The girl doesn't wake up for days. Itachi and Konan take turns watching over her but she has yet to show any signs of waking. Sasori has been back a couple times to check her over and her body does appear to be healing but the chances of her waking decrease with each passing day.
Pain has begun to grow impatient and after the 9th day he summons Itachi to his office. "I can't keep you hear any longer. I need you out there gathering information for me. We have a lead on where Orochimaru may be and I need you and Kisame to look into it," he tells the raven haired ninja.
"What would you like us to do if we do find him?" Itachi questions.
"Nothing for now, just confirm his location and report back to me as soon as possible. Now go. Kisame should be waiting for you. I've already explained everything to him."
"Understood," Itachi says and then bows before leaving and going to meet up with Kisame.
Pain watches him go before turning to go out onto his balcony. He watches as paper butterflies begin to fly past him.
"I'll look over the girl," Konan says as she materializes behind the orange haired ninja.
"Why do you care so much for that child. You don't know her. For all we know she could be a danger to us all," Pain says, looking over at Konan for a second before turning his gaze to the sky.
"Someone has to," she says. "She's obviously lost her parents and been tortured by Orochimaru. No one deserves that."
"That may be true but we have no time to worry about a child. I mean can you imagine, a criminal organization taking care of a child," he asks with a bit of a chuckle.
"Well what are we going to do with here then? Just leave her somewhere to fend for herself and hope she survives?" Konan asks.
"We managed to do it."
"You know as well as I do we wouldn't have made it much longer if Jiraiya hadn't found us and trained us. We'd all be dead right now," She snaps a bit.
"Konan we are not taking care of that child. That is final. You are welcome to figure out what we're going to do with her, but she can't stay here," Pain snaps at her.
"When did you become so cold Nagato?" She asks.
"Do not utter that name here ever again!" Pain exclaims and turns to glare at her.
Konan flinches. "My apologies… Pain. I'll leave you alone now," She says and then goes into the base and away from the other ninja.
Itachi and Kisame quickly make their way to the place Pain had told them about. It was only a couple hours from the rain village so the trip was relatively quick compared to others they've made in the past.
"So I heard you brought a little girl back with you when you were supposed to raid Orochimaru's base," Kisame says as they walk through the forest towards their destination.
"Yes, I'm sure everyone has heard by now. What about it?" Itachi asks his partner.
"I just want to know why," Kisame replies. "It's not like you to go against orders. If I didn't know better I'd think you'd gone soft Itachi."
"I have my reasons Kisame. Believe me I have not gone soft," Itachi says.
"I hear that she posses the Sharingan. Is it true?" the shark like ninja questions.
"She did, yes. But she can't use it anymore," Itachi answer calmly.
"I thought you'd killed your whole clan. Was there another survivor besides your baby brother?" Kisame ask curiously.
"No, she's only three. She wasn't even alive back then," the Uchiha answers.
"Then where did she come from? Don't tell me you have some secret family that we don't know about," Kisame jokes.
Itachi looks at him when he says this. "No I don't. What are you trying to say Kisame?"
"Well I saw her the other day and she does look a bit like you. You ever have a one night stand while out on a mission? Every man gets those urges now and again, even you can't deny that."
"I've never done that," Itachi says. "We need to move faster."
Kisame watches as the younger ninja begins to run and smirks a bit. However, he says nothing and just follows the Uchiha.
After finding out that Orochimaru was not where the lead said he would be, Itachi and Kisame report to Pain before returning to their rooms to get some much needed rest. It had been a tiring journey for the both of them and it was disappointing when they found nothing.
On their way to the living quarters they are stopped by Konan who appears to have been waiting for them. "She woke up while you were away. Sasori is with her now. Once he's done you're welcome to see her." She tells Itachi.
Kisame listens to the conversation curiously.
"Thank you for informing me Konan. I'll be there as soon as I can be," Itachi says.
Konan nods. "Alright. I'll be reporting to Pain then," she says and then disappears quickly as she turns into bits of paper and flies past them down the dark hallway.
"Well I suppose I'll let you do what you need to do then," Kisame says before walking a little farther down the hallway and going into his room.
Itachi watches him go before going down the hall and taking a left into another hallway where he enters the first room on the right.
Once inside the room he removes his cloak and puts it on the back of his chair by his desk in the corner of the room. He sighs and removes the hair tie from his hair and runs his fingers through it to untangle it a little. He sits in his chair and removes the pouches with his ninja tools, setting them aside on his desk to be sorted through later. He was tired but he couldn't sleep just yet. He needed to talk to that girl. Hopefully he'd be able to find some answers to the many questions that were going through his head.
After brushing his hair a little with his fingers and changing into a regular black shirt and pants, he puts his hair back in a pony tail. Then with that all taken care of he leaves his room and heads for the infirmary to see the girl.
Upon arriving there Itachi sees Konan waiting outside the infirmary. "Sasori's still in there with her but he said that we could come in when you got here," she tells him and then opens the door and goes inside.
Itachi follows her inside and goes over to the cot that the orange hair girl is laying on. Her eyes are now open and she's looking around very confused. "How is she?" Itachi asks the red haired man who, for once, isn't hiding inside his puppet.
It's very rare for anyone to see Sasori outside of Hiruko so Itachi is a bit shocked by this at first. However then his attention is brought back to the girl as Sasori begins to speak.
"She's doing much better than I anticipated. Everything appears to be normal and her wounds are healing nicely. She's been talking a little but I can't get much information out of her."
Itachi looks at the girl who seems to be afraid and confused right now.
"Where's the snake man?" she asks in a quiet voice. "and my brother. where's my brother?"
"That man is gone," Itachi tells her. "What's your name?" He asks after he sees her relax a little bit.
"T-tora," she stutters. "Why can't I see you? Where am I?" She asks.
"Her speech patterns are very advanced for a child her again," Sasori notes as he writes something down. "Anyways, you can't see because your eyes no longer work. You sustained severe injuries specifically to the eyes because of Orochimaru, or as you called him, the snake man," Sasori explains to the girl with no hint of emotion in his voice.
Tora looks confused. She didn't understand a lot of what he had just said. There were a lot of big words there and she wasn't sure what all of them meant. "My eyes don't work anymore?" she asks to confirm what he had just told her.
Sasori sighs in annoyance he'd never had any patience for children. "no they don't."
The girl frowns at that. "So this is gone and my eyes don't work…" she says and puts her hand on the bandaged stump where the rest of her arm should be but isn't.
"Correct. Don't make me repeat myself. I hate repeating myself. It wastes time," Sasori says, clearly annoyed at this point.
"Tora, do you think you can answer a couple question for us?" Konan asks her while kneeling beside the cot so she's level with the girl, even if she can't see her.
"Ok…" she says quietly.
"Do you know of a boy named Sasuke Uchiha?" Itachi asks.
Tora shakes her head.
"What about your parents? Do you know who they are?"
Tora once again shakes her head. "Mommy's dead and Daddy left," she tells him.
Itachi frowns a bit. "You mentioned that you have a brother. Do you know his name?" he asks.
"Kimimaro," she answers.
"That's all I have for questions. Thank you," he says and then turns to leave.
Sasori and Konan watch the Uchiha head for the door, making no move to stop him.
"I'll have to report this to Pain," Konan says once he's gone.
Tora sits there, still a bit afraid and confused by what's going on but says nothing.
Sasori nod. "Alright I'm going to finish up her but after that I have some business to attend to."
Konan nods and then quickly goes to speak with Pain.
"So she's awake?" Pain asks Zetsu when he comes up through the floor of his office.
"She is," the black half answers.
The white half grins and says, "and her name is Tora."
"Is that all we know?" Pain asks the two.
They shake their head. "No. It would appear that she is a Kaguya. She's the brother of Kimimaro Kaguya, the boy who was supposedly the sole survivor of the massacre of his clan. He's the one Orochimaru picked up awhile back," the black half explains.
"Alright, you are dismissed," Pain says and with that Zetsu bows and slowly leaves the way he came.
"A Kaguya and an Uchiha. Very interesting," Pain says once Zetsu is gone.
A man with a mask comes out from the dark corner of Pain's office. "Very interesting indeed," he says with a slight chuckle.
Welp that was chapter three of Tora's Story. Hmm that's a good title name XD better than my current one anyways. I think I'm gonna change it to that right now.
Anyways I hope you guys liked this chapter. Please leave a review and let me know what you think so far :) Chapter 4 will be up next sunday.