Kakashi, Guy, Miro, and Nayamae stopped for the night shortly after the sun went down. Miro got busy building a small fire while the rest of them set up their own sleeping areas. They worked in silence, each keeping to their own areas until Kakashi started to cook their meal of fish and rice.
After portioning everyone with rice and a piece of fish, they said their thanks to Kakashi and began to eat. Guy paused looking between the three of them. Miro and Kakashi were both staring at Nayamae while they ate, looking slightly impatient. She stayed focused on her food, purposely ignoring both of their stares. "So," Guy started, setting down his bowl for a moment to talk and break the growing awkward silence, "what is the plan to rescue the children?"
"I need to go in alone," Nayamae said before anyone else could respond.
Miro scoffed. "Absolutely not."
"What makes you think we'll let you do that?" Kakashi added.
"Just at first!" she responded quickly. "I know the layout best. I've been in and out of there plenty of times. Plus you need someone to distract Orochimaru so you can get those kids out, right?" She stared Kakashi down. "Let me do it."
Kakashi glanced at Miro, catching his eye. "You just want to get your kitsunebi," he accused.
"Her what?" Guy asked, mouth full of rice.
"Kitsunebi," he repeated. "She's a kitsune that's lost her fox fire. That's all she wants back. She doesn't actually care about getting those kids back to their families."
Nayamae slammed her bowl down, immediately standing up. "That's not true!" she cried, glaring piercingly at Kakashi. "I know what he's doing to them! Those kids have-!" She sat back down, grabbing onto her head and biting back a sob as instantaneous pain stabbed through her head. "Fuck…"
"Are you alright?" Guy asked, kneeling beside her.
She swatted his hand away. "Don't touch me," she growled. Guy backed off, wondering what he did wrong. After a few minutes, the pain was virtually gone from her head. "It's not true," she repeated. "I do care about getting those kids back to their families. Getting my kitsunebi back is only a part of it."
"How noble of you," Miro said mockingly. "It's a good plan, I suppose, but you still have a personal goal involved. How do we know you aren't going to run off?"
She was quiet. "I can't answer that."
"Then you don't go off alone."
Kakashi looked her over. She looked defeated, tired even. "That pain in you get, is there a seal somewhere that prevents you from talking about certain things?" She eventually nodded. "Where is it?" he asked. "Maybe I can help with it."
Slowly, she stood, moving her hair to one side and crossing her arms, reaching for the bottom of her shirt. She turned her back to them as she lifted it to reveal a black, beetle-like seal in the middle of her spine. It was no bigger than Kakashi's palm. "I don't think there's much you can do with it," she said with a small voice. "Orochimaru made it himself."
"Why a beetle?" asked Guy. "Wouldn't it be more appropriate for it to be a snake? Ya know?"
Nayamae shot him a look. "A beetle crawls under the skin and can kill you from the inside. Something he's tried to do with me many times," she mumbled quietly. Guy looked down.
Kakashi stood and made his way to her. She stood still as he examined the seal in the firelight. "Do you mind?" he asked. She nodded, giving him permission. He felt her stiffen at his touch, goosebumps crawling across her back. It was like a tattoo, a permanent part of her skin. "I think I can at least release a part of it, if not the whole thing," he said after a while. "It'll help loosen your tongue, for lack of a better term." He turned back to Miro. "If we want to know anything in much detail, I have to at least try."
Miro glanced to Guy. Nayamae had let her shirt fall back down, turning back to face the fire. He sighed heavily. "It's not like we have much of a choice. But first, could you draw us a map of Orochimaru's lair? In case you do run off, I would like to know where we could at least try to find a way in."
She thought for a moment. "I'll do it in exchange for a weapon. My sword was…confiscated."
Before Miro could answer, Kakashi was already reaching into his pouch, pulling out a kunai blade. "It's all you get," he stated firmly, putting it into her outstretched hand. "It's no sword, but you can at the very least defend yourself with it."
"Thank you," she said, smugly looking at Miro, pocketing the kunai. Miro shot his partner a glare. She moved past Guy to where Miro had pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil. It took her several minutes to draw it, taking pauses to recollect her memory. "There are some rooms I've never been in, so not everything is going to be on this map. The only route I would concern myself with is this one," she advised, pointing to an entrance on the side. "From here, move quickly along this hall to here. I'm pretty sure that's where he's been keeping the kids when he wasn't…working on them."
Miro nodded thoughtfully, taking a closer look at what she had drawn. "We'll find them no matter what obstacles get in our way!" Guy said enthusiastically.
Kakashi tapped her shoulder. "Come on. Let's take care of that seal. You two," he said, pointing to Guy and Miro, "come up with a plan of action and we'll discuss it as a group when we get back. We won't be far."
The pair walked away from the warmth of the fire, feeling it get noticeably cooler as they moved further into the darkness. Kakashi needed a quiet place away from distractions to concentrate on undoing this foreign seal. Finally, they came into a small clearing. They could still see the orange glow from their campsite, but it was far enough they would have privacy to do what needed to be done.
Nayamae stopped. "You don't have to do this," she said, hugging her arms close to her body.
Kakashi sighed. "It's probably better for you when it's gone anyway."
She shook her head. "How do you know this will work?"
"I don't," he said bluntly. He lifted his headband, keeping his sharingan eye closed still. "Turn around," he ordered. Slowly Nayamae did as she was told, moving her hair off her back, she then lifted her shirt again, revealing the black beetle. She felt vulnerable with her bare back turned to him, though she didn't sense that he wanted to hurt her on purpose.
He opened his sharingan, observing her chakra signals around the seal. After several long minutes, he was finally able to see the puzzle of the seal itself. It was genius, really. With the sharingan, he was able to see the beetle was quite literally attached to her spine, sending signals up to her brain. It was more than just a black mark on her skin. He would have to somehow sever the signals her brain was receiving and then remove the beetle one part at a time. He wasn't sure how this may hurt her or whether or not she would survive the removal, but he had to try.
"Alright, Nayamae, brace yourself." She braced herself against a tree, while Kakashi made his hands into multiple symbols before placing them on the beetle. The seal glowed pink while he slowly unraveled it, unsealing it from her body first. She cried out, wanting to jump away from him because of the pain, but knew it was too late for him to stop. She gripped tightly to the tree bark, feeling it scratch and tear the skin of her hands. Several tense minutes passed before he could try to unseal it from her mind.
Suddenly he was no longer in the woods with her. He saw a boy with jet black hair and eyes as blue as the sky, pulling her by the arm through a house as they played. He was no older than twelve or thirteen, smiling widely back at her. His voice and laughter coaxed her through different rooms, as though they were looking for something or someone. The boy pulled on a sliding door, both of the children stopping in the doorway as a room full of fully armed adults stared back at them. They had interrupted.
"Ryu!" a woman's voice shrieked angrily from the far side of the room. "What have I told you about playing in the house?!" The woman stomped towards them, past the angry looking soldiers. Her long, dark hair was braided to her knees and was beginning to grey near her forehead. Her green eyes were filled with a burning exasperation. A long jagged scar ran down the right side of her face and neck, beginning from her temple running over her collar bone, caused by injury she had sustained many years before. Nayamae made eye contact with a man with kind eyes, but a savage appearance. Abba, Nayamae's voice echoed in the memory.
"Go play outside!" the woman hissed, pushing the children out of the room, giving them both a quick, but hard, swat on the head, and slamming the door behind them. The children looked at each other, both in quiet defeat. Their game forgotten.
A blur and a change of scene.
The boy was older now. He was handsome. He was no older than seventeen. He gently held Nayamae's face in his hands. They were entangled in a mess of sheets, their clothes discarded across the room. The world was quiet. Nothing mattered to them but each other and the bed they were in. "Naya," he said blissfully, kissing her softly, she liked the soft kisses best.
Another blur and another change of scene.
The boy lay silent and unmoving in the grass. His eyes matched the color of the graying sky. His blood stained his clothes and the ground around him. Hot tears fell down Nayamae's cheeks, leaving streaks on her dirty face. She screamed his name. "Ryu!" she cried. "Somebody!" she yelled, holding him to her chest. "SOMEBODY HELP PLEASE! RYU!" She rocked him, but he did not stir. She tried kissing him, but still he didn't wake. She turned her head, hearing someone approaching. "Kabuto, please…! You have to help him!"
Suddenly, Kakashi found himself back in the woods again. He never saw who Kabuto was. He wasn't entirely sure what he had just seen. Who's Ryu? Who's Abba? He stared down at the woman kneeling in front of him, her arms bracing herself against the tree, her chest heaving up and down as she sobbed. He remembered he was suppose to be undoing the seal on her back, but when he looked, it faded away without a trace. Kakashi didn't know what he'd done to remove it, but regardless, it was gone. Nayamae shuddered then collapsed to the ground.
Kakashi went to her side, gently rolling her onto her back. With his sharingan still uncovered, he noticed a small flame surrounding her heart. It wasn't very strong, but it burned brightly nontheless. It was what remained of her kitsunebi. The more he stared at the flame, he felt like he could reach into her chest and take what remained of the fire. Quickly, he shut his eye and covered his sharingan with his headband. What a foolish thought, he berated himself. Without what little she had left, she would die, she had told him that. Besides, what could he possibly do with it once he had it?
He held a finger to her throat, checking her pulse. Suddenly, Nayamae gasped dramatically and sat up. She clutched onto Kakashi's arm pulling him towards her. "What did you see?" she growled in his ear.
He was surprised at her strength and ferocity. "See?" he asked, perplexed by such a weird question.
"You saw him, didn't you?" She gripped him tighter, actually causing him a bit of pain. "What did you see?" she demanded. Before he could answer, she threw him away from her, causing him to land heavily on his back. Immediately she was up and running away.
"Hey!" Kakashi yelled, running after her. His head felt slightly dizzy from using his sharingan, but he pursued her anyway. He felt the scene was somewhat familiar to when he had first encountered her. It was harder to chase her in the dark, but she wasn't trying to keep herself hidden either. He watched her trip, landing roughly on the ground.
Kakashi was on her before she could get up again. Nayamae tried lifting him off of her, but only managed to get her arms pulled behind her back. He held her hands to her back while sitting on her waist to keep her from running away again. While he struggled to keep both of her wrists together in one hand, he reached back with his other hand to grab handcuffs from a pouch. He cuffed her and kept her arms behind her as she growled and tried to kick at him.
"You bastard," Nayamae cursed, still struggling to get out from beneath his grip, her face rubbing into the dirt.
"You really want to do this again?" Kakashi asked angrily. "It didn't work out well for you last time. You remember our deal don't you? No games!"
"What did you see?" she repeated, spitting dirt from her mouth.
"Fine," he replied, adjusting his grip. "I saw a boy. A boy with black hair and blue eyes. Ryu, wasn't it? That was his name."
Nayamae's eyes filled with overwhelming sadness, but the tears didn't fall as they had in her memory. "He is long dead," she said quietly, avoiding his gaze. "Orochimaru killed him! Slaughtered him!" she spat angrily. "I'm going to kill him," she said. "I'm going to get my kitsunebi back and I am going to burn him alive!"
Kakashi stared down at her. Her eyes burned intensely with her hatred. He then did something unexpected. He gently held her wrists and unlocked the handcuffs. She looked at him confused as he got off of her and helped her up to a sitting position.
"Go," he said. She was quiet, carefully wiping the dirt from her mouth. "Go, before I change my mind and make you help us anymore. We can take care of the children. Go."
She stared at him, unsure if he was serious. Quickly, she grabbed the edge of his mask and pulled it down to reveal his face. Before he could react, she had kissed him hard on the mouth. She released him, smiling at his shocked face. She locked eyes with him, trying to convey her thanks before giving him another quick peck on the cheek and sprinting into the darkness.
Kakashi sat staring stupidly after her darkening silhouette as she disappeared into the woods. He blinked and then pulled his mask back over his face. No one had ever pulled it off, much less just to kiss him. He stood and brushed the dirt from his pants. He then realized what he had done. He was going to have to explain to Miro and Guy why Nayamae was gone.
"Dammit," he muttered, turning to walk towards the faint orange glow of the campfire. He slowly approached the fire, feeling a wave of exhaustion pass over him. He stumbled into the light, causing Miro and Guy to stand on guard.
"Kakashi!" Guy exclaimed once he realized who it was, catching him before he could fall. He supported him with his arm over his shoulders, guiding him to a spot to sit down.
"What happened?" Miro asked, kneeling beside him.
"Undoing that seal must have taken more out of me than I thought," Kakashi replied, leaning back against Guy's leg as he also knelt beside him.
"You need to rest for a bit," Guy said, handing him a canteen. "Here, drink."
Kakashi took a few sips then leaned back again. "Where's Nayamae?" Miro asked, standing up and looking around. "Did she run off?" He was obviously angered at this.
Kakashi nodded. "I let her. She needed to take care of something first."
"What?!" Miro and Guy said in unison. "Why would you do that?" Guy asked.
"Goddammit, Kakashi!" Miro cursed. "She played you is what she did! You let her distract you! Kitsunes are exceptionally good at deception!" He threw his hands into the air, letting them fall at his sides in exasperation. "How are we going to find Orochimaru without her help? I don't expect those kids will be-!"
"Now, hold on!" Kakashi interrupted, leaning forward off of Guy's leg. "We can still find them and still use her help! It just may not be tonight." He took a breath and another quick drink of water. "Nayamae said she wanted to go in alone at first right? Be a distraction?"
"Are you thinking we should track her path in the morning?" Guy inquired. "It would be much lighter out if we waited a couple of hours. Morning will be here soon enough. And her trail would still be fresh enough to follow."
Kakashi nodded. "That's exactly what I was thinking. We track her path, find where she went, which it's highly likely she did go to Orochimaru, then we rescue those kids."
"Sounds like a reasonable plan to me," Guy agreed.
Miro stood with his arms crossed. He sighed and shood his head. "You still piss me off, Hatake. We'll leave at first light."
Miro can be a jerk, but that's just his character.
Well, if you're still reading this story and have gotten to this point, thanks! I really enjoy writing this in my free time (when I have it) so I kinda plan to let this go on for a little while just so it gives me something to do. If you enjoy it, please leave me a review as to what you think will happen next!
Seriously, thanks for reading. :)
