"Ah, my son, how did it go?" Cho asked his Kiku as he entered his father's chamber. "His title was well deserved. We didn't even detect him until he was within several meters of the house. Katsuo did a good job with the explosive seals though. Nothing could have survived a blast that big." Lord Cho smiled and laughed to himself. "Excellent. He could have become a problem later on. Hahaha…" The two laughed together as they drank a toast to celebrate the demise of the mercenary titled "The Ghost"
It had been a week since that shameful day in front of Lord Cho and his mysterious guest in the white mask. Inari's punishment included yet another beating from Kiku, after which she was thrown into a locked closet. It was only after 8 hours was she let out and sent to do more manual labor. Now Lord Cho was planning an outing to one of his favorite places out in the country to relax. Inari was ordered to help Akiko prepare the large amount of food for her master's trip. It was better than most chores she had to perform. At least she wasn't breaking her back sweeping the floors or dusting random shit inside of this mansion.
The next morning, Inari and several other servants traveled alongside Lord Cho's carriage to serve his every whim. It had been several hours into the trip when they came upon a bridge spanning a canyon with a roaring river down below. Lord Cho had always been paranoid about assassins so he always kept a couple of low level ninja around to guard him. Today was no different and Lord Cho had 4 ninja placed around him for guard. Inari could care less. It made no difference if Lord Cho was dead or not. She'd still be in servitude to Kiku if something happened to Lord Cho, anyway. They made it half way across the bridge when they noticed two individual standing at the other end blocking their way.
"You there, move out of the way. Lord Cho's carriage needs to make passage" the horse driver exclaimed with no success. The two individual kept standing in their path, taking to each other in a quiet whisper. After a few moment of nothing happening, someone noticed that a few more unknown persons had walked up behind them. Lord Cho's guards became uneasy and had right to be so. These unknown individuals were after Lord Cho's life. The driver tried one more time, trying to get them to move "Move out of the way or we will make y.." but never got the chance to finish. A shuriken had been thrown that struck him in the neck. His dead body was pushed aside by Cho's bodyguards as they moved to engage the hostiles.
The fight didn't last too long as these would be assassins were poorly trained compared to Lord Cho's lowly bodyguards. They were most likely some angry peasants with a bone to pick with Lord Cho. Inari spied numerous kunai and shuriken stuck into the wood of the carriage. Looks like those poor bastards were hoping that one of them would fly true and kill Lord Cho. What did they hope to accomplish Inari wondered Kiku would just carry on his family's ways. You'd have to kill both of them. Inari's thoughts were cut off by a movement out of the corner of her eye. One of the newer servants to the house was wiggling lose a kunai from the wood. After a few seconds of wiggling, it finally came loose and the servant clutched it closely to her chest.
She looked around quickly and noticed that Inari had seen her take the kunai. The servant girl just seemed to lose it and charged Inari with the sharp knife upraised in her hand. Inari couldn't comprehend why she was being charged at, what had she done to this girl? Maybe the stress of being a servant was too much for her and she lost it. Nevertheless, she was being threatened so she decided to follow her still present ninja instincts and arm herself for defense. Inari never found out why the girl went after her because half way through the charge, the girl's eyes suddenly got wide and stopped dead in her tracks and toppled over. Sticking out right between her shoulder blade were 3 kunai.
Inari hadn't noticed Kiku's arrival but was glad that she didn't have to put the girl down. A small smile appeared on her face but was soon erased as soon as she saw the look on Kiku's face. What did I do this time?! Inari screamed at herself and opened her mouth to defend herself "Wha.." but never got the chance to finish.SMACK Kiku had hit her as hard as he could. "I've had enough of your failures! You failed at being a ninja so I made you a servant and now you failed at that! That was the last straw. All my patience is gone and I just don't really care what you think!" He grabbed the kunai out of a stunned Inari's hands and looked at it crazily for a second before ramming it straight into her chest.
Inari was too busy comprehending what just happened to feel the pain she was in. She stumbled back to the bridge railing and watched as an enraged Kiku come up and stomp the kunai deeper into her chest. The already aged railing was having a hard enough time supporting the weight of a dying girl and the force of the kick was all that it needed to give way. A strange sense of weightlessness overcame Inari as the railing broke apart and enable her to tumble down to the water below. What only took a couple seconds seemed like an eternity to Inari. Maybe this is all just a dream…yeah….a dream. I'll wake up and find that I've been in bed this whole time. She was too busy kidding herself to notice another pair of eyes watched her fall to her demise. It didn't matter because as soon as she hit the rushing water, everything went black and Inari stopped trying to kid herself.
Kiku watched as the limp body was pulled downstream by the currents before returning to his father. "Are you alright?" Lord Cho popped his head up from behind his throne, looked himself over and said "Yes, I'm fine. Those damn peasants trying to ruin my outing again. Remind me to raise taxes again once we've returned" Kiku just smiled and answered smugly "Of course" as they made their way across the bridge, over the dead bodies, and towards wherever they were heading before.
The figure in black who had seen the whole thing was having quite an argument with himself. Continue to follow them and complete the unfinished business he had with Lord Cho or be the nice guy and retrieve the body that was floating down towards him. The sun was setting and since he had been on a long trip and was hungry, he decided to go with the later.Once I retrieve the body, I'll head back to camp and cook something up he thought to himself happily as the vision of hot food came to mind. Then he remembered the task at hand. Man, all the shit I go through to help people as he jumped down the cliff and waited on the rocky river bank waiting for the body to come by.
"Fuck, where the hell is it? Shouldn't it have at least gotten here already?" escaped his mouth after 5 minutes of waiting. Just when he had muttered those words, a slender body came around the bend and floated towards him, as if the gods were playing games with him. The figure in black waded out into the water and let the body drift into his arms. "Fuck, why are they always heavier than they look" as he looked down to see who he had pulled out from the icy water. He took this time to do a brief examination and was surprised that the girl was still alive. "Hmm, she's not too far gone. Her heart beats weak but there's still some life to it."
As he entered the cave that he had to slaughter a bear to get, he noticed something familiar about the girl. "Wait a minute….haven't I seen you somewhere before" and sure enough his memory had served him right. It was the same girl that he had saved at least a year ago in some random forest he was napping in. Just to make sure that she was the same one and not just a look-a-like he checked for scars and sure enough they were there. A smile formed underneath the mask he wore as he thought Twice I've saved your ass. Do you like getting the shit beaten out of you or something? He put those thoughts aside and set her down on the soft bear skin he had recently 'acquired' and placed upon the floor to serve as a bed.
The first manner of business was to remove her sopping wet clothes to prevent hypothermia and to be able to easily examine the extent of her wounds. It only took him a few seconds after beginning to become intensely aware of her being a female. She was easily more 'developed' than the last time he had seen her. Damn, she was hiding all of this under her clothes? The shock quickly disappeared as the task at hand came to mind. He did a quick examination with his own medical jutsu and prepared for a long operation. Numerous bones were broken, the right lung was punctured with a kunai, blood loss, a concussion, and to top it off, it seemed that she also had a cold.
Just sighing to himself, the figure in black rolled up the sleeves to his long black cloak and began to concentrate chakra into his hands. He knew that he could heal her but didn't know if she had the will power to continue on. He fired up his jutsu, and with nimble fingers and hands, worked into the night trying to save the life of some strange girl that now lay unconscious infront of him.