036 - Ophid Interruption
(or 'at this point any distraction is welcome')

Now, here's where I would like to tell you about all the badass shady antics that took place during the time everyone was busy with the exams but I can't, because I wasted the morning being a useless lesbian fretting about Karin up on the cliff and the evening walking around the village trying to distract myself in vain familiarize myself with the street's layout.

Funnily enough, I've been catching ANBU going around to do their business all the while, which feels freaking weird for someone born and grown in Kusa. Damn but the average ANBU is trash, no wonder Kabuto slaughtered them en masse.

The morning of the second day isn't much different from the first. Once I get back to my room after a long session of trying to stalk Karin hiking around the village again, there's a knock at the door and someone trying to enter my room through the window.

Like the civilized person I am, I throw a kunai towards the window -fuck, right in the knee!- and answer the door. There's a certain purple-haired dango-addicted sex bomb waiting for me. There are bags under her eyes and her skin looks a bit pasty, and I almost offer a glass of water and an aspirin on reflex. Then I remember what's supposed to be happening during the second test and realize that it's not because of a hangover that she's looking like shit.

"Yes?" I ask instead. "May I help you with something?"

"Shimada Ran from Kusa, right?" She asks with a raw voice that speaks of an abused throat. It must suck to have a sadistic snake man hold the controls of the pain trigger tattooed into your neck. "You're coming with me to T&I. If you want to try and resist, be my guest, I need to blow off some steam."

I don't answer immediately. On one hand, fighting the scary snake lady sounds like a bad idea. On the other hand, it's bound to get my head away from my troubles for a while, so there's that.

"Squirt?" She drags my attention back to the present, incredulity painted all over her face. "Are you volunteering?"

"... Nah. I'm on vacation, don't want to sweat." I finally decide with a shrug. "T&I, huh? You can't get in there with a tourist pass. I tried."

Interrogation is also a way to distract myself, and they won't pull the torture tools on a harmless innocent collaborating allied shinobi. I think. Not that trying to resist would've improved my situation any, so whatever.

T&I Headquarters is kind of underwhelming from outside. Just one of those plain and uninteresting grey buildings, with windows so full of dust they may as well be part of the wall, and that run down atmosphere that makes one have trouble remembering, even if they walk past daily. Which is the point, I'd bet.

The interior is a whole different can of worms. Dark rooms, winding corridors and looming walls that seem to lean over you as you walk past. Have you ever been inside a submarine? Space is at a premium down there, and comfort is hardly a priority. The experience is oppressive, claustrophobic and overall disturbing.

This place goes out of it's way to evoke those feelings, and then crank them up to eleven. I'm pretty sure their staff is trained to look menacing too. There are some points of failure though, the very nature of the place makes evacuation difficult and escape even harder, so they're done for if they get trapped inside. Or in case of fire. Or in case they get trapped inside and then set on fire.

Unless they have secret passageways, in which case the place won't be as secure. Catch 22 if I ever saw one.

… Why am I even bothering with how to escape or set the interrogators on fire? This is none of my business.

Stupid Shimada blood.

Of course, nobody reads me my rights -mainly because I have none- nor offers an attorney -what are those? Are they tasty?- Instead I'm unceremoniously shoved into an interviewing room that seems taken straight from a crime thriller. It has everything, the square desk, the creaking door, the plain metal chairs, the one-way mirror, the naked lightbulb… you name it. I don't think I'll ever get used to how all over the place the technology level is in the Elemental Nations.

There's also the sexy but hard-ass interrogator, though she still looks hungover and that detracts from the picture.

"Let's go straight to business." She opens up, slamming a palm on the table. She's not even pulled out a kunai, I get the PG-12 interrogation, apparently. Good to know. "What can you tell us about a fellow Kusa-nin going by the name Shiroe?"

"Sorry, it doesn't ring any bells." I shrug. Names, why did it have to be names? I think this is about Team Deader Meat, but I'm not actually sure. Wouldn't want to mess up by assuming. "Do you have a picture or something?"

She grumbles a little, but pulls out a picture of a bunch of faceless bodies from inside her jacket. As expected, it's the leader of Team Deader Meat.

"Oh, that's Whatshisface!" I nod in relief. "He was my team leader for a short while. I guess he's Whereshisface now."

"What can you tell me about them?"

"They're kinda rude, but less lazy than my first team. And that's pretty much it." I shrug again. "We were only matched for a couple of months."

"Let me make sure I'm getting this straight." She enunciates slowly, "You trained, fought and bled together with these guys for months. And all you can say about them is that they're 'rude' and 'less lazy than someone else'? Not even their fucking names?"

"Yes?" I shrug. "Why?"

"Nevermind."

She sighs. dragging a palm from her forehead all the way down her face. Migraines? Maybe she's actually hungover, after all. I mean, I would want to drown my sorrows in alcohol too after my traitorous master kicked my ass three ways from Sunday and then laughed in the face of my suicide technique. Heck, I doubt anyone would blame her for it, that shit has to be traumatic or something.

"We've already determined you last met them right before the exam." She continues after taking a couple of deep breaths. "Did you notice them acting strange in any way?"

"Sister, the only thing I noticed about them right before the exam was that they were not Karin. Not that I knew them well enough to tell if they were acting strange. Them or anyone, really. As far as I'm concerned it's normal for people to act strange."

Where's… where's that grinding sound coming from? Under the table? Are there cockroaches on the underside of the table? Kikaichu maybe? I want to bend down to check, but that could be taken as a disrespect, and the poor woman has enough problems already. I'm not entomophobic anyway, it's just curiosity.

If I feel anything touch me or my chakra getting drained, I'm drowning the fucking room in chlorine.

"You're not involved in the Exam, so why are you in Konoha?"

"I'm in Konoha on vacation, since it was a good chance to take it easy while cheering on my fellow Kusa-nin." And Karin is taking the Exam, of course I'm involved. "Gosh I can't wait for the finals they promise to be epic."

"Did you just deadpan 'gosh' to me...? Pipsqueak, I don't think you're taking this interrogation seriously enough." My eye doesn't twitch at the moniker, so her face doesn't deform into an ugly shit-eating grin at my reaction. Because I didn't react. "You know I have the authority to throw you into the torture chamber if I find you suspicious, no matter how tiny you are, don't you?"

So that's how you want to play, eh?

"Yeah, you are plenty intimidating. That pasty skin and the bags under your eyes are downright scary. Excuse me if I'm not looking very shaken, I think I'm still in shock aboutthree Kusa-nin being assassinated and then impersonated by a Konoha renegade and another two unknowns. A renegade you guys don't seem capable of catching or even inconveniencing in any meaningful way. Or at all."

"How did you even know about..."

"Seriously? You are aware Kusa is specialized in intelligence gathering, right?" That and I have metaknowledge, but that's a bit harder to explain. "There aren't that many people who know how to even use the[Vanishing Facial Copy Technique] nowadays, and only one of them would've left the otherwise badass and vaguely terrifying Mitarashi Anko, infamous apprentice of Orochimaru, shaken as if she'd seen a ghost from the past. Was it even supposed to be a secret?"

For a moment, it looks like she's going to retort, frowning at my rant and leaning forwards as if to rebuke me, but at the last second she stops herself with a long-drawn sigh.

"You know what? I don't care anymore." She faceplants into the table instead, raising a hand to make some sort of sign without even looking up. "You're clear. Or something. Why don't you kindly piss the fuck off? "

"Oh, the interview is over already?" I stand up, hearing the door open up behind me . "Good, you should be out there trying to catch the bastard, not wasting the time of paying customers."

"If I find you're even slightly involved in anything funny, I'll make you confess even the last time you wet your bed."

I leave without looking back.

… Bitch.

After that more than infuriating conversation with Konoha's security, I leave the T&I building fuming. I'm pretty sure I'm not being followed, which is pretty scary since I know I have to be being tailed. Stupid stealthy ninjas, you never know where they are…

I catch myself walking towards Training Ground 44, and convincing myself that there's nothing I can do to interfere is a real struggle. After Orochimaru's infiltration, the security has been kicked up three or seven notches, so the only way I'm getting there is by blasting my way in, and that's not really an option.

Unless I… No, there's no way they'd fall for it.

The most infuriating part is knowing that, in spite of all the added security specifically against him, Orochimaru will be strutting around during the preliminary matches with a different face. How's this fair?

The rest of those five days is kind of a blur. A long, unending blur of me restlessly walking all around the village only to suddenly change my mind and getting into any open training field I could find to vent out my frustrations. Then, just as suddenly, I'd start feeling lonely and miserable and barely manage to drag myself to the hotel's spa, where I would waste hours letting myself be pampered into oblivion. I think I left more money there than they make on an average month by myself.

At this rate, I won't be swimming in money much longer. To say I didn't enjoy those five days, is an understatement.

Finally, in the evening of the fifth day. Karin steps out of the restricted area. I really should've called for her or at least checked her body language before doing anything dumb, but I pounce on her like a tiger on a stalked prey instead. In hindsight, that might not have been the best thing to do to a nerve-wracked killer recently out of a deadly survival exercise.

With a surprised squeak, Karin turns towards me, eyes widening in something I'm pretty sure is not recognition as her hand goes to her kunai pouch. A shadow from my left is the only warning I receive before an axe-kick shatters the concrete at the position where I would've been if I didn't dodge.

At this point, I really should be aborting my charge, but I'm already committed, and Karin is right in front of me, so I dodge and weave through far too many eye-searing orange limbs to belong to a single person and emerge right in front of a kunai firmly held with two hands aiming straight at my left eye.

Next thing anyone knows, I'm hugging Karin from behind, rubbing cheeks with her and ignoring the dumbfounded looks of a Sakura with a leg buried in the ground, a gaggle of Narutos tangled with each other on the floor and the embarrassed groan from Karin.

"Ran?" She whines adorably, putting her kunai back into her pouch.

"Hmm?" Ah… pure bliss.

"Are you… purring?" And she smells so good~

"I can neither confirm nor deny such claims." And her hair is so soft~

"Can you unhand me at least?" And she asks such stupid questions~

"Mmmm… Sure." I could spend the whole day like this~

"Ran?" And her voice is so nice~

"Hmm?" And her reddening ears are so adorable~

"You aren't unhanding me." And her embarrassed voice is so cute~

"No, but I totally can." And her body is so huggable~

"Ran!" … And she's getting angry.

"Fiiiiiine!" I guess it must've been a pretty embarrassing thing to go through in front of your friends. I magnanimously unwrap myself from her, taking one of her hands into mine instead. "But we're going somewhere warm and cuddly and you're telling me when you became so close to these two and everything else I missed. Stupid big-ass trees didn't let me see anything..."

"Ran?"

"I'm not glomping you anymore!" I protest while entwining my fingers with hers. "You won't get me to make more concessions!"

"No, not that." Her cheeks heats up when she realizes what I mean, but she doesn't try to get away. "Please tell me you didn't spend all this time somewhere high trying to spy into the forest."

"Uh… I didn't spend all this time like that?"

"Ran!"

"Ehehehe~"

"They are in their own world, aren't they?" A disembodied orange-colored voice comes from somewhere.

"I'm kind of jealous." A disembodied pink-colored voice answers

There's no room in my world for anything beyond Karin at this moment.

I have a P-treon thing now! Actually I have had it for years, but only now I'm using it. Just add Planeshunter after the dot com and it should take you straight there, there's a 18+ warning since the stuff I publish in Questionable Questing isn't for all public though. If you can spare some loose change and feel my writing deserves it, please consider a small pledge.