Turning point: Chapter 7

:Mission:

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Tayuya stepped up to Tsunade's office door and raised her hand, holding it in place just inches away from it's target as she stopped to consider what might happen today. She hadn't been specifically told to come here in the morning but she figured it was the only thing to do on her first day, after a few more moments of thought she finally knocked on the door. The sounds of shuffling papers and something wooden falling to the floor came from the other side, until eventually she was told to enter. Tayuya pushed the door open and slipped inside quickly, taking a quick look around she could see that the papers on Tsunade's desk had been very hastily cleared up and dropped into a tray. Behind the desk the Hokage herself looked over at her guest with sleep deprived eyes and slightly displaced hair, as well as what looked like writing on her cheek.

"Ah, you're here early. I apologize for not being ready yet but I've been finalizing your admittance to the village and organizing things so you can take missions for us."

Tsunade started flipping through her papers, looking for whatever files she had been working on for Tayuya.

Half an hour after entering the room, Tayuya was given her first assignment for the leaf village. She ran it through her head a few times as she left the building despite it being such a simple task, all she had to do was go and catch a cat that had escaped it's owner and was now running around the village somewhere. She'd been given a brief description to go by so it wouldn't be too difficult to distinguish.

"Let's see... Tora. Brown fur, lighter stripes and a red ribbon on the right ear... Heh, should be a breeze"

She then began her search for the missing cat. Tayuya spent the next few hours checking alleys, running across rooftops and up trees looking for any sign of the cat she needed. She'd had a few false alarms with wrong cats and one even tried to attack her, but soon discovered it couldn't touch her. Five hours after starting her mission Tayuya decided to take a break for lunch, she wandered over to the nearest dumpling shop and made her order. After a short wait her food was brought out to her by a cheery young lady whose bright face even got the almost always sour-faced redhead to smile a little as she paid, as she sat on the bench outside with her lunch she let her eyes drift around the area. This part of town wasn't as busy as some of the other areas she'd wandered through today, but everyone still looked as carefree and happy looking as everywhere else in the village.

Tayuya finished her food and stood up, leaving her plate on the bench as everyone else was doing and stretching her arms up above her head. Her search was about to continue as she stepped back into the street, when it was brought to an abrupt halt by a flash of pink and a bump on the head. The impact knocking Tayuya onto her back and winding her with the sudden impact. Tayuya stared at the sky for a few moments and let out a groan as she brought her hand to her forehead, judging by the similar groan coming from the spot nearby; whoever hit her was in the same position right now. A minute later Tayuya managed to force herself to a sitting position and looked over at the other person, another girl. She looked somewhat shorter than the redhead and wore a red Chinese style dress with a white ring near the bottom at the front. She seemed to be wearing black bike shorts underneath that stopped just above her knees and her headband wasn't on her forehead, but instead being used to keep her shoulder length pink hair out of her face. The girl rubbed her forehead as she too rose to sit in front of Tayuya and look over at her, a moment after meeting eyes the girl suddenly became flustered and jumped to her feet to offer a hand to help her up.

"Ah, I'm so sorry. I wasn't looking where I was going, I'm running late and Lady Tsunade will be mad if I miss her first lesson."

The girl helped Tayuya to her feet and turned the hand up into a hand shake.

"I'm Sakura, I'm really sorry about that. Are you ok?"

She leaned in to take a look at Tayuya's head while her 'victim' simply stood still and looked at her awkwardly.

It took at least a minute or two before Tayuya decided to speak up.

"Hey... I thought you said you were in a hurry."

She said as Sakura's eyes widened in panic and she looked up as if trying to determine the time by the sun.

"Ah! Damn it, sorry I gotta run. Your head looks okay, just put ice on it or something to bring the bump down!"

Her last few words got quieter as Sakura ran off down the road towards the Hokage's mansion. Tayuya took a few moments to dust herself down while she registered everything that'd just happened, she remembered that she used to be as energetic and naive as Sakura just was when she was young. She had to grow up fast after being taken in by Orochimaru and the years in the sound village had made her pretty self centered and easily irritated, something like Sakura running into her would have caused her to explode into a blind rage before. But since she arrived in the leaf village she had been feeling calmer and more interested in the goings on around her. It took Tayuya a moment to realize that since Sakura had left she had been standing in the middle of the street looking lost and a few people were now staring at her, so she quickly finished patting herself down and strode off in the opposite direction to continue her mission.

Not having to worry too much about getting lost since she could almost always see the Hokage's mansion from the rooftops and finding her way back from there was easy, Tayuya continued her search for the lost cat Tora. Two hours later and she still hadn't managed to find anything, it was starting to get dark now and she was beginning to get frustrated. So deciding to try and be a little more tactical, she took to the rooftops again and jumped to the highest point she could find to take a look around.

Almost as if it had been waiting for the moment, Tayuya heard the unmistakable screech of an angry cat and span around to find the source. In a darkened alley a few streets over she could see a group of men walking cautiously towards a dead end, they looked like they had something cornered and by the sounds of it they were closing in on a very loud feline.

"Oh this had better be it."

Tayuya thought to herself as she jumped over to the next roof and then down to street level at the entrance to the alley, there she could just see the cat behind the men and gave a little grin.

"Red ribbon on the right ear, finally."

With that she started walking towards the cat's pursuers.

"Hey! Didn't anybody ever teach you guys to pick on someone your own size?"

Tayuya spoke up without even thinking about it, her mind set on her goal she never even thought about sneaking up on the trio. The men turned their heads to face her looking rather annoyed that they'd been caught. Once they turned their attention from it, Tora bolted up the wall at the dead end and climbed over it. One of the men noticed this and quickly turned back.

"Agh! The cat!"

He shouted as he tried to get his accomplices' attention, even Tayuya was too late to react and frowned as the cat escaped.

"Goddammit, you better not go too far."

The middle man just smiled as he straightened up to face the girl at the end of the alley, his dry, pale lips parting enough to show his very unclean teeth.

"Who cares about the cat, a human hostage will turn out better for us. And we even have a volunteer."

His grin grew wider as he spoke and the other two smiled just as wide as they realized what he meant, Tayuya simply gave the group a cocky smirk back and dove into her pouch to pull out her flute. The men noticed her quick movement and ran at her together, thankfully her previous training meant that she'd be using her technique before they ever reached her. She took a breath in and closed her eyes as she placed her lips to the mouthpiece, what came out was a short and higher pitched note that one would expect from a rookie. Tayuya's eyes snapped open as she immediately realized the problem, she was still short of breath after being hit by Sakura.

Her overconfidence had now become dangerous as she had left it too late to react properly, she took the full force of the middle man's fist into her stomach which lifted her feet a few inches from the ground. Her mouth hung open as the rest of the wind was knocked out of her, her flute dropped to the ground as the impact forced her to grasp at her sides. Covering her stomach with her arms, she dropped to her knees gasping for air. The group of men smiled sickly down at her as she sat helplessly on the floor, unable to do anything to stop them.

"Hoo boy, this one's got some fight in her. She'll be pretty entertaining while we wait to make the ransom."

The middle man hooked his grubby finger under Tayuya's chin and lifted her head to look at him. Her face twisting with rage while the other two simply laughed behind him as he seemed to check her over like a buyer would check a horse, making sure the goods were undamaged. Tayuya could do little more than continue to hold her stomach and wheeze uncontrollably, her pride now lay shattered on the ground before her as she had no choice but to accept the humiliating defeat she had just been given. As the man let her head drop and stood up to talk to his allies Tayuya simply stared at the floor, her hair cascaded over her shoulders and hung around her head as she thought about what would come next.

One day, that's all the time she'd been allowed to spend on this new life before it had been taken away from her again. She closed her eyes tight and bit her lip as she tried desperately to keep her tears from escaping. Seconds later she could hold it back no more. She sobbed pathetically at the ground, her tears pattering on the stone as she lowered her head even more. The men heard her crying and turned back with their disgusting grins.

"Look at that, all that spunk before and she's crying like a little girl after one hit."

The trio laughed again as the middle man knelt in front of her once more and grabbed her head, gripping her hair from the back to force her to look him in the eyes.

"Well get used to it girly. With your attitude you'll be getting a lot more than that from now on."

He looked back at his partners and laughed out loud again as Tayuya's mind raced. She'd been abused before when she was young, beaten by her parents until her legs were strong enough to take her far away from them. The memories flowed back into her head one after another, even life in the sound was riddled with murderers and psychos that she had to constantly avoid. These thugs were going to be far worse though, they knew what they wanted and they were going to do anything they liked with her. She wouldn't be able to stop them, not like this.

With that thought Tayuya's eyes snapped open and glowed a dangerous yellow, her curse mark on the back of her neck burned her body as its black zig-zag pattern covered her skin. The man who had been laughing too hard to notice; realized too late when the horns burst out from her head and she lunged forward, stabbing them into his eyes. The man keeled over and screamed in pain. holding his hands over his bleeding sockets as Tayuya gained strength from the curse mark and stood. Her hair grew darker and flowed down around her chest while her skin seemed to burn a dark brown. Her eyes trained their fiery yellow gaze on the remaining two men as tears still streamed down her face. She grit her teeth and clenched her fists as the terrified men fell backwards over themselves to get away, seemingly forgetting the alley was a dead end.

Tayuya started walking forwards, dead set on the men in front of her. As she passed the now blinded man; she stomped on his right knee with enough force to shatter it, earning another cry of agony from him as he rolled helplessly on the floor. She continued to walk steadily towards the remaining pair, until she was stopped in her tracks by a kunai stabbing into the ground in front of her. She looked back to see an Anbu ninja perched on the roof nearby, with several more kunai ready. As she turned to face him, several more appeared around her; surrounding her completely along with one of the leaf's legends. A tall, pale skinned man with spiked white hair, a mask covering his face up to his nose and his headband tilted to cover his left eye. Even lower ranked members of the sound knew of the copy ninja Kakashi Hatake.

Still lost in rage Tayuya tensed her arm and clenched her fist to ready herself for a move that she wouldn't get the chance to make, as Kakashi moved with almost inhuman speed and glared into her eyes with his left eye exposed. The red iris and three tomoe pattern surrounding the pupil, this was the Sharingan that Orochimaru had talked about so often. It seemed to spin as he focused it on her gaze and after a moment Tayuya could feel the effects taking her over, her eyes drooped and her strength left her body as his Genjutsu sent her into a deep sleep.