Notes: THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT NOTE. I have changed things, a lot of things. I am extremely grateful to the feedback this story has been getting, so I couldn't leave this story behind, though the way it was originally going I could not find any motivation to carry on - and not in good conscience, as my style has changed. With these changes I find that the progress of the story will be better.
On another note the rating has changed and for a reason. This story will have more mature themes. I guess that's it then. Enjoy.
As proper awareness had arrived, three things were apparent. She was wounded, alone, and bound tightly.
Kuki wasn't too sure about the latter, an ongoing result of her fatigue. She licked her bottom lip where it ached, the feel of a liquid and the taste of blood making her alert, if any degree higher than she already was; it was only marginally improved. Or perhaps not at all, and she was confusing it with the fright that slithered down her spine. Another worrying aspect would be that she wasn't too sure when she'd lost consciousness, or when she'd gained consciousness for that matter. And if only to drive her to depths of despair; both her head and her stomach were aching in both different and excruciating ways.
Her self-assessment, vague as it was, answered a lot of questions. It was evident that she had been injured – and if the moistness that gave her discomfort and ache was any indication, she was bleeding out. This disenchanted the hopeful spark for an escape – any plan of the sort would be unkind to her wound and her weakened state wouldn't get her far. She would be recaptured or die. Neither appealed.
An analysis of her whereabouts were not much better, it even made the slim chance of success more futile. The room was dark, seemingly unfurnished sans for her simple chair placed in the centre. No windows, but light shone through the cracks of a door in front of her. Her hands were bound behind the back, and her ankles bound to the legs of the chair. She'd probably been stripped of all her weapons. Her breathing was slow and inhaling was becoming a chore – most presumably due to her increasing anxiety of her situation.
Her memory didn't serve her, which didn't help at all. She racked her brain, trying to figure out what had happened, but only had a vague recollection. She remembered his bright blonde hair and cocky face. She remembered a scream...unknowing to the correct order of that sequence.
Please...She was panicking. She needed something, anything, a sign that it would work out. Where was her sector? Kuki strained through her memories, but came short up to the point when she had been attacked and kidnapped. She remembered the party. Her birthday party. Since she was the last to be decommissioned they wouldn't be able to spend her birthday with her, so they threw her an early birthday party. The alarm had sounded. Yes...yes, the alarm went off because of an intruder – a teen ninja, she knew, but after that everything became foggy.
Her attention broke at sounds outside of the door. Muttering could be heard, almost too distorted to make out, but Kuki listened intently and realized it was getting louder –
"Was it truly necessary to stab her?"
She recognized that voice.
"Look, I delivered, and if anyone was competent enough to tell me they hadn't tripped the power I wouldn't have had to fight anybody. She's still breathing, ain't she?" Another familiar voice assured the first.
The door swiftly moved open, flooding the room with a light so suddenly that she saw stars. When her vision cleared she could tell two figures had entered the room, but when she tried to look up there was immediate pain in her neck, which was bowed low. It was probably stiff from her upright position, making her wonder just how long she had been unconscious.
"Wow, she looks terrible." The first voice stated, a little accusingly. It was Lenny, of the delightful children, and he conversed casually with Chad while referring to her weakened state. Kuki felt a chill.
"The dagger didn't go that deep." The Teen Ninja commented rather sheepishly.
"Regardless, we'll need medics before she's transported."
Kuki was beginning to panic again. Her head would not stop hurting and her apparent stab wound hurt mercilessly. She hissed slightly when a hand rubbed at her blood soaked sweater.
"Oh, look the princess is up."
"I wonder how, considering all the blood she'd lost." Lenny mentioned, the dry comment was met with a snicker. "Chad I would appreciate it if you took this seriously and did something, say, call the medical team and let the underground operators know we'll be leaving soon."
This immediately caught her attention.
"Calm down, Boss. Done and dusted."
"L-leaving where?" a sharp spark of fear prompted Kuki to speak up, her voice slightly cracked from the dryness in her throat, head once again lowered. She swallowed hard when she was met with silence - had she not been terrified out of her mind she might've risked repeating the question. In her current state the better option was to get answers without agitating her kidnappers, she was already starting to feel dizzy again, unknowing to the curious eye that Lenny kept on her.
"Perhaps...a better course of action would be to fraction her memory first." Kuki's eyes widened and her head snapped up painfully, causing her to whimper in pain.
Dread squeezed her heart as her eyes met the faces of her captors. One a dazzling blue and the other a serious deep teal. Lenny showed absolutely no emotion as he regarded her reaction to this news. The other seemed surprised with his comrade's decision and was openly gawking.
"Wait, wait, wait – don't they usually take care of that at the hospital of NTIA? Is the equipment here even stable?" He argued, adding to the panic rising in Kuki's chest.
"Look, I'm as opposed to it as you. But in her current state she has not only the chance to attempt to get help, but the chance to escape."
"What? Look at her, you know that's crazy –"
"No." Lenny deftly halted Chad from continuing with a stern voice that could be read as almost commanding. His presence felt to Kuki like a leader's should. He was in charge, Chad's silence despite the disagreement in his eyes confirmed it. "We cannot allow her the slightest knowledge of her KND training at the moment because of your slip-up. Her team could very well be searching for her right now. We're running out of time, and must be resourceful."
Chad sighed, but heeded the light reprimand and left the room. Lenny leaned against the wall and Kuki tried to get her breathing under control.
"Why...are you...?" Kuki shook and stuttered but couldn't manage to ask the question. She probably already knew the answer, but there were little signs of hope and the least she could do was try before she completely lost consciousness again.
Lenny watched her struggle for a moment before interrupting. "Why are we doing this? If I were stupid enough to let you know right now I'd have to kill you, which would be a waste of energy and resources. I'm not even fully aware as to why you were chosen, I'm just following orders."
Kuki, in all her delirium, could only belatedly feel offense at the implication of his last sentence. However now was not the time to feel remorse for the skill she lacked.
"Shit," She heard the other occupant of the room mutter as her head swayed.
There was a light stepping, the trained soft footfall of a ninja, and suddenly Chad's voice urgently echoed into the room, "The train will be here soon, but so will Sector V. I can hold them off for a few, but I sent for other Teen Ninjas to get her to the nearest checkpoint for the train. We'll also have to bandage her, and tightly."
"Do you have a syringe?"
The answer was yes, and Lenny fiddled with the syringe and a milk-looking liquid he'd retrieved from his pocket, before hastily injecting it into her arm. Kuki hissed in pain but couldn't struggle.
Chad must've given some gauze to Lenny because next thing she knew her hoodie was lifted and a soft fabric was being wrapped around her middle. Chad was untying her from the chair with such fast, efficient movements that the moment the last knot was loosened she fell limply forward with barely any control her own body.
Kuki fell onto Lenny's abdomen, still half sitting on the chair when she was deftly lifted up by an arm under her knees and another placed under her neck. The world was quickly becoming blurry when she was whisked off by Lenny. He ran through hallways and doors before finally a gust of cool air from the outdoors hit her face. She didn't realize she was getting so hot, and she was thankful for the breeze that had calmed her, yet still unable to think clearly.
Perhaps it was her ever-growing fatigue, but she heard fighting noises. Lenny muttered a series of swears and attempted swerving swiftly into another direction without gaining too much attention, but he'd failed.
"Numbuh Three!" It was a female voice shouting her codename. A familiar, slightly raspy voice.
"Numbuh...Five..." Kuki's breaths were short and quick when she whispered her friend's codename in relief. She was being rescued, but as relief washed over her, so did the discomfort of that fact that she was captured in this first place. As soon as she recovered she would fix that, she would stop being a liability before decommissioning. She would be dependable for as long as she could.
These comforting thoughts came to a sudden halt when both she and her captor were harshly pushed to floor.
They landed sprawled across the grass, and suddenly she hadn't the motivation or energy to get up. She was using what she had to breathe tired and ragged breaths.
"Kuki!" Another familiar voice, this time male and accented, shouted in panic. He was closer, hovering over her, checking her wound. Straight, blonde hair took up a large amount of her concentration. "Just breathe," he ordered. "You'll be okay. Just breathe."
She wanted to tell him that it was getting harder to breathe, that her throat burned and all her muscles ached terribly, but her voice stuck in her throat, and she momentarily had no control over her body. He must've noticed the panic in her eyes because he immediately blurted out reassurances that she would be okay, just fine, he would take her home. It seemed as if it were more to calm himself down.
"Those bandages won't keep her breathing, hurry up and get her to base!" Abby shouted, sounded as is if she were in the midst of combat. Wally nodded at her, then turned his attention back to Kuki, once again panicking.
"Don't! Don't close your eyes, just try staying awake Kuki, please, we'll get you safe. Just..." He hoisted her up in the same manner as Lenny did. "Just keep your eyes open."
She hadn't even realized she was closing her eyes until he'd begged her no to. When she'd wilfully widened her eyes, the askance, though simple, began to feel as if he'd requested that she jump over a mountain.
"Wally..." the low volume of her voice surprised even her.
"Please save your breath Kuki," he pleaded, sprinting faster.
"I feel...weak." Every inhale was fire on her throat and too shallow, causing Wally to proceed to beg her to keep breathing, or stay awake, and stop talking. Kuki didn't listen, she needed to alert him on the seriousness of the matter. "They…were going…to take…me."
Breathing hard, Wally responded: "They won't."
She wanted him to understand the severity of the situation. She wanted him to know that wasn't just any other hindrance. She'd been stabbed, she was in pain she'd never felt before, and they were trying to kidnap her. However it was possible that she was overreacting…she wasn't the strongest of her team, perhaps she didn't know what was best.
His nonchalant reply didn't bother her much, it wouldn't matter in a few months, they would be decommissioned and none of this would even exist anymore in their newly-mundane lives. The pain in her lower right abdomen was working up to be too much bear, and she tried harder to concentrate on her breathing, and the sound of Wally's footfalls as he ran, the feeling of him holding her. At twelve he wasn't that much taller than her, but he carried her as if she weighed nothing at all. She felt as if she weighed nothing at all.
Wally's voice was drifting farther and farther away, and in turn her reality. Her anxiety, however, had long since depleted into exhaustion, the sound of Wally's hard footfalls became a lullaby.