A/N: Big thanks to Illegitimi, Lady Heather and Minniemousemom for reviewing, and everyone else who read. It always makes me very happy to see the number of hits goes up.
I have officially entered the "real plot" of the story in this chapter, after setting everything up in the previous chapters. I have to dwell a little into Haruka's history in this chapter, so here's a shameless advertisement on my part: If you'd like to learn more about Haruka and the Land of Quartz, please visit my other story "The Sound of Silence"! :)
Disclaimer: I don't own any Naruto characters.
Chapter 10: The ambush
When Ibiki woke up this morning, the first thing he saw was Ai's serene sleeping face nestled against his chest. Both of them lied naked under the thin blanket, their bodies intertwined together in a comfortable embrace. She was pale-skinned, he had a darker complexion. Her body was lean and toned, his was muscular and sculpted. Her skin was soft and flawless, his was covered with countless battle scars. The two of them could not be more different, yet amazingly they found such great harmony within each other.
They had been together as lovers for a few months now, long enough for winter to pass and spring to arrive, but sometimes Ibiki still could not believe that all these were real. He remembered the night when Ai shyly presented herself to him as a gift on his birthday not too long ago. The memory of unwrapping her clothes like one would unwrap a present and seeing her perfect body for the first time still sent shivers down his spine.
Ibiki bent down and kissed Ai lightly on top of her head, at the same time taking in the pleasant scent of her hair. He noticed her long, lush eyelashes fluttering on her face, indicating that she was already awake, even though her eyes were still closed. He grinned mischievously and began to rub his stubbles against her smooth skin. Finally Ai giggled out loud and opened her eyes.
"Good morning, gorgeous." Ibiki propped himself up on his elbow so that he could take a better look at her.
"Good morning." Ai had once again nuzzled herself into his chest, her voice muffled by his thick chest muscles, causing Ibiki to laugh endearingly and said, "You're such a kitty cat." He reached out his hand with the intention to give her bottom a playful pat, but instead he slapped air. In the blink of an eye, without any hand seals, without a poof of smoke, Ai had henge transformed herself into a beautiful short hair black cat and proudly trotted onto Ibiki's chest to meow at him cheerfully.
Ibiki had seen Ai performed her henge jutsu many times, but he never ceased to be amazed by how exceptional her technique was. Even though henge itself was an entry level jutsu that all shinobi learned in their early days at the academy, it was a technique that was extremely difficult to perfect, much like how most people could draw but only a selected few could draw well.
The concept of henge was relatively simple. According to the physics law of conservation, mass could not be created or destroyed in an isolated system, meaning that the number of cells and molecules that constituted a person must remain the same under all circumstances. However, with the help of chakra, a shinobi could rearrange the order and alignment of the molecules in the body, thus changing his or her appearance within seconds.
It didn't take a lot of skills or chakra control to be able to shove the molecules inside the body around. However, being able to align the molecules in a formation that closely resembled the object of imitation was truly an art form. Additionally, being able to act like the object of imitation after transformation was also critical to a successful henge jutsu. One of the contributing factors to Ai's exceptional henge jutsu was her keen observational skill. Quiet people like Ai often tended to be very observant, for instead of talking they used their time to observe and take notes of their surroundings.
Another quality of Ai's henge that separated her from the rest was how small she could become. Most shinobi could use their chakra to pull the molecules inside their body closer together, allowing them to transform into something slightly smaller than their actual size. However, this method was very chakra-consuming. Depending on the person's chakra reserve, there was a limit on how small they could become and how long they could hold onto that form for. In Ai's case, she could transform into something as small as an insect for an extended period of time. It took Ibiki a lot of thinking and a few experiments to figure out, but eventually he concluded that Ai's phenomenal henge technique stemmed from her ability to manipulate magnetism. Instead of regular chakra, she used magnetic force to bundle her cells tightly together via the trace amount of metal ions found in every single cell in the body, thus allowing her to transform into something of extremely small size.
Ibiki's thoughts were pulled back to the present when Ai the short hair black cat nibbled on his nose affectionately. Ai had always loved taking the form of her childhood pet, not only to commemorate it, but also because she was very familiar with its movements and mannerisms as she had spent years observing the animal. Ibiki reached under the cat's chin and gently scratched her, making Ai the cat close her eyes and purr lovingly. Ibiki smiled and challenged her, "Now try a dove." This was one of their favorite lazy morning games to play.
Ibiki made a point to not blink his eyes so that he could see the black cat dissolved into the form of a small, white dove within fractions of a second. The dove cooed and paced back and forth on his chest, occasionally giving him a playful peck or two. "Ow, ow, that beak actually hurts." Ibiki laughed and complained. "How about a platypus next?"
Ai the dove tilted her head and tried to picture a platypus in her mind. Eventually she made her first attempt. Ibiki scrutinized her for a while and said, "Baby, I think a platypus has more toes than that. Try five, with claws too."
Ai the platypus frowned a very human frown and changed the appearance of her toes. Ibiki corrected a few other mistakes before he chuckled and said, "Ok, that's enough, you have a solo mission today so let's save your chakra." Ai obediently transformed back to herself on top of Ibiki's chest and smiled at him sweetly.
Ibiki let his hand run up and down freely on Ai's backside. The combination of feeling her silky smooth skin on his finger tips and the sight of her naked bosoms pressed tightly against his chest almost made him want to turn around and press her under himself to repeat what they did last night, but Ibiki quickly put his lust in check. He didn't want her to get tired before she left for her mission.
"What time are you leaving?" He kissed her fondly on her forehead.
"Around late morning will be fine."
"Are you done packing?"
"Hmm…" Ai pondered for a moment, "I still have to sharpen my swords, but other than that I'm all set."
Ibiki nodded. "Why don't I go make us a nice breakfast while you sharpen your swords, and I'll see you off after we eat?"
Ibiki went into the kitchen to check his food supply, and was glad to find a fully stocked pantry that would allow him to make a rich, scrumptious meal for Ai before she took off. He loved taking care of his girl, and he loved the fact that lately she had been spending most of her free time at his house. With her around, his own dull and routine life suddenly became a lot more interesting. Ibiki didn't remember ever feeling so alive before, and he certainly had never felt so intensely about anyone. There was only one way to describe how he felt about Ai right now – he was madly, madly in love with her.
It didn't take Ibiki long to cook up a table full of Ai's favorite breakfast food. After he finished setting up the table, he went out to the porch, where a distinctive metal scraping sound could be heard. Under the warm morning sun, Ai hunched over her sharpening stone that seemed to reside permanently on Ibiki's porch these days, and diligently sharpened her precious twin swords.
Ibiki quietly watched her for a while, admiring her lean but muscular arms hard at work. "Are you expecting to fight during this mission?" He asked.
"Not really." Ai answered without lifting her head. "I'm going on a C-rank mission, which is going to be more laborious and tedious than dangerous." Then she added, "I just like to keep my swords in good shape, you know, they are the only things my mother left me."
Ibiki raised an eyebrow in surprise, "They send ANBU on C-rank missions these days?"
Ai smiled good-naturedly, "None of the genin teams are available right now, and the village can really use some extra cash to build up our defense against Akatsuki, plus not much is going on at the action squad lately, so why not?" She lifted up her swords and inspected the blades against the sun, then she smiled brightly at Ibiki and said, "Ok, I'm done. Can we eat now? I'm starving!"
Breakfast went by too quickly in Ibiki's opinion. He knew that after Ai left today, he wouldn't see her for at least another week. He wished that he could see her off at the gate instead, but he still wasn't brave enough to bring their relationship out in the open, for fear that Ai would get hurt by being associated with him. They spent most of their time together inside his house, with the exception of a few occasional dinners at the rural part of town, inhabited by mostly civilians. Ibiki knew that they could not go on like this forever, even though Ai didn't seem to mind the slightest, but some day he would figure out what to do. Some day.
Ibiki held Ai tightly in his arms and gave her a long, passionate kiss, which she responded just as passionately. "Bye baby, be careful on the road ok?" Ibiki leaned his forehead lightly against hers.
"I will, snuggly bear." She called him by her nickname for him, which often left him feeling both embarrassed and loved at the same time.
Ibiki fished out a bag of chocolate-covered pretzels from his pocket and put it in Ai's hands. "Here, some snacks for you on the road."
Ai let out a small cheer and put the candy in her backpack, taking care to make sure that it wouldn't be crushed by other items in her sack.
"Ok, off you go, I will see you in a week." Ibiki finally sent her out of the door and waved at her until her slender figure disappeared at the other end of the road.
As soon as she left the Konoha gate, Ai picked up her speed but still kept it at a comfortable pace. At this rate, she would reach the Land of Quartz by tomorrow afternoon. The Land of Quartz was a small mining country just north of the Konoha forest. Her mission would be to go deep down into a newly discovered quartz mine and help the miners set up their facility. Descending into a new mine was naturally dangerous for civilians, but for shinobi who could walk on a vertical slope with the help of chakra, the task would simply be tedious but not dangerous at all. In fact, Ai almost felt like she was going on a vacation.
Ai had been to the Land of Quartz several times. She adored the small but peaceful country, especially because her Haruka nee-san was officially the country's princess. Haruka's family had been the royal family of the Quartz Country for generations, and her brother was crowned the feudal lord of the country only a few years ago.
When Haruka nee-san marries Kakashi nii-san, does it mean that both her and Sachi-chan will become a hime of sort by relation? Ai pondered amusingly. She absolutely loved her nii-san and nee-san, and she just couldn't believe how lucky she was to have them as family. Also, now that she had Ibiki to love her and take care of her, life simply could not be any better, even though her twin sister was no longer here with her.
Looking backward, Ai sometimes wondered how she and Sachi got through all the hardships in their life. Their father, a civilian from the Lightning Country, passed away before the sisters could even remember his face. Their mother rarely talked about their father when they grew up, so the twins only had a very vague idea of what kind of man their father once was. Money was always tight at their house. The sisters started to help out at local farms and factories at a very young age in order to help with the family's finances.
In Ai's memory, their mother was a kind, beautiful and gentle woman, but she always seemed to be surrounded by an air of sadness. Ai often assumed that their mother's impenetrable sadness was somehow related to her sudden, mysterious death when the sisters turned fourteen. She remembered one day their mother left town for some business, and next day her corpse was carried back by other villagers to their house. No one knew exactly what happened. The sisters were left alone with the unchangeable fact that their mother was dead.
Very soon after their mother passed away, Sachi developed her illness. Seeing that no doctor in their village could help her, Ai promptly gathered however little money their mother had left them and set out on a journey to seek cure for her sister. In order to pay for their traveling and medic fees, Ai would pick up odd jobs here and there in exchange for food or a little cash. Some people took pity on their situation and offered them help, but more people tried to take advantage of the two poor orphan girls whose existence would not be missed by anyone if they were to forever perish from the world. During her years of traveling, Ai had seen more darkness of human nature than she cared for, but also thank to those experiences, she had become the worldly wise shinobi that she was today, with a tremendous amount of strength hidden under her soft and gentle exterior.
Ai shook her head heavily to stop herself from dwelling more into her sad memories. The past doesn't matter anymore. She told herself. The past is what got her here to Konoha today, where she is loved by her family and her snuggly bear. The thought of Ibiki brought a warm smile onto her face. She thought of the chocolate-covered pretzels he gave her this morning. Perhaps she could take a break soon to snack on her favorite candy.
However, Ai came to a sudden screeching halt amidst her rapid running. Something was not right about the road ahead of her. She couldn't see any immediate danger, but something just wasn't quite right. It was too quiet. Neither the birds nor the bugs could be heard, and they were usually at their loudest at this time of the day in the forest. It could only mean that danger lied ahead of her.
Just before Ai managed to hop up and hide herself in the branches above her, four enemy nins rose from the shadows and surrounded her. They all wore generic black shinobi wear with a head mask that revealed nothing but their eyes. None of them bore a hitai-ate, not even a scratched one that would indicate their betrayal to their hidden village, but there was no question that they were all ninja – strong, high-caliber ninja as indicated by their overpowering chakra signature.
Ai immediately drew both of her swords into her hands. "Who are you, and what do you want?" Her voice sounded more tense than she expected.
"Not much, just your little pathetic life." One of the masked nins replied arrogantly. For a fleeting moment Ai thought that the voice sounded vaguely familiar, but she didn't have time to dwell into that because her opponents had already started their attacks.
At the beginning, the enemy nins used only basic ninja weaponry against her – kunai, shuriken, ninja knife, hand claws, nunchuk, chain whip, but strangely none of the signature weapon and jutsu that a shinobi of their caliber most certainly had at their disposal. Weapons flied around, clashing against each other and sending sparks off into the sky, but Ai managed to dodge most of their attacks even though there were four of them and they all intended to kill. Her own mother was once recognized as the best sword user in the Fire Country, and Ai had definitely inherited most if not all of her mother's skills.
As her opponents slowly realized that weaponry alone wasn't going to grant them her life, they switched towards the use of ninjutsu. Suddenly, fireballs were roaring across the sky, the earth underneath shattered and crumbled into traps, Ai quickly activated her chakra and sent it to her swords, causing the twin blades to hiss and spark with the signature appearance of lightning-based chakra. She managed to severed an arm from one of the enemies, but that only served to anger the rest of them even more and caused them to intensify their attacks.
Ai could feel her chakra reserve rapidly declined as soon as she began to use the ninjutsu-based techniques. She knew there was no way she could defeat the four of them together. Her only way out alive was to escape. The young ANBU quickly assessed her situation. It was no good. She was completely surrounded, and she now sustained several deep cuts on her body. Even though none of the cuts had hit a vital organ, she was bleeding heavily, and she could feel her strength leaving her by the moment. Suddenly, she felt a great pain all over her backside. It was as if a thousand needles had punctured her deeply through her skin and flesh at the same time. She started coughing up blood, which told her that one or more of her internal organs was now severely injured. She didn't have time to think anymore. She needed to escape. It was either now or never.
She quickly looked around and threw herself towards the direction guarded by the enemy nin with the severed arm. She managed to catch him by surprise and successfully broke free from their circle, but earning herself another deep gash on the shoulder in the process. She ran as fast as her body would allow her to. She could hear the sound of water ahead of her. Ai remembered crossing a narrow stream earlier in her travel. Perhaps she would have a chance once she reached the river.
The river was in sight sooner than she expected. She took a quick glance behind her, and was glad to see that somehow she had managed to gain a bit of distance between them. This extra distance would most definitely help her in her next maneuver. Without further consideration, Ai promptly leaped up from the river bank, and while in mid-air over the water, threw the shorter of her twin swords across the river into the shrubs, creating movements in the vegetation and hence the illusion that she had escaped through the bushes. In reality, she henge transformed herself into a tilapia fish, one of the most commonly found fish in the rivers of Fire Country, and sunk into the river within fractions of a second.
As good luck would have it, Ai found herself falling into the middle of a school of tilapia that just happened to swim by. Feeling safely camouflaged by her temporary companions, she quickly swam forward in the water while holding her breath as the transformation did not actually grant her the biochemistry to breathe under water. The swimming action caused her to bleed even more heavily, but the flowing water made sure that she did not leave a blood trail for her enemies to follow her. She didn't hear footsteps along the river so she assumed that she had successfully fooled them with her trick, but it wouldn't be safe to leave the water until she was farther away from them.
Fortunately, the river was flowing towards the Konoha village. Ai the tilapia fish kept swimming and swimming, rising occasionally to the surface for air, until she was absolutely sure that she had successfully lost her enemies. She henge transformed back to herself in the water and climbed up onto the river bank with some difficulty. She looked around to identify the direction of the village, and immediately began to run towards it as fast as she possibly could. She started to see black patches in front of her eyes. She knew it was a sign that she had lost a dangerous amount of blood, but she had to keep running, for the closer she was to the village, the more likely she was to be saved, so Ai kept running, she kept running…
***
Morino Ibiki sat inside the office of Ishiguro Haruka at the Konoha Hospital, patiently listening to the experienced medic explain to him where the pressure points on a human body located. He recently learned that one of Haruka's battle tricks was to insert needles into her opponent's joints and pressure points, stunning them by inflicting a lot of pain but without causing actual damage to the body. He liked the idea of causing pain without actually harming people, so he thought perhaps he could adapt this method into his torture routine.
During his frequent visits of late, Ibiki had developed a lot of respect for the patient and knowledgeable medic. Haruka shared the same teacher as Tsunade herself, and rumor said that her medical ability had already exceeded that of Tsunade by the time she was a teenager. Ibiki also appreciated Haruka for being kind to Ai, but he couldn't state his thanks to her as she didn't know about their relationship yet.
"There is a pressure point at the Golgi tendon at the back of the elbow. If you insert a needle at an angle like this, it will cause a tremendous amount of pain and make your opponent's arm useless, but the effect is immediately reversed when you pull out the needle." Haruka explained to Ibiki.
Ibiki was about to ask her a question when the door to Haruka's office was rudely pushed open by a nurse. "Haruka-sensei, we have a patient in critical condition that needs your immediate attention. I think it's someone you know… isn't Hatake Ai a relative of Kakashi-san?" The nurse tried to catch her breath in between words as she had run all the way from the emergency room to Haruka's office.
Both Haruka and Ibiki stood up so fast that they knocked over their chairs and startled the nurse who was still panting by the door. Haruka turned to Ibiki, threw him a quick "excuse me" and ran out of her office. She didn't notice that Ibiki was following closely after her.
Haruka reached the emergency room in the shortest amount of time possible. The sight in there horrified her. She saw her little sister lying unconsciously on the bed like a broken doll, her body was stained blood red but her face was ghostly white. Several gashes on her body went so deep that she could see the bones underneath. The emergency room staff had already hooked her up to different machines to monitor her vita signs, and Haruka could see that Ai was only inches away from being dead.
"You, massage her heart with type three chakra, and you, use type five chakra to stimulate the pressure points in her scalp." Haruka immediately began to shout out commands to her subordinates in an attempt to bring Ai back to life. She needed to perform surgery on the poor girl in order to save her, but she couldn't start the surgery when all her vital signs were significantly below sub-optimum values.
Suddenly, a big figure pushed past Haruka and squatted down next to Ai. It was Ibiki. Haruka had no idea that he had followed her into the emergency room, and she didn't know why he would do something as inappropriate. She frowned and was about to ask him to leave, but to her surprise she saw Ibiki picked up Ai's hand gently and spoke into her ear, "Ai-chan, it's Ibiki, can you hear me? Ai-chan, wake up!"
Ai was walking in a dark, dark tunnel. She didn't know where she was going, but she knew that her twin sister Sachi was waiting for her at the end of the tunnel. She could already hear her voice. "Ai-chan, come here and play with me. I miss you." Her sister said. She had missed her too, so she hurried up and walked faster towards her sister. She could begin to see her face. Oh Sachi-chan looked so beautiful. She had resumed her looks from before she came down with the illness. Ai couldn't wait to hold her sister in her arms. She had missed her so much.
"Ai-chan! Ai-chan!" Ai noticed another voice calling her from behind, from the other end of the tunnel. It sounded so warm and familiar. Who could it be? "Ai-chan, come back, it's Ibiki, come back to me."
Oh, Ibiki, her snuggly bear. Ai smiled fondly at the thought of Ibiki. She had missed him too. She missed his touch, his kisses, the way he laughed, the way he'd secretly sneak chocolate-covered pretzels into her pockets… suddenly Ai realized that if she continued to go toward her sister, she would never see Ibiki again because they would be separated by the tunnel. She hesitated. Should she keep walking or should she turn around? Would Sachi-chan think that she had betrayed her if she turned back?
From the other end of the tunnel, Ibiki continued to call out to her. "Baby, come back, I love you so much, don't leave me here." He sounded so urgent, so desperate. Ai could feel his love for her in his voice. Finally Ai made up her mind. She shouted to her sister, "Sorry, Sachi-chan, not now, not this time, please wait for me for a little longer, I will be there with you eventually, but not now." She promptly turned around and went back to where she came from.
The other emergency room staff tried to pull Ibiki away from the patient, but Haruka gestured them not to. She could see that Ai was responding to Ibiki's words. Her vital signs were slowly picking back up. Her heart was once again pumping at a reasonable pace. Still weak, but good enough for a surgery now. Then, as if there were magic, Ai opened her eyes. "Ai-chan! Baby!" Ibiki leaned forward to place a kiss on her forehead with joy.
Ai smiled weakly at him and said, "Snuggly bear…"
Haruka took the opportunity and walked up to Ai. She bent down so that her face was only inches away from hers and said, loudly and clearly, "Ai-chan, this is Haruka nee-san, you are doing great, we're going to start your surgery now, you have to keep fighting, for yourself and for Ibiki-san, did you hear me? You have to keep fighting for Ibiki-san." She was satisfied to see Ai give her a clear nod before she closed her eyes again. Haruka knew that she had already won half the battle when the patient had a strong will to survive herself. She gathered all the tools she would need and promptly commenced the surgery.
Ibiki left the emergency room co-operatively when the surgery began. He was worried about Ai, but he had faith in Haruka when he saw the confidence in her eyes. He would just patiently wait for them in the waiting area, waiting for the good news.
There were three genins besides him sitting in the waiting area. Ibiki recognized one of them as the late Sandaime's grandson Sarutobi Konohamaru. Suddenly it dawned on him. He bent down and addressed the children kindly, "Are you the genin team that found Ai in the forest and took her here?" He had heard about this from the nurse earlier. The genins were intimidated by his size and his reputation, but Konohamaru, the bravest of the three, replied to his inquiry politely and said, "Yes, Ibiki-san, we were on our way back from a mission and we found the nee-san fainted just a little bit north to the gate, so we immediately carried her to the emergency room… how is nee-san doing?"
"She is in the middle of a surgery and she is trying her very best. It will take a while before they finish. Why don't you kids go home first? I will send a message to your sensei as soon as I find out how the surgery goes. Your sensei is Ebisu right?" Ibiki patted each of the genin appreciatively on their shoulder before they left.
He was now the only person left in the waiting room. He could see the red "surgery in progress" light blinking above the tightly closed door, and his heart couldn't help but beat worriedly in sync with it.