3 Tokens of Loyalty
The Beginning of a Difficult Road
Few raised comment as Kotori left Otogakure under the cover of dusk, and few could guess at the conflict playing out in her mind as she ran. He really knew what he was doing when he picked this task, she silently grumbled, noting the sunset colors of gold and blood reflected in the rice fields and wondering what kind of omen this spelled for her. Fortunately for me, he didn't say just what kind of token to bring back, so that gives me a little bit of leeway. I don't want to kill Taiki – gods above and below, I don't want to – but I don't know enough of how to fake it so that he'll survive. I'll just have to trust what I do know and leave the rest to luck.
Paying little attention to the passage of time, Kotori let the terrain around her fade into a blur as she let her slim connection to her target pull her along. As hard as this is, I'm going to have to commit to it one hundred percent. No one will believe me if I only go halfway. With a deep exhalation, she reached into her mind and touched the icy core that remained from her training in the Mist Village, hammered into her being by knife and sword and fist and blood, feeling a refreshing shiver as the memories descended:
Pain is nothing – my emotions are nothing – I am nothing – only the mission is important, and I exist solely for the mission. All else is trivial.
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Does it always rain before something awful happens?
Taiki lay awake, gazing up at the ceiling and listening to the patter of rainfall on the roof of his apartment building. The apartment itself had been tidied and opened to fresh air once more, but it could not be said that its occupant had achieved a similar state of clarity. He turned his head slightly to look at the wall where the group photograph hung once more, glass cleaned so that the faces could be seen clearly, and found himself focusing on Kotori's pale profile. Unlike most other similar pictures that he'd seen where the group clustered together in genuine camaraderie, the girl from Mist seemed reluctant to be identified with this particular association. She'd rested her elbow on Taiki's shoulder but otherwise remained distant, a distinct counterpoint to Naeko's limpet grip, and as Taiki squinted at the photograph he noted a quality to Kotori's expression that he'd not seen before. It's almost like she's disgusted with all of this and can't wait for it to be over, he thought, then shook his head to banish the idea.
She gets it from her mother.
Taiki flinched when he heard the comment in a voice that he had not heard in some time. "Oh, right. It's you."
Yeah, it's me. Kinda forgot, didn't you? The Mist jounin snickered but did not tease his host further, instead continuing his earlier train of thought. Her mother Emi also didn't have a lot of tolerance for us regular folks – thought she was above it all, at least for a while. Alcohol is a great leveling device, though. He then lapsed into silence and refused to elaborate, leaving Taiki with a puzzled frown.
Lying back on his pillow, he reached into the corner of his mind that he shared with his former teammate and steeled himself for the seething darkness that usually greeted any outside contact. He was startled to feel a sort of icy, emotionless calm in reaction to his touch and was equally surprised to note that the sense of connection was growing stronger. She's getting closer! But why is she returning – she knows it's a death warrant if she does.
Curiosity soon triumphed over caution, prompting Taiki to rise from his bed and attire himself for travel. It was only a nagging sense of worry that caused him to bring along his kunai and other combat gear, even though he had not sensed any other presence than Kotori. "Maybe – just maybe – I'll be able to convince her to come back," he murmured as he shut the apartment door behind him and braced himself for the weather. "But if not, it would be foolish for me to go undefended."
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The rain continued unabated as Kotori moved onward, and she thanked providence for this unexpected advantage. Water may be turned into mist to obscure vision but, more importantly, rushing water may wash away the scent of death. She had since passed into the enemy Fire territory from the safety of adjoining Rice Field Country, but the possibility of attack did not disturb her. If need be, they will all fall, but first I must do what I came for. Once it is done I will return and give my master the proof that he seeks, and only then will I rest. It's so close that I can feel it in my blood!
Relishing the slick moisture of rainfall against her skin, Kotori paused for a second to gain a fresh bearing on her target. "Come closer, little mouse. I only seek to ease your pain…"
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"She's stopped moving. I wonder why?" Taiki had likewise stopped to figure out his location, the sensation of proximity so strong that it made the fine hairs on the back of his neck rise in apprehension. The rain had given way to a dense fog that clung to his skin like oil, and this in itself made Taiki shiver. "That can't possibly be natural. She's got to be close by." He waited for the Mist jounin to offer comment and was both surprised and unnerved that he remained wordless. "What gives? You're supposed to be helping me, you know."
I don't betray my own village - not in life, nor in death, and she was a member of Hidden Mist long before you ever knew her. I won't give away my people's secrets. The jounin then returned to silence, leaving Taiki with the feeling that he was one misstep away from the proverbial executioner's axe. "All right, Kotori, I know you're out there. Why don't you just show yourself and get it over with?"
"Because stalking you in the fog is so much more fun, that's why." The disembodied voice came from both everywhere and nowhere, causing Taiki's skin to twitch. "I don't even need to see you to know where you are. Your fear stinks to high heaven!"
"Who says that I'm afraid?" Taiki forced himself to be still, reaching for a kunai while at the same time trying to pinpoint Kotori's location.
"Your heart does. I can feel it trembling even as you take that knife into your hand. I've beaten you to it, though. Hope you don't mind."
The whistle of sharp metal now cut through the fog, and it was only through presence of mind that Taiki could dodge the giant blade as it sliced towards him. "What's the deal? I thought we were friends, and friends don't try to hurt each other."
"That was before I was given my orders. If my master says you must die, then who am I to disobey?" An echo of the sword's swing slashed across Taiki's upper arm, causing him to gasp in sudden pain as a deep gash opened. "He only said that he wouldn't harm you – he never said that he wouldn't send someone else to do it."
Anger began to bubble in Taiki's heart as these words sank in. "What kind of a person are you, Kotori? This isn't the 'you' I thought I knew…"
This query met with no reply, and once again Taiki was alone. The mist had grown thicker and now felt like a hand pressing down on his chest that made it hard to breathe. He could feel the trickle of blood down his left arm where Kotori's first strike had hit, the wound throbbing fiercely as the ambient temperature began to drop. Then, before he could brace or dodge, his phantom foe hit again, leaving an identical wound in his right arm. "So you're going to make me hurt first, is that it? Not even a clean, dignified death?"
The next strike scored the backs of his thighs, causing him to crumple with an agonized hiss into the dirt. Anger which had started as a slow acidic burn now rippled through his body in electric waves and, in spite of the debilitating pain left by Kotori's fledgling assault, he forced himself to stand once more. There's got to be some way to stop her. Getting her away from that sword will be a start, but how?
As he stopped to think, he realized that all had gone silent except for the rapid pulse of his heart – no rustling of greenery or creak of tree limbs to betray his opponent's position. She really knows what she's doing, doesn't she? One more listing for Takeshi-sensei's Bingo Book, and she's after my head. What's more, she's got the one element she's been trained with since she was little – water – and plenty of it. But what do I have? Phantom hands, some creepy tie to the Death God that only wakes up when I go off the deep end… and lightning.
Taiki barely had time to raise a pair of the ghostly hands as the zanbatou came down a final time, aiming to cleave him clean in two had it made contact. As it was, the hands reflexively reached up and caught the sword before it could finish its swing, absorbing the force of the blow before exploding in a cascade of water that coated the weapon from tip to grip. Another set of the hands appeared and held the sword at bay, giving their manipulator another brief moment of planning time. He allowed himself a split second to wonder at this sudden change of heart from the Mist spirit, at the same time focusing his chakra in his palms in a strategy that he prayed would work.
His hands began to glow and spark with barely contained energy, and he could feel his palms beginning to singe from the lightning made manifest. Right when he felt he could no longer maintain this energy buildup, Taiki reached up for the zanbatou and clamped his hands to the flat of the blade. The electricity climbed the length of the blade, the metal humming from the sheer volume of power conducted through it and the water that still coated it. A brief glance showed Taiki that Kotori had abandoned her weapon, and with a twinge of regret for what he was about to do, he increased the voltage until the blade shrieked in protest like a living thing.
Seconds later, the zanbatou exploded in a shower of luminescent shards that Taiki called upon another set of hands to shelter himself from. Now I can get to work!
His brief moment of victory was shattered by an unearthly howl of wild anger, the likes of which he had only heard once before. The mist dissipated as easily as someone pulling back a curtain, revealing the snarling, crimson-spattered half-human form of the Nekomata who growled to herself as she plucked fragments of the zanbatou from her flesh. Noting Taiki's blanch of shock out of the corner of one glowing eye, the demon grinned and murmured, "You forgot all about me, didn't you? Well, you may have broken her claws, little boy, but I still have mine!"
The Cat then sprang forward, swinging one sharp-taloned hand and neatly shredding through Taiki's ethereal defenses. It continued onward to rake him across the cheek, missing his eye only by sheer luck and instead coating his face with hot blood. She twisted aside to avoid a slashing attack from her target, clubbing him across the throat with her arm in crushing force, then lashed out with one foot to slam him to the ground once more. Taiki struggled to rise, only to be knocked down again with a swift slice to the gut. Coughing up a ragged spurt of blood, he raised his head to see a two-foot-long section of the zanbatou pinning him to the ground, buried too deeply for him to dislodge it.
"You shouldn't have broken the sword, you stupid little boy," the Nekomata remarked, plucking up another fragment of the sword from the dirt and testing its edge for sharpness. "You see, that made her really mad. And when she gets mad like that, it's easier for me to come out. She would have been relatively nice to you. I see no reason for such courtesy…" Kneeling across his chest to prevent further movement, the Cat gathered Taiki's long, black hair in one hand and cruelly twisted to yank it tight. "That abdominal wound is enough to kill you if left untreated, and I don't think anyone will get here in time. Meanwhile, I think I know what kind of trophy will please Orochimaru-sama, so if you'll just sit back and relax, this won't take long at all."
The pain in his gut soon faded into memory as Kotori, still possessed by the demonic spirit within her, laid the metal to his hairline and began to cut into the skin.
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Kotori came back to her senses some time later, the Cat receding into the back of her consciousness as she returned to friendly territory. She slowed her pace and took stock of her injuries, noting that she bled copiously not only from the reopened seal on her shoulder but from numerous punctures and slashes all over her body. "What on earth - " The Cat all too willingly supplied the missing pieces to her memory, and Kotori bit back a sharp curse when she realized what had happened. "Now what am I supposed to do? It's not like that kind of weapon can be replaced easily. And is he – dead?"
You have nothing to worry about, the Nekomata replied. And I believe your trophy will be quite satisfactory. Take a look…
Kotori blinked as she withdrew the tangle of long, dark hair – scalp still attached – from inside her tunic. "I believe that will do just fine. Was this your idea?"
I knew you'd like it. I also made sure to retrieve a few pieces of your weapon, in case you could find further use for them.
The grip to the zanbatou had been tucked carefully into her sash, along with the scroll that had once been used to summon the giant blade. Kotori frowned but did not discard them, filing this information into a dark corner of her mind for processing later. The scalp was replaced inside her tunic and the girl resumed her quick pace of earlier, eager to deliver proof of her deed and bring the matter to a close.
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"Such sweet, strong chakra! I've not tasted the like of it since you left." The woman knelt, scooping a pinch of dirt up with her fingers and placing it on the tip of her tongue. After a moment's analysis, she spat it back out again and smirked. "Fresh blood, and lots of it. It gladdens me to know that your skills have not gone to waste."
She reached for the headband that covered her eyes, fingers grazing the metal plate graven with four wavy lines as she pushed it up to her forehead. Pale blue eyes swept over the scene of conflict, details lost to the fog of near-blindness, but what she could see more than satisfied her. "You took pleasure in this, didn't you? Who was this young man that you reveled so much in slaying him?"
Something crunched underfoot as she rose again, and with a sudden frown she reached down to examine the strange object. Her sharper senses and background knowledge confirmed her suspicions, and she growled an oath. "Foolish! You let your weapon be broken like this? A Swordsman without their sword…"
Sighing, the woman threw the sword fragment back down to the ground and pounded it in with her foot. She then pushed the headband back to its former place, tugging it this way and that to make sure it sat right and running a hand through ghost-white locks to re-settle them. "Well, Kotori, your teacher looks forward to seeing what you'll do next. You just might redeem yourself, but who knows?" Ignoring a feeble whisper cast her way from the dying young man on the battlefield, the woman made her way back into the woods and disappeared from view.