Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Naruto or any of its trademarks, characters, places, etc.
-12-
When all was quiet in the Gorex household, the puppet girl began to make her move. She stayed close to the walls and made her way to the living room, flinging the weapon case above the mantle open and taking the two boomerang weapons that hung inside it. Sneaking past the older man who had fallen asleep on the couch, she tip toed to the front door and quietly exited the household.
Marionette made her way out of the poor quarter and brought out the map that the old hag had given her days ago. She might not know the name of the man who had taken Kanshi, but she knew that he was wealthy. All she had to do was look around the manors of Takigakure for either Kanshi or her now fiancé. Luckily the poor quarter was not far from the wealthy district.
A hike further into Takigakure brought her to an area cluttered with large manor homes bright with light. She decided to take the first house on her left and used the Gendari to scale it to the window on the second story. When she pulled herself up to the window she noticed that it was covered by a curtain. Since no one could be able to recognize her once she left, Marionette took one of the Gendari and stabbed into the window, shattering it and ripping part of the curtain off.
What she found however was a pair of astonished lovers who had just been caught in the act, "What the fuck!" the male of the pair called, racing to the window. Marionette pulled the other Gendari out of the side of the house and fell to the ground, flustered, and ran to the next house. With a bit of luck she managed to stay out of the sight of the man as he shot outside and looked around his property.
In the next house's window she climbed up to find an elderly man, possibly one of the village's elders. She decided that it would be best to not bother and moved onto the next house. The next window was that of a woman who was petting her cat she dropped down. The following house had a man admiring himself in woman's dresses in a mirror, she dropped down. She noted that the wealthy citizens of Takigakure were quite...eccentric.
On the right side of the street, second house, she finally found what she had been looking for. Kanshi was sitting at a desk in ornately decorated room writing. Marionette knocked on the window until she had Kanshi's attention and opened it for her.
"What are you doing here?" Kanshi whispered as she let her in. Marionette brushed all of the dirt that had accumulated on her off and put the Gendari away.
"I came to rescue you see," she grabbed Kanshi's shoulders, "I got you into this mess and if I don't get you out of it I will never make it to Heaven!"
Kanshi pulled the hands off of her and took a seat on the large and neatly made bed, "If I go back home Doki will just come back to get me again. Did you have a plan?" She assumed that Doki was the name of the man who had taken her.
"Well," Marionette rubbed her chin, "I was thinking maybe I could just sneak you out."
"And what if we get resistance?" Kanshi shook her head at her rescuer's inexperience, "They'll kill you on the spot."
"I..." Marionette didn't know what she would do. She didn't want to kill anyone because she felt that if she did she would be denied Heaven, but if she didn't rescue Kanshi she'd be denied it anyway. She realized then that if she was to serve Sasori, she would have to be able to kill to protect her anyway, "I'll take care of any resistance we get."
"You can handle it?" the young woman was unsure of the puppet girl's abilities, "Well I hope you're ready."
"Couldn't we just go out the wind-?"
Just as Marionette spoke, a voice came from the other side of the door and the doorknob began to squeak, "Kanshi, are you in there?" The two women looked at one another frantically. When Doki opened the door a moment later however, Kanshi was back by her desk writing sitting on a thick tree trunk oddly.
"What is it Master Doki?" she asked as she set her writing utensil down.
"I thought I heard voices, I guess it was nothing," he turned to leave, but stopped when a piece of plaster fell from the ceiling. He looked up to see Marionette using the Gendari to latch herself onto the ceiling, "What the-"
Marionette dropped down on top of him, putting a foot on his mouth to shut him up, "Don't speak Doki or you die, got it?" He squirmed under her for a bit shouting for help, but luckily everything he said was muffled by Marionette's foot. She took her foot off of him and grabbed him by the neck, throwing him into the wall. In a whispered shout, she yelled, "I told you to be quiet Doki, keep it up!"
Once Doki stood up, he shouted as loud as he humanly could; "Guards, help!" And just as he finished, Marionette threw one of the Gendari into him. As he bled out onto the carpet he breathed a warning, "You won't leave this house alive, bitch."
All of the violence had mentally scarred Kanshi, who stood by the desk still, holding the paper to herself. She was completely frozen; even Marionette waving a hand in her direction motioning her to come near was met with silence. So Marionette rushed over to her, grabbing and tossing her over her shoulder, "Kanshi we can't wait around!"
The paper that Kanshi had been writing had fallen to the ground by Marionette's feet; she bent over to read it;
"Dear Mother and Father,
Please forgive me for what I am about to do, I want you to know that I will always love you both very much. Remember me with warm feelings.
Your Daughter,
Kanshi"
A suicide note. Had Marionette not arrived when she did, Kanshi might have been dead. Just the idea that she had saved Kanshi filled her with a sense of accomplishment. But at the same time, it was still her fault that Kanshi had been put into such a place.
Marionette rushed back over to Doki's corpse and pulled the flung Gendari out. She heard the sound of rushing feet headed up the stairs and her way, she prepared herself. Five large men with kunai raised rushed in, Marionette used the Gendari to block their attacks, kicking at them with her feet. She was still weak, but she had managed to build up some strength to block their attacks.
Quickly jumping back, Marionette remembered the hand seals from Sasori's book; ram-snake-tiger, then dog-boar-ram. Marionette transformed her with Kanshi flung over her back into one of the guards, then made several clones of said guard. While the other guards attacked at anyone who looked like the copied guard, Marionette in disguised attacked the original guard, stabbing him with a kunai.
The other guards noticed this and assumed that Marionette was the real guard, joining in the beating. When all of the clones were defeated and the real guard was being swarmed upon by his team, Marionette took the opportunity to slip out of the room and down the side of the stairs to the first floor which was empty. Her disguise then wore out and she could hear silence from upstairs.
"Wait a minute...there were six of us here right?" Marionette took no time to race out while the guards realized that they had killed one of their own. Outside of the mansion wasn't much better, the man who she had interrupted from before was still running around the area looking for her in a loin cloth. Marionette noticed that there was a large river with a bridge by the manor and raced to it, jumping in while the guards all assembled outside looking for her.
An hour of fruitless searching later, Marionette pulled herself onto a set of rocks under the bridge with Kanshi still on her back. She laid the young girl down, "Sorry for the bumpy ride."
Kanshi was still dazed it seemed, she aimlessly held a hand up, which Marionette grabbed and squeezed comfortingly, "Talk to me Kanshi, it's over now, you're safe!"
The girl was still silent, "No one's going to hurt you Kanshi, please, talk." No reply still. Marionette grabbed Kanshi and threw her back over her shoulder, "We have one last stop then Kanshi and it will be all over."
