Saki Hyūga was a talented tracker, and as such was a member of Konoha's Undertaker Squad, a job she thoroughly disliked. She preferred sitting on her balcony and playing her flute to make the flowers grow, but it was her father's request that she and her siblings became Shinobi. For the clan, he had said. At 20 years old, she should be honored to work alongside the Konoha ANBU…but it gave her no pleasure to hunt down missing-nin only to turn away when they were disposed of. This new assignment though…She almost turned it down, and it was only due to her older brother Shota's urging that she showed up to the briefing at all.
The Sandaime stood on a platform before a chosen selection of Chuunin and an escort of ANBU. His eyes were kind as he regarded them and they always reminded Saki of her grandfather's. In the Hokage's chamber mingled some comrades that she knew and some she didn't. Of course the ANBU were anonymous, she didn't even know the names of the ones in her own unit, but she had started to memorize masks. It never even occurred to her to use her Dōjutsu to figure out who they were. It was part of her Nindo: Trust above all else. After entering, she met up with her second eldest sister Shiori and mingled with some friends before the Third Hokage called them to attention. They stood in six rows of four, ridged.
"Thank you all for coming on such short notice. Time is of the essence so I will let Ibiki explain the parameters of this mission." He stepped aside and let a large Ibiki Morino take center.
"Alright, let's make this quick, we're on a deadline. Our target is a large mercenary-nin operation that's comprised of some of our bingo book residents." The interrogator held up a packet of paper, and at the same time, some other ninja from his squad started handing out duplicates. Mission parameters. Shiori handed Saki hers and winked. Her sister was only thirteen months older than her, yet she pretended like it was decades. Shiori was the only one of Saki's five sisters that inherited the blue-ish tinted hair that Lady Hinata sported and since their grandfather's were brothers, it made sense. She usually wore it in a bun, made up of two braids and when she wore it down, it was nearly past her waist. But there was no time to do hair on a mission like this. Saki scanned the packet in her hands and her stomach dropped. The named missing-nin were extremely dangerous Shinobi, and she wondered why in the world they were being sent instead of Jounin.
"Don't you think this is a little out of our league?" Saki whispered to her sister. Shiori nudged her with her elbow.
"Chill out. We got this."
"Zabuza Momochi is on this list."
"Saki," Shiori took her sister's hand in hers. Ibiki was still going over mission specs but Saki stopped hearing them. "You have to calm down. Your only job is to find them, and you could do that from here your Byakugan is so good. So stop worrying. You'll be fine."
"Any questions?" Ibiki asked after he was finished giving the information Saki hasn't paid attention to.
"Sir…" A man in the row in front of the sisters held up his hand.
"What is it, Umino?"
"Why are there no Jounin assigned to this mission? This seems a little outranked, even for us." Beside the man stood the legend, Kakashi Hatake, and Saki remembered absently that Kamiko would be so jealous of her.
"Almost all of the Jounin are already deployed on other missions, and there is no time to wait for their return. As Shinobi of the Hidden Leaf, we must do what we can to protect our village and its people. As your Hokage, I have hand-picked you to carry out this mission. Chuunin are leaders, and you are all more than qualified for this assignment." Sarutobi-sensei said and nodded to each of them.
"Official mission rank?" Kakashi asked from behind his mask.
"B." Ibiki answered. "Anything else?" No one said anything, but Saki stared at the back of the head of the man who asked the question she hadn't. At least someone else noticed that they were outnumbered and out-skilled.
The triplets whined at her as Saki packed her bag. Her flute and her flower books would be staying behind to make way for more smoke grenades and flash papers. Her hands were shaking as she stored them away, but one of her younger sisters raced over and snatched a paper bomb out of her stack.
"Sara! Stop!" Saki snapped and grabbed the slip away from her. The girl shrank back to her fellow clones and stared at Saki with big wet eyes. Sara, Sana, and Sava were her three younger sisters, all identical triplets. Saki still wasn't sure how her mother survived that pregnancy, but she knew it was something to do with her father systematically plugging chakra points to alleviate the pain. Saki sighed and bent down to eye level with the three. They were only six years old.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." As if on queue, the girls piled in her arms, hugging her neck, her arms, her braid, her waist.
"Don't go!"
"I have to go. It's my duty." She said and started to peel off limbs.
"Stay here with us!"
"I wish I could, but I'll be back soon, alright?" When she was finally free, Saki finished packing her bag and waved at the girls who were now hiding under her bed. She met Shiori in the hall and they made their way out of the compound.
"Are you ready for this?" Shiori asked and shot a fist in the air. She was so excited…Saki less so.
"I don't think you will be so excited when we actually head out." Shiori did not have the same kind of job as Saki did, and therefore stayed in the village most of the time. This mission was an adventure for her, and a task for Saki.
"Are you kidding? We're going to kick some butt!" Shiori's Byakugan was different that Saki's, in the sense that, while Saki could see kilometers away, Shiori could see down to a microscopic level. Therefore she was in training to become a medical-nin, and was on this particular assignment as a sort of test run for an old initiative the Hokage wanted to resurrect.
"Come on, we can't be late."
Their group of eight headed out from the main Konoha gates and turned east towards the Land of Whirlpools where they would take a ferry to Kirigakure and coordinate their attack on the targets. Ibiki told them that while Kiri offered to collaborate, it didn't mean they would do it happily, so Saki was not expecting this to go smoothly. There were four ANBU, Kakashi Hatake: the prodigy, Iruka Umino: whom she learned was in the same graduating class as her, and the two Hyūga girls, one way too excited and one not ready for this.
No…Saki was not expecting this to go well at all.
As a squad, the four ANBU jumped in a large diamond formation, while the four Chuunin jumped in a smaller formation inside the perimeter. Saki knew the black ops agents from her time with the Undertaker Squad: Cat, Bird, Hawk, and Slate. Cat was the only female, with purple hair. Bird and Hawk could be distinguished by the fact that Hawk had a large rounded beak while Bird had a tiny one. And Slate was obvious because his mask was plain white, with no features of any kind. He was a blank slate, and she had never heard him speak a single word.
Saki was placed at a second forward position, just behind Cat, who was the lead. It was up to her to keep watch, a 360-degree field of vision more than a kilometer in every direction. If there were traps, she would see them. If there was an ambush, she would see it. If there were complications…she thought she would have seen them.
There were three other teams of eight that were positioning themselves up and down the coast with Saki's team directly across from the island that was the Land of Waves. Standing on the rocky cliff, staring at it across the water, she really wished there was some sort of bridge.
"Saki?"
"Good to go." She answered Cat who was rationing out supplies.
"Alright. We'll wait for the signal and then cross the channel. Be on the look out."
"Right." Saki nodded, but there was a mild headache starting behind her left eye. Using her Byakugan for three days straight was no problem, but using it for that long and for that distance…it took its toll.
"Hey," Shiori came to stand by her. Saki didn't really see her so much as feel her hand on her shoulder. Sometimes when she was looking so far away it was hard to see up close again. "Want me to take over for a bit?" Saki reigned in her sight so she could look at her sister clearly.
"You?" It came out more accusing than she had meant it to, but Shiori just smiled.
"Yes. I may not be able to see as far as you or Neji but I can still keep us safe."
"Yeah, okay, you're right. Sorry." Saki smiled and deactivated her Dōjutsu completely. Its ease of pressure made her a little light headed and she went to sit under one of the trees, pulling out her notebook. This part of the mission would be a little boring, she knew. Like setting up the pieces in a game of Shogi, it all came down to timing.
To clear her mind, Saki began to write down the first things that popped into her head: the flower species she had identified two clicks in every direction, how Slate's constant silence was starting to annoy her, Kakashi's movements and preferences so she could inform Kamiko later, her fondness for having her sister on a mission with her, Iruka—
"Here." A hand held out a small box in front of her face and she looked up. Speak of the devil. "I brought an extra pack." Saki took the portion of food pills and smiled at him.
"Thank you." Iruka took that as a sign to sit next to her and he sighed heavily as he got off his feet. Three days of fast-paced jumping was a terror on the legs, and Saki could relate.
"Iruka, was it?"
"Ah. Where are my manners? Iruka Umino." He smiled and held out his hand for her to take. She did and the contrast between his big calloused hand and her small porcelain fingers was stark as she shook it.
"Saki Hyūga."
"I know."
"Oh really?" She mused, trying to hide the small flame of mania that rose up in her chest. How did he know who she was? Iruka suddenly laughed.
"The uhh, eyes." It was like he had read her mind and it only made her panic rise, and she was battling it back down, but it was taking more will power than it should have. Of course, he meant he knew she was a Hyūga; because of her eyes. He knew Shiori was Hyūga too, but that didn't mean he knew their names. "So are you two cousins?" He asked casually, and the switch in focus helped Saki win her internal struggle.
"No, Shiori is my older sister."
"Oh, that's cool. Usually I don't meet many Hyūga with siblings."
"You don't meet many Shinobi with siblings." She fired back. It was true her family was the odd one out. Most Kunoichi didn't want to take the time out of the field to have kids, so usually ninja families only had one, maybe two children. The fact that her mother had seven was beyond her, and most people looked at them strangely.
"I would have liked to have a sister."
"No you wouldn't, trust me." Saki could fill him in on a lifetime of never having her own space, being constantly bombarded with questions, arguments, sass, not having one second of peace to even breathe. It could have taken days, but she knew eventually she would circle back to how much she loved them and their sass. She was trying to think of something snarky to say, her oldest sister Sari would have had no problem coming up with a snide comeback, but when Saki looked back over at Iruka, he was staring off the cliff with the saddest smile she had ever seen. And it hit her. She remembered. Iruka Umino had lost his parents to the Nine Tails. He would never have any siblings.
Shiori saw the signal of the other groups and they chartered a boat to take them across the water to the island. It was occupied by a civilian village, and there was limited intelligence that placed some of the missing-nin in the bingo book there. The water was choppy as they made their way across and Shiori almost had a sick look on her face as she used her Byakugan to look at the seawater. Saki had to pull her away before she vomited.
"You know not to look at things too closely."
Once they landed on the island, they camped at the tree line to wait for the next phase. Saki took up the watch while Kakashi Hatake took up a post around her. Since their group was the lead, it was imperative that they be ready for any trouble. Night was going to fall quickly and once it did, Saki and Cat would be linked together by coms and Saki would coordinate the attack from camp. Her Byakugan and Gentle Fist would keep her safe, but she would not be any use to them in battle. Shiori would stay with her and Saki hoped this would all go down smoothly.
But the first phase was already compromised.
"They're late." Hawk stared as the last of the sun sank below the horizon. The Kiri ninja who were supposed to collaborate on this raid with them had not shown up yet. "I don't like this."
"If they don't come within the hour, we start without them." Cat ordered.
"We were counting on their water clone support. Without them this mission is going to—"
"We don't need them. We have plenty of man power." Cat snapped and Hawk didn't say anything else. "Saki, are you sure?"
"Yes, I can't see them anywhere." She nodded as she sat cross-legged in the middle of the circle they formed around her.
"We've wasted too much time as it is. We start this now. Give the signal."
It was like all hell broke loose the moment the teams engaged. As everyone but the girls, Kakashi and Iruka descended upon the quiet village, Saki screamed out loud. A legion of armed ninja just…appeared. One moment she was roaming over the village perimeters, calling the all clear when suddenly, there were battles everywhere. The movement and the clang of kunai were like pops of white in her vision and she felt like she was getting tossed about in her own head.
"Cat! Cat! It's an ambush!" Saki yelled into her headset.
"That's apparent!" Cat's voice crackled back.
"How? You gave the all clear!" Kakashi roared.
"No. I saw it too." Shiori jumped in to cover her sister. "They just materialized out of nowhere."
"Nothing gets past the Byakugan. How is this possible?" Iruka looked to Kakashi for an answer rather than the girls who actually possessed it.
"It doesn't matter. Right now we need to—" Before Kakashi could finish, he swung around and kicked a ninja in the face. The man was diving into their camp head first, and he was essentially, punted back out. "Get down!" Suddenly, they were on them. Unknown assailants were swarming in on all sides. Saki jumped back to avoid a katana and found herself back to back with her sister. Both their eyes were activated and palms ablaze. Shiori's palms were lit green while Saki's were blue and these attackers didn't stand a chance. Since the Byakugan is unique to the Hyūga clan, it had become their signature style of combat. The ability to inflict severe internal trauma with minimal external force, combined with chakra network manipulation, made the Gentle Fist the most reputable and fearsome Taijutsu style known in all of Konohagakure, and the girls had been training since they could walk. But to do this, the user must surgically inject a certain amount of their own chakra into the opponent's chakra pathway system, causing damage to surrounding organs due to their proximity to the chakra circulatory system. Even the slightest tap can cause severe internal damage, hence the name "gentle" fist. And Saki was almost out of chakra.
Using Byakugan was second nature to Saki but after using it for so long and for so far out, it was taking its toll, and it was showing in her hand to hand. Bodies were falling yes, but she was covered it cuts and bruises and her arms were shaking. Kakashi was truly as powerful as Kamiko had made him out to be, and he had no trouble taking on five enemies at once. Iruka was also skilled, but in a different way than the prodigy. Iruka displayed what seems to be an echolocation ability where he could get a sonar image of his surrounding area even in the dark, even with trees and bushes and bodies everywhere. His Ninjutsu was also impressive, in terms of nature transformations, he was using Fire Release and Water Release almost simultaneously. Shiori was always so graceful in her technique and was masterful at combining the concepts of the Gentle Fist with her medical Jutsu. At one point, she slapped the back on an enemy's neck and scrambled his nervous system. He landed face first in the mud and twitched until he was trampled by his own comrades.
Just when the battle seemed to be over, Cat's voice crackled in Saki's ear.
"Captains, check in."
"No harm." Repeated twice from different voices. "Man down." Sounded once, and Saki turned to look to Kakashi for his response only to turn into a Naginata.
"Saki!" Shiori's screamed and killed the man on the other end of the pole. The blade stuck out of Saki's back and she stared down at her chest with a detached confusion. What was this? Why was it attached to her? What was this…pole? Saki grasped it and watched as a fresh pint of blood spurted out of her rib cage. Was that hers? Suddenly she felt a slow burning in her chest and coughed. It was a guttural sound, like she was choking. The fire was still building, and her world was slowing down as she sank to her knees. She saw Kakashi look at her like she was a ghost, almost more terrified of her than her wound and she heard him chant over and over,
"Man down! Man down! Saki is down!" Her chest was ablaze now and she felt like she couldn't breathe. The air stung her throat as she wheezed, and her eyes blurred. Suddenly there was an arm on her back as someone cradled her. Shiori's face was above hers and her lips were moving but no sound was coming out. Iruka appeared at her side. It seemed like he was the only thing going normal speed. While everyone else was slowed way down, he looked like lightning.
"Shiori. Hey, listen. You're Saki's sister right?" Iruka tried to calm the girl down, but to no avail. Someone had mentioned that this was her first mission outside of the country, but he thought she would have a little more self-control than this. "Shiori, listen to me. You are a medical-nin and your sister needs you to focus on that right now. She need you to save her life." That seemed to motivate her as she looked up and nodded. Kakashi finished clearing the area of assailants while Shiori and Iruka prepared to extract the blade.
"When we pull the knife out, it will undam whatever arteries have been severed. If we don't do this fast, she's going to bleed out."
"She needs a transfusion."
"She needs a Sannin." Shiori snapped.
"Well she only has you and me, so we'll have to do." The girl reeled a bit but quickly turned her attention back to her sister and decided on a plan.
"Okay, here. Hold her up." She transferred the bulk of Saki's weight to Iruka's hands and went digging through her pack for a needle and tubing. "I can change my blood type mid-transfusion and then heal the wound while we pull out the blade."
"You can do that at the same time?"
"…in theory." Shiori's hand shook as she prepared the IV and stuck it into the small part of Saki's elbow. Just as she was about to insert the other end into her own arm, Iruka stopped her.
"You'll need the extra chakra to heal her and keep her stable. Use my blood instead."
"No, it'll be harder to change the blood type—"
"You won't have to. I'm O negative. Universal donor." Without another word, Iruka pulled up his sleeve and tied a tourniquet around his upper arm with his other hand and teeth. Shiori stuck him twice before Iruka took the needle and inserted his own IV. Immediately, dark blood began to inch up the tube and connect to Saki. "Now for the hard part."
Kakashi appeared and gently took hold of the end of the Naginata. Shiori put her glowing hands on either side of the blade and as Kakashi carefully pulled it out, she focused hard to slow the bleeding. The staff was tossed aside as Kakashi bent down and slapped a hand on Iruka's shoulder and offered up some food pills.
"You're gonna need them."
"Pfft. What took you so long?" Iruka replied and ate them immediately.
"I stopped to do my hair. Blood's not good for your roots." He said it with his usual Hatake dry humor and Iruka let out a small laugh, but he saw his glazed expression thought…maybe this reminded Kakashi of Rin. He didn't dare mention it though.
Saki woke up on the boat, her head resting in someone's lap. Her chest ached and her vision was blurry but she eventually saw Shiori asleep on the other side of the cabin. And this begged the question…who's lap was she in? Looking up took a lot of effort, but after a moment of letting her eyes adjust, she could make out the chin and throat of Iruka. He was sitting cross legged, leaned up against the wall asleep. Saki saw that he had an IV in his arm and she was immediately concerned that he was injured and she was sleeping on him. But she followed it down until it ended in her arm. Tears suddenly sprang to her eyes when she realized this almost stranger was risking his life for her. The salt water cleared her blurry vision and she saw his ashen cheeks and grey lips. She coaxed the blood to flow into the veins around her eyes, and it took almost a full minute before her Byakugan was activated. Iruka's chakra network was strong but his life force was a little dim. He'd given her too much of his blood. Achingly, Saki reached over and pulled the needle from his arm. The tug woke him and he shook his head.
"Look who's up." He said and systematically went about checking her bandage and her IV only to find it disconnected. Before he could ask her about it, she said,
"You can keep some for yourself, you know." He smiled a little as he helped her sit up and lean against the wall beside him.
"How are you feeling?"
"Like I've been stabbed." She joked dryly and felt the bandage on her chest.
"You had your sister very worried." Shiori rolled over in her sleep and Saki smiled at her.
"She healed my wound?" He nodded while flexing his fingers, probably trying to regain feeling in them. She slipped easier into her Byakugan now and saw that his life force was getting brighter. Nothing some food and rest wouldn't fix. So she turned her attention to her sister and saw her chakra levels were extremely low, but rising. The rest of the ninja on the boat were near the same. There was only one other person who was injured and Saki recognized Kakashi at the man's side.
"Not quite the tragedy you thought it'd be?" Iruka asked when she came back into focus.
"What happened?" She asked, not remembering anything after getting stabbed. He rubbed the back of his head and sighed.
"We're not really sure. The ANBU think Kiri set us up, but that's an act of war not easily taken back. There must be something else going on."
"How long until we get home?" Saki asked, her little energy spent on her Dōjutsu. She leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes for just a moment.
"It'll be a few days, but don't worry. I'll…" Iruka looked over at the sleeping woman and smiled. "I'll take care of you."