An Imperial Influence

[Kakashi Hatake]

Hesitantly, Kakashi stepped through what remained of the warded doorway. He remained on-guard, unconsciously taking up twin kunai in his gloved hands as he stared down the prison’s corridor. Walls of unpainted composite were interrupted every few meters by plain flush doors. The architect responsible for drafting the complex had clearly spared every expense save those of function. Splinters and chunks of door and jamb of various sizes had made their home upon a thick carpet of otherwise undisturbed dust that caked the full length of the hall; this a consequence of skimping on ventilation, no doubt.

A quick sweep of the area with his chakra senses yielded nothing of interest, save the weak signature of Kito’s lifeforce beyond a door a few meters from the shinobi captain’s position. Kakashi silently thanked his wardens for their ineptitude as he approached his comrade’s cell, stopping short of grabbing at the knob. Though not immediately obvious, his sharingan took note of the sealing mechanism within seconds: upon each corner of the door frame was a familiar-looking glyph, scrawled neatly in white chalk. Likewise, the center of the cheap single-panel door was adorn with a palm-sized insignia embossed in what the ninja thought resembled a paste of blood and the same chalk. Centered a foot or so above the door, a lone piece of parchment hung pinned by the tip of a shiny pewter dagger.

“Kito?” Kakashi inquired, for what felt like the hundredth time. As before, only silence came in reply.

The scarecrow sighed, pocketing one of his blades. I’ll have to take my chances, he thought. He couldn’t be sure whether his rasengan had been the cause of the detonation or if perhaps breaking the seal had itself supplied the force; a kind of baked-in ‘anti-tamper’ mechanism like this was something he had experienced during past missions through the Land of Fire. Though, wary of injuring the younger ninja, he simply couldn’t waste time shouting at the walls. He eyed the sealing glyphs suspiciously for a moment before taking to them one-by-one with his kunai, scratching away randomly at sections of the seals. Lastly, he reached up and tugged the decorate blade from the wall and allowed the parchment to float lazily to the dusty flooring. With a deep breath, Kakashi twisted the knob and forced the door open in one fluid motion.

The unconscious body of Kito came into view as the door swung open, devoid of violent fanfare. Kakashi was quickly at his side, kneeling beside the prostrate youth and checking for a pulse. Whatever it was that had subdued him and smothered his chakra signature, it was temporary at best, as the boy’s heart continued to thump away rhythmically in his chest. The older shinobi let out a sigh of relief and rolled him onto his back, his anxiety ebbing as he noted the boy’s chest rising and falling. Though his captors had not bothered to tie Kito up, the fact that he had been sealed in a similar warding to his own meant that whomever was holding them saw them as a threat. A threat to what exactly, though, was up for debate.

A low groan shook Kakashi from his thoughts as the genin began to stir. Kito winced in pain, rolling his shoulders and clenching his fist as if to shake off the specter of some persistent discomfort. His eyes opened slowly, blinking a few times before locking on the man kneeling at his side. “Kakashi?”

The jonin nodded, finally pocketing his kunai as the boy slowly pulled himself to a seated position. As Kito had not been bounded, he wouldn’t be needing the blade. “I’m glad you’re alright. Where’s Minato?”

The dark-haired youth let out another groan in reply, bringing a palm to his face. “I don’t know. My head is killing me.”

“I know the feeling,” Kakashi conceded. It seemed that whatever technique they had used on him had also taken down Kito. He hoped that Minato had not been similarly dispatched, however unlikely it was. The fact that two shinobi of such high caliber had been taken down without so much as a struggle spoke of how dangerous their enemies were.

The captain helped his comrade to stand, the duo crossing the room to the exit. The hallway remained empty, silence hanging around them. “Where are they?” Kito asked, suddenly wary of his surroundings.

“They left a little while ago,” Kakashi began to explain. “I imagine somewhere down the-”

“There’s only one set of footprints,” the youth interrupted, pointing at the set his ally had left. “The rest of the hallway is clean.”

Kakashi stood for a moment, dumbfounded. He hadn’t even noticed, but the boy was exactly right. The former ANBU knew he had felt the arguing couple leave down the hallway, even watched them with his sharingan. Despite this, they left no trace. Were they lying in wake, deceiving his sensory abilities and waiting to ambush them?

“Strange,” Kito said quietly, eyeing the ceiling and then staring down the empty corridor. “No sign of escaping through the ceiling or anything. Maybe they just laid down dust behind them at they left?”

“But what reason would they have?” Neither gave an answer to the query, standing stock-still in the doorway as they each searched for any small hint of a concealed assailant. Unsurprisingly, they found nothing.

“I’m worried about Minato,” the younger ninja said suddenly, stepping out into the hallway. Each waited for the sound of an incoming attack, though there was not so much as a creak of the floorboards. “We’ll just need to keep an eye out for enemies while we try to find a way out.”

Kakashi nodded; he couldn’t fault the boy’s logic. Who knew how long it would take to puzzle out where their captors had gone, or even why they had been deposited here in the first place. They simply didn’t have the time to assemble all of the information; whoever was out for them was surely hot on Minato’s tail, if they hadn’t already disposed of him. They’d need to move. Without another word, the two took off down the hallway at a sprint, a plume of dust kicking up behind them as their feet tore through the carpet of particulate.