Smoke and Lightning (A Naruto Fanfiction) [Complete]

Chapter Five: The Mentor

“Miki?” Hisoka called out, staring at the girl in surprise.

Her katana had slipped from her fingers, they were trembling so hard. Without a word, she pressed her hands to her temple, attempting to push back the memories assaulting her mind. Flashes of needles and orders, pain and fear, things that she was better off without. Things that she’d done her best to forget since being brought to Konoha.

Things that just the simple sight of him,Yukio, brought racing back.

“Miki?” Yukio echoed, that smile on his lips growing even bigger. “Is that what they’re calling you, little pig?”

“You leave her alone,” Hisoka ordered, stepping closer to Miki and cautiously placing his fingers on the top of his weapon’s pouch.

At the same time, he was drawing up how they might escape in his mind. The person in front of them was an adult, who obviously Miki knew and was frightened of. He might have been one of the better shinobi in the academy, but he was just that, an academy student. He wasn’t even a genin yet. There was no doubt in his mind that the person in front of him was probably much stronger than he was.

Hikari, seeming to come to the same conclusion, whistled softly, causing Sake to tense on her shoulder. The bird ruffled his feathers, whistling in response, and launching itself into the air. Yukio pursed his lips, dropping down from the tree the moment that the bird took off.

“Now, now, that’s no fun,” he complained. “I haven’t even gotten the chance to talk to her very much yet and you’re already calling for help?”

“Miki doesn’t talk,” Hisoka retorted, slipping his fingers under the lip of the cloth covering the top of the weapon’s pouch. “So there’s no reason to wait.”

“Ha, you’re a smart kid, aren’t you?” Yukio questioned. “If that’s the case, how’d you end up hanging out with her? Hm? Smart people avoid strange things.”

“How long?” Hisoka asked, not bothering to answer Yukio’s question.

Hikari, realizing that he was talking to her, hesitated, running over what she knew in her mind.

“Ten, maybe fifteen minutes,” she supplied. “Sake is fast, but I gave a pretty generic order.”

“No need to get so worked up,” Yukio broke in with a sigh. “I said, I just want to talk to her for a moment.”

Before either of them could react, the shinobi had darted forward, instantly placing himself right in front of Miki. He simply raised his hands, tugging her hands down and offering that same, bright smile.

“Get away from Miki-chan!” Hisoka ordered, raising a kunai in his hand.

Yukio laughed, ignoring him. At the sight of how hard that kunai was shaking in the air, no one would have felt threatened by the boy’s words.

“Orochimaru-sama sent me to tell you something,” he informed her, amused by how frightened the girl appeared to be. “It wasn’t hard for him to figure out where you’d gone, Ryou had a pretty decent idea about it all. He said that if you were well again, that I should tell you that he’s going to let you play house for a little while. When he needs you, we’ll come get you, whether you’re willing to stop playing or not, understood?”

She didn’t respond and Yukio simply shrugged, reaching down to pick up her katana. Startled into action, she immediately went to snatch it back from him. The older boy laughed, holding it high enough that she couldn’t reach and studying it with a curious eye.

“Did they give you this?” he questioned, then continued without giving her a chance to answer. “Not bad. I bet you might even be able to hurt someone with it, given a chance. Would you want to hurt me with it, I wonder?”