[Untitled]
Deep bags and dark circles were prominent on Rae's eyes as sleep eluded her for three weeks. Not that she could help it when there was not a time when she didn't feel watched. It took two weeks until she finally unearthed an abandoned laboratory within the dense forest of the Mountains' Graveyard. And another week until she finally met her observant.
A sickly pale, deformed, mutated human half-merged with the ground was waiting for her past the entrance to an underground passage she had just discovered.
"What'cha looking for?" He asked with a cheerful grin as if conversing with an old friend.
"Orochimaru" Rae replied flatly. "Is he anywhere near here?"
She's not in the mood to give any fucks about White Zetsu right now. She has a mission to accomplish and dealing with White Zetsu is not on her list.
"He's not here" The plant-like man replied with a shrug.
"Do you know where he is?" She asked with gritted teeth. She's at her wits' end and the guy's happy disposition is not helping her one bit.
"Hmm..." The man then posed like he's thinking of something, and with him half merged with the ground, it looked incredibly ridiculous. "let's see..."
.
.
.
"... I don't know." was what he said but his voice suggested otherwise.
In a blink of the eye, Rae is gripping the man by the throat with a kunai in the other hand and firmly pressed on his jugular. For a moment White Zetsu pretended to be intimidated before laughing giddily.
"Doesn't work on me~!" He almost sang before Rae crushed his head to mush.
.
.
.
"Violent, aren't we?" The same voice asked from somewhere behind her. Instincts kicked in and she jumped to stick to the ceiling in a defensive stance. A step away from her previous position stood Zetsu's real body with the half part with Black Zetsu, two Venus flytrap-like extensions on their sides, and with the Akatsuki robe on. In his hand was an extended kunai that would've sliced her throat if she hadn't moved.
"You annoyed me" Rae replied, stretching her sensory field. This was one of those moments she wished she was a sensory ninja. If she was, she'd had no problem keeping track of her field while she focuses on conversing. Or maybe she should've been a tracker ninja instead? She'd have the kids by now if she had been one.
"That's still violence!" The man argued. "You shouldn't kill anyone just because they annoyed you! Oh my poor brother~!"
"Are you done?" Rae asked after a few seconds of the other's theatric wailing.
"Rude~!" The other sighed dramatically while one hand gingerly held his head and shaking it in disappointment.
"Tell me where Orochimaru is and I'll leave whatever it is you're hiding here" Rae glared down at the plant man.
He didn't even tense but the quiet he let reign in the narrow passageway was too alarming for Rae to ignore.
"He's at the hideout" He finally replied.
"Huh?" Rae took a double-take. What?
"He's at our hideout" Zetsu replied and then pointed at his black and red robe. "See this? He's part of our group now, so he's back at the hideout"
"And where is that hideout you speak of?" Rae asked. If the little shit says it's all the way across to the Land of Rivers like she remembered it to be, she'll start cracking skulls around here.
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.
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"In the Land of Rivers!"
A dense killing intent suddenly flooded the small space they occupied that even the plant-man staggered back.
~
"That woman is insanely violent!" White Zetsu cried when he emerged into a dark room.
"Did she leave?" A figure within the shadows asked as he dismissed the White Zetsu clone in front of him. One three-tomoed red eye studied the new arrival.
"Yeah!" The other nodded in confirmation. "Are you sure we should've told her where Orochimaru and the hideout is? We could've just killed her here"
"If she's got the guts to hunt down a Sannin, then she's bound to be interesting" The other replied, unconcerned.
~
Rae ignored the black spots on her vision as she made quick work on covering grounds to quickly cross to the Land of Fire. She'd be using that route to cut through the days instead of going around the border. She ignored the concerned looks thrown at her by the sentinels as she passed through the border check-point in the Land of Fire and as she was preparing to hop to the trees, fatigue hit her like a sledgehammer and she dropped like a dead woman.
~
The next time Rae opened her eyes, she was back in her apartment in Konoha. Sighing in defeat, she merely stared at her ceiling blankly. There's no use forcing herself awake, her mind and body are too tired that she'd probably go back under right after. For three weeks, the only thing keeping her up are the small nicks she inflicts on herself with or without heating the kunai with chakra before inflicting the damage. Rolling up her sleeves, she stared at the numerous glaring red lines across it. Another sigh left her lips as she studied her arms. If she wasn't a medic, the cuts would've been infected by now. Ideally, she would've only cut a few and douse it with antiseptic every now and then, but her pack didn't include that.
"Should've squeezed some lime on it" She muttered absently as she dropped her arm across her eyes heavily. She groaned as she still felt tired even in her dream.
Her stomach rumbled loudly in the silent room but she ignored it and turned on her bed.
~
Shikamaru stopped on his action to open the door with his hand still latched on the doorknob when he heard an unmistakable crash and a loud yelp from inside the supposedly vacant apartment. Well, from the sound inside... apparently not.
Knocking on the door, he asked "Are you alright?"
"No" was the muffled reply and he waited for a few seconds but the door did not open as he expected it to.
"May I come in?" He asked after another minute of silence.
"The door's open" was the reply and when he held the doorknob again, he heard the uncertainty on her next words. "... I think?"
"It's not" He replied as he tried turning the doorknob again but to no avail. A loud groan was heard from inside but still, the door did not open.
"Is everything alright in there?" He asked worriedly. Normally, she would've already opened the door by now.
"There's a small seal on top of the doorframe," she said instead. And he looked up to inspect the said seal. It was a small note the size of a candy with the sealing array for a storage seal.
It was a standard sealing array and he didn't need further instructions to know what to do next. So after swiping a bit of blood on the seal, out popped a spare key and the seal crumbled to dust. Using the key, he finally unlocked the door, only to be greeted by the host lying spread-eagle on the floor.
"Zen!" He called out in alarm as he dashed towards her, but the said woman only looked at him in defeat. "Are you alright?"
"Shika" She sighed as he sat her up gingerly. "I'm hungry"
"Wha--?" He stopped in his inspection of any injuries to stare at her in confusion.
"I ran out of rations last week" She whined "So I had nothing to eat but barks, wild berries, and mushrooms"
"Just where had you been?" He asked in bewilderment as he tried to discern any traces on her but there's none. She's scrubbed clean and wearing clean low-quality ninja clothes that might as well pass as civilian clothes.
"Mountains' Graveyard" She replied and then she repeated in a whine. "I'm hungryyyy"
"Alright" He nodded as he scooped her up. She felt weightless in his arms as he easily carried her to her sofa in the sitting room. "You at least have food in here, right?"
"Dunno" She replied absently, her mind still on the lingering feeling of his strong arms on her person. Ignoring the pain in her muscles, Rae forced herself to curl up on her side to hide her blushing face. Taking deep breaths, she forced herself to calm down.
"Can you even cook?" She asked her companion when she was finally stable enough. She heard him rifling through her fridge and cabinets; she doesn't even know if she has grocery stocks.
"There's nothing to eat here!" He replied when he came back to the sitting room. And as if she's not embarrassed enough, her stomach decided to let itself known by roaring like a damn beast. Red colored her face once again and she buried her face on the backrest of her sofa.
"What food do you want?" He asked instead, "I'll go get it for you"
"Hm-ophn"
"What?" He asked, not catching what she said.
"Ramen" She murmured quietly.
"Okay" He nodded. "I'll be back"
He was about to leave when she called him back again.
"Could you get my pill bottle in my room before you go?" She asked.
"Where are they placed?" He asked as he walked towards the said room.
"Just on top of my table" She replied.
~
When Shikamaru entered the said room, he was taken aback at the destruction within. Books, papers, pencils, brushes, and other stationery littered the floor. The desk in question is turned on its side on the floor and a bottle of ink was spilled dry not far away from it.
"What happened in here?" He murmured quietly as he further studied the destruction. The parchments on the floor were familiar enough as he has them in his possession and had been studying them for weeks. Looking around the room, he saw a wall full of paper stuck on it with pins and tapes. He could only gape as he finally had a picture of what those notes finally look like when together. It turns out, they are all connected in more ways than they thought. With strings looped on the pins, the notes made more sense when connected. And the drawings he had originally thought to be just imaginary drafts are even connected to the spider-web of notes.
As he took another step closer to the wall, he felt his foot come in contact with a bottle that gave a noise of hard pills. It was the bottle he came in here to retrieve. Uncapping the bottle and peeking inside, he was instantly greeted with the familiar scent of soldier pills. But instead of what he was familiar with, the pills were way smaller in size and more different in texture. It was smoother instead of the standard gritty on their rations.
Looking one last time back at the wall of answered mysteries, he went back out of the room, only to be greeted with an empty sitting room.
"Where did she go?"
~
Back in the waking world, Rae woke up with incredibly sore muscles. The first thing she noticed upon waking up is the wooden ceiling. It was dark but there was a lighted candle by the bedside table to her left. Not far from the bed she was occupying is a man watching her. She couldn't see his features clearly because of the low candlelight but he wore the standard Konoha shinobi attire with his hitai-ate tied around his forehead.
"How long was I out?" She rasped as her eyes connected with his. She didn't bother standing up, she knows how futile that action would be. It would only drain her energy.
"Two nights" Was the short reply.
"Ahh... I see..." She sighed. "I'm sorry to bother you further but do you have anything I could eat?"
"I'll go get someone"
A few minutes later, a woman came in with a bowl of steaming soup. "This is all we have left for today."
Similar to the man, she wore the standard Konoha shinobi attire with her hitai-ate tied around her neck.
"I'm grateful for it nonetheless" Rae replied humbly as she tried to sit up with much difficulty.
"What was your name again?" She asked as she handed the bowl of soup. They probably already know considering she had presented her identification papers before and she doubts that there had been anybody else who came in from that direction in the border. And it was highly possible that they had full-body checked her and her items while she was out cold for days.
"Rae" She replied after a few spoonfuls of soup.
"Nice to meet you! My name is Yua and I was the one who checked you over" The woman, Yua, introduced herself as she dragged over a chair beside her cot. "If I didn't know that beyond this border is nothing but denser forest, I'd think you're running away from slavery."
Rae paused mid-slurp to look at the other woman in confusion.
"Lack of sleep, lack of water, and lack of nutrients" She ticked off on her fingers. "Your skin is dry and you're horrifyingly thin. You're malnourished. And the circles around your eyes are darker than my friend's heart" She pointed at her said friend who was watching them sternly from the shadows. "Those are signs of excessive working."
"I'm looking for someone" She admitted.
"Who?" Was the curious question.
"Someone who had kidnapped my sisters" Rae's previous dull eyes sharpened. "Rest wasn't an option when you're hunting a psychotic bastard like that"
"Why don't you employ shinobi from the Hidden Villages?" The other woman asked. "Surely employing skilled shinobi would guarantee a higher success rate in retrieving your sisters?"
"I'd rather find them on my own than sit around twiddling my thumbs" Rae shrugged as she finished the bowl of soup. "So it's not really an option"
There was silence as Yua stared at her in bewilderment. She was about to say something but decided against it.
"If you say so..." was what she said instead. "Rest up, there would be a much more filling meal by tomorrow"
"Thank you for your hospitality but I must decline as I need to leave at first light" Rae replied with a respectful bow. "My source had told me that the man I'm looking for is in the Land of Rivers and I'm afraid that I'd miss him if I stayed any longer"
"You haven't recovered yet!" Yua gasped, "You need more rest than a couple of hours"
Rae silently agreed but didn't dare voice it out. "I would've rested enough by then"
The other woman could only look back incredulously and in bewilderment. When there was no more sign that she was going to be spoken to, Rae laid back on the bed, and immediately, sleep came to her.