"The Thief and the Memorabilia"
Nikoru stomped down the hallway and into Hotaru's room, forgetting to close the door as she whirled inside and glanced around. She spotted the tall folding screen in a back corner of the room, cati-cornered and pulled some what away from the wall. Wow, Hotaru, you're a GENIUS when it comes to hiding things, aren't you? Nikoru rolled her eyes as she went towards the screen, her thoughts laced with venom and sarcasm as she pushed the screen out of the way and looked down at the over sized, mahogany chest sitting there. She knelt in front of it, somewhere in the back of her mind realizing that it was easily as long as she was. There was a padlock the size of her hand forcing it shut too. She picked up the heavy piece of metal and turned it every which way in her hand, looking for somewhere it would give.
She frowned and glanced around, figuring Hotaru wouldn't be so stupid as to keep the key ON her and risk losing it, so she would hide it somewhere. Luckily for Nikoru, Hotaru had a VERY bad memory, so her hiding places were often very easy; to make it easy on herself when she had to root whatever she hid out later. But, sometimes, the places were ingenious; so obvious that they were the LAST place you tended to look, if you thought to look there at all. Nikoru figured this would be one of those instances. She got up and moved from behind the crushed folding screen, beginning to root through the slightly messy room.
After a long while of searching she paused and put her hands on her hips, standing in the center of the room and glancing around with a furrowed brow. She was somewhat surprised Hotaru hadn't come back here and discovered her by now. She must be really caught up in that caligraphy. Nikoru looked around one more time, wondering why in the world she hadn't found that damned key by now. It had to be big to go in a lock like that...and Hotaru always hid things in the stupidest places...Nikoru froze and stared at a window across from her, wondering if Hotaru would've been stupid enough to lock the thing and throw AWAY the key in one of her fits of rage. She shook the thought away quickly, turning and facing the chest as she did; she wasn't THAT stupid.
Walking back over and kneeling in front of the locked chest of goodies, touching the lock with wanting fingertips before glancing around the room one last time, defeat started to flicker in her eyes. Then, she spotted something she should've thought of before. The chest took up almost an entire tatami mat. Its thick, coarse, black rim jutted out from beneath the box, touching cleanly to the next mat. Nikoru pulled the mat up and saw the glint of a tiny silver key. She grinned and snatched it off the wooden flooring, dropping the mat with a snap before forcing the key into the lock and jamming it this way and that, surprised the huge lock didn't swallow up the thin little key she was holding onto so fiercely.
The lock finally gave way, its mechanisms clicking loudly before its top sprung open, the heavier bottom swinging as she dropped it against the wood of the box. She grabbed at the thin piping that looped through the latch of the chest, shoving it out of the way and hurling the lid back, listening to it slam against the wall. She froze and looked over her shoulder, her hands attached to the rim of the chest in a white knuckled grip, her eyes wide as she waited to get caught. If Hotaru came in here and tried to pull her away she'd have to pull away her cold, dead body first.
When no one came she looked back at the box. A bleached white face glared at her, causing her to jump back and yelp in surprise. She slapped a hand over her own mouth before she could give herself away, glancing over her shoulder one more time before refocusing on the box and the face it contained. It was an anbu mask. Crisp and clean cut, without a single nik from the battlefield. She doubted Hotaru had ever gotten to wear it into battle. Which was a real shame, cause it was beautiful.
She slid it over her own face, the thin, braided rope's crimson coloring standing out even more against her blonde hair as it wrapped loosely around her head. The tassels that hung down her back jingled airily, tiny silver bells attached to their beaded ends. She ran her fingers over the rounds of the cheeks and the short snout of the muzzle, blinking as she peered through what felt like new eyes. Her vision felt limited somewhat, her peripheral shortened and narrowed due to the flourished cuts of the eye holes. But, she felt like she got to see what Hotaru got to see when she had this on...like she was looking out of her Uchiha eyes. It was a strange, surreal sensation that she couldn't tell if she appreciated or disliked.
Nikoru turned and leaned back on her hand, glancing at herself in the full length mirror Hotaru had on the wall across the room. A bone white leopard stared fiercely back at her, its mouth a menacing painted sneer, its eye holes lined in black and narrowed to enhance the vicious glowering appearance. Black and red leopard spots twirled up the left side of the mask, creating the angrily dipped brow and stopping with another bit of a sharp cut flourish. The same spots swirled up the bottom right half of the mask, jerking to a halt slightly beneath the eye, almost like a violent slash of spotted blood. For a second, she looked like the Fire Leopard of Konoha. For a second, she was everything Hotaru had been and still was, somewhere down inside.
And, for a second, as she reached up and brushed her fingers over the frightening mask, she thought she could hear some of what Hotaru had tried to tell her so many times in the past. Ninjas are something to be respected and feared. Ninjas are cunning and wise. But, when you see one of these masks, you stray to the other side of the street. Never look at, and never speak, to one of these masks. She had never understood why Hotaru had become one of the people she had specifically told her never to associate with. She had never explained it fully. She just said anbus were the elite and above all laws. To this day Nikoru could only speculate what she had meant.
Nikoru pulled the mask off and shook her head, turning it over in her hands and looking at the face one more time. Interesting as it was to play with Hotaru's memorabilia it wasn't what she had broken into the chest for. She set the mask aside carefully, then bent back over the box, shifting and sorting through the anbu clothing and accessories. She pulled the anbu outfit out of the chest and laid it atop the mask, managing to nick herself on one of the gauntlet katanas as she did.
Placing her fingertip in her mouth she brushed the tip of her tongue over the beading wound, using her free hand to shift through what was left in the box. Most of it was old clothing. Old uniforms Hotaru had worn all through training, even her genin uniform, but the rest of it was most of her ninja material. Her equipment and the packs it belonged in. Alot of this stuff had seen better days.