Of Shadows and Notes

by Hokata Yuy

---

"…"

"I said talk damnit!" the anbu behind a fox mask yelled, "Tell me where the village of Sound is!"

"…" And was answered with a defying silence.

Behind his mask the anbu was becoming increasingly frustrated. Not a good thing for the prisoner to know. Letting out a breath the anbu wordlessly turned and left the room, closing the door with a bit too much force behind him. "They're tough alright.. I'll give'em that much," he muttered to his partner outside.

"If the Hokage-sama let us use the interrogation techniques from during the war they all would have cracked long ago.." his partner added. After working under Morino Ibiki, they both knew how quickly a tongue loosened… after a few white-hot piercing. "This 'kinder' approach isn't getting us anywhere. There's got to be something else.."

"Perhaps the Hokage herself has some idea?"

----

'Heh. Those bastards will never make me talk. They think acting all tough will make me scared? Don't make me laugh. Shitheads.'

----

"Hey! Shikamaru! Wake up!" his mother screamed at him from downstairs, "It's already noon! Don't make me come up there!"

"Alright alright! I'm up already!" the ever-groggy chuunin yelled back with an added mumble of 'pushy bitch'

"I heard that!" she lied, but she knew he would say something like that, just like his father.

With a yawn Shikamaru Nara started his day like all the others, very slowly. After ten minutes of just milling around in his room he walked down stairs to find his father sitting in the dinning room with the doors to the backyard wide open as he watched the wind. "Yo, son," he waved over his shoulder, "you've got a new assignment." Holding up a letter between two fingers he put it on top of the old Shogai table they both sat around every night.

"…how troublesome," Shikamaru muttered as he sat on the other side of the board, opening the letter and quickly skimming through it. 'Now that's interesting. 'Prisoner Interrogation'? What do they think I know about that?' he asked himself, tossing the letter out to the wind as the explosive tag it was printed on started to burn away. Standard secret orders. With a groan like a man three times his age, he stood up and headed for the door without a word. "…That boy seems to get more missions than I do now-a-days," his fathered sighed.

"Then why don't you spend your free time helping me out?" rang out the voice of his lovely wife.

"Yes dear," he called back… and kept sitting there.

-----

"Nara, Shikamaru reporting," he said with a half-hearted salute to the guard inside the prison compound.

Looking up from his book (the recently released "Come Come Heaven") and looked at him blankly, "Oh, right. Here." Holding up a folder of the prisoner's records, interrogation logs, and any special notes, it was a sadly thin folder. "Read through that now or after, whichever," the guard added with a bored tone.

After taking the folder from the guard, and briefly wondering if that guard was related to his family or not, he stood in front of the cell door. "…What a hassle," he grumbled before pushing the door open.

The prisoner stood leaning against the far wall of the cell, looking up at the clouded sky before hearing the door open and turning to face the next useless person. "Oh? You're trying again? You won't get anything from me so just kill me now and be done with-" the prisoner cut off in mid-sentence. 'What kind of joke is this? To send this… this..' "Fucking shithead of a bastard mouse's piece of crap!" Tayuya shouted and pointed at him, a look of shock and anger in her eyes.

"Tch… Nice to see you again too," he answered her 'greeting' as he scratched the back of his head boredly, "too bad you're still the same as before." This kind of woman just gave him a headache the more she talked. He looked at her and noticed some differences, she'd become skinnier, her face seemed sunken in slightly, her skin was pale, and she had large bags under her eyes, all signs of malnutrition and sleep deprivation. 'Did they starve her to try and get information out of her?' he wondered, but a glance at an outcropping on the wall showed she was being fed, just not eating any of it, as a school-lunch sized meal sat there cold and untouched. He could also assume she didn't sleep much for whatever reason as well.

Her hair, though paler from not eating, was still just as long and mostly tied up under a torn sleeve from her prisoner's garb. Before she turned around he also noticed a much larger mark on the back of her neck, the cursed seal was still there, but now surrounded by an even and an odd seal level that would nearly cancel out any power from the seal. "I'm surprised they didn't gag you too," he added aloud.

"What was that you bastard?" she yelled at him again, hands clenching into fists just itching to punch his face in. 'Why the hell is this sunuva bitch here? It wasn't enough to try and 'sweet-talk' it out of her, but now they brought this guy in here just to piss her off into saying something stupid? That's it isn't it… I'll show them.'

'Why the hell am I here?' he asked himself, crossing his arms over his chest with a sigh. There was silence between the room for a minute. During this Shikamaru opened the folder and flipped through it, one page detailing her physical condition and counter-measures the anbu had taken against the cursed seal.

"Subject 'Tayuya' found under rubble in forest near the border of the country of Fire. Spinal injuries suffered. Subject has limited use of legs due to injury. Recovery is currently unknown, continue monitoring."

He looked over from the report to her, still leaning with her back to the wall glaring at him. He took a quick look to her legs, catching a tremor run through one of her knees from standing so long.

"That's right, you're bitch girlfriend did this to me. Lucky thing for you two or I would have fucking killed you both on the spot," she growled, eyes narrowing in hate.

"Girlfriend…? You mean that Sand woman?" he blinked a little then laughed, "now that's either frightening or funny, I can't tell which."

The silence stretched on longer, each one looking at the other in a battle of wills. It might have gone on for hours but strain was starting to show on the prisoner's face. She'd been standing on weak legs too long, her knees were about to give out on her, but she'd be damned if she showed weakness in front of this punk kid.

"Hmm?" Shikamaru blinked and leaned his head to the side and looked past her, out the window, cocking one eyebrow up. Unable to stop herself, her ninja instincts acted faster than her mind, turning to see the threat… and her knees gave out, forcing her to collapse on the ground, catching herself on the cot bed. "Y-you prick!" she snarled up at him.

Shikamaru casually closes his eyes and rubs his pinky finger inside his ear, "I didn't do anything. Not my fault you're to weak to even look at me on the same level." With a shrug he turned slowly and headed for the door.

"D..Don't turn your back on me you cock bitter! I'll kill you!" she roared and started to push herself up with her arms, when her arms too gave way to weakness and slipped out from under her. Her chin bounced off the side of the bed and her body lay in a heap on the dirty floor of her cell.

"…You're a damn noisy woman," he grumbled and kept walking out the door, ignoring her totally. She glared at him one last time before the door slammed shut, leaving her one small window of light. For the first time since she'd been taken into this god-forsaken country, since she before she could even remember, she cried. She hated this place. This cell and it's four tiny walls. This view of an empty lot and a fence from her window. The sounds of children drifting through the air every now and then. And that man. She hated him more than all those. His arrogance to not even look at her when she threatened his life. Then again… why would he..? She was nothing but a barking dog with no teeth like this. Not even able to pick herself up off this smelly floor. 'Damnit.. stop it' she tried to will herself to stop crying, but it was no use. She hated him… and she hated herself even more right now.

------------

Right, well there's my two-hour writings tonight. It's not a full idea, but this was a good point to cut this into a chapter. Sorry if my writing style is a bit off, I haven't written a fic in a while, just a lot of RP'ing.