Gooodd moooorrnnniiinnngg!
It is a rather nice morning actually, especially because this is the debut date of my newest fic! :D
This is my Kiba x Hitori fic, and it's going to be full of angst, lust and all that other fun stuff.
So far, it's called Entice, but I may change it at a later date since I'm still not overly happy with the title.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of it's characters.
Chapter 1 - Collision
It had been a long day of training for Inuzuka Kiba and his companion, Akamaru. They were both tired and all they wanted to do was go home and relax, but unfortunately, one of the Godaime Hokage's personal ANBU had summoned them to her office. It seemed that something was going on. More than likely, Tsunade-sama simply had a mission for them, and he would just have to accept it and then they could go home.
Currently, they were both heading towards the large, red building, and it was just coming into sight. Since they were just strolling casually, both man and dog got there in a few minutes and walked up the stairs to the level which the Hokage's office was on and stood in front of the door. Kiba knocked respectfully, and heard a firm, female voice from behind the door, permitting him entry.
He turned the door knob and walked in, letting Akamaru come in as well. Akamaru, as usual trotted over to the blonde woman and said a special hello to her, in other words licking her hand until she pet him, which as serious and scary as she could be sometimes, it always managed to at least make her smirk.
Tsunade turned to Kiba after patting the large ninken, who decided to sit down right next to her chair and put his head in her lap.
"Kiba, you have a mission. It's pretty routine, just a simple bodyguard job. I'm sure you've heard of the local singer, Misaki who lives around here, but performs in a large city called Sozoku several hours away." she asked with an upward inflection and continued when he nodded once in confirmation. "Well, she actually lives in Konoha and her manager has asked that we assign her a bodyguard because she was mugged recently and the city she performs in has quite the criminal reputation."
"When do I start?" he asked simply, almost wanting to roll his eyes. He was a jonin ranked shinobi, as of a month after his 20th birthday when he passed the exams with flying colours.
"Tomorrow in the late afternoon. Shouldn't be any problems, but I thought I'd assign you since you haven't been out of the village in a while." Tsunade said, trying desperately to keep a professional attitude while Akamaru was looking up at her, just begging her to pat him. "Here's all the information you need."
He walked up to her desk and took the mission information from her outstretched hand, and thanked her before calling Akamaru and heading out the door. When he got home, to his two bedroom apartment that he'd been living in for some time now, he sat down on the couch after grabbing a cold beer from the fridge, and filling up Akamaru's water bowl, which he noticed was nearly empty.
After reading through the information, he sighed, half glad to get out of the village but half bummed out that he had such a lame mission to do. Misaki was only this woman's stage name, but it didn't say what her real name was anywhere on the mission file. Without thinking much of it, he placed the mission file on his desk in his room and showered.
When he got out of the shower, he looked in the mirror and saw the scar that ran across his chest. The scar he got from fighting against Madara's huge army that he had managed to put together to go up against the largest and strongest force the shinobi world had ever known; The Allied Villages.
Konohagakure, Sunagakure, Iwagakure, Kumogakure, Kirigakure and some of the other smaller hidden villages had all come together in a time of great need and had eventually won the war that had lasted a whole 8 months, and in that time, there was more death, destruction, famine and chaos than in the previous Great Shinobi Wars. Mostly, it was thanks to a single shinobi who had managed to come up with an almost flawless plan and use their jutsu that was some sort of shadow camouflaging technique that allowed her to take down enough enemy shinobi to let an ANBU force that specialised in infiltration behind enemy lines to break through and therefore let the Allied force gain the upper hand.
Kiba had gotten his scar from attempting to fight against two very strong ninja, who wore hitai-ite that he didn't even recognise. It seemed that Madara had gone to some huge lengths to get strong, but unknown shinobi from villages so far away that not even the five biggest hidden villages knew that they existed. The scar was about eight inches long and a few millimetres wide. One of the ninja had managed to get him while he was recovering from using Gatsuga which had taken care of the other shinobi, and cut him with their ninjato.
The Inuzuka had no doubt that without that unknown female shinobi that had healed him just enough to stop the haemorrhaging and closed up the wound enough so that he would survive long enough to get out of the front lines, he wouldn't be here.
He remembered what happened, even though it was a bit hazy and his hand unconsciously rubbed the scar as he recalled that very day.
The shinobi had just sliced him open, and he had winced in pain, but fought on, the adrenalin dulling the pain that much that he didn't realise how serious his wound was. It hadn't taken him long to manage getting the last ninja off balance with his taijutsu and had slashed his throat with a kunai.
When he'd finally stopped fighting, he finally felt the blood running down his chest and stomach and nearly passed out straight after from how serious the blood loss already was. He looked down and saw that the blood was dripping onto the ground, onto his pants and also onto Akamaru who was sitting in front of him, whimpering because he knew Kiba was hurt, and badly.
A moment later, a shinobi dropped down from the trees on the other side of the clearing. He could tell straight away that it was a woman from the smaller frame, and her clothing. She was wearing all black and was wearing a mask that was similar to an ANBU one, but not similar enough for him to assume that she was ANBU.
She turned to look at him instantly, and both him and Akamaru took up a defensive stance but relaxed a bit when she lifted up her shirt just enough for them both to see the Konoha hitai-ite that was sitting on her hip, but didn't even consider dropping their guard.
As the mysterious shinobi got closer, she held up two fingers and let them glow green with medical chakra. Kiba knew that someone with medical abilities could kill you with a single touch, but he couldn't feel any killing or malicious intent from her, nor could he smell the unconscious sweat that everyone got when they were deceiving someone. He nodded once and she continued towards him.
Before she tended to him, she went straight to Akamaru who had a few grazes and cuts. This made Kiba worry more, since he'd much prefer himself getting hurt than Akamaru, but when he noticed the injuries closing up and the pain in the ninkens eyes fading, he began to trust her more and was secretly glad that she had helped Akamaru first. It only took her a minute to heal the large dog, and he licked her hand in thanks when she was finished, and she quickly scratched behind his ear before moving over to him.
He watched her grey eyes through the mask and noticed that she widened her eyes a little after seeing the extent of the wound after lifting his shirt up. Blood was pouring from the wound, and his whole front was just covered with the red viscous liquid and it didn't take him long to get dizzy and nearly fall over, but the woman caught him and eased him to a seated position against a tree.
Immediately, she began healing his wound. She still hadn't spoken, and hadn't even made a sound at all. He could only hear her breathing now because he was so close and his hearing was so good. This shinobi was clearly strong and she was also a pretty decent medic. He could feel the flow of blood lessening, and he was feeling much less dizzy within a few moments.
Finally, she spoke after continuing for a minute or two. "I can't completely you right now, but you should be well enough to get off the front lines. I'd leave immediately before any enemy shinobi come this way." she recommended with a very quiet and soft voice that sounded almost heavenly to his ears in contrast with the sounds of battle, and he nodded knowing that if he did try to keep fighting, he would end up dying.
"Thank you." he said just as quietly and she helped him to his feet before he called to Akamaru and they headed back towards safety...
It was nearly 9.30PM by the time he was tired enough to go to sleep, and Akamaru had already curled up at the end of his bed and was sleeping soundly by the time he climbed in, and soon fell asleep as well...
Kiba woke up at around 9AM the next morning, glad to have a bit of a sleep in before he did his training for the day. He fed Akamaru and they went over to the training grounds and enjoyed several hours of hard training.
They had both stepped up the intensity of their training since Kiba had made jonin, making sure that they would be able to prove their rank on the higher and more dangerous missions that they were now getting. Now they trained 4-6 hours a day, and they also trained with Shino, Shikamaru, Hinata, Lee, Neji, Choji, Tenten, Sakura, Ino or Naruto whenever one of two of them were free to train with him.
There were other people aside the Rookie 9 that he trained with, like other specialised trackers that he worked with on occasion, or his sister, Hana and his mother, Tsume and Kuromaru. It was good to train with someone else every now and then, but since he already kind of had someone to train with, he needed it a bit less than the others.
It was good when a whole group of them could train together, but it was very rare that it happened, since Sakura was now running the hospital some days, and Naruto was being groomed for the position of Rokudaime Hokage, Shikamaru being head of the Intelligence Division and Tsunade's personal strategical advisor, Hinata, who was also being groomed, but for the position of head of the Hyuga clan. Neji was a jonin and almost constantly on missions, and he was also an ANBU buntaicho and Tenten was his right hand woman. Lastly, Choji and Ino, who were mostly working with their parents, learning their clan jutsu and going on missions whenever they were needed.
Things hadn't really changed much in village life since the war, but inside, everyone had become so much more desensitised and jaded to the death and fighting that shinobi faced every day. Naruto hadn't been captured by Pain, and Madara had finally lost his patience and decided to send an army out to try and capture him.
Everyone had been absolutely shocked at the sheer size of the force he was able to muster, but it was more than likely that some of them had been under the power of his Sharingan or their leaders at least. It was certainly a difficult war to win, even with all the five largest hidden shinobi villages allied, the smaller villages who had come to assist, and both Kirabi and Naruto eventually becoming impatient and helping out in the fight.
So many lives had been lost, but they had eventually won thanks to a shinobi only known as the Kage Oni – the name had come from the rumour that they literally came out of the shadows and disappeared back into them just as fast - who had broken the enemy lines and allowed a perfect chance for a counter attack, which helped them win the upper hand and defeat Madara's forces as well as Madara himself. Sasuke was the one who had defeated him, realising that Madara had been manipulating him the whole time but he unfortunately died from his wounds shortly after, no matter how much chakra that a distraught Sakura had poured into him, or how much Naruto had screamed for him to be okay.
In the end, Sasuke had apologised to both of them, and had been glad that they were both there for him at the end. Neither of them had ever gotten past watching him fade away in their arms and both of them always had a slight hint of sadness in their eyes ever since, but they both knew that it was the best thing that ever happened to them, just knowing that they had been there for him at the end and Sasuke, even with all his darkness and everything he'd put them through, had appreciated it.
At around 2PM, Kiba and Akamaru headed home, and he decided to shower and get the smell of sweat, metal, smoke and earth off him before going to meet this Misaki. It was 4PM before they left and started towards the local singer's home which only happened to be just around the corner.
She also lived in an apartment building, and as directed in the mission information, she lived on the second floor and he went to the appropriate apartment number before knocking on the door. Akamaru was sniffing around as per usual and his heightened sense of hearing heard a female voice say that the door was open. He told Akamaru to stay put, as some people didn't like the large ninken in their house, and he decided to take the precaution.
Just as he was opening the door, he heard her huff in amusement and mutter something along the lines of 'Not that it would matter', just loud enough for him to hear. Misaki was just walking towards where he could see the kitchen on the left side of the large room and he was yet to see her face, but he was a young, healthy man and his eyes couldn't help but follow the sway of her hips as she went towards her kitchen counter, dressed in a silver, silk kimono with some ghosted pale green patterns on it.
"Drink?" she asked simply, her smooth and soft voice sounding quite nice to his more-sensitive-than-normal ears. Her voice did have a familiar ring to it, but having hearing like his meant that you could hear someone talk from the other side of a restaurant, so he didn't think much of it.
"Uh, sure." he accepted, and watched as she poured both of them a drink of something quite clearly alcoholic and noticed her head turned ever so slightly in the direction of the door and she smirked lightly.
"He can come in, you know." the woman said, referring to Akamaru, who was still sitting outside the apartment. Kiba nodded and opened the door, letting the dog in, who immediately started sniffing again once inside, glad that he was let in.
Misaki turned around, a drink in each hand, and walked over to him, finally letting him see her face. Now he understood why she needed protection. She was...absolutely beautiful. Black hair that framed her face, and even though it was pulled back into a bun aside from two long sections that hung down to her chest, he could tell that it was rather long. She had pale skin, and silvery-grey eyes that stood out against her long, black eyelashes.
Akamaru began sniffing her, and she smirked again and bent down to pat and coo softly to him, which he very much enjoyed, especially when she scratched behind his ears with her long, manicured fingernails. She took a sip of her drink and stood back up to her full height, and began looking him over.
He felt a little nervous under her blank yet critical stare and was almost flattered when he saw her head nod slightly a few moments later. His drink smelt strong, but that was usually how he drank his own and he took a sip and made a small sound of approval when he tasted the cold beverage.
"So, Inuzuka Kiba, and Akamaru, I presume?" she inquired and looked between, occasionally patting Akamaru, who had taken to sitting right next to her, his head conveniently being where her hand hung at her side. He was supposed to be a tough, strong ninken, but he'd immediately fall in love with anyone who would scratch behind his ears.
"Yes. We'll be your bodyguards for your trip. Let me know about anything information pertaining to your protection or if you need anything." he answered, being as professional as he could. Even though he could be a bit short-tempered and irrational at times, he had gotten past most of that with time, and knew when he needed to behave himself. He was getting paid a fair bit for this mission, and he intended to do the job well.
"Wonderful. We leave at dawn tomorrow. Are you going to stay here tonight, or at your own home and meet me at the gates before we leave?" she asked, after taking another sip of her drink, enjoying the taste and the relaxing feeling it gave her.
"That's up to you ma'am." he replied respectfully, wondering if it was appropriate to call someone so young 'ma'am'.
"Jeez, way to make me feel old, Inuzuka. Call me Hitori. And don't tell anyone that Hitori is my real name. I would just say to call me Misaki, but I have trouble remembering that it's my stage name." she said off handedly with a sardonic chuckle before heading back towards her kitchen, Kiba going back to appraising the back view now that she couldn't see him.
"Well, if you would feel more comfortable and safe with me here, then I don't have a problem with staying, but if it would be a burden, then I can just meet you at the gates in the morning." Kiba spoke, remembering that she had actually asked him a question, and that he should probably answer her.
"Not a burden at all. You're a big boy, you can make your own decisions. However, if you do think it safer for you to stay, the lounge folds out into a futon and there's blankets in that cupboard. There's not much in the fridge at the moment, but there'll be enough to last until we leave tomorrow morning. I even bought a bit of dog food for you." she added, looking down at the large dog sitting at her side, who's ears pricked up the moment he heard 'food' said.
"I guess it can't hurt for me to stay for a while, but I will have to go home and pack, so I'll just meet you at the gates in the morning. Then at least you can tell me a little bit about what I have to do." he answered, finally giving up on trying to get an answer out of her.
A few minutes later, they were both sitting on the lounge with the TV making noise in the background and Hitori giving him a bit of information about what he'll have to do as her bodyguard, although she just stared blankly at the TV screen most of the time.
"Well, basically through the week I stay here, and on Friday morning's I head straight to the city. I stay upstairs at the club I work at for the weekend and come home whenever I'm bothered to, usually Sunday afternoon or Monday morning. Sometimes if there's something special on, I go there through the week as well, but that's rare. I presume my manager has organised that you'll stay upstairs at the club as well, but whatever we can sort something out." she explained, her tone being quite blank and unrevealing, not showing her true thoughts about all this.
"My manager doesn't know I live in Konoha, so apparently you are supposed to be guarding me 24/7, just to let you know, but I don't think that someone from all the way up in Sozoku would come so far away just to try and mug me, even more so if they knew where I really lived." she added quickly, making sure that there wasn't any slip-ups about that when they arrived in the city tomorrow.
"Okay, so what should I do when you're performing and also when you're not?" he inquired, wondering what she thought would be the best approach to take for this mission.
"It's up to you how you want to go about it all. You could just pretend that we know each other and just watch while I perform, and 'hang out' with me when I'm outside the club. Or you could just sit back and watch from a distance. Either way, my boss will know the whole story, it's just the other patrons and everyone else in the city we have to think about." she shrugged nonchalantly, clearly not caring how it all goes.
"Maybe for the first day I should just sit back as you said and observe, then decide how I'd like to go about it." she nodded in response to his words and he continued. "What hours do you perform?
"On Friday's, I start at 7.30PM and finish at 12.30AM. Saturday's, it's 7 until 1.30. Every couple of weeks on Sunday or Saturday, there'll be a private function that I have to perform at, but I only do a two hour show. Most of the other time I'm there, I just sleep. The club provides me with all my basic living needs, and pays for my food, so I don't really need to go out and get take-away." she surmised quickly, not needing to bore him with details when he could figure shit out himself.
"Okay. We'll as I said, I'll just sit back and observe for the first day or so, and then we can discuss the matter further." he responded with a final nod.
"I'd probably think about bringing a book or something to do in the spare time between set-up, sound-check, the show itself and sleep. I'm used to surviving on a small amount of sleep, and most of the free time I have there is spent reading a book and drinking. Other than that, there's really not much in the city to see, unless you like strip clubs/whore houses or buying illegal items." she rattled off the top of her head still staring at the TV screen, knowing that the city was pretty abundant with all three, and more.
"Well, I'm a shinobi. If I wanted illegal items I could steal them instead of buy them. And I'm not really interested in paying for sex either. I don't need money to get laid." he bragged with a smug expression, even though he wasn't serious about the last part. He didn't need to pay for sex, but he wasn't that much of a stud as everyone thought.
Hitori's response was to slowly turn her head towards him, stare at him for a moment with a raised eyebrow and one corner of her mouth tilted upwards slightly before taking a sip of her drink and slowly turning back towards the TV screen.
"What's that look for?" he asked curiously, wondering what she was thinking. She was very hard to read.
"No reason. I just don't believe that you are as 'promiscuous' as you just made yourself out to be." she answered simply, with a faint one-shouldered shrug.
"I'm not. I was only messing around." he admitted a little shyly, scratching the back of his head.
"Indeed." was all he heard from her from the next half hour while she mindlessly drank and watched the TV.
"Well, I'll head home since it's getting dark and I'll meet you at the gates tomorrow morning." he got up from her couch, called Akamaru who had made himself comfortable at Hitori's feet and said goodnight to her.
"Ja ne." she replied quietly as he walked towards her door.
As he walked home, Akamaru plodding along beside him, he thought about her and it didn't take him very long to decide on something; he didn't like her very much at all. She was cold, unrevealing, hard to read, so you never knew what she was thinking, also, she probably drank way too much for her to be in good health, but then again, he was a shinobi so he probably shouldn't drink at all.
On top of all that, she was attractive, which would end up being a bit distracting. He guessed that this mission really wouldn't be too bad, since he'd more than likely have all his living expenses paid while they were in Sozoku, and then he'd get to sit around in a fancy club every Friday and Saturday night and listen to an attractive woman sing as well as eat good food and drink good booze.
It couldn't turn out too bad...could it?
Back in Hitori's apartment, she watched from the corner of her eye as the front door opened and shut behind the Inuzuka and his ninken. She had a feeling, deep down that this would turn out to be nothing short of disastrous. He had already proven himself to be the person, the kind of shinobi no less, that she didn't usually get along with all too well.
He wasn't composed, seemed to be quick to anger, and almost a little irrational, and that was only after about an hour of being around him. It didn't seem like he was the type to plan out everything, like she was, and was more the type who prided himself on thinking on his feet, whereas she did both.
At first, he appeared to be polite and had some wit about him, and he could use manners when he needed to, but she wondered whether it would be the case once they started being around each other more often, and got...well she wouldn't say got more comfortable around each other for her part, but more or less just stopped caring about keeping up appearances.
She was certain that soon enough they would be at each other's throats and arguing about everything. Their personalities were polar opposites, and would undoubtedly clash in the worst way. She was calm about almost everything, he was short-tempered. She was composed and eloquent, while he was rather blasé about being polite and classy when he didn't have to be.
Aside from that, she'd much rather be alone on a regular basis than have someone standing right beside her, watching mostly anything and everything she did. She really hated her manager, Sakamoto, for doing this to her. It was even more irritating because she couldn't just tell him that she didn't need protection. Most of the people in Sozoku really liked her anyway, and the ones who weren't so keen were smart enough to know that she worked for the leader of the Tora, one of the largest mafia gangs in the city.
She brought that many people to the club on the weekends that all the profits he made from Monday to Friday were almost tripled some weekends. Jinoichi, the leader of the Tora, would probably kill anyone who tried to hurt her. A ruthless man he was, but she made sure that he had a soft spot for her. It was he who proposed the idea of hiring a shinobi guard to Sakamoto, and Sakamoto had made it happen.
So now, for the next little while, until she was finished her own duties, she would just have to put up with the Inuzuka and hope that she didn't end up killing him. She would try and remember to ask Tsunade to give the mission to someone else if it got to that point, and if she couldn't convince Sakamoto and Jinoichi to just leave it be.
It couldn't be so hard...could it?
Well, that's the first chapter!
Please review, I'd love to know what you think so far, and don't be afraid to tell me if something doesn't fit or sound right!
Hopefully this will be a great fic, but I'm sure that if you all tell me what you think, it will be even greater! ;)
Til next time!
P.S If there are any Japanese words you don't understand, please let me know and I'll tell you! :D
