Kakashi hid behind a tree. He leaned over and panted heavily. He grimaced as he fought against the handcuffs' bind. Nothing. It just sliced his skin and made his shoulders ache. He peeked around the tree. All he saw was little sparks of fire and pitchforks. Classic.
He crouched down, straining to get his fettered wrists down by the back of his knees. He stepped one foot at a time over the chain and straightened up to ease the growing stiffness in his shoulders.
When he heard voices, he leapt up to the tree. Even with his wrists restrained, he was able to grab the branch and flip and settle on the branch. The crowd of angry prosecutors swarmed by.
"Where are you, ya magic freak?!" one man yelled.
"Here!"
Kakashi's stomach dropped. He looked over his shoulder to see a man on the other side of the tree, pointing straight at him.
"He's right there in the tree!"
Then, like a full-on monsoon, pitchforks, lit torches, and wine bottle were thrown skyward. Kakashi tried to inch into the bark, turning his head to the body to protect his eyes.
"Come down, you little devil!"
"You shouldn't've came here!"
"We're gonna burn you alive!"
Kakashi's eyes shut as he flinched from a butcher knife that stabbed the tree right by his head.
A man appeared, walking towards the people. He was wearing a hat and coat and was quite tall. Kakashi was startled by a sound of thunder. He opened his eyes and looked down. One of the Fishing villagers lay dead on the floor, blood oozing from his temples.
"Go back to the village. Now. Before two more of you end up like him." warned the mysterious man.
Then, like roaches, the people scrammed.
"You can come down now. You're safe."
After a moment's hesitation, Kakashi hopped down, keeping his eyes on him. "Who are you? What did you do to that man?"
"Had to do what I had to do." the coated man replied. "Like this, for example." Out of nowhere, Kakashi felt a sharp prick in his shoulder. He looked at the source to see a tranqulizer's dart lodged in his skin. With a shaky hand, he plucked it out as his vision blurred.
He fell to the floor.
##
Two men pulled into a vacant lot, hidden in the darkness devouring everything but a twitching streetlight. The struggling light bulb desperately fought to share its twinkling rays and revive the shadowy field. In an attempt to swallow the encouraging beams, dying insects showered down one by one onto the damp pavement. Twitching their limbs dramatically, they took in their last sight of the light.
A slim man standing at about 5'11 in a black trench coat stepped out of the carriage; he had a crooked looking scar that ran down the side of his face. Soon after, a medium-sized man with a wounded shoulder stumbled his way out of the small car. His eyes mysteriously searched the perimeter of the parking lot, searched the many evacuated buildings and storage rooms.
They had had two other companions; both elevated a few inches above the scarred man. Oddly, while the largest one was especially weak, one of them wasn't exactly an average looking gentleman you'd see on the street. His disfigured and purpled lips made him easy to identify. They were ninja from the Land of Earth; each especially trained to be killers of their own jurisdiction. But both were killed in battle. By the boy.
"Is this the place, Tsujimoto?" the injured man said, downing a bottle of booze. There were faded stains on his white under shirt and he, to appear professional, slipped on a brown trench coat of his own and plopped a fedora on his head. The sleeve hung lifeless on his wounded arm. Blood oozed through the material. He flinched in pain, clutching his shoulder. "Damn kid," he cursed. "I ought to shoot his scrawny ass up right here and now!"
"I don't believe 'scrawny' is the correct word suitable for him. He did take you down, one-on-one. It'd seem that you are worse than he." remarked the scarred man, slamming the car door harshly. He chuckled maliciously. "Patience Kira, you will have your revenge once the little prick wakes up."
Kira smirked cockily, anticipating the upcoming event like a mischievous child. "Yeah, it's gonna be hell when he does!" he announced. The scarred man nodded and walked over to the trunk of the car.
"C'mon," he said. "We need to get him to Boss."
The bleeding man threw his available arm in the air. "Ya think I can lift that trash with a busted arm?! You crazy?!" he protested.
The man had lugged around various amounts of heavy rope, a huge thick and troublesome sack, not to mention the endless amounts of weaponry, and iron flasks of poison gas to the awaiting carriage far away from the borders of the Land of Tea. He was exhausted, and in a deadly amount of pain.
The towering, lanky man shot a quick glance at the whining gangster, his brow twitched as if to be saying "Man up!" He kept his mouth shut for a while as he fumbled through his ring of different keys in search of the one to unlock the trunk. His fingers were numbed by the cool air's bite, his hot breath slithered in spirals before escaping into the crisp wind. "Fine, you did carry a lot of equipment, after all. But next time, you're at least gonna drive. I drove the whole week!"
"Whatever, I'm injured. You gotta cut me some slack!"
Tsujimoto let out a nasally "hmph" before opening the trunk. The fresh scent of leather invaded the area like a victorious army. It vanquished the damp after-rain smell. He coughed at the dry feeling it delivered to his throat. Snatching the bottle of alcohol from Kira, he took a huge gulp of the liquid to relieve the itch. "Ya got a smoke?" he asked, not making eye contact with his partner. The wounded man handed him a cigarette. Tsujimoto pressed the tips of his fingers to the edge of it and mumbled a jutsu. The nicotine-infected smoke began to trail into the air like a dragon swirling ferociously. "Alright," he folded back the cuffs of his coat sleeve. "Let's do this."
##
"You've finally arrived." A man sitting on a wooden box turned to the pair of captors was spitting tobacco onto the cement floor in the middle of a dark room. "Do you have the boy?" There was nothing but the men and a few sewer rats in the area. They scurried around, in and out of holes and gashes in the walls. Some sat on window panes and watched the reunion.
"Of course, we do!" exclaimed Kira. "Little runt done busted up my shooting arm, Ito!" Tsujimoto was dragging a sack on the floor carelessly behind him, the cigarette hung out of his mouth.
The man in the shadows flashed a smirk. "Good," he muttered. "This kid's gonna really make a difference for us."
Kira stepped up, pushing aside his companion. "So when're we gonna get our money?!" Ito spat out another blob of tobacco, letting it fly as it pleased.
"I'll pay you when I pay you."
"When's that?!"
"When I say so. As you know, money must be earned, not given. You have to prove to me that I am not making a mistake."
"Prove what? We got the boy to ya, had to fend off some piss-poor policemen on the way, too. What else is there to do?"
Ito lifted his head a bit in a mischievous way, a twisted and disturbing smile curled on his face. He shoved another clump of snuff in his cheek. He then leaned forward in his seat, with a hand cradled on his knee, he said in a low voice, "I need information on the Leaf Village. Not just casual information," he gestured at the sack. "I need information from the Yellow Flash's favorite student. Gaining intel on the Yellow Flash also comes with a bonus. The Nine-Tails jinchuriki; and she just so happens to be associated with one of the legendary Sanin. Only this child knows things about these guys that we need to overpower not only them, but the entire Leaf. The best part; I'mma make the little shit watch everyone suffer, watch all his friends point the finger at him as they die." Ito laughed maliciously, the other two snickering and sneer in unison.
The 'Boss' was a little different from the others. He hailed from the Land of Iron, which has been isolated from all ninja-involved wars and conflict, and, like the others, he left his borough to live a life of a gangster. He personally had nothing against the Hidden Leaf Village, but he fancied the sound of people screaming and begging for mercy. One of his hobbies, in fact, was manipulating people to do as he asked like a tyrant. A textbook masochist.
"Alright," Ito said, rising from his seat with a hand in his jacket pocket. "Let's get this show on the road." Tsujimoto nodded. He lifted the body bag by its base and whiplashed it with a flick of the wrist. With hateful eyes, the three men watched as Kakashi's limp body was launched out of the sack and landed on his face. His wrists were still restrained by a chaffy, thick rope behind his back while his ankles were also fettered by the same tool. There was a blindfold over his eyes in case he awoke and caught a glance at their secret hideout.
"He's not even awake yet?!" exclaimed Kira, veins popped out of his head. He wanted badly to give the prisoner 'what he deserved'. The scarred man, remaining calm, dropped the pouch and started over to his companion to rehabilitate his destroyed shoulder.
"What did you expect? His chakra level was completely drained. Not to mention the dart." he said as he signaled the Mystical Palm Technique. His pale hands ignited into a cyan cloud as he trailed it over the gashes. The injured man flinched in agony while muttering insults and what he wanted to do to the 'runt'.
Ito smiled like a fox sneering over its dying prey. He bound his hands behind his back and slowly walked over to the motionless body. "Well done, Kira, Tsujimoto." he circled the body on the floor. The 'Boss' inspected his captive like he was some foreign animal or a disgusting corpse. He pointed around with the tip of his shoe, kicking Kakashi's leg or shoulder. He even fiddled the laceration on his temple, scraping off the dried blood from his silver hair. "You could've at least cleaned him up a bit!" Ito recoiled.
##
"Shall we wake him? It's been a while." Tsujimoto asked. Ito, who was leaning against the wall, nodded and stood in front of the Hatake, who shuffled lightly as drowsiness greeted him back to consciousness. He moaned quietly in agony and stiffness. Sucking in his saliva to separate it from the clump of chewing tobacco in his cheek, the gang leader lightly kicked the young Jonin in the head. "'ey you, wake up."
The healed man's excitement grew; he clutched an iron pipe in his sweaty hand. Seeing this, the scarred man casually stood back, not wanting to be near the captive once the interrogation began. But it's as if he really had a choice.
Kira impatiently stormed over, snatched the back of the boy's collar and yanking him to sit on his knees. Double vision and dizziness swayed him, making him fall over a few times. "Get up!" the irritable man demanded; he repeatedly shoved the Leaf ninja back up to his knees.
Ito knelt down in squatting position and snatched off the blindfold. "Hello Kakashi Hatake," he said. "I need your help."
The boy finally managed to hold up his own head. "...Who're you?"
"A man with a vision; a vision of a world without the Land of Fire."
"I'm not...giving you anything."
"We know everything about you, boy." Kira added. "Your home, your friends, your favorite colours even."
"It's green and black, by the way." Tsujimoto intervened for emphasis. Ito and Kira, even Kakashi, shot looks his way. An awkward silence washed over them.
"Now, before we begin," Ito walked over to the frowning boy. "I want to see something."
With that, he yanked off Kakashi's mask harder than necessary and left it bunch around his neck. The young ninja's hard grimace stayed planted firmly on his face, with or without the mask. His heart raced.
"I've always wondered. You're a handsome boy, a real shame you're the last student of the Yellow Flash."
"I don't care what you know about me. You can't make me do anything for you." Kakashi growled.
Ito smiled, undaunted. "Well, you may want to re-think that, if you know what's good for both you and your precious village."
"My village is strong; they'll kill you before you even pass the gates." Kakashi replied. Ito nodded to the two men in the background.
"We'll see." With that he turned on his heel and left the single ceiling lamp lit room.
##
"C'mon, you brat! SPILL IT!" Kira exclaimed, lifting a severely beaten Kakashi by his messy silver hair. He was panting heavily and coughed blood straight into the abuser's face. Kira growled and launched the captive across the room, making him slide on the pavement. The man stomped over and, as Kakashi clumsily got to his knees, kicked him across the face.
The Leaf ninja fell to his side, making a quiet wince as the bruise on his face broke and released blood. It oozed down his cheek in unison with the waterfall of blood spilling from his temple and mouth. He spat out a clump of blood onto the floor and coughed. "We know you know everything there is to the Yellow Flash."
He snatched some of Kakashi's hair again and dragged him to his side.
"We know you know a way to overthrow the Nine-" added Tsujimoto.
"What, are you STUPID?!" Kakashi exclaimed, blood and sweat stinging his eyes shut. In a hoarse voice, he continued, "You really think I can help you with something THAT far-fetched? Nobody has any bullshit solution to take down the Yellow Flash or the Nine-Tails, considering there is one."
The scarred man bent down next to the bleeding Jonin, whose natural eye was battered so badly, it refused to open. "Look, I can be your best friend here or I can be your worst enemy. Your choice. Give us what we want, and we won't harm you any further." Tsujimoto stated. "We'll untie your hands and give you a nice room."
Kakashi's Sharingan eye that had a small bruise under the lid trailed slowly up to the tall man. It was full of undeniable willpower and stubbornness. His red, spinning pupil spoke, "like that'll ever happen!"
Tsujimoto slapped him across the face; Kakashi made a small moan in pain as Kira re-dragged him by his side. The two were fuming by now.
"He's not talking anymore!" Kira announced. "SPEAK, DAMMIT!" He kicked the thirteen year-old in the stomach and slammed his head into the cement ground.
Kakashi coughed and panted, choking on his own blood. His ears rang.
Tsujimoto sighed. "He's not gonna spill. How about we approach this differently?"
##
Kira spat in the young Jonin's face as he hung from an 8-foot high door frame by his wrists. He was slowly falling in and out of consciousness. "You're gonna give us that info one way or another." he assumed. "You almost ready?" he said to Tsujimoto.
"I've been ready." the tall man replied. The two stepped back a bit. Tsujimoto formed a hand sign.
Agonizing spouts of electricity attacked every inch of Kakashi's body, making him twitch violently. However, no more than occasional quiet yelps came from him. A chakra-sucker. Like a shock collar. After about fifteen seconds, the shocking stopped.
Kakashi dangled there, eyes closed and blood dripping from his face. "Gonna talk now?" Kira asked. He smacked the captive across the face. "Wake up!"
After another fifteen minutes of shock torture, the men's patience grew thin. "How did you take down our men? You must've known something." Tsujimoto pushed. "You were able to foresee their techniques. How?! Did you know about this?!"
Kakashi weakly nodded. Both men recoiled.
"HOW?!" Kira shouted. He punched Kakashi in the stomach.
Kakashi opened his functional Sharingan eye and stared Kira straight in the eye through his shielding hair covering most of his face, slightly frowning at the pain and panting heavily. He bore a cocky smirk. "You," he croaked, exhaustedly. "You don't have to be a genius."
Kira's temper snapped. In a flash, the binds that held the Leaf ninja's wrist released and he fell on his face to the floor. "You think you're so smart, do ya?! You little piece of crap!" he kneed the boy in the stomach and head. Tsujimoto picked him up by his hair again and held him there for Kira.
"What do you think this is? Some FREAKIN' GAME?!" he clobbered Kakashi mercilessly, not leaving a spot unharmed. Kira continued to insult and stomp on Kakashi when he fell over.
Tsujimoto took out a silver cigarette lighter, and Kira smirked, knowing what he was thinking. It flickered on. Then he brought it over to Kakashi, who Kira held down on the floor. "This oughta get ya talkin'." the short man stated.
Tsujimoto yanked one of Kakashi's arms to his view as Kira sat on his chest and held his other arm. Soon a piercing agony shot through Kakashi's body like static. It was scorching hot; an inevitable scream broke from him.
"Looks who's talking now." Kira pointed out, proudly. Tsujimoto plucked out his cigarette and jabbed it into Kakashi's forearm, enjoying the fairly high-pitched yelp that the ninja made. It was pure music to both of their ears. His fists balled, his nails cut into his palms. Tsujimoto twisted and flicked away the cancer stick and played with his lighter. "Now, how about the information?" Kakashi turned his head away from the men, gasping for breath.
"'Ey, how's 'bout we sign our masterpiece? Maybe he'll be worth something in the black market with that Sharingan of his." Kira suggested.
Tsujimoto shrugged and moved to Kakashi's leg. He tore off the leg from the boy's pants from ankle to knee. He lifted it and flicked on the blue flame. Slowly and agonizingly, he trailed it all over the calf to form a circle with an X penetrating through the middle. It was sloppy and messy, but once the blood dried, the insignia would be visible. Kakashi's yelping and bloodcurdling screaming fell into deaf ears and terrorized the whole warehouse and echoed throughout the canyons in which it was hidden. "Your little girlfriend's gonna die because of this. And your closest friend. Your family! All dead!" Kira screamed, grabbing Kakashi's face and staring him dead in the eye.
The young Hatake trembled in agony. "...Screw you..." Kakashi spoke slowly, blood overflowing his mouth. Tsujimoto returned to burning the captive's forearm, smirking at the boy's suffering.
##
"Has he spilled?" Ito entered the room.
The two men standing before him shook their heads in failure; one scratched the back of his head while the other gritted his teeth in annoyance.
Ito frowned and glanced over at Kakashi's motionless body; he was lying on his stomach with his face in the floor, his hair made him look like a moss-covered rock. Blood stained the floor around him and the gangster could smell burning flesh and hair as he drew nearer. He squatted down and roughly lifted Kakashi's head up by his hair in disgust. His face curled in utter indigestion, like he was going to vomit. He placed the unconscious boy's head back down and stood up.
"That's disgusting!" he exclaimed toward the men. "What the hell is that?! Tsujimoto, heal his face right now!" he ordered. The tall man immediately went to work. Ito plugged his nose with plucking fingers. "Ugh, and that stench! Horrible!"
Tsujimoto rolled over the lifeless body and began his work. 'Maybe we overdid it.' he thought.
"Now what? Little jerk hasn't said anything." Kira asked, arms crossed.
"We no longer have use for him. If I'm not mistaken, this is the Yellow Flash's only student." Ito explained. "He belongs to the Nine-Tails under law."
"So..?" Kira said. Tsujimoto eyed the two over his shoulder.
"That means, this boy is the jinchuriki's treasure. He'll be coming, and when he does, he's gonna be pissed." the tall man clarified. "So Boss, what're we gonna do with it?"
"Send him off to the black market, he'll be worth thousands. Once the Nine-Tails comes, I'm ghost." Ito replied. "Besides, I ain't ready to die just yet."
##
"...and so, I want you to find Kakashi and bring him back. This is urgent. That place is extremely dangerous, especially because he is Leaf. Do whatever it takes. I haven't received any signal from him since the battle. You know what to do."
"Yes sir. I will complete this mission without flaw."
"I can see why Minato trusted you with his last student before his departure. Good luck."
"Thank you, sir."
"Kushina."
"Yes?"
"Bring the kid home. And be safe."
"...Yes sir."