the sight. Some of them smiled darkly. She had heard what Julia said and by the looks of it, she was simply torturing them more than interrogating them. Alex sighed.

"No, no, mate! Your going about this all wrong!" Alex walked over to the screaming man and chopped his neck, knocking him unconscious. Then she sat on the piece of ice that had him frozen and looked into the last bandits eyes. He growled at her.

"Hey, hey! Calm down! I'm not gonna hurt ya. At least, not if ya tell us what we want to know. Now that your the last one left, you're our only source of information. So for here on out, how 'bout we treat you nice and you tell us what we want to know?"

"Suck my dick, bitch!" He spat in Alex's face, yet she didn't move an inch. Her smile didn't fade or anything. After a short pause, she stood up, wiped the spittle from her face and sighed again.

"Ladies, do ya mind getting into the cargo carts? This may get a little messy." She moved her scarf over her mouth and nose, leaving nothing but her eyes showing. The women didn't move. "Now, loves." She called without looking back. She didn't raise her voice, yet seeing her seem to get serious made the women move. At least, most of them.

"No, we want to watch. This bastard..." One of the women spoke but couldn't finish. The others just resolutely stood by her.

"Your call." Alex said as she pulled out a small vial of green liquid. She moved behind the man and grabbed his arms, tying them with ninja wire as he protested. "Hey love?" She called to Julia. "Something you need to know about gathering information from unwilling bullocks is that continuously causing pain to them is the most primitive way to go about things. Sometimes verbal threats work just as well, or my favorite, psychological. However, the best way to break a person is to use all three at one."

Alex moved in front of the man again and opened the vial. She poured a single drop of the liquid on the ice directly where his belly button was. The liquid sizzled as it ate through the ice. It continued to eat down until it ate through his shirt and burned his skin a little bit.

"This is acid of course, of the magical variety." She explained. "It will eat almost anything it touches. Self explanatory, yeah? So just use your imagination at where this is going to be eating soon if you don't tell us what we want to know." She poured another drip of acid a little lower, eating through the ice and the top of his pants. It singed the pubic hairs that became visible. The man's eyes widened and he clenched his mouth shut.

"I...I won't say nothin'!" He stammered.

"Suit yourself." Alex held the vial up at eye level with the man as she began to slowly, painfully slowly, tilt it so that the liqued approached the vial mouth. The man's eyes were on the liquid, his iris dilated. His breathing was quick and grew more irate the longer it took for the liquid to escape it's confine.

"WAIT! FUCKIN' WAIT! I'LL TALK!"

Julia stepped aside when prompted to by Alex. She watched as the young woman knocked out the bandit she was interrogating and started to pull the good cop routine with the other. However, the peace talks soured when the man decided to spit on Alex's face. Because of the situation before the two, Julia couldn't just go in, slice the guys head off, and be done with it. No. She opted to watch what Alex would do next.

A vial of liquid was revealed. Alex mentioned for the other women to go in the cart, just in case things started to get darker. Some decided to go when the rogue got serious, but others wanted to stay, and see their offenders get what was coming to them. What was coming to them, was that vial of magical acid. Alex demonstrated the work of it, and Julia was interested in how it worked. She even marveled a bit at Alex's method of torture and interrogation and drew the conclusion that she had done this before.

Meanwhile, the acid continued to eat through the man's clothing, the ice that surrounded him, then eventually watched as his little man hairs began to get singed by the acid. The man finally cracked and yelled out, vowing to tell them what they wanted to know.

"Finally. Just in case you forgot my questions, I'll ask them once more. Number 1, why have you been kidnapping women? Number 2, who has sent you to kidnap these woman? Number 3, are there any of your friends left in this camp and surrounding area? If so, where and who are they?" She asked as clearly as she could. After this, Julia figured it'd be best to start a speedy clean-up of the area, while Alex started up the technical. The mission was finally coming to a close.

The man began to shed tears as he knew he was betraying all of his comrades. He didn't want to imagine the amount of pain that acid would cause to such a sensitive appendage.

"I'm just a low level bandit so I don't know everything. We kidnap women to sell or train ourselves. Some of them we keep for our personal workers. Slave trafficking is a thriving business in Vale. I don't know who is over Solar, our leader you killed! We camp out all over Vale and when we get a mission we handle it. I don't know where our base of operations is! It could either be Grande or Malycio, or even on Mylania for all we know! I come from a campsite set up on the outskirts of Malycio to the NorthEast. Reinforcements will probably be here in an hour or so when no one responds!"

The man spoke fast, getting out as much as he could in fear of having his manhood painfully eroded from his body.

"See, now wasn't that easy?" She pulled down her scarf, revealing her usual smiling face. She patted the man's face twice with insulting slaps before going to get the bandit technical ready for travel. "If that's enough info for ya, he's all yours mate." She waved to Julia.

Before she completely reached the vehicle though, something caught her eye. Alex would grin before moving and retrieving the bandit leader, Solar's, fallen sword. She felt the weight of it and knew it was no regular sword. "What do we have here? This is some fine equipment! Far too fine to be in the hand of filthy bandits. I wonder where this baby came from?" She slashed the sword down and the tip of it suddenly extended outwards. It formed into a sword with an axe blade for it's tip. "Oh-ho, I'm gonna keep this beauty!"

Julia nodded to Alex, after the man had divulged all that he knew. Julia figured that she could learn a thing or two from Alex and decided that talking to her on the arts of interrogation, would be in her best interests. From what she could recall as well, Hinata too was an assassin, and probably had even more knowledge from her past experiences. Julia quickly held off the thought for another time. She had a prayer to say.

Julia spoke in her native language. The tongue and tone sounded soothing, relaxing even. Julia went over to the man who had told them all he knew. She softly caressed his face and prayed softer. The same moment, she quickly sliced his head clean off. She would do this for the man Alex had knocked out, and the leader whose name was, Solar. After decapitating Solar, Julia picked up his mask that she kicked off of him, and dropped it into her shadow. Once that was done, Julia went about the remainder of the camp and decapitated the heads off of every body that was lied about. To make doubly sure she hadn't missed anyone, Julia went into the tents to see if anybody was hiding still. She saved the tent that Solar came out of last and went into it. She figured there had to be some lingering documents or so in the place, if there wasn't, she would promptly take her leave.

The last few women whom had stayed to watch would find themselves growing pale as well at the harsh display of reality that Julia and Alex showed them. They would hurry themselves to the cargo carts and await the two. When Julia went to check the other tents, she would find bunks, torture devices, sex toys, slave materials, and food. In the main tent, she would find a large bed roll, and scattered documents besides a burned out insulated camp fire.

Most of the documents were just messages from other camps detailing what's going on. Julia would find a map with four of the known camps closer to the Night Terran and Vale Canyon. The one they were in was the most close and labeled as the newest camp. It was probably why there weren't many bandits there yet. The other camps even noted an estimate of how many slaves they had. One would only guess what Julia was feeling when she saw that the lowest number on the other camps was 210.

Other than that, Julia would find a note with an offical red seal. The paper was half burned, most likely Solar trying to get rid of it just before Julia's attack. Most of it was illegible, but Julia would see Night Terran, New Kage, assassins, and people's trust. The seal itself was from a royal house within Grande.

Alex had already slung the sword over her shoulder and jumped in the bandit technical, awaiting Julia to finish up whatever she was doing.

When Julia checked the tents and saw their contents, she could only feel the disgust in her stomach swell further. She herself didn't show any emotion on her face, but decided that these were nothing but tools used by monsters. Julia chuckled softly to herself, though, for she found it extremely amusing that there were people who did worse things to others, as compared to what Julia and possibly Alex do as their professions. After leaving the tents and checking the main ones, Julia found a treasure trove information. Messages, an official documents, and a map detailing the other tents, plus the number of slaves.

"Hinata would like to see these." She said to herself and started to put all of the information into her shadow. Even thought the note with the seal on it was burnt, she still took it. By the time she was done with everything, all the papers, messages, and maps that Julia could find, were inside of her shadow for safe keeping. Julia exited the tent, went into the cargo crate with the rest of the women, then banged on the wall closest to where Alex was driving, to let her know that it was all clear to start heading out. "Let's get going, Alex!" She announced, then worked her way through the crowd of women once more, to get to the doors of the crate. That way, should they be attacked, Julia would immediately be at the front and ready to defend them.

After she positioned herself, Julia turned towards the women. Her gaze was softer and more welcoming this time around. What she saw in these women, were damages. Damages that couldn't be fixed completely, only mended to make the pain hurt less. She took in a deep breath and prepared for her second round of information gathering. Julia figured that the ride was going to take a bit, so she decided that while the women were still freshly freed, they'd be able to tell her a bit more about their abductions.

"To all who Alex and I have rescued, I am Shadow. A genin of the Night Terran Village. I am taking you all there for treatment and safety, before you all make the decision to either leave, or stay within its protective walls." She started off with a bit of an introduction and the place where she was taking them. Julia made sure to word her sentence carefully, so that she can get the maximum amount of calm and bring it into the women. "I understand a lot of you had suffered great abuse from those bandits. There are many more camps, with hundreds of more women who are in the same situation as you all once were. Any information will be appreciated from those who would like to step forward and tell me where they were abducted from, how they were abducted, any sort of bits of information heard from around the camp, that you all deem important. I know the horrid experience is still fresh within your minds, so let tell you that this is not mandatory. You do not have to come up and tell me, if you don't want to. I'll understand." She finished talking and took a deep breath.

A soft smile graced her lips. She didn't know why, but even though she quite literally slaughtered many people, the fact that she saved this small group of people resonated with her. Julia took a look at her hands. The tools that were used for killing, actually saved other people.

As the cart got moving with Alex as the wheel man, the air within the vehicle would fluctuate from small cluster of women to the next. Some were holding each other, others sat alone not trusting a single person around them. The look fear was in a majority of them. One could only imagine how this would have turned out if a male had come to rescue them instead of Julia. When Julia made her speech, most of the girls listened, but others just shook their heads to themselves.

They were still in denial about being free. Julia's words, while pretty, were just echos within a nightmare that many of them still believed they were living.

One brave girl, looking to be about 13 years old with half white, half black hair slid from her small cluster to stand near Julia. She obviously held all the pain that Julia would expect in her eyes, and her clothes were nothing more than a torn brown cloth with a rope tied around her waist to make it look like a skirt. She was skinny and scrawny, a sure sign that she had been a captive for some time.

"Is it true?" She choked out in a raspy, dry voice. "The Night Terran...is it truly an all female village?" The other women all perked up at that information. Some of them had heard the rumor just like the girl, but none believed it. Now that they had someone who was actually from the Night Terran, they could have their answer. A sanctuary just for women? Could such a place really exist after they had presumably escaped from a sexist nightmare?

Julia expected all of this negativity within the atmosphere. The look of fear, the hopelessness, the unwilling urge to trust nobody. Julia had only been exposed to it in small doses, but being cooped up in a transportation crate, and being exposed to it fully really got to her. Her small smile vanished and she resumed the persona of the cold-blooded killer.

It wasn't until a small girl, around the age of a teenager, stepped up to her that Julia realized all of this had to be stopped. Julia looked upon the girl in hidden shock. She was thin, small, had a dried voice, and was filled with nothing but pain. Julia knelt before the girl, took off the glove on her right hand, and softly caressed the young one's cheek. Julia nodded to her question.

"Yes. The Night Terran Village is in fact, an all female village. The village had been recently liberated by the kage, Hinata. I can assure you with my own eyes, that I saw as Hinata merely marched into the small village by herself, and helped bring it from the ashes." She looked the girl straight in the eyes. Julia wasn't telling a lie and her eyes held the hope that the small girl was looking for. "She's a capable leader. You'll all be safe there, you have my word." Julia said loud enough for everyone else to hear.

She soon softly embraced the small girl and softly whispered in her ear.

"You're a strong girl. Continue to be strong from here on and when you're older. You may not think it, but you'll one day turn into a hope for girls and women who have suffered just like you." She said to the girl and finished the embrace. She would stand up and take a final look at all the women. They were all strong and capable, no matter what they suffered or lacked. These were people of conviction and those who stayed to look at the deeds Alex and Julia herself performed, then they are strong-willed enough to become great warriors.

"How bout ya let the little ladies get some rest love!" Alex called from the front, her voice seeming to echo through some form of metal. "We're just about there anyway. Once everyone gets settled and aquainted, I'm sure we can let this Hinata know everything, yeah?"

The women in the cart all seemed to hold just a little more hope than before. Julia's words had sparked the right fuse. The teenage girl in front of her tried, but couldn't hold back her tears. She leaned into Julia's chest and clung to her as she let it all out. Julia's words put an extrea beat into her heart. There was life where there once was nothing but wanting for a quick and peaceful death.

"Ladies and gals, welcome to the Night Terran!" Alex called as they began to cross into the village that would turn into something far greater.

It would turn into salvation.

To Be Continued...