Hurt to Live

In the shadows of the night, she danced.

The clubs knew her by sight, not by name, but she had the money and they understood her game. For the price of a swift peck on the cheek, a touch to one bare shoulder and a little yen they granted her entrance; there were no lines for her. She was a goddess of the night, a creature of shadows and dreams that only existed in the witching hours. They joked she was made from the mist itself, an illusion created by the wishes and men and once she drew you in you were lost.

Amongst women with intricately styled hair, all laboriously pinned she wore her dark silky hair hung down to her waist, sometimes curled and sometimes straight but always loose in an eye catching wave. Her clothing was never too revealing, never too flashy but always perfectly tailored to fit. A show of wrist here, a low back there and she because like wrapped candy. Her makeup seemed minimalist but it changed her face, made her look fierce and proud in certain lights and soft in others. The raise on an eyebrow, the right standing place, and she could have her way.

She was a fox, a vixen let loose in a chicken coop. She moved with grace between the roving bodies, watching, searching, sizing up each half naked patron with hungry eyes. It wasn't the weak but the beautiful and cruel she loved. She had a taste for a certain shade of gold and blue. Hunters drew hunters and she always found her prey, her chicken.

She was the cat, lithe and silent as she stalked the mouse. With enchanting eyes and a coy smile she drew them in. Over the cacophony of voices and music she let them seduce her with sweet words she knew they practiced in the mirror. Sweet con men, they thought they knew the game so well. She drew them away from their nests, their friends and into her claws for a bit of play.

She was the rabbit, caught by the wolf. The wolf was her own desires her own self-hate. She could never be clean; they had done this to her and so the wolf was never the same but the end was. Each place had it's corner or its alleyway; a dim lit place where no one looked twice. They would corner her there with fangs bared, and then in the cold dark it was always the same. She wished for a different wolf, a different sort of night and for the empty space to fill up, just one, but it always ended the same.

Wet, sticky, loud. She would whisper his name.

She was just a women, used and disgraced. They would see it, see her for the broken doll they had mistaken for a fairy tale creature under the rainbow hued lights. In the shadows she would fall apart and rebuild herself again with the pain she caused herself as the glue. She would seethe with guilt and hate, blame the world, then replace the illusion once again. Sometimes she didn't woke up in strange places, sometimes her body was bruised and hurt but it didn't matter; this was all she was good for. She needed to hurt, to punish herself for having good things in the world when she had no right.

In the building light of morning she would disappear, just another creation of the night.

----

Ming sucked in a deep breath and pressed her fingers to her ribs. Two broken, at least, but she could fix them later when she got home. Idiot man had been rough, rougher then she had expected, and in the heat of the moment he had slammed her a little too hard against the old dumpster. No, rough was putting it lightly, that man had been real scum on legs and rotten right to the core. She had seen it in his eyes, that calculating look a man got when he was trying decide if you should die.

Ming had seen it too many times.

Well it didn’t matter now, he was dead in a gutter and she would be too if they found him before she was long gone. Served him right, she hoped he rotted with the rats, but she needed to get back to… back to…
Not for the first time Ming paused mid step, her mind attempting to find the answer to that question. Yuii was gone now, home was long, long gone and Renzo? She didn’t know about, she just didn’t know, so there wasn’t really a reason to keep going. For how often she saw the sweet Hasegawa man, she would probably see him sooner if she let herself get dragged to prison.

Murderer? No she wasn’t any more of a murderer than any shnobi and if that man hadn’t hurt a couple girls before her then he would have started afterward. There had just been too much light to his eye when she cried out, when she…

No, Ming wouldn’t think about that right now. She kept herself moving, step after step in the chilly, foggy night and willed her mind to be calm and still. She couldn’t think about the end or the future, she wasn’t sure she had much one of one left, just about living until morning. Her jacket was barely protection against the cold, a Haku or not she could still freeze, and the bruises all along her thighs made each step a living hell.

And by whatever gods that be, she wanted to go see Renzo so badly right then, but there was no way she could face the disappointment if her found her this way. How could you explain without the truth and the truth was too much. ‘I’m sorry love, I’ve been sneaking around at night letting men have their way with me and if I don’t like them I kill them. But oh, I really do feel deeply for you. Right down to the core of by big, black, dismal, heart.’ The thought made her laugh and she stumbled back to land seated on the edge of a fountain.

There, tears found her, and she sat weeping in the darkness of Kirigakure’s streets.

"You certainly look like hell," came a voice from the opposite side of the fountain.  Is it really all that surprising for one that finds solace in water to linger around it?  The man had his hands upon the stone curb of the fountain, squeezing firmly until his knuckles turned white and caused blood to seep through the bandages worn by the man.  He was dressed in a hospital gown with bandages covering nearly his entire body with a bandaged eyepatch covering his left eye.

"Certainly, you didn't dress like that to get into a fight, did you?"  Ren asked before standing up and placed his right arm back into it's sling.  Ren was numb right now.  He was numb, confused, and absolutely drugged up right now due to the medications given.  The water in the fountain stopped for a brief moment just so the two would be able to see each other clearly.

It's very rare that a wolf befriends or even falls in love with a rabbit.  Something like that is completely unheard of.  Typically, the wolf would ravage the little rabbit for it's next meal.

Fate had a morbid sense of humor, perhaps she should have been careful what she wished for. She knew that voice well, she didn't need to turn to see him, and his words shot through her like a well poisoned arrow.

"Don't exactly look like you've been pushing papers yourself", the pain of speaking forced her to exhale painfully and for a moment she wondered if she could muster the courage to breath in and keep on living. tears streaked her face, giving her eyes a dark and shadowed look. Maybe, for the brief moment the water cleared he saw the same thing she did?

A normal woman would crawl on hands and knees to explain to him what this was. She would lie and cry in equal amounts, whisper praises and love just to keep a hold of the man she loved. But that wasn't love, not as she saw it, because loving him meant she knew he needed better. Ming had never been normal anyways, more a victim of the world.

Her face gentled and she pushed herself to standing, though it hurt like hell to do so. She thought about trying to rub the makeup off or at least to fix the  smudges she knew must be there but what was the point. Done was done right? maybe he would hit her, wouldn't that be satisfying.

"You look like shit, Ren," she said with a bit of a frown, concern bubbling up beneath self pity. He was in a hospital gown which mean he didn't belong out in the street at all. Her misguided wish had brought him out of safety, "You shouldn't he out here." She paced around the fountain slowly, too proud to limp or hunch over in his company.

The rabbit was too used to the wolf now. Why eat it now when it hadn't eaten before?

"Well, yeah.  That's what happens when I leave to do some late-night paperwork only for someone to ask me to break the treaty for information on a known criminal.  However, due to withholding the standards of the treaty, I denied that person's request and thus began a fight and, ya know how it ended up," Ren stated in reference to Daichi's wish to become a Mist shinobi, although he was a traitor to Leaf.

"If I ran my country like the government of Cloud did, then I might have allowed him entrance.  However, it really would look bad if I broke the treaty, being the one that created it and everything," Ren said a brief moment before looking at the woman through his only good eye at the moment.

"I grew tired of the hospital.  I see that damn place all the time.  Why would I wish to spend time there when it's water that heals my wounds.  However, I seemed to have come across something interesting during my little break-out of the sanatorium," the man said, growing a bit frustrated with the woman near him.

"Perhaps you're right, I should return to the bed and ignore what I've seen here.  I can only let my imagination run wild for so long, you know?"  Ren stated in reference to how Ming was dressed and how much make-up she put on.

Ren bowed slightly to the woman and stood up to turn on his heels to put his back against the woman.  "You've only done yourself up like a doll for me once.  I wonder how many times you've done this outside of our company."  With that said, the Mizukage walked back towards the Sanatorium.  A surge of emotion strained him as he walked, no limped, to the Sanatorium.

That was... fair enough. She could understand his not wanting to deal with this right now, all bandaged up the way her was. Someone had tried to break into Kirigakure and become one of their Shinobi and Ming was more than aware of Mist's strict anti missing nin policies. They were the same policies that had left her living in fear after leaving Kirigakure years before, that perhaps she would be marked as a missing nin when they found Ren's body. So he had done his job and ended up in the hospital and now one had told her in the slightest.

But wasn't that her fault too? Shouldn't she have been visiting him in the hospital, quietly telling him stories and making his time there easier instead of out here on the streets. For a second she thought about explaining but still she just couldn't. Gods be damned she had messed up bad this time.

Rotten right through and now it was starting to show at the surface. She was only good for compost but maybe something good would come of that. 'I told you so,' rang in Ming's mind but she could only bite her bloody lip and stare at him. Now he would leave and he would stop visiting too. Yuii was gone and Ren would be gone too and she would be left utterly alone in a village she was too bound up in to leave. She'd keep on as she was too, until it killed her or killing the real bad ones caught up to her and then?

"No" it took her a moment to realize she had even spoken aloud, "N-n-n-Nn-no, No please stop. Please Ren" her voice shook like a leaf and the tears she  She stepped forward a little too quickly to stop him though and her one bad leg gave out. Now her knees stung like made and her breath came out in little gasps as she tried to catch her breath but stubbornly she pushed herself back to standing. There was no way she could keep up with him though, no matter how stubborn she was, but she didn't want to be left alone like this.

And then her rib pushes into her lung and the pain was blinding. One moment she was standing and the next her eyes were in the back of her head and she passed out.

Her voice elevated as he started to walk away.  A single word caused the bandaged man to stop dead in his tracks.  The blond turned around to see the woman pleading for him to not leave and a rather even look was across Ren's face.  What a pitiful display it really was.  Failed to be impressed by her groveling, the man turned around for a brief moment before hearing a thud on the ground.

~That's enough with the tough guy act~  came a voice ringing through his consciousness.  Instantly, the man snapped out of his stupidity and began to empathize with Ming's emotions.  A sudden sadness flushed over the man before the realization of what actually happened shot through his skull like a well-aimed .50 calibur bullet.

The man turned around and his right eye shot open extremely wide.  "Ming!"  the man shouted before limping over to the woman and took a knee to her side.  Basic first aid...  A couple of fingers were placed on the soft, tender tissue of her throat to feel a pulse.  Her pulse was elevated due to the pain she was in.

The man bit his lower lip in anger.  Not at her, but at himself.  To think that such a woman that he held so dearly was calling out for him and all he did was turn his back?  This would be the second time he's done this to her.  The first time was in leaf when she encountered the same fate as sister Hitomi.  Raising his freed hand up slightly, the man punched the ground beside Ming causing the fountain to violently erupt in a geyser of water.

Removing his arm from the sling, the man extended his arm all the way out, wincing at the pain of the injured elbow he suffered from fighting Daichi and wrapped both of his arms around the fallen Ming and held her close to him.  Ming's shoulder began to dampen as the man's face was buried into her shoulder.

"This is the second time I've done this to you, Ming.  I've turned my back on you and your feelings and you got hurt because of it.  I'm not a perfect man, nor am I a good man.  I'm a murderer and a liar.  Not a righteous man that some people say I am.  Often times, I believe that my death would solve many of this world's problems, yet due to my selfish wish to live, I met you.  I met the one that brought a smile back upon my face.  So why does it hurt so much?"  spoke the Mizukage as he gripped the woman in his arms for a moment before re-adjusting his grip upon the frail woman in his arms, holding her limp body in the position one would carry their wife across the threshold of marriage.

The Mizukage stood up with shaken legs with Ming in tow and looked down at her before an intense pain struck his bandaged left eye causing the Mizukage to yelp in pain.

~Kill her...  Kill her...  She does nothing but give you grief...  All women do is give you grief and suffering...  End your pain and kill her...  She will not be missed...~

"No, I won't, Fenrir.  Shut up!"

~Kill her...  Don't delay.  She is not the one to be regarded as Freya.  Kill her...~

"Shut up!  I have the Eye of Odin.  You are supposed to obey my commands!  Shut up!  I won't listen to you!"

~One day you will...  She is but a rabbit and you are the wolf.  Wolves naturally hunt rabbits...  She will one day grow to be a hunter and rabbit's clothing...  If that day comes, I will be the one to kill her like I did Akari..~

Then the voice faded away and the bandage upon his left eye was covered in blood with the warm liquid seeping through the cloth and slowly dripping down the side of his face.

After a brief solace, the man stepped forward towards the sanatorium.  "I don't care what it takes, I will protect this little rabbit.  I have failed her twice and hurt her more than I could fathom why she still wishes to be by my side.  I will not let any man, nor wolf take her away from me."  With that manga-like soliloquy spoken, the Mizukage started to carry the woman towards the Sanatorium.