Chapter 7: Affranchise

Warning: chapter contains drug use

Sandwiched between two S-class nukenins, Sika sat, legs folded under her at a low tea table. They sat in a big, empty parlor room with only this table on the spotless tatami. Tea had been served but she wasn't drinking it.

Across from her sat her father, his hands balled into tight fists as they rested on his knees. He sat in a similar fashion, also not drinking his steaming tea. His face was stony, his long, dirty blond hair had been tied back with a ponytail. It made his features look harder somehow.

The room was bright. It was missing an entire wall to the east, and the porch overhang and bug netting protected it from the elements. The intended reasoning was to able the person inside to watch the sunrise, but it was mid-day and now this room's purpose was to hold conference away from the rest of the household.

Outside, a fully landscaped garden with a deer scare clacking in the distance and a gentle breeze blowing through the flowering bushes. Hidan couldn't help but think he'd rather be out there than in here.

"Let me get this straight," Sika spoke with hostility.

"You're here playing feudal lord when I've been spending seven years in a whore house?" She asked, but it was hardly a question. "I've been raped, repeatedly, beat, gaged, choked, held down, tied up, you name it, it fucking happened. Are you fucking kidding me? I could make you a three page list of shit I was sodomized with!"

Sika's father looked very troubled to say the least. He was ashamed, the edges of his disapproving frown twitched with it. He was angry with someone, maybe himself. His fists squeezed.

"The first time I was raped I was seventeen. By a forty year old man who told me not to cry," Sika's face screwed into a trembling sort of look, like she might start sobbing any minute now, "and when they flung me into a room after he was done with me, with the rest of the women they abused there, do you know what they told me?"

Sika's father didn't answer.

She scoffed in a way that almost sounded like a laugh. "They told me I'd get used to it."

Three, large tears dropped from her hazel eyes. They ran tracks of red down her flushed face. Sika's father again didn't reply.

"They told me I'd get use to it," she repeated, "and you know what? I did."

The tears kept coming and Hidan wished he had a tissue to offer her or somewhere secret nobody would see if he wiped her eyes for her. He felt bad. Kakuzu gave no indication he felt anything.

"I wish I had known," her father spoke finally, and he should have cleared his throat first.

"You would have if you would have gave half a fuck!" Sika shouted, slamming her hands down on the table. Her soft spoken father jumped.

"Sika," he tried to reapproch, " your mother asked me to-"

She didn't let him finish.

"Don't you dare try and blame this on my mother!" Sika shouted again, and this time Kakuzu's hand found its way to her wrist. He squeezed and the anger immediately fell from her face, replaced with a bone crushing pain that made her cry out.

"You're going to calm down, and stop screaming in my ear. Or else," Kakuzu threatened. Sika bit her lip and yanked her arm out of his grip. He let her.

"I appreciate from the bottom of my heart what you have done for me and my daughter," Sika's father interrupted. He was lying. He didn't appreciate her showing up at his door one bit.

"I must be in debt to you?" He asked.

"No," Kakuzu replied, "Sika settled her own debt."

"I see. I must congratulate you then, daughter. It seems you've grown up just fine without me," her father's words are both condescending and self depreciating.

It made Sika's stomach churn.

"Your mother is no longer, I assume?" He follows up with a question.

Sika nods.

Her father's face does not change. He isn't sad. "And, I will assume, that you are left with no place else to go?"

Sika nods again.

"Sika," her father spoke more gently, his emotion changed this time, "I would like to extend an offer for you to join my household then. If you'd rather not it's alright. I understand if you wish to leave again."

Sika narrowed her eyes at the table, and then looked up. There wasn't a word to describe his she was feeling. Fuck all if this bastard was gonna be high on on any God damn hog about it.

Sika was about to tear him a fucking new one when a sliding screen opened on the opposite side of the room. The door went in to the main house, and on it was a beautiful depiction of a lotus. For all its expensive paint job was worth though, it caught and came off the track before it could be opened all the way.

The man who opened it fixed it quickly, setting it back in its track before he stepped through the doorway. The man's narrow jaw set as his gaze settled on the meeting before him. His already high eyebrows raised, giving him a surprised tug of expression in his hardened, stiff frowning face. His eyes narrowed, and then his brows knit. The sun reflected off of the gold silk of his skirt and the obi tying it together gave slightly to a summer breeze as it blew through the room.

"Shirasagi?" The man questioned.

Sika's father grimaced. Hard.

Sika could have spit in his face.

"Isao," Shirasagi swallowed hard, "Isao, I'd like you to meet my daughter."

So this was the guy running around with her last name?

"It's nice to meet you," Isao's face does not lighten. A smile does not even threaten to crack his face. His posture remained stiff as a board and be settled next to Sika's father at the table. He didn't pour himself any tea, or greet anyone else, he only folded his arms. His body language signified he was closing himself off to the strangers.

Come to think of it though, weren't they sitting a little close together? Men didn't usually…

Oh.

Oh.

"This is what you left my mother for?" Sika chastises in a low hiss.

"Your mother asked me to sever contact with you and her when I left," for the first time, her father tells her something she doesn't know, "She was ashamed of me too."

What? Like his life was one big Roman tragedy? When it was her that paid the price? Like he's off the hook just because of something a dead woman said fourteen years ago?

She didn't have many memories of him, and she certainly didn't remember him being this big of a fucking jerk.

"I'm angry because your a son of a bitch and I'm a rape victim! You could have married a fucking goat for all I-" She shouts and Kakuzu slaps his hand not so gently across her mouth. Her face stings, and when she tries to turn her head, to move away, his fingers close around her face.

She remembers the liquid fire of her jaw breaking and she stills.

"This is a lovely family reunion, but I have to burst this bubble," Kakuzu's grumbling voice spoke up.

"My job was to reunite her with her father. We aren't here to mediate unaired grievances. In fact, I'd like to leave as soon as possible," the banker continued, "With that in mind, Sika is still, unfortunately, my problem to an extent. Everything has a price. She is indebted to the organization we belong to for another eleven months and seven days."

Sika's father eyed him as he spoke. Hidan likewise eyed his partner. He'd never seen the old fart this long winded. What was he getting at?

"I don't care what happens to her as long as she continues serving the organization," Kakuzu continued, "but, if something happens to her to prevent her from doing her job, the party responsible will be no longer."

Oh. Well that was one way to passive aggressively threaten somebody. Maybe not so passive, maybe more aggressive.

Sika's father nodded. "I fully understand, that is, if she decides to accept my offer."

Isao remained unchanged.

The conversation that was supposed to be about her had somehow detoured, but had come full circle finally. Now this was about her. Now she could talk, but she knew she was limited by what she could say.

Yes or no. She had two choices.

Sika bit her cheek to keep from snarling out some smart ass answer. This was not how she hoped this meeting was going to go. She'd intended it to be more, well, more her talking, more people listening, and filled with a lot more apologies.

She wanted to cry and scream and tell the world how she felt, but she only had two options: Yes or no.

If she was gonna be honest with herself, though, she never thought she was going to get this far. She wondered what this would have been like if they would have stumbled on a grave instead.

Sika didn't want to live here, not with him, not anymore. She was now thoroughly disillusioned with the very idea of this passive swordsmen that she was now thinking herself lucky enough not to know.

But when you have no other option, she conceived, you have no other option.

"Sure," she spits out, and the words feel like vomit on her tongue, "sure, I'll stay."

"It's settled. We will be taking our leave," Kakuzu said, standing up unceremoniously. Hidan knew he had to follow him no matter how much he didn't want to.

The banker was out of the room in no time, but Hidan lagged, his gaze flicking over the three others at the table and then he stood up too, groaning and stretching his back. He grabbed his scythe on the way out.

"I'll see them out," Sika muttered, and she was dashing after them seconds after they left the room.

"You guys!" She shouts as soon as she's cleared the door. She jumps off if the porch and uses everything short if her ninja speed to catch up with them. They've barely left the front gate, their backs funneled through the big white walls of the compounds outer barrier. They were standing right there but for some reason it feels much more urgent than that. She was relieved when they stop, turn around, and wait for her to catch up.

"Miss us already?" Hidan snarks, smirking. He's got one eyebrow cocked and he looks so satisfied. He's not at all broke up? He's not sad or even a little bit disappointed even?

"Yeah, yeah I do," the kunoichi replies. Her face is stricken. The smirk falls from the other Jashinist's face.

"Hey, buck up," he asserts. He gives her a shove that's meant to be playful, but she ignores it like he didn't just knock her three inches to the right.

Oh Jashin, he thinks. For the love of Jashin, don't let her cry.

"Can't I go with you guys?" She asks, and her chin quivers with her words. He watches her bite her lip, hard. Here it comes, he thinks. It was hard enough keeping his own emotions off the surface. God, couldn't she just shove hers down a hole and forget about them like he did?

"Absolutely not," Kakuzu answers and Hidan is glad it's him that has to tell her no.

"Kakuzu, do you think you could lay off? Or, I dunno, stop being such a huge fucking dick?" Hidan retorts, and he thinks he's scoring himself some points being a good guy. The banker is scowling hard under his mask, his face, or what part is visible, is twisted into an angry look. He'd like to hurt them both.

"These people aren't my family," Sika's words are like a revelation to her, "I don't know what I expected."

"Who gives a shit?" He said, louder than necessary. Sika's eyes widen.

His immediate reaction is to shout, and to cease this nonsense if he can help it.

"Seriously!" He continued, "It's just a place to live. You don't gotta love them. And this house is so damn big. You got servants and cooks, Hell, they'd probably wash your ass for you if you asked. You'll be around forever Sika. They're all gonna keel off, then you inherit everything."

Sika bit her lip harder, until it bled and healed itself almost immediately. Her eyes didn't water, but worry creased itself into her face.

"That shit you spewed. About your father being able to pay when this was all over? It was horse shit wasn't it?" Kakuzu asked, interrupting, "you don't know him at all."

"Yeah," she said shakily, "Sorry about that."

Hidan balled a fast and held it out to Sika. He could manage that, he thought.

She looked at his hand and then up at him before she got the picture. She made a fist too and bumped it to his. She held her hand out to Kakuzu, who starred at her with disdain.

"Don't leave me hangin'," she chattered, her teeth working back into her lip. She tried so hard. She was succeeding.

Finally the accountant gave in. He touched their knuckles together weekly before he turned and started walking. Hidan flashed her one last toothy grin before he turned too, and Sika watched them go.

It took them twenty minutes to leave her sight, but she stood there another ten.

Nobody bothered her, and nobody would bother her if she just stood there all night. That wasn't a good plan though. She wasn't desperate, and besides, she could smell food cooking.

Dinner was a big bowl of udon noodles and a side of fried fish, complete with a long, awkward silence and four new replacement kids.

That's right, replacement kids. Four of them.

The oldest boy was Kai. He was six years her junior but it was hard to tell. He had a rugged, strong jaw that he'd clearly not inherited from his father, Isao, and his skin was tan too. He had big shoulders, but that was the extent of it. He was built lean and his smile had a gap, but he seemed friendly enough when he sat down. He was a man, an adult, and he wanted people to know it by the way he carried himself.

Kasumi was the eldest girl. Her face was entirely her father's but she carried her weight differently than both Isao and Kai, insinuating she had a different mother than her brother. She was fussy and mean, glaring at Sika once and then refused to even look in her general direction. She complained about everything and Isao let her. At only seventeen, she was jaded enough for a hundred crossed lovers.

Probably just spoiled actually, not jaded. Sika didn't like her.

The third child was a girl of fourteen years. Her name was Asami and her hair was honest to god bleach blonde, contrasting her two older siblings black. She had a different mother then her siblings too. She was the prettier sister though, with high cheekbones and thin shoulders, but she shied away from Kasumi but clung to her like an untrusting dog on a leash. She was quiet, which Sika liked.

Suta was the baby. He was only eleven and born from a surrogate after Sika's father had married Isao. He was still young, and he still had baby fat on his cheeks but he was adjusting well to his growth spurts. Sika gave him a once over and passed him off as another branch in the Isao Takano-Otori family tree, but when she glanced up and caught a twinge of red in his hair and a fleck of hazel in his eyes she knew.

This boy was her half brother. He wasn't a child from misguided love between a land baron and the next women that crossed his path. He was a child of love, with two fathers that had created him on purpose, with intent to raise as a pair.

He shared the same nose as Sika did with her father and he had a few freckles, a trait Sika did not share with her father.

He was the cause of the elephant in the room. Everyone but him knew.

That explained the glare she'd received from her step sister.

Sika supposed if neither of the fathers were going to say anything, neither was she. She returned her gaze to her plate, and emptied it moments later. She pulled the ladle from the soup pot on the table and dished herself out another bowl.

"Can I ask you a question?" Kai (that's his name, right?) asked.

"Shoot," she replied, face stuffed full of noodles and another spoonful made its way from her bowl. Her third bowl, she might add.

"What's that symbol around your neck?" His question makes Sika pause.

Her Jashinist pendant hung loose from Hidan's shirt. It'd probably been dangling and catching light throughout this awkward eatery time. After settling down her eating utensils and chewing the food in her mouth, she looked up and made eye contact with the stranger.

"I'm a very religious person. It's a connection to my God," she replied. She didn't let on anything more than a cool demeanor. She held her pendant in her fingers, gingerly, motioning to it as she spoke.

Kai raises his eyebrows and nods thoughtfully. He probably practiced some religion, and he'd probably studied it from a private tutor Sika was sure he'd had growing up.

Isao had a look on his face that she thought was probably surprise. He didn't give much emotion wise so she wasn't entirely sure but she had a good idea what he might be thinking. How does a prostitute become devoted?

Shirasagi himself though, he looked the most taken back.

Good, Sika thought, he should learn some things about her.

"Where did you say you were from?" Kai asks and now Sika's sure he's fucking with her.

"I didn't," she hisses, and left it at that.

The subject is dropped completely and the silence resumes, save for the clink of utensils on porcelain.

Mother fucking heathens.

The ache in Sika's legs had only bothered her the first week of her ninja training with Kisame. After that, she learned to ignore it. She'd been running, walking, jumping, constantly since then, pushing chakra though her feet, and her muscles had toned. They could stand up to the stress, she'd been conditioned sort of half assed, but she was determined. She could stand up to the demand on her body.

When she woke up the next morning, her chest hurt. Not in a way that her lord could heal, not in a physical, overused way.

Her chest felt like it was being crushed under water, like she was sinking further under. She was stuck here, in this house, with these people.

Last night a maid had shown her to a bedroom in the hallway adjacent to the ones her step siblings shared. All four of those strangers were just around the corner, and that was just not okay. Not at all.

So at eleven o'clock at night Sika set to move all the furniture in the bedroom that was to be hers. By midnight she had a bedroll, a rug, a plush chair, a few tables and a cabinet drug to the other side of the house. There was a room sitting completely empty, situated on the very back of the house. There were no windows, but there was a door to the outside, overlooking a patch of grass and dirt and the white washed back of the stockade like wall around the house. The door let out on to the wrap around porch and the roof overhung to keep it dry and shaded.

It was quiet in this corner of the house, all the rooms around this one were empty.

It made her a little angry that some rooms of this house were empty. It was excessive, a waste, they didn't need all the room. But, she supposed, she wouldn't be sleeping here if it weren't for the excess.

She sat up in bed, resituating her Katana after she'd slept with it next to her. It'd moved in the night and become partially unsheathed. She might have cut herself on it, actually, but if she had it was already healed.

Using the shining steel like a mirror, she brushed her hair with a brush she'd fished out of her bag. She couldn't exactly change clothes, so she decided wearing Hidan's shirt would have to do again today.

After setting her appearance back together, she unpacked a few items from her bag. She put her hair ties on top of the dresser, put the photo of her mother on the low table next to the bed, shoved her miscellaneous papers and copy of Ninja Monthly into a drawer and then slung her bag into the bottom of the cabinet.

She was all moved in and it'd taken a total of eight minutes.

Sika opened the door to her room, the one that led outside, and let the fresh air flow though. She'd been sleeping outside for so long she thought she might miss it. Lucky for her, nature wasn't going anywhere, and neither was her bed roll. She spent the morning propped up on pillows and meditating. She sat cross legged, her katana resting on her lap, and closed her eyes.

A bird sung in the distance. The wind shook the trees.

Though she couldn't see over the wall, she supposed there must be a forest on the other side.

An unholy shriek cut through the air and immediately Sika snapped out of her trance. Her hands immediately went for the hilt of her blade and she unsheathed it, tearing out of her bed and outside, where the source of the screams had come.

She wasn't like Hidan, or Kakuzu, or any other ninja that had been taught from the time they were young, always coiled up and ready to murder like some wild animal backed in to a corner. Sika's apprehension came from reason, not academy teaching. If something was going to attack her, she needed to be faster than it.

She was in a battle pose when she burst out on to the grass, but no one was there.

The screaming continued, but as Sika stood, taking deep breaths, she realized she wasn't under attack.

Threat was null, but where was the screaming coming from?

She stepped back on to the porch, her katana hilt still gripped firmly in her hand, and walked around the house in search of the source.

She turned a corner and her heart tugged on her chest. Suta, her half brother, was playing with Asami. He was the source of the noise, they both had buckets of water, splashing each other with the chilly liquid. Kai was holding the garden hose, standing in the grass and looking up at Kasumi and her father. They were smiling, all of them.

She got a little closer on impulse only, but stopped abruptly after realizing they were going to see her. She was about to wheel around and go back the way she'd come when Suta screamed her name.

"Sika!" He screamed, "hi!" And then squealed as Asami dumped more water on to him, but she paused too, smiling and panting, looking at Sika too. Suta was infatuated with his older half sister, Sika could tell by the way he looked at her. It was exciting to find out he had another big sister, and she was even a ninja! He was about to run to her, to hug her and soak her cloths with water too, but Kasumi had come off the porch and grabbed him, tugging his wet shoulder back.

"I thought you were going to stay in bed all day," the Kasumi snarked in her preachy, shrill voice.

"Like there's fuck all else for me to do around here," Sika snorted, blowing her off, "mind your own business."

Kasumi opened her mouth but the words didn't make it out in time.

"That's a nicely made Katana," Shiasagi's voice drifted. He was still smiling, if only slightly now.

Sika looked down at her white knuckled hand at the glinting sword she gripped in a death hold. "Yeah, I like it," she moved it from her side to behind her back, like she was hiding it.

Her father was blowing smoke up her ass, he knew it was a standard issue, plain blade. It wasn't nicely made, it was average.

"Who was your teacher?" He asked, and he might as well of just asked her for her life story. He had been a shinobi. He was smart enough to piece together information. If he was asking her private questions he was trying to make a timeline.

"One of the seven swordsmen," Sika replied quickly, but she didn't mention which.

"That's impressive," he nodded, "I never was quite that good."

"Papa, you used to be a swordsmen?" Suta asked, fallowing as Asami guided him back on to the porch and grabbed a towel for him.

"Sure did squirt," the man confirmed, smiling proudly down at his son.

"Will you show us some of your cool moves? You gotta have cool moves, right?" Suta asked, his eyes practically sparkling in admiration.

"Not today," Shirasagi said, and ruffled his son's wet hair. It stuck up like the back if a chicken's ass after that, and Suta tried in vain to smooth it down again.

"Sika, will you?" The boy asked, not at all bothered by his father's no.

"Suta, you have things to do," Kasumi snapped quickly, and used the boy's still wet shirt to tug him inside the house, and then, as an afterthought, she called the younger sister along with her. Asami followed her Immediately.

Kai sort of chuffed and turned the hose off. He disappeared around the curve of the house, leaving only Sika and Shirasagi left standing.

The girl regarded her father and left for her room.

Three days of wearing the same black shirt was apparently not acceptable. Isao confronted her about it one morning at breakfast in front of the whole family. Immediately Sika shed her shirt, revealing the stained, worn bandeau underneath and Kasumi nearly choked on her egg. If she knew one way to get their goat she knew a hundred, and this was number fifty on the list.

Isao threw her a bag of coins and told her not to come back until she had a wardrobe that consisted of more than three articles of clothing. There was a tailor on the mainland and she could probably find whatever she needed there.

She boarded a boat and rode over, and her feet were back on land by noon.

Clothes shopping was easy. Black and grey and a belt and a pair of fucking shoes, not ninja sandals, but they were shoes. She picked up one colored shirt, a teal blouse that was a little low cut for her taste, but she bought it anyway. Everything fit neatly in to her backpack, except for the shoes, which she wore out.

Sika decided lunch was in order next, so that meant something greasy from a food stand. They had fried eel down the street, and that sounded good at the moment.

"Two," Sika said, motioning the number two on her fingers to the man behind the stand. The man nodded, pulled an eel out of the bucket nearby, and began preparing it.

Sika couldn't help but notice another wanted poster starring her in the face, nailed to the stand's wooden frame. This stand was no exception to the propaganda state of the city. There it was, her father's husband starring her in the face.

"So, this guy," she began, carefully, motioning to the poster, "what'd he do?"

"You must be new around here," the man chuckled, "Long version or the shirt version?"

"Long," Sika replied, as the man caught a second eel and started on that one too.

"So this guy moves in up there on the island, that one," the man motions with a knife in the direction Sika had come, "and he murders the mayor and says it's his own sovereign nation. Nobody there is gonna fight back, he's got a gang, he's the boss, and anybody that tries to stop him? Murdered. From that point of he starts building an army. He's got any guy aged twenty to thirty seven in the force, it's insane, really. He's taking people from their families, keeping parents from kids, leaving everybody short handed. Last year crops rotted in the fields, you got me?"

Sika nods as the man throws her eel into the fryer, and he has to speak louder to continue. "So then, he starts annexing every port city not in control of the daimyo to his little regime. More soldiers, more dead."

"And nobody's called up the hidden rock village and complained?" Sika asks, eyebrows raised. The man pulls her eels out of the fryer and hands them to her.

"Sure, lots of people have," he replies and takes the money Sika hands him, "but there's a medicinal flower that grows on that island, and this son of a bitch," he motions to the poster, "threatened to burn them all. Put his house right on top of where they grow."

"So, he holds the flowers hostage in return for safety? He just does whatever he wants? What do these flowers cure, honestly?" Sika asks in disbelief. She'd never seen so much as a daisy in the entire time she'd stayed there.

"Cancer," the man replies, very seriously. Sika's eyebrows furrowed. There was no way in hell!

"I'm just telling you what I know," the man replies. He can see that she doesn't believe him, "I've seen it happen. Here's your eel, by the way."

Sika takes her food and immediately starts munching. Not bad, not bad at all.

"So, this miracle flowers, they only cure cancer if they're grown on the island?" She asks between bites.

He nods, "there's a water basin under the island, the minerals from it seep into the soil."

Sure, alright. Sika had heard enough stupid shit in the last two months of ninja training. This honest to god was not the strangest thing she'd been told.

"Thanks," she said, turning on her heel and waving.

"Come back again," the man replied.

Sika decided she would not. The eel wasn't that good.

Sika only needed one more thing before she got back on the boat, and she had a pretty good idea where to find it. Crawling around behind a bar like a rat was a young man around her age, dressed in a nice jacket, but wrinkled clothes and dirty shoes.

This was the guy she was looking for, they all tended to look the same.

"It's summer, what's with the jacket?" She asked, approaching him. She'd walked around the corner into this alley where she'd been watching him for the past few minutes and stride slow, so as not to alarm him.

"Skin condition," the man answer, sneering.

"Yeah? You sure you're not hocking?" She smirked, coming closer, he returned her gaze.

"Ain't got nothing," he replied, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets.

"Not even if I'm shopping around?" She asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Well, depends on what you're shopping for?" He learned back on his heels.

"Just a little something to take the edge off," Sika kept her grin constant, "family, you know?"

"Yeah, I know," he relaxed, typical of his kind of person. Always needing reassurance and always needing to secure their own safety. In a little town like this, Sika wondered who exactly would arrest this guy? Did they even have police?

"How much do you need?"

"A lot," Sika grabbed a fist full of cash out of her short's pocket and forked it over, the man took it and traded her a brown baggie out of his jacket pocket. Sika opened it immediately and dumped it out in her hand, much to the man's distain.

Four plastic sandwich bags of a green, leafy substance lay mashed in the bags, and Sika opened the one on top and stuck it to her nose. The smell was comparable to a skunk, strong and musky and unappealing to everyone else but those who wanted it.

"Hey, watch where you show that stuff around!" The man hushed. Jashin, this guy was a pathetic excuse for a god damn drug dealer.

"Yeah, hold on, I just gotta find a couple working brain cells to think about that," Sika laughed, "this is good stuff. You keep this shit coming and we got no problems, understood?"

He made a face like he was afraid off of a sudden, his body back tense and his hands raised, in a surrender. She laughed, threw back her head and laughed, and shoved the sandwich sacks back into the brown bag, and shoved it all into her backpack.

"Rolls?" She asked, and the man hurriedly produced another bag, full of brown paper made of something to cigarette rolls.

"Thanks," she grinned, and then She revolved face and left the guy standing there, confused and intimidated and shaking slightly. She boarded the boat back home immediately after.

She went to her room as soon as she arrived back at the house, walking around the house outside instead of through it so she might avoid her family. The last thing she needed was Kasumi criticizing her clothing choices or her father's meddlesome gaze to sit in her and make her squirm. She shouldn't be tip toeing in what was supposed to be her house, but here she was, and Sika found herself thinking back to what Hidan said. These people weren't her family.

She wadded up her bed blanket in the chair in her room, pulled an end table from another room up to it, and sat back with her purchases.

First she pulled out a bag from her stash and fingered the ground up green mess in front of her. Hastily she rolled herself a joint, and then set to smoking it while she hung up her new clothes and put her backpack away. The rest of the weed, she decided, she was going to hide.

Just one, she just needed one to take the edge off, she decided. Recreational drug use wasn't new to her, she reminded herself, but the higher she got the more nervous she became until finally she ground it out on the end table and took a deep breath.

"Okay," she shook as she drew in breath, "okay you flashing piece of trash. Your bulletproof."

She picked her joint back up, put it between her lips and relit it.

Yes. She was bullet proof. And she'd stay that way.

Did anybody catch the cool moves line I snuck in there? It's supposed to mirror what Sika says to Hidan in chapter 1.

The meaning of the chapter title is "to cease obligation"

*I'd like to make one more note, before anyone starts calling homophobia, Sika isn't angry about her day being gay, shes angry he abandoned her and was still too self centered to care. He continued making excuses as to why he hadn't been around, including blaming Sika's mother. However, her father does attempt to make nice with her later on.

I'm a firm believer that nobody is completely bad or completely good. its a running theme I have in a lot of my literature.