Disclaimer - I do not own Naruto or any of the Uchihas or any other of these lovely people, except for the originals.
Warnings - Violence, Language, possible mature content in future chapters
Reviews, as always, appreciated
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Curiosity, her aunt had always chided her, killed the cat.
She always thought that was slightly silly, considering she didn't really worry about dying very much. But she was still feeling the consequences of her last patch of curiosity, even after her long rest – but still, these people always drew her back. These people, and one person in particular.
She could feel him, still alive, somewhere close by. The twin pitches of brain and heart throbbed softly at the edge of her consciousness. In a way, she was surprised he was still alive – but then again, he had always been the resourceful one.
She sat on a cliff, looking down over a vast city. In the distance, she could see the shimmer of the ocean at the edge of the island, and the other island peaks in the distance. The Land of Water looked peaceful, after all this time. She couldn't even see traces of the battles that had been fought over the land so many years ago.
It gave her hope. Still, she knew quite well that surface appearances could be deceiving – and people, even the ones she claimed as her own, were not always well suited to peace. It might be best, she thought, to keep a low profile; at least until she knew the current state of affairs. It wouldn't do to spoil the game too quickly.
...
The two men walked down the road with the ease of a well-established partnership. They were silent in their travel; one of them rarely spoke unless necessary, and the other didn't really care. They were almost home – or at least, to the place that passed for home nowadays – and he was more than ready.
The last few hours of their journey had been peaceful. The mountain road was normally deserted. It didn't really lead anywhere, only to a small half-forgotten shrine. Oddly enough, however, he saw a figure sitting at the side of the road, dressed in some sort of hooded white cloak. Something about the cloak nagged at his memory, but he couldn't quite place it. He didn't worry too much about it. The woman – for he could see now that the figure was a woman – didn't seem to be much of a threat. She didn't even seem to notice their approach – she was too intent on the view of the city below. The view, he had to admit, was rather spectacular.
...
She sighed quietly, her perusal of the city interrupted by two travelers on the road behind her. The last thing she wanted to do was have to try and make conversation – not yet. Maybe later when she was more awake. Perhaps, she thought, they would pass her by without notice. The best thing to do was probably act as if she hadn't noticed them, and they would go on about their business, leaving her to her own.
This of course would have been the better course of action to take. But curiosity had always been one of her greatest weaknesses. Just one look couldn't hurt, could it? And so, she took one quick look, just to satisfy her curiosity. But what she saw only made her more interested.
The two men walking towards her wore black and red robes, and had on straw rain hats. One was tall and definably one of her people – the shark skin was a dead give-away – and the other was shorter. Only a glimpse of his face was visible. But she would know that bone structure and that family anywhere – she looked quite similar them herself. It was one more thing to factor into the situation at hand. For some reason, there were Uchihas back in the Land of Water. She was certain the reason would be quite interesting, and one to ferret out in the near future.
Unfortunately, the future decided to come sooner than she expected.
...
Itachi noticed everything. Especially things that were out of place, even if they seemed to be harmless. Including a girl sitting at the side of the road. Including the glance she had sent towards him and his partner. Including the flash of expression in that glance, expression that spoke of surprise and some sort of recognition – but no fear. Including the fact that the face seemed to be an echo of familiar, with dark hair, pale skin, and black eyes. All of these things were somewhat unusual. None, however, seemed to be cause for immediate alarm, or enough of a reason to stop. The girl had no chakra evident, no signs of being a ninja, no telltale tension that spoke of her attention on them rather than the view she gazed out at. It was merely unusual. There were more important matters to be concerned with, and so he continued on his way.
Kisame, however, had other ideas.
A few yards past the girl, he stopped, narrowing his eyes as if he finally remembered what the robe reminded him of. His face, when he turned towards the girl, however, held no sign of anger – only a shark-toothed grin.
...
For a moment, she thought the danger was passed – but no such luck. She heard the men stop, and one start to walk towards her. Sighing again, she stood and turned towards him, pushing her hood away from her face and looking up at him expectantly.
"Excuse me," he said, "but I was wondering where your escort was."
She looked at him and blinked. "My escort?" Ok, possibly not the wittiest response, she thought, but excused herself based on the fact that she had only been awake a few hours. At least now she knew it didn't seem that the language had changed. Unless the word escort had gained new meaning as some sort of euphemism.
"Yes, well, this road is known to be dangerous, you know."
"Oh really?" she said, glancing around. "It seems rather peaceful to me." She saw that the Uchiha was still standing a few yards away, observing the conversation without expression.
"Oh," said the man in front of her, "but there are all sorts of villains, and robbers lurking about. Hardly the place for a young, innocent woman alone to keep safe." The look he gave her, however, seemed to imply that she was anything but innocent. She knew a leer when she saw one – things hadn't changed that much. Things, it seemed, were not going to just stay simple.
She schooled her face into an expression of innocent shock, flipping through options in her mind. She still hoped for some semblance of low profile. The options presenting themselves were shredding that hope – at least somewhat – but one does ones best with the hand fate deals. Keeping her eyes on him, she mentally recalculated the distance between herself and the Uchiha. Not much of a head start – but she was also very fast. Hopefully it would be enough.
She raised a hand to her face – show that you are unarmed. At least in that hand. "Oh dear," she said (hopefully convincingly, at least for a moment), "I had no idea!" She raised her hand to his cheek – unexpected, but not threatening, hopefully putting off enough of the idiot vibe to pull this off, or at least have him guarded against the other hand, that might have a weapon. "Thank you so much for letting me know!" A pat to the cheek – anesthetic injected into the skin – and she took off and was away before the body even hit the ground, speeding into the woods as fast as she could.
One thing she forgot, however. Uchihas are very fast as well.
....
The first two kunais should have found their mark. She grimaced and threw them back in his direction without pausing in her flight. She leapt from tree to tree as she ran back around the mountain, deeper into the woods and away from the city. As much as possible, she behaved herself, using her body to dodge the random projectiles and looking ahead to see where she should land, though she felt very rusty at this type of situation. It had been a long time since someone had chased her with killing intent. She could just slip away – but that would be cheating. And would show more of her hand than she intended, at least this early.
A random burst of fire caught her by surprise and made her leap to the right in delayed reaction, hoping he wouldn't wonder why she wasn't singed. She remembered Uchihas and their fire. She remembered Uchihas and their chakra. And now she had to deal with some of that chakra running amok through her body before she was quite ready to deal with it – probably not the best of occurrences. But she could handle a little chakra, couldn't she?
Come to think of it, this chase was actually rather fun. Invigorating, really. It had been ages since her body had been pushed anywhere close to its limits. Ages since she'd engaged in anything remotely resembling combat, especially with someone of decent caliber. As she jumped to the right to avoid another burst of flame behind her, she felt herself coming closer to the location of her closest possible ally. She didn't want to alarm that one, however, unless it was at last resort.
It took her a while to realize that the tenor of the attacks from behind had changed. For a moment, she wondered if her pursuer was tiring – his attacks kept falling slightly to her left. If he wasn't tiring, then it was almost as if he was… herding her? In the same lazy spiral around the mountain she was taking already? She furrowed her brow – this was one reason she hated chakra, it always interfered with her thinking process. Before she had the time to quite process the thought, the woods before her opened up to a clearing at the base of a tall cliff.
It only cost her a moment's pause to process the sight and calculate the jump necessary to scale the cliff – but that was a moment too long. She was pushed to the ground with a knee in her back and a hand in her long hair, pulling her head back while another hand held a kunai to her throat.
Check.
She looked down at the ground and narrowed her eyes, breathing quickly. The edge of the kunai bit against her skin. He wasn't pushing in enough to cut, at least not yet. He was, however, pulling slowly, but inexorably, on her hair, making her head bend further backwards, trying to make her look up at him. A smile flashed across her face. She remembered Uchihas and their genjutsu. A curious tactic to try at this point in the fight, but – it could be interesting. She'd never had the pleasure. She wasn't even sure it would actually work – but it did make her curious. So she gambled, glanced up at his face, and fell into a sea of red and black.
...
The first thing she noticed was the almost complete loss of sensation. It was very very odd. She looked around. They appeared to be in the same clearing as before, but he stood in front of her a few steps. She could hear the sound of her breathing and his, she could even smell the forest and feel the earth under her feet – but everything else was almost absent. She closed her eyes a moment and tried to feel it, and it was there – but so quiet. So small. Almost not even noticeable.
"You aren't afraid."
She opened her eyes and looked at him. "No." She furrowed her brow slightly, trying to remember how someone would feel if they were afraid, but it was no use. "Should I be?"
He lifted an eyebrow at that. "Hn." He took a moment to look her over, as if trying to decide just what to do with her.
She returned the favor by studying him as well. His cloak was black, with red clouds on it. It seemed the rain hat had been discarded in their flight. He had longer black hair, held up out of his eyes with a blue headband. She stilled a moment, recognizing the symbol that adorned the headband. This added another level of complexity to the game.
"Who are you?" he finally asked.
"Hmm," she said, wanting to make sure she remembered her name correctly in this language. "Kaimi."
"What are you doing here?"
She quirked an eyebrow at him, glanced around, then back into his eyes. He narrowed his eyes at her, and she felt something odd, like pressure against her skin – and he frowned even more. She sighed, and relented slightly. "You captured me? Trapped me in your genjutsu?"
He paused. "And watching the city?"
"Enjoying the view." She shrugged, and looked away, wondering how hard it would be to break out of the illusion.
"What did you do to Kisame?"
She chuckled dryly, then sighed. "Tried to avoid a fight." She flicked her gaze up to his face again, but it was expressionless. "He's fine, by the way, or will be in a few minutes."
"Hn." He looked at her, waiting for her to be more forthcoming. She met his gaze boldly, starting to feel the aftereffects of the earlier chakra as it worked its way out of her system. They were muted, but still annoying. She had a feeling her body would be complaining about this little experiment with genjutsu as well, all of which were beginning to make her a bit testy.
"Where are you from?" he asked.
"Water," she replied, shifting in place slightly. She caught the raised eyebrow, and sighed. "The Land of Water."
"You're a very poor liar."
She frowned at him, and snapped back, "Maybe you're just bad at reading the truth."
"Hn."
She'd forgotten, until that moment, how annoying Uchihas could be when they weren't feeling communicative. It was, on top of everything else, just a bit too much. Before she could catch herself, she said, "Like a Uchiha from Konohagakure would be able to tell me I wasn't from my own land?!"
His reaction was so swift, she almost didn't catch it. Slight surprise, slight confusion, neither one of which she could completely understand. And then a stillness as he caught her reaction. She cursed at herself silently, the last thing she should have done in this situation was to give away knowledge. There was no telling what might have changed, or what the current relationship was between Kohona and the Land of Water. But she was not used to having to deal with Uchihas trying to interrogate her; she was far more used to at least some semblance of trust.
She felt it again, that odd pressure, then a slight tugging. She looked at him, awaiting his response to her little outburst, and saw that he was beginning to look slightly angry. And tired, she noted absently – in his eyes. And the slightest hint in his shoulders.
After a few moments, the anger was gone, replaced by a cool expression of appraisal.
"What are you?"
Her eyes widened in surprise, and then she smiled a mysterious little smile. "That," she said, "is a very interesting question."
He narrowed his eyes at her one last time, then disappeared.
She looked around to see him, but suddenly all she could see was black. Then sound was gone. And scent. And the feeling of the ground beneath her feet. She couldn't even feel herself move. It was almost like being put at the bottom of the darkest part of the ocean – except it wasn't nearly as calm.
...
When Kisame entered the clearing, he saw Itachi kneeling next to the unconscious form of the woman who had knocked him out, studying her face. They exchanged a glance.
"Taking her prisoner instead of killing her?" Kisame asked.
Itachi gave a slight nod, checking the bonds at her wrists and then looking up at his partner. "You recognized her from somewhere?"
"No," Kisame said, coming closer to the pair, "but I did recognize this." He nudged at the woman's white cloak, a long garment of rich silky fabric that completely enveloped her body, except for her hands, feet, and head. The cuffs and hood were edged in bands of symbols embroidered in white thread. "There's no way it can belong to her."
"She said her name was Kaimi, and that she was from the Land of Water."
Kisame shrugged. "Never heard of her. And I doubt anyone from the Land of Water would be going around dressed in that, at least not on honest business. Maybe as a disguise, but anyone from around here would know what a poor disguise it is."
"Hn." Itachi took a few moments to check over the body. No weapons that he could discern. No calluses on the hand to indicate ninja training, or any type of labor at all. The nails appeared to be short and well kept, unpolished. No shoes on her feet, and no cuts or scrapes either, despite their journey through the woods. The cloak, he noticed, was pristine. No signs of cuts or burns. No sign of blood or even dirt. He did notice a bit of dirt smudged on her check, and some leaves in her hair. Her face reminded him of his family, but it was slightly sharper, slightly thinner, and her eyes, he remembered, were true black.
He replayed their encounter in his mind. It raised many questions for which he did not yet have answers. She appeared to have no chakra, and yet she was obviously not just an ordinary citizen. She had taken no damage from any of his techniques – her neck wasn't even slightly scratched from where he had held the kunai against it earlier. She seemed to know both too much and too little. She had made no aggressive movements against him, apart from returning various weapons with throws that seemed to be more geared to distract than wound – and yet, when captured, she had shown no signs of fear. And no signs of pain, or any reaction except irritation, inside the genjutsu.
She also seemed to be holding back, and hiding something. Hiding many things, actually. Even if she was a poor liar. She was also potentially useful, at least until they had answers. And the emotion on her face when she mentioned Konoha bore investigation.
He picked her up and stood, glancing at his partner.
Kisame was still scowling at the woman, his fingers tapping against the hilt of Samehada. "If you want, I can carry her," he said.
Itachi just shook his head and started off for their base.