A/N: ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ Windy Strife!
~
Unto The Climate, part three (2017-12-08)
The problem with Fuyu Namikaze is that she appeared so publicly.
She is not some spy abducted in the quiet of the night, plausible deniability erasing her existence, or a conspirator whose own paranoid privacy wraps the noose around her neck.
She appeared on the rooftop where the Hokage and Konoha’s most infamous missing-nin were fighting, awakened by the Shinigami itself.
But even if secrecy could be enforced amongst the witnesses–not so unbelievable, given they were mostly ANBU and high ranking shinobi at the scene–she was then brought to the hospital, a screaming, uncontrollable ruckus right there in patient intake.
And while, true, it was just one incident in the midst of already so much chaos–an invasion does not immediately end simply because one side has been defeated–people saw her, spread the news.
People want a hero.
Ibiki shakes his head, considering the woman on the other side of the one-way mirror.
Fuyu Namikaze is not a hero.
But she looks enough like the last one that maybe they can make do.
“Send him in,” he orders, eyes never leaving Namikaze.
“Which one?” Anko asks, irreverent as always–but she’s not wrong: there are two options that Ibiki thinks will give the most information about their guest.
He glances over at his second in command. No doubt she is both celebrating and coping with the death of her former sensei–it’s been a hard couple of weeks for her. She deserves this.
“You choose.”
—
Windy stares at the cup of tea in hir hands–paper, of course, don’t want to risk giving the prisoner something breakable, something that can produce shards. It really is quite a nice interrogation room: everything soft and subdued and only slightly uncomfortable. Like the ShinRa conference rooms.
Given the number of shifts Winter had tailing the department heads, this is practically his second home. He might very well take a nap.
There’s a soft pulse of magic then a click–the door unlocking. Zie wonders who they’ll send in: the grizzled hard ass to intimidate her or the kindly old man who only wants for her to help him help her?
Frankly, Windy has no idea why they’re trying anything given zie can’t understand a word they’re saying.
The boy who enters is just exactly that: a boy, no older than thirteen–fourteen maybe if he’s the same kind of late bloomer as hir brother–and yet he’s wearing the green flak jacket of a trooper.
Ah, appealing to her emotional side, then.
The boy stares, mouth agape, expression honest and honestly hopeful.
Zie regrets the comparison to hir brother, now. Damn it, they’re good.
Clearly they’re looking for something, so zie might as well give them what they want.
“Sit,” Windy says, which doesn’t prompt anything in the boy until zie gestures to the chair beside hir. Across the table is too distant, reserved for her interrogators, they want to see her be softer, more vulnerable.
The boy sits. He doesn’t stop staring.
Zie’s already reaching for her dull pencil and pad of paper, “Name?” zie asks, writing down the Wutaian character that they used–thankfully that seems to be the same–before sliding both over to the boy.
He writes, trying to maintain visual of hir at the same time which is… some kind of feeling… before returning them.
Maelstrom.
Now that’s a solid Strife name.
—
Kakashi waits.
What a bizarre thing to do.
Normally he’s the one that people wait for, but not today it seems.
Anko probably did that on purpose. He just waits and watches in the viewing room, his teacher’s son–his student–and his teacher’s… sister? Relative?… interact and it’s doing… something to him.
Yeah, given the smirk on Anko’s face, she definitely did it on purpose.
Ibiki knocks on the glass–Naruto startles, the prisoner doesn’t–signaling time’s up. Kakashi’s mildly surprised: it’s the quietest he’s ever seen Naruto, most people would do a lot for that.
However Naruto, perhaps overly mindful of how new his chuunin status is–or, more likely, feeling self conscious of the casual kindness the woman has shown him–gets up to leave.
But not before the woman reaches out and brushes a hand against his cheek, hand glowing a pale green.
Kakashi can feel his own eye narrow in suspicion.
“What the fuck was that?” Anko spits out, stepping over to where the controls for the room’s seals are, “We’re at level two, she shouldn’t be able to do any jutsu in there.”
Ibiki says nothing before Naruto returns, no doubt eager to claim a spot in front of the one way mirror to resume his staring.
“What did she do to you?” Ibiki asks him, a quick jolt of chakra to disrupt any possible genjutsu.
Naruto, showing his quickly won loyalty–not exactly a good trait, especially in front of the head of T&I–bristles at the accusatory tone. “Nothing, scar-head, she was really nice!”
“She can’t even speak our language,” Anko refutes.
“That doesn’t mean she can’t be nice,” Naruto starts, at which point Kakashi tunes out.
Maybe it was nothing.
Naruto did have a bruise on his face earlier–a yellowing remnant of his fight against Sand’s jinchuuriki–which is no longer there.
Then again, Naruto does have a known healing factor; maybe it was nothing.
“Your turn, Hatake,” Ibiki interrupts, silencing the argument–literally, it just turns into one of stuck out tongues and ugly faces–and adding a simple warning, “Watch yourself.”
Yeah, he doesn’t believe it was nothing either.
—
Anko remembers the Yondaime vaguely–or, as vaguely as can be done when his face is carved into the mountain overlooking the village–which makes sense given it’s been over a decade and the time before that she had been… well.
That fucking snake bastard, not even an eternity in the Shinigami’s stomach is enough suffering.
She doesn’t have that weird nostalgia about him that some of the other shinobi have, and certainly none of the creepy starry-eyed zeal that the civilians do, but what she remembers of him is probably not the full picture.
Better than that snake bastard could mean anything: kinder, more charismatic, more competent, stronger, smarter, hell even better looking!
(Stone isn’t exactly the best medium for glamour shots, but if Fuyu Namikaze really is so shockingly similar, well. She’s certainly easy on the eyes, is all Anko will say about a current prisoner.)
Definitely a better teacher, that’s for sure, and Anko will never admit to being jealous of Kakashi Hatake but she’d certainly trade if that were an option.
It’s clear Fuyu Namikaze is bringing up all sorts of emotions in that deadened heart of his. Probably this next bit will be more revealing about him than her, but might as well, right?
… except as soon as Kakashi walks through the unlocked door, Fuyu Namikaze bugs the fuck out: face draining of color, feet flat on the ground and retreating as far back as she can get. She makes a motion–grabbing for something on her back that isn’t there, a weapon maybe?–before picking up the chair and chucking it at him.
It’s not much. Chairs aren’t exactly aerodynamic and these ones even less so–weighted to make it harder for prisoners to do shit exactly like this–Kakashi easily shifts out of the way, but it’s clear on the tiny patch of visible expression that he’s confused as fuck.
“Hey, what’s going on?” the brat asks, probably more to make noise than anything else.
It’d be funny except then Fuyu Namikaze’s hands begin to glow, a darker, cooler green–blue, almost–and Ibiki barks, “Level three, now!”
Anko complies, activating the stronger set of seals on the room. Level two prevents jutsu use–or, at least, it should–level three knocks out the inhabitants… or, at least, it should…
Kakashi goes down pretty easily–he’s nearly as famous for chakra exhaustion as he is his Sharingan–but Fuyu Namikaze stays standing for a few more moments, not even puasing, shards of what looks like ice forming around her hand, before she sways once, twice, and falls to the ground.
“Get him out of there!” Ibiki says to the two T&I flunkies guarding the door who immediately jump to obey; then he turns to her and raises an eyebrow.
Anko shrugs, she doesn’t know what he wants her to say. “Yeah, that was fucking bizarre.”
Which isn’t exactly out of line for Fuyu Namikaze.
~
A/N: A longer fill than yesterday, because there were so many ideas I wanted to convey for this prompt, to-someplace-else, and I didn’t even get to the rest of Team Seven so… um… but at least I got the Kakashi and outside!POV parts?
Also, apparently I’m going FULL CANON DIVERGENCE here–Orochimaru’s dead, Naruto became a chuunin, who knows what else I’ll change? So there’s that…
(Also, Ask Box Advent Calendar is on!)
JackSGreyson Says 