Painless (A Naruto Fanfiction) [Completed]

Chapter Nine: The Seed of Suspcion

It only took seconds for Hikari to lose sight of Miki- not that she was too surprised. She’d easily figured out what they were talking about and with her stuck escorting Hisoka, who wasn’t moving slowly by any means, she just couldn’t keep up. The only thing that surprised her was that Miki didn’t use the body flicker jutsu, and from what she had seen, wasn’t traveling in a completely straight line.

By the time Miki made it to the village gates, she had to pause for a moment, her head spinning. She closed her eyes, clasping one hand over her mouth as if it could make the nauseous feeling disappear. Running around the village while debatebly drunk, possibly a bad idea. Perhaps, a faint part of her mind considered, that was why it was all too easy to ignore the reasonable part of herself and just go with her emotions that were urging her to act.

Within a moment she was moving again, an excuse slipping out of her lips for the guards without her actually giving much thought to it. Whatever she’d given them must have seen reasonable, because within moment she was out and darting in the direction of the clearing.

It didn’t take her long to find it. The spot was burned into her memories.

She spotted him instantly. He was perched on the branch, his lips twisting up into a gleeful expression the moment she appeared. Without a word, he dropped to the ground and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“I’d call you little pig, but you’ve gotten so big,” he informed her cheerfully. “Just look at you! Why, you actually look like a woman!”

A feeling of disgust rippled through her as he appraised her for a moment, the feeling of his eyes sweeping over her entirely unsettling. Yukio simply grinned, comparing the image in front of him to the one he remembered. She was taller, just barely. Nothing could change the fact that she’d been malnourished in the years before coming to Konoha and had already had a rather small build.  Her hair was hanging down to about chest level in untamed, fiery waves and her mud colored eyes narrowed. He hadn’t taken a step towards her, but she’d already pulled her katana from its sheath.

The way she held it made his grin grow. It had the look of someone who felt completely at home with it.

“I should have brought the sword I brought last time!” he complained. “I left it with my things. Hey, no fighting right now, alright? We have to wait for proper circumstances. A fight isn’t any fun without spectators and stakes! I just came to see how my piggy is doing!”

Wordlessly, Miki lunged forward, sweeping her katana towards his chest. With a click of his tongue, Yukio lightly leapt back into the tree, raising one hand to wag a single finger back and forth.

“Bad girl! I said no figh-”

He cut off, startled when she suddenly seemed to disappear. With a surprised expression, he rocked forward on the branch, studying the clearing. For a moment, it was all silent. That was until he suddenly dropped, hooking his hands onto the branch and launching himself around it, a blade cutting through the air where his head had been seconds ago. Before she could move out of the way, he used his trademark speed to thrust his feet into the small of her back, sending the already unbalanced girl tumbling out of the tree and to the ground with a loud thud.

As she dropped her katana to cover her mouth, attempting to stay the nausea once again, Yukio just grinned at her, his hands still hooked around the branch in question. Then, without a second’s hesitation, he dropped to the ground and kicked the katana out of reach. Her body instantly seemed to fade slightly, a cloud of black smoke swirling around her form. She’d barely dropped her hand away from her mouth, however, when the curse mark sent a sharp, searing pain through her and her form instantly solidified. Clicking his tongue like one might do at a disobedient child, Yukio simply shoved her forward with his foot, then settled it on the small of her back, firmly planting her in the dirt.