Author's Note, August 25th: Due to a minor glitch in publishing – human error caused by fatigue, gomen - a chapter was accidentally omitted. You'll find the restored chapter under the title of "Rest and Relaxation." Anyway, I hope you're enjoying this so far, and back to the story...

11 Returning the Scroll

Mysteries and Confrontations

"Ow," Takeshi muttered, slowly opening his eyes and peering up at the faces of the three genin staring down at him. "Would someone mind telling me what the hell that was, or more to the point, who?"

Taiki and Naeko traded uneasy glances, but Kotori remained calm and merely smiled. "A colleague. You don't need to know any more than that."

"So you knew them from somewhere?" the jounin asked, sitting up and stretching. "Care to elaborate?"

Kotori shook her head. "No. The only thing that matters is that they let us keep the manuscript and went about their business, whatever it was."

"That's right," agreed Naeko. "Now let's turn this thing in and be on our way."

"Good plan," Taiki added absently, looking thoughtfully at the spot from which his erstwhile opponent had disappeared. "We can get this over with."

"I could never thank you enough for taking care of this for me." Akegata the scholar bowed deeply to Takeshi, who returned the gesture in kind. "This manuscript was intended as a gift for my wife's birthday, a little bit of something to remind her of home." He did not notice the sudden frown this elicited from Kotori, and continued. "As promised, here is your salary along with a small bonus. I hope it was not too much trouble for you?"

A snicker from Taiki and a grumble from Naeko did not stop Takeshi from shaking his head with a polite smile. "No, no trouble at all."

"Good, good!" Akegata clapped his hands together with a pleased smile. "My wife is occupied with dinner preparations at the moment and told me to inform you that the rooms in the east wing of the house have been set aside for your use. In a moment my daughter will show you to them, and you can relax before we eat." Almost as if summoned, a girl no more than ten years old quietly appeared and beckoned for the party to follow her. "Now, if you will excuse me, I need to get a few more things done myself..."

"They'll be fine with me," the girl said, smiling like a mirror image of her father as the older man bowed once more to the group and left. "My name is Eriko, and if you need anything, you can ask me. My father is a great man, very smart... just absentminded at times."

"One cannot rush genius," Takeshi mused, jingling the coin purse that Akegata had given him and looking at Eriko thoughtfully. "You were going to show us where our rooms are?"

"Yes. Right this way." Something in the girl's manner gave the jounin pause, and he walked in silence alongside the girl in order to try and figure out what it was. Sensing fresh blood, Naeko dashed up on the other side of their young host and soon the nuances of the conversation were lost to the older man. It was not lost on him, however, that Kotori had slipped into an even deeper brooding silence than usual and was now openly frowning at a point centered in between Eriko's shoulders.

After making sure that his presence would not be missed, Takeshi fell back past Kotori to where Taiki followed a few steps behind. "Any ideas about what's eating her?" he muttered to his student, who shook his head. "She's been acting even stranger than normal ever since we got back."

"I'd be willing to hazard a guess that it's got something to do with our host," Taiki replied in the same quiet tones. "If the manuscript was supposed to be a gift for his wife to remind her of home, and it's from the Mist Village…"

"Then you're thinking that Akegata's wife is Kotori's mother?" Takeshi shot a puzzled frown first at Kotori, then back at Taiki. "That's a pretty wild guess there, wouldn't you say?"

"But if what I've heard is right, Emi disappeared right after her husband died and her daughter was taken from her. I've done my homework, Sensei – all searches for her have turned up empty, and the hunter teams have searched as far as they can reach. Either Emi is dead, or she just got smart and hid where no one could find her, which is right under their nose." The dark eyes flicked to his teammate, who gave little to no evidence that she had overheard. "But we won't know until we actually see this woman."

"All right, we're here," came the announcement from the front of the group. Eriko stopped and pulled open a sliding door, revealing a spacious main room with multiple side doors and a porch looking over a beautiful outdoor garden. "All of the rooms in this wing are yours to use until you decide to leave, as well as the hot spring outside. We've installed an intercom system if you need anything, and my father says his library is open if you would like to do any reading." The girl smiled and added, "He has quite the selection, and there has to be something in there for each one of you." Bowing once to the group, Eriko turned to walk away. "Go ahead and make yourselves at home. Dinner should be ready within the hour."

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"Wow, would you take a look at this!" Naeko gasped delightedly, clapping her hands. "I haven't seen food like this in… well, forever!"

"Really, sir, you didn't need to do this," Takeshi told the scholar with a rueful grin. "Some of this must have cost a mint to bring all the way out here to the Fire Country."

"Don't worry about it. It's the least I could do to thank you for the hard work you've put in on my behalf." Akegata waited for his guests to be seated before settling himself at the head of the low table. "My messenger has sent me quite the report on what you went through to get the job finished. He didn't see everything, but he was able to tell me quite a lot, including his interpretation of the encounter between yourselves and the Mist Village's own resident demon. Quite impressive…" a glance around the table, noting the looks ranging from careful neutrality to tight apprehension to barely concealed agitation, and then the scholar continued. "… but not a story for dinner conversation." He cocked an ear to catch the sounds of footsteps in the hallway. "Ah, my wife is here. Now we can get started."

The door to the dining room slid open again to reveal a petite woman in the simple robes of a housewife, but not so common was the flame-red hair pulled back from her face and pinned up out of the way to reveal a delicate face and almond-shaped blue eyes that narrowed instantly when she saw who her guests were. "Takeshi…?" The eyes then moved to Kotori, and the already-pale skin blanched to the translucency of a wraith. "And you. What are you doing here?"

"Don't worry yourself, Mother. I'll trouble you no further," Kotori growled, her eyes flashing cold steel as she jumped up from the table and ran out of the room. The frantic pounding of her footsteps could be heard for a few minutes, leading further and further away towards the outdoors until at last her passage faded.

Seeing both of his remaining students make a move to follow, Takeshi made a firm motion with his hands to make them sit again. "Leave her be, all of you. She'll come back when she's ready."

"Well, this puts a damper on things," Akegata murmured, waving his wife into the room. "Please, Emi, just sit down. We'll figure things out after we eat."

Darkness fell over the Akegata compound, and still no sign had been seen of Kotori. Dinner was consumed mutedly, any attempts at conversation sputtering and failing like a dampened fire. A servant came to clear the dishes away, and another brought out a flask of warmed sake for the older men. Apologizing for the commotion caused by her presence and waving off any demurrals, the enigmatic Emi disappeared back into the depths of her home on an unguessable errand. Sensing her guest's unease, Eriko soon disappeared also, taking Naeko with her. This left Taiki alone with Akegata and Takeshi, and the genin soon excused himself as well to leave the two alone to talk. The topic of their conversation, however, was enough to give the young man pause as he trotted down the hall, and he stopped to listen.

"Once again, Takeshi, you have my apologies for the great difficulties you and your team encountered running my errand for me. I'm no medic, but I can tell that even you have been injured recently."

A dismissive sound from the jounin. "I really had little to do with it, sir. They're good students, and they gave it their all. All I needed to do was to give them a little kick every now and then to get going." Taiki wanted to laugh at this, but knew it would give away his position, so he kept silent. He heard a rueful chuckle from the scholar, and the hollow echo from Takeshi. "I know that you've already done us a great favor in opening your home to us after our mission, but after what we've been through on your behalf, I feel that I am more than entitled to ask you a question or two."

There was a faint rustle of robes as Akegata shrugged. "I'd agree with you there. Ask, and I'll answer what I can."

Takeshi sighed heavily, then continued. "What is so valuable about that manuscript that a Mist Village jounin died trying to protect it, and that one of the Mist's most famous missing-nin would have slaughtered my team to retrieve it? Answer me that, Akegata."

It was the scholar's turn to sigh, and porcelain clinked as he shakily poured another cup of sake for himself. "Emi would actually be more suited to answer that than I. She is the one that originally wanted the manuscript for herself, and arranged for it to fall into my hands so that its transfer would at least have some shred of legitimacy." Pause, a sip of sake, then, "She told me that she would not rest until she knew what they'd done to her daughter. How cruelly ironic that that same daughter would be a tool of the manuscript's delivery!" A brittle laugh. "I know, Takeshi. Lies all around. But you as a shinobi should be used to deception, right?"

When the jounin spoke again, his voice was quiet and stern. "You do know that Kotori is a demon vessel, don't you? She holds the spirit of the two-tailed cat, Nibi no Nekomata, inside of her, and it's not easy for her. As her leader, I have to watch her fight it every day, and as one of her closest remaining relatives, that kills me. Who would let such a thing happen to their own child?"

Silence between the two, and Taiki had to strain to hear Akegata's next words. "I can assure you, Takeshi, that Emi would never have chosen that for her daughter."

"Tell that to Kotori." Yawn, stretch. "Now if you'll excuse me, sir, it's been a long day. I need my rest, and I'm sure you have a lot to think about."

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Now what did he mean that I'd get more use out of the scroll than he would? What kind of scroll could this be? Kotori sighed gloomily, a dark exhalation among the song of the nightbirds outside. Hearing the sounds of conversation die out in the room under her, the genin continued to wait patiently until the last occupant – the scholar, if she'd placed his voice correctly – left to go about his business before she dropped soundlessly from her perch on the roof tiles. Moving so that her actions would be indistinguishable from that of any other nocturnal animal, the girl began her survey of the grounds. The only way I'll know is if I read it, like he said. Odds are Akegata had the scroll put in the library, so if I find the library…

A single covered pathway separated the compound's largest outbuilding from the family's living quarters, and it was in the shadows near this walkway that Kotori decided to wait and gather her bearings. Soon enough, the outbuilding's door opened and a figure emerged carrying a book. Squinting into the gloom, Kotori realized with a blink that it was Taiki, and with belated dread she felt the beginnings of a mammoth sneeze welling within her. Pervert-san has tainted him! I should never let Taiki get his hands on that book… Further dread boiled when she saw that this book was a newer edition than Taiki's much-perused novel, and sweat beaded Kotori's brow. And apparently Akegata-san is not immune to this filth either. Men…!

It took all of her endurance to keep the sneeze from exploding out into the evening silence, but even after this effort a betraying squeak still escaped from behind Kotori's muffling hand. The genin crouched even further into the shadows, trying to make her profile as small as possible until her teammate had passed. Her blood chilled as the youth's steps slowed, but compressed as she was she could not see the small smile on his face as he passed her hiding place. As he walked, she heard him murmuring something into the night, and after listening she realized that he was talking to her. "Don't worry - I won't tell anyone that you're out here. I just came from the library, and the scroll has been laid out in one of the reading rooms. Good luck." Then the young man resumed a normal pace, apparently absorbed in the plot lines – or lack thereof – of Jiraiya's latest novel.

Waiting until Taiki had passed, Kotori burst from her cover and dashed into the library before anyone could see her, then stopped when she realized just what a task she'd set herself. The library itself was immense, featuring shelf upon shelf stacked with anything ranging from loose leaves of paper to ancient scrolls to more modern bound books, and her heart sank. "How am I supposed to find anything in here?" she muttered as she looked from title to title. Then her eyes caught the faint glow of lamplight from a side room, and it was here that she went in search of her quarry.

Her breath caught in her throat when she saw it – the scroll had been removed from its carrying case and unbound, unrolled partially to provide a tantalizing glimpse of the first contents. Kotori's eyes darted over the first lines of script, pulse pounding in her ears when she realized what the characters spelled out: "The Binding of the Cat Demon, the Forging of a Swordsman, and Other Forbidden Tales of the Village Hidden in the Mist." So loud was the pounding of her heart that her normally sharp senses did not perceive the other presence in the room.

"Quite the shocker, isn't it?" Kotori looked up from the manuscript with a startled sound, hand reaching for the scroll hidden in her waist sash that would bring her weapon forth. Her eyes narrowed to glassy, unforgiving slits when she made out the form of Emi standing in the doorway, bearing a tea tray. The older woman smiled and crossed to set the tray on a smaller table within easy reach of anyone viewing the unfurled scroll. "And yet somehow none of it surprises me."

"It wouldn't, would it," the girl hissed when at last she could find the breath to speak. "And you let every single part of it happen to me. You hid out here in the forest with your new husband and – and your new daughter – and your new life!" The last words came out in a rush, thrown like kunai at the now-unreadable Emi. "There's no room for me here. You left me for dead and you started over." If her challenge had any effect, it was unnoticeable, and Kotori began to tremble dangerously. "Don't you see what you've done to me? I see Eriko and I see what I never was. I see Naeko, and I see what I could have been. But no. I know shinobi are tools, but you left me to be made into the sickest one possible!"

Rage seethed through Kotori's veins as she continued, and she could sense the spirit within her grinning its fanged approval and flexing its claws as her voice rose. "The girls of Konoha are trained not only to be skilled fighters, but alluring women as well. While they were being trained in flower arranging, I was stalking my prey in the morning fog. When I was scolded for sloppiness, it was because I'd accidentally let some of my prey's blood spill onto my clothes. Those girls obsess over the latest handsome male to cross their path. What do I obsess over? That my killing stroke had not been neat enough. They have families, they have lives! Do I? Let me tell you something, Akegata Emi."

Kotori smiled coldly as she spat the name out at the older woman and reached a hand to run along the scars on her shoulder that had once again begun to ooze blood. "These marks – they are my mother." Smile widening, she brought out the zanbatou and with deliberate malice sank its tip into the floor next to her. "This blade is my father." Abruptly the smile turned into a snarl as Kotori untied the headband from around her forehead in one violent motion and threw it onto the table where it clattered to rest on top of the open scroll. "And that – that is my life! You let it happen to me. What do you have to say about it?"

Emi bit her lip for a second, then spoke. "You will not accept it if I apologize to you. The only thing I'll tell you is to take that scroll with you when you leave, and maybe you'll learn something more about yourself from it. I've already learned all I need to know." The older woman bowed. "Be at peace, Kotori. I take my leave of you." Rising again, she then turned and exited, closing the door quietly behind her and leaving Kotori to her own thoughts.

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The Konoha group stayed on at the scholar's house for another week before Takeshi announced that they should move on. And move on they did, with Eriko extracting a promise from Naeko that the latter would return sometime for a visit, and Taiki having extracted a certain book from the scholar's library. If Kotori was in even darker sorts than usual, the rest of the group chose not to comment, each having some idea of what had transpired and not caring to agitate the girl further.

Upon the group's return and debriefing, a certain scroll was placed under the care of the Hokage for safekeeping. A brief explanation of the contents was given, and all concerned parties agreed that this indeed was the best course of action. Once this was concluded, Kotori was dismissed so that the Hokage could have words with Takeshi.

"Once again, your little band of misfits has proven itself, wouldn't you say?"

A polite nod from the jounin. "If I may say so, Hokage-sama, they did better than I expected." He chuckled. "For all they seem to be on the surface – an ice cube, a poster boy, and an airhead – they've also grown."

"So it seems." The older man smiled. "Would you think they're ready to move on and test their skills at a higher level?"

Takeshi blinked. "If you're suggesting - "

"Come now. If what you say is true and they've survived not only an assassination attempt but an encounter with a criminal of the highest caliber, a little thing like an exam should be nothing to them."

A hasty bow. "Of course, Hokage-sama. I'll let them know right away."

"Oh, I wouldn't do that. Give them a few days to rest first…"