Oddly enough, the idea that she'd lost didn't particularly bother her. After all, not only did she not have much desire to see these people lose, but she hadn't been all that much of a friend to her so called 'comrades'. So, the idea that her mission had failed wasn't hurting her pride all that much, and she couldn't muster up much of a will to mourn her loss. With a life such as hers had been, being unable to help her tormentors with their schemes hadn't gotten onto her list of things that bothered her.
Of course, she did have a twinge of envy as she saw a girl who looked to be whole and healthy scowl stared down at her. "Looks like you're up. Planning on giving us any trouble?"
"I doubt that she could, now that she has felt the firm fist of justice," declared the green suited boy who almost had the appearance of a clone of one of the two older men.
"Could you be serious for once?"
"What? When am I not serious?"
"Lee is merely caught up in the passion of justice," the older man in green murmured, and then smirked slightly. "Accepting the fires of justice in him would make it much easier."
"Guy-sensei...." groaned the standing girl, covering her face with one hand.
"This isn't going to get us very far, you know," the cute boy put in.
"Of course, Master," the standing girl answered quickly, and then turned to glare at their prisoner. "So, don't cause trouble, understand?"
Isaribi ducked her her head a bit before giving off a sniff. "I didn't plan on causing problems anyway."
"Since when? You were just trying to attack us!"
"It's not like I wanted to!"
"Huh?"
The one called Guy went to crouch down before the captured girl. "Are you telling us that something else was going on?"
"Well.... Attacking you all wasn't my idea," Isaribi admitted.
"But you waited to ambush us with your friends."
"They were never my friends!"
"Maybe you should explain that," suggested the man with the bushy brows.
"I.... My... instructions were to wait to attack your team along side the two of them. It's what I was expected to do, no matter what I wanted."
"Then why listen to that sort of stupidity?" the big man in the white gi scoffed.
"There was no choice! I have to do what they tell me, or...."
A hand came down onto the top of the prisoner's hair and gently stroked her hair, which turned out to be the cute boy's. "It's okay. You're away from them. But why would you have to do what they told you?"
"They.... made me. In more than one way. You saw it. What I was going to become was all because of what they did to me."
"Your transformation was made?" gasped Lee.
"Exactly. One night, they came into my village and carried a lot of us away. There was no warning, and we didn't know what was going on until we wound up in the pens. They didn't say why we were there, but after a while... we didn't have to ask."
"What, you went around to find out?" the other girl muttered.
"More likely they figured it out," Guy put in.
The other adult nodded just a bit. "After they started to see the experiments."
"You knew about those?" Isaribi exclaimed, her wide eyed gaze going between the two men.
"We've run into that sort of thing before."
"But then.... I shouldn't be surprised. They didn't seem to really care about us. We were just 'test subjects' to them, and each of us got used up until...."
"Are you the only one who went to work for them?"
"I'm the only one that I know survived."
"Oh that's...." Lee began and then let his brow furrow as he realized what she hadn't said. "They... killed all those people?"
"Those bastards," growled the boy with the pigtail.
Not really seeing much of anything at all, Isaribi nodded. "Since I survived, they figured that I had to be useful for something. To figure out what that was, they sent me out to go to fight, even if I didn't want to."
"Then why not just refuse them?" the other girl demanded.
"If it was just that easy, I would have! But if I caused trouble, they would beat me, and probably wouldn't care if they killed me too. Besides, they promised me that they would cure me!"
"Which meant that you went along with them."
"I'm a monster! All I wanted was to be human again, and they were the only ones who could help me!"
"Oh, really."
"That's enough, Tenten," the cute boy admonished.
"But, Master...."
The boy with the pigtail just looked at her.
Momentarily flustered, Tenten gave a pout and defensively crossed her arms over her chest.
"Okay now," the cute boy murmured, and then turned their prisoner. "We don't want to hurt you, but what do you want to do? Planning on going back to those guys?"
Isaribi had a moment where she almost believed that these people would let her go, allowing her to run off to dive back into the water. But that thought died a quick death, as she realized that they were unlikely to let an opponent go that easily. Then again, she was reluctant to head back to where she'd been poked, prodded, beaten, and forced to do the bidding of her tormentors. If anything, these people around her were relatively nice, and they hadn't threatened to kill her for a mistake. On top of that, she had failed, which wasn't going to please Orochimaru, who wasn't known for his kindness, and she could already see that she'd have to pay for the defeat... permanently.
"Please, don't send me back to them!" Isaribi sobbed, her tone turning utterly pleading. "I didn't want to be there in the first place, and now, they will want to...."
His eyes widening, the big man glanced down his nose at the bound girl. "Are you suggesting that we take you with you."
"Please! I don't have any place to go, and if you don't show me mercy...."
"Funny, I would have thought that letting you go free would be 'merciful'."
"You won't protect me?"
"'Course we will," the cute boy sighed as he patted her head.
"Are you sure about this, Ranma?" the gi clad man grumbled. "You are just inviting more problems in on us."
"And you want to send her back to the people who'd have used her for a science project?"
"Certainly not, boy."
Lee stood as tall and rigid as a statue. "Then that's settled. She will come with us."
"No matter if we'll enjoy it or not," Tenten said under her breath.
There was a moment when Isaribi wondered if the other girl was going to be like those two she'd been 'teamed up' with. However, one look in the kunoichi's eyes showed not a sign of hate or desire to torment, but some sort of irritation. Just what she had done to gain Tenten's annoyance wasn't clear, but something told her that it wasn't going to be that fun to be around her. Still, being able to be safe for the time being was nice, and she hoped that this would give her a chance to live better than she had been, while:
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