Flashes

The night was eerily still for this time of year. 
A tingling bite had tainted the evening air with a bitter chill; stirring up a layer of goose bumps and a breeze which rustled the leaves ever so slightly, creating a softer ambiance, unfitting of place.
The occasional stirring of a creature in it's den, the shifting of the undergrowth as an insect hurried away before the night beasts came out to play; Nothing was louder than the deep, rhythmic thrumming of her heart beat, racing out of her control and the melody of footsteps as they pitter-patted across the lightly dampened grass, leaving blood stained foot prints whenever she turned to look over her shoulder. 

She was running. Hiding. 
And had not stopped for days.

And now.....she was looking through their eyes 

She knew they had been standing there for a while. Gazing out in the darkness, secretly hoping that one of those shadows would come out to play and liven their night....something that would give them decent cause to leave the post they had been standing at since the sun went down. But whatever they were hoping for. It certainly wasn't what they had found. 
A ghost. Well....that was what they thought after glancing at the young female wandering through the trees in that pale, baby blue dress and dark blindfolded eyes. She was a spirit and to be left alone. But then...their attention shifted to the other colour, dominating the whimsy cotton of her dress. Red. Smelling sweetly of iron and the musk before rain. And then there was the knife.
Covered in the same substance from tip to handle.

Their eyes met. Then everything.....

Went black

--------------------

"Miss Houkyaku?....That's it, take it nice and steady. You took quite a beating back there. The Anbu supervising brought you here after you passed out"

First: Realisation

Shizuka inhaled deeply, her head lolling to the side as consciousness took hold once more, pulling her out of the dream which had been trying to put itself together like an infant with a puzzle since she had arrived in this forest filled place.
As her mind slowly...slowly started to step in to reality one more, things started to become clear: Sounds. Feelings. Smells.
On reflex, the young female raised her arm, checking to see if the blindfold was still there, if the competent doctors had been disturbed during the procedure....but her hand drew short. Stopped by a firm, restricting force that held her wrists to the bed...her ankles, thighs and waist...they had chained her? Why?
Fortunately Shizuka remembered what it felt like to have the dark, heavy woven fabric free from her lightly sunken features, and that this time, it wasn't the case...

But she had to be sure.

Just the same as before, Shizuka took in a deep breath, drawing upon the chakra from her centers with the steady....collected breath. Then...she brought it to the edges of her skin and pushed it towards the floor, covering it with.....Nothing. 
Nothing was happening. No sensations, no movement. The world around her was reduced to a weak sense of white noise and anaesthetic smells. The acrid stench of hospital grade bleach, the monitors beeping louder and louder, racing the unsteadiness of her breath, the phantom tingling of the nurse's skeleton fingers as they came closer....closer towards her blind fold.

Second: Mistake.

She waited. Shizuka waited until the older female's fingers brushed up against the folded edges of the cloth....when she suddenly, abruptly jerked her head up and lashed out the only way she could, solidly biting down on the hand. 
It was only for a second. Holding her there before letting go, with the message imprinted clear on her palm. There was only one person here that knew what was behind the blindfold. One person that knew if there were any truth to the rumours about the Houkyaku, that circled the village like wild fire. They could whisper and make stories all they liked, but Shizuka would do what she could to keep her secret....even if it meant breaking out of this place.

Starting with her arms, she started to pull lightly against the restraints, testing their strength...their strength before suddenly....violently she pulled hard...and harder. Shifting her ankles, arching her back, until thick bands of red, speckled and raw lines started to appear on the porcelain like skin. The scream was barely enough to drown out the hammering in her head, mirroring the heart beat in her chest. A familiar....terrifying feeling.
She kept pulling and screaming until she made a terrible mistake. Twisting...lashing, Shizuka jarred the bandaged patches of her slight frame, choking out the screams with the soft whimpers that took their place. 

The nurse was gone. She was alone
And while calming down....she had time to think

Third: Remember 

That's right. She was at the shop before....with Mitsuo. That liar.
The two had been on a mission to stop thieves from making a mess of the already, unkempt store and make sure they didn't come back again any time soon....well this group of people anyway.
It had been going okay at first. The blind one would watch the down stairs while the more experienced shinobi would take care of them upstairs. 
They came. He left. And the target of their aggression shifted to the only living, breathing thing in the store. Shizuka had stopped them alright. Hurt them. They would not be coming back here...but neither would she. Hurt and bleeding, she had stayed awake just long enough to get to the store owner and tell them it was done.

Then....sleep had taken over once more.

And she woke up here. 

Final: Shivers

Inhale. Exhale. Shizuka tried to focus her mind. 
The bandages felt like sandpaper against her skin, rubbing and scratching, though not as bad as the ties that held her vulnerable. 
Her ribs hurt, her back ached. She just wanted to be in the comforting shadows of her little shoe box house on the distant side of the village. Out of the way, out of trouble.
She didn't mind when they had confined her to the small household. She didn't even notice when they had probed her memories when first coming here....prying through the most recent thought patterns to find out what had brought her here. They found nothing. No images, no sounds. Only the overwhelming anger...rage that drowned out everything else.

But this time...taking away her jutsu, her senses
All she could do was lie there, still, save for the shivering that shook her being to the core. She hated it here. She hated him. 

Please....I just want to go home. 

-

Minutes. Hours.

Sleep never came.
The paper white sheets were cool against her skin, but that didn't help the aching around her wrists, ankles and where ever else she was bound. And not to mention the odd feeling of being unable to release her chakra. No...sleep was beyond difficult.
It was impossible. 
The constant, droll, beeping of the machines that worked to make sure she was alive, the clock which ticked away at every second she spent laying there remembering the last time she was here. 
Despite being uncomfortable, in pain, and lying there being totally blind for the first time since she was a child. Shizuka would continue to try and try again. The world where colours still danced in front of he eyes was better than here.

-----

Colours. 

Even in the middle of the night the average human eye could see a whole spectrum of...beautiful, luminescent colours.
They had seen her collapse by the edge of a flower bed, close to the water, the knife still gripped tight in her white knuckled hands. In a tangled mess of white, blue and red, she simply.....lay there. Still. Cold. She could have been dead if it was not for the steady rising and falling of her chest that came with each, shallow breath. 
They couldn't leave her here. Not because it would seem cruel, because they knew it would. She may know things, she may have seen things....and there was no chance that they could risk her leaving and disappearing as they had done before.

So they took her to the hospital once more....
And there, they tied her down, they stripped her jutsu, they did everything they were doing now. And while she lay there unconscious, the officers sent in their most skilled genjutsu master's to pry though her mind. But something was wrong...something was off. They could see nothing...and what they heard was distorted. 
Either this girl was powerful enough to block even their abilities....or there was something much....much deeper going on.
When she awoke nearly three days later, the girl would not speak. Only to shake her head when they asked if she remembered anything. When it came down to it and harsher techniques would be required, they gave up and forwarded it on to the kage.

In the mean time...she was confined to a small house on the outer edge of the village, where no one knew where she was...except for a small few who saw her come in on that fifth day. She stayed quiet, kept to herself until they finally allowed her to accompany one of the more trusted shinobi to help find answers about what had happened.

Again. Nothing.

The brief, low ranked missions. The high ranked supervisors, watching her every move. Watching and waiting for something to happen. The incident at the shop was just what they needed to bring her back to the first day she came here.

------------------------------------

"Miss Houkyaku...are you awake? Someone is here to see you"

"Me? Who would want to...."

There was no answer. Only the clipped clicking of heels as they took those short steps out the door and down the hall, swinging through the doors that came in their path. The woman was in a rush to leave her...not that Shizuka blamed her. She didn't need to see to know that the young nurse with the now bandaged hands looked at her with a new gleam of fear in her eyes. 
But that was not was bothering her about the nurses visit. This person....the only other people that had come to visit her was messengers and other officers, wanting to ask her questions about that night when she showed up. That night a little over a month ago.
So who was coming that was so important that the person who had barely left her side would leave so....

"Houkyaku Shizuka,"

Shizuka tensed.

"I am Uzumaki Mitsuhide, the Thirteenth Hokage, and I need to ask you some questions,"

The aches in her shoulder and side, the pain in her leg and wrists, none of it stopped her from looking away from him and twisting in her restraints. Edging to the far end of the bed as much as her restraints could allow. Yes, she didn't want to talk to anyone else....but to him. Like this. Where she couldn't even sense how many people were in the room, watching her as she slept...where she didn't have the choices that were usually on offer for her.
Shizuka was a strong believer of fate. Destiny. That everything happened for a reason. But this didn't mean that on the occasion, the young female didn't want to run for the hills every now and then.

"What do you know about Sarutobi, Mitsuo?"

"Enough. But I have nothing to say to you"

Despite everything....Shizuka's voice portrayed a false amount of calm. She spoke clearly, strongly....only the light shaking of the fists balled at the edges of the bed and the light trembling of her lips as she fought back the nightmares that edged towards the surface, betrayed the fear....the anxieties that his presence and her state of being caused her. 

"Besides....he is a liar" 

-

"...Shizuka, is not a prisoner here..."

The female turned towards the voice, her expression softening lightly, smoothing the frown from her lips...but for only just a moment. It had not even been a second after he had beckoned the nurse back before the sound of high heels, clicking like knuckles across the tiled floor, echoed about the silence of the room, coming closer....and closer until they stopped somewhere nearby. 
Despite his kinder words, she didn't trust these people.
Even though Shizuka couldn't feel where the uptight female had stopped to heed the wordless call of the kage, or where she had disappeared to. The genin knew that she had been standing close by this whole time; waiting, watching. In case she said anything to insult their esteemed leader. 

No, she could never let that happen.
But nor could she disobey.

Touch was a telling thing.
As the woman moved around her, shifting from one side of the bed to the other, brushing her fingers against her leg, her side, her arm, before her fingers deftly found the buckles which secured the bindings, Shizuka could almost feel the distaste the nurse had for her. Just in the way that with every release, her fingers would recoil as if hitting something hot, or something unpleasant to the touch.
Even without her eyes, the Genin knew that she wanted to get away from her as soon as possible. Even though the Hokage was sitting right there. 

But that feeling...that bitter taste that woman he left with. It didn't last long. The moment she released the seal from her partially bandaged chest, all the chakra that had been building under her skin...the pressure that flowed behind the locked off gates; it all released at once. Like water bursting through a damaged dam wall. 
And. That. Feeling....Shizuka's hands gripped on to the edge of the bed, her next breath holding the sounds of a soft whimper. The last time she had felt something that made her heart race in this manner, was when she looked through her eyes for the first time. The day she came back in to light after spending months and months of being locked inside the darkness....
Oh how she missed that feeling....that elation. She missed her.

That feeling didn't last long enough.

Normality returned and Shizuka found herself reaching for the blindfold that covered her eyes, making sure again....and once more, that it had not come loose or been untied while she was asleep.
Only once she was satisfied, and her anxieties had settled the shaking in her hands, she was able to push herself up to a sitting position. It was easier to concentrate when her body was not tempted to drift off to the land of dreams again.
Yes. Concentration. That was what she needed for her next move. 
Just as she had done before, Shizuka focused a portion of her newly released chakra, calling it out from her centres, to travel down to her feet, to her fingers and spread out across the sterile blue grey of the floor. Like a pool of water, once it had spread it would fill this room, but she didn't need that much. Once the chakra reached where he sat, brushing up where his hand rested on the bed, the technique would become active, and she would attempt to ensnare him with the kekkei genkai of her clan. 

The mind walker technique. 

It was subtle. Gentle. Even the most skilled shinobi had difficulty noticing her technique when it was done well... It was his turn.
Like she had done time and time again, Shizuka shed a part of her mind and allowed it to slip within the chakra along the ground where it had flowed, and, providing he had not noticed....that he would offer her no resistance; she would enter his mind resting beside his thoughts and next to his memories. And even if she got that far....even if he allowed her to see how far she could go. If anything, all he would feel was a whisper against his consciousness. A slight niggling at the back of his mind....and then. Nothing.
If everything went according to plan, that was until the second technique activated, and the young female pushed a little further to the seeing part of his brain. 
And the world around her revealed itself for the second time that evening.  All in the one...slow...deep,oxygen rich breath. 

Everytime....it was like watching herself through an odd angled mirror. 

It was always a shock, seeing herself for the first time...ever time.
Before she had not noticed, but seeing through his eyes...seeing how thin she had become...how tired. The disappointment that threatened to alter her neutral expression, nearly gave her away. 
Still...once more the porcelain skinned female kept her composure and this time, she was looking right at him. As if...through the thick black material, she could see as clear as he could see her. As if.... for the time being, she was not blind at all. And that the rumours that she really could see might just be true after all. 
Rumours that the nurse that still watched from behind the office wall, would be sure to spread the moment her shift was over.

She was right to be worried.

 "Don't take me for a fool. I know of what some people are capable of. How do I know that there are not some Anbu lurking around, ready to show up and then abandon me like he.....like that liar did"
Her voice was cool, but not quite cold, and the calm that she portrayed was still false compared to what she felt inside. 
They could tell her all the sweet words they liked, she still didn't trust them. Until now, they had kept her locked up, interrogated her, even back handed her across the face when she had near blinded someone for trying to take off her blindfold. No, she didn't trust these people at all. But....this time,she would give him a slight chance. Shizuka was not the best person...but she was no villian.

 "You asked me about that traitor Mitsuo. What...in particular did you want to learn from me? What did you want to know?
Is that the only reason why you came to visit me?"

Chakra 135/150:

-

-

She could see what he was doing

With every movement, every direction the older male had turned, Shizuka searched his eyes for the details of the room she would not have usually been able to see. The beds around her, kept empty for the people's safety, while the nurses acted as if the room was full of wanting patients. She saw the location of each machine, where they sat, where they attached to, matching the sounds to the monitors with each briefly met glance. The thing that caught her attention the most was the man in on the other side of the reflection.
The carefree locks that dangled around his features, the look that seemed to mirror the exhaustion she had felt despite the hours of sleep; something looked familiar about the one who had addressed her.  Or maybe it was just her imagination being affected by being in the presence of his mind. 

Either way, it no longer mattered. 

"I see, so based on the what you observed, you also find it hard to believe he died in such an unceremonious way?"
 
"That is correct. I find it almost impossible to believe that someone who would push themselves to be captain of the Anbu, and be so devout in protecting the village he preaches about; would allow himself to walk in to a situation where he would be be unprepared that he would be killed like that....."

He was getting at something.
Shizuka didn't need to hear his clear, cut words as he questioned her memories in that polite manner of his. She didn't even need to see the intent in his sky coloured reflection. The way he had stood, the way he stepped about the room with calculated steps. Purposeful. It was enough to spike the worry that built in chest, causing it to spread further in to her fingers, her lungs....and further down in to her chakra points. 

"I have just, one more question. Why exactly was a young woman admitted here covered in somebody else's blood? And why exactly does that woman refuse to talk to the police about what happened?....."

No. He didn't even care. He said so himself

"....I'm left having to assume one of two things, miss. One, you have something to hide, some crime, some past secrets which you feel may get you in trouble. Or two, you genuinely don't remember, perhaps due to some trauma...."

How could he know? He cant. Surely he cant? 
What else does he know? Does he know about my....

"...If it is the latter then, I am truly sorry if this next question causes you any grief.

Who did you kill?"


Panic: Was like a virus. 
It starts of small really. Quickened heart rate, unsteady breathing, a slightly tremble of the words...the fingers. But then, soon and with increased intensity, it spreads and grows, bringing a slight flush to the skin mingled with perspiration and, raising the bodies temperature like a sudden fever. The lungs, the heart, the skin, it was only a matter of time before it reached the muscles, infecting them with the adrenalin that would inevitably over ride the logic centers in the brain. That would reduce the consciousness to a whisper and whatever thoughts you may have, whatever you wanted to do until that moment. It would disappear with your sense of calm and then....you lose control. 

Shizuka.....lost contol.

It was quick. Unexpected. 
The young genin rapidly built up the chakra in her hands, before slapping them together, creating a light that would fill every shadow of the bare empty room in less than a second. If anyone so much as looked at the the intense bright light. If anyone so much as glimpsed at her jutsu; then their sight would narrow in to blackness, before disappearing altogether. And then....for those few moments it took for the affected person to realise they were in a genjutsu, they would be in her world. A taste of what it was like in her kind of darkness. 
This...is what she hoped to infect him with. The bright light of her jutsu mingled with the half full glass of water which she would throw at him in hopes that it would deter him long enough for the girl to swing her bandaged legs over the edge of the bed and slide to the cool tiled floor. 

He had already shown her the door

Whether it worked or not, it didn't matter to the near terrified genin. The second she felt the chilly smooth surface under her unsteady soles, Shizuka took off towards the door, half running, half stumble feeling her way to the door, swiping the scalpel from the operating tray on her way. 
If he knew about what happened: Then me may have known about her other secret. The very thing she had bit the nurse to protect. The same reason why she fought off the other shinobi until they had her tied down and sealed with sedatives flowing through her system for the first couple of days. 

She was scared. She was vulnerable. 
And Shizuka did the only thing that felt right. And that was self preservation. It was just that this time, self preservation meant running from the most powerful shinobi in the village and protecting herself with a blade no longer than the first two joints of her thumb.


-------

Chakra 120/150:

-

And darkness came once again


It lingered like an infection.
The shivers that gathered on her skin like an aching fever, the pains that weighed on every calculated step; her vision was slowly fading from his focus which was making it harder...more difficult to see. Her head spun, her mind raced; whatever fears and doubts that she had piled up among her thoughts, didn't leave much room for the obvious rationale she should have guessed at. Or the facts that would have made her get away much easier and much....much less painful. 
And yet....Shizuka still used the offensive Genjutsu technique. Despite knowing the consequences, the young genin conjured up that blinding light in order to hinder him enough so she could make her escape. And by doing so....by performing this technique, her Mind Walker technique was negated. Pulling back so fast that for just a moment....for just a second, Shizuka Houkyaku was left to stumble back in to the darkness where she had come from.


with the sounds that followed....


Shizuka could have been hallucinating. 
It was entirely possible that the eerie chuckling that bounced off the walls through her blackened domain did not come from her interrogator. Or the steady, controlled breathing that could have belonged to any of the nurses that had recovered from the attack.
Of course any of these could have been possible....but without the need to concentrate on staying silently in the Hokage's mind; Shizuka knew that it was he who hunted her in her dark, enclosed word. 
And so...the only option was to run. As useless and hopeless as it seemed, the blindfolded female slid off the bed and made for the door. Using only the images he had shown her and the sounds of bare feet on tiled floor as she tapped her way to the entrance...
If only she had listened to that small, niggling voice 


the feelings...


Fingers found their way to the wooden paneled walls, the windows, the screens that lead towards the only exit of this place.
For another blissful moment, Shizuka thought she had a chance. That he would forget her for long enough that she could walk out the door and grab her things before he sent people after her...
One step. Two steps away from the door. She was nearly there. 
Her breath quickened, her heart beat out a war march in her chest and she spurred her lead heavy limbs forward to breach that barrier....when something clamped hard around her arm. Something strong and biting deep in to her skin...her muscles....
She couldn't help it. The Genin female let out a cry of pain. A strangled sound that tore at her throat, draining the energy from her legs....the oxygen from her lungs. But the feelings didn't stop there. 

The hard wood of the door as she brushed passed it on her way to the cooler air of the outside. The soft grit of the dirt underneath her limbs as she fell like a discarded rag doll just past the hospitals threshold.
And then the sting of burned flesh as he released her.....
Shizuka found herself keeled over, gasping and coughing, waiting to see if the churning of her stomach would settle.....


Was it really her voice that spoke?


It took a moment. A few deep inhales. A few shaky exhales.
But the childish whimpers fell away to the occasional gasp and soft sobbing. She had experienced pain before....but not this sort.
Another second...another breath, and soon the female found her way to her knees with her sore arm hanging loosely by her side, the other reaching out in front of her to write meaningless words in the soil. 
This way....only in this way could she find those words through the pain and begin her flawed....and barely reasonable reasoning. 

"I barely remember what happened" She had started to say between the gentle mews of pain. "Just....images flashing through my dreams. Foggy memories. I wasn't even there when it happened. I was outside helping out in the garden, because it seemed like the right thing to do.
He killed my grandmother. He burned down my home. And though I didn't see his face I knew....I knew he worked for them. After that....I...I dont remember. I just...I was walking around for a while, following the scent of smoke, the scent of blood on him. 
I hunted this man down and I.....and I....."

Her words faltered.....as did the uninterpreted markings on the ground. Frustration. Confusion. Anger. Then the passive mask she wore before hand, returned and the words along with it.
Her hand started moving further in to the dirt and she continue.

"I hunted him down and watched through his eyes as I stabbed him through the heart...again and again. Penance. Justice. 
He took the last of what I had and he had to pay for it. That...wasn't the right thing to do. After that....I just cant...wrap my memories around it. Perhaps some more sleep....."

A final pause and she looked up to him, her hands abandoning the throbbing arm and the unwritten messages on the ground, to favour reaching gingerly for the blindfold. Reaching but not touching. Hiding it like a child ashamed of something they had broken. 
What reason could she give him to keep on living? She had nothing.
No family, no friends, nothing but a furious determination to find the person who had wronged her all those years ago and make them pay. Just as she had made the other person pay. But was it good enough? 

"I'm....I'm sorry. Ever since I had come here. All these people. All your people would come in and question me. They would ask what happened, they would search me. They hit me and searched my mind while I was sleeping. They didn't even believe me about my...." 

Another reach for her eyes. Another moment to turn away

"They were so angry for not telling what I may have done. I could only imagine how furious they would be when I did tell them that I....that I did do what they expected. I was scared....i wasn't thinking.

I am so....so sorry.

Please. I am nothing much. But I can see better than most. I can tell a lie, I can spy on any without them even knowing it. I can find and track in a way that most are unable to. 
Please....I....I didn't mean to offend you Lord Hokage. I just....I am...I will do anything for a second chance. If only so I can live on to find the people that took.... Please. Give me a chance....or show me the mercy to make it swift"


.....reaching out from the abyss.

-

The once shifting cushion of soil below her, now felt gritty and grainy beneath her curled knees. The grass that gently prickled against porcelain pale flesh, scratched red beaded lines across her shins. 
Even the way the gentle breeze tousled the loose strands of midnight blue hair around her passively silent expression, felt like a malicious finger tracing the contours of her expression. Every single sensation, every loving caress against her raw nerves set the female at an unease.  And the sounds.... 
Those heavy, purposefully placed....controlled footsteps like thunder around her ears; shaking the female in time with her heart beat. The bone grating sigh of a sword being pulled from it's sheathe. The voice like frozen venom whispering, spite. Bitterness to her keen sense of hearing. Why did he have to call her that? Weak, scared, foolish, irrational, tens upon hundreds of words he could have thrown at her...
So why did he have to choose that one wor

Pathetic
She hated that word. 
Every time that particular string of sounds reached her highly attuned ears, it aroused a feeling from the depths of her gut. A sick, twisting, nauseating unease that reached from within her core and pulled and clawed it's way to her fluctuating heart beat. Her uneven respiration's. The clenching fibers of her muscles of her meekly built form.
It was such was a vile insult. Arrogant. Thoughtless. Heartless. Cruel. 
But it was the transparently absolute truth in those venomous syllables that caused her utter distaste for his choice of words. Her hate.
Down on her knees. Down on the ground, weakly defending a flawed memory while begging a stranger...a figure so much better than her, to spare the shred of dwindling pride which clung on to that fine hanging thread. It was indeed...... pathetic. 

She never learned. 

Nearly four years ago....
That was the last time she had lived up to that label. 

She hadn't seen it then. Nor did she have to. 
The young dark haired female could sense that the room she was standing in was barely an arms width wide. It smelled as stale as forgotten stair case and was quiet as the confines of a mouse's home. 
She could almost taste the heaviness of the heat through the cobweb painted walls and the dust tainted air. 
There were unwanted coats and misplaced jackets hanging loosely about her shoulders. A crawling mess of papers and rubbish, littered the floor by her feet. And right in front of her....just within the timid reach of uncertain palms was the door. The way out. 
 Fingers would brush against the cool brass handle A hopeful gasp would catch at her throat. A sudden rush would flow through her like a heat wave in summer. And then.... then she would and pull and push and pound at the barrier again and again as hard and as long as her exhausted strength could manage.... Nothing. Nothing changed. 
Nothing moved. It was still here...she was still here. Trapped. 



"Hush child. Only the old ghosts can hear you in this place"

There was that voice again. Crackled, clipped, crisp with age, reverberating with tones that whispered unsaid threats. It was just enough warning to still her hands against the warm patches of wood. The ache in her head nodding forward in join in on the stability. 
It was strange. Even after all this time of listening to lecturing sentences and preached lessons, she still could not picture the one who had dragged her in here from the kindness of the garden . 
She knew next nothing about this witch. 

"Please....please let me go" 
The other voice was less familiar but she knew it was hers. A rasping whisper, barely making it through the thickness of the door. Pleading, and begging with the stranger on the other side. Pressing in to the wood as if being that little bit closer to her key holder would somehow persuade them to finally...finally listen to listless prayers.
  
"I can't...you can't keep me here forever. I cant....do what you ask so please. Please just let me go and I will never bother you again. I...I will do anything else you want just.....? 

The screaming. The fighting. 
For days she fought the walls through tender skinned touches. For weeks she screamed the sound from her voice. Time and time...and time again those walls had defeated her. Beaten her bloody, in to a sagging heap on the floor.  Inevitable failure left her with nothing. No food, no energy. Just a persistent urge to close those empty lids and sleep in the harsh embrace of gravity.  But today...
Today the door slowly creaked open. The jingle-jangle sound release the grating click and the the heavy wooden barricade cracked open. Allowing the young female an ice touched breath of oxygen. 
She was out. Shizuka was free. 

"You poor pathetic little girl" the voice had grumbled out. The disappointment, the anger so thick it almost seemed....sad. Pitying.
"Just sitting there in the darkness, crying and fighting. How lost you must be if you forgot how to try. Well I am done with you. 
The door is right there in front you. Just know that if you walk out of this room I never want to see you again. I don't want to hear from you I don't want to know you. I didn't save your useless corpse just to see it be lost again. 

So go on. Get out. Or get back in there and embrace the darkness you were blessed with" 

---------------

Her legs ached from sitting under the threat of his sword. Her arm throbbed from where he had grabbed her. The seal he had placed, the stab wound in her thigh. Nothing...none of it was enough to hinder the the young female from turning, twisting and carefully adjusting her position to better face the Lord Hokage. The man who loomed over her like the bogey man's shadow in a dreaming child's bedroom. 
But yet, the trembling had stilled to an unsettled calm, and her dexterous fingers had abandoned the incoherent, dirt drawn letters. Her heart rate slowed, her breathing followed suit, it appeared that the fear that had crippled the blind girl's form like a pandemic, had slipped away. Leaving this....flawed sense of bravado to wrap around her skin. An armour that matched the perfectly placed mask.
So...with her empty eyes turning up to face him, her hand bracing the bruises at her side, Shizuka took a deep breath. Ready to stand against him. Ready to defend her resolve.  

"I...am not pathe......" 

Her armour shattered. 

A whispering touch, brushing against the softly fragile porcelain skin. The gentle pulling against the darkly woven fabric.
Shizuka was frozen. Paralyzed in that moment....in that breath. Unable to move, unable to escape. All she could do was sit there with her legs cramped under her weight, feeling the almost gentle sensation against her faltering expression, all while her chest beat out a chaotic warning. Get away. Get away from him. Move! 
But then....he gripped the blindfold tighter, pulling it taught with a simple, effortless flexing of his fingers, loosening the tie at it's base allowing a small sliver of brilliant luminescence to creep in from underneath.... and then the cold, numbing grip of shock started to slowly slip away to panic..... desperation. Till all that was left. All that remained was the same instinctual, instantaneous virus that clawed it's way through her slight form before.


Swiping. Clawing. Fighting. 

With one hand searching for the seamless edge of the flimsy veil, the other blindly batted away at the offenders reach. She had to stop him. He couldn't know....he couldn't be allowed to see. No one could. 

"No, please...please don't." 

But like before....it was useless. Pathetic.
The soft whimper that tumbled carelessly from her trembling lips would only be heard by the desperate hands. Her efforts lost to the resistance of air. And just as she thought that he might reconsider... that he might spare her from showing him that shameful secret. 
The piece of material fell from it's holding embrace and floated, collapsing to the ground, taking with it the last shred of pride that she had been holding on to...this whole time. 


Once glance. That was all it would take. 

The young Genin looked to the ground, her palms firmly pressing over her pale, defeated features, so not even the harshly hardened earth  beneath her could read the weakness behind the coverings. But it was too late. She was always too late. Because in that one glance: Mitsuhide would see.  And he would see.... that he was wrong. 
  In that fraction of a second. The split in time before she looked away, the Hokage would see that there was no Doujutsu. There was no secret eyes, no hidden power. There was nothing. Simply... Nothing.  Nothing but two abysmally dark holes surrounded by an array of scars, fading bruises, and those tiny flecks...those barely there hints of what the girl may have been really feeling beneath the anger, the sheer hate she felt for the man that took away everything. 

"Hideous...isn't it?" Her voice near whispered while her arms slowly lowered to her knees. Leaving only the loose strands of hair that fell around her face, to obstruct his view of her eyeless gaze. 
  "Frightening? Ugly? It's okay, you can say it. Hell, even my own grandmother who raised me, couldn't stand to look....It's....I..."
Once more, silence stole her words and the young female was reduced to reach for the letters in the ground, as if that would somehow explain everything she was feeling. Don't look at me. Leave me alone. Why did you have to do that? Why would you look? Don't hate me. 
All the things she wanted to say. All the questions she wanted to ask. Every choking syllable that caught in her throat, muted the words for yet another passing minute as she waited for his reaction. The familiar response of an instant recoil, the bitter words of disgust. 

please....just...get it over with

"Let me ask you something, Lord Hokage. You say that heroes and tyrants are determined by choices, and the strength to take action.  So tell me what kind of hero chooses to come in to a strangers home and slash apart their father. Abuse their mother in every way, strangle out her life....and take everything away from them piece by dark bloody piece? These men these....people, who made their choices and has the strength to take action; what sort of heroes are they? 

I'm no hero Lord Hokage, I don't claim to be. But I am not a villain either. I am simply.....existing."

Another pause. More lost words. 
Shizuka tilted her head up slightly to peer through the sapphire black strands and look at him through her eyeless gaze. 

"What is your choice? Do you kill me now? Take away the last of what I have left? Label me as a pathetic tyrant and cast me away as you had intended when dragging me out here?
Or will you spare this frayed thread of existence and help me get stronger....be better so I can take action against these people for what they have done to this world?"

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