Stripped Bare

Many thanks to nimblnymph for taking the time to beta this chapter.

I don’t own Naruto. Never have, never will.

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Stripped Bare- Chapter 22

Naruto ran fast as his body could carry him, ignoring the burning in the muscles of his legs as the tall grass on either side of him flew by in blurs of brown and green. His incredible stamina was the only reason he had been able to keep up such an intensive pace for so long. Although he could keep running like this for hours, fueled by anxiety and adrenaline, fatigue was beginning to show in his teammates who weren’t so lucky as to have the energy stores of the Kyuubi inside of them.

“Come on, we’re almost there,” the blond called impatiently to the shinobi behind him, desperate to get to Sakura as quickly as possible.

“Naruto,” Yamato said sternly, speeding up so that they were side by side. “Rushing in recklessly won’t help Kakashi or Sakura, and at his rate we’ll be too exhausted to help once we get there. We need to slow down.”

The whiskered man practically growled in frustration.

“But she could be in trouble, and we—”

“And we’ll be too tired to help her if we drain our chakra reserves before we get there,” Yamato finished, placing a hand on his shoulder and forcing the ambitious shinobi to slow down.

Sasuke and Sai were both panting hard, almost at their limit after maintaining such a grueling pace for most of the day. But neither complained, wanting as much as Naruto to get to Fuzen Machi. The two had been surprisingly well behaved during their journey, exchanging their usual stream of insults for stubborn silence. It seemed the haughty Uchiha and antagonistic artist were more concerned about their teammates than they cared to let on.

“We should arrive within the next hour or two,” Yamato said, noting how the sun was starting to sink below the horizon. “We’ll check in at the club and decide how to act from there and we will be subtle about it considering they are undercover. That especially goes for you, Naruto. Until then, we maintain a moderate pace. We’ve pushed ourselves too hard to go any faster.”

Naruto nodded grudgingly, clearly not happy with Yamato’s decision but willing to obey it anyway. He hoped that this whole mission would turn out to be a false alarm and that both of his friends would be perfectly fine. Maybe they would be proceeding with their mission, unaware of the worry they had caused in Konoha. And maybe if he was lucky, maybe he’d even be able to glimpse Sakura dancing at the club. The thought was so enticing that it almost took the edge off his worry, but then his mind snapped back into focus and he berated himself for thinking such things when Sakura might be in trouble.

They continued to race forward, passing by the towns that lay few and far between in the endless sea of grass, the swaying green stalks almost as tall as the people traveling through it. Soon, the rippling fields would give way to the harsh neon of the city which would mark their arrival to Fuzen Machi. While Yamato hoped to find his sempai safe and sound, his gut told him that Kakashi a been gone too long on a mission of this nature for things to be going smoothly.

XXXXX

Climbing the small mountain that housed Iyashii’s mansion with Dajaku in tow had taken longer than Kakashi had anticipated. By the time he had hauled his captive over the first two gates encircling the manor, the shadows were beginning to lengthen in the golden light of the sun sinking lower and lower in the sky. The shinobi realized that he would be able to move with more ease and stealth if he left the club owner behind.

“You stay here, I’m going ahead,” Kakashi whispered as they came to what seemed to be an expansive garden of immaculately maintained roses. Tall hedges surrounded either side and Kakashi knew the walls of foliage would need to be scaled if he wanted to continue.

“Stay here?” Dajaku squeaked, silvery eyes darting around nervously. “You’re leaving me?”

“I thought you’d be happy considering you didn’t want to come in the first place,” Kakashi said coolly, checking his surroundings carefully for possible surveillance equipment or security guards.

“But how will I get back?” Dajaku whined, knowing he wouldn’t be able to get back over the gates and walls without help from Kakashi. “What if I’m caught?”

“That’s not my concern,” The shinoni shrugged. “But if you alert them to my presence, I’ll make sure you regret it later.”

“You brought me here!” Dajaku cried, voice rising as hysteria set in. “You have a responsibility to get me back out!”

Kakashi reacted so fast that the balding man hardly saw him move. A hand clamped over his mouth while a kunai pressed against the tender flesh of his throat. The tip grazed his Adam’s apple, making him afraid to swallow in case the motion caused the blade to nick him and draw blood.

“You want to talk about responsibility?” Kakashi seethed, his voice full of anger as cold as the metal. “How about the responsibility you had towards the women you claimed to take care of? Didn’t they deserve safety in exchange for selling their bodies to every low life with a wad of cash?”

The hand over his mouth kept him silent, but if he had been allow to speak he would have done nothing more than stutter and whimper pathetically, tripping over his own excuses as he futilely tried to make excuses for himself.

“I’d be perfectly justified to slit your throat right here and leave you for dead,” Kakashi growled. “But even someone as disgusting as you might still be useful.”

The only sound that followed was the soft thump of Kakashi’s hand connecting with the back of Dajaku’s head, rendering the man instantly unconscious. The shinobi arranged the store owner’s limp form in the shadows of a nearby hedge, making sure he’d be out of sight if anybody came through the area on a routine patrol.

With Dajaku indisposed, Kakashi easily vaulted the hedge and landed silently on the other side in the waning light. Slinking from shadow to shadow, appearing as intangible as the growing darkness, Kakashi worked his way toward what he guessed to be the back of the mansion. After a maze of hedges and one more gate, a manicured lawn was the last thing standing between him and his goal. A single security camera scanned the area but it moved so slow that it was almost comical, and Kakashi dashed to the building easily when it was looking the other way. Apparently, Iyashii had few enemies and seemed to think minimal security would keep him safe. It was too bad he had to go and make enemies with one of Konoha’s greatest shinobi. Not even an the most advance security system would be enough to stop Kakashi now, not when the situation had gone from being an assignment to a personal vendetta. Death was coming for the politician on silent, sandaled feet, and Kakashi doubted there was anything Iyashii could say that would convince him to let him live to see the next sunrise.

In the lengthening shadows, he examined the building for a way in and found it almost immediately; a window on the third floor had been left carelessly cracked open. It was as if the pompous politician had sent Kakashi an invitation to enter his home. With a little chakra directed to the soles of his feet, the shinobi effortlessly ran up the wall, pausing only momentarily to slide the window the rest of the way open before slipping inside.

His feet touched down on soft, plush carpet and Kakashi found himself in a bedroom that was easily twice the size of his apartment. The king sized bed was decorated in of royal purple and blue, a matching canopy hanging overhead. All the furniture was elaborately carved and looked obscenely expensive, but despite the room’s overwhelming gaudiness there was no evidence that this room had been occupied recently. It was probably just one of the many guest rooms in this ridiculously oversized house. Iyashii’s personal bedroom was probably three times this size.

Kakashi wrinkled his nose beneath his mask in distain, finding the room to be garish and distasteful. It was even more infuriating that a man committing such atrocities as robbing young women of their very souls lived in such luxury.

Slinking across the room, the thick carpet cushioning his already silent footsteps, Kakashi turned the undoubtedly hand crafted doorknob to emerge into lengthy hallway with doors identical to the one he had just exited lining each side. Glass chandeliers illuminated the deserted area with a soft glow, the light refracted through hundreds of crystalline prisms. Small cultivated trees, their trunks growing in braids and spirals, sat in beautifully carved pots between every door on each side.

The mansion looked even bigger from the inside than it had from the garden and Kakashi feared he didn’t have the time it would take to search for Sakura, not before Iyashii sentenced her to undergo the procedure that would drain away everything that made her who she was. The Copy Nin paused to reach out with his own chakra and searched hard for hers, looking for anything that might alert him to where she was being held.

There was nothing, not even a flicker of the kunoichi’s chakra signature. Like it or not, it seemed Kakashi would be forced to go about looking for Sakura the hard way.

Closing the door behind him, he cracked open the next and slipped inside, searching each bedroom and adjacent bath. Every room seemed identical to the first one he had entered, save for the color scheme. One was dressed in the deepest emerald green, while another rich chocolate brown. Pale blue, shimmering aqua, deep crimson, silks and tapestries in every color were found in abundance, but there was no trace of anything pink, especially those long bubblegum tresses Kakashi had become so fond of.

He entered the last door on the hall and found nothing but a similar room furnished in silvery grey. There were no chakra remnants, no trace of her scent on the pillows or a pink strand of hair in the oversized claw foot bathtub. Kakashi couldn’t help but suspect Sakura was being kept in a place a little less hospitable than this.

He reentered the hall, closing the door behind him, and froze when he heard the sound of soft footsteps. They were too light to be male. Mor than likely, they probably belonged to that of a woman or even an older child. Ducking behind the closest tree, Kakashi crouched down, hiding his chakra and holding his breath as he waited for the person approaching to come into view.

A moment later, a blonde woman in a maid uniform rounded the corner. She was quite pretty and about Sakura’s age, but Kakashi could tell immediately there was something peculiar about her. Her uniform a was almost indecent in the way it was both incredibly short and extremely low cut, exposing most of her thigh and a great deal of impressive cleavage. Her makeup was perfect, too perfect for someone whose job was to make beds and wash bathtubs, and her hair fell around her face in perfect curls rather than being tied up for practicality,. Her gait was consistent, almost mechanical as she walked past Kakashi’s hiding place without paying him any notice as she passed.

The shinobi detected no chakra in her and guessed her to be a civilian, but he crept up behind her with kunai drawn just in case. In one quick movement he had her pressed up against the wall, her face to the smooth plaster and his front to her back. One hand was over her mouth in case she tried to scream and the deadly point of his weapon was poised just above the flesh of her throat, letting her know that any abrupt movements could be her last.

“I’m not going to hurt you if you tell me what I want to know,” Kakashi growled softly, keeping his voice low so as not to be detected but menacing enough to show her he was serious. “A woman with pink hair was brought to this mansion. I need to find her quickly. Tell me where she is.”

He removed his hand from her mouth so she could reply, but when she spoke, her voice was even, calm and strangely monotonous. “You do not belong here. Leave now or I will activate the alarm.”

“You’re hardly in a position to be making requests,” Kakashi hissed, pushing her against the wall roughly.

“This weapon isn’t for show. I’ll use it if I have to. Tell me where she is!”

Despite his threats and rough handling, she didn’t even flinch, and her response was exactly the same as before, cool, calm, and as mechanical as her walk had been.

“You do not belong here. Leave now or I will activate the alarm.”

Kakashi frowned in confusion at her odd response. She seemed completely unaffected by the danger she was in. He could feel her pulse beneath his fingers, but it was steady and slow, as was her breathing. Both should have been racing thanks to the adrenaline spike of being surprised by him, but she hadn’t even gasped when he had grabbed her.

Pulling away from her slightly, he flipped her around so that her back was now pressed to the wall. It suddenly seemed very important to Kakashi to look at this girl’s face, and what he saw drove the breath from his lungs.

The girl’s pretty face was set in a blank expression, emotionless even in the face of danger, and her eyes-big brown eyes that should have been expressive and beautiful-were glazed and dull, revealing that while her body lived, she was dead inside. This was not a normal girl before him but a walking corpse. Her eyes were identical to those he had seen on the faces of the dead, unseeing and lifeless.

“You do not belong here. Leave now or I will activate the alarm.”

This is what Sakura would become if he failed to find her. All of her life and vitality, the fire and spirit…the very thing that made her beautiful, that made him love her…would be gone. She would be lifeless the girl before him, a pretty doll with pink hair and dead, green eyes.

He would sooner face his own death than let Sakura become the walking dead. He refused to let her be transformed into something so horrible.

Knowing that the girl would be of no use, he released her and backed away before turning to flee down the hall. In all his years as an elite shinobi, he had seen many terrible things-things that had haunted him for years and continued to terrorize him in dreams. He knew that what he had witnessed today was one of those things, that whenever the memory surfaced, would make his blood run cold even on the warmest of days.

He dashed down the hall, searching for Sakura with renewed urgency as the blonde’s lifeless voice echoed in his ears.

XXXXX

“This is the place,” Yamato confirmed, standing before the establishment that could only be described as seedy.

“Sakura-chan has been living here?” Naruto asked incredulously, taking in the grimy brick and the tacky neon that would soon start to glow as daylight gave way to darkness.

“Of course, stupid. What did you expect?” Sasuke scoffed. “It’s a strip club, not a five star hotel.”

“Settle down,” their leader barked, thankful that for the moment, Sai had chosen to remain silent. When the three of them were at each other’s throats, it was difficult to maintain order, especially without Sakura to beat them into submission.

Their initial plan had been to wait until the club opened its doors for its nightly performance, but a large handwritten sign taped to the front door announced that the establishment would be closed until further notice.

“This doesn’t seem right,” Yamato mused. “This place should be open. Something must have happened.”

“So, what do we do now?” Naruto asked anxiously, afraid that this new development might mean Sakura was in trouble.

“We should look around inside and speak to the owner,” Sai suggested. “He was the one who hired Kakashi and Sakura in the first place so there’s no harm in speaking with him.”

Yamato nodded in agreement. Speaking with Dajaku seemed like a good place to start. He rapped lightly on the door, huddling further into the hooded jacket he and the others had donned to blend in with the crowds here. Secretly, he didn’t think it helped much. Sai and Sasuke were way too pretty for this part of town and Naruto, while almost unrecognizable without his obnoxious orange outfit, still had whiskers on his face.

A long silence ensued with no reply and Yamato knocked again, harder this time. He was considering a search of the building for an alternate way of entry when one of the heavy double doors cracked open.

“What do you want? If you’ve come for a show, the club is closed.”

While the voice held irritation and suspicion, it was warm and pleasant. Yamato suspected that when she dropped it to a lower register, it had the potential to be incredibly sexy, but that was no surprise when looking at the rest of her. Long red hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail with the shorter pieces framing her face, the crimson hue accented striking purple eyes which were currently narrowed suspiciously. Although the door was only cracked, it allowed him to glimpse a long, lithe body, curves current encased in a worn tank top and tight, threadbare jeans.

“We have some business with the owner of this place. We’d like to speak with him if he’s available,” Yamato said amiably, giving her a winning smile in hopes to ease some of her trepidation.

Unfortunately, his actions seemed to have the opposite effect. Violet eyes scanned the four faces before her, apparently not liking what she saw.

“Business?” she scoffed. “Did Dajaku invite you here to pick out a personal plaything too? How much are you paying him for an obedient fuck toy? One million? Two million?”

“I beg your pardon?” Yamato asked, clearly baffled by the beautiful woman’s spiteful words. Naruto, who had been gazing dreamily at the dazzling woman, frowned in confusion. Sai and Sasuke seemed similarly baffled.

“I supposed it doesn’t matter,” she said bitterly. “First Aiya and Miyabi, now Hana…no…Sakura. They’re all gone now.”

At their comrade’s name, the shinobi team instantly stiffened. How did this woman know Sakura’s real name? They were under the assumption she had picked an alias while she was here, and now she was gone? Something was definitely amiss.

“Where has Sakura-chan gone?” Naruto blurted out, the concern in his voice audible.

Sasuke sighed, closing his eyes and shaking his head, annoyed that their blonde team mate had just blown their cover. The red headed woman however was looking at them with a little less suspicion.

“You know Sakura? Are you all ninja too like that tall guy that was with her?”

“Yes,” Yamato said slowly, surprised that she knew so much. “We were sent to back her up since we never heard a report from them since they left. Are they here?”

The red head bit her lip and seemed to be debating whether to trust them or not, but finally she opened the door wider and motioned them inside.

“I think you had better come in,” she said. “There’s a lot you need to know about.”

XXXXX

Kakashi growled in frustration. This place was so damn huge that he was beginning to think he would never find Sakura. All he had gained from his methodical searching of room after room was a greater feeling of disgust towards Iyashii. His lavish décor was bad enough, but he had run into three more maids, all incredibly young and beautiful and devoid of any vitality, any life.

They were all soulless dolls who didn’t so much as gasp in alarm when he cornered them and asked where their master was.

He passed portrait after portrait of a fair haired man and he could only assume that it portrayed was the man he was looking for. He was fit, though not enough to be a shinobi, with an arrogant smirk gracing his lips in most pictures. When Kakashi found him, he would make sure his features were contorted in a grimace of pain before he was through with him.

There was almost no light filtering through the large windows, telling Kakashi that he had been searching for over an hour. Soon it would be dark. He was just about to search the Western wing of the mansion when he heard a feminine cry echo down the hallway. It was distant, but perhaps it could lead him to Sakura.

He moved quickly and silently, easily slipping by another maid who seemed too engrossed in her work to notice the quiet shadow slinking by. He heard the voice again and followed it, afraid that his former student was crying out in pain, calling for help, and Kakashi prayed he wasn’t too late.

The cries led him to a hall where a large set of double doors at the end was left ajar.
The shinobi crept closer, silently creeping inside to find a darkened sitting room that was larger than most of the bedrooms he had explored.

“Oh! Ohhh…Iyashii-sama!”

Kakashi’s head snapped towards the sound, finding a small stream of light spilling from another door at the far end of the room.

That meant the lord of the castle was on the other side of that door.

He made his way to the door and brought his hand to the jeweled doorknob. It turned easily and the door swung inward on oiled hinges, granting Kakashi a repulsive view of what was going on inside.

In the middle of the giant room was a four post bed, so intricately carved that it couldn’t belong to anyone else but Iyashii, but the man on the bed certainly didn’t look like the one he had seen in the pictures. To say he was fat was an understatement. His nude flesh was so plentiful that it seemed to spread out, oozing over the silken sheets as he lay on his back.

His large form dwarfed the woman atop him, her long blonde hair spilling down her back as she bounced up and down, a physical exertion that was certainly too much for her partner. Even in the dim light, he could see that her make-up was perfect. The only other time he had seen a woman having sex with such immaculate hair and make up was in pornographic films. Everything about her was unnatural. Her moans were hollow, and her rhythm was unwavering, not even for a moment. She was another one of his dolls, doing whatever he commanded, even if it meant mounting such a sickening male specimen.

The display was appalling, but left Kakashi puzzled. If this was Iyashii, who was the man in all the pictures? Perhaps the politician had a stand in for public appearances, because he certainly wouldn’t have gained much popularity looking like that.

The couple had yet to notice him. Iyashii’s eyes were closed and his face was sweating. He grunted like a pig while his toy rode him hard and fast, calling his name just as she had been programmed to. Too disgusted to watch any longer, Kakashi drew a kunai from his holster and walked over to the bed silently. It wasn’t until he stood beside them that the politician opened his eyes. He only had a second to glimpse Kakashi’s masked face before the shinobi drove the kunai into the pillow his head rested on, the weapon coming so close to his flesh that he could feel the cool steel on his cheek.

Iyashii’s carnal sounds of lust turned to a high, panicked scream as he struggled to throw the girl off of him while simultaneously trying to scramble away.

“Who the hell are you?” he shrieked, finally slipping free of the beautiful blonde and shoving her aside. She lay quietly on her back among the disheveled sheets, unconcerned by Kakashi’s presence as she stared vacantly at the ceiling.

“Where’s Sakura?” the Copy Nin growled, not even bothering to introduce himself, too enraged at the thought that every woman in this mansion suffered the same fate as the naked woman lying listlessly on the bed.

The politician tried to stagger away, catching his foot in the sheets and tumbling to the floor where he frantically scuttled into the far corner.

“S-Sakura? I d-don’t know who you’re—”

His sentence disintegrated into a scream of pain as Kakashi plucked the kunai from the ruined pillow and threw it. It sank deeply into Iyashii’s gelatinous right thigh.

“You lie to me again and I’ll slit your fucking throat,” the shinobi growled, his voice cold and dangerous. It was taking every ounce of his willpower not to kill the sniveling worm on the spot, but if he did that, however great the satisfaction, he’d never find Sakura.

“W-what right do you have to come barging into my house?” Iyashii whimpered, watching in horror as blood began to seep from the wound over his flabby, pale skin.

“I might ask you what right you have to kidnap women and turn them into those…things,” Kakashi replied, gesturing vaguely to the woman on the bed, who laid so still that if it wasn’t for the shallow rise and fall of her chest he would have thought she was dead.

The politician said nothing, just stared fearfully at Kakashi with bulging eyes.

“You’re newest toy is a friend of mine, a kunoichi. Pink hair, green eyes, I’m sure you know of her,” the shinobi continued as he crouched down in front of the wounded man, cornering him like a predator would its prey.

“T-this is fucking ridiculous,” the politician whined. “You can’t—”

Before he could even finish his sentence, Kakashi ripped the kunai from the obese man’s leg and held the point dangerously near his limp member, the shriveled flesh still wet with his woman’s forced desire.

“If you don’t tell me where she is right now, fucking will no longer be an option for you.”

Iyashii’s wheezing breaths became more rapid as blood began flowing steadily from the gash in his leg. He whimpered piteously as the kunai’s deadly point grazed his tender skin.

“Alright, alight! I’ll show you where she is! Just let me get some clothes on and—”

With surprising strength, Kakashi hauled the man to his feet and pushed him to the door, indifferent to the fact that Iyashii was probably three times his weight.

“No clothes. We’re going now,” he hissed dangerously, forcing the politician to limp naked in Sakura’s direction, leaving a trailed of blood as he went.

XXXXX

Yamato and his team listened carefully to what the four remaining dancers at the club had to say as they all sat crowded around one of the tables in the club’s main room. All of the women, though each very different, were all quite beautiful. More than once he’d caught Naruto staring dreamily at them, prompting the ANBU to give him a subtle kick beneath the table to refocus his attention.

Juu, the kind, but not terribly bright bouncer and janitor sat with them as well, frowning as he struggled to comprehend what had happened to the pretty girls he had helped care for. He didn’t ask questions, but Yamato wondered how much of the story he actually understood.

And the story indeed seemed quite complex. Sakura had done well in blending in with the other girls, excelling at dancing after a few pointers from the veteran performers. Naruto, Sai and even Sasuke seemed to perk up, their interest piqued at the thought of their pink haired friend wrapped erotically around the poles in the room.

Apparently, Kakashi had been posing as Sakura’s boyfriend. The dancers claimed she sometimes spent entire nights with him, a fact that had Naruto demanding to know what his former sensei’s intentions were. The blond only grew more outraged to hear that many a man had been seduced by Sakura, taken to one of the small rooms to offer her money in return for a private dance session. Even Yamato was having a hard time imagining the kunoichi in such a light, using sex appeal instead of chakra and brute strength to get what she wanted. However, she must have been good at it because her fellow dancers didn’t know she was a ninja until she was already gone.

“That bastard sold her out,” Tora spat, jerking her head towards Dajaku’s office. “That was his plan from the beginning. He’s been selling all of us off to some guy in Rock Country. Her partner went after her and he took Dajaku with him. I hope he’s not too late.”

“Do you know where in Rock?” Yamato asked, sensing the urgency of the situation.

All four girls shook their heads.

“Dajaku never mentioned anything,” Misaki spoke up, pulling at a blonde curl absently as she tried hard to think of anything that would help Sakura’s friends.

“You could check his room,” Jitsu said quietly. “We almost never go in there. He could have lots of information about what he’s been up to and we would never know it.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Naruto exclaimed impatiently, as eager as ever to find his team mate.

Yamato nodded, knowing that searching Dajaku’s room and office for clues was all they had to go on.

“That’s a good idea,” he replied. “Show us the way to his room.”

XXXXX

Dajaku pulled himself to his feet, squinting groggily at his surroundings. It was past sunset, and the sky painted in the purple-gray hues of dusk that were rapidly fading to black. For a moment, he didn’t know where he was. He looked up at the tall green hedges that surrounded him, but then he remembered his misfortune of being dragged all the way to Rock so that Sakura’s homicidal partner could find her.

The club owner winced as he brought his hand to the back of his neck, finding a painful bump under his fingertips. He seemed to recall that Kakashi had knocked him out. He seethed quietly. If hauling him over walls wasn’t bad enough, the red-eyed freak actually had the gall to leave him here.

Struggling to remember the path they had originally taken, Dajaku tried to retrace his steps. He wasn’t about to wait around for the shinobi to return. If it was too late to save the pink haired bitch, her partner would surely go on a killing spree, and the balding man had no doubts that he would be on the list of people Kakashi would be sure to slay in his rage.

He stumbled along the grassy ground with tall greenery looming on either side. It appeared that Iyashii’s garden had a hedge maze and Dajaku was currently in the middle of it. Unless he was able to climb it like Kakashi had, it would probably take a long time for him to get out.

He ran into one dead end after another, feeling sorry for himself. What right did Kakashi have dragging him here? The man wasn’t supposed to have even accompanied Sakura on her mission. He had specifically requested one kunoichi, but her partner had to come ruin everything. He was just trying to make a living and it wasn’t his fault the merchandise happened to be pretty girls. They were all wanderers, runaways, and nobody would miss them anyway. Shinobi died on missions all the time. Why couldn’t things go according to plan and Konoha accept her disappearance as the loss of another loyal kunoichi?

And then there was the matter of his club. Now that the girls new what he was up to, they were likely to leave him, but Dajaku would find others. There were always pretty girls desperate enough to take their clothes off if it meant a roof over their heads. He’d find new dancers and start over, or maybe he’d just hire a little muscle and beat his current staff into submission.

Deep in his self pitying thoughts, Dajaku didn’t notice that the more he wandered, the more lost he became. Everything looked the same and he had no idea if he was making any progress or simply walking in circles. Coming to another dead end, he turned around and was about to try a different direction when a deep growl caught his attention.

Blocking his path, was one of the biggest dogs Dajaku had ever seen, it’s glossy black coat shimmering in the fading light. The thing that really caught his eye however were the gleaming white teeth that were currently bared at him, their size proportionate to the large dog.

The club owner swallowed nervously, momentarily frozen by fear as the dog advanced slowly, ears back and another low growl rumbling from its throat. Apparently, Iyashii’s immaculately manicured grounds were protected better than he had previously thought.

Having nowhere else to run, Dajaku tried to run past the dog before it could pin him into a corner. Breaths coming in harsh wheezes, he nearly made it past, his arms and legs pumping hard, but the dog lunged out and seized a mouthful of his pants at the hip before shaking its head hard enough to bring him down.

Dajaku fell with a scream and tryed to crawl away but unable to escape the iron grip of the dog’s bite. He kicked off his shoes and frantically wriggled out of his pants, leaving him in silky red and pink paisley that contrasted starkly with his pale skin.

The dog shook its head again, sending the contents of his pants pockets flying. Green paper bills spilled out and fluttered to the ground, making Dajabu hesitate a moment rather than run away. That was the money he had received for selling off Sakura, money that would allow him to build a whole new club from the ground up if he had to. Although he knew it would be foolish to try and retrieve it from the dog’s snarling mouth, he couldn’t help but give the large wad of cash one last look of longing.

Unfortunately, the money was the last thing he would ever see. The dog, having lost interest in the pants, dropped the garment and came after Dajaku. The club owner had barely run two steps before he felt sharp teeth sink into his leg. He fell hard, momentarily dazed by the pain and the fear as Iyashii’s faithful dog released his leg and went for his throat.

XXXXX

“How much further?” Kakashi barked, shoving his naked captive along roughly. Crimson blood flowed down Iyashii’s leg from the kanai wound in his thigh, and Kakashi hoped the stumbling politician could lead him to Sakura before he bled out.

“We’re almost there. Please stop pushing me,” the man whimpered piteously, words punctuated by wheezing breaths. Kakashi brought his kunai a little closer to the nape of his neck to encourage him to hurry up, having no patience or sympathy for the disgusting mass of naked flesh.

They had already descended down to the mansion’s ground floor, a trail of crimson drops and smears in their wake. All the personnel they had encountered were part of Iyashii’s personal harem and Kakashi almost laughed at the sheer arrogance and stupidity of such a prominent political figure having so little security in his home.

Threats of disembowelment made Iyashii tell his women that he was fine and not to sound the alarm. Having been programmed to do as told and lacking the power of judgment and free will, his maids stood passively, watching their unclothed master stagger past them.

Iyashii led his captor to a small study tucked away on the first floor and then to a closet in the corner. At first glance, there seemed to be nothing special about the small space, the coats hanging there perfectly ordinary. But then Iyashii lifted a trembling hand and moved the closet’s back wall to the side, revealing it was just a folding screen that disguised a spiraling staircase.

“Your woman is at the bottom of these stairs,” the politician panted, his brow sweating from the pain of his injury and the exertion of walking. “I did as you asked, now let me rest.”

Kakashi’s expression remained stormy, thunderclouds of rage and killing intent brewing in his exposed dark eye.

“You’re coming with me downstairs,” he ordered, his voice as cold and dangerous as the weapon he held in his hand.

The naked man shrunk away from him, sniveling just as Dajaku had done. These men seemed quite similar, thinking the world and everything in it was their’s to do as they pleased because they had the money and the connections to cover up their atrocious acts.

“B-be reasonable,” Iyashii stuttered. “I’ve taken you far enough. You don’t need—”

“I suggest you start moving before I make you move,” Kakashi hissed angrily.

The politician took a step towards the darkened stairwell, wincing as the pain from his wound tore up his leg. Nobody had ever treated him like this before and Iyashii’s mind was still spinning at the shock of it. Desperate to do anything to get out of his predicament and save his business of selling female slaves, he made the mistake of assuming that Kakashi was as easily swayed by money as the rest of the people he associated with.

“I’ll make you a deal,” the politician smiled weakly, the charming effects lost without his more attractive henge in place. “I know assassins of your rank are paid handsomely, but if you walk away right now, leave me and my mansion, I’ll give you so much money that you could retire tomorrow and live in luxury the rest of your life.”

Kakashi’s expression did not change. The dark anger still brewed beneath his steely gaze.

“Come on,” Iyashii persuaded. “You’ll never get another offer better than this. Besides, there are more kunoichi back in Konoha. Passing this up for the sake of one woman just isn’t worth it.”

The politician waited expectantly for an answer, his eyes starting to glaze over with the shock of blood loss.

Kakashi said nothing for a moment, his face tilted downwards so his fringe of silvery bangs covered his eyes, making his expression unreadable. And then suddenly, so quick that Iyashii was unable to follow his movement, his hand thrust forward and embedded the kunai he held into the politician’s chest.

The naked man let out a startled scream as he felt the blade pierce him, sinking in up to the hilt. The force of Kakashi’s attack drove him backwards and he lost his footing, tumbling down the stairs into the darkness.

Iyashii’s enormous body rolled and tumbled down the stone steps, the sharp corners bruising tender skin and tearing at soft flesh. He finally came to rest at the foot of the stairs on his back with kunai still in his chest. The pain wasn’t as bad as it could have been, for blood loss was making him dizzy, sleepy, and the masked face hovering over him was slightly out of focus.

“You deserve a death far more painful than this,” Kakashi growled menacingly. “I should have made you suffer for what you did to those girls.”

Iyashii realized that he was indeed going to die, that the wound to his chest was probably fatal. All he had had strived for, all the obstacles he had overcome to achieve such wealth and greatness would be for nothing. The shinobi standing over him would be his executioner.

The knowledge was both angering and frightening.

“You’ll never get away with this,” he croaked thickly. “I’m too important for my death to go unpunished. I have allies and they’ll track you down.”

Kakashi’s visible eye narrowed while his hand reached for the hitai-ate covering the other.

“Fine. When they find me I’ll kill them too.”

The politician gasped as Kakashi’s eye was revealed, a strange red orb that made him look more like a monster than a man.

“What the fuck are you?” Iyashii whispered, not having the strength to speak louder as his life slowly flowed from dual wounds.

The shinobi didn’t reply but simply stared at him with that horrible red eye. Suddenly, the black tomoe within began to spin, pulling him deeper into his gaze. He couldn’t look away as the black and red gave way to images that filled his senses as if he were in the middle of the scenes being showed to him.

The first was himself, naked as he was now, on the very bed he had so previously been dragged from. The sheets were stained by a dark pool of red the flowed from his throat, which had been slit by the kunai now stuck point down in the mattress. His eyes were bulging, glassy and lifeless. This was how he could have died if he weren’t where he was now.

No sooner had he comprehended the first image than another consumed his senses. Him standing still, unable to run as Kakashi charged at him, blue energy surrounding his fist, its crackling sounding like the calls of screaming birds. And then that fist hit him in the chest, went through his chest and withdrew, leaving a gaping hole where his heart should have been. There was no blood, all the vessels having been instantly cauterized by the attack, and the smell of burning flesh filled the air. Iyashii watched from a third person perspective as his body crumpled to the ground, dead from the shinobi’s attack.

And then he saw himself tied with wire, arms pinned at his sides by the thin steel. Kakashi pulled the wire tighter, tighter, and with one jerk, the wire cut through him. It severed bone muscle and fat as easily as if he were made of wax, and left him severed in several bloody pieces.

He was tied to a chair, small pieces of paper with symbols on them pasted all over his body. He recognized them to be exploding tags but could do nothing to save himself as he watched his body burst apart, meaty bits of muscle and bone flying in all directions.

Image after image, all of them gruesome and sickening, filled his mind. It appeared Kakashi had many methods of ending human lives and was determined to share all of them with him.

As the crooked politician’s heart finally beat its last, Iyashii died with his mind filled by the image of burning to death, set ablaze by Kakashi’s katon jutsu.

Kakashi straightened, looking at the corpse at his feet blankly. The naked man’s expression was one of utter fear, the look frozen on his face after the life had left him. Kakashi had only given him glimpses of what he would have liked to do to him, and the man had passed on before he could exhaust his tortuous list. His actual death had practically been merciful. If any of Iyashii’s friends actually came looking for him, maybe he could dispose of them more creatively.

The shinobi turned and found a large wooden door that no doubt led to where Sakura was being kept.

He reached out, fingers wrapping around the iron handle, and pulled the heavy door open.

Bright fluorescent light streamed into the dark stairwell, revealing a room full of bubbling beakers and trays of clean, sharp surgical equipment. Kakashi’s stomach turned at the thought of such instruments being used on his former student. The place was like a twisted mix of both a hospital and the laboratory of crazed scientist.

His eyes fell immediately too the patch of pink at the far end of the room and the sight made his chest constrict painfully.

He had found Sakura alright, but it appeared that he was too late.

XXXXX

Just a warning: this coming semester promises to be extremely busy. I will write when I can, but I may not get a chance to until Christmas time. If this fic is on hiatus, it’s not because I’ve died, but because real life is kicking my ass.