"Welcome to the team, beautiful." The male shinobi grinned at her in an almost leering manner. She punched him in the arm and resumed adjusting her utility belt, checking each pocket for its proper contents.
"Quit it, Daisuke. This is work now." Daisuke, her long time friend and agitator, smiled and handed her a plain metal ring. I didn't shine in the gloom of the prison lighting. She slipped it on her wrist, where it shrank to fit her wrist.
"Those are your keys. All you need is a little chakra and the cell number." His smile softened, but the look in his eye was as impish as ever. "Ready to meet your new best friends?" She punched him again, harder this time, but still playfully enough that all he said was an amused "Ow."
The two of them, tall, dark, and vaguely handsome man and short and light in hair and stature woman, walked side by side down the row of grey cells, each one containing a melancholy lifer in terrifyingly silent chains. Each wore the hopeless expression of a defeated man, beaten by the heroes that all little ninjas want to be when they grow up. These were the men that parents told their misbehaving children would get them should they act up anymore, often considered myths or wives' tales for the sake of shielding innocent minds from the true horrors that most of the men had caused. And these were merely the ones who had been allowed to live. Tall and short reached the end of the aisle, where the final prisoner was kept, looking as miserably dim as the rest.
"I'll bet you've heard of this guy. This is Kabuto Yakushi, the Legendary Sannin Orochimaru's right hand man." She looked up as Daisuke, not remembering anyone of these names. "Ah, foreigners, from the Land of Fire. Legend has it that this guy was so loyal that he absorbed his master's spirit to keep him alive, and merged it with his own. Supposedly, they found records of his history, and figured out a way to remove the Sannin's spirit, but he resisted it and chopped half of them up. When they tried to figure that out, they finished reading through his history, they found all these nutty stories about him. He was a medic nin, a double-agent spy, took on one of the other Sannin and lived, and saw the last of the Kaguya die. And even though he was the Sannin's right hand man, he seemed to be the only one who was never curse-marked. And this Sannin always curse-marked his minions. This guy's practically a legend in himself, except he's one of those seemingly insignificant ones that very few hear about." Daisuke chuckled. "Crazy, right?"
She gazed at the hopeless form before her. Kabuto sat slumped against the wall, bare feet dirty and festering, clenched fingers resting lazily on the frozen floor. The striped jumpsuit he wore, tattered and torn in many places, lay open, exposing his bony chest that rose and fell with his reluctant breaths. His silver hair, tinged grey by the sunless cell, fell messily around his shoulders but not at his face, where a natural bend in the hair carried it into the air and pushed it toward his ears. His glasses perched on his nose, askew, not that it mattered, for his eyes were closed, as if in restless relaxation. She stared at Kabuto's closed eyes, furrowing her eyebrows in concentration. As if by a unnatural power, he sensed her stare and opened his eyes, only revealling a slit big enough to expose the glint in his eyes, full of life and the uncharacteristic sparkle of a mischievous mind. His eyes shut again, having examined and identified the new shinobi guarding his cell. She looked back at Daisuke, the words of question still bouncing off of his tongue.
"No kidding." She replied, warily taking another glance in Kabuto's direction. "He's one to keep an eye on. Must be pretty psycho."
"Powerful, too. Each of the chains on his limbs has enough chakra sealing power to stop a bijuu." Daisuke added. The two walked away, an ominous feeling surrounding her as her mind continued to rest on who, or what, Kabuto was.
---
The next day, she began her guard duties, checking in a systematic manner for any problems with the chakra seals on the doors, locks, and chains of the prisoners. When she got to Kabuto's cell for the first time, she noticed he had shifted position from the day before, and was laying the exact mirror of how he had sat before. As she approached, she examined him more closely, while taking vague glances at the status of the chakra seals that kept the dangerous med-nin in his cage. He looked up, eyes full of life and murder, and smiled gently at her, catching her eyes. She gulped without knowing it, her entire body temperature dropping drastically.
"What's your name?" He asked, simply, in a friendly tone that didn't contain any malice. What could he possibly do with her name? She opened her mouth to answer, and promptly shut it, remembering Daisuke's haunting tale of the pitiful man in front of her. What could he not do with her name? Why would he want to know her name? What was he thinking? She shrank back, as if from a hissing snake, and averted her eyes, shuffling away as quickly as she could.
Breakfast time came, and she pushed the cart, giving each prisoner their food in turn. None of them showed any signs of life or intention of moving, so she didn't concern herself with them until she reached Kabuto's cell. She slid the meal of grime and slop that barely kept the prisoners alive through the slot at the bottom of his cell door, carefully avoiding touching the metal that would instantly kill whatever touch it. She could lose her hand that way. As she retreated, she made the mistake of looking back up at Kabuto's face without her guard up, and saw the raw power of a man who could get anyone to trust him. His eyes only held kindness, his cheeks were rosy with hope for friendship, his lips barely parted, showing surprisingly white teeth that seemed to glint with trustworthiness. She sighed, pulling herself away to return the cart to the kitchen cells.
Lunch time arrived, and once again she pushed the cart around, ignoring the prisoners, who were content with her ignoring her as they slid their food toward their bodies and proceeded to eat without the dignity of manners or etiquette. She reached the end, with only one tray left on her cart, and immediately averted her eyes before sliding the tray into Kabuto's cell. She reached for the breakfast tray, but Kabuto grabbed her wrist with a swiftness that could only linger from an S-ranked ninja who retained his reflexes. She glared at him, but couldn't help and softened her gaze. He was still smiling the borderline goofy smile he'd smiled at her for the entire day.
Finally, relief came in the form of Daisuke, who worked the night shift that day. He patted her back.
"How was your first day?" She stared at him silently, terrified of him and what he was begin to symbolize for her. The horror of the prison cells, each holding one person who, with the right motivation, could easily get to her like Kabuto was getting to her right now. Daisuke just chuckled. "Eh. First day's the hardest. They're all creeps, but you'll get used to it." She just looked past him, to Kabuto, who gave a barely perceptible wink and wave. She paled and hurried away from the prison. Kabuto sank back and became the immobile lump like all the others.
---
She went to the records library and studied. Everything she could find on the Legendary Sannin named Orochimaru, and his fellow Sannin, Tsunade and Jiraiya, and their adventures leading up to Orochimaru acquiring Kabuto as his right hand man. She read about the snake man's turn to evil, and Kabuto's imprisonment by the former Akatsuki member named Sasori(who, apparently, was a puppet with a man's spirit), and his work as a spy not only in the Akatsuki, but as a pretend Genin during the Chunin exams. It wa shere that she stopped, because why would she read anymore. She couldn't see him as evil anymore, not with this small record of kindness towards the children named Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura. How could this terrifying man be so sweet, yet how could this benevolent man be so cruel? Her mind swam with the paradox that encased Kabuto, and without ceremony, without a final farewell, she snapped. Like a woman's mind was apt to do, her newfound obsession that Kabuto had planted in her mind became an infatuation. Her name! She had to tell him her name!
---
In the darkness of the prison, only two figures remained awake. Daisuke trudged the hall of the prison, kunai ready as always in case there was a escape attempt or actual break, but there wasn't one. There never was. He sighed at the end opposite Kabuto, then jerked, and moved no more. She dropped the kunai that had killed her life-long friend without regret, eyes hazy with the insanity that came with anything Kabuto did. She ran past the sleeping prisoners, all too deep in dreamland to realize anything had happened. She crouched at Kabuto's cell, practically praying for him to be awake. He was, eyes wide open and mouth curved in the excited smile of someone who has gotten their greatest wish.
"I had to tell you. I had to tell you my name!" She whispered, reaching through the meal slot to grab his hand, which he provided. He nodded kindly. "It's Onna." He grinned, revealing dastardly beautiful teeth.
"Let me out." Kabuto whispered, his tone a perfect secret, meant only for a lover. She nodded, then shook her head.
"No...I can't." She snatched her hand back and stood, clutching her head as streams of unprovoked tears poured down her face. "I have to...but I can't...No!" She yelled. The prisoners didn't stir, and no one ran to get her. She backed away, crying with open, unhinged eyes. "I have to! I can't! You are not evil!" His grin became a smirk, and his face changed into that of the two-faced killer he was.
"Oh, but I am." He muttered, beginning to laugh. She walked backwards faster, shaking her head, clutching her head, crying her eyes out, crying her eyes out, final straws of lucid sanity snapping in pieces one after the other after the other. She backed away so far that she crashed into the cell across from him. The shock coursed through her body, snatching, eating chakra and replacing it with lightning, electric, coursing through her body, her veins. In seconds she was dead, and the smell of burnt flesh lingered in the air. Kabuto laughed harder. That was the third one this month. Eventually, he'd find one who'd let him out before going off and dying. Preferably before they figured out it was him and not the poor fool across from him.