The world pulses like a heartbeat and the moments slip by like the silver fish beneath your feet, flickers of light shining up at you like stars beneath the reflection of the moon. These are the moments that define you, seconds that are eternities, crouching on water like it is glass and waiting for your prey. Tonight, there is no wind, no clouds, but so many, many stars, a coliseum of silent watchers to your silent gladiator match.

You think you can feel the world turning.

Maybe it is the quiet whistle of a needle slicing through the air. Maybe it is the intent to kill, honed sharper than steel, pricking at the back of your neck. Maybe it is your instincts. Or maybe it is all of these, or none of them.

Maybe it doesn't matter.

You dodge to the side, flipping, one hand kissing the water to support your weight. The senbon are painted black, as tools of your trade usually are, and nearly invisible. You allow yourself one, scant, half-moment of pride at your evasion, before crouching and casting your senses outward. There are ripples running across the lake, now, and the stars are winking at you encouragingly.

Or perhaps it is only the fish.

It is the mask that you see first, floating in the darkness like a closer, mortal moon. In contrast, its twisting markings look insidious, a twisted caricature of something innocent. It is a bird, you think, slipping your hand into your pouch and withdrawing a kunai, or maybe a dog. Something that should have nothing to do with your game of blood and shadows.

You flick the knife forward in one smooth motion, your finger catching and releasing the ring in a well-practiced motion. It flies true, but before it can reach its target, the mask multiplies, mocking faces blooming along the shore, all turned towards you, all reaching for their weapons. There is a chance that they are only illusions, but that is a chance that you are not willing to take. Your kunai disappears into the darkness, evaded or caught and therefore useless, but you've already put it out of your mind.

You only need a single hand-seal before you dip your fingertips in the water, then draw them above and around your head in a showman's boastful gesture. The water follows, obedient, and it swirls around you in a familiar mantle of liquid crystal. When the clones attack, the water protects you, catching the blades in a downward sweep that will bury them, invisible, in the muddy lake bottom.

You are reluctant to release the safety of your defense, but it is too dark to willingly maintain a barrier between what your enemy is doing and what you can see him doing. Your arms come to a halt quickly, no longer sweeping around your body, and you absorb their momentum and hold it inside you, waiting. This move, you give to them—you are in no rush, a lonely obstacle on a lonely route, but you can taste your opponent's impatience.

You do not have to wait long.

Fire blossoms at the shore, hungry and bright and impatient, and it hurtles towards you like a miniature sun. You regret the demise of your barrier now, but you choose evasion instead of obstruction, and release the chakra from the soles of your feet. Without it, you sink seamlessly into the water, taking a deep breath and almost releasing it in awe as the flames scorch the lake with light. The shinobi you are facing is a fire element, and a strong one. He is unusual for his village, but then again, so are you, and though you know you have the advantage here, you must be careful with it. Surprise and arrogance have killed more of your kind than any flashy technique.

The fire fades and your opponent is revealed in the heart of the flames, striking towards the empty place where you were seconds before. You feel a flash of respect—it is a good move, well thought out, and on any other night where you were not crouched on a quicksilver lake it might have caught you.

But not tonight.

Tonight, this lake is your domain, a kingdom of water to do your bidding, and the fool is standing on it, looking around as you stalk him from beneath the surface. Nobody looks down, nobody ever looks down unless as a last resort, as if the ground is safe, assured, and stable. That is foolish, you know, because nothing is safe in your world, despite illusions to the contrary, where whispers can kill as surely as tempered steel.

You blink, once, slowly, selecting a technique from your repertoire of magic tricks. There is regret in the decision, because this one will surely kill him, and you want to play a little longer, your beautiful dance of life and death, the full moon singing to your bloodlust and the stars watching overhead. But duty, a subtle weight along your shoulders, curling constriction in your chest, is more important than you are. You are but a tool, one among many, a weapon aimed and let fly in the dark, and it is time you did what you were meant to do.

The water rises around your opponent like the petals of a lotus flower, sinister and beautiful, and he has no time to react before the petals crash down on him, collapsing inwards and sweeping back out, drawing his limbs out in a star and holding them there with the strength of a thousand spider webs. You yourself rise silently to the surface, climbing the water like a set of stairs, and ready another kunai in the grip of your hand. Your victim is struggling, as life is apt to do when faced with death, and he only struggles harder when he sees your silhouette against the sky.

You show your respect by slitting his throat quickly.

If it were day, you would be able to see the blood dripping into the water, staining it crimson, the colour of passion and life. But it is night, so all you see are the silver fish, glints of light dyed morbid red, drawn as they are to the scent of blood in the water. Your jutsu holds the corpse above the surface, for now, and you indulge in a moment of curiosity before you send it to its watery burial.

The mask comes off easily, much the same design as your own, except yours is painted black instead of white. Your village is a practical one. You take a moment to wonder who it is that makes these masks, faces to hide behind as you slaughter each other, killing your own humanity slowly as you go. Or maybe you never had it at all, to willingly choose a path dyed in blood, telling yourself that it is for a greater cause. For the children, perhaps, or maybe for the thrill of battle thrumming beneath your skin.

The duty curling in your chest squeezes tighter.

Beneath the mask is not a man, as you assumed, but a woman, features delicate and bearing beautiful scars. Her dead eyes reflect the moonlight at you like glass and you think that it's a pity, because there are too few kunoichi like you in your trade, and she was strong. But her gender changes nothing—you were stronger, and that is all you can ask for in this kind of life, and you release her corpse to the bloodthirsty creatures below. For a moment, she looks like some sort of water spirit, hair swirling, black clothes invisible, nothing but a pale face with closed eyes disappearing into the darkness. Then the fish converge, and she disappears from sight, pale scraps of mangled flesh floating occasionally upwards before being consumed by stragglers.

You turn away, because there is no need to watch. Her bones will join the others at the bottom of the lake, an ecosystem built off of corpses, a peace built off of skeletons. This is a night like any other, where you almost died but didn't, and someday you know you will fall as well, and the fish that are your bloody stars will turn on you because that is how the world works. But this is what you live for, this is what makes you feel alive, what makes the rest of your life brighter and focused and sharp.

You crouch on the lake, silver fish dancing beneath your feet, and the world is still pulsing like a heartbeat.

[END]

[A/N] This is an experiment in several things-a different point of view, a fight scene, and a much different tone than Shiki Fujin. It's an exploration of the darker, less glorious side of shinobi life in the Naruto-verse.