I do not own Naruto Shippuden or any of the characters.

Unwilling Guest

Ryuu knelt in front of Tayuya. She had been given one of the numerous spare rooms in Ryuu's house as a place to hold her, rather than a prison cell. He had, of course, placed seals on all of the windows to seal them shut, and one on the door that only allowed those with a specific seal on them to pass through. As a result, Tayuya was trapped in the room. However, it had its own bathroom with a toilet, shower, and tub, and Ryuu brought her food three times a day, so it wasn't exactly prison. He also always made sure to ask Tayuya if she needed anything, like a book, or something specific for a meal, or something to do. The only thing he had refused her was a flute, given her specific abilities with said instrument. Currently, she was sitting against the wall opposite the door, reading a book he had brought her a couple days ago.

"What?" Tayuya asked.

"Tsunade got on my case today about not getting any information out of you yet," Ryuu said. "I tried to tell her that you're still not fully recovered, but she wouldn't listen. So, I need to ask you a few questions, and I'd appreciate it if you could answer them honestly."

Tayuya grunted.

"How did you first meet Orochimaru?" Ryuu asked.

Tayuya turned the page.

"Okay," Ryuu said. "How did you first become a member of the Sound Four?"

Tayuya's eyes shifted to the other page.

"Okay, let's try an easy one," Ryuu said. "Which Curse Mark do you have?"

Tayuya turned the page again.

"Okay, fine," Ryuu said, taking the book from her and tossing it over his shoulder, Tayuya glaring at him. "I've been generous to you these last couple weeks. I saved you from death, I kept Lady Tsunade from handing you over to Ibiki Morino and the rest of Torture and Interrogation, and instead of keeping you locked up in a cell, I've allowed you to use one of the rooms in my house as a guest. I cook you three meals a day, ask you daily if you need anything or want anything specific for dinner, and I continue to keep Tsunade from giving you to Ibiki. But in order to do that, I need you to work with me. I need you to give me something, anything, so that I'm not wasting my time. Or, if this isn't what you want, I could give you to Ibiki. You'd spend the remainder of your life being tortured every day and being locked in a cell whenever you weren't. You'd sleep on the cold stone floor, you'd eat nothing but stale bread and dirty water, and you would probably die inside of two years. Is that what you want?"

Tayuya's face fell and she shook her head.

"Then how about we send you home to Orochimaru?" Ryuu asked. "I'm sure he'd welcome you home, right?"

Tayuya shook her head again. "He'd kill me."

"Then how about you show a little respect and common courtesy to the person keeping you alive and comfortable despite you trying to kill his friend and being an enemy to the village," Ryuu suggested. "You're not in a cell, you're in a bedroom with its own private bathroom. How about you start acting like it?"

"It's a cell," Tayuya said. "It may be a very nice and comfortable cell, but it's still a cell. I can't leave the room. I'm trapped just as surely as I was if I was with Ibiki."

"At least you don't have to piss and shit into a bucket that is only emptied if you yourself dump it through the bars of your cell," Ryuu said. "Now, I'm going to give you an ultimatum. You can either take your head out of your ass and tell me what I want to know in exchange for living a decent life here, and maybe being released once you've given us all the information you have, or you can go to Ibiki and he can torture the same information out of you, before leaving you to rot in a cell until you die."

Tayuya was silent, staring at the wall off to the side. Ryuu sighed, standing and walking to the door, sliding her book to her as he passed it. Just as he reached for the door handle, however, Tayuya spoke.

"He burned my village."

Ryuu turned, seeing Tayuya still staring at the wall, but with emotions waring in her eyes now, making it look like she was on the verge of tears.

"That's how I met Orochimaru," Tayuya said. "He burned my village. Only me and a handful of others survived. We were all rounded up and imprisoned by him, and then subjected to horrible experiments. He used to cut, stab, inject, and burn us for reasons we couldn't hope to guess at. It was hell. And whenever we weren't being tortured, we would be locked in a cell without even a bucket like you said earlier." Tears began to run down her cheeks. "Please. Please don't let them lock me in a cell. Don't let them torture me. I don't want to ever go through that again. I can't go through that again! I'd rather die!"

He knelt beside her, resting a hand on her shoulder before sighing and pulling her onto his own, letting her cry onto his shoulder. "I won't. But you have to work with me. You have to talk to me. Otherwise, there's nothing I can do. How did you go from prisoner to bodyguard?"

"While I was locked up, I made myself a flute from the stone on the floor," Tayuya said, slowly managing to stop crying and wiping her eyes. "I used to play it to pass the time, but then one day, Orochimaru walked into the prison and opened all of the doors. He said that whoever survived would get to be his bodyguard, and wouldn't be locked up or experimented on anymore. So everyone started fighting. I used genjutsu to help me fight, since I was naturally good at it, and eventually I won. I even killed the other survivors of my village, my friends. Later on, after I was in the Sound Ninja Four, Orochimaru taught me to combine my genjutsu with the sound of my flute."

"I see," Ryuu nodded. "And you never tried to leave?"

"I couldn't," Tayuya said. "Everyone knew that Orochimaru doesn't take betrayal or rejection well. Anyone who tried to leave was killed, painfully. And if they weren't, they were tortured, just for the sake of torturing. They'd have it even worse than we did for months until they finally decided to just stop breathing. I couldn't go through that. I was terrified of Orochimaru, and what he'd do to me if I ever failed him. So I did everything I could to make sure I didn't."

Ryuu nodded. "I understand. Can you tell me where Sasuke was being taken?"

"No," Tayuya said. "The hideout we were taking him to was scheduled to be abandoned as soon as Sasuke arrived. Orochimaru would be long gone from there by now."

"Where is it?" Ryuu asked.

"The Land of Rice Paddies," Tayuya said.

"I figured that," Ryuu said before something clicked.

Kabuto had mentioned a village in the Land of Rice Paddies that he wanted to help.

"Tayuya, even if he's not there, we have to search that base," Ryuu said. "There might be a clue to where he went."

"I don't know the name of the town it's beside," Tayuya said.

"Okay," Ryuu nodded. "Could you mark it on a map?"

Tayuya nodded, so Ryuu pulled the world map he always carried with him out of his tool pouch and spread it out. Tayuya pointed to a spot in the Land of Rice Paddies and Ryuu marked it, nodding.

"Thank you Tayuya," Ryuu said. "Do you know any other base locations?"

She pointed to a second, this one in the Land of Fire. "This is where I was originally held. It's the only other one I know."

Ryuu nodded, marking that one as well and folding up the map, putting it away. "Thank you, Tayuya. I promise you, I'll do everything in my power to keep you from being turned over to Ibiki, and no matter what happens, I won't let Orochimaru or his followers hurt you."

Tayuya nodded, smiling slightly. "I'll hold you to that."

Ryuu smiled and stood, walking to the door and opening it.

"Hey," Tayuya spoke up. "Can...can we have cake tonight? For desert?"

Ryuu smiled. "Sure thing."

Tayuya nodded and Ryuu left the room, closing behind him. Once it was secure and the seal had taken effect, he walked downstairs to where Fu was humming to herself as she worked on lunch, home-cooked ramen.

"You make the best Ramen," Ryuu said, wrapping his arms around her from behind and kissing the side of her neck then he cheek.

Fu smiled, reaching an arm back to gently run her fingers through the back of his hair. "You're just saying that because you don't want to cook."

Ryuu chuckled. "While you're right about me not wanting to cook, it's still true that you make the best ramen."

Fu smiled, setting the spoon she had been stirring with down and tilting her head back to rest on his shoulder, holding her free hand over both of his and sighing contentedly. They stayed like that for a few minutes before Fu began to stir the noodles again.

"So, how's our future teammate doing?" Fu asked.

"It took some convincing, and a threat to hand her over to Ibiki or Orochimaru, but she gave us some information," Ryuu said. "The location of two of Orochimaru's bases and her story of how she got to be his bodyguard." He created a clone, who took his map and left for Tsunade's office.

"I see," Fu nodded. "Does she know much else?"

"Probably a few things, but not a whole lot, I'd imagine," Ryuu said. "She was serving him out of fear, so even though she's smart, she probably had other things to worry about besides making herself a risk for Orochimaru to remove."

Fu nodded. "Probably. How're her wounds?"

"They're mostly healed," Ryuu said. "A few more days of treatment and she'll be as good as new."

Fu nodded. Just then, Yugao walked out of the living room, yawning and stretching. Ryuu smirked. Here she was supposed to be guarding Tayuya, and instead she was napping in the living room.

"Hello," Yugao smiled. "Any progress?"

"Quite a bit, I think," Ryuu nodded. "I suppose we'll find out, though. Time's almost up."

Yugao nodded, sighing. "I've enjoyed the time off, now that I'm not an ANBU. I'm going to miss doing nothing."

"It is pretty fun, yeah," Ryuu nodded.

He gave Fu another kiss on the cheek before stepping back and walking outside, beginning to practice his Medical Ninjutsu.

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