|Together| Kenji Kishimoto x Reader

| 15 |

Aaron begins to exit his simulation. I move behind a machine and press up against the wall. He walks past me. I let out my breath. I wait about 20 minutes before I move again. I check the time on my watch.
"Shit, shit, shit." I need to get my ass out of here. I'm going to be late for dinner. I bolt out of the hall, I take the back halls so I can continue to run. When I get there I only have 5 minutes to spare. I fix my hair and clothes and enter the dining room.
"Y/n, I've been waiting for you." My father says.
"Have you? I hope you weren't waiting too long, father." I respond. He's playing the hero now.
"Do you know where your brother is?"
I shake my head. "No sorry."
"that little-" I don't hear the end of it. Then Aaron enters the room. My father looks at him and says;

"Come, come sit. Both of you." Aaron seems distracted now. The maids bring out the food and my father grabs some things as do I. Aaron does as well but doesn't eat anything. I pick at my food and occasionally take bites.

"You're sure you're not hungry? This really is quite good." I like how my father says he trusts us and then has multiple soldiers surrounding the walls. He keeps them close, always.

"The medicine, it destroys my appetite." He lies. I've taken that before it doesn't do anything to your appetite.

"Ah, of course. How inconvenient." No one says anything about that. My father continues;

"Leave us." The soldiers disperse, but he's still waiting for someone.

"Me?" I ask.

'Yes, Y/n. Please go."

"Oh, ok. Aaron, I'll see you later."
Just another example of how he doesn't trust me. I laugh to myself. I exit the room and no one is in the hallway. I press my ear to the door to try to listen in on the conversation.

"What did you find?" My father asks him. "Son? You searched her room today, did you not?"
I can't hear Aaron's reply. My father is talking louder than he is so it's easier than he is.

"Where do you plan on searching next, then?"
The sound goes out again. I stop a cart passing by and steal a cup off of it. I put it up against the door. Now I can hear them.

"She is not normal and she is not the only one of her kind. Oh come on now, surely you'd suspected? You'd hypothesized?" He laughs. "It seems statistically impossible that she'd be the only mistake manufactured by our world. You knew this, but you didn't want to believe it. And I came here to tell you that it's true. There are more of them. And they've recruited her."

"No." I almost miss Aaron saying.

"They infiltrated your troops. Lived among you in secret. And now they've stolen your toy and run away with it. God only knows how they hope to manipulate her for their own benefit."

"How can you be certain? How do you know that they've succeeded in taking her with them? Kent was half dead when I left him-"

"Pay attention, son. I'm telling you that they are not normal. They do not follow your rules; there is no logic that binds them. You have no idea what oddities they might be capable of." A pause. "Furthermore, I have known for some time now that a group of them exists undercover in this area. But in all these years they've always kept to themselves. They did not interfere with my methods, and I thought it best to allow them to die off on their own without infecting in our civilians with unnecessary panic. You understand, of course. After all, you could hardly contain even one of them. They're freakish things to behold."

"You knew? You knew of their existence, all this time, and yet you did nothing? You said nothing?"

"It seemed unnecessary."