Hello, I'm back again! Sorry to have been gone for so long (even though that certainly wasn't the longest I've been away). Anyway, I hope you enjoy this next chapter in this story!
Nayamae flinched when the door to the closet was opened, the sudden bright light blinding her momentarily. She hadn't really cared that she was lying in a pool of her own vomit, or that every muscle in her body ached, or even that she had dried blood down her face. She was unsure how long she had been in the closet, but it certainly felt like a long time.
Kabuto helped her off the floor, her arm over his shoulders, leading her down several halls to her own room. He helped her clean off the blood and vomit before treating what remained of her injuries.
"Wow," Kabuto commented, checking her torso as they sat on the edge of her bed. "After just twelve hours, the bruises on your ribs are almost healed already. I believe that's quicker healing than last time." Nayamae stayed silent, letting him finish his examination. She winced when he touched her neck which still felt tender and sore. "You even managed to heal yourself of poisoning. Not without having a few side effects though."
She sighed heavily, carefully pulling a clean shirt over her head. "Is my nose at least on straight?" she asked, looking at him straight on.
He smiled. "It's just fine. Still a little bit of blood though," he noted, handing her a cloth to clean it off.
"Thanks," she muttered softly, wiping her nose. She felt exhausted. "Are you done with your examination?" she asked after a few moments of silence passed between them.
"Oh, uh, yes. I am." Kabuto stood, gathering his things. He paused, pushing his glasses up. "Did you want me to finish healing your ribs? Or your neck?"
She shook her head, causing her neck some pain she immediately regretted. "That's not necessary. Save your chakra for something else."
"Alright. Get some rest. You need it."
"Don't need to tell me twice," she replied, lying down on her bed as he left the room, shutting the door softly behind him.
3 days after Nayamae's arrest
Kakashi frowned at his drink. "But I thought she escaped? I don't understand," he said, looking up at Hiruzen.
"She did. More or less." Hiruzen took a sip from his own drink, earning a confused look from his younger colleague. "We let her escape, but we don't know who let her out."
"Well don't just sit there and be vague about it," Kakashi chastised. "What are we going to do?"
"Nothing."
"You're kidding," he said in disbelief.
Hiruzen shook his head. "The only thing we are doing is watching them. We watch the kitsune to see what Orochimaru is up to. Intel is scarce, but we've caught word of Orochimaru performing more human experimentation." Kakashi grimaced. "If we can get the kitsune to tell us where he's being doing this, we may be able to catch him red-handed. Other than that, we can't do anything until we know more."
Kakashi nodded. "That's something." He thought back to Nayamae. He didn't remember seeing anything unusual about her physical body. It was only when she attacked him that she appeared peculiar. "But why not track down her rescuer to find out what Orochimaru is doing?"
"We haven't been able to identify who that is. It's better we use her. Plus, it's easier to track someone with a unique chakra pattern." Hiruzen poured himself more to drink.
"But you let her escape? How can we get anything out of her now?" It was obvious he did not approve of this plan.
Hiruzen laughed. "Oh, Kakashi, you worry too much. Wait until those drinks you've had have gone through your system. You'll feel better in the morning."
Kakashi continued to frown as he dismissed himself, saying good-night to Hiruzen.
Kakashi awoke the next morning feeling as though he hadn't slept at all, but it had nothing to do with what he had drunk the night before. He got up and dressed, leaving his apartment to go clear his head. After his habitual visit to the memorial, he went outside the village gates to a nearby lake to sit on the shore. The still water calmed his buzzing mind as he stared across to the other side. A gentle, warm breeze blew through the trees that surrounded the lake, ruffling his hair to the opposite side of his head. He took a deep breath, attempting to relax in the shade of a tree.
He was frustrated that Nayamae had been set free after she had hardly been in custody for a full day. He suspected there was more to her criminal activities than just her ties with Orochimaru. There were so many questions he wanted to ask; mostly to get information out of her about what she had done for Orochimaru, but a few were questions he had about herself. Her file said she was a kitsune, but he had only known of kitsunes to be characters in old folklore. A folklore was typically untrue and only used to teach children good and bad behavior. He had genuine curiosity towards her and only wanted his questions answered.
Kakashi's first day off in weeks was not moving quickly enough for him. He needed something to do. Standing up, he began to search for flat rocks to skip across the water. He found several, putting them into his pocket to collect before throwing them. After finding a good pocketful, he watched as each rock sailed across the lake, skipping close to the middle of the water. As he watched, he noticed figures on the other side of the lake, chasing after someone. He didn't think much of them as they ran out of sight, turning his attention to the ground to look for more flat rocks.
He looked up again as he heard shouts and jeers getting louder. Suddenly, someone came running at him, nearly running him over. He caught her arm before she fell to the ground. Kakashi was surprised. "You!"
"You!?" Nayamae echoed, catching her balance. "Man, this day could not get any worse!"
"Where'd the bitch go?" someone called loudly. "Come here, little foxy!"
Nayamae looked towards the direction of the voice, instantly trying to wrestle her arm out of Kakashi's grip. "Please! You have to let me go!"
Kakashi looked at her suspiciously, keeping a strong hold on her. "How do I know you didn't steal anything from these people?" He eyed the katana hanging from her hip. He didn't remember her having one before.
"Ow! Because if I did, I would have been dead a long time ago!" she replied hurriedly. "Now please! Let me go! Or hide me! Something!"
It was too late. The trio that had been chasing her had found the duo. "Oh, there you are!" said the man in the middle. He brushed his short, yellow hair out of his equally yellow eyes. "We'll be taking her off your hands," he said, smiling.
Kakashi looked between the three of them. They were all heavily armed with various swords and other weapons. The man to the right was large and dark skinned, his dark hair pulled back with a green bandana. Still out of breath from the chase, his chest heaved up and down as he attempted to look intimidating. The woman on the left didn't look much older than Kakashi himself, but had obviously tried to cover her face with enough make-up to appear older. None of them wore a village headband, so Kakashi suspected their loyalties were similar to Nayamae's. He didn't like them at all.
Kakashi pushed Nayamae behind him, much to her surprise. He continued holding on to her, but had loosened his grip some. "Why should I just hand her over?" he asked.
"Listen, we don't want much trouble," yellow eyes started, putting his hand up.
"Ki, this man is a part of ANBU," the woman interrupted, pointing at the swirling tattoo on Kakashi's upper arm.
"Well, Liza," said the man on the right, "I guess that means we can't let him escape."
"He now knows our faces as well, Yoshi. We'll see what Shinjou can do with the two of them back home," said Ki, pulling out two of his swords.
"Run!" Nayamae hissed in Kakashi's ear as he drew out a kunai. "What are you doing?! Run, I said!"
"You're coming with me!" he hissed back. "I still have questions for you."
She rolled her eyes. "That's ridiculous! I can take care of myself here! Just go!"
"That's not the issue!" Kakashi argued, barely dodging a blow from Liza as she ran at him from his blindspot. He had let go of Nayamae's arm to keep blocking Liza's attacks.
Nayamae had drawn her own katana from its hilt, blocking a strike from Ki. With each clash of their blades, she noticed he was pushing her further towards the lake. She growled and bared her teeth at him as her feet splashed in the water.
Ki smiled widely. "Can't use your fire if you're wet, little fox! How about a quick swim?" he taunted. She growled again, pushing against him, but with hardly any effect. Her feet were sinking into the mud. "Time for a swim!" Ki announced, swinging his foot around and kicking her into the water with a cold splash. She raced to get back up and grab her katana before it was lost beneath the water, but Ki had his swords crossed at her neck, making her freeze. She felt the hilt of her sword right at her fingertips.
"Don't move. Move and your ANBU friend is dead," Ki warned. She glanced over where Kakashi had been fighting Liza and Yoshi, finding him unconscious on the ground at Yoshi's feet, his own kunai at his throat.
"You make a hard bargain," Nayamae said with a small laugh. She slowly put her hands up in reluctant surrender. He grinned at her defeat.
"Don't worry about your katana," he said. "I'll get it before we leave." He turned his own sword around in his hand, hitting her across the head with the hilt.
Nayamae slowly opened her eyes, finding she had been unceremoniously tossed over Yoshi's shoulder. Her bound hands bounced against his back with every step he took. Her head throbbed, the pain increasing as her vision cleared. To her right, she saw Kakashi was also tossed over Yoshi's other shoulder, but was still unconscious. She wondered how a ninja, such as himself, could have been defeated seemingly so easily.
"Yoshi," Nayamae said painfully, "let me walk."
"Oh, you're awake. Ki, what do you think?" Yoshi asked, calling to his companion who was walking ahead of him. "Let her walk? This guy is heavier than she is."
"If she's awake enough to do it. Liza, keep hold of her," Ki ordered.
Yoshi stopped and let Nayamae slip from his shoulder, not bothering to be careful as she fell. She stood up slowly, finding it only a little difficult to keep her balance. She felt light headed, but could feel the pain of her head decreasing as the injuries healed.
They walked on in silence. Nayamae already knew where they were going. These three worked for a heartless woman by the name of Shinjou. She had run into her plenty of times with Abba. Abba had long tried to get her to work with him within the weapons trades to increase profits, but she was very selfish. Shinjou had long hated the two of them.
"What's Shinjou going to think when you three bring back an ANBU member from the Leaf Village?" Nayamae asked with a sly smile. "I don't think she'd be very happy you brought a police officer to her home. Especially so uninvited."
Ki stopped and looked between Liza and Yoshi. "We don't have any reason to kill him," he replied nonchalantly.
"Besides," said Liza with a shrug, "it's not like he knows where we're going. He won't be awake unless we say so."
Nayamae cocked her head. "Then why even bring him along with?"
"He'll know the ins and outs of Konoha," Yoshi replied, adjusting Kakashi on his shoulder. "He can tell us how to best smuggle things in and out."
Nayamae began to laugh so hard she fell to the ground. "You're kidding, right? Ki? Liza?" She laughed more, trying to compose herself. "Hell, I could have done that for you. You probably won't even be able to get anything out of him. They're trained that way, you know."
"Listen, kitsune," Ki said, suddenly pointing a sword in her face. "If Shinjou wants to get that information out of him then so be it. If she wants you as a plaything to beat around every so often, then that's what will happen. Shinjou gets what she wants." He lowered the blade to her throat, pressing it hard against her skin. "In the meantime, shut-up until we get there." Nayamae glared at him, but kept her mouth shut. They continued to walk on.
Kakashi awoke to someone slapping his face. "Hey, Kakashi. Wake up. You aren't dead, are you?" He looked up into Nayamae's brown eyes. "Oh, good. You're not. Great predicament you've gotten us into," she said sarcastically as she sat down on the floor across from him with a heavy sigh. "If you had just run when I said to, we wouldn't be literally down a hole right now."
Kakashi creased his brow. "What are you…?" he began to ask as he looked up. She was right. The walls of the hole were easily 40 meters high. A net was strewn across the top, keeping them trapped inside. Past the net, he could see the sun was beginning to set with the changing of the colors. "Where are we?"
"I said," Nayamae replied sharply, curling up against the opposite wall, "literally down a hole. You don't remember coming here do you?" He shook his head. "Good. It's better that you don't." She wouldn't look at him.
He stared at her, curious as to why she seemed so mad at him. "Are you saying that I was the one who got us put down here?" Sighing again, Nayamae pulled off one of her shoes and threw it at him. "Hey!"
"Yes, it's your fault! If you hadn't been holding my arm I would have been able to take them out myself!"
He tossed the shoe back to her. "Why didn't you do it before you ran into me?" he argued.
"I was trying to find a safe place to do it," she replied, glaring at him. "I didn't want to hurt anybody besides them."
"Do what?"
"This." Nayamae held out her hand, her palm facing up. Slowly, a small flame began to grow in her hand. After it had grown to the size of a small ball, she grimaced, quickly clenching her hand into a fist, extinguishing the light. She held her fist to her chest. "It's called kitsunebi. I didn't want to hurt anyone with that."
Kakashi stared at her fist. "That's amazing! How do you do that?"
"Not easily," she said quietly, opening her hand again to examine it.
He thought about it for a moment. "Was that something Orochimaru gave you? One of the experiments he did to you?"
She looked at him in surprise, but her expression soon changed to a mixture of pain and anger. "No. I've had this skill for as long as I can remember. He has taken it away from me." She avoided looking at him again, going back to examining her hand.
Kakashi sat against the wall behind him. He vaguely remembered something about some kitsunes being able to control fire, but he wasn't sure what he could trust from old folklore. "Tell me something," he started, but she interrupted him.
"If you're going to ask me questions about Orochimaru, I'm not going to tell you anything about him." She had put her shoe back on.
He shook his head. "No. I won't ask you about him this time."
"Then what?" she challenged.
Kakashi's mind raced to find the first question he wanted to ask. He wished he had written them down somewhere. He wondered whether he should ask about herself first, or about her ties with Orochimaru, or about her ties with the people who chased her, or why they had been put down in this hole in the first place.
"Why were the three of them chasing you?" he asked, finally deciding on a question. "They were the ones who put us down this hole right?"
"More or less," she replied. "They work for a woman named Shinjou. She was an old… colleague, I guess you could say. Never did like me."
"What does Shinjou want?"
Nayamae shrugged. "She wants me dead as far as I know. Why I'm still alive is an even bigger mystery." A long silence passed between them.
"You know," Kakashi began, "I never have heard of a real-life fairy tale."
She looked at him confused. "What are you talking about?"
"You're a kitsune right? Part fox, part woman?" She nodded. "Then, does that mean all the other folklore characters exist?" She nodded again. "So, then are you like a bakeneko? You can change yourself into a fox?"
"It's very difficult now and takes a lot of energy. Sort of an 'emergencies only' type thing."
His mind was soaking up this information from her. He racked his brain trying to remember what else he knew about kitsunes, which wasn't much. He was about to ask her another question when Kakashi noticed she looked extremely tired. Whether that was from being chased or from creating kitsunebi, he wasn't sure. She was curled up against the wall again, her eyes closed. He looked up, seeing stars through the net instead of the orange colors he saw earlier. The temperature was dropping quickly in the pit.
Kakashi shivered as he suddenly remembered something he had read about kitsunes. They were only capable of being loyal to a single person. Was Orochimaru that person for her? "Nayamae, who are you loyal to?" The words were out of his mouth before he could put more thought into it.
Immediately, she opened her eyes and looked over at him. "What do you mean?" Her tone asked him to explain himself for asking such a question rather than to clarify the meaning of his words.
He went ahead with his curiousity. "Isn't it that kitsunes can only be loyal to one person at a time? Is that why you're so defensive about Orochimaru?"
Nayamae glared at him. "You can be loyal to different people in different ways," she answered sharply. "You ask too many questions." She turned away from him again, avoiding his gaze.
He stayed silent, shivering again. There was nothing here to keep either of them warm. No blankets or anything to start a fire. Kakashi thought about making one himself using his chakra, but concluded it would be a waste. He didn't know when he might need it since they had taken all of his physical weapons. He looked over at Nayamae again, wondering how she wasn't shivering like he was. In the darkness, she appeared to already be asleep.
In actuality, she was far from sleeping. Nayamae worried what Orochimaru would think if he knew where she was. He had already punished her before for getting caught by the ANBU, but what would he do if she didn't return to him in time? He would leave me behind, she thought sadly. He would leave me to die. But… he promised me…! She closed her eyes tightly, shutting out any tears.
Kakashi was engulfed in his own thoughts as well. He felt his knowledge on criminal activities outside of the Leaf was fairly low. Though it was technically his day off, the opportunity he had to investigate this organization, whoever they were, was something he could not ignore. On some level, he was following the Third's orders to watch the kitsune. She was involved in more than just being a lab rat for Orochimaru. There was more information she knew, yet refused to tell him. He was determined to figure it out.
More answers will be given next chapter! Thanks for reading!