Ode of the Hermits
Chapter Two
She could feel the blade cut into her throat, deeper and deeper, right along her oesophagus. She didn't dare to breathe, though if she had to she would go out with one last bang and then maybe – hopefully – have found a place in the Tomb.
It was highly unlikely, but at least she could die with that hope.
"I didn't," she whispered, willing nothing to move but her lips, "take off your mask." Please let that mean something to him. In her village respecting a person's secrets proved you were honourable. It meant that you were trustworthy, that you wouldn't pry.
Not that they had many secrets to begin with.
The kunai lightened up imperceptibility. He was letting her talk, which was a good thing because she didn't have a clue as to whether ANBU were allowed to speak during their missions or not. Or maybe they had their tongues cut out so that they would be less likely to spill any secrets? She didn't know – but she wanted to.
She would die to get out of her village. To get out of the seclusion, the bigotry, the fucking house. She would die, and most likely by this ninja's hand.
Which was better than the execution she was waiting for in the vague future.
"I don't have money," best to get that clear first; she couldn't hire him. "I want you to help me escape."
The kunai was pressed closer and up, so that the flat edge rested against the bottom of her jaw and the tip against her jugular.
Her heart was beating erratically – it was the most alive she had felt in years. "You just have to melt off the seal on the posts."
This wasn't getting anywhere. The ANBU moved the kunai so that its edge lay against her jugular… but she had free access to speak. She bit her lip before swallowing down all the acidic saliva down. "I found you just outside the perimeter," no need to mention how she had dragged his body with a fire poker over until she could reach, "you were wounded – I fixed it," tried to was the more accurate term, because there was no way that she had done it properly but hey – he was still standing and still very capable of killing her so she must have done something right?
He moved back, keeping the kunai at the ready, but seemed more than happy to just book it right out of there. No, that wasn't supposed to happen!
"If you're not going to help me get out then kill me!" End it! End this house and end the ever-pressing need to commit suicide and damn her soul and screw every last shred of family honour she had. She needed his help, not his compassion, not his loyalty.
Looking up, he was already gone.
She didn't care which jutsu he had used.
It was over.
She searched the floor for the next answer, and ran a hand through her ratted hair, pulling it back and away from her face. She cursed, then cursed again, and then turned her attention to the table in the room – the kitchen. The damn cake was in the corner, rotting in the sun.
She flipped the table over, and screamed.
If was so… frustrating. She had been waiting twelve years for the chance and it had just disappeared. It didn't even have the decency to walk out of her door. She heaved, each exhale a scream of disappointment, before she fell to a crouch and dug her hands into her hair and pulled.
Every follicle of hair could be ripped out for all she cared.
A quick laugh erupted from her. Maybe this time they will actually execute her. Rid her of this feeling and be done with it. Being caged and idle and isolated was one of the worst things they could have done to her. Torture of a psychological level, except rather than pressing pain they pressed loneliness.
We are born alone, we live alone, and we die alone.
Why did she have to live that out in the literal sense?
She needed air. At the very least she could soak in as much of the sky as she could before she would be dragged to the Centrepoint and shoved face down to await for a massive axe to hopefully kill her in one blow.
She didn't have that luck.
Then again, at least she would be getting a haircut soon. Having no access to knives or wire for years didn't leave a lot of options to trim one's hair.
Yeah, it was going to be alright. Goro may even really get her that chocolate, and for the next two weeks she could lay down in her garden and slowly eat it… thinking about flying, or what life would be like had she never been picked up by her father…
What it would have been like if she had been left alone near the borders of Amegakure.
She wiped her cheeks, checking for dampness, but found most of the frustration had yet to escape her eyes. Good. At least she could have that bit of dignity.
Opening the door, she froze. There, in the middle of the little path that Goro and Kagami often used was the silver haired ANBU, back to her, leaning heavily on one leg.
"If you want to die, why not just end it?"
The question he asked brought her to a pause, or maybe it had something more to do with the fact that he wasn't halfway back to wherever it was that he had come from, she didn't know. "It's against our culture."
"So?"
Not that it was any of his business, but hey – last words of a dead woman had a lot of weight, didn't they? "I'd rather not be humiliated like that."
"And asking someone to kill you isn't?"
When he put it like that there wasn't that much of a difference. "Ignore that."
"You were quite adamant about it."
She clenched her jaw. "It's less embarrassing then having your head cut off." In the mud, with the scent of corpses and shit in the air, surrounded by the village as they waited for it. They watched it – there was nothing else interesting to do.
They had probably been waiting for her to die for nine years.
"Your village is going to execute you?" The ANBU turned at that, tilting his head towards her. He shrugged. "Huh."
"They want secrets I don't have." Screw holding the lie that she had impressive techniques stored away in her little brain. If sympathy would get her there, then so be it. "I'll do anything." Please, she begged in her mind, please help.
She didn't want him to crush her hopes for the second time.
"Anything, anything?"
Even what he was suggesting. "Of course."
"You're quite desperate, aren't you?" It was almost like he was teasing her, but if she wanted out she would just have to shut up and take it.
"I'm," she tilted her head towards the ground, swallowing her already dead pride down, "grovelling at your feet, lord ANBU."
She imagined his eyebrow quirking upwards. "And here I was under the impression that grovelling meant that you had to be on your hands and knees."
Her lips pulled back in distaste, but she hurried down the three stone steps to the ground and practically threw herself on the ground by his feet in a very low bow, her fists holding her up from her nose touching the ground.
"And the begging?"
"Please."
He tsked his tongue. "I think you can do better than that."
"I will be your personal slave as long as it means I'm not locked up here." Even if it meant she would be locked up in another, more sinister prison… twelve years was just far too much. That, and she could still hold out for the hope that there would be other inmates to talk to.
"That's quite the impressive offer," he hummed to himself, thinking about it. "Though I don't I have much need for a slave right now, sorry to say." She could feel the body heat of his feet leave. "I guess I'll take my leave then."
Her head snapped up, just in time to catch his wave… and his impressive limp.
Something was wrong with his leg.
"Wait!" There was something she could honestly give him that he would need. "You're hurt."
He paused, not saying anything. She didn't know if it was an invitation to keep talking or what, or if he was just realizing the fact now or what but none of it mattered. "This village is very hard to find – it's in the valley of a mountain you can only get to if you're coming from Iwa, but you had to have come the long way—"
"And who's to say that I'm not an Iwa-nin?"
A guess, a hope, a plea to Kami. "If you're aim is any other village… or country… the fastest way is to go through the mountains." Mountains couldn't change – the passages had to be the same; they wouldn't change the tunnels around just because she was locked up in a house.
"And walking through a mountain is the solution to my injury."
"They're goat paths." Something else, something else… "It will cut your travel time in half. Less time to be on your feet."
He seemed to think about it, the mask incredibly deceiving. The curled mouth of the dog or wolf or whatever it was supposed to be made it look like he was laughing at her.
"Your plans after being let out?"
Plans? She had a million different plans. She wanted to travel the world, to taste a million different foods – to live enough to make up for the twelve years she had been locked away and the eleven before she had been trapped in the village. "I don't know. Eat food that I didn't make, I guess." Hot, steaming food that she had never tasted before… whether it is good or bad.
"That's rather simple."
"I have more!" She bent her head back to the ground, and somehow found the dark space of her body comforting. "That's just the first thing I want to do."
"What about being a kunoichi?"
"I haven't trained in twelve years." It was pretty hopeless ambition to go for now, not to mention how unlikely it was that a Hidden Village would even consider allowing them into their ranks. "The best I can do is make low-level seals."
"Even those in the right hands can be dangerous."
"Then I promise not to go anywhere near a Hidden Village." She pressed her forehead into the dirt. "I swear on my life."
"The life you asked me to take not ten minutes ago? Some promise."
"On my honour, then."
"You're still asking me to break you out so you won't have to face execution. Not all that honourable, betraying your village and all that. You'll become a nuke-nin."
"Can't be a nuke-nin if no one knows that this village exists." They didn't even have headbands for Kami's sake. They were as isolated as possible, inbred, and stupid. Everyone was very incredibly stupid.
"I assure you, you can."
She could feel her teeth grinding. "I baked you a cake?"
"Oh, you did? How thoughtful." It wasn't poisoned, either, you crap ass ninja-man. If she had poison she may have been too tempted to end it herself, humiliation or not.
"Please."
The masked man inclined his head, and began to twirl the kunai that had, she realized, always been in his hand. "No."
You've got to be kidding me.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed it! Please R&R!