The metal dome spilt in half horizontally, top rising like a clam, revealing that it hid a chair (complete with arm and leg braces) inside it. The front also divided, sliding away from a set of three stairs. Rei's head lolled backwards as the man in charge set her down in the chair and fastened her limbs to it tightly, but not so much that it hurt.

With Rei secured, this Master Inoichi pressed a button on the computer keypad, and the top of the dome descended. A hole just barely large enough for a human head opened right in the center, and Rei found herself essentially buried up to her neck in metal. Then the entire dome began to sink into the floor with an electric humming. She didn't even have enough energy to panic.

The descent halted when Rei's head was only about three feet above the floor. The paneling that made up the floor slid forward, meeting the dome flawlessly. Master Inoichi came to her then, and without a warning of any kind, set his palm on her forehead.

She'd never before felt anything quite like having another person inside her head.

The Six Tails had been a presence in her briefly, but it had been alien, like it would never condescend to care about her little life. This man was leafing through everything, every detail about who she was, about what made her the person she'd become. Her memories played back in her mind as he touched them, from the blurriest days at the orphanage to the night Risa died to every day at the safe house to Mangetsu's death. He'd dissolved the Curse Mark on her mind that she'd placed so meticulously with nothing more than a nudge.

He lingered for a moment longer on the moment at the lake when she'd thought she'd seen a bone poking from her back.

Then he lifted his hand, and it was over.

Rei blinked open her eyes, but one didn't seem to be working right. A flood of warm, sticky fluid wept over her cheek, and she couldn't wipe it away. "Tenzo, please see to it that the medic on call reports here immediately," Master Inochi said. When he returned to the computer and pushed a few buttons, the dome hissed and rose back to ground level before dividing in half again. "So, Reimi Taira," he said quietly. "You've really gotten yourself into a mess, haven't you?"

She was released from her restraints, but she still could barely move a finger. She was returned to the gurney, where a pretty young blonde medical Shinobi was waiting. "Uncle, you spent too long on her," she said gently, shining a penlight in Rei's face. "She burst several vessels in her eye, and one of the ciliary arteries is ruptured."

"I had good reason," Master Inoichi said. "But I had faith you'd be able to fix her quickly. See to it that both she and her companion are healed and cleaned."

The doctor started, shining the light directly in Rei's good eye and forcing her to squint. "Where should I put them? Back in their cells?"

"No, that won't be necessary." Master Inoichi paused, glancing around at some of the other people around him. "One moment." He turned and left the room at a quick trot.

"Alright then." The doctor flashed an easy smile. "You're going to be fine. Just lay still and I'll take care of you." She placed both hands over Rei's eye and the familiar pricking of skin and muscle being pulled back together washed through her face. "What's your name?"

"Rei."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Kina. You and your friend have certainly made some waves in the village."

"We didn't mean to." With the new chakra flooding her system, her chakra points were slowly trying to flicker open, lending her some of her strength back. "We were hoping to be back in the Mist after a few days."

Kina helped Rei into a sitting position and pressed a warm, damp cloth to her face. "Hold that there for a bit. It'll ease the ache until your vessels finish mending. I'm pretty new at this, so I wasn't able to get all of them," she said apologetically.

"No problem."

Master Inochi returned with Tenzo at his side. "Lord Third is indisposed until this evening, so I'll be leaving you in the care of one of our most accomplished Anbu operatives. Tenzo, they are to stay in the Sealing Chamber until I send for them, understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Kina, will you assist him?"

"All afternoon? My shift ends in an hour."

Master Inoichi's stoic face didn't budge. "We rarely have the privilege of adhering to shifts as Shinobi, and you know that. I'm sure your young man won't mind waiting a few hours."

Kina's face colored faintly. "Yes, sir."

Rei tried to stand, but her knees buckled and Kina caught her, fitting her arm around her shoulders. "Take it easy. You've had a rough few days."

I've had a rough thirteen years, Rei didn't say. What she did say was, "Where is he?"

"Your friend?" Kina asked. "He's recovering in the hospital ward. We'll pick him up on the way downstairs."

Tenzo was quiet, eyes shifting to the two girls periodically.

So far, these Leaf Shinobi didn't appear to be the monsters that she'd presumed they'd be. "So, what, I'm not enough of a criminal anymore to be left in prison?"

Kina met Tenzo's eyes briefly before answering. "It's not that. It's more like Uncle doesn't perceive you to be a threat to the village security, based on what he saw in your mind. There's nothing about you now that he doesn't know. I know that sounds awful, but it means that you're safe for now."

The pain behind Rei's eye was easing, and she attempted to continue walking on her own. "What happened to the Six Tails? What about the other Mist Jonin?"

"The Mist Shinobi were all eliminated," Tenzo said, deadpan for a moment until he glanced Rei's way. "Except for you two. As for the Six Tails, I can't reveal any of that information."

"Shocker," Rei murmured, but her mind buzzed. Zane Sensei was dead, and she hadn't been the one to kill him. And she… did not care. The band of anger and fear that she hadn't known had tightened around her chest these last months was suddenly loosened, and she felt both a smile creep onto her lips and a stinging in her eyes that had nothing to do with broken blood vessels.

"Lord Third is probably going to have some tough questions for you," Kina said, placing her hands in the pockets of her white doctor's coat as they continued down the clinically white hallway. This building that attached to the prison apparently served many functions. "It's our Intelligence headquarters," Kina explained when Rei asked, but wouldn't expound on it. Her two guards were so non-hostile that it had been easy to forget that she was in enemy territory.

They soon approached the end of the hallway, where a large set of metal double doors proclaimed that the hospital ward lay just beyond. "You cannot enter here," Tenzo said. "Unless you consent to being restrained."

Rei blinked at him. "Did you just ask my permission to…what, tie me up?"

He rolled his eyes. "You're a Shinobi from the Blood Mist Village. Just because Master Inoichi doesn't think you're an immediate threat doesn't mean that you can go into secure buildings of the Leaf. If you want to go in there and get your friend, you'll be restrained."

She almost agreed to it, purely because he'd been kind enough to ask her preference about something that she knew she had no business having an opinion of. But when she held her hands out and he wrapped his fingers around her wrists, she quickly shook her head. "I'll wait here."

Neither Tenzo nor Kina seemed surprised. "Give me a few moments. I'll have to make sure Uncle's orders got through to the administration," Kina said, then she swiped a card through some kind of reader that unlocked the door and disappeared behind it.

Rei found herself left alone with the young Anbu Black Ops Captain from the Hidden Leaf Village who had saved her life. They both stood rigid as boards, refusing to look at each other for several moments. Then he sighed and said, "You should sit down before you pass out."

She chanced a look at his face. He was still serious, still professional, but there was some small fragment of sympathy in those dark eyes. "If I sit down on this floor, I won't be able to get back up," she replied seriously. After a long moment of uncomfortable eye contact, Tenzo muttered something under his breath and formed a few silent handsigns before crouching and touching his hand to the shiny tile floor. And up from the floor came a wooden bench, almost as if it had grown there like a plant.

When Tenzo looked back at her, Rei was still staring at the bench, well aware that her mouth was hanging open stupidly. "Oh…my," she said.

The boy stood and gestured at it. "Sit. Enjoy."

Rei did, still so flabbergasted that she didn't even know what questions to ask or what to say. She ran her fingers gingerly over the unpolished seat while Tenzo stood across the hall, arms crossed. She finally found a few words. "How did you do that?"

Tenzo actually grinned for a moment, losing that Shinobi persona that he'd kept in place like a mask. "You're not the only one with a bloodline limit, you know."

Rei's grip tightened on the bench's seat so that she could feel her pulse in her fingertips. "You're like me." She'd never been able to say those words before, and it was shuddering her to her core. It wasn't until she felt the cool brush of air on her face that she realized that tears were coursing down her cheeks and dripping from her chin.

"Um…" Tenzo said quietly. He was scratching the back of his head, obviously profoundly uncomfortable. "Did I…say something…?"

Rei shook her head, choking on her surprised sobs. Tenzo could create wooden objects out of nothing. He wasn't hiding his abilities. He was a respected Shinobi in this village. How had the Leaf and the Mist become so vastly different? Why had she been born to the Mist?

Tenzo didn't take a single step in her direction while she tried to compose herself, and she was just getting her breathing back under control when the door swung back open and Kina reappeared with Rei's favorite person. She was on her feet and running at him before he could draw in a breath, and she flung her arms around his neck without reservation.

He was weak; Rei could see the bruises and battering he'd gone through, but he didn't falter and wrapped his arms around her tightly. Like he'd never let go.