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Day Three: A Glance That Reveals Everything
Hinata's video starts bouncing around as she and Kakashi break into a run. They are on the opposite side of the mansion from Kiba and Shino.
Kiba's tracker gets closer and closer to Shino's, until they're on top of each other. Shinoda faces the doorway to the office. He turns, his face twisted in anger and points at Kiba. Something happens and Kiba's video suddenly cuts off. Both Kiba and Shino's trackers pop out of existence on the screen.
Iruka curses under his breath. "Blue Lion, White Fang, we've lost contact with Green Beetle and Red Hound."
He raises the volume to Hinata's glasses to the maximum and arranges the video window so it fills the screen of the main, and largest monitor. They can hear her breathing and the jostling of the glasses with every step she takes. They are eating up the distance quickly but it feels like they are still so far away.
"Understood," Hinata breathes.
They sprint around a corner and slide to a stop in front of a group of men. Shinoda is standing there, towering over the limp form of Kiba. The office door is still closed, hiding Shino from them.
Shinoda says something but it is too far to hear. However, the gun he raises to point at Hinata and Kakashi is clear enough communication.
The thing about gunshots, is that it never sounds like the expected firework bang when it is being recorded. It sounds like it does in the old cartoons; a light pop, a whizzing sound, and maybe a louder crack like opening the tab to a soda can. Iruka and Sasuke hear the light pop, indicating the gun has gone off. Kakashi moves into action before Shinoda can even squeeze the trigger. The jutsu he uses raises a wall of earth from beneath the floorboards, cracking them into pieces and blocking them from Shinoda and his crew.
Hinata is moving, vaulting herself over the wall and onto Shinoda. Sasuke spots flashes of blue as she uses the Lion Fists. She disarms Shinoda and disintegrates the gun in her hands with concentrated chakra but a goon catches her off guard and knocks the glasses off with a punch to her face.
Sasuke helplessly watches the fist incoming and flinches when the glasses fall.
Iruka clutches the armrests of his chair until the plastic creaks in protest. Sasuke has tangled his fingers in the netting of the stress ball. The pain of it sharpens his senses enough for him to focus.
The glasses bounce and whirl nauseatingly until they land upside down. Miraculously, they are still facing Hinata and the doorway to the office.
Iruka reaches forwards and uses the trackball on his mouse to rotate the video. Hinata, Kakashi, and their opponents spin right side up.
Iruka offers a sickly grin. His swarthy skin has gone pale and he looks alien in the harsh, swirling shadows cast by the computers.
"The wonders of modern technology," he rasps.
Sasuke's huff of a laugh is reluctantly forced out of him. Sitting here really sucks.
Kakashi is trading quick, brutal blows with Shinoda. Shinoda is not giving his opponent any breathing room to use jutsu. The old man's hand to hand combat is pure taijutsu. Shinoda had some kind of undercover training, which explains why he is so slippery.
Hinata cannot help Kakashi. Her nose is bleeding and she is simultaneously fighting off three bodyguards while trying to keep between them and Kiba.
It is strange to watch her. Sasuke never considered what it would be like to see her in action. She is wearing a long black dress with a slit on the side that exposes a long, muscled leg sheathed in sheer black tights. He briefly wonders if she is wearing some kind of dress tape because it is backless and she executes a roundhouse kick without revealing more skin.
One of the bodyguards stabs at her exposed leg with a long switchblade. The tip of it slides off with a metallic screech and flies off to the side. The goon gapes. Hinata takes advantage of his distraction. With a grunt, she punches him straight in the nose and he turns off like a light switch. His body hits the ground so hard, it shakes the glasses camera.
Another bodyguard is between Hinata and Kakashi. He has been alternating attacks between the two of them. Frustrated, he yells and presses a button on his baton. The whine of electricity echoes strangely over the recording. He raises it above his head to swing Hinata.
Kakashi has his back to the attacker and does not even turn. He reaches behind him with a hand glowing with chakra, snatches the baton, and brings it forward to smack Shinoda with it.
Shinoda convulses and goes down.
The bodyguard gapes at his empty fist, but Kakashi is spinning on his heel. He catches the other man right in the middle of his back.
One more left. This bodyguard is swiping wildly at the air with a machete. Hinata reaches to her clothed thigh and flips her skirt out of the way, revealing a thigh holster. Sasuke does not know she pulled out a senbon until it is sticking out of the last man's cheek. His eyes roll so hard that his head lolls back and then he too, is done.
Hinata and Kakashi pause for a second, breathing heavily.
"Major injuries?" Kakashi asks.
"No," Hinata swallows a big gulp of air. "You?"
"No." He shakes his head before jerking his chin in Shinoda's direction. "I'll tie him up."
Hinata nods and bends stiffly down to place delicate fingers on Kiba's throat. Her knuckles are dark and blurry on the screen, indicating the cracked skin.
She reaches up to her ear and then her voice sounds over the comm line. "Breakwater."
During the fight, Iruka reached over to grab another stress ball out of his bag. This one is shaped like a rotund chicken, and every time he squeezed it, the eyes bulged out obscenely. Now, He drops it on the desk and shakes out his hand while typing with the other.
"Here, Blue Lion."
"Red Hound is unconscious but breathing. He was possibly stunned."
"And Red Hound's companion?" Iruka asks.
Hinata jolts and she looks around. "Where is..."
There is a mighty bark and Hinata and Kakashi back up just in time for the door to the office to fall straight forward. Akamaru stands in the doorway, big and proud, holding Shino by the collar like a puppy. Shino faces upwards but his head lolls back enough to show that he is also unconscious. Since Shino is human sized, Akamaru has to keep Shino laid out under the dog's torso. So Akamaru shuffles forward awkwardly, trying not to step on the body he is dragging forward underneath him.
"Oh," Hinata sniffs. "You're the best boy."
Akamaru grumbles happily as his slobber darkens Shino's white shirt.
Kakashi leans forward towards the door and sniffs before recoiling. "Smells like chemicals. Some kind of gas maybe? They gassed Shino. But ugh, it smells like urine, too."
"Akamaru," Hinata exclaims. "How did you get into the panic room?"
Akamaru grumbles and inflects as if he is holding a coherent conversation, but no one understands him. After a pause, he gingerly sets his cargo down. Stepping over Shino's body, he stops in front of a shadow in the wall that Sasuke cannot make heads or tails of. It is just a blob of pixels from his viewpoint. The dog lifts a leg and Hinata covers her mouth. Kakashi flat out giggles with glee.
Sasuke does not understand until Iruka snorts.
Akamaru peed a hole through the wall.
"I guess the planners did not expect a dog with caustic pee when they built the room," Kakashi says.
Hinata maintains her silence but she is smiling when she stands and heads over to the glasses. She bends down and her face gets very close. Her hair has fallen out of most of its pins, giving her a strange, choppy hairdo. Sweat beads on her forehead and her lip gloss is smudged with the blood from her red and swollen nose. She is still as startlingly beautiful as she was at the beginning of the night, and Sasuke carefully lets out a stunned breath.
Setting down his abused squeeze ball on his lap, he flexes his fingers.
Iruka twists the track pad as she lifts the glasses so it is facing right side up as she turns them on her end.
"Breakwater?" she asks.
The squeal of feedback makes Sasuke and Iruka flinch and hike their shoulders up to their ears.
She startles and reaches up to turn off her ear comms.
"Breakwater?" she tries again.
"If you can get out of there," Iruka says, "then I can direct you to a safehouse."
"Okay." Her lips purse in determination.
After a beat, she is not visible as she places the glasses on her face.
Kakashi helps Hinata heft Kiba onto Akamaru's back, then Shino onto Hinata's back. She bounces to hitch his seat higher on her hips. She pauses and looks down to see a line of insects crawl up her leg. Some of them carry a lime green USB on their backs. They leave her leg to walk up Shino's, but not before firmly tucking the USB drive firmly in his shoe.
Hinata lets out an audible breath.
Kakashi throws Shinoda over his shoulder and turns to face her.
"Ready?" he asks.
"Ready," she confirms.
Hinata follows Kakashi as they head down the hallway, their cargo in tow.
ooOOoo
Coming up: Sasuke sees Hinata in person.