"So what now?" asked Kiyoshi, nothing else came to mind other than asking the silly question that usually made things worse. "I can't run, I can't fight, and I can just barely see due to the drug overdose that you gave me. Where does this end?"
Ino sat down on a chair across from him, "I already told you. Until death do us part."
"I didn't think you were serious. But I guess I shouldn't be too surprised about anything anymore."
"Why wouldn't I be serious?"
Kiyoshi gave her the 'you have to be kidding me' look, "Never mind."
"I'll tell you what I'm going to do next, I want to see what it's like inside that sexy body of yours."
"My body is scarred, ripped up, sewn back together, ripped up again, burnt, dead, revived, and same process repeated five times over. How is that for sexy?" smirked Kiyoshi, "You might as well let me go."
"Not a chance in hell."
Kiyoshi flinched, "Ino... stay the hell out of my body. Stay out for your own sake."
Ino gave off a light giggle and formed her favorite seal, "You're in no position to make the threats. And once I come out, I'll hypnotize and brainwash you."
"Shit..." thought the blond boy, as Ino entered his split mind.
An ear-splitting screech of pain could be heard from anywhere in Konoha, Naruto looked in the direction of its source, "South-west," stated the blond boy and turned back to the pack of dogs.
Hinata backed away against the wall, "Naruto... get us out of here."
Naruto held onto Hinata and jumped up on Kiyoshi's roof, "Kage Bushin no-jutsu!"
Two figures darted off the roof and ran north, down to the Hokage building. The dogs followed the two clones, and would later be chased off by ninja guarding the building.
Naruto couldn't believe what he had heard, "Hinata, did you hear that screech too?"
The girl nodded, "Kiyoshi..."
"Can't be, Kiyoshi wouldn't scream if he were torn limb by limb."
"It was his voice," repeated Hinata.
Naruto couldn't grasp this, yet he had to agree with the girl; it was indeed Kiyoshi's voice that screamed in agonizing pain. "Let's go."
Ino was huddled in a corner behind Kiyoshi, cowering from his sight. Her breath was out of place; random sharp inhales and exhales in no particular order or proportion. In her eyes, Kiyoshi was now the human form of death. "What are you?"
"I'm human."
"No!" screamed the girl, "You can't be..."
Kiyoshi closed his eyes, "I always thought of myself as a weapon. Never have I thought that I could live a normal human life, even though that was my deepest desire."
"How can you talk?"
"Why not?"
"How can you act so calmly with all that pain? Any normal human would go into deep shock and never come out. Why do your scars hurt so much?"
Kiyoshi sighed, "It's not something that could be explained. My dense muscle structure protects my insides, but that has a cost. Since my muscle tissue is tougher than steel, it's the same as having an armor plate under my skin. Every punch and attack that I receive is fifty times more painful than anything you could ever experience."
The girl couldn't stop shuddering from the vile lesson on Kiyoshi's anatomy. But it kept on coming, word after word; Kiyoshi kept crushing her spirit and desire.
"Every gash, every punch, every shot that I've ever received, still resides with me. My nerves will never heal. Stay the hell out of my body if you know what's good for you, stay out of my mind if you don't want to learn an even harder lesson than you just did."
Ino stared at him in terror, "How can you still speak?"
"I've earned the right to live in this body, through the pain that it's experienced. You've had nothing, no worries; your life has been one big banquet. Your mind can't handle invading me."
"Stop talking!" screamed Ino, "It hurts to look at you!"
Kiyoshi twisted his head back, "You're selfish. You never had to work for a day in your life, and you always try to take the easy way. Even with something that you consider valuable, me."
Ino no longer wished to do anything. Nothing she did up to this moment made her life memorable. She just wanted to go back home, sleep, and wake up realizing that everything Kiyoshi just said was just a dream.
Then the girl realized; even if he were a dream, the events that just took place a nightmare, it wouldn't stop Kiyoshi from being absolutely correct. Her life had been just one big carnival of fun and cotton candy. "You're wrong."
Kiyoshi flipped his hair out of the way, "Am I?" He threw her a glance, "Me, being tied up, is the perfect evidence of your laziness."
A tear formed in her eye, "You have no idea, how much I trained... just to get you to look at me."
"And you ruined it all by kidnapping me," replied Kiyoshi "Have you seen Hinata's dedication? Don't say that you've trained your heart out, because that would be an insult to her efforts."
"What am I supposed to do? I don't have her will, the dedication that she has."
Kiyoshi looked down, eyes hidden by the shadow of his hair, "Then you don't love me. Then this was all an effort out of selfish lust."
Ino turned away, she had thought this was the real thing, the feeling that they call 'love', but it was just another stage? She had a hard time grasping the concept, she didn't know whether to believe the boy or keep tormenting herself with what-if's. 'Confusion', was too insufficient of a word to match her feelings.
"Let me go, I will introduce you to the one person that has ever loved me."
Ino didn't want to deal with kidnapping Kiyoshi anymore, she had enough of him to last her a lifetime. "Osu..."
Naruto had a difficult time keeping his jutsu going; keeping an image of his orange suit with the constantly waving white trench coat. Running southwest, he turned to his girlfriend "Hinata, can you see him?"
Hinata searched for Kiyoshi through her Byakugan, "I can't find him..." they were coming to the outskirts of the village, "He's not here..."
"He's got to be! I heard his voice from around this area!"
"I don't know where, but he's not in the village. Must have been from the outside," Suggested Hinata
Naruto recalled reading about a possibility in one of his diplomacy books; a war that raged long before the appearance of the tailed demons. Every country pushing its boarders in all directions, only so that later they'd be unable to occupy and control the land which they had conquered.
Konoha lay in the center of war, thus had to defend itself from all sides, and push west at the same time. In order to create an absolute defense, they had to separate the enemy from their support. Konoha created hidden bunkers and underground tunnel-works to be able to ambush the incoming army from all sides with the help from the Hyuga family's ability of Byakugan, thus minimizing the amount of effort being placed into Konoha's defense, and focus it on getting territory in the west.
Earth jutsu users tore this web of underground tunnels into the ground, and the tunnels were spread dozens of miles around, with supply rooms located every few hundred meters. The closest one to Konoha, thus most defended entrance was located just a hundred meters away from the southwest wall.
That supply cache would have to be Naruto's next and only guess as to where Kiyoshi might be located. "We don't have time to be legit. If that scream was in fact Kiyoshi's, then we can't waste time going out through the gate. We're going over the wall."
"But what about the sentry towers?"
"Let them follow us. We might need their assistance if things are to get ugly."
Hinata looked over at Naruto's expression of confidence, "Thorough..." thought the girl.
Naruto made several clones to toss himself and Hinata up over the wall, and another dozen to make sure that the sentry would notice them. He grabbed onto Hinata and jumped on the boosting hands of his clones, getting flipped up over the high wall.
"Say... is that Naruto?" asked one of the guards, getting up and setting his coffee on a table. "Where's he going?"
"Oi Naruto!" yelled the other guard, "Did you check out?"
Naruto turned his head slightly, just to look up at the guards with one eye, whilst running away from them. "No!"
"Shit..." mumbled the guard, "You stay here, I'll got retrieve him."
"Sure," replied the second guard, sitting back down and taking his coffee.
Naruto summoned clones to toss himself and Hinata forward, making them dash through the forest at a raging speed. "Hang on, Kiyoshi."
Hinata jumped off one clone, got boosted by another, evaded an incoming tree branch, flipped off from a tree trunk. "Naruto," said the girl, "You still didn't tell me where we are going."
"An old war bunker," replied the boy, "It's our only chance."
"Are you sure Kiyoshi's there?"
"As much as I'm sure that his scream came from this direction."
Hinata became worried, "What if you're wrong?"
Naruto's eyebrows lowered as he passed another set of trees with a dash, "Then I'll have to announce my position as replacement Hokage, and call a search party."
"Why didn't you tell anyone?" asked Hinata, "The reason you wanted to become Hokage, was to get acknowledgement."
"That was a selfish cause," replied Naruto.
Hinata's eyes widened, brows arched, "But that's the reason you wanted to become Hokage."
"That's not the true reason I wanted to become Hokage. At the time, I didn't know the true reason at all. It was a mysterious desire," explained Naruto, "The true reason behind my desire... is my love for this village."
"Love for this village? I though it was love from the village that you were seeking."
Naruto smiled, "I've got your love, and that's all I ever wanted... even though I didn't know it."
"Aw, you're sweet..."
Hinata attempted a quick mid-air kiss, but got interrupted by Naruto, "I'm sorry, I'll take a rain cheque. We're here."
"Osu."
Naruto shuffled the fallen orange leaves in search for something. Finally he found what he was looking for, pulling on a chain and opening a trap door. The couple rushed down the stairs, heading into the darkness. "Flame no-jutsu!" exclaimed Naruto, making a small ball of blue fire appear in his hand. "Look for a door."
They rushed down the dark tunnel, covered in webs and decaying frames of wooden supports. It was hard to see; the more they ran, the more dust followed them, and the harder it was to breathe. "Where's that damn door?" asked the blond boy.
"I think I found it!" exclaimed Hinata, words echoing through the dark tunnels. If there were an enemy, the couple's presence would be noted. Naruto felt stupid for rushing in like he would several months earlier, but he couldn't take his sweet time, not if Something happened to Kiyoshi, something that would make the warrior scream in pain.
"Where?" asked Naruto, turning to Hinata, who had taken a side-passage, and was standing in front of a heavy metallic door. "Yeah, that's it alright..."
Hinata turned to Naruto to see his approval to open the door. Naruto nodded to indicate that he has her covered. Hinata took a last breath of courage and blew the door open with her gentle fist.
She ran in on a diagonal, Naruto entered as a mirror reflection of her movement, creating a side-to-side entrance.
They both stood still, in shock. This wasn't something they had expected to see, they wouldn't expect it now, and they wouldn't expect it ever. They thought Kiyoshi was losing it, but they were proven wrong.
"Hikari?"
