Kiyoshi couldn't feel any pain, he was numb all over. Seconds later, the whole crew started using him as a punching bag. All he could do is sit there and think about what he did to Hikari. "Talk about my problems, makes me selfish. Keep them secret, makes me an asshole," thought the teen.
One of the pirates said, "Once Hikari comes, everyone scram, she's protecting this fool."
Kiyoshi replied "don't bother, she wants me to suffer now. Perhaps I should"
"Hikari doesn't care? That makes it so much better." smiled the pirate throwing a punch in Kiyoshi's face.
At that moment, the girl walked in with a box of tissues to see a room full of people beating on the tied up Kiyoshi. No matter how much she didn't want to, she got extremely pissed off, "Get the fuck away from him!" she screamed picking one of them up by the leg and swinging him around into the doorframe.
Everyone fell silent, no more cheering for Kiyoshi's blood, no more teasing laughter or threats going in his direction. Everyone's attention was turned to the extremely confused and pissed off girl standing in the doorway. Kiyoshi still couldn't lift his head up to see what happened "Why did you stop beating me?"
"Everybody out!" screamed Hikari pointing out the door. All the pirates rushed out of the room, dragging the half-dead one out as well.
Hinata was lying on the hard floor, pretending to be asleep, plan set up and ready for action. Naruto was able to get a message she sent to him through a genjutsu, it was almost time to get to work. The plan would have to be executed quickly and flawlessly in order for it to work.
Naruto snapped into action, flinging his tied up body across the room, screaming like a maniac. Everyone in the room rushed over to sedate him, but he wouldn't have it their way, he kept moving and giving them all a hard time. In the meanwhile, Hinata was cutting through the ropes with chakra released from her hand.
Ropes snapped, she quietly got up; avoiding being spotted, sneaked up on a pirate and took his sword out. Flinging the sword in Naruto's direction, she successfully cut his ropes; the ropes fell to the ground releasing the menace with spiky hair. "Kage Bushin No Jutsu!" screamed Naruto, releasing fifty clones, filling the room to the brink.
The pirates froze, shocked by what just happened, in a blink of an eye, they were outnumbered five to one by kids in orange suits, it was an eyesore all by itself, but then the punching and kicking started. In a matter of seconds, they were tied up, gagged and stuffed into a closet.
Thirty-eight of the clones vanished, the remaining twelve transformed into ten pirates and two tied up kids, nobody would suspect anything. The couple disguised themselves as two pirates and started wandering the ship, searching for Kiyoshi.
"Do you enjoy hurting girls' feelings?" asked Hikari on the verge of tears.
"No."
She came over to him, sat down and started treating his wounds. When she lifted his head up, and put it on a pillow, he was able to see the hurt in her eyes. She had concern for him, it was evident that there were many more feelings other than those of lust that she had for him. She spoke "Why don't you like me?"
Kiyoshi squeezed his eyes shut "I do, might even love you."
Her voice became weepy "Then why won't you join me? We could have so much more than a relationship."
"Life's unfair, this love's not meant to be." replied the blonde, heart ripping to shreds.
"But why not?!!" at that moment she came by a strange fact, the muscle in his arm was hard, "Are you numb?"
"Yes"
She couldn't take the risk; she took a kunai from her pouch and stabbed him in the arm. No reaction came, he really was numb, but his muscles were as tense as someone with an excessive dose of adrenaline. "What are you?" asked the girl with a terrified face.
"I'm different than any other human, my muscle structure is more dense, and therefore I'm dangerous for anyone to be around," explained Kiyoshi
Hikari thought, "Good thing these are my chakra ropes, anything else he would have been able to rip apart like a gummy worm."
"Do you see why I can't have a relationship?"
"That doesn't mean anything!" yelled the girl
"Really? Have you noticed the fact that I weigh 1100 pounds? Or the fact that I'm too strong for my own good? How about the fact that I'm not looking for a girlfriend? I have enough troubles as it is!" exclaimed the tied up teen. ⌠I made a pact with myself long ago, I swore to never date anyone again." Then he leaned his head over to her ear, whispering the last reason, making the girl terrified. Hikari ran out of the room, weeping. "I'm a freaking coward... afraid of life," whispered Kiyoshi, dropping his head back again.
Rushing past pirates, running at her top speed, hiding her face so that the crew doesn't see the tears. Runs into her room, slamming the metal door behind her. Everyone gathers around her door, confused by her behavior.
"Does this mean we can kill that kid?" asked one of the pirates
Everyone turned to him with uneasy expressions. One of them replied, "Don't know about you guys, but I'll stay away from this whole ordeal, who knows what she'll do to us next?"
A third stepped into the conversation "Yeah, she's as unpredictable as the weather."
"Good thing we're underwater!" exclaimed a fourth, everyone gave off a stupid laugh and dispersed all over the ship, carrying on with their assigned jobs.
Kiyoshi was sitting there, reminiscing everything that's happened to him recently. His heart felt heavy, hard to breathe, "Am I really not meant to be human? Just a weapon?" thought the blonde, recalling the countless lives that he's taken in his past. "Fuck life, I can be whatever the fuck I want to be!" yelled Kiyoshi snapping out of depression. "I just hope she forgives me. I'd really love to get to know her better."
Inari had led Kakashi into the basement of his house, which was very conveniently transformed into a huge library.
"Holy mother of fuck..." thought Kakashi looking around the room in awe.
Inari decided to introduce him his grandfather's collection, "You'll find all the information you need in here. Two thirds of these books are on the geographical features of this world."
"Why do you have this here?" asked Kakashi not able to grasp the fact that a pre-teen has his own library.
"Come one Kakashi, you protected my grandfather, you know very well that he is a bridge builder." explained the kid.
"Oh yeah, by the way, where is the old dog, and the lady?" asked Kakashi
"After the bridge was completed, our economy improved really well, his reputation rose fairly quickly too. Right now he's in the Star country, building a bridge over some sort of chasm or something, I'm not sure. Mom went along with him to keep him out of trouble." explained Inari
Kakashi's impression of the place eased, "A bridge builder definitely needs information on sea-beds and geographical features. What else do you have here?"
"Oh you know, information on architecture, building materials, history books." smirked Inari "Secret stash..."
Kakashi wiped his face off, but under his mask lurked a smile. Casually, he looked around "so... what's in the secret stash of yours?" he asked, trying to not look too excited.
Inari laughed, "I'm just kidding, I just wanted to see your reaction."
Kakashi sighed; he was outsmarted by a pre-teen. "Oh well, let's get started. We have to compare my documents to those of your grandfather's."
Several hours had passed, and the only things Kakashi was able to find were new-grown trees, several collapsed rock formations, and tide lines. The tide lines caught his attention, he didn't pay any attention to them before, but there was one thing that caught his attention.
"Hey Inari, take a look at this island." handing the map over.
Inari observed it, a big island with a lake in the center, "So?"
"Look at the tide lines." Kakashi pointed out
"Yeah, this is strange, what is this?" The tide lines seemed to exist on the lake too, something that shouldn't happen unless it's a very big body of water.
"Do you have the schematics of the sea-bed in that area?" asked the copy ninja.
Inari walked over to a shelf, dragging his index finger across a row of big, dusty books. "Here we go, 'sea-beds of the water country,'" said Inari finding it, taking it out and dropping it on the table, raising a big dust-cloud.
Kakashi was glad he had a mask on, or he would have definitely choked on the dust. Opened the book, skipped through sections, "Here it is." he finally said finding the map of the island and its seabed. After a short observation he found a rather wide underwater canal connecting the lake, to the sea. "That explains it."
Inari glanced at it, "oh yeah, there are many canals all over the place in our waters."
An Idea popped into Kakashi's head, he started to rummage through maps of the seabed. "Shit!" exclaimed Kakashi after finding his theory to be correct.
"What?" asked Inari
"They move under-water," whispered Kakashi with a serious look.
"What? Impossible!" yelled Inari. Kakashi gave him several maps, all showing dugout pathways in the sea-bed. "Wow... It's amazing that nobody's spotted this yet"
Kakashi got up "Inari, I'll need your help with this, do you feel like being a hero?"
Inari smiled "Time pay Naruto back."
The two of them left, rushing back to Kakashi's team, running on water, and lifting sparkling drops of water behind them.
Kiyoshi was sitting in the room, with no signs of the poison losing their effect. Not caring about the ropes or the fact that he couldn't move anything, all he did was think about the girl who saved him several times in the previous 24 hours. The more he thought about her, the deeper feelings brewed.
Upon hearing footsteps, he lazily rolled his head over sideways to look at the door. "Anyone want to throw another punch at me?"
Two pirates walked in, smiling "Hey Kiyoshi" said one of them.
"Do I know you?" asked Kiyoshi suspiciously observing the pirate, the voice was familiar, but he wasn't in the right mood to try and recall whose it was.
"I could only hope you still do after all that drugging you took." said Naruto changing back to his original form, Hinata did the same. "Do I have to save you every time?" pulling a kunai out and attempting to cut the rope.
"Don't bother trying to cut it Naruto-kun," said hinata kneeling down and starting to untie Kiyoshi "It's a chakra rope, made of several hundred chakra strings."
Kiyoshi looked up "Yeah, why else would I still be here?"
"You look like shit Kiyoshi" started Naruto
"Yeah, my buddies accidentally mistook me for a punching-bag" replied the sedated blonde.
Hinata untied the final knot "There." The ropes loosened and fell apart; Kiyoshi fell down, creating a crater in the floor on impact.
"Whoa! I thought you left your weights back at Inari's." said Naruto
"I lied." replied the teen standing up and brushing himself off.
The three disguised themselves and found an unoccupied room. Kiyoshi, still not having a very strong feeling of his body, started speaking "We can't take on them by ourselves." Naruto was about say something, probably contradict him, but Kiyoshi cut him off "We need to wait for Kakashi, with his help we will be able to complete this mission."
Hinata nodded in approval. Naruto folded his arms, "I could take them on, I can clone myself and beat each one of them down"
"That is true, but remember, we're on their turf, so we don't know what other secrets they hide on this ship, plus they have those three ninja. They may have a hidden weapon, we can't take the risk of engaging them by ourselves."
"Fine..." pouted Naruto
Kakashi and Inari, running side by side, hands stretched out, long trail of disturbed water following them.
Kakashi attempted to contact his team "Anyone there? Naruto, please answer!" nothing but fuzz, no voices in the background. "Damn. Inari, we're going to have to play this by chance, don't separate from me.
Inari nodded and they quickened their pace.
Hikari took her hurt out on the refrigerator. Lying there, on the bed, surrounded by empty chip-bags that suffered her feeding frenzy. Opening another bag, she dug in, trying to eat her sorrows away. "Comfort food my ass, this is as uncomfortable as it gets." whispered the broken up girl, getting up from the crumbs on the bed, brushing them off and lying back on it, to find that there is a crumb in her shirt that's irritating her.
Thoughts are nasty things at moments like these, it's best to just stop thinking completely and listen to some music, but she couldn't stop, couldn't stop thinking about the tied up boy a few rooms away from her. "Why won't he let me get close?" thought the girl, turning over to her side, "He won't let me into his life. But why not?" rolled over onto her back again "Of course! He doesn't know me that well." she smiled "I got to get him to know me, accept me, and get him to love me without worrying about hurting me. Now how can I accomplish that?"
Her thoughts were running wild now, all the possible things that she could do to him, genjutsu, torture, "No!" exclaimed Hikari "I want him to love me, to do that I have to take it a step at a time. First I'll join his side, I'll show him that I'm strong and worthy of his love, and it'll work out. He already confessed to me, he's just too afraid to carry out a relationship." She smiled and decided to go pay him a visit.
She walked in on Naruto's clone disguised as Kiyoshi tied to a chair. "Kiyoshi-kun, I want to make a proposition" said the girl pulling up a chair. Kiyoshi's impostor gave off an worried smile. "Wait a second..." she said leaning in to look at his eyes "You're not Kiyoshi, he has different eyes!" exclaimed the girl, punching the clone, making it disappear.
Naruto was sitting there, playing rock-paper-scissors with a clone, when the last of the Kiyoshi impostor's memories came to him. "Guys... we've been found out"
Kiyoshi and Hinata sharply turned their heads to look at the spiky haired teen. "Nobody's sounding the alarm... Who found out?"
"A girl."
Kiyoshi smiled "Hikari! She forgave me!"
Hinata and Naruto turned to look at Kiyoshi in confusion. "Did we miss something?" asked Hinata
"None of your business" replied the happy teen "Let's get to the deck of this ship." The other two nodded and followed him to the exit.
Hikari was worried; she didn't want anyone to find out about the escape before she found Kiyoshi. She was running to the room containing the other two prisoners, in hopes of finding Kiyoshi trying to free them. She walked in on several pirates and two tied up teens on the floor. She tossed a kunai at one of the pirates, who disappeared in a cloud of smoke. After killing the rest of the clones in two moves she rushed to the deck, once again in hopes of reaching Kiyoshi before he escaped.
Naruto received the clones' memories, "Whoa, that girl is strong, she has techniques that I haven't seen before."
"As is expected from the captain of a pirate ship." replied Kiyoshi, getting shocked expressions from his two comrades
They reached the door with a valve, the exit. Kiyoshi put his hands on the valve getting ready to open the door "Take a deep breath"
"Why?" asked Naruto
"We're about to get flooded"
"What?!! Where in the hell are we?!!"
Kiyoshi didn't wait to explain everything to Naruto, and started rotating the valve. Everyone took a deep breath as a harsh stream of water rushed in. The three of them fought to keep from getting carried away by the current, and were eventually on the outside, swimming towards the surface.
There was a panic in the control room. "We're being flooded!" screamed one "All ships to the surface!" pulling various levers and twisting valves.
Hikari heard the alarms, "Damn, their escape has been spotted, I need to find them before anyone else." thought the girl running up the stairs, quickening her pace.
The three were swimming up to the surface, not looking down, when the ship below them started floating up, eventually catching up to them and pushing them along with it to the surface. Once the surface was broken, Kiyoshi held his hand to his eyes to shield them from the sunlight. Taking a look around, he found himself on a strange ship, surrounded by four others just like it. "This is not going to end nicely..." said Kiyoshi preparing to activate his blood-limit.
Hinata stopped him "Don't! The drugs you received, if they go into the eyes, they'll make you go blind." Kiyoshi nodded in agreement.
The pirates were all getting ready to storm the deck of the ship, to find the people who opened the valve.
Hikari was rushing up the stairs, light visible at the end of them. She ran out into the sunlight, blocking it with her hand, trying to get accustomed to it. She turned to find Kiyoshi on the opposite side of the ship, "Kiyoshi!" yelled the girl with tears, sprinting towards him.
Naruto and Hinata went into battle-stances, preparing to fight a powerful enemy. Kiyoshi signaled them to back off. In confusion, the two of them loosened, and stood up looking at him. "Hikari!" yelled Kiyoshi back to the girl on the opposite side of the ship, running to her.
They met in the middle; she jumped into his arms, crying. He set her down, and she started "I'm tired of this pirate crap, they have no manners, etiquette or life. I want to be with you."
"But what about..."
She cut him off "I don't care, we'll work it out somehow, I want to get to know you, and I want you to love me."
There was a silence, the rest was said with the eyes, they looked deeply into each other's as tears of joy fell, smiling.
Naruto's arm was over Hinata's shoulder, they were looking in awe at Kiyoshi's newfound love.
Nothing happened for a minute, Kiyoshi was holding Hikari in his arms, wishing to never have to let her go. She was the only one who he felt understood him, his actions, his sorrows, and his disabilities.
Beautiful day, warm sun, soft sea breeze, and love in the air.