Naruto: The Unwoven Threads of Fate

I, however, have not.

"The potatoes also aren't worth how much they cost. How terribly disappointing." I eye my fizzy drink next, I just asked the waiter to bring me the best drink they have. "You better not be a letdown too. You're my last hope. To answer your question, that specific instance was actually a pair of collaborators. They destroyed something of mine that I valued greatly, something that took a great deal of effort and time to replace."

"What did they destroy?" She pries for more information.

"You will never know." I bluntly tell her as I sniff the drink. "Cherries? Is that cherries? No. Maybe? I have no idea. Anything else you want to know? I assume you have some form of a list from the Raikage?"

"Yes actually." Yugito magically pulls a sheet of paper out from underneath the table.

"Holy shit." I place my drink down to gawk at the long piece of paper. "I was kidding when I asked about a list, I didn't think you'd actually have one. Where the hell were you hiding that? You didn't come in with a handbag."

"You will never know." She throws my own words back at me. "Let's see, he's got quite the list of things he wants answered. Let's start with an easy one. Do you have the Jiongu?"

"Do you have an uncontrollable urge to play with yarn balls?" I ask her a question of my own.

"The hell?" Yugito looks up from the list with a heated look about her. I've made her mad, whoops. "I'm the one asking the questions, not you."

"Tell ya what, for every question you ask I'll answer after you answer one of my own." I smirk at her. Hey, if I'm going to be interrogated I'm going to have fun while it's happening. "If you lie in your answer, I'll lie in mine. Also, there are some things that I just won't answer. For those I will not bother asking you anything since I won't be answering. Do we have an accord?"

"Fine you brat." Yugito huffs out angrily. "No, I do not have an uncontrollable urge to play with yarn balls."

"Hm. That does make sense if Knits was sent as a teammate of yours, I could see her getting super pissed if her yarn magically disappeared." I take another bite of my steak. "The second bite isn't any better than the first. To answer yours, yes. I am in possession of the Jiongu."

"How did you get it?" She asks me without looking down at the list. She's asking this on her own.

"Do you ever talk with Matatabi or do you just ignore her?" I counter her question again.

"That… is a very personal question." She skirts around answering.

"True." I concede that point to her. "So is asking how I acquired the Jiongu. You asked me a personal question, it's only right that I get to do the same."

"Why do you want to know?" She tentatively asks me.

"I'll give you this one for free." I allow her a break mainly because I don't have another question for her yet. "The bijuu interest me, not in an 'I want to collect them and bend them to my will' kind of way. Honestly it's more of a curiosity than interest, I want to know what they're like. They're beings that transcend humans in so many ways. Power, strength, chakra, lifetimes. Imagine what they have seen, what they have lived through. I've always wanted to chat with one."

"You want to chat with the Nibi?" Yugito asks skeptically.

"Not Matatabi specifically, any and all of them if possible." She's lucky, that's the second question I've let slide for my own interests. "So Yugito, do you speak with Matatabi at all?"

"Rarely." Yugito admits awkwardly after learning of my interest in doing what only she and eight others have the chance to do. "Only in times of dire need, it was more frequent back when I was younger and had less skill utilizing the Nibi's chakra. I do ignore it sometimes, usually we keep to ourselves."

"Shame. I'm sure the bijuu are excellent conversationalists once you get them to open up. Just need to find some common ground." I scoop up a bite of mashed potatoes next. "I got the Jiongu from Orochimaru-sama, he forcibly gifted it to me."

"There's a story behind that." She doesn't ask, it's a statement. She's trying to get information without having to give any. Smart woman.

"Yes, there is." I civilly reply with a friendly smile. "Next question?"

"You could just tell me everything that is true in you bingo book page. That would save a lot of time." She runs a finger down multiple lines on the sheet of paper. "There's a lot of those here."

"I suppose I could." I push a chunk of steak around my plate in boredom. "But I won't. I will only reveal if I have one more skill to you, you can choose which one to ask about."

"Do you have access to the Storm Release?" She instantly asks without a moment of hesitation.

"Ah, good old bloodline theft. A classic. Figures you'd ask me about that one." I smile affectionately at nothing as I stare off into the distance dramatically. "Why do you refer to Matatabi as it and Nibi?"

"That is what it is." Yugito says to me. "A beast capable of speech is still a beast."

"How would you feel if someone always refered to you as woman despite knowing your name? Or kunoichi? Or jonin? Or Kumo shinobi? Or jinchuuriki? Never using your name, only using something that you are to refer to you. Not using who you are."

"I would make them use it." Yugito says with conviction. "They would have no choice but to use it."

"But what if you can't? The only option you have is to ask them to use it and they don't intentionally. I know it would make me livid. I have a name for a reason, that name means me. It defines me and it is solely mine alone. It is a symbol of myself, the entire being of me."

"I fail to see where you're going with this." She interjects.

"Not using someone's name intentionally is an insult." I explain to her as if I'm talking to a child. How ironic, the child is lecturing the adult. "Every time you say Nibi or it you insult Matatabi. You insult the bijuu who is imprisoned within you."

"That's different." She assures me. "The bijuu aren't people."

"Does that mean they don't have feelings? Are you truly that insensitive of a person?"

"You never answered my question." Yugito points out to avoid answering mine. That's okay, I've made my point known. I've planted the seed in her mind that Matatabi deserves respect and should be treated better. Now all I can do is wait and see if it takes root.

"No, I do not have the Storm Release. Kumo's bloodline is safe in Kumo." I assure her.

"Good. Next question then." She looks over the long list of prepared questions before deciding to pick one. "How did you earn the title Heart Thief?"

"What makes you continue to think of me as a child?" I counter with yet another question.

"I'm sorry?" Yugito asks in confusion. "I don't understand your question."

"It's simple." I drop my bored act to focus solely on her. "You've seen me masterfully order around my underlings while maintaining a sense of professionalism in front of a delegation from another country. You've seen me easily see through your attempted deception at my expense. You've seen me instantly adjust to an unexpected event when you demanded we go here. Even now you're watching me artfully manipulate you, I managed to get information on Matatabi from you in return for very little. Yet despite all of that you still consider me as a child. Why won't you take me seriously?"

"You're thirteen." She bluntly tells me. "I don't care how much training your daddy gives you. I don't care what tricks you've learned from him. I don't care that his underlings fall in line for you. None of that matters in the face of experience. You're green, you're young, and you're nothing but a better than average child who is mislabeled in the bingo books because he pulled one big stunt out of his ass. Knowing all of that how could I possibly take you seriously?"

"I didn't think that you would be so short sighted. To answer your question, I earned my title by ripping out the heart of my parents killer after brutally destroying every other major organ he had in unique ways in a stadium full of onlookers." I curtly respond to her with too much politeness. She knows that I didn't take that well. "You would do well to never underestimate anyone, no matter how much you think you know about them or how confident in your own skills you are. It will get you killed."

"Oh?" Yugito let's a hint of her anger bleed off of her in the form of her own killing intent, not enough to be detected by anyone who isn't a shinobi. At most they'll feel slightly on edge. But I am a shinobi, I know when a killing intent is put to use. Her's is hot like a raging inferno. "Was that a threat?"

"I will answer if you answer this." I lean slightly towards her and scoot my plate out of my way so I can place my arms on the table before me. I have my fingers laced together and my forearms flat on the table for extra dramatic effect. "How does it feel to know that I could have killed you anytime I wanted to since we sat down?"

A brown speck of a spider repels down from the ceiling and lands on Yugito. It quickly bites into her neck before Yugito can react but does not inject any of its deadly venom.

Yugito goes ramrod straight in her chair at the sudden pinch in her neck.

"That, dear jinchuuriki, is a very venomous spider." I politely explain to her as if we're good friends and I don't have her life in my hands. "A thousandth of a drop of its venom is lethal enough to kill twenty shinobi. Right now its fangs have pierced your skin - no doubt right over a major blood vessel - and it is waiting for my command to either let you go or release its venom. I had it waiting above you on the ceiling since the moment we entered this establishment. You wearing a little black dress only made the job easier to accomplish, your normal attire has a turtleneck. Thank you for the assistance."

"You want to know how it feels to know that your life is in the hands of another. It feels like this." Yugito lifts her hand up and fingernails glow blue with chakra and shoot outwards towards my neck. The claws spear through my scarf, poking holes into it, but rest firmly against my skin. It's a warning that she is capable of killing me too if she should choose to. "Call it off."

"To answer your question, yes." I lean forwards more, causing her razor sharp claws to stab into my throat. Her eyes go wide in shock as I keep pressing forward until they can be seen exiting the back of my neck. I ran myself through on her claws. "That was a threat. You need an awakening, a reminder that being a jinchuuriki does not make you invincible. Everyone over in Kumo doesn't want to remind one of their major powerhouses that she's capable of losing, capable of being defeated. I, however, simply don't give a fuck about how you think of me."

"How are you alive?" She asks me in equal parts awe and shock. The fear hasn't set in yet. It will, give it time.

"This is a mission where I am supposed to earn the trust of Kumo. You are not Kumo, you're simply a part of a much larger umbrella." I continue speaking without answering her question or leaning backwards to remove the claws in my throat. "Orochimaru expected me to play nice with you, earn your favor by giving gifts and being the model child. I am not a model child, I constantly do things no one ever expects. I cause chaos and panic wherever I go. Trouble follows me like it's my best friend. So when Orochimaru told me to earn the trust of Kumo I decided I'd do it my way. I'd give one of Kumo's jinchuuriki a very rude but much needed awakening because no one in Kumo had the balls to do it themselves. I'm doing your whole country a favor."

"You are a very interesting person." Yugito says as she withdraws her claws from my throat. "Call off your spider, you've made your point."

"Good." I slowly lift an arm up and stick a single finger out and place it on her neck next to the spider. The brown speck climbs onto my finger and I lean back into my chair and idly watch as the spider runs around on my hand and fingers like a kid playing on a jungle gym. It even repels down a strand of web and uses it as a swing.

"Alvarcus Mar, I recognize you as more than a child." Yugito declares to me without a hint of a lie in her eyes. "You are skilled. You are intelligent. You are deadly. You are a planner. You are a shinobi."

"Glad we're finally on the same page." I snort out in dark amusement. "Should have opened with threatening you if I knew it would go so well."

"Since I recognize you as a fellow shinobi I have no problem asking you this. I do not ask you this as a Kumo shinobi to an Oto shinobi. I do not ask you this as a more experienced nin to a lesser. I simply ask you this as one shinobi to another." She dramatically leans forward with a vindictive smile on her face. One that promises suffering. "Will you spar with me?"

Present, Orochimaru's Office

"Alvarcus please say you didn't." Orochimaru is almost begging me. Almost, it would be unbecoming of someone of his stature to actually beg but you get the picture.

"You know me. Do you honestly think I turned down a spar from a jinchuuriki?" I casually ask him as I stand up because my butt is getting sore. I had to peel myself off the chair, the blood has glued me to it. "You have to get a better chair. This one is so uncomfortable."

"That is irrelevant!" Orochimaru seethes in anger once he accepts that I fought the person he expected me to attempt to befriend. "Alvarcus you baited a jinchuuriki! One of the few who has near full command over their bijuu! Do you understand the full ramifications of your actions? You turned Kumo against us! Purposefully!"

"Really?" I smirk at him. "When did I say that?"

"You mean to tell me that even after threatening her life she didn't react… poorly?" Orochimaru chooses his last word carefully. He didn't want to outright say she attempted to kill me.

"Oh she reacted very poorly." I darkly assure him as I recall our fight. "It was a beatdown for the ages, don't think anything else. But it also earned her respect, she recognized me as a fellow shinobi. Dare I say it, maybe even an equal."

"You fought a jinchuuriki." He states, forcing himself to act calmly.

"Yes. I did." I easily confirm it.

"Did she claim any of your hearts?" He asks me in an attempt to rationalize how I lost them. It would make sense to lose them to a foe of Yugito's skill.

"How about I tell you how it all went down?" I plop back down in the chair once more.

"I never thought I would ask you this." Orochimaru rubs his brow in a vain attempt to relieve stress. "Alvarcus, how did your battle with the jinchuuriki go? Did you win? Did you lose? Is the town still left standing?"

"Ah ah ah!" I wag my finger at him. "You'll have to wait and see, I'm not going to spoil anything."

"I do not like waiting." Orochimaru warns me with a touch of a threat in his voice. "You are far too relaxed for what is happening."

"That's because I know how the story goes. So, a tale for the ages. Alvarcus versus Yugito, Jiongu versus jinchuuriki. Who will win? Me with my seals, summons and unorthodox techniques? Perhaps Yugito with her bijuu specific powers, experience and overwhelming strength?"

"Alvarcus. Do not make me wait any longer or you will regret the consequences."

"Fine, fine!" I pout as he ruins my fun. Honestly I'm surprised it took him that long to put a stop to it. "I'll tell you how it went down."