Masked Koi: Chapter 7. "Flames"
"Sedate them, huh?" Seiseki said to himself, walking along a path. He was about two days away from Konoha.
He sighed and pulled out a map. He unfolded it and disregarded the large rip nearly down the center from constant folding and roughly unfolding it. He'd used it mainly during the War, hastily tearing it open, never having his brother's sense of direction and ability to look at a map once and memorize it.
"There should be a town nearby," he said, looking up and squinting.
He refolded the map and put it away, hoping to get some adhesive to fix the map. He traveled on the path, enjoying the scenery. Well, he was enjoying the scenery until he saw a tree with a strange black speck in it. He got a bit closer and noticed that it was a guard post. More specifically, it was a Konoha post for border patrol. By the looks of it, it seemed that it was a post for messenger hawks and for shinobi who were traveling back to Konoha (they took shifts of a month) to rest. Seiseki supposed there could be as many as fifty shinobi there, along with around ten hawks.
It wasn't an ideal situation to try to get tranquilizers.
Seiseki pressed on and the moment he passed through the gates of the town, he could feel the eyes on him. He quickly slipped into a shop that, thankfully, sold what he was looking for.
There was a young boy who somewhat resembled Kakashi standing at the counter, as if expecting him. Seiseki looked straight into the boy's eyes and for a moment, he didn't say anything. The boy simply smiled and said, "Is there anything in particular that you're looking for?"
"Yeah, kid," Seiseki said. "I need two vials of your most powerful sedative."
"I see…" the boy said, his glasses glinting. He turned around and disappeared into the back storage room.
A few minutes of agony passed for the man, wishing the boy would hurry so he could be out of this town. Seiseki felt the hairs on his arm standing on end; he was being cornered. He could feel the shinobi slowly coming forward, readying their kunai and steeling their nerves.
"Here, sir," the boy said. He scribbled a few things on a sheet of paper and placed it in a drawer. Then, the boy looked back up at him with a small smile. "It will be 1,000,000 ryo."
"What?" Seiseki spat. "Like hell I'm paying that!"
"Sir, I'm afraid we can't let you leave unless you pay. Or, you could be taken to Konoha and formally charged. By the way you walked in, you don't seem very keen on being in anyone's custody," the boy said, his smiling somehow seeming twisted looking.
Seiseki had reached over the counter and had the boy's throat in one hand in an instant. The boy cringed in pain as he was pinned against the wall, his back aching. "Cheeky brat. What makes you think you can say that to me? I hold your life in my hands now and I can easily end it."
The boy still managed to smile, despite his reddening eyes and pale complexion. A bead of sweat ran down his face. "S-sir…Y-you're…wrong."
"Seiseki-kun. I happen to like my assistants living. I suppose you like living and the living, yes?" a voice asked behind Seiseki.
It was at this moment that Seiseki realized where the feeling of being cornered was coming from. It was the man behind him with a voice that chilled his blood and suddenly made moving a bit more difficult. The mere presence the man was emitting was more than enough to make Seiseki want to drop to his knees, and presently, for the child he was strangling to pass out.
Seiseki let go of the child, who hit the floor with a dull thud. Seiseki turned around, trying to maintain his cool demeanor and looked at the man with a glint of killer intent in his eyes. It nearly all dissipated as the two made eye contact.
"Long time no see," the pale, yellow-eyed man purred, leaning on the counter nonchalantly. As if the two were simply two friends chatting over tea.
Seiseki's mouth felt dry. "Orochimaru. Why're you here?"
"I own this shop," Orochimaru stated, as if it was common knowledge. "Didn't you see the sign: 'A Snake's Herbal Remedies'?" The man raised a brow.
"What do you want?" Seiseki snarled, hiding his horror.
"Your payment. Seiseki-kun. I don't work for free. But you apparently do," Orochimaru smiled again. It was a sickly smile that Seiseki wanted to rip off and burn. "I'll give you two choices: you pay me now or I contact Konoha that you're in the Land of Fire, armed with sedatives and highly dangerous. Well, nothing stops me from doing the latter, seeing how you are a nuke nin."
"What does that mean?" Seiseki asked, trying to grab the vials and be done with the town he knew he shouldn't have walked into.
"I mean that I hold your life in my hands and I could easily end your days of freedom. I hear that Konoha has a fabulous ANBU duo, Minato-kun's ANBU, a team quite skilled in hunting. Seiseki-kun, it honestly isn't wise for me to let you go running off causing mischief in the Land of Fire," Orochimaru replied, his voice silky.
"Then what the hell is stopping you?" Seiseki suddenly grinned.
"I find you interesting," Orochimaru replied. "I do like watching a good game of cat and mouse. Go on, Seiseki-kun."
Seiseki grabbed the vials and shoved them in his bag and disappeared within the blink of an eye.
From afar, one could see a figure dashing from the path leading out of the town, simply a head of silver hair for a moment before it darted into the trees, completely gone from sight.
The truth was, Seiseki had nothing to fear from the post that had held fifty shinobi and hawks. The shinobi in the post were already dead anyway.
"So then you have to pull the wire like…" Nishiki lightly pulled on the wire, threaded between her fingers and around her wrist, "this."
The two boys, along with Hinata, stood with awe written into their faces. The kunai that had been strung onto the wire had all hit their targets, even the ones behind the blind spots. Nishiki smiled smugly behind her mask, seeing the children's priceless faces.
"I'll show you three how to do this after you collect all the kunai. Don't cut your fingers," Nishiki said. The children nodded and ran off to collect the kunai, momentarily disappearing from sight. In a few moments, the two children had created a competition to see who could gather the most kunai.
Nishiki found herself looking past the village gates, their green color paling in comparison to the bamboo she spent her days surrounded by. For a moment, she felt a wave of fear. She blinked, feeling her hands shake. She channeled chakra to them and they stopped. She looked at the children, hoping they didn't see her. They didn't. She envied their innocence.
"Nishiki-sensei, it's not fair!" the two boys shouted suddenly. Nishiki glanced at them.
"What's not fair?"
"Hinata-chan/sama got the most kunai!" Naruto and Neji said, pouting.
Nishiki smiled. "Life isn't fair. Get used to it."
"But Nishiki-sensei…" Naruto mumbled.
"Come on, I'll show you three how to manipulate wire with kunai. Stop pouting or I'll make you go home," Nishiki warned. The two boys immediately shut up and watched Nishiki's demonstration.
With rapt attention, the three watched as she moved the wire around her finger and the rest around her wrist. She began to thread kunai with the ones they handed her and then, with the flick of a wrist and a touch of chakra, she let go and watched the kunai fly to their targets.
Nishiki readjusted the boy's weight on her back. Naruto had fallen asleep after Neji and Hinata had left, leaving Nishiki to carry him home. He looked exhausted, but Nishiki couldn't seem to find any empathy for him. When she was his age, she was already staying up all night either studying or drawing or training.
She stood up from being on a rock on the forest with her mask in her hand, her fatigue far greater. Reports from her spy network had been flooding in and both kept her awake at night and made her reread them and make notes. She kept detailed notes and information on threats, any and all kinds. Her network was rather skilled at slipping in and out of places, after all.
In his office, Minato rubbed his face with his hands and looked at the paperwork before him. There was a troubling page before him, one submitted from Nishiki. Because of the sheer amount and ever-replenishing amount of paperwork, he had an enormous backload of work. The page from Nishiki was a month old. It might as well have been a year old.
A knock brought the man out of his thoughts. Minato looked up as Jiraiya walked in, the man with his lips quirked upwards, finding something amusing. Minato didn't want to know. At all.
"Working late, Minato?" Jiraiya smiled. Minato waited patiently for him to speak. Jiraiya rolled his eyes dramatically and began, "I hear Hatake Seiseki has appeared back on Konoha's radar. My spy network has informed me of an anomaly within the summons of cats. The scroll was originally in the hands of the Uzumaki and then Kushina. For some reason, there's a large amount of cats roaming the Land of Fire and a few in other lands. These cats only appear when summoned, as do all summons. Kushina had only let her female student sign the contract and from what I know, Hatake Koi had died eight years ago. Also, my spy network has been watching the cats and come to the conclusion that the cats report to someone in Konoha."
"What's this got to do with the cat's summoner and Seiseki?" Minato drawled. He could feel himself nodding off. Sleep seemed like such a nice thing. Out of the corner of his eye, he eyed the cot in the corner. He hadn't slept much on it since Mikiko had come, demanding him to be home. He complied to her wishes, as he always did.
"Well, the cats seem to be even better than my network and more informed. Perhaps they know more about Seiseki. With two networks, don't you think that we can better protect the village this way?" Jiraiya asked.
Minato yawned. "The summoner is my ANBU. She's training with Naruto and is probably heading to my house. Try looking for her on the main roads, though. If you see Naruto with an ANBU, that's her."
"Any description?" Jiraiya asked.
"About four inches shorter than you, silver hair, a mask, and an ANBU outfit with a gold insignia on it. She could also be wearing a shirt with a fish on it, a red scarf and black pants," Minato said.
Nishiki jumped into the air and with a somersault, landed on a nearby roof. She walked slowly across the roof. Naruto suddenly jerked to her right and she quickly held onto him tighter, her hands losing their grip for just a moment.
Her mask plummeted to the ground. Nishiki watched in slow motion as the one thing she prized, the one thing that kept her identity a secret, that kept her past behind her, and showed her proof of being ANBU fell. She jumped after it, one arm bearing the weight of the child on her back as another arm reached out. In vain.
The mask shattered with a crack. Nishiki felt herself go numb and her ears rang. The weight on her back was suddenly gone and her hands, as she knelt, held the shards of sharp porcelain. She gripped them tightly and they rebelled, refusing to be molded into another shape, and cut her palms and fingers. She barely felt it until it reached bone. She separated her hands to stop the shards from piercing deeper into her skin but it was too late.
Her hands were covered in blood and she dropped to her knees, watching the seal matrix on the inside back fading. Something ran down her cheeks but with her bloody hands, she couldn't tell what it was. Tears mixed with the blood she'd smeared on her face. Her shoulders shook hard enough to wake the boy.
Naruto took a step back; his eyes wide, having never seen Nishiki show any kind of weakness in front of him. He looked around, getting scared. He began to panic and looked around desperately for anyone to help him. Nishiki began to sob harder until her sobs became screams loud enough for Kushina to hear from the other side.
Nishiki suddenly held her head in her hands, her screams becoming those not of despair but of pain. Naruto cried, becoming so frightened. He couldn't take his eyes off of her form. He could see that her consciousness was slipping from her eyes, becoming dim.
Suddenly, there was a huge burst of energy. Naruto was thrown back a few feet, hitting a tree hard enough to crack some of the bark. Dangerous raw chakra was being ejected from her body as she continued to scream, her voice becoming a mere wisp in the hot wind that surrounded her body. Naruto was pinned to the tree and watched in horror as his beloved sensei tried as hard as she could to stop the blue flames that erupted from her skin from enveloping her body. She closed her eyes until all he could see was a golden glow. She clutched her body, clawing at something, her skin becoming paler and paler. Naruto began to feel his skin burn slightly as he continued to feel the raw chakra whip his hair about and hold him in place against the tree, whose bark began to sink into his back. His shirt, once soaked with sweat, was soaked with blood.
He couldn't feel it though.
Naruto felt more tears coming and they came out and where wicked away by the wind. The wind began to die down and was replaced by a massive amount of energy being released, along with a strong aura of killing intent. Naruto felt something dash past him and squinted, seeing his sensei being surrounded by a hundred cats. The cats seemed to be unaffected by the corrosive-feeling chakra and formed a circle, as if awaiting something.
Naruto cried out once more. "Help!"
Just then, three figures appeared. He saw Shisui struggle to get near Nishiki, crying out a name Naruto didn't recognize. Shisui gripped her shoulders, his eyes burning crimson. Another man, with white spiky hair, raced forward. His hand glowed with chakra and another hand held a slip of paper with black ink written onto it. The paper was slapped into her forehead. Naruto felt strong arms whisk him away. Naruto couldn't take his eyes off of his sensei. He began to thrash against the man, screaming and biting and channeling chakra to try to get away and back to Nishiki.
"Hey, calm down," Kakashi hissed.
Naruto numbly obeyed, losing sight of the one person he respected the most, and loved the most. Kakashi stopped in front of Naruto's house and let the boy down, looking for any injury. Kakashi noticed the wounds on his back and ended up taking the boy to the hospital.
Without a word, Rin disinfected the boy's back as he screamed in pain and wrapped his back up with pure white dressings. Rin gave him a worried look, to which the man simply eye-smiled and disappeared with the boy, who'd passed out.
"Y-you're alive…?"
Nishiki nodded slowly, once. Her eyes didn't dare look into her younger brother's, afraid of what he'd think. Silence passed for several minutes. Nishiki couldn't stand it anymore; she looked up at Kakashi.
"I can't believe it…" Kakashi said.
"I know, I'm—" Nishiki started.
"I can't believe you've lied like this! If you hadn't hidden yourself, Nii-san wouldn't be a nuke nin! He left because of you! I can't believe I'm related to such filth! You should've been crushed by those rocks," Kakashi said, fading into the darkness.
"No, Kakashi! Come back!" Nishiki cried out.
"This is what I hate most about you."
Nishiki whirled around, her eyes wide and fearful. "S-shisui…"
"Don't call me by my first name. It's disgusting. I hate that you're such a coward. You're the reason your entire family broke up like this and even now, you're too afraid to try to mend anything. You know, Kakashi is right. You should've been crushed eight years ago," Shisui said, his eyes boring holes into her. His footsteps echoed until she could no longer hear them.
"Koi."
Nishiki turned around slowly, recognizing the voice just barely. A bloody form of a woman appeared with a grin and the scent of burning flesh. The woman had Nishiki's neck in her hands in an instant, crushing it. "You're the one who killed me!"
Seconds or days passed in the darkness.
Nishiki heard thousands of voices over the course of days. Or seconds. At first, they all screamed the same thing, begging her to just end it, to stop the long outgrown game of hide-and-seek and make the past a reality. Then, they simply began to shout out other things: desires, hopes, chants, memories, and insanity.
One day, or hour, she realized something. They were all the same voice, all the same wish, all the same message. When she realized this, hell opened its doors.
Shisui, Aiko, Sakumo, Kakashi, Naruto, Minato, and Seiseki raced towards her body, being held in place with icy hands, invisible hands, with lightning, fire, wind, and hate. She looked into Naruto's eyes and she could see Kushina's disapproving look, worse than one of anger or killing intent. When she saw Naruto's face, she saw a boy whose every muscle was determined to run a thousand kunai into hers.
Blood splattered across the floor. She collapsed into the pool of blood, fully aware of the smell of burning blood and flesh and the pain that caused every nerve in her body to scream and the lightning that her body spasmed with and the fire that she could see lighting her clothes and body on fire. Wind surrounded her and the flames turned white. Her mind went blank.
Nishiki opened her eyes and saw Kakashi standing before her.
"Y-you're alive…?"
Nishiki saw herself, from a distance, nodding slowly once.
"I can't believe it…" Kakashi said.
Days passed in the darkness.
An eternity.
Her death had been commonplace and repeated over and over until any sort of desire to cry or scream had all been eradicated. "Nishiki" no longer winced at the sight of her death, or batted an eye. At some point, she realized that perhaps any will to want to prevent seeing her blood splattered another (predictable) time had been fake. After all, hadn't everything been?
So, she allowed herself to fall into the darkness.
Minato and Jiraiya walked down the hallways of the Konoha hospital. The younger man hadn't gotten very much sleep, having to explain to countless ANBU that there was no security threat and that there was nothing to fear.
To make his point even harder to prove, a Chuunin burst into the room with a border patrol report, saying that Seiseki had been spotted. An intangible wave of doubt towards the Hokage's words swept through the entire ANBU division. Minato sighed. Then, he called out names and formed units. The first two units were deployed that morning to try to apprehend Seiseki.
Jiraiya placed a hand on the man's shoulder as they stopped in front of the room that held the woman whom Jiraiya had wanted to talk to. Shisui was sitting on a chair outside the room, praying.