Song of the chapter: 'Out of Time' by Audiomachine
Chapter two
The blonde man walked alongside his crawling companion, the white straps hanging from the conical straw hat obscuring both their faces.
"I can't believe that Itachi failed, even if it was just a test," he said, "What do you think about this, Sasori no danna? Hm." The crawling man took his time to answer,
"You saw him. She poisoned him but healed him." His thick, rough voice sounded very evil. "I'll handle her. Don't get in my way, Deidara."
"Hm," the blonde man, Deidara, smirked, "I wonder if they passed the test."
Ahead of them, through the trees, a traditional house emerged, with round windows here and there and a wooden porch bordering its northern wall. The paper of the sliding doors was replaced with glass and the porch extended like a bridge to a hothouse. Deidara walked to the eastern side of the house—the one oriented towards Konoha—and knocked on the modern, oak door.
"Coming!" a female voice was heard from behind. Soon, the door opened, revealing Mei's black orbs, ignorant for a second but wide in fear the next. She slammed the door shut and ran inside.
"Kayoko! Ichiro!" she yelled. Deidara grinned and waited a minute before kicking the door down.
"Kayoko!" Mei shouted again, rushing to her bedroom. She took out two syringes from a drawer and used them to inject something in each of her forearms. "Kayoko!"
"Yes!" the girl replied, showing up just as a loud blast resounded throughout the cottage. Ichiro had started his fight with the blonde.
"Let's get out of here!" Mei demanded as she threw her katana over her shoulder. Together with Kayoko, she ran to the back of the house, where the glass sliding doors were. Once outside, they were greeted by another man, wearing the same red cloud patterned cloak as Itachi's and the blonde man's.
His attack came so quickly that there was no time for her to dodge it. A huge, scorpion tail stabbed her belly but she caught it with her hands and prevented it from going in too deep.
"Kayoko, run!" The girl was reluctant. She could merely take a few steps back. "The village…run! Bring help! Run!" Mei insisted.
The Akatsuki member tried to pull his scorpion tail out of Mei's grasp when Kayoko quickened her pace towards the village. He couldn't. Mei grinned although there was blood dripping from the corner of her mouth. The 'medicine' she had just taken enhanced her already above average level arm strength and resistance to poisons. She knew it wouldn't last long but it gave Kayoko enough time to escape and announce the Konoha shinobi.
Seeing that Mei wouldn't let go of his tail, Sasori whipped it around and smashed her against a tree. He did it again and again until the girl fell unconscious and loosened her grip.
"That Deidara…he'd better not keep me waiting."
Deidara's fight had moved further in the forest, away from the village. Luckily, the cottage wasn't completely ruined. Sasori went to Mei's workshop, located right next to her bedroom.
"This is the wrong one," he muttered as he looked around him.
The workshop was full of shelves covered in kunai and other sorts of blades. There was even a forge and various working tools. The air was still hot, the girl must have been working. He spotted a small iron suqare embedded in one of the walls but it wasn't what he was looking for. He was interested in plants not weapons, although he wouldn't have minded some new blades. But business came first so he crawled to a door which lead him to Mei's bedroom. He would've left immediately, had he not seen the black cloak hanging near the window.
"This might just be of use." He took it and continued to explore the room, thinking that the item could be hidden somewhere.
The two night stands as well as a cabinet isolated in the corner of the room were uninteresting. Sasori looked out the window at Mei's limp and bloodied body. "You'd better not die any time soon," he mumbled and returned to his searches.
Help was on its way from Konoha. Kakashi was leading a small group of ANBU members, followed from afar by Tomoya and Shizune. Kitaě was on leave to Suna otherwise he would have gone ahead of everyone else.
"The noise isn't as loud as before," one of the ANBU noted. Kakashi frowned. They were approaching the cottage yet the noise was decreasing.
"Hurry up!" he demanded. But their efforts were futile. By the time they arrived to the smoking cottage, the Akatsuki had already left, together with Mei.
"They couldn't have gone too far. Let's go!" the ANBU captain ordered and departed with his people. Kakashi and Tomoya began looking for Ichiro while Shizune wandered about, observing the damage caused.
"The northern half of the house is still standing. Mei's workshop, that is," she told them. Tomoya found his son lying uncosncious under a tree trunk.
"Shizune-san! A little help please!"
As Shizune and Tomoya were tending to Ichiro's wounds, Kakashi analysed what was left of the battle scene. Just as Shizune said, the northern side of the cottage was more or less intact. More or less, because Mei's bedroom was turned upside down. "What were they looking for?" he wondered aloud.
As expected, the cloak Mei had been so desperate about a few days ago was also gone. But since he was a stranger to her home, he couldn't tell whether anything else was missing or not. The jounin sighed, scratching the back of his head.
"Tomoya-san! Do you have a minute?" Kakashi called and walked in the workshop-laboratory where Mei dealt with plants. It was full of vials, leaves and flowers spread on working tables, flowerpots protected by glass cases, a microscope, medical tools and many other strange devices. Kakashi felt overwhelmed for a second, getting dizzy. He stumbled on his way outside, closed the door and quickly exited the bedroom to breathe in fresh air.
I should've thought twice before entering that place. No wonder it wasn't locked, he told to himself, resting his hands on his knees.
"Kakashi? What is it?" Tomoya ran on the porch, coming across a panting Kakashi. "Don't tell me…You got into Mei's laboratory." The jounin sighed one more time, straightening his back.
"Yes, I did," he answered with a smile. Tomoya shook his head and searched his pocket for a pack of pills, giving a red little marble to his friend.
"Here. Swallow this." Kakashi obeyed. "How long did you stay in there?"
"Um, less than a minute." Tomoya nodded.
"Well, you should survive." Kakashi stared at him with a blank face. "Only Mei and I can go in there unannounced. You see, Mei set up a system of protecting her recipes. If you open that door without doing a certain something, poisonous gas will be released in the room. Not enough to kill you but strong enough to make you hallucinate. My daughter and I have developed it together."
And now you tell me…, Kakashi thought bitterly.
"Anyway," Tomoya prepared to change the subject, "what did you need me here for?" Kakashi blinked, remembering that he had called Tomoya for a reason.
"Oh, yeah," he finally exclaimed, "I want you to check these rooms thoroughly and see if something else, besides Mei, is missing." Once Tomoya laid his eyes upon the mess in the bedroom, he panicked.
He ran to one of the nightstands and fell on his knees when he saw the shards of glass on the floor. There was a broken photo frame lying next to the photo of a woman. "It's gone!" Tomoya hissed, ignoring the shards of glass as he searched the floor with his hands. He rushed to the wall in front of Mei's bed where a large, framed picture of him and his children was hanging, near the entrance in the laboratory. Meanwhile, Kakashi had picked up the photo. The woman in it looked like a more mature and older Mei.
Tomoya had difficulty in taking the family picture down because his hands hurt and because it was quite heavy. Kakashi came to his aid. Behind the picture there was a safe whose door was closed but unlocked. The older man produced two keys from it, one of which was very little. He strode towards the second nightstand and pushed open the door next to it. It was Mei's blacksmithing workshop.
"This shouldn't have been…No, it's ok, Mei was working," he concluded when he saw the unpolished katana blade on the table.
Tomoya couldn't be relieved just yet. He walked to the far left corner of the workshop, in line with but far away from the forge. There was supposed to be another safe but this one was unlocked as well. A square of iron was moving back and forth. Tomoya dropped the two keys and collapsed on his knees. Kakashi took them and tried the lock of the second safe. The bigger key was a match.
"Lady Tsunade…we have to go to Lady Tsunade right away!" Tomoya whispered, hands trembling.
"Tomoya-san!" Shizune's voice interrupted them, "Ichiro-san has just regained consciousness!"
But Tomoya was too engulfed in his own thoughts to give Shizune any attention, regardless of his son. Kakashi left in silence, telling Tomoya to meet up with them at the hospital. The old man stayed alone for a couple of minutes. He gathered his strength and went back to the bedroom. He carefully bandaged his hands and picked up the photo of the woman.
"Tsuneko…This is one of the few times when I'm glad that you're not here." A tear fell on her short, red hair. "Our daughter is—" He placed the photo in one of his pockets and headed for Konoha. Lady Tsunade along with Shizune and Kakashi were waiting in Ichiro's hospital room.
"So, what's the emergency?" Tsunade asked, arms crossed over her chest.
"Mei has been kidnapped," Tomoya stated. Tsunade nodded.
"I know. What about it? The fact is grave enough as it is."
"Many years ago, during the Third Great Shinobi War…" He hesitated, looking for the appropriate words. "I was…I was given a very special task. I was to prepare a very strong poison that could—that could kill even a Jinchuuriki." Astonished silence. "I came up with something. Something very dangerous. But, fortunately, the war ended before I finished it. I locked the scrolls away and destroyed the ingredients. I've never brought this up ever since. I don't know how many people knew about it, either." He breathed in.
"Thing is, the scrolls are gone. The recipe has been stolen."
"Don't tell me—" Shizune began but froze in the middle of the sentence.
"So, the Akatsuki stole the recipe of the posion and kidnapped Mei to have her make it for them. But of what use would it be to them if they need the Jinchuuriki alive?" Kakashi inquired.
"Well, you see, I never finished the recipe. It can be perfected by someone who knows what they're doing. Jinchuuriki are strong. If the right amount of perfected poison is administered to the Jinchuuriki, it might just…knock them out for long enough." Tsunade frowned,
"Is Mei…someone who knows what they're doing?"
Tomoya's lips curved into a half-proud, half-sad smile, "Last time I checked, she was. We haven't crossed paths often lately. But she's been working every single day. My parents have even considered giving up their grudge against her and accept her into the family. That's how impressive her progress has been, you know my parents."
Kakashi thought about Hisayo Isoroku and Setsuna, the elders of the Hisayo family who had disapproved of their son's marriage and cast him away from the village. It was because of them, her grandparents, that Mei couldn't stand elders. They refused to take her into the family because she was a girl, despite the fact that they have controlled half of Ichiro's life and named him their heir.
"Then," Tsunade began, "if that's what they wanted—Mei and the recipe—why didn't Itachi take the scrolls the first time?"
"It was a test," Ichiro intervened, "the blonde who fought me told me. He said that Itachi's mission had nothing to do with the scrolls and that they simply made a test. I don't know who they tested but I find it pointless to test one of their own. The test was…The test was for Mei."
Kakashi's eyes went wide with realisation.
"When Itachi slaughtered his whole clan…I—we were there. Mei saw him. She…she said words she would have never said. Mei admired—no, she idolized him. 'Itachi-oniichan' she'd say. She was happy that he allowed her to call him that. She envied Sasuke. But as she grew older, she was glad that she and Itachi weren't siblings. They were just one year apart." Ichiro paused, clenching his fists on the blanket.
"Mei…Mei cared very much about him. If they had been older, I could say, without a doubt, that she loved him. The test was to see…if Itachi can manipulate her." Tsunade grinned,
"Even if that was the case, Mei wouldn't fall for his tricks unless it's to her advantage. That girl…is too selfish to let herself be manipulated."
A/N: Second chapter is up already! I wanted you to get a better look at what the story's going to be about...although the most important thing isn't up yet. :) Please tell me what you think!