Morning! Thought i'd post a couple of days early to make up for the lack of Tuesday post this week. My holiday was fantastic, and I got both this and next week's chapters mostly written, then quite a bit done of the following three! I'm glad people enjoyed the one shot I posted; though soon we'll have some nice Gai and Hayami times on the horizon. Stay tuned :)
Her lungs burned as she forced air in and out; her breath catching in her throat. She felt like she'd just joined the academy, learning to run with the group and utterly and completely failing. As an adult, she loved to run. As an adult without the natural enhancement her chakra provided...well running was once again a completely hated chore.
Her tutors had always said though, that running was the best way to promote healthy chakra circulation; and god knew that's what she needed. Her mind continuously drifted to the long conversations she used to have with Neji about his abilities; where he would reject her requests to experience his palm abilities. He would always argue that the knowledge wasn't worth the danger of having her chakra blocked...feeling as she did now, she knew he was right.
Over the recent weeks she had begun her "training", and with it came the realisation that her body was betraying her. She'd known it in an abstract sense for some time, the nausea, the weight loss, how easily she bruised, the halting of her cycle and the dark circles under her almond eyes. But when the burn she'd relished when helping pack up camp hadn't eased off in her aching muscles, and here, running with her constant guards, she felt it most.
She wasn't just a prisoner in the camp, but also within her own body.
She tripped, falling to her knees with choking coughs; caused both by the sand she inhaled and the tug of the chain that remained continuously fastened to her slender neck. The guard running with the other end of the chain, an older man with long brown hair and an impressive beard, crouched next to her with warm, worried eyes. He always had warm eyes, she'd noticed-no matter who he spoke to.
His voice was gruff though as he spoke quickly "up you get kid"
Kid. He always called her kid when they were alone; though she supposed in his eyes she must appear as one, weak as she was.
She nodded, letting him pull her upwards. Her hands quickly rested on her knees as she panted and they set off once more.
By the end she was drenched in sweat, and the gruff voiced guard laughed, handing her his canteen; which she greedily gulped.
"I used to love running" she remarked, letting herself fall to the floor; glad the chain was just long enough that she wouldn't choke whilst this close.
The guard raised an eyebrow. The prisoner hadn't really spoken to him before, just struggled through their exercise and left, then ignored him whilst she read in their afternoon guard rotation. Her voice was surprisingly womanly, not as light and girlish as he'd been expecting.
She interrupted his train of thought "I wanted you to know. I've not always been this shit. Used to run everyday-quick as anything"
He understood now, and slid to a seat beside her, enjoying the shade given by the large, jutting rock to the side of them. Her pride was wounded, an old goat like him out-running a slip of a thing like her.
"What were you? Outside of here I mean?" he finally asked, knowing as the words left his mouth that he could get in a lot of trouble for talking to her but not particularly caring as the stoic young woman opened up to him for the first time.
"You don't already know?"
He shook his head. He imagined she was some sort of academic, with all the reading and research the master had her doing.
"I was a ninja"
He spluttered out the mouthful of water and she laughed. He was utterly mesmerized as her face completely transformed with her mirth at his reaction.
"I know...I've gone to shit"
Realisation dawned on him, memories of young slaves coming in freshly bought, and out, freshly sold. "The collar" he muttered, eyes falling to the chain in his hands. Only those who could access their chakra came in bound as she was, amd thy were always weak as kittens until it was removed.
"Bingo"
He'd only been a child when he'd arrived, so long ago and so well treated here by the guard squadron he barely remembered how it felt...but he'd never had chakra; never been taken against his will, at least as far as he knew. "I'm sorry" was all he could say as they stood and headed back into the main camp. She wasn't being treated well, that much was obvious, now that he was properly looking at her. Now that she was a person, and not just an assignment.
Daisuki groaned. He'd just made his own life a whole lot harder.
The moon was barely visible as Daisuki escorted Hayami back to her tent, the camp reasonably quiet. She'd been in villages before that were bustling after dark, with lights and sounds and fun. Her brain flitted to the sticks of fried meat she always used to get with Jun and Hikaru; juicy and dripping with sauce.
This was not one of those villages. There were occasionally raucous evenings but for the most part they were still, like tonight.
So Hayami noticed the movement to her right as they passed through the centre of the makeshift village; and paused, wishing she could move just a small amount of chakra to her eyes in order to see further.
It was Takayuki, moving slowly into the masters tent. The strong lights within cut into the darkness, and for just a moment she could see the nervous smile on the young mans face, the way his armour had been switched for a simple, but finely made Yukata.
Daisuki pulled her slightly, the chain slack as he opted for her arm, unlike the usual guards who would almost drag her by the thick chain.
"I wouldn't linger your gaze on that, Kid"
"He's dressed awfully nice to-"
"Cast it from your mind Hayami"
They walked on, and Hayami filed it away for later, alongside all the information she'd gathered on this place.
Hayami was pliant as Fumi, the new second to Tamiko, brushed the dirt and grime from her now wet hair.
"I think we should cut it"
Tamiko looked up from where she was laying out an outfit on the makeshift bed; her voice edged with caution, elongating the word that came as her response. "why?"
"It's too long! It would look better at her shoulders"
"But then we couldn't style it as much"
"But it would be much more fashionable"
"Oh yeah? Are bobs and collars really in fashion at the moment out in the real world?"
Her voice was sharp, and the other woman's intake of breath was the only sound in the small room. Hayami sighed "Tamiko you're out of line". She was worried, the younger woman had been nothing but anger recently, quickling firing up into uncharacteristic tempers.
"But!"
Hayami looked at her friend, trying not to smile at the pouting look on her face and certain she herself was making an incredibly weird face in the process.
The brunette seemed to deflate, like a porcupine settling back down after it's attack. "You're right, I'm sorry Fumi"
They fell silent again, and Hayami could feel Fumi twisting her hair under, rolling it until it was short around her chin, instead of long down her back.
"Tamiko"
Her friend turned, and smiled. "That does look pretty actually". Hayami had to laugh, as the older of the two young girls appraised her as one would an antique chair or painting. She had to intervene though as their discussion grew more serious.
"I draw a line. No hair cutting"
The two women awwd, asking why; and she smiled
"promise you won't laugh?"
The two nodded
"And that this won't leave this tent?"
Their eyes gleamed
"I've always found long hair beautiful, and I was planning on tying it up nicely for the winter festival back home..." She knew it was ridiculous, the idea that she'd ever make it back to that, to him, but imagining the small events, birthdays, festivals, kissing him under the fireworks...they kept her grounded, kept her sane.
Tamiko squealed, giggling maniacally. "I didn't know you had someone back home!"
Hayami interrupted, blushing and stuttering. "I never said it was for a date!"
"...but we suspected, you'd been saying a man's name in your sleep"
"Shut up Fumi! What's he called?"
"We know what he's…"
"Shut up Fumi!"
Hayami laughed at the antics of the two, wishing she'd had a female friend at that age and desperately missing Shizune and Kurenai. She loved her boys, but there was something lovely about being around other women. They reminded her of the way Lee and Tenten would bicker, and her heart panged. It felt often like that's all it did these days.
"He's called Gai" Hayami answered, knowing somehow in her gut that Tamiko could be trusted; but also safe in the knowledge Gai could survive past anything if one of these two was a mole. She was also highly aware that their leader couldn't resist telling her if he had sent men after Gai; and she'd have another knife in her belt, the truth that someone was feeding him information.
"How long have you been together?"
"Well, I don't even know if we even are...I confessed to him the day before I left for the mission that, well... resulted in me being here"
Fumi finally spoke again, having gone silent at Tamiko's chastising. "That's so sad…you'll likely never see him again".
Tamiko turned slowly towards the younger woman, with enough rage in her eyes and tightened lips to terrify the sannin themselves, but Hayami didn't notice, too absorbed in her own truths.
"No" Hayami answered, staring at the porridge now forgotten at her side "I probably wont"
She had expected training to be with the unsettling leader of her new residence, not with the young man who had helped betray her and land her here in the first place. Weeks later and she was used to his presence, but he still refused to talk directly to her with anything not an order; and she noticed he never relaxed-the perfect soldier. He stood in one corner now, mirroring the three other large men, the four simply surrounding her as she read the wealth of material left by her aunt and uncle. He was individual though, in that of the four he was the only one sporting a hefty black eye. She wondered whether it was related to his activities the previous evening, or entirely unrelated…
The notes she worked on were...interesting. She could only assume the pair had either stolen or inherited the clan information from the sheer amount kept in Satoru's possession and the complete lack of it she remembered seeing whilst her parents were still alive.
All of it, of course, indicated she should have naturally been using her power since she was a child. Which she, of course, hadn't been. How much of it was due to a lack of natural ability, and how much was due to a lack of tutelage, she wasn't sure. Would a child learn any kind of ninja ability without being shown?
But that was meaningless for now, as she spent days meditating and reading, making notes and feeling her angry, overly full reservoir of chakra for the potential she'd never known existed. She knew her guards were bored, sick of watching her; but she couldn't even practice with the collar choking her chakra.
Instead Hayami reflected, focusing her attentions inwards, wading through the thick lake her chakra had become with no way to flow as it should.
Training with Inoki had been on the job fly or fall training.
Training with Gai had been physical, repetitive training.
Training here...was intrinsic, and interesting-and laced with ever growing fear as she failed to produce results. Her hand drifted towards the thick bandaging on her arm where she'd been punished last week for her failures. 12 horizontal cuts, one for each page of research notes passed to him that didn't contain certainty on how to actually use the bloodline ability. They itched, and she knew that they'd scar. He'd forced her, that day, to return to her old role of sitting next to him as he met with people-blood soaking her arm and the unstructured white dress that had been given to her that day. They'd taken hours to clot.
She was scared and frustrated. Without the ability to access her chakra she couldn't actually practice any form of jutsu, or give him any reliable answers, only theory and speculative results and he was angrier every time she arrived without a firm answer...
"Good afternoon Hayami!" a now familiar voice sung from the doorway as her...friend bent to come through the flap.
She couldn't help the true smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth as she leaned back, her shoulders clicking as she raised from her hunched position on the floor. "Is it afternoon already Tamiko?"
The girl was ballsy, she'd give her that, as she moved past Takayuki and poked him playfully in the ribs. She dragged a trolley of lunch, and the guards moved inwards towards the spicy smelling bowls and steaming bread. Every day the younger woman insisted on bringing her food, and always found a way to add more carbs, more calories, knowing Hayami needed it as she continued to throw up many of her meals in the evening, exhausted from the internal ravaging of her body.
"The master has asked for your notes so he can see your progress"
The looks of incredulousness on the group were matching as Takayuki ignored both the steaming bowls and the drooling people before him and held a hand out for the report she'd been working on.
"Taka eat your lunch first, you don't need to be business all the time!" Tamiko whined, rocking back on her heels with her arms crossed in front of her. The change in the young woman as she grew to trust Hayami and opened up was something Hayami had truly enjoyed watching. In Tamiko, Hayami had found a friend, a companion in this strange other world she'd been forced to occupy.
"Anyway" the young woman continued, teeth clacking around the moist bread as she spoke, "the new neck thing is being made so the notes are probably going to be useless"
The leader of their miniature sect grew stoney "And how do you know that?"
"The blacksmith told the dressmaker who checked her dimentions with us, then told us" she winked
"Women and their gossip!" he finally laughed, and Hayami found herself mesmerized by the sound, so foreign from the face that so rarely looked at her-but when it did was only with disgust or absent boredom.
Which returned as he watched Tamiko flop down next to her on the floor, handing soup and freshly baked bread to Hayami, who could only nibble it gently as she flicked through notes.
"Tamiko get away!" he called out, lip raising in disgust
All heads looked up
"Why?" the young woman asked, dunking torn bread into her soup.
"Because she is a prisoner! You shouldn't fraternise with her, she shouldn't fraternise with anyone! This is ridiculous! I will report it to the master!"
Silence, thick and heavy filled the room. Interesting silence. Did they not share his apparent hatred of her, or was it a lack of belief in Satoru?
"You'll report me to your master Takayuki?" Tamiko asked, her voice a veritable knifeblade.
"To OUR master, yes"
"Well we don't all serve him as you do, do we Takayuki?"
Hayami would be asking about that later, most certainly. It had to be related to what Daisuki had told her to ignore the night before.
"How dare y-"
"How dare I?" the tall, willowy woman stood. "How dare I? How dare you! The only ridiculous thing here is that you have an intelligent, lovely woman in the middle of your tent and she's chained to the floor! You treat her like dirt without a second thought to the fact that she's been kidnapped, hurt, dragged away from the people she loves and kept here, and that even when she's agrees to cooperate, to work with us, to learn from all this nonsense-she's still chained to the floor, threatened with death and forced to wear that blasted collar!"
"The collar is to protect us, you stupid little girl!"
"No, the collar is to protect you, I know I'd be perfectly safe! And anyway, you're not the one that has to clean blood from it every morning!"
His attention snapped down to where Hayami still sat on the floor. "it bleeds?"
She could only nod, unsure how to react in this situation.
"Then count yourself lucky Tamiko, that that's all I'm going to report to our master today"
As he huffed out, notes forgotten, Tamiko daintily dropped back down to the floor and continued with her soup. They stayed in silence for a few moments before one of the guards moved to sit with them on the floor, then the other two. She laughed at their sheepish looks, taking a swig of her canteen and offering it to her running companion, who nodded before accepting.
"Sorry about all this" he eventually said, gesturing to the chains holding her to the floor.
Hayami could only nod. It wasn't fine, but they also had no say in the situation.
"That's why you're running with us, ain't it?" another asked, gesturing to the collar.
She nodded. "I'm hoping it could help disperse my chakra"
"8 months with it blocked, I ain't heard nothing like it"
"No wonder the boss has us observing how she's getting on!"
"And what will you tell him?" She tentatively asked, glancing down at her notes. She had the vague feeling she'd just been given a piece of information she really wasn't supposed to know.
Her running companion was silent for a moment before answering tensely. "I think we'll have a chat later, won't we lads?
They shared a glance and nodded. Were they not as loyal as her overseer? Were they playing her, hoping she'd reveal tidbits of her life to use against her?...what was their play here?
"Anyway, you know that I'm Dai, that's Chou and Kuso"
She spluttered, head whipping round. "Kuso?"
The hint of a blush rose on his neck "just a nickname…"
She laughed, surprised at the sound coming, mostly unused, out of her own mouth.
She took their smiles in in return, and flashed a grateful one at Tamiko before truly looking the three men over over. Dai was the man she ran with, who looked to be in his mid 40s with those warm eyes and kind smile. Chou was slender with a mostly shaved head, save for the top which was pulled into a stubby ponytail. Kuso was incredibly tall, and proportioned like he'd had a growth spurt and was waiting for the rest of his body to catch up. He reminded her of a lolloping Inuzuka puppy.
Her chances of getting out just possibly went up by three, given how each glanced at the chain when they thought she wasn't watching
Whilst she knew she was still a sheep amongst wolves, the wolves were certainly looking less threatening each day.