I crouched on the branch of a tree, studying my surroundings. A claw? Two, perhaps. Three or four wouldn't be surpassing my calculations by much either. Glancing about, I decided to retreat from the forest; they definitely would have an advantage in a fight among the trees. Out in the open, my enemy, how many ever ambushed, would not be able to hide from me.

For a brief moment, I considered retreating, but almost immediately dismissed the idea. I had an escape route (at least, hopefully). If my chakra reached dangerously low levels, and if they didn't hear from me within twelve hours the spiders would reverse summon me.

Hopefully.

I jumped out of the shadows of the forest, turning to face the trees and wait for my enemy to appear.

Finally, after several moments, I spotted movement walking out from between the shadows of trees. They must have been observing me, knowing my expectancy for their attack. I narrowed my eyes, studying my enemy closely, as it revealed itself.

It stopped around five yards from me, and neither of us spoke, opting instead to study one another. The Claw was the first to speak.

"You killed Chuku," the Claw informed me.

"Ah," I murmured, empty blue eyes flashing in my mind. "So that's what you called him. 'Hollow'. Fitting. Do you know what they called me?"

The mask gave nothing away, but after several moments, the Claw conceded, "Mujōna. Soulless."

I nodded, a smile that looked nothing like a smile gracing my face. "And what do they call you?"

Reaching up, the Claw grasped Its mask, and slowly removed it, revealing Itself. A burn disfigured the right side of Its face, pulling down Its eye where no eyelashes or eyebrow grew, smooth pink skin discoloring the cheek below it. Its short black hair didn't grow in a small strip just above It's equally burnt ear. Finally my eyes locked with hers—Its, Its, Its—golden hazel eyes blazed with hatred, so different from the boy's empty blue orbs of ice. "I am Honō."

"The flame," I murmured . The Rising Phoenix certainly had a cruel sense of humor.

"They only sent you," I mused, thoughts backtracking to the two claws they'd prepared just for me.

"I am all that is necessary to capture Mujona," she intoned. She truly believed that she was good enough to take me on alone. And the rising Phoenix thought the same, meaning that I would have to be on my guard.

I slipped the twin blades out of my sleeves and crouched in a low fighting position, knowing that no more words would be exchanged.

The claw raised it's own sword and lunged, smooth and calculating. It slashed in an upward angle, one that would be hard to block.

I brought my right blade down in an arc, meeting the Claw's sword and halting any movement. It flung several senbon toward my neck, and I had to disengage in order to duck beneath the needles. She followed up her attack with a sharp downward strike and I rolled toward her, swiping at her thigh. She twisted away.

I narrowed my eyes. Something was off about this fight. Something strange. The Claw lunged at me once again, and I carefully analyzed every move. What tipped me off? What made me think that this fight was different than any other?

She threw more senbon in my direction, and realization struck. It was the senbon. Or, more exactly, where she was aiming with them.

She wasn't trying to kill me. She was trying to incapacitate me.

The needles probably also had poison on them so if she missed the pressure points I would still be defeated. There were a million different ways this could go. But I had my strategies planned. It was time to carry through. There was a 82% chance that She would want to speak with me. I could still prove a valuable asset to the Phoenix. It spoke volumes that I was still alive, after all.

So the Claw would have stored some sort of poison, or drug to knock me out, probably on the senbon and perhaps in a hypodermic needle, as well. I would have to give her an opportunity to use it.

She was a good fighter. It wouldn't be hard to give her an opening.

But that didn't mean I had to make it easy. I did have a reputation to uphold, after all.

The Claw left a slight opening and I pretended to fall for it, lunging toward her left ankle with a blade. She sidestepped, and several senbon sped toward me. I twisted, one hand landing on the ground to propel me away as my feet left the ground. I allowed my left leg to trail, hiding a smirk when I felt one of the senbon pierce my skin.

I would be able to fight the drug for longer than most, and it would take longer to effect me given it's entry point. But the Rising Phoenix would have taken my resistance into account and given the Claw a more potent dose.

To summarize, I had maybe a minute left with full control of my limbs. Assuming that my predictions were correct and I hadn't just been dosed with a poison I wouldn't be resistant to.

The Claw attacked--clever, keeping my heart rate elevated so the drug would effect me that much quicker--and I parried, on the defensive now that she was coming at me on pure offense. I managed to retaliate by sneaking in two blows: a slice to her side and a shallow stab in her upper left arm. But by then I could feel the drug coursing through my blood, my reactions slowed, and my defenses slipped.

My last thought was the hope that I hadn't made any miscalculations.

Then the pommel of her sword slammed into the side of my head and I passed out.

***

When I woke, I was restrained, as expected. But I also wasn't numb from cold, and I would take what I could get.

I took a deep breath, and scanned the room best I could, subtly testing the restraints even though I knew they would hold. The Rising Phoenix would probably wait several hours until entering this room, allowing me to torture myself with thoughts and worries and predictions of what was to come.

Too bad for them. I wasn't that easy to crack.

But then the door opened, and I had to hide my surprise before understanding hit me. Of course. They knew what I would be expecting, and would do their best to not meet my expectations.

Slow clapping echoed through the silence as she walked into the room. On her face she wore a smile which was anything but pleasant. I didn't bother to say anything to the woman who had taken me, tortured me, broken me. Turned me into nothing. Instead I opted to observe her carefully, giving nothing of my own away.

I still had many theories of why she wanted me alive.

She walked up to me, glancing at my restraints with some what of a smirk of victory, and tapped the side of my face with cold fingers thoughtfully. Then she drew her fingers down until they were resting along my ribs, and I knew exactly what she was drawing my attention to. Internally, I grit my teeth. Externally, my face remained blank. "Do you remember the day you got this?"

I was silent until it became clear she was waiting for an answer. I considered the possibilities for a moment before answering, "Yes."

"You were broken, by then," She said, expertly inserting a fond note into her voice as though she were a mother remembering her child's first day of school. "I didn't even have to restrain you. I just ordered you to not move and you didn't, even when your skin was smoking. The metal was so cold it burned."

I let out the breath I didn't recall holding, reigning in my emotions tightly as her fingers moved back to my face. "I recall," I replied dryly. "I was there."

"No you weren't," She snapped back, nails digging into my skin. I didn't flinch. "Mujona was there. You weren't."

I shrugged best I could against the restraints. "Same thing," I replied with an intentional casualty.

She glared at me and grabbed my chin harshly, forcing me to stare back into her sharp grey eyes.

"We'll see what we can do about that."

***

The mind was the greatest weapon. I had learned to use my mind for me at a young age--I'd needed to, to survive. It was the one thing I could rely on; where my body failed, my mind could continue.

But the Rising Phoenix knew how to use my mind against me.

The mind-- where creative juices began to form, where thoughts matured, where actions and words and memories flowed, creating value and sentiment and warmth. The mind-- where the base of one' existence lay. Where the line was drawn between fantasy and reality. Where thoughts and words could turn into hallucinations and one's worst nightmare. The mind-- a tool that, once harnessed, was a weapon of mass destruction.

And yet here I lay, unwillingly willing to give up control of the one thing I owned that was me.

"Have you given up all hope yet, Mujona?" She asked, sneering menacingly, the name a reminder of all that I no longer was. If I was Mujona, now, this wouldn't bother me. I wouldn't care, wouldn't worry, wouldn't feel this pain. I would be soulless.

But I had taken this risk for a reason. I had a way out, if needed. The possibility of learning something--anything--was worth it.

I didn't bother trying to escape the cold, hard restraints that pressed sharply against my wrists and ankles. -- She had tightened them. She had dropped the room temperature. She was trying to break me again.

My body was bruised in multiple locations. A sharp pain bit into my wrist, and I knew it was probably fractured. This was nothing major, though--just a warm up. I was, despite what She may have thought, in control.

"Screw you," I replied vindictively. A smile formed on her face. Not a genuine smile, but a malicious smile that allowed me to read her. Read her thoughts and her plans for me.

She had set the knife down, which meant the physical attacks would stop-- for now. So temporarily, my physical body was safe. That was something, at least. But my mind, I had to be prepared. I had to fight it off, fight her off. I needed to make her slip, somehow, some way, to give up information, give up her plans.

The Rising Phoenix was clearly planning something big. And I had to figure out just what it was.

But first, I had to survive this.

Knowing what she was about to do, I closed my eyes and thought back to the time when I was lost. When all hope had been forced out of my. When I was nothing but a tool. A bad bad tool. There had been a light within all the darkness inside of my head. It was the one memory that kept me grounded, that kept the pain away. It was Aiden.

And I could do the same thing. I could fight her off by clinging onto the one memory that had brought me back before, grounded me to my... humanity.

Then it began.

***

There he was. Aiden, laying still against the grass, blown gently by the wind. The sun lit the sky brightly, and he was smiling, appreciating the smell, the sound. Everything.

I approached him and lay down on the grass beside him. He hummed, and started to pick at strands of my hair like he had done a thousand times before. I didn't dare relax, and Aiden picked up on it, scanning the horizon for some sort of approaching danger.

Everything changed in a moment. The air became heavy, tense. The smile on Aiden's face turned into a frown and he tensed, flinching away from me and accusing me with his eyes.

"What are you doing here?"

My throat closed. This was part of her mind games. It had to be.

"People are after you," Aiden accused. "You're putting me in danger."

"No," I replied with certainty I did not feel. "You are not real--"

"Maybe not, but he is, and you're putting him in danger! You shouldn't have ever come back!"

I knew that this was all Her. She was smart, yes, but terribly unsubtle right now. Somehow, with this knowledge standing strong in my mind, Aiden deflated, the angry glare disappearing.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled.

"It's fine," I replied shortly.

Aiden's eyes grew guarded. "We have to go," he warned me. "She'll find this place, if we stay here."

"Okay--okay," I allowed him to grab my hand and pull me closer, pull me away from the tree and towards the sunset. After a few minutes of wandering, I stood my ground, confused. "Aiden?"

But Aiden didn't hear me.

"Aiden?" I came to a sudden half and yanked my arm from his grasp. He swung around, terror in his eyes. "I'm sorry." I saw the swing, but for some strange reason, I couldn't move. I couldn't react. I could only accept it as Aiden's knife made contact with my skin, breaking and going in deep.

I coughed blood violently, looking at Aiden with shock as I choked, grasping my throat, and fell, bleeding out on the grass, staring into his eyes full of nothing.

***

I gasped to life and took a huge gulp of air, craving oxygen to flow in my lungs.

"Hey--you alright?"

It was Aiden. He was here. He was with me, laying in the grass, on our hill. It had all been a dream. A bad bad dream.

The mission, the attack, the rising Phoenix, Her.

"I'm fine," I whispered, allowing him to pick at strands of my hair, tangling his fingers in and running them through.

"No you're not," Aiden replied, an unfamiliar darkness creeping into his voice.

"What?" I asked, surprised. But before I can react--why can't I react?--Aiden had a knife in his hand and--

***

"Are you okay, Cashile?" Aiden questioned softly.

I blinked, darkness clearing from my vision. "I... what happened?"

"I think you had a panic attack," Aiden replied. "Do you need anything? Tea?"

I hesitated. "....please," I finally agreed.

He returned soon with tea, and I took a sip, the liquid burning more than it should. I choked, trying to spit it back up, reaching to Aiden for help, but he's just standing there, dark eyes burning with nothing, an empty smirk on his face. He wouldn't do this to me, he wouldn't, couldn't--

"Couldn't?" not Aiden asked, raising his eyebrows in mock surprise. "I've killed before, Cashile."

I'd guessed as much, but hearing it from his lips was so different from knowing it in my mind.

"I've gotten everything I could from you. A ticket to Konoha. Your house. Your money. You fucked it all up by coming back to life. So I'm fixing that."

I tried to convince myself that the tears coming to my eyes is from the burning spreading through my entire body. Aisa is there, too, suddenly, and Aiden rests his hand on his little brother's shoulder. "You fucked it up for us," Aiden repeated, but I'm not listening anymore because this wasn't real. Because Aiden didn't swear in front of his little brother.

I scowled even as my mind tried to convince me I was dying from poison at Aiden's hands. She had used my mind against me. She had turned them, Aiden and Aisa, into my greatest weakness. She had turned them into my fear, into my enemy.

But now that I recognized this loop she had created to keep me stuck here, stuck in my mind, forever, I could fight back. I could win.

***

I woke with a silent breath, eyes narrowed at the woman. She hadn't even come close to breaking me, even though I faked more distress than I actually felt. I still hadn't discovered any new information by sitting back and passively observing. It was time to get a little more involved.

"I know why you were so desperate to kill me," I told the woman casually.

"Obviously," she replied, hand hovering over several torture devices before choosing a small blade. "You knew quite a bit. And you didn't kill yourself, so you may have leaked information.

"But see," I smirked viciously, "I discovered something. Something you're desperate to keep silent. That's why you keep sending Claws after me: you know any information that I have has been given to Konoha. But what I've discovered is far more important, and you want to destroy the message before it truly spreads."

"Oh?" the woman raised an eyebrow, all careful nonchalance, but I knew that I had her. "Is that so?"

"Yes." I grinned with bloodstained teeth.

"And what would that be, then?" she casually allowed a blade to rest on my arm, and that threat showed just how much I was getting to her.

"The Rising Phoenix is vulnerable," I replied, triumph in my eyes. "Your Claw escaped from you, survived, fought off every following Claw's attempt, and still has escaped unpunished."

"Unpunished?" She questioned daintily. "Escaped? Is that so?" She allowed the blade to dig into my arm, just below my elbow, but I didn't even flinch, knowing that I had gotten to her. "Does this seem like escape, to you? Let me tell you: any message you think you've sent out with your impetuous survival will be overcome by what The Rising Phoenix has to say." She dug the blade deeper into my arm until I knew it was no longer a surface wound but would leave muscle damage. I'm releasing my chakra as quickly as possible, wondering what the spiders would consider "dangerously low" as she continued to twist the blade into my arm, gloating. "Nothing can stop a fire once it burns too hot," she warned in a drawling voice. "And the flame will burn the leaf to the ground."

And then she was gone--or, more exactly, I was.

One thing was for certain: the spiders sure had a penchant for dramatic exits.

____________________________________________________________

Hey guys! Sorry it took so long to update :( We wrote a pretty long chapter though so

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gaara119

Hey guys!!

We updated! Finally. College has been a bit of a load, so sorry for the delay! But hey look at that long chapter! Longer than usual at least. What do you think about the torture seen? About Cashile allowed a "weakness" (Aiden) into her life and recognizing it as weakness?

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