Disclaimer: I Do Not Own Naruto. (sadly)
Hi readers
This is set about four years after Shippuuden, leaving Naruto and others his age at about age 19. Kakashi should be about 33. I've rated it for swears and other possible happenings. Enjoy!
Where in the name of kami had her comrades gone?
It was bad enough that their squad was one short, as one of her teammates had decided to get himself poisoned by none other than that feisty rosette haired kunoichi in the first five minutes of the battle. It had been simple, really. Go scout for the Uchiha and the Copy-Nin, both potential risks to their humble village in Mist, and bring back valuable information. Return alive and undetected.
Yeah. No.
They'd been ambushed, her and two teammates and their sensei. Dan had been the first to go, a needle to the side of his windswept brown haired head had seen to that. She recalled how the hot-headed Ryuu had almost been next, having his ass handed to him by the Uchiha boy, only to be rescued by their elder, Souji. If the pink lady hadn't been so busy trying to heal her teammates, she'd have never managed to snag Dan (thanks to his baggy monastic yukata) as she ran from the hyper-active blonde boy's swirling ball of chakra.
That lead to where she was now, leaping through the trees for dear life, Dan slung over her shoulders (and very nearly crushing her as he did so) and waiting for- SNAP.
Oh kami. She thought, deadpan.
The branch gave way beneath her as she landed, throwing her sideways with her very much human baggage and ripping her grip on his collar away. She didn't have time to reach out for him as within a second he was being saved from a premature death by a flash of colour. She, however, wasn't so fortunate.
"EIKO!" a distant voice roared, but it was too late, she was already plunging to the ground, her dirty blonde hair fanning out around her. It wasn't until the realization that her life now hung in the balance hit her that she whipped out her hands and hurriedly started performing seals.
Ox, tiger, Ox, Dragon, Dragon, Rat, the ground is getting closer, Snake, Dragon, Rabbit, awww man, I don't want to die, Ox, Tiger, Ox, Ox, Tiger, Dragon.
"Earth style! Nature Limb Manipulation Jutsu!"
Eiko yelped as two strong branches curled around her arms from either side in a burst of leaves, abruptly halting her rapid descent and leaving her dangling high above the ground. From her current position she could see the ongoing battles below and strained her neck to catch sight of her team in action. The Uchiha battled the red-haired Ryuu, who was trying to best him with his many water styled
jutsu, whilst Souji took on both the pink woman and the blonde boy in a small clearing, twirling and flying around as gracefully as though the air were nothing but his predisposed play thing. That left herself, Dan and his rescuer unaccounted for. Her eyes widened suddenly. Dan's rescuer wasn't one of their own, meaning that she'd just allowed an enemy nin to kidnap her unconscious comrade.
Fuck.
It was then that something caught her attention. For if it hadn't caught that, it'd have caught her in the ribs instead.
"Damnit!" Eiko cursed, wrenching her arms from her jutsu and propelling herself backwards with a chakra laden kick to the branches as a neat array of shuriken flew towards her. She back flipped to avoid most of them and landed on another limb below, dragging a kunai from the pouch at her waist and taking on a defensive stance, the headband tied loosely around her neck clinking as she peered around. She doubted her enemy would take long to show, especially if they planned to finish her off quickly; it was just how he appeared before her that caught her by surprise.
Particularly when he materialized from nowhere, upside down, silver shock of hair standing on end, and sharingan eye swirling. Her legs and arms suddenly felt heavy, as the tomoe in his eye spun, drawing her into his Genjutsu world as easily as a child beguiled with candy. Kakashi dropped from his branch and landed just in time on hers to catch the woman as she pitched forward, brown eyes closed and humongous bell-sleeved arms swaying uselessly, letting a razor sharp kunai fall to the forest floor below in the process.
Okay, so maybe the Sharingan was a slight overkill, but now he had another unconscious Mist spy to add to his collection. And this one was slightly more pleasing to the eye.
--
The Mist nin was yet to come around, proven yet again by her fretful sleep while the infamous Copy-Nin observed her over the top of his favourite orange novel. If she moved too drastically the ropes that bound her wrists would start to chafe and he'd have hell to pay when she woke. He could tell because Sakura watched his lazy display of "guarding" with a frown and her hands on her hips.
"You shouldn't let her move around like that, Kakashi-sensei. She could hurt herself" Sakura said simply, lifting a hand from her hip to tap her chin in thought. Kakashi smirked behind his mask.
"I have strict orders from Tsunade, Sakura-chan" he responded, his single black eye flicking back to the wonders of Icha Icha. Sakura snorted and bent down, laying a hand gently on the shoulder of the comatose nin curled up on her sensei's floor. When her hand glowed green she frowned and concentrated harder, finding and healing wounds she was sure team seven hadn't caused. Apparently
the Mist nin had already encountered some trouble before they were ambushed by their own targets. Sakura couldn't help but smirk then, in memory of their victory, and inner Sakura seized the chance to gloat belatedly.
Cha! Now we're just as good as, if not better than the boys!
Yeah but we landed Sasuke in hospital because of that tall, tanned, Souji guy.
But you've healed him now, and Sasuke's been assigned to interrogate and guard him! He couldn't beat us!
Maybe. But I'm not looking forward to a month of interrogating that Ryuu nin.
Whatever. He's hot.
Sakura rolled her eyes and the chakra waned from her hand. She stood up and dusted off her skirt, turning to Kakashi, who wasn't paying attention.
"From what I've read and studied about her, she's got a large amount of chakra, but not as much as Naruto, and as we can see-" Sakura gestured vaguely to the body on the floor, "-she's extremely vulnerable to genjutsu." She glared at him pointedly then and the man seemed to sink into his chair. He hadn't meant for her to be so thoroughly, eh, unconscious.
"Anyway," Sakura continued, "Her techniques are mainly earth and wind type, and her taijutsu training is exceptional in the areas of speed and stamina, though her accuracy is pretty appalling. Her left shoulder has been fractured several times and is significantly weakened, she counters for this by supplying more chakra to the area and so she'll often favour it subconsciously. Recently, she's broken two ribs on the right side of her sternum and received a kunai wound to the left thigh, all you should be able to see is bruising though, as she's already been given chakra infused healing."
Kakashi blinked.
"Is that all Sakura-chan?" he asked and his ex-student nodded, hoisting her medical bag over her shoulder.
"I have to get back to the hospital. And then my apartment. To deal with my own Mist nin. See you later Kakashi" she said, yawning, as she headed for the door of his apartment. He gave her his usual eye-crease and wave before he heard the door close behind her. He dropped the façade then.
And why?
Well, his Mist nin was waking up.
--
"Dan! Give me a kunai! I lost some in practice this morning," a loud boy demanded, running his hands through his flaming hair while he sat ungraciously back on the cart. An expressionless and unusually pale boy on the other side of the cart scowled.
"Ryuu, you had them confiscated by Souji-sensei. How many times have I told you about your behavior?" he asked, "I already have to pray for an extra hour because you keep neglecting your Shrine Guard duty. Your shifts are only two hours long; did you really have to sleep through all of it?"
The red haired one shrugged and flicked a piece of dirt from his sleeveless crimson vest, the long black sleeves of his undershirt falling over his fingers.
"Yeah. I think I did"
Dan glared at him until an inconspicuous cough drew his attention to a peaceful, tanned man, sitting cross-legged on the left side of the bustling cart.
"Anymore noise, and you'll wake her," the man said casually, his eyes creasing, "and I don't really want to be the one at the giving end of her wakeup call."
Dan and Ryuu blinked, peering at the girl sprawled haphazardly next to her sensei, her hair fanned out around her and her breathing heavy.
They were silent for the remainder of the trip.
--
Eiko's world came spinning back into reality, the genjutsu world blurring and shattering in her mind, only to be replaced by the close-up image of what appeared to be floorboards.
What the hell?
Registering the fact that there was another chakra signal in the room, she snapped her eyes closed and went rigid. Of course, she didn't take note of the fact that she was a fretful sleeper and that by stopping her frantic movements, she'd just proved to her guard that she was indeed, very much awake. And said jounin guard smirked once more.
"I wouldn't bother pretending, if I were you" a voice murmured darkly and the body on the floor cringed under her overly large grey yukata.
Damn him
"Where am I?" she asked tentatively, discretely sending strands of chakra into the ropes that bound her hands and feet.
"In captivity," was the dry response.
"Where is my team?" again, a normal question, coupled with a none too out of the ordinary escape attempt.
"In captivity," short and sweet, yet again.
"What do you want?" she asked, gritting her teeth when the ropes refused to budge, a few more strands of chakra and she should have them off in no time.
"You, in captivity." She rolled her eyes.
"What do I have to do to leave here?" Not far longer to go now…
"Kill me." He answered casually, lifting his eyes to her.
Eiko gasped suddenly, jerking her hands in a wild attempt to rid herself of the charge of foreign chakra that had just surged from her bindings and into her system. The man behind her chuckled and her breath hitched. Perhaps she'd underestimated the simple things in this situation, such as the binds, which bit back…
"You'll find that its rather hard to cut chakra infused ropes with your own chakra, Eiko-chan" Kakashi said coolly, flipping a page. "And it is my chakra your feeling. I can send a surge through you at any given time, particularly if you decide to, uh, misbehave."
"Define misbehave" Eiko demanded, eyeing the room. It was square, one cushioned red chair sat in the corner next to a side-table and lamp, a couch aligned the wall to its left, and a door sat to the far left of that. In front of her stood a coffee table and a bookshelf, with a large window that accompanied the wall above her head.
Another page turned.
"Consider any movement without my permission futile. Like talking" he said, as casual as ever, a surge accompanied his words, and Eiko winced. Obviously, he was none too fond of her mouth. Whatever, she'd just have to wait it out until she figured out exactly what she was going to do to get out of here.
--
It was silent.
Eerily even. He'd become so attuned to her heavy breathing and the steady rise and fall of her chest that the time seemed to fall away, measured only by the shadows behind the curtain and the steady increase of the Icha Icha page number. His hands were warm and his body too, so it was with reluctance that he stood and stretched languidly, prodding the sleeping nin with his foot as to provoke a reaction. When
nothing happened, he frowned, staring at the figure at his feet with new interest before bending down to grasp her arm.
Something was very wrong. He could feel it.
And boy, he could feel it alright.
She was freezing.
Instantly, Kakashi let her go and moved his hand to her forehead. Ice cold. He rolled her over to face him and noticed for the first time, that her heavy breathing had had nothing to do with her sleep. Her lips were blue, her features drawn and her skin as pale as he had ever seen. Her head lolled to the side and he slid his finger to her pulse, feeling it beat once… twice… then stop altogether…
"Oh kami" he muttered, immediately swinging the girl into his arms and standing, dispelling all the barriers he'd put up to forcibly prevent her from leaving alive. Her head crashed against his chest, and he hoisted her further up, gripping across her shoulders and under her knees in bridal style. He strolled down the hall and through the kitchen, past the bathroom and into the bedroom, where he unceremoniously dropped her and pushed up his headband, sliding over her with his red eye swirling.
There.
His chakra from the surges still lingered in her forearms and ankles, some strains leading higher than others, though it was the one that reached her heart that bothered him the most. Due to the extra channels in her left shoulder, a string of his chakra from the surge had soared through her body and found her heart, unprotected from the broken ribs and her depleted chakra reserves. Every surge would have sent the heart a nasty shock, until eventually it altogether stopped working. He'd been killing her silently, while he read away at his porn.
Kakashi gritted his teeth. This was not how he had planned for his interrogation to commence, and he'd be damned if he let Konoha lose a valuable insight to enemy nin.
The bounds hit the floor first and he pressed his hand to her chest, frowning.
"Chidori"
Whitelight burst around the room, casting shadows over the curtained window and large bed.
THUMP.
And that's when he noticed her chest heaving again.
She was alive. Kakashi moved his hand away, and noted vaguely that she was shivering.
His frown edged into a broad smirk.
Okay, so, I hope you enjoyed the prologue.
I plan on making the other chapters much, much longer. But that's assuming anyone actually enjoys it. So please tell me? T.T"
This is my first ever fanfiction, so please leave comments on how I can improve, o.o
Thanks,
- LLama-chan.