Impossible to Forget

Chapter 31: Audience Participation

Nori unrolled the scroll and released the sealed contents, and the items that appeared in the cloud of smoke were far from what I was expecting.

It was sort of like a mobile lab: a stainless steel operating table, a mess of wires and cables, and something that looked strangely like a satellite dish. It had Kanaye written all over it. The operating table was identical to the ones that he would conduct his human experiments on, and the large masses of tubing looked like they served no purpose besides making it look intimidating (which was totally something that Kanaye would do).

I am not a technology person so I couldn't quite tell what it was supposed to do simply by looking at it, but I had a distinct feeling that whoever was strapped down to that table would not be happy.

Nori started setting everything up as if we weren't there, fully engrossed in her task. If that dumb snake wasn't on my arm, we probably could have run away without her noticing. She hooked the tubes up to the satellite dish thing, and grabbed a pair of handcuffs complete with chakra dampeners.

I was honestly starting to get very nervous. Who knew what sort of plan Nori had for waking up Raiju, but she had said that we wouldn't survive to see her "new world order" so I had a feeling that this was meant to be our deaths. I really didn't want to die. I really didn't want Kakashi to die, either. I really didn't want Nori to become a new type of jinchuriki and then take over the world. (Not that I thought that she had any chance of beating Naruto, though.)

"Kaiyo, come here," I looked up at Kakashi in horror; I also really did not want to answer my mother's summons. But, it was either do as she said until I could hopefully find a way to escape alive or disobey her and die immediately and painfully from neurotoxin. Well, I couldn't stop her if I was dead so I slowly dropped Kakashi's hand and walked over to Nori cautiously.

"This begins the part of the show where I need audience participation."

More like hostage participation.

Slowed by my inability to use chakra, I wasn't able to react in time when Nori clapped one end of the chakra repressing handcuffs to my left wrist. I was slightly more prepared when she went for my right.  Emphasis on "slightly." I jerked my other hand away, and tried to twist my body to keep her out of reach. Being shackled would probably spell my end so I didn't even think about the fact that resisting could cause Nori to kill me with that dumb snake.

Unfortunately, Nori used my attempts to maneuver away to her advantage. As I twisted, she utilized my own momentum to wrench my left arm behind my back painfully, making the tendons in my shoulder feel like they were going to snap. She kicked her foot into the bend of my knee, forcing me to kneel on the ground while capturing my other wrist with the handcuffs. My patellas felt like they had fractured from the force that I had been thrown to the uneven rock, and the chain between my hands was fastened to a hook on the cave wall that I had not seen previously.

Kakashi was already jumping into action until Nori pressed the blade of her sword onto the soft flesh of my neck. He froze like a deer in the headlights only a foot away from us.

I felt so useless, so weak and helpless, that I wanted to scream. I hadn't felt this inadequate since I had replaced my hip.

Kakashi's fingers were twitching with the need to fight back or do some sort of jutsu as the sword was pressed harder into my throat to warn him against doing just that. I was handcuffed, snakecuffed, and held at sword point. Kind of a little overkill if you ask me. And pathetic that a veteran jounin like myself had gotten so completely manhandled.

Manhandled, there was no other way to put it.

"One false step, Hatake." Nori grabbed my hair to keep me from moving back and pressed the blade slightly harder against my neck as if to prove her point further.

That's when the white, cloth wrappings of a kunai handle fell off my arm, drifting to the ground. There was a slight flash of blue as the chakra threads connecting her fingers to the piece of cloth were visible before they vanished completely.

Shit. There was no snake. There was no "gift from Orochimaru," just a transformation jutsu and puppetry.

I would have gasped if there wasn't a very sharp blade millimeters from my jugular.

Kakashi looked positively murderous. For a calm, patient man who wears a mask and never really shows any feelings at all, this was the most openly emotional that I had ever seen him. And frankly, the look in his grey eyes was so terrifying that I was really glad that he was on my side.

Nori smiled back at him. "It's amazing what a small, plausible lie can do when paired with a simple jutsu. You forget, I've been planning this for longer than you've been alive. Every action you might take I've accounted for and created a counter measure. I've waited too long for this to take any risks."

Kakashi's eyes narrowed, "Any risks? All you've done is take away my weapons."

"Yes, but you're still not going to fight back or run away. You're a smart man; we both know that I could never beat you in a fair fight, and if you chose to run, I could never catch you. I am about twice your age, after all. But you also know that while you could kill me right now, I would take Kaiyo down with me. Or that if you did run, I would kill Kaiyo or worse, keep her with me as future leverage, and we both know that's something that you won't let happen."

I stared at him hard, beseeching him with my eyes to run and leave me to die. Really, I'm not worth it. As a loyal jounin of the village, it is my duty and honor to lay down my life for the Hokage. But that stubborn ass of a man didn't seem to get it. He stood there resolutely, seeming to come to terms with the fact that it was either me or him.

A/N: For some reason, this chapter took me forever to write. Also, I was in the mountains at a friend's cabin with very, very little wifi so I couldn't post anything. Sorry about the delay.