A/N: Hi everybody! Time to move into the mission further. It's time to meet the sisters. And later, Anko has a bit of a rough night. Enjoy!
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As the shinobi sat with Naoto waiting for the sisters to arrive home, Akie said, "I think I hear Hanami now." The door to the modest house was opened and a lovely young girl in her early twenties walked in. She had sad bright hazel colored eyes and striking black hair. She walked in and looked startled as Naoto, Kakashi and Asuma all stood when she entered the room. Akie said, "Hanami, the shinobi are here. These two men are here to protect you and your sister until you are moved. This is Kakashi and Asuma. Asuma has been assigned to protect you."
Hanami immediately relaxed and bowed slightly to the shinobi, saying, "I am so relieved to meet you both."
Asuma said, "The pleasure is all ours. Please, join us."
Akie said, "I'll get you some dinner dear. Sit down."
Hanami sat at the table and the three men sat down with her. They noticed her fiddle with her hands. Kakashi saw the small serpent tattoo inside her left wrist. This was indeed one of the sister scientists – there was no mistaking it. Akie quickly came with some food for her, which she began to eat immediately.
Right after meeting Hanami, Kakashi's ninja instincts kicked in immediately and subconsciously. She fiddles with her hands – she's nervous as hell. She's shy too, but just maybe because we're new. If she's really shy all the time, she'll keep her secrets locked away from us. We'll never have enough time to get her to trust us.
Kakashi asked, "Akie, when do you expect Harumi to be home? Does she keep the same schedule every day?"
"Actually she does. She usually arrives within thirty minutes of her sister." Hanami looked up briefly and nodded in agreement.
Asuma looked at Kakashi and said, "Should I try?"
Kakashi said quietly, "If you like, but if she tries to close up, back off."
"Sure." Asuma said, "Hanami, I know we don't have much time to spend with you, so when your sister arrives, we'd like to talk to you both about why you left Orochimaru, and what you saw when you were there."
Hanami kept her head down and kept eating.
Asuma glanced at Kakashi as if to say this isn't going too well so far. Asuma backed off a bit and said, "I'm sorry to interrupt your dinner, please continue and maybe we'll talk later."
Hanami said, "That is best. I prefer to wait for my sister."
Asuma said, "Fair enough."
Naoto rose and said, "If it suits you all, I'll take my leave. I'll return two days from today with the guide who is to transport Hanami and Harumi to their safe house."
Kakashi said, "Thank you for your assistance Naoto."
Naoto said, "I'd do anything to help trip up Orochimaru. The way he treats people – as if they are all his play things, completely expendable . . ."
Kakashi held up his hand to stop Naoto from saying anything more. He'd noticed Hanami cringing in her chair, as if she were trying to make herself smaller than she was. Kakashi realized she was part of what Orochimaru was doing at one point. She is walking regret.
Naoto noticed Hanami's reaction too. He said, "I apologize Hanami, I was not implying,"
Hanami looked at him and said, "It's ok Naoto, I am no longer part of that, or him." She rubbed her left wrist, keeping her serpent tattoo from view.
Suddenly with a flourish, the door opened wide and someone ran into the kitchen out of breath and flushed. Hanami's sister had finally arrived.
Both ninjas sprang to their feet – thinking it was an intruder. Immediately she apologized, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I didn't realize we had company!" She brushed her brown hair out of her face to reveal startling green eyes. They were a light green like sea foam.
Naoto stepped forward and said, "I was just about to leave. Nice to see you Harumi."
"You too Naoto – thank you for your help."
"Don't mention it. I'll see you again when I come back with your guide." He waved and made his way to the door. There were farewells exchanged, then the door shut and introductions started once again.
Akie introduced Asuma and Kakashi to Harumi, telling her that Kakashi had been assigned to protect her. Harumi said, "So you two are the ones sent to protect us until we're moved? Have either of you ever gone up against Orochimaru?"
Kakashi said, "We've both dealt with him before. We're well aware of what he's capable of."
She said, "He's here you know. Or at least his people are. I can feel him close. I can feel his evil." She rubbed her serpent tattoo. "He knows we're in this village and he won't rest until we're dead."
Hanami looked at her sister and said, "Don't say such things!"
Harumi turned to her sister and said, "You know it's true! We know too much and he will silence us before we tell anyone! That's why we won't! Maybe then he'll have mercy on us and let us disappear!"
Kakashi didn't want to lose patience with the girls but he said, "If you reveal what you were part of, or what you saw when you were there – he will try and kill you. If you stay silent, he'll kill you anyway. You left him, so you're as good as dead to him. He has no further use for either of you, so he will eliminate you. He's done that to everyone that's ever left him, or attempted to," except Anko.
Kakashi's mind flew to Anko and he lost focus for a moment. Then he looked at the nervous faces of the sisters and started again. "We won't let him get to either of you. He'll have to kill us first and I promise you, that won't be an easy task to accomplish – even for him."
Asuma looked at the sisters and said, "Kakashi's telling you the truth. Orochimaru will definitely try, but we're here to protect you and prevent that. But for this to work, for us to be able to keep you safe,"
Kakashi finished his sentence, "You're going to have to trust us."
The girls looked at each other with troubled faces, trying to grasp the severity of the situation that the shinobi just made starkly clear for them.
Anko was wondering where Kurenai was. One minute she was there with her, and then she was gone. Instead, she saw a young blond woman, and then another that looked just like her. They were walking toward her, and Anko stood there wondering who the hell they were. She said, "Where's Kurenai? Have you seen her?" The women looked at her and walked right past her on either side. She turned to see where they were going and when she turned, she saw Kakashi tied to her headboard. The two girls were headed straight for him. He saw them coming, and looked past them to her. She started yelling, "Hey! HEY! What do you think you're doing? HEY!" She tried to run at them, but she wouldn't go forward. It was like she was running in slow motion. She was going out of her mind, because Kakashi started yelling for her, "Anko! I won't do this! I won't! THEY CAN'T MAKE ME! ANKO!" The girls climbed on the bed next to Kakashi and he tried to get away from them, all the while yelling her name.
Anko desperately tried to rip her feet from the floor so she could go to him, but she was stuck solid where she stood, her eyes riveted to the scene before her. The two girls were trying to hold him down, yet he continued to fight them and yell her name. She screamed, "GET AWAY FROM HIM! HE DOESN'T WANT YOU! HE WANTS ME! KAKASHI!" She tried frantically to reach him. She fell to her knees and tried to claw her way closer to him, but she couldn't move. She looked up to find both the girls on the bed, but she couldn't see Kakashi anymore. And what really scared her to death was that she couldn't hear him anymore either.
Anko sat up suddenly, hit her head on Kurenai's coffee table and fell back to the floor again. "Ow," she said as she rubbed her forehead, while she shook from her nightmare. Then the pain from the hangover she didn't know she had yet hit the rest of her head and she said, "OOOWWWW!!! Oooh, not so loud." Her heart thudded in her chest, as she tried to erase the picture she still saw dancing in front of her eyes. She thought Kakashi would never, he wouldn't. He promised. He promised. . . She cried silently because Kurenai was hanging off the loveseat quietly sleeping, and she didn't want to disturb her, or get any sympathy from her. She just wanted to feel the pain by herself for a little while, while she continued to convince herself that she trusted the man she loved.
Soon, she maneuvered her way out from under the coffee table; she got up, and looked at the clock. It was only about ten at night, so she shut off the light in Kurenai's living room, and stretched out on the couch again to think for a bit, before she slept off her drunken night.
Asuma and Kakashi told the sisters that they were going to be their shadows until they were moved to their next hiding place. Asuma was to stick with Hanami, while Kakashi was Harumi's shadow. If they were going to town, the shinobi would go with them. Ever since Harumi's revelation that Orochimaru, or at least his minions, were more than likely in the village, both Kakashi and Asuma thought it was best that they had round the clock protection.
After their dinner, Akie left the shinobi with the girls. Before she left she told the girls, "Please try and cooperate with these men. They're here to help you, and help their entire village. Orochimaru has a grudge against the Hidden Leaf Village as you both probably know. They only want to help save their people, as well as the both of you. Please do what is right." She bid them farewell, and after telling Asuma and Kakashi where they would sleep – in two tiny bedrooms at the backside of the house – she left them.
As soon as she was gone, Asuma said, "Ladies, would you be willing to answer some questions for us? It's already dark out and we don't want to take up too much of your time."
Both girls reluctantly nodded, that they would answer some questions. Kakashi said, "We understand that the both of you went willingly to Orochimaru to help him with his research."
Harumi said, "We did. He's a brilliant man."
Hanami said, "Brilliant EVIL man, Harumi."
Kakashi said, "We don't doubt his intelligence. His discoveries of new jutsu are unprecedented, but the WAY he found these jutsu, and how he developed them, using live victims, is unacceptable. You do understand that now don't you?" Both girls nodded like they had just been scolded by teacher.
Asuma said, "He uses people like lab rats. Did he make you do this too?"
Hanami spoke up and said, "At first, he told us to use lab animals, which is what we would have used all the time, until,"
Asuma said, "Until he made you work on people?" Hanami nodded.
Kakashi said, "What did he have you do to those people?"
Hanami said, "I, I, can't. It's too, sick. I am a scientist, not a butcher. I can't do this right now." She got up and ran from the room. Asuma immediately got up and followed her. Kakashi thought divide and conquer, but gently.
He looked at Harumi and said, "Will you talk to me?"
She looked at him defiantly and said, "I don't know. Will you torture me if I don't?"
Kakashi said, "I've had to do that to other people before, but they were usually hardened criminals and murders. I don't think you fit that profile, so no, I won't do that to you."
"What if I decide I won't tell you anything?"
"I guess I'll just have to accept that. I'll be forced to go back to my village, the village where I grew up, and tell the Hokage that my mission was a failure. I'll tell her I made sure you got to safety though, so Orochimaru couldn't get his hooks into you anymore. Then I'll be on alert 24 hours a day, as well all the other shinobi will be, because we'll have to protect our village from Orochimaru's next move. Life will be pretty intense until he strikes us. But at least when he does, we'll know it, and we'll be able to fight back. I'll tell the Hokage to make sure that she reviews all the escape plans for the women, children and elderly, so when he does attack again, they'll be safe."
Kakashi had not meant to be so harsh with her, but she had to know what could very possibly happen. Harumi tried to turn away. She swiped a tear from her cheek, then cleared her throat and sat up taller. She said, "You could never prepare for what he wanted to do to your precious village."
Kakashi thought I'm getting somewhere. "What are you saying? Do you have a timeline of when he wanted to strike the village?"
She looked at him and said, "He can't yet. What we were working on isn't ready."
He stared at her and said, "Are you STILL working with him?" He grew stern, thinking he might have to torture her after all.
She glared back at him and said, "Not after he did this to me," she turned and lifted her hair to show the greenish remnants of a horrible bruise on the base of the back of her neck. She said, "I'm sure you heard that we left after he injured one of us. He injured me."
Kakashi cooled a bit and said, "I'm sorry for what you've been through. But you have to understand, you can help an entire village, and nobody else will have to go through what you did. We need your help. I need your help."
She said, "How do I know you won't tell him where I am? How do I know you won't take the information I give you back to your precious village, and then rat me out so you don't have to deal with me? Make me a sacrifice that Orochimaru can take out his anger on? How can I know you won't turn on me?"
Kakashi thought, I was afraid of this. He said, "If you cooperate, you have my word that I won't sell you out. I swear on my own life."
Harumi looked torn. She said, "I have to think about this. Please excuse me. I want to get ready for bed."
Kakashi stood up and said, "Of course. Harumi, please. You could prevent a lot of bloodshed if you cooperate."
She glanced at him and then left him there.
Kakashi sat at the kitchen table for a few minutes, hoping he'd said the right things. He reached in his pocket and pulled out his picture of him and Anko. He smiled as he looked at it, and felt the tug at his heart. He kept looking at it, completely content, until he heard someone coming up behind him. He stashed his picture back in the pocket over his heart and turned to see Asuma who joined him at the table. Asuma said, "So, how'd you do?"
"I think I made some progress. Harumi's having a real crisis of conscience. I had to promise her that I wouldn't sell her out to Orochimaru if she helped us. Did you make any progress?"
"Not as much as you. Hanami's very reluctant. She's more fearful than anything I think. Seems like a nice girl, but just a little too timid yet."
"I think we should turn in soon. We've got to keep up with them tomorrow."
"Yeah. If Orochimaru or his people really are here, we want to be rested up enough to face them if we're forced to."
Kakashi agreed. Both shinobi rose and went to their respective bedrooms where they went to bed early, each thinking of their respective girlfriends who were waiting for them back at home.
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A/N: How the hell are Kakashi and Asuma going to get the sisters to trust them in such a short period of time? You shall soon see.
Next up: A nice long chapter (for me anyway) with lots of information. Kakashi and Asuma shadow the sisters, Anko and Kurenai try and occupy their time and minds, and Anko finds something out about herself that she never knew before. See you soon!