Her chest burned, her legs hurt, there was a stitch in her side. Yet, no matter the coughing fit that claimed her, her lungs half filled with fluid as another relapse into her sickness had occurred just weeks ago, she knew she couldn’t stop running. Several weeks prior, while wandering near the outskirts of Kirigakure, Noxxi had found herself surrounded by far too many individuals to fight off: some women, but mostly men. They were human traffickers, the sort that kidnapped what they considered easy prey and sold them off at private auctions for various purposes include household servants, farm workers, and so forth. There had been almost little to nothing the frail and sickly child could do to defend herself against such odds and in the end she had found herself chained and bound and tossed into the back of a covered wagon with several other victims that had met a similar fate to her own. Blindfolded and bound as she was she had no way of knowing where they were taking her: able to only measure the distance and direction through making note of the various turns they made, the various unique and different smells that reached her nose along the way, and the bumps in the road. She paid attention to everything she could, hoping to use it at the first chance she got to make her way home.

Unfortunately, it was a chance that wouldn’t come easily. When they made it to their destination, a prison-like structure that had been build underground within what seemed to be a large manor house, she found herself under lock and key or otherwise chained to others when being moved about and transported. Her captors had been smart, if nothing else, and quite a bit paranoid - especially when it came to Noxxi. As seemed to be a regular practice all new captives were stripped and showered, examined by a doctor that they brought in for such occasions to ensure that they were healthy and without deformities, and any belongings they had on them searched for valuables that could be sold or anything of interest that would give insight to those who might be looking for their victims. When it came to Noxxi the discovery her captors had made had brought terror into their hearts: her Kirigakure hitai-ate and her identification - her headband hadn’t been being warned when they stumbled across her, and she hadn’t been given a chance to identify herself. So it was a discovery that was unexpected and which meant that there was definitely going to be someone, or multiple someone’s, who would not only notice her absence but go looking for her. Conversations had abound about what to do with Noxxi: some thought that killing her and disposing of her body would be best, others thought that selling her off as quickly as possible would be in their favor, while even a few suggested going so far as to take her out into the middle of nowhere as far away from their current location as possible and setting her free. In the end, with no decision able to be made at the time, she had been left in the cell with the others, locked or chained, and kept under constant watch.

It had been a day or two into having been kidnapped that Noxxi found herself relapsing into her sickness, the first sign of which was the usual cough all too familiar with her that started up. With each passing day she felt her lungs slowly filling with fluid, and her coughing got worse. Without medical treatment the relapses became more severe than what was usual when it was caught early, and by the third week she was coughing blood and barely able to draw a single breath. With their usual doctor unable to come to them, they had to risk transporting her to him. She had traveled under heavy guard, but arriving at the hospital on what she realized was the outskirts of one of the more smaller villages of the country they couldn’t very well bring in the child gagged, bound, and blindfolded. The decision had been made to release her of her bindings and the like and to keep close by to her so that she didn’t escape. Threats against her life as well as the threat of pain and torture were whispered into her ear before they made their way inside. Yet, their plan was not foolproof: the child couldn’t be x-rayed and properly examined with five burly men with her, and so against their better judgement they had allowed her to enter into the x-ray laboratory alone. Instead of allowing the technician to examine her she had bolted before the man realized what was going on, darting into another room that was attached and exiting that way - thankfully down a hall on the opposite hallway of where her captors were. She hadn’t bothered to ask for help, she had not bothered to waste that time, knowing well that they would be after her the moment they realized she was free for now she knew what her captors looked like and knew their location to not be all that far away considering the relatively short trip to the hospital. But it was a grueling escape for the sickly child, and her medical ninjutsu skills were not up to the level needed to help her more than in a minor way.

So now she was running for her life, unaware if her captors were behind her any longer, not sure of how much further she had to make it. She was making for as straight a line from her previous destination as she could for Kirigakure, knowing the general location of the hidden village from where she had been due to many a day of boredom spent in hospital rooms trying to entertain herself when she was younger. She knew not to ask any civilian for help - they would either die or end up injured in the process, or could very well be in cahoots with the thugs who had kidnapped her - but she hoped that soon she would stumble upon a fellow Kirigakure shinobi: someone she could at least partially trust.

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