Chapter 21: Predator and Prey

Fifteen year old Hideki's feet thundered loudly against the damp forest ground as he barreled blindly through the dense fog. Part of the mist was formed from leftover water droplets from the aftermath of the morning rain, while the rest was a product of the Hunter nin's jutsu to obscure Hideki's vision.

It was working.

Hideki could barely see an arm's length ahead of him. Every step he took that didn't result in him colliding into a tree was considered a lucky break for him; however, that didn't mean he was lucky enough to avoid the myriad of puddles scattered about. It felt like each step he took would elicit a splash of water and mud all over his shinobi pants.

Given the circumstances, having mud on his pants should have been the least of his concerns, except the added weight eventually caught up to him. His movements slowed. His breathing became harsher, heavier. His lungs felt like it was on fire. His calves burned.

Pure adrenaline born from fear pushed him to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Yet as his steps became smaller and began to slow, it was only a matter of time before the Hunter nin would catch up to him. The Hunter nin had trained all of his life to chase someone down. Who was Hideki in comparison?

A nobody.

And that was why Hideki was completely baffled why a Hunter nin would be interested in hunting down a medic who possessed no particular offensive prowess, much less any kind of powerful kekkei genkai.

Still, the thought of having two senbons lodged in the base of his neck propelled Hideki to keep running despite every part of his body hurting. There was no particular destination in mind, just the innate survival instinct to get the hell away from the threat.

Instead of increasing the distance, it was closing in. When Hideki registered the telltale sound of the Hunter nin's feet thumping against the branches, chills seeped down his spine. Goosebumps formed all over his arms and legs. The newfound fear gave Hideki a small burst of adrenaline, just enough for him to marginally widen the distance again before the Hunter nin started gaining on him again.

A yell escaped his lips as a senbon zipped past him, the sharp tip catching onto the edge of his sleeves. If he continued running in a straight line, Hideki knew he was as good as dead. For the next five minutes, Hideki poured the remaining dredges of energy into pumping his legs as fast as they would possibly go, while trying to constantly shift his trajectory.

His tactic worked, somewhat.

Hideki wasn't dead yet. But he wasn't faring too well, considering he had two senbons lodged into his upper left arm. They were the only two to make its mark, among the slew of senbons that had sunk into the forest ground.

Dribbles of blood dripped down his left arm. Every movement of his arm sent another flare of pain racing up the entirety of his arm. Hideki gritted his teeth, and continued to run through the pain. Black dots danced around in his vision.

His time was up.

Any moment now, either the pain would get to him or the adrenaline would wear off, and that would be the end of the fight. From there, Hideki would be easy pickings for the Hunter nin, who hardly seemed to have exerted any effort in the past hour. In fact, it almost seemed like the Hunter nin was simply toying with him, biding his time until Hideki wore himself out.

His right foot rammed into an overgrown root. His unstoppable momentum sent him sailing forward, just barely giving him enough time to twist his body so he landed harshly on his right shoulder instead of his left. Judging from the intensity of the pain that wracked his entire body, Hideki wasn't sure if that was any better than landing on his injured side.

The Hunter nin's feet touched down on the mushy soil in front of him, close enough that even through the dense fog, Hideki could make out the red markings on the white mask.

"Why?" Hideki grounded out in between heavy breaths. "Why me?"

The Hunter nin raised a senbon as his way of responding. "You are a traitor of Kiri. All traitors must be dealt with."

"Because Kiri is killing our own people!" Hideki responded, the volume of his voice rising with each word. "How can you expect me to stay in a village where the leader is ordering the assassination of anyone with a bloodline? Having a bloodline isn't something that we can control!"

When his best friend was murdered in front of his eyes simply for being born with a kekki genkai, one that he never even used to harm others, Hideki resolved to leave the village. There was no way he could stay in a village that murdered his childhood friend in cold-blood; no way he could erase that memory from his mind and pretend that it never happened.

And leaving…well that had been his friend's dying wish. And even if Hideki had to die trying, then so be it.

His only regret was being such a let down so soon after leaving. Then again, what had he expected? Hideki was just a medic nin that possessed nonexistent combat skills. For the entirety of his shinobi career, he was someone who was content with staying behind the front lines to provide support.

And the one gutsy thing he ever did? It cost him his life.

Hideki squeezed his eyes shut. There was no use in fighting the inevitable any longer; he could only hope that it would be a quick and painless death–

The sound of lightning crackling filled his ears, yet his nerves didn't register pain anywhere on his body. A second strike of lightning sounded, this time the noise much clearer and fuller as if it was right besides him. By the time Hideki gathered the courage to open his eyes, he was greeted with the sight of the Hunter nin falling face to the ground with a short blade lodged in the crook of his back.

Thump.

Hideki scooted backwards, the soles of his feet pushing against the soil in a desperate attempt to get away. More dirt turned up than Hideki had moved, but the simple act of doing something, even if utterly useless, reassured the teenager that he was still alive.

Still breathing. And moving, even if his left arm had already gone numb.

A woman hopped down from the trees, dumping two more bodies onto the ground to join their already dead comrade. The mist cleared. Hideki's eyes widened when her dark eyes swung to meet his.

Despite fearing creeping up every inch of his body, Hideki found himself unable to look away. Completely frozen and locked into her gaze.

"Are you going to kill me too?" Hideki couldn't keep the tremble out of his voice.

"That depends. Are you going to try to kill me?"

Hideki furiously shook his head no. Even if he had a reason to, he was severely outmatched. And in his current wounded and fatigued state? Hideki would be lucky if he could even stand on his feet for two minutes.

"Then no, I'm not going to kill you." The woman casually wiped her bloodied hands against the back of her pants, like this was an everyday occurrence. Judging from how effortlessly she had taken down three top tiered shinobis, maybe it was.

Much to his surprise, Hideki found the courage to voice his curiosity. "Why did you save me?"

His savior scoffed. "My intention wasn't to save you; it was to kill them. I can't stand Kiri shinobis."

Oh. Perhaps it wasn't the best idea for her to know that Hideki was a Kiri shinobi, even if he was a former one.

She must have read his mind because her eyes flickered over to his as she tacked on, "Don't worry. If Kiri Hunter nins are after you, then you must have defected from the village." The woman squatted down in front of him, extending a hand outwards.

Hesitantly, Hideki took it. After all, if she really wanted to kill him, then she would have already done so, right?

She eyed the two senbons still lodged in his upper left arm and grimaced. "You should get that taken care of. Do you need me to take you to the nearest village?"

Hideki shook his head. "I'm a medic. I just need some time to recover my chakra and then I can heal myself." He let out a pained grunt as the woman helped him to his feet. Resting his shoulder against the trunk of a tree, he dug around in his weapons pouch for some chakra replenishing pills.

"Are you sure you won't bleed out before then?" she asked, raising a questioning eyebrow. "After all that trouble you went through to escape from the village, it would be a shame if you were to die of blood loss."

For the first time since his escape, Hideki mustered the energy to crack a smile. "Even though you didn't mean to save me, thank you anyways, shinobi san."

"The name is Mika." She extended a hand outwards. "It's nice to meet you. The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Hideki shook her hand. "Hideki. Former Kiri medic ninja."

Konan was three jutsus away from delivering the finishing blow when a burst of chakra suddenly appeared in the clearing. The high-pitched shriek of his trademark jutsu made Konan take an instinctive step backwards as if that would lessen the impact of the noise. Luckily, just as quickly as the jutsu appeared, the sharp noise fizzled out.

The body fell forward with a loud thump. Cause of death by a hole punched through his heart, thanks to Okami's lightning bolt technique. Tossing a look behind her, Konan motioned for the rest of her subordinates to leave the clearing while Okami was hunched down on the floor with an empty storage scroll spread out.

"The bounty on him is low," Konan commented, simply to make conversation and not because she actually thought Okami cared about such trivial things.

He didn't. "Money is still money." His fingers formed a tiger seal before the palm of his right hand slammed down onto the white surface of the scroll. The body disappeared in a puff of smoke. Intricate black marks formed all over the surface of the scroll.

"It's nice to see you again, Konan. You've changed."

Both of them knew that Okami wasn't talking about her haircut or the handful of new jutsus she developed with her paper origami. Konan had changed, probably the most out of the three of them.

When Konan brought back Sasori's body in a body bag, Yahiko and Nagato didn't say a word. Neither of them asked her what happened, although Kie later revealed to her that Yahiko had approached him secretly. The three of them never verbally addressed the incident, but to them, that was their defining moment. The moment when they started to stray away from their original ideals that was born out of their naivety, replaced with a "do what needs to be done" kind of mentality.

Killing included.

"People change," was Konan's clipped response. "What are you here for?"

If there was something that Konan learned about Okami, it was that he never willingly approached Ame territory without another purpose in mind. Konan didn't blame him, like everyone else who visited, the dreary, rainy conditions were extremely off putting. Especially for someone who grew up in Konoha, with blindingly bright sunshine and visible clouds, Konan could see why Okami detested staying in Ame for extended periods of time.

Word even reached her ears that Okami spent his free time in Kusa.

"I have a new target for you." Okami's hand disappeared into his black cloak, presumably rummaging around his various pockets. His hand emerged with a plain scroll. He tossed the scroll in her direction. Konan's arm extended outwards, allowing the scroll to fall into the palm of her hand. Her fingers curled around the scroll, gripping it tightly.

"His name is Orochimaru. All of the information I have on him is written in that scroll."

Konan nodded. "And what do you need me to do with him?"

"Track him down and report his whereabouts to me. Don't alert him."

"Alright, but I won't have any news for you that soon. A good portion of our subordinates are stationed in Yoake right now, so it will take some time to reassign them."

"Yoake? The small town near the border of Kiri and Kumo?" Okami mused, tilting his head slightly. "What is interesting about that place?"

"For the last few months, there have been rumors of a serial killing organization in the surrounding areas. The Akatsuki recently tracked them down in Yoake." Konan's amber eyes flickered to meet his.

"How much do you know about a god named Jashin?"

Very few things could make Orochimaru lose his cool and having his experiments disrupted and completely ruined was one of them. In his haste to escape, Orochimaru wasn't able to salvage a single thing. Not his test subject. Not any of the chemical mixtures used to stimulate human fear. And not any of his research notes.

When Orochimaru initially fled, all of that didn't matter to him. His priority was his safety because if he was caught, the chances of him getting out were slim.

However, now that he was safe, Orochimaru mentally cursed himself for not having the foresight to at least grab his research notebook. The three year long research project had been completely destroyed because some children had decided to meddle in his affairs.

What was Danzo's use if he couldn't even stop some kids from snooping around in his business? How did the children even know he was the perpetrator? And by some chance they found out – how did they track down the entrance to his hideout?

His initial thought had been simple; Danzo had been the leak. It was no secret that the older man had been growing impatient once Orochimaru stopped providing him a regular supply of Sharingans, but that wasn't Orochimaru's fault. He had given him everything he could; Danzo was the one who instructed him to lie low for a while and not kidnap any more children. Orochimaru didn't need anymore test subjects anyways; two had survived long enough to unlock the Mangekyo Sharingan. From there, Orochimaru had swapped their eyes in the belief of the old tale of Madara unlocking an Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan after taking his brother's eyes.

Unfortunately, one of the test subjects died not too long after the eye implant. Orochimaru was down to one test subject; only one, yet it was the test subject he had the most faith in. There was no reason for Orochimaru to obtain more test subjects and with the death of the boy, that had been the end of the supply of Sharingans to Danzo.

The initial promise was Orochimaru would give Danzo enough Sharingans to fill up all of the eye sockets on his artificial arm in exchange for Danzo covering up his experimentation. Orochimaru didn't quite gather enough Sharingans to complete his arm collection as many of the test subjects died before unlocking their famed kekkei genkai. Once Orochimaru no longer had any Sharingans to give to him, their exchanges became tense. Their partnership strained to the point where one miniscule mishap could lead them to turn on each other.

And that was why his first suspect was Danzo. Danzo had finally crafted a plan to get rid of him, but failed because Orochimaru was just crafty enough to slip through the cracks of his almost foolproof plan. However, that notion was quickly dispelled when the news of Danzo's death reached his ears.

Delivered by the very person he had no desire to see.

Zetsu. Or more specially, White Zetsu. The more annoying counterpart of the two. At least Orochimaru wouldn't have to deal with Black Zetsu's interrogation on the progress of the Rinnegan because he would certainly try to stab him once, or twice upon hearing that he failed.

"Waah, you are lucky you survived!" White Zetsu exclaimed. "You know who killed him? Okami did. Okami is scary. Your host body would have been ripped apart by him."

Orochimaru scoffed; White Zetsu was afraid of everyone, including his own counterpart. What was the big deal about this Okami person? The last he heard of him was when he assassinated the Fire Daimyo. Killing a civilian was hardly impressive in Orochimaru's eyes.

"I wasn't lucky. I was smart," Orochimaru grumbled. "If I hadn't noticed something was wrong, I probably wouldn't have made it out unscathed."

"Oh, such confidence from a man who barely escaped," White Zetsu chirped annoyingly.

Orochimaru gritted his teeth in annoyance. "Shut up. If you didn't give me such a weak host body, I wouldn't be in this position right now."

White Zetsu merely shrugged. "Then go find your own bodies to use. By the way, Black Zetsu wanted me to tell you that since you failed, our deal is off, so you won't have to deal with my so-called weak host bodies."

"What do you mean–"

After a burst of mocking laughter that drowned out the rest of Orochimaru's words, White Zetsu melted into a puddle of goo at Orochimaru's feet. In a fit of rage, Orochimaru threw a kunai with as much force as he could muster. The kunai sank into the goo and fell limply on its side.

Damn it. White Zetsu didn't even have the basic courtesy of delivering the message in person. Who did they take him as anyways? Someone was easily trifled with?

Orochimaru would show them what it meant to cross him.

A/N: Hi again.

Thank you for reading, until next time!

-MM