Chapter 34
AN: Kishimoto owns all except my characters-Kiminari, and Kimiko, and later characters. Also I'm probably not going to follow any of the story line except a few small things. I may take the characters outside their natural personalities, but that's because it's my story, and it'll add to it. Another thing: since I'm not following the story line of the series- All main (good) characters will start out the same age as they should be, but even though the Akatsuki will be around, the war will not happen until later; if it does at all. Again this is because I'm making up my own story line; it gets kinda boring when nothing has changed and, you readers would be able to guess what was going to happen all the time. So, enjoy, and please comment, review, rate, whatever you wanna do. :D
P.S. I don't like to go into detail to tell you things most of you already know, and if you don't already know them, then it's best I don't tell you.
Over the next few weeks, I gradually regained most of my old life back. Since everyone was concerned about me getting kidnapped again, I wasn't allowed to leave the village until they found out what the Akatsuki was up to, although I assured them I wasn't too keen on going anywhere alone anyway. I had, however, begged to go see how Gaara was, but Lady Tsunade said to give him a while to get over his most recent shock. I agreed to this, but made her promise that I'd get to see him sometime.
Aside from trying to get me to live on my own again, my old friends constantly trained with me. Kakashi wanted to see if I'd lost anything, or if they'd taught me anything, so he invited me to spar with him one day.
"You know, I beat you when I was six, you knew how strong I was before I was taken, and I've sparred with psyco s-ranked criminals for the past three years. This is going to be really fun to see you on your ass again, Kakashi." I said joking around with him, just like old times.
"Yeah, but you just said it yourself, you got kidnapped." He rubbed in my face.
"What can I say, he got in a lucky dart." I smiled. "It happens to the best."
With that he came at me. As he attacked, I simply dodged, remembering how my father had once told me it was a waste of energy to try to attack an opponent who would simply tire themselves out by missing you instead. Kakahsi caught onto this quickly, however and resorted to attacking with a kunai. As I continued to dodge, he began to get serious. Eventually I had to pull out one of my own in order to block his. After a little more of this, he decided to use a firestyle jutsu, which, since I'd studied so many jutsu, I was able to match with my own wind style, even without my Sharingan activated.
"Am I going to have to show my own first?" Kakashi asked. Knowing what he meant, I simply grinned. In response he activated his and leapt at me again. I had to resort to my kunai more often in order to block each of his blows, but he still couldn't get to me. Thanks, Dad. I thought, mentally smiling to myself.
"Come on, Kimiko. Do I have to beg you for it?" He whined, jokingly.
"You really want to see it?" I asked tauntingly. He nodded in response. I saw an opening in his movements and made a move, grabbing his wrist and flipping him over my own body, then pinning him to the ground with my kunai at his throat; looking directly into his sharingan. "Then find someone else, 'cause you're still no match." I gave him my signature clan smirk. We both laughed as he understood he'd been beaten again.
"I'll do that sometime, then." He took me up on the offer. "Something I'm curious about though, is: why would you look directly into my eyes if I was using the Sahringan?"
"Well, that's something Kazuma and I figured out." I answered. He seemed intrigued, so I went on. "I slipped up once and got caught in his genjutsu. I understood immediately what I'd done, so I beat him to his own torture. Instead of cowering, I simply ran into it. This choice somehow confused his genjutsu, since he had not been expecting it; so it failed."
"So as long as you can take the user by surprise, their genjutsu will fail? That's what you came up with?" He asked. I nodded. "Well, you're just a smart as I remembered, Kimiko. That's pretty much it." He smiled at me, and I returned the favor. "I would like to see how you are with controlling your mangekyou sometime; if that's OK with you." I smiled and nodded.
"To be honest, I'm actually kinda curious as to what it looks like." I said, honestly. "I've never thought to look at it through a mirror or anything like that."
Another two weeks past and Gaara actually came to visit me. It was a really nice reunion. He was very proud of how far I'd come since he'd last seen me. However, our little party was short-lived. A member of the Anbu was sent by Lady Tsunade to tell me I was needed in her office, so I left quickly.
"I think we may have run across the two people you've been hoping to see." She said, but something about her voice said something was wrong.
"What happened to them?" I asked.
She immediately noticed my worry. "They weren't classified as Akatsuki members, but they had on cloaks. Ibiki took them. If you hurry, you can get Kakashi to do the interrogation instead." She offered, and soon after, I was running faster than I had in a long time; I even ditched the chakra weights.
"Kakashi!" I screamed as soon as I entered his apartment.
"What happened?" He came around the corner to see what I was yelling about.
"You have to come with me quick. Lady Tsunade thinks we've found Kazuma and Haru, but Ibiki's got them." At that, we both took off.
"Slow down a little, Kimiko." Kakashi complained.
"No, you hurry up; lazy." I shot back.
When we finally arrived at the interrogation room they were in, I paused long enough to collect myself and my chakra, then I pushed open the door and walked in. Ibiki turned to face me, sneering. I looked at the two men he had restrained in chairs in front of him and recognized them as my two friends. I also noticed how much damage he'd already managed to do; Kazuma looked OK, but Haru looked like he would die any minute.
I was furious. I made my way to where the two were sitting and knelt down to check Haru's pulse; it was there, but not so good. With all the aire and power every Uchiha held, I stood, activated my Mangekyou and turned to face Ibiki.
"I told you she was bad news, Kakashi. But no, you had to be the one to determine whether she was safe or not." Ibiki said to Kakashi who had taken his place leaning against the door frame.
"Oh yeah, she's bad news alright; especially to you, now that you've hurt her boyfriend. Not to mention the fact that you've accused them of being Akatsuki members."Kakashi said lazily. Ibiki looked furious. I made my way across the room towards him and as I did so, backed him up into a chair.
He stopped when he felt it, but I spoke to him then. "Sit." When he did not, I placed a hand on each of his shoulders and forced him to. "Kakashi-sensei, could you please prove their innocence? I'll be over in a moment to let Kazuma know it's alright to let you snoop." I sensed his head move in a nodding motion.
"Now, Ibiki-sama." I said, allowing the words to drip with sarcasm as I placed a hand under his chin forcing him to look directly at me. "We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way." I mocked his usual words as he shut his eyes, refusing to make eye contact with me. "Guess it's the hard way then."
I gently lifted one of his eyelids so that he didn't have a choice, then I caught him in a strong but gentle genjutsu. "How long have you known they were innocent?" I questioned him.
"An hour after I got them." Came his forced response.
"How long ago did you get them?"
"About four hours ago."
"And were they wearing those Akatsuki cloaks?"
"Not exactly."
"That's what I thought. I've seen them enough to know what the originals look like." I smirked and let out a short laugh. "Maybe they'll give me your job, Ibiki. It seems as though I get the job done much more quickly and efficiently; no mess, no pain, and no chances of the interrogated making a slip." At that I released the genjutsu, deactivated my Sharingan, and made my way back to Kakashi who was just finishing with Haru.
"He's too unconscious to get anything out of him." Kakashi stated. I nodded, then went over to Kazuma. I had to slap his face a few times, but he quickly woke up.
He looked at me carefully. "Kimi?" I smiled and nodded. "How'd you get here?" Great, he already knew the story.
"This is where I used to live. When the group from Konoha destroyed the Akatsuki base, they found me and brought me back home. How did you guys get out?"
"Well, I'm not sure who it was, but some of the members took us when they left. We got lucky though and they were attacked. We made it a good distance, but Haru got hit pretty hard; I think he may have some broken ribs. We finally made it to this place, but this guy" he jerked his chin in Ibiki's direction. "didn't believe us when we told him what happened. He brought us here."
"What's with the homemade cloaks." I asked snickering.
"I've been wondering the same thing. I guess it's to back up his own story."
"Yeah." I agreed. "He likes to be right, way too much." I smiled. This whole time I'd been sending waves of chakra toward him to let him know my version of the story. He had let his feelings let me know that he understood, and he would hide all the same parts of the story. Since I knew he'd had more practice and had always been better at doing so, I was confident Kakashi wouldn't be able to sense any blank spots in his memories.
"I still need Kakashi to look through your memories of while you were there. Is that OK?"
"Why can't you just do it?" He questioned a bit childishly.
"Because, we have to be unbiased." I knew what he was worried about. He and his girlfriend Kishi had gotten a little physical one night when she came to visit. Haru and I had to go to the training ground to get away from all the noise. Sure there was a stone wall between each of the rooms, but we could still hear them.
I turned to face Kakashi and said in a whisper, "He doesn't want you to know about his sex life." I smirked and we shared a short laugh. When I turned back to Kazuma I gave him a short wink which was answered with a glare holding the unspoken words: 'I'll find a way to get back at you eventually.'
"OK, Kazuma. Are you ready?" Kakashi asked kindly. Kazuma nodded and Kakashi began.
When he'd finished searching Kazuma's mind, he stood and smiled at me. "Clear." He said happily. "Now we just have to get this one well enough to interrogate.
I had been trying my best to heal Haru's wounds, but was failing more than normal. In fact they seemed to get increasingly worse. "I don't know what's wrong." I said as Kazuma made his way over to us, having been released by Kakashi. "Nothing I do is helping. He's only gotten worse." Suddenly it clicked in my mind.
I stood and turned making my way back over to Ibiki. I grabbed his vest and pulled him up to face me again. "What did you do to him?" I questioned him angrily, giving him a look that could have beat any other Uchiha's -besides perhaps my father's- by ten times.
"I tried questioning them about you, but they wouldn't talk." He gave in easily this time, defeated. "I carried out my first threat."
"And that was?" I prodded him to continue.
"Poison. It shouldn't have affected him this much though. It's only meant to slow them down mentally so I can get a response out easier. It's so they don't think as much. Maybe it was made wrong." He said, clearly scared now, as I had been pulsing my chakra through him so that he was aware of how angry I was.
"Find the bottle." I commanded, allowing him to stand. He did and brought it back to Kakashi and me. I had studied enough with Sasori to be able to sense, and even sometimes smell, the difference in several poisons. This was not one for interrogation. This was to slowly immobilize and kill the victim. I turned to look at Haru. "How long has it been in his system?" I asked Ibiki.
"Not too long. About fifteen minutes before you arrived."
I did the mental math after checking my watch. Forty-three minutes. Good, it was too late for an antidote, but we still had time to extract it from him. "Kakashi, we need to get him to the hospital." I stated urgently. He nodded, placing Haru over his shoulder. I turned back to Ibiki. "You got lucky this time, but if I ever find out you've hurt someone close to me again, I will personally lock you in the worst genjutsu I can imagine, and leave you like that until the day you die." I threatened before going to help Kazuma and following Kakashi out the door as Ibiki sunk back into a chair.