Two weeks.

Two weeks of training her two new-found elements, annoying Duck-Ass and the Banshee because she was better then them at pretty much everything (And no, that wasn't arrogance, that was fact), making the Twat's life slightly more difficult, creeping out the people working on the bridge when it was her turn to watch by staring at them too much, waiting for Zabuza the Overcompensator to recover from the cheap shot she delivered and doing her damndest to not kill the whiny little brat know as Inari, Tazuna the bridge builder's grandson.

Seriously, the brat seemed to have the supernatural ability to whine about everything, including the fact that she and her shitty team were there to help them! How the fuck can you whine about something like that!?

Needless to say, after just two weeks, she was desperate for something to do. Preferably cold blooded murder.

Fortunately, she had spent what little free time the Twat gave her searching for Gato's base, and low and behold, she had found it!

How lovely. She was running low on food.

The night air was cold against her exposed skin, seeping into her bones and numbing her fingers and cheeks, the white porcelain resting on her face only intensifying the cold. Her ears twitched this way and that as she moved quietly across the grounds surrounding the mansion that served as Gato's base, the knife in her hand already wet with swiftly cooling blood, a nameless corpse abandoned somewhere behind her.

She moved towards the mansion silently, unseen as she slid effortlessly between oblivious guards that swiftly became lifeless garden decorations painted red with blood, some with holes in their chests, some without. Soon blood started drying around her mouth, the taste of corruption strong on her tongue.

Getting inside was laughably easy. In fact, she did laugh when she crawled in through a window and saw three men passed out drunk on the floor, swords and other weapons strewn haphazardly around the room. She slit their throats without fanfare, purring softly at the feeling of warm blood against her frozen fingers. She snuck out the door and into the deserted hallway, sniffing the air. A grin spread across her jawline when she caught the scent of greed and arrogance coming from deeper inside the mansion.

She followed the scent, killing the few guards she came across, wanting to save her hunger for the Main Course the was Gato. Only to stop just as she came to the door her prey was behind, sniffing the air once again. Two scents, previously masked by Gato's, hung in the air. One ice and herbs, the other bloody mist and hard steel.

She knew those scents.

Her ears twitched at the sound of heavy footsteps moving towards the door and jumped, running up the wall to sit on the rafters.

The door opened to allow the forms of Zabuza and his partner out, closing behind them as soon as they were out.

"Zabuza-sama?" Her ears perked up and she leaned over, getting a good look at the long-haired boy walking next to the missing nin. Oddly enough, neither of them smelled good.

"What?" The nin huffed gruffly and she smirked when she noticed he still walked with a slight limp.

"Do you truly believe he'll do as promised?" The boy questioned, looking up at the man with big brown eyes.

"Hell no." The man responded, shifting the sword on his shoulders slightly. "But if he doesn't, then that's his mistake, because I'll have his head." The nin stopped, his grip on his sword tightening slightly. "But until that happens, I have to follow the contract, which means you can't have him, killer."

She cocked her head, slowly lowering herself to hang by her arms before letting go, landing gracefully on the floor just as the two turned to face her, the boy surprised, the man cautious as they eyed her bloodstained form.

"Oh?" She purred, tail swaying behind her and a grin on her face. "And what makes you think you can stop me, Zabuza Momochi? After all, not even Konoha's elite has been able to catch me."

Her words made the boy stiffen, the man's eyes narrowing in thought.

"So you're real." He stated, eyes taking in her appearance. "The Heartstealer. Did you know people outside your little village thinks you're a myth? A story made up by the Leaf to keep the civilians in line."

She huffed with a mocking sneer, shifting her weight slightly. "Humans," She hissed, mockery and twisted amusement dripping from her words. "Always the same. Even with Tailed Beasts, Chakra and Bloodlines, the second they hear about a cannibalistic murderer that can't be caught, they immediately write it off as lies. How naive."

"You speak as if you're not human yourself." The boy said cautiously, eyeing her warily.

She snickered, making the two of them tense. "Oh, I stopped being human years ago, Gaki." She gave them a sick grin and cocked her head to the side when her comment made the ninja tense even more. "What? You honestly thought someone like me was human?"

"Stranger things have happened," Zabuza commented quietly, eyes fixed on her now mildly twitching form. "I know a man who looks more like a shark than a man, but that doesn't make him any less of one."

"Oh?" she voiced, cocking her head in interest. "He sounds like he'd taste delicious." her sick grin returned and she cackled, before it disappeared and she fell quiet, staring the two nin down, clearly unnerving them in the process.

"But you know," she mused, slowly moving down in a crouch, "It surprises me you would protect him, seeing as he has no intention of paying you."

Zabuza snorted, shifting into a slight crouch, casually removing the sword from his back. "I doubt somebody like you would understand something like that."

"Perhaps not," she agreed easily, tail swaying behind her as she placed her hands on the ground, standing not unlike a panther preparing to paunch, an insane smile splitting her face. "but I can't say I have enough patience to try and convince you of the opposite." and with that, she launched herself at the nin, surprising him with her speed, though not enough to prevent him from reacting.

The man swung his oversized sword, but she simply stuck to the side using chakra, hissing at him as she swung her own blade, aiming for his throat. He ducked and tried to smash her against the wall, making her disappear in a cloud of blue-grey smoke, appearing again behind the man, grabbing his arm and throwing him as hard as she could at the wall, sending him crashing through it. She followed after him, jumping through the newly made hole to land on her opponent's bare chest, ready to rip his throat out, before a delicious smell made her stop and remember why she was there.

She whipped her head around, turning away from the groaning man to stare down the terrified form of Gato, the man (If you could even call him that, seeing as he was shorted then her) frozen in fear and shock behind his desk.

A crazed grin spread across her face as she leapt away from her position on top of Zabuza to land on the dark wood desk, crouching down right in front of Gato, like a panther stalking its prey, her masked face directly in front of his, the scent of corruption practically oozing off of him made all the stronger by her new position.

She reared back, insane smile still showing off her sharp teeth, giving the man a second to think she wasn't going to attack him, before launching herself at him, her mouth open in a vicious sneer.

A piercing pain suddenly erupted from her back, making her howl in pained anger as Zabuza slammed his giant Sword of Overcompensation through her and into the desk below, impaling her.

She clawed at the sword now sticking through her chest and keeping her from Gato, snarling and hissing as she did so, taking sadistic if enraged pleasure in watching her prey's face change from terrified to shocked to satisfied, only to slowly go back to terrified when he saw she wasn't dying from having a giant sword stabbed through her.

She snarled at the man, paying no mind to the burning pain coursing through her entire body, instead struggling to get off the sword and attack the man standing so close she could practically taste him, but unable to get a good grip on the sword thanks to her own gore now covering it.

"Fuck," she heard Zabuza whisper hoarsely, feeling the sword shake slightly. "What the fuck are you?"

She didn't answer, instead turning her head a fully 180 degrees with a sickening "CRACK" to scream an unearthly yowl-like sound at the man impaling her, making his eyes widen at the move that, to anybody else, would mean instant death.

Cheshire jerked her head back into its normal positioning to continue hissing and growling at Gato, but it was clear it was slowly becoming harder and harder for her to move and (finally, in the eyes of the terrified onlookers) she slumped, her hands letting go of the sword to hang limply from her body, a small trail of blood dripping from her mouth and down her chin to land on the floor, her ears and tail, which had been jerking wildly during her struggle, the last things to fall still.

The room fell silent, now devoid of her unnatural screams, the slow dripping of blood the only noise breaking through the quiet.

"Zabuza-sama," Haku finally said, his voice nothing but a whisper as he stared at the impaled body that had stayed alive from longer then humanly possible. "What was that?"

Zabuza exhaled shakily, not that anybody not a ninja would be able to tell, as he slowly pulled his sword out of the desk, the dead body hanging on it like a grotesque ornament.

"That, Haku, was the Heartstealer," the older nin said solemnly, side eyeing the corpse on his sword, as if it would jump up and rip his throat out if he took his eyes off of it. "A serial killer that's been slaughtering Konohagakure's citizens for the past three years. Although," he chuckled darkly, causally flicking his sword, sending the corpse sliding off with a wet "squish" to hit the wall behind the desk and fall to the floor facing the wall, a pool of blood slowly forming under it. "It seems they decided to move past Konoha and bit off more than they could chew."

At this point, Gato finally shook himself out of his stupor and glared at the Shinobi. "How the hell did that… that thing even get in here!? You were supposed to be protecting me, not letting would be murderers almost kill me!"

Zabuza glared at the other man, but stayed quiet, grunting and beginning to walk towards the door, intent on getting ready to fight the Leaf ninja the following morning.

A quiet sound stopped him in his tracks, making him slowly turn around as the sound grew steadily louder, not able to believe what his ears were telling him.

He stared at the corpse on the other side of the room, watching its body move in time with the crazed giggling that had made him turn in the first place.

Suddenly, the head snapped around to stare at him instead of the wall, blood pooling in its open mouth as a smile stretched across its jawline, screaming bloodlust and insanity.

"I told you… didn't I?" Cheshire rasped, glowing red steam drifting off of her body as she stared into the nin's eyes from a black abyss. "I'm not... human."

A cloud of blue-grey smoke enveloped her body and a pained scream filled the room, making Zabuza whirl around to witness her thrust her hand through Gato's back, her arm sticking out of his chest, his still beating heart held in her hand.

She laughed at the way the two nin's eyes widened as they watched the stab wound almost as long as her entire upper body disappear in red steam, swiftly pulling her hand free of her prey's body, letting it fall to the floor as she threw the heart into the air and caught it in her mouth, doing her best to not moan in ecstasy at the rich taste of corruption it filled her mouth with, going down on all fours and throwing herself out the window.

Glass flew all around her as she fell, grabbing a hold of the windowsill, using it as leverage to place her feet on the side of the building.

She ran up it on all fours, quickly arriving at the roof, where she finally bit down on the heart in her mouth, blood spurting out and covering her already bloody face in even more of the red liquid.

When she finished she turned her head, giving the watching ninja a sick smile, before snapping her head in the direction of Tazuna's house, teleporting away in a cloud of smoke, leaving behind two mildly grossed out Shinobi and a whole lot of cooling corpses.

Cheshire let out a big yawn, futility trying to cover it with her hand, taking a peak at her fingernails to make double sure she had gotten rid of all the blood in the river the night before.

Satisfied when she didn't see any blood, she lowered her hand and looked up at the Twat with a critical eye.

"Oi, Twat," she voiced, getting a hum from behind the orange book. "If you're so sure Zabuza is going to attack today, why'd you leave Duck-Ass and the Banshee behind? Don't we need all the help we can get?"

"Ma ma~ Chizuru," her eye twitched at the name. "You're the most skilled out of the three of you, meaning you are the least likely to get in the way or died!" he said cheerfully, lifting his face out of his book to give her an eye smile.

She snorted, mumbling "And whose fault is that?" under her breath, but admitting to herself that he was right. 'Although,' she thought smugly, hiding a grin with another yawn. 'Whether they were here or not doesn't matter much anymore.'

They walked in silence after that, their senses on high alert until they reached the bridge, where they stopped, taking in the sight of Zabuza and his apprentice standing in the middle of it, surrounded by the unconscious workers.

"Zabuza," the Twat greeted lightly, casually putting his book away. "What kept you?"

The Twat eye smiled, making the other man sneer at her, causing her to snicker and flash him a cheeky grin.

"Very funny Copy Cat," the Demon of the Mist growled out, glaring at them both. "We're not here to fight."

"Oh?" the Twat hummed, narrowing his eye at him, casually shifting so he blocked the man's view of her. She shot the back of his head a look, but didn't comment. "And why's that?"

"Because you tree huggers are apparently incapable of keeping your problems inside your village," came the sneered answer, Zabuza's snarl visible even through the bandages covering the lower half of his face. "Gato's dead."

The Twat blinked, stunned. "What? What happened?"

"The Heartstealer happened," the Twat froze, eye going wide, making the missing nin snort. "Seems your little murder problem decided to expand its reach."

"How do you know about that?" Kakashi questioned harshly, making her look at him in slight curiosity, having never heard him talk like that. "The fact the Heartstealer even exists is an S-Rank secret."

"Then you need to work on your security," he snarked, clearly amused despite his annoyance. "Because everybody and their mother know about them."

Kakashi's hand tightened into fist, a hard look in his eye. "Where you there?"

"Was I there?" he echoed incredulously. "I impaled that thing through the chest and it took two fucking minutes for it to die and then it fucking came back to life and ripped Gato's heart out and ate it!"

The Twat's eye went wide again and kinda blank as he listened to Zabuza rant about her, though she couldn't really blame him. After all, nobody in Konoha had ever gotten a hit on her, let alone a fatal one, so they didn't know how hard it was to kill her.

"Whatever that thing is, it damn sure isn't human," Zabuza growled, his glaring doing a good job hiding the primal fear behind his eyes. "Good luck when you finally catch it. You're gonna need it, because I don't have the slightest clue how you'd go about killing it."

At that, just as they were preparing to leave, behind the frozen form of the Twat that masqueraded as her teacher, she flashed Zabuza and his companion a frightening grin, lips stretching to cover the sides of her face and show her razor sharp teeth, the way their eyes widened and they stumbled before they disappeared in a cloud of white smoke making her internally cackle with sadistic amusement.

I'm ssssooooooooorrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyy!

You guys have no idea how shitty I feel right now, but I just got stuck on this at some point and didn't have the motivation to get past it until resently.

And now I need to figure out what happens next. Kill me now.

See Ya - TheGirlyDJ