Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me. If it did, a lot more characters would still be alive. :c

This story will not have any relation to Naruto's dream of achieving Sasuke Uchiha's return or defeating Orochimaru. This happens a little bit after the Rescue Gaara arc. In other words, kind of AU (Alternate Universe). Thought you should know.

Warning: Some coarse language from some characters.

Kisame swept a cursory glance over the reticent brunette, whose eyes were steadily trained on Itachi. They were disturbingly vacant, he noted, but not that he ever got disturbed, anyway. She was a model prisoner, he'd decided after three days of listening to the silence that was on the brink of deafening from her side of the room. She'd only spoken once to say that there was a crack she'd noticed on the ceiling and she knew she was no architect, but if they didn't want the base to come crumbling down, they would have to patch up the crack.

At which his own annoyance of a prisoner, yelled at Itachi's about. He had tuned out after the first three words that came out of her mouth, but he had caught "That could've been our chance to escape you fuck!". The brat swore a lot. She really did. Kisame didn't really care, but she was just as bad as Hidan was. And that was saying something.

On the fourth day, Kisame and Itachi were pushing the meager food trays towards their respective prisoners, when Kisame decided he was curious enough to ask. "Say, Itachi-san."

"Aa."

"Why her?"

The exiled Uchiha turned around, his dark eyes shifting their gaze from Kohaku and towards Kisame. "Are you interested?"

"Well, I wouldn't be asking if I weren't. Besides, you're not usually one to have any interest in anything that has nothing to do with Konoha's core matters and your little brother."

Itachi seemed to mull over this. Then he spoke. "This does have something to do with Konoha's 'core matters' as you've so elegantly put it."

"Who the fuck cares? All that matters is that you've kidnapped us and that is so not cool!"

Kisame's eyebrow twitched in annoyance. Why had he gotten stuck with the annoying one again? She would've been dead by now, if not for the vehement insistence of those geezers to keep her alive. He knew he should've been more interested in the opportunity to use the brat to his own advantage - the geezers wouldn't have asked him to obtain her otherwise. But at that moment, he was bored, and wanted to hear a good story. Itachi always had good stories.

"Shut up, brat."

"A closed mouth catches no flies." That was another annoying thing about the annoying brat - she spouted proverbs as if she were reciting them off a book, and words of wisdom based on metaphors were not on the short list of Kisame's favourite things.

"I'll cut you."

"Cut me? More like slice me like sashimi. Don't you know your own sword well, Sharky? That's clearly not a cutting blade. Besides, who's really the brat here, HoshiGAKI?"

Kisame flipped her off. He was too tired to react even further. But it had been such an unoriginal jibe. He had almost laughed, to be honest. She was funny. He liked her, sort of. But he knew attachments were pointless, especially with live goods. They never really lasted beyond a day out of their custody. He decided to refocus on Itachi. "So?"

Itachi drew out a bronze dagger from his weapons pouch underneath his cloak. From where he sat, Kisame could tell that the blade had slightly rusted from years of disuse and lack of maintenance. It wasn't special - the hilt had a mountain lion engraved on it, but as far as Kisame could tell, it wasn't a special blade. It sure as hell wasn't going to shave chakra off, that was for sure.

But the presence of the dagger elicited a very passionate response from the normally docile prisoner. "That belongs to me!" She was at the bars in an instant, eyes glowing with anger and something else that Kisame saw as fear.

Itachi turned towards the girl. "I know," he pulled out a scabbard and slid the dagger back inside it.

His calm response seemed to calm her down. "It does not belong to you."

"I'll put it back with the rest of your belongings."

Seemingly pacified with his promise, she went back to the corner where she liked to read. Those were two things Kisame had observed about her: 1) She liked reading. And 2) she liked corners. Itachi had been a nice enough prison warden to provide her with reading material. Maybe he should give some books to the noisy brat? The idea of shutting her up with at least something to do whilst inside the prison cell was tempting, but Kisame knew better. If he treated her with a sliver of humanity, she would regard him as a weak person, and that was no way to establish the role between dominant and submissive.

Itachi gestured the dagger at him. "So as you know, this belongs to her."

"And?"

"How much do you know about Konoha?"

"I'm not going to be writing any books about it any time soon."

"Well, this is something that no one really knows about, since they avoid mentioning it,"

"What is?"

"Scattered along the borders of the Land of Fire were minor clans from Konohagakure. They lived among the regular people, but they were in charge of looking after the borders and making sure there was no trouble."

Kisame was unsurprised, despite the fact he had not known this. "That's news, but unexpected."

"She's the last one in her clan. Her clan - the Shishimiya clan. They were tasked with guarding the border between the Land of Fire and the Land of Wind. Desert duty. It made sense, since the border was particularly mountainous and their clan has a history of originating from mountainous regions.

"There are only two reasons why I'm interested in anyone from any of these minor clans. Firstly, they were belligerent when it came to Konoha because they were essentially exiled. They were not allowed to come back to the village, for fear of revealing the village's location to normal people. Even the training of their children was done in their own compound. So, their form of rebellion was sending their own children to Shimura Danzo to join Root. This one over here-," he gestured to Kohaku, "- was the second out of the two children in their generation. The Shishimiya clan did not have many children in this generation - too many of the previous generation had died in the previous war. She and her brother, the heir of the clan, were sent along with the children from the other clans. At this time, Danzo had a slightly new perspective from war, and wanted to try an experiment.

"In war, he'd learnt that shinobi that were particularly passionate about friendship and love became more powerful when the loved ones were threatened. And the bonds of friendship in battle meant high morale so they were stronger. He called this the herd effect, so named the project HERD.

"So this group was trained and raised as normal children with emotions and identities. An example of this is that they did not wear black, to create a sense of identity that Root ANBU do not usually have the privilege of having. But one day, Danzo felt that too many sacrifices were being made during missions. Friends dying for friends. He pulled the plug, and ordered every pair to kill their partners. He had a tried and tested method, and he would not be experimenting again.

"She's the last one from that experiment. She knows how corrupted the underbelly of Konoha is. She knows exactly where to hit and whom to hit. If I can remove the seal on her tongue, I can obtain information from her that will be very useful."

"That was a very long reason."

"I never said it was short."

"What's number two?"

"The minor clans always had at least one Uchiha, since protection was the main task of the Uchiha clan, but after the war, there were none. But that means, more secret family vaults scattered across the country. By now, I've found most of them, but I've never been able to find the mountain one. She can tell me."

"What makes you think she will?"

"I don't see why she won't."

"You're a felon. She's a shinobi. It kind of makes sense that she wouldn't help you."

"The world is not black and white, Kisame. You, of all people, should know that."

xxxx

"Hey, is it true?"

Kohaku tried to ignore the loud neighbour she'd been unfortunate enough to get stuck with.

"Kooooohaaaaakuuuuuuu!"

She was so annoying, and reminded her of Naruto. A pang hit her. Naruto. That led her to the thought of Gaara. She had tried so hard not to think of him when she'd left Sunagakure. She missed him but she knew she wasn't supposed to. No strings attached, that had been the order she'd given herself.

"You know, at least humor me so I won't be so annoying. These chakra draining chains are a real bitch to deal with, y'know?" the voice of the girl grated against Kohaku's nerves, "It's literally sucking the chakra out of me and I'm tired and bored. Mostly bored."

Kohaku sighed. "Yes, it is. Uchiha Itachi explained my entire history. That is all there is to know of."

"So that's why you're so cold."

Kohaku froze. How much she know about Root, exactly? "I mean, sorry if I sound too oh-gosh-gee about this, but killing your brother must've sucked. That's a kind of trauma that would probably make me go into my shell, too."

Oh, she didn't know that much, save for what the Uchiha had mentioned. That made the Root ANBU feel reasonably calmer.

"I murdered him, yes. But I am only like this, because I was trained to be efficient."

"Do you really like being the way you are?"

"Inefficiency costs lives."

"Inefficiency means taking the longer route, but it's much more scenic, and you get to spend time with people you like. Don't you have anyone you like, Kohaku?"

A certain redhead immediately surfaced in her thoughts. She immediately swatted it away.

"I mean, I've got some people I care about. And by the way, do you really know all about the underbelly of Konoha, like Otterface said?"

"Politics and history. They exist symbiotically, but history is solid, and much more reliable. It is monochromatic - what is written is what has happened. Politics is polychromatic. One popular opinion does not equate to a unanimous opinion. Our world does not run on love and friendship, and all things good. We steal and kill for a living. We are hypocrites to consider anything else besides the principle of a morally ambiguous world."

"Wow, what a long-winded non-answer."

Kohaku did not reply.

"You know, our world may be morally ambiguous, but love and friendship is what keeps us from going insane. I learnt that this year."

"Congratulations," came the sardonic, tart reply.

Who was the girl, anyway? In the four days that they'd been in the cells, the kunoichi had not once attempted to either talk or identify who her loud neighbour was. But if she was Hoshigaki Kisame's prisoner, then that meant either someone had paid him to bring her to them, or he himself had invested an interest in her. The first assumption was based on the fact that she sounded like a complete idiot whenever she spoke, and therefore was most likely a princess or the daughter of a rich family that they would be asking ransom for. However, her coarse tongue and knowledge of the Akatsuki assassin's fighting abilities and choice of weaponry made that highly unlikely - that meant she was definitely someone from a combative background; a shinobi.

Kohaku peeked over her book to get a better look at the occupant of the cell across from hers.

"Oh, finally curious enough to take a look, I see," the girl's teasing tone served as a catalyst to fuel Kohaku's irritation with her. She stood at the bars, looking through the gaps and right at the corner where Kohaku sat.

Red-gold hair braided down one shoulder, and eyes with a curious shade of gold. She was dressed in dark shinobi gear, and the Shishimiya's eyes landed on the Konohagakure forehead protector tied around the girl's neck. The girl followed Kohaku's gaze, and her fingers brushed against the cool metal of the forehead protector. "Took you long enough to get your nose out of that book," she grinned, "Hey there, Kohaku, nice to meet you. I'm Akemi Kyuushoneko."

Kohaku stared at her. There were multiple thoughts running through her mind at that very moment. How did she know her name? She was sure that neither Kisame nor Itachi had referred to her by her name, much less introduced her. And why was the girl here? How had she been caught? Why had she been caught?

"You know, if you ask me why I've been kidnapped, I don't think I actually know how to answer you," Kyuushoneko seemed to pick up on what was running through Kohaku's mind, "I know your name because Naru mentioned you in a letter once, and I made the connection when Otterface mentioned your clan's name."

Naru? Kohaku searched her memories for a person named Naru. "Naru-to?"

"The one with the last name of Uzumaki, yes," Kyuushoneko nodded enthusiastically, "You're teammates for some mission in Suna, I think. Is that right?"

"... Yes, that is correct."

"You're the human thesaurus, apparently. Is that also right?"

Kohaku openly displayed her displeasure for the nickname. "You must be mistaken, I do not recall ever being given such an appellation."

"Oh, you just proved me right."

Kohaku pressed her lips together and continued staring at the corybantic girl in silence. She still had a satisfied smile on her face - what was she so happy about? Kohaku was disturbingly reminded of Naruto, and the fact that this girl and Naruto exchanged letters could only mean that they were good friends, and them being good friends suddenly made Kyuushoneko's disposition a lot of sense. She was just as loud and positive as the blonde jinchuuriki.

"So, are you really dating the Kazekage?"

The auburn-haired girl froze in her seat. A warmth enveloped her cheeks at Kyuushoneko's bold question. She pulled her gaze away from the other girl and focused it on the heavily-worded pages of the book in front of her. Her attempt to ignore the question failed, however, as the girl spoke again. "You know, ignoring the question will just further fan the flames of rumour. You know how the old proverb goes - a rumour goes in one ear, and out many mouths,"

Without looking up, Kohaku spoke again. "I am assuming that Naruto-kun was the one that told you this, and I would like to take this opportunity to rectify his mistake. Gaara and I are not, in any way, involved in an amorous relationship."

"But you just called him Gaara."

Damn. She had picked up on her mistake. When had she even started calling him by his first name without an honorific, anyway? Never. His name had simply tumbled out before she'd seized the chance to correct herself, and now, from the slightest of peeks above the book, Kohaku could see a devious grin on the girl's face. "Just because I refer to him by his given name does not indicate the existence of an amorous relationship."

"But it sure as hell suggests that a relationship of sorts exists between the two of you."

"Yes, a professional one."

"Don't you mean an intimate one?"

Kohaku purposefully pulled the book closer to her face in an attempt to shut Kyuushoneko out. She saw no point in continuing to engage in a conversation with the girl - it was proving to be very exhausting. Ten minutes passed by painfully for Kyuushoneko, before she spoke again.

"Hey, what's your story?"

Kohaku put down the book with an air of quiet impatience. "Why are you asking so many invasive questions?"

"Four days with no one to talk to except you and Sharkface..." Kyuushoneko shrugged noncommittally, "I have ADHD. I have trouble concentrating or staying quiet unless I'm interested, and I get really restless. I mean, really, really restless."

Great, ADHD? Kohaku now knew she was definitely dealing with a massive personality.

"ADHD explains a lot about why you're such a pain in the ass," a new voice interrupted. Kohaku turned to look at the new speaker. Hoshigaki Kisame.

Kyuushoneko glared at her captor. "Bad genes explains a lot about why you're such a pain to look at," she shot back defiantly.

Kisame sighed. "You know, targeting my appearance is getting old, brat. Come up with new material, won't you?"

"Only if you come up with a new way to hold me captive. I'm getting too old for this shit. Let me out and I promise I won't run."

The swordsman snorted. "Right. Like I believe you."

"Let her," a quiet voice interjected.

Kisame turned around with a puzzled expression. "Itachi-san?"

The sombre Uchiha regarded at his partner's prisoner with a clinical interest. "She won't run. If she does try to, she won't succeed," his onyx eyes momentarily phased into the scarlet Sharingan, and stared right into Kyuushoneko's eyes. "Am I correct?"

"Well, with these chakra-draining chains, there's no way in hell I'm getting out of here any time soon. At least letting me out will keep me occupied."

Heaving a heavy sigh, Kisame decided to give in. "Fine," he pulled out the key and unlocked the door, and decided he wasn't going to let her out without a warning. "If you do try anything funny, you'll find yourself on a sashimi platter,"

"I can't exactly look at the gift horse in the mouth, can I? I would if I could, but like I said, I can't do shit," Kyuushoneko stepped out of the cell, jangling the chains around her wrists and ankles, "Thanks to these, I'm not going to be getting out of here any time soon."

"Can you shut up with the proverbs, already?!"

"No. Fuck you, fuck off and mind your own fucking business."

As the exiled Kiri shinobi started yet another argument with his captive while they walked down the hallway, Itachi turned to look at the quiet Shishimiya who had been observing the scenario unfolding in front of her. Noticing Itachi's attention was on her, Kohaku met his eyes boldly.

"Do you require something from me?"

Itachi allowed a silent moment to pass between the two of them, as they sized each other up properly for the first time since he had been introduced by Kakuzu as her captor, and her, as his captive. "Would you like to have the same arrangement as Kisame's prisoner?"

The girl seemed to consider this, as she regarded the dark-haired man with distrust. "Why are you offering me with this choice?"

"It's only fair, since I want something from you," he reasoned.

"Being given the freedom of mobility beyond this cell is nothing compared to the sensitivity of the information you require from me."

"That's why I'm offering you this. Of course, I will give you time until you're ready to talk. Until then, please do enjoy your stay here."

The lock clicked and the door swung open.

She was free.

Well, to be precise, she was now in a bigger cage.

Following the cloaked Uchiha towards the main room, away from the cells, Kohaku's eyes scanned everything they passed. Upon entering the adequately-lit room, she could see that there were multitudes of bookcases lined up against every inch of the walls, and a small group of people dressed in the same black and red coat that the man in front of her donned.

Mission objective one, infiltrate the Akatsuki base, check.

Time for objective number two.

Kohaku had a plan all along! And Akemi Kyuushoneko, if you're interested, has her own story in my other Naruto story, I Solemnly Swear, which is presently ongoing but is currently in much earlier stages! Please do let me know if you liked this chapter!

Luv,

Pichuzilla.