Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any characters affiliated therewith. Neither do I own Riku, who I am using with the permission of AzNcHiBi. I only own Katsuki.
"Katsuki… Wake up…" A voice broke into the brunette's unconscious mind.
"…Uh…?" Suddenly, Katsuki jerked her head up as she felt her arms constricted by chakra chains. She strained at her confines, but to no avail.
"Don't bother. Those damn Akatsuki know their stuff, I'll give them that," came Riku's sarcastic voice.
"Last thing I remember, I got punched by that girly blonde…" Katsuki muttered, her sapphire eyes flashing platinum blue. Through the gloom, she could see her sensei's silhouette some odd feet to her right.
"Mm-" Abruptly, a door was thrown open in front of the two women, revealing a tall, dark shape with spiky hair walking toward them. Katsuki's heart jumped into her mouth as the anonymous individual knelt in front of her.
"Well, well… Deidara, Sasori, you made a nice catch. Two of the most skilled kunoichi in our bingo book," said the man, taking Katsuki's face between his palms and looking carefully at her. "Fujiwara no Katsuki and Kiyotake no Riku… Very nice." The first young woman mentioned spat out a very unladylike response, making the enigmatic man laugh.
"She put up a good fight, yeah," Deidara said from behind the man. Sasori's puppet nodded slowly in agreement beside him.
"Maybe we should just take care of their memories now, Leader-sama?" Riku shuddered as she looked at Sasori's hunch-backed figure. The spiky-haired man shook his head.
"We'll give them a few days to see if they'll willingly help us…" he said, releasing Katsuki and turning to Riku. Once his back was turned, Katsuki made a few hand symbols from where her hands were chained. Suddenly, an exact flesh-and-blood doppelganger appeared behind the Akatsuki's so called 'Leader'. The double held a kunai to his neck and said quietly,
"Release us. Now. Otherwise you'll die right here." The Leader merely chuckled and the real Katsuki was stunned as he suddenly disappeared, only to reappear in front of her, his hand pressing a blade to her neck.
"I see we'll have to be more careful with these two than we thought. They're definitely more… willful than most of our captives…" The Katsuki-copy went poof into nothingness as Leader withdrew the kunai and focused once more on Riku.
"You know of those called jinchuuriki, correct?" the man's voice echoed in the dark confines of the dungeon.
"Depends on who wants to know," came Riku's sharp, sly reply. Deidara stepped forward and backhanded Riku hard across the face, leaving a deep scratch from the ring he wore.
"Our Leader asked you a question. You are obliged to answer, yeah," he said, menacingly.
"LEAVE. HER. ALONE." Deidara looked at Katsuki for a long time, and she glared right back at him, defiance in her eyes. Leader chuckled at the young women's spirits.
"Her spirit will not be so willful soon enough, Deidara," he said, his head inclined toward Katsuki. "Then you can do what I've asked of you…" The Iwa ninja nodded, smirking slightly.
Leader turned back to the two women and said, "Two days." He snapped his fingers as if to eliminate the women's memories in that instant. He then turned on his heel and went out the door.
"Bastard…" Katsuki whispered. "Riku, are you okay?" The other woman nodded, licking away a blood droplet that had found its way to her mouth.
"We've got two days until we're in hot water," she said, shifting around so she could stand up from a kneeling position. "So, why don't we try and have a bit of fun and piss those damn Akatsuki off?" Katsuki smiled as she stood and turned around as best she could, making more hand symbols. Both women's blue energy chains suddenly faded to a dull gray before they disappeared altogether.
"Ready?"
"Ready as I'll ever be. Let's get going before that he-she and ogre come back." Riku nodded, drew back her fist and punched the solid-stone wall. In a split second, it wasn't stone anymore, rather more a pile of dust. The two women darted out through the opening and began to run as fast as they could through the surrounding forest.
"It can't be this easy to just run away from the Akatsuki hideout," Riku thought, warily looking out for a trap or anything suspicious. Katsuki thought the same thing too as she trailed after her former-sensei. Suddenly, both women froze as something small and white fell through the thick canopy, bouncing off a tree limb in a puff of smoke before it headed straight for Katsuki.
"The hell-?!" She had only a split second to dodge it before the thing detonated. Katsuki flipped backward in the air, landing about thirty yards away from Riku, who was backing up against the tree trunk, trying to make herself as small as possible. Both women knew who had thrown the object and began as one to leap through the trees as quickly as possible. Suddenly, Katsuki felt herself run into something hard. She heard Riku grunt as she hit something similar.
"A…barrier? No please! It can't… be…" As the two jonin fell through the trees, miraculously missing any limbs that could potentially break them in two, they saw two shadows coming down after them.
"Shit! We're paralyzed! And those damn Akatsuki are after us again," Riku thought as she watched her student falling along beside her. Just before they hit the ground, the two pursuers caught them. Katsuki and Riku looked up in disgust at who they were: Deidara and Sasori. Again.
"Heh. It's better if you just be good little girls, yeah," Deidara said, slinging Katsuki over his shoulder as Sasori carried Riku. Had they been able to even speak, the women would have shouted a long string of cuss words in frustration at the two criminals.
"Deidara, aren't you forgetting that potion?" Sasori's gruff voice came from the puppet. The Iwa ninja stopped as he remembered and threw Katsuki to the ground. Riku saw the blonde take out a syringe and a small vial of a translucent blue fluid. Katsuki made a small noise in her throat and her eyes were wide as Deidara knelt beside her and took her arm. He looked at her with an insane smile on his face.
"Now, will you be a good little girl or will I have to use this?" he asked. Riku gritted her teeth. She knew Katsuki had a phobia of needles of any kind, and if this guy used a syringe on her, or threatened to, her student would probably break. Suddenly, she heard a slight weeping and closed her eyes in defeat.
"Please… Please don't… I'll cooperate… I promise. Just don't use… that…" Katsuki whimpered, trying in vain to shy away from the syringe. Deidara's smile grew wider, but also a little sympathetic, as far as Riku could see. He patted her on the head but made no attempt to console the young woman. Then the Iwa ninja stood and came over to Riku who looked at him with contempt.
"Do what you want, you bastard. The outcome will be the same apparently," she said, her voice becoming more menacing by the second.
"Fine then, yeah," Deidara replied, putting the needle into Riku's arm. She bit down on her lip as he tried to find a vein. When he finally removed the needle, the potion was already working.
"Damn. That serum was… actually a… sleeping potion…" Katsuki's tears burst afresh as she saw her sensei fall into a drugged sleep, but they were quickly stopped as she felt someone hit her in the back of the head, knocking her unconscious.
"You shouldn't be so considerate Deidara. Next time, just pin her down and-"
"I'll do what I want, yeah. As long as I'm obeying Leader-sama, what does it matter?" the blonde spat out at his partner. The two men turned back toward the hideout and began to walk.
A/N: Please forgive my dishonorable writing and lack of ideas. I am trying to move the story along faster so the good parts will come sooner.