Here's the next chapter. I'm not sure how many installments of this I'm going to do, right now I think I have material for five or six but we'll see how that develops. Again, standard disclaimers as stated in chapter 1 apply. The language also gets a bit R-rated but it's not much.
Enjoy.
She hadn't been his first kiss; hadn't even been his first lay. Those distinctions belonged to, repectivly, a visiting dignitary's daughter and a kunoichi whose face he had long ago forgotten. The first had approched him on a dare. She had only wanted a peck on the lips. He had politely frozen for the approximately twelve fractions of seconds that had passed with her mouth, closed lipped and dry, on his own. The second had been part of the team with whom he had just completed an A-ranked mission, her first; his fifth. In celebration she had hauled him into an empty room in the barracks and proceeded to jump him.
It had been nice enough at the time. She was pretty and pliant and too inexperienced to notice his own lack of finesse. She had snuck out of bed in the middle of the night and refused to look at him the next day though. He had been more than a little pissed and had stalked out to demand an explanation in front of the rest of the team. She had shrunk away from him and, from the safety of the knot of their teammates, told him that everyone made mistakes. He had been two weeks away from his fourteenth birthday.
In dramatic, teenage fashion he swore off all women forever and devoted himself to training. Within six months he was a Jonin; four more and he was asked to join the Seven Swords. By fifteen Hoshigaki Kisame had achieved every goal he had ever set for himself.
He had mostly forgotten the eleven year old who had so impressed him three years before on the beach. In fact, when he met her again after his elevation he didn't even recognize her. A lapse she never ceased being amused by later. She claimed to have congratulated him in the street only to have him turn around, look at her like she was some unhinged stranger and then walk away with only a vague 'thank you'. She said the shop owner who had witnessed the entire thing teased her for years afterwards about her crush on the Demon Shark. He was still mildly horrified that he had done such a thing and more than a little mortified at her solution to the merchant's teasing. The day after they had finally confessed their attraction and then consummated it, she had marched back into the shop, shown the old man her love bites, and then proceeded to wreck the place.
Her claims aside, he next remembered coming across her was three years later on a mission to assassinate a would-be merchant-prince in the River Nation. The man had been causing the Water daimyo a number of headaches. As it turned out there was a renegade Mist ninja behind the entire incident. A hunter team had appeared just before he would have killed the cocky ass. Exhausted and extremely disgruntled at having his kill taken away he had, uncharacteristically, gotten into a shouting match with the leader of the team. Bizarrely, the man insisted that they take the missing-nin back to Kiri for further questioning. The entire scenario was so strange that Kisame totally forgot himself. They would probably have fought it out right there in the swampy mangroves but for a sudden chuckle from behind him.
He turned slowly; ready to rip the head off whichever arrogant Undertaker had decided to mock him. He could feel the naked horror of the rest of the team as they backed away from the idiot in question. The dead-man stood his ground as Kisame walked, slowly, towards him. The fool was on the tall side of average for a ninja but he was noticeably slight.
"Something funny?"
"I was just wondering where your manners had gone."
The voice was familiar but he couldn't place it. The hunter-nin obliged him by removing his mask despite the hissed protest of the commander. The face was unmistakable, nose a bit off center now, pale skin, sharp cheek bones and soft chin. He was still annoyed but also ruefully amused that the girl from the beach was, once again, calling him on his bad behavior. He wanted to say something cutting, just to show her that he could remember his manners and still manage a verbal riposte. His exhaustion and the sudden, blaring notion that women might not be all bad tripped him.
"You got taller."
"Happens sometimes. You're still blue I see."
"You're still uncivil I see."
Seeing her eyebrows rise sharply and her eyes narrow he decided to change tack. He didn't need to provoke her into being really nasty. He didn't need the extra aggravation of justifying why he'd hacked off one or more of her limbs in a fit of pique.
"What are you doing with these—"
He jerked his thumb contemptuously toward the sputtering commander. She smirked.
"I like to travel, see the world, meet new and interesting people and then kill them; every girl's dream."*
He smiled now. There was something refreshingly honest about her rudeness; she needled herself as much as she did anyone else rather than only trying to score points off of her slower fellows. He also had to acknowledge that she was clever. He doubted anyone else could have diffused the tense situation between himself and the commander without violence. He also doubted that most of the ninjas he knew would have been brave, or loyal, enough to risk turning his angry attention away from a colleague and in their direction. The annoyed cough of the commander made him turn and face the man over one shoulder.
"If you two are done flirting we need to get the prisoner back to Kiri sooner rather than later."
Kisame was a seasoned enough fighter to know when he needed to back down for the moment. He nodded, rolling his eyes as he did so. Glancing back down at the brunette he saw her wink before lowering her mask and vanishing in a puff of smoke.
They had missed the last ferry from the coast and would have to wait until morning for the next one. The hunters' commander swore a blue streak at Kisame. The man was so angry he actually vibrated, making his odd earrings undulate hysterically. The only thing that saved Kisame from laughing in the other man's face and making the situation totally untenable was the reappearance of the girl. Her superior rounded on her like a vicious hunting dog.
"Triple guard shift on the prisoner for you, since you find him so interesting."
She had just shrugged and gone off to her duty without so much as turning to him or raising her mask. He wrapped himself in his cloak and rested against a tree, vaguely disappointed that he wouldn't have a chance to speak to her again. He fell asleep easily.
He was woken long before dawn by a none-too-gentle kick to the ribs. He came awake instantly and grabbed his attacker's leg, yanking it out from under him and going for a kunai. He found himself pressing a blade into Her throat. A thin trickle of blood leaked from under the blade. She wasn't wearing her mask. Her eyes were huge but still calm. Her voice, however, was a touch huskier than usual. He lowered the kunai but kept her pinned.
"There are better ways of waking someone up."
"Dumb move, sorry. I just wanted some payback for last time."
He rolled his eyes. He had the grace to look embarrassed at her childishness.
"Next time be sure to get out of your target's reach. What do they teach our hunter squads?"
"Right. Anyway…"
She wriggled and stretched under him, trying to let him know it was time to get off. He found the feel of her long muscles sliding under him rather nice and ignored her hint. Deciding it was his turn to be rude; he even went so far as to press himself down a little harder. She stilled; her breathing taking on an irregular rhythm. There was an emotion almost like fear edging into her eyes now but it was fighting something else. He could feel the pulse in her wrists getting faster under his palm. He realized his own heart-rate was on the rise. She swallowed. He watched her throat muscles intently, the urge to close his mouth over them almost uncontrollable. She was trying to speak. Her voice was very, very soft.
"I thought you…might…ah…appreciate another try at…our prisoner."
"What?"
She smelled distracting; like sweat and iron and earthy, cool moss.
"Were he to…escape…you could—"
"Ah. I see."
He couldn't help himself; he licked at the blood pooled in the well between the tendons of her throat. She bit her lip, nostrils flaring. He was about to start suckling in earnest when she spoke again.
"Stop."
He felt something go very tight and brittle in him. For half a second the face of the other kunoichi swam up out of his subconscious and her voice echoed in the sound of his blood rushing past his ears. 'Everyone makes mistakes.' He rolled off Her quickly. She sat up more slowly, rubbing her wrists and then touching her neck. He felt inexplicably angry at her unwillingness to let him continue but, knowing that such a response was completely inappropriate, he latched on to something he could actually object to in the situation.
"You want to set me up a pity kill?"
She looked at him like he had lost his mind.
"No. Ao's orders are all wrong. We do not haul traitors back for trial."
Ao must be the commander he had thought. He didn't think too highly of Ao and told her so. She frowned.
"Ao may be a bit…rough but he's an excellent leader. He's got an almost perfect record of mission completions and a remarkably low loss rate for his commands.
'And because he hasn't got any finesse he puts up with my lack of it too.' She hadn't said that but he had seen it on her face. Most of the hunter squads demanded perfect loyalty and deference. He ground his teeth but steered the conversation away from the personal and back to business.
"Who gave Ao the orders?"
"The Daimyo I think."
"That's odd."
"Indeed. And I can't disobey Ao any more than he can go against the Daimyo but the Monster of the Hidden Mist…Were he to kill the unfortunate prisoner in a failed escape attempt…"
His blood was still rushing loudly through his skull. His temper riding it, feeding off of it.
"So you're using me to do your job."
Her face had gone ugly with anger. She seemed about to speak but he cut her off, his frustration finally boiling over.
"And you want to act set-upon when I try to get my rocks off."
She slapped him. He had been expecting that. Actually he'd been expecting a bit more than a single, stinging slap. He had been hoping to provoke her into a fight. If he couldn't slake his desire for her body then he always had the ever-present blood lust to drown himself in. Instead she hit him once and then backed away several paces looking oddly hurt.
"Fuck you Kisame. I offer a solution to everyone's problems with this asshole and you have to go and…I don't know what kind of women you've been running around with but I am not going to jeopardize a mission, even a flawed, idiotic one, by having a quickie on duty."
"You did a bad job of convincing me you didn't want it."
She didn't respond for a long minute. The cold brittle thing in his chest warmed a little. She stood and began fussing with her kimono. He felt the unknown thing inside him expand incrementally until there seemed to press outward against his ribs. Finally she looked at him, the expression on her face a confused mix of anger and disappointment and that unidentifiable something from earlier.
"I don't…on a mission. Now, am I going to let that fool knock me over so you can eviscerate him?"
He considered everything he had just learned for several minutes while she fidgeted. He examined the feeling under his sternum carefully, deciding he liked it, and liked the possibilities it offered. Mind made up, he gave her his best Carcharhinid grin.
"Okay."
Not the most exciting chapter but then again this is more of a character study than a plot driven piece.
*Yes I do love Full Metal Jacket too much. Just be glad I haven't worked out how to get the rifleman's creed or the phrase "too beaucoup" in here.
Let me know what you thought. Thanks for reading.
