Naruto: Cautious Ninja

Back at the apartment…

"You… sneaky… despicable…" Naruto began to curse but felt the knife dig in deeper, silencing him.

"Now that's not very nice. You shouldn't say things like that about your guests?" Noriko exclaimed, twisting the blade. Another strangled scream rang out throughout the apartment, sending shivers down the spines of all those present. "Oh, I'm sorry. Am I making you uncomfortable?"

"Actually…" Naruto panted, coughing up more blood before grinning down at the woman still kneeling behind him. "I've got a little cramp in my lower back. C-Could you massage it for me, babe?"

"Too bad," Noriko chuckled before burying the knife at an angle that made the child wince. "I don't usually deviate from my regular services for clients. That's gonna cost you something extra."

"Yeah? Well take your pick from anything you like," Naruto choked out while shakily looking around his apartment. "I've got a whole pile of crap in my bedroom. Take whatever you want."

"We don't give a shit about your stuff," Kureha snapped with a cocky smirk. "All we care about is getting even."

"Do you know all the messed-up shit we were put through after that bullshit fight you had with us two years ago?" Shuko asked with a little more irk in her tone. "After we were treated they sent us to the Interrogation Facility of the ANBU Black Ops to coax information about our group and whatever organization we were working for out of us. If the physical torture wasn't enough, the mental torture got us for sure. Hell, we don't even remember anything from when your Yamanaka guys tiptoed through our brains."

"You sure know how to entertain visitors in this village. There's no question about that," Noriko said to an intently listening Naruto, despite the fact he was probably in unbearable pain right now. "Though it's a shame we won't be able to put you through the same fun and games since you'll be losing all mobility in your body in a few minutes, we'll try to mimic the same material on you for however long you have left."

"Oh I just love surprises," Naruto choked with a cocky grin, "T-Tell me more."

"It was routine over the next year or so," Kureha spoke with distaste in her voice. "They interrogated us then shoved us into a cell somewhere underground and sealed us up for a month, then did the same things the next month. I don't know why they kept us there, but I guess we were just eventually forgotten and left there to rot. Though the quiet times were great and they gave us a few things to keep our sanity and health in check, it also left us plenty of time to think about the perfect way to get back at the person who put us there at the start."

"A lot of time to think and gain 'enlightenment', same as those jumped-up monks in the temples," Shuko said with a sigh and a shrug. "What can you do? It's karma. We did a lot of bad things in our lives and we were punished for it."

"But we served our time, paid for our misdeeds and now here we are," Kureha spoke up again with a reinvigorated smile, "Living it up after spending two years in the ass-end of the world. It feels good. And on that note, I think I owe you this from the last time we met." The woman marched forward and quickly buried her fist into Naruto's stomach. The boy hunched over her arm and spit up more blood, falling into a groaning and coughing fit. Kureha then backed up and shook her fist out. "I've wanted to do that for ages. Damn kid, you've got quite the six-pack on yah."

"Been working out," Naruto choked, looking back up with a pain stricken face. He then smirked. "Oh yeah… it's paid off."

Kureha chuckled forebodingly. "I'll give you this if nothing more… you're tough for a little spit fuck."

"Too bad all that skill and strength you've managed to build are gonna end up wasted," Noriko whispered with a shake of her head, bringing the boy back up to lean against her. "Such a shame. You should have just given us the kunai when we asked."

"If you still want it… it's in my room… on my nightstand," Naruto spat.

"Forget it. The information on the paper around it is long gone, so it's nothing more than a rusty old knife now," Noriko said with a frown, seconds before a smirk sprouted. "But at least we'll be leaving with a few more neat things under our belt and not just the updated Intel on your village's security system. There's a sweet deal waiting for us outside of this village, but thankfully we were able to sneak in this last little meeting with you before our exit from the stage. I guess it's curtain call, kid."

"J-Just one last thing before you go on and have your way with me," Naruto choked.

"I'm listening."

"W-Who was it that let you out?" the boy asked in an incredibly strained voice. "You mentioned a rat in our village? Who is it?"

"No one important. He's just a small fish swimming in a big pond. I doubt someone like that matters in a world like this and should matter even less to someone like you," Noriko replied, keeping her details short and to a minimum while at the same time failing to divulge anything of importance whatsoever. A classic triple-threat. "You're just a baby-faced academy student about to die. I think that fact alone speaks for itself."

"But shouldn't the dying… get one last request?"

"Depends on the request," Shuko said while folding her arms.

"Y-You said you had something else waiting for you when this whole thing was all over… th-that means you made a deal with this person?" Naruto asked, his words spacing as he was struggling to speak right now. His legs and arms were still shaking, showing that he was in incredible pain. This at least kept his hosts entertained. "What was involved with this deal b-besides me? He let you out… not just to free you so you could get back at me… he let you guys out for something else? Right?"

"Yes," Noriko nodded.

"What's the grand prize?" Naruto asked while gritting his teeth.

"You want spoilers?"

"Duh," Naruto coughed, at the same time seeing his attacker hesitate. "Come on… you're cold-blooded killers about to break me for good. Can't you give a dying kid one last hurrah?"

"That's our choice. I can just cut your throat now and be done with you, but Shuko still has to break your fingers," Noriko spoke back.

"Well, just so you don't leave this place with your souls completely torn apart from straight-up torturing and killing a baby-faced academy student and feeling proud about it," Naruto spoke again while shrugging off-handedly, "The very least you could do is give him this last little thing. Just this once. Come on." He whined childishly. "It's not like I'm gonna tell anyone. Plus I can't even scream, so there's your advantage with getting away with it."

Noriko gritted her teeth and glared back at the kid. After about half a minute of soul searching and looking into the puppy-dog eyes the blonde was able to send her despite the supposed excruciating situation he was in, the woman relented.

Just so her conscience wasn't scarred for life for doing this in the first place, she spilled the beans so to speak. "Fine. Last request. We made a deal with the Chunin who let us out to cause a distraction for him to steal the Scroll of Seals from the Hokage's mansion. He's waiting for that signal right now, but we won't give it to him until we set off the explosives we have hidden at the entrance to this village."

"So… you have some kind of firework show set up to make it look like the village is being attacked. You set them off, you distract the guard, your jail-breaker makes a grab for the Scroll of Seals, and then runs off when no one is looking," Naruto said while nodding, feigning an expression that he was impressed. "Sounds good."

"After that we're supposed to meet up with him out in the woods," Noriko said with a frown. "There's a way out through there that he's going to take to leave this village. We meet at the rendezvous point and finish the trade while Konoha's forces are still running around trying to figure out what the hell's going on. It's that simple."

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