Take Me Home
By TheChrysanthemum
Chapter Five
It was past midnight. Tsunade's eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep and strands of blonde hair stuck out of her head. Still wearing her nightgown covered by a woolen shawl, she paced around the room while regarding the team's situation.
"Now tell me, again."
It was the third night of their mission. They were in the middle of their card game and Kiba was dominating it. Out of a sudden, Mrs. Higarashi's body jerked. The lines on the heart monitor spiked. Everything happened in slow motion. The cards slowly fell out of Hinata's nimble fingers and fluttered onto the floor. He saw the sheer panic rising in her eyes, so vividly clear, and the confusion, bewilderment, appearing on Kiba's face. It was as though Naruto floated out of his body and watched the scene unfolded.
"Call the doctor! Nurse! Anyone!" yelled Hinata, who sprang from the floor and appeared by Mrs. Higarashi's bedside in less than a second, as Kiba ran to the 1st floor. "Naruto, hold her feet down. I'll take her arms."
SNaruto did as she told him. Mrs. Higarashi's eyes flew opened and Naruto only saw white. Her pupils rolled to the back of her head.
"Naruto! Hold her down!"
Like peering through a fogged glass window, everything became blurred.
…
"Who came to her room?" asked Tsunade, still pacing around with her hand absentmindedly stroking her chin.
Kiba scratched his head. "Nurses came in and out all the time."
"Shikamaru, get Sakura and Ino on conference call."
A minute later, Sakura and Ino's tired faces appeared on the screen. "Ms. Shizune definitely came to Mrs. Higarashi's room yesterday afternoon to check on her condition. Based on the surveillance video we found, we were unable to verify who came in and out of the room, because of the poor quality of the video."
"Send the surveillance video. I'll have the Cyber Department handle it," said Tsunade.
"Damn! We'd never let her out of our sight!" Naruto slammed his fists against the wall. "How? How could this happen?"
Shikamaru cleared his throat. "Why did the killer have the need to kill Mrs. Higarashi when she was already good as dead? There was little chance she would wake up due to her head injuries, so why bother?"
Silence permeated in the room. Shikamaru's question lingered in the air, begging to be answered.
…
Naruto kicked the swivel chair and it flew toward the wall with a loud thump. "How could that bastard slip past us!"
"Calm down, Naruto." said Shikamaru, who was leaning against the doorframe and watching him with almost a discontented gaze. "There's nothing to gain with you throwing a tantrum. As interested as it is watching you beat up an innocent chair, it's better if you put your energy into organizing these paperworks." He pointed to the mounting folders on the table.
Naruto glared at him, "How does this," he wrung his hands at the paperworks, "help with the investigation?"
Shikamaru sighed, "I know this is sounds like a mundane task for you but let me assure you, it's for the best. The boss knows what she's doing and she'll let you know if there's any progress in the investigation. For the meantime... "
Stay put.
Naruto didn't need him to say those words out loud. He understood his underlying message loud and clear. "Fine," he muttered dejectedly.
"Kiba and Hinata should be here shortly."
Shikamaru left, shutting the door behind him. True to his word, his teammates arrived, wet and shivering from the thundering rain outside. It was nine o'clock in the morning and it looked like hell broke loose, with the gray, ominous clouds and the heavy sounds of raindrops hitting against the window. "I hate rain," shuddered Kiba, his clothes soaking wet and his appearance reminded Naruto of a quaking dog.
For the rest of the morning, the atmosphere in their office was bleak and at best, depressing. It was unspoken, lingering around them. They failed at their first mission.
Because of it, they were stuck behind desks, sorting out reports about missing pets, citizens' complaints, and such while the killer roamed around the streets. Most importantly, Naruto hated feeling helpless. He hated the feeling of utter defeat, knowing that he couldn't do something about it except wait.
"Um… Naruto, you're tearing the 'Missing' poster," Hinata's voice snapped him out of his daze.
He looked down and the poster became nothing but a crumbled paper. "S-sorry, Hinata. I'm just—-" he couldn't put it into words.
"I know," she murmured, and something about her voice made him turn his head and looked at her.
After their little conversation, Naruto reigned in his frustration and anger, and focused on the tasks at hand. Boring as it was, sorting out the papers actually produced a strange calming effect on him. His mind wasn't running in a speed of a bullet train nor was his hands itching for a fight. For the first time after Mrs. Higarashi's death, he could think clearly.
"Ne, Hinata do you think it really was one of the nurses who did—-" he turned his face beside him but stopped mid-sentence when he saw her eyes fluttering shut, her head threatening to fall hard on the table.
She was falling asleep.
Naruto didn't have the heart to wake her. Instead, he took of his jacket. He even shushed Kiba's loud self-mutterings. Slowly putting his palms on either side of her face, he put her head on his makeshift pillow.
Naruto studied her sleeping form. Under the bright, luminescent lights, Naruto noticed dark circles underneath her eyes, strongly contrasting against her pale complexion. The shade of pink which he had gotten used to seeing it on her cheeks were also drained like watercolors fading on a canvas. His fingers also twitched at the urge to smoothen the tension between her brows, her expression appeared almost pained.
He shook his head at the numerous thoughts running in his mind that would probably be deemed as inappropriate about his co-worker, and instead, he focused back to his paperwork.
…
After a week of being constricted behind a desk, Naruto was pissed off. There was little progress in catching the serial killer, especially the vague details surrounding Mrs. Higarashi's death. Just yesterday, Tsunade informed them about the untraceable poison that was used to kill Mrs. Higarashi.
"I've spent many years countering poisons as a medic, but never had I encounter this kind before." Tsunade said with a hint of fascination much to Naruto's annoyance. "However, I have a hunch based on Mrs. Higarashi's sudden seizure, not from her injuries, but from the deadly abrus precatorius plant, or otherwise known as rosary pea."
"So, you're saying that the woman died because of a plant?" Naruto asked, incredulously.
"Not just any plant, Naruto," said Kiba as his eyes narrowed. "My older sister, Hana, runs a veterinary clinic and one day when I was helping around the place, a client came in with her horse. The horse was having violent convulsions after accidentally eating the seeds," Kiba replied gravely.
"Oh," Naruto murmured.
"Mr. Inuzuka is correct. The seeds of the rosary pea are toxic when consumed. I have to run further tests to confirm that her death is caused by the pea."
Naruto crumbled the animal poster in his hand and threw it at the trashcan near the door. "I can't take this anymore! If I spend one more day in this office, I think I'm going to strangle myself!"
Kiba rolled his eyes. "Don't be dramatic. We're lucky that we're even in the investigation. Isn't that right, Akamaru?"
Just in cue, Akamaru barked.
"I thought dogs weren't allowed in the building," said Naruto.
"Akamaru isn't just any dog. He's the fourth member of our team!" declared Kiba as he and Akamaru started wrestling on the floor.
"Now that I think about it, where's Hinata?" Naruto looked around the office, hoping to get a glimpse of her long hair or her distinctive blue backpack. Without Hinata's presence, Naruto couldn't help on noticing that the office felt empty.
"Tsunade gave her a sick day, remember?"
He rubbed the back of his head with his hand. "Yeah, I had forgotten about that."
"You know what? I know what you need."
He slowly backed away when he saw Kiba's sly smile and he immediately knew what he was subtly suggesting.
…
"Getting me drunk isn't going to solve anything," Naruto grumbled, his eyes scrutinizing at Kurama's dancers onstage.
"Even though you're a pain in the ass when you're drunk, I can't hear anymore of your whining about the paperworks," replied Kiba. "I know someone here who could relieve your… frustrations," he stifled a laugh.
Naruto almost choked on his scotch. "I'm not crazy enough to sleep with a Kurama girl, especially with anyone you know."
"Come on! Today is Friday night, and its been four years after your break-up with—-"
"It's not about that!" Suddenly standing up, Naruto slammed his fist on the table and attracting a few of unwanted attention from other tables near them.
"Naruto, sit down!" hissed Kiba, his eyes darting back and forth to make sure the bouncers weren't walking to their direction.
"I need to take a piss." Like a fire doused with water, Naruto's rage diminished. His words were slurred and before Kiba could grab him, Naruto, with precise movement, slipped from Kiba's fingers and into the dancing crowd.
"Now, where was it," Naruto whispered, grimacing at the noise of the rap music. His eyes squinted against the red lights as he pushed the crowd. Bodies grinded behind him and sweat gathered at the base of his temples.
"Oi, w-watch where yer' goin," he snapped, pushing the girl away.
After fighting his way through the thick crowd, he stumbled toward the back of the club. Through the thundering noise and the people's raucous shouts, Naruto's ears heard something that made him stopped dead in his tracks.
A soft, shrill scream.
A voice that he immediately recognized even in his hazy, fogged state of mind.
Like cutting a coiled spring, Naruto's body sprang into action. Tuning out the music, he closely followed the voice toward the back of the club disregarding the "employee only" door.
"... let go. I'm not…"
His blood ran cold. His eyes narrowed, surveying the situation, and his hands involuntarily flexed into fists. In front of his eyes were three bulky guys, around mid-twenties, surrounding and trapping a woman who eerily reminded him of his female co-worker. His gaze followed one of the men's hand tightly wrapped around the woman's wrist, pinning it against the wall. The two other men, wearing leather jackets that had a strange circle insignia imprinted on their backs, leered openly at her barely-fitted clothes.
The woman's eyes met his.
Desperation. Bewilderment. Regret.
That was the moment when darkness swallowed him.
A/N: For some reason, I had a hard time writing this chapter. This wasn't the ending I was hoping for this chapter but it was too long with the original ending I had in mind. So I cut it in half. Don't forget to R&R!