Nothing to Fear

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This fic was written as a birthday gift for sna, who plays Suzume at the Scarlet Spiral RPG and who asked for Suzume, Raidou, and "sparring" for her birthday present. I had to throw out the keyword when another idea entirely hijacked my brain. Of course, it's backstory for Scarlet Spiral (when am I not writing RPG backstory and passing it off as fic?) At any rate, all praise for Suzume's utter brilliance goes to sna; any flaws in her depiction are my own. Happy birthday, sna, and I hope you enjoy!

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This world can turn me down but I won't turn away

And I won't duck and run, 'cause I'm not built that way

When everything is gone there is nothing left to fear

This world cannot bring me down, no 'cause I'm already here

– 3 Doors Down, "Duck and Run"

-

It's raining hard, in this little gods-forsaken salient on what used to be the right flank of the Fire Country forces. There's not much of a right flank anymore, nor even much of a Fire Country force, at least in this sector. They've sent a runner begging for support, but that was days ago, and now they're starting to doubt the runner ever got through. Wouldn't be the first time some little force's been cut off, surrounded, annihilated.

Probably won't be the last, either.

There's a brief lull in the fighting, a day or two when the rain pounds down too hard for even the Iwa nin to think about launching an attack; with mud this thick, their Doton jutsu will just turn to slush, and they're hard-pressed enough to keep their own forces together in the darkness and the rain. With any luck, the tattered remnants of Konoha's Fifth Company will just drown in the mud.

Raidou's starting to think that's a real possibility. He's given up on shifting his bedroll when the water starts dripping through the sodden branches of the tightly-lacing pine trees, because his blankets squelch when he rolls into them anyway, and he's too damn tired to get up and move. He's sixteen, and when he stumbles awake and upright for his midnight watch, he creaks like an old man of thirty. He's chilled and soaked and scared to the bone, and he's down to half a pouch of shuriken, two rolls of wire, his katana, and a grand total of eight kunai. They haven't eaten any more than soldier pills in two days, and tomorrow they'll run out.

One of the men in his squad has started stockpiling mushrooms. Raidou kind of thinks they won't live long enough to need them.

He's not sure whether or not that scares him. Matsuyama, who's fourteen and barely a chuunin, broke down yesterday; they dragged him into what shelter they could scrounge together from a thorn bush and some tangled brush, and left him sobbing his guts out and trying to peel the skin off his hands. When someone wandered back a few hours later, the kid was gone. The few who remained traded weary glances, and didn't bother searching for him.

Raidou knows he's not going to break down. He watched his hands when he walked away from the kid, and even in the cold they weren't shaking. When he fights it's not with Toshi's calm (and a lot of good calm did him) but with a wild berserker rage that ignores pain, ignores fatigue, ignores everything but the goal and the enemy and the length of steel in his hand that's going to be buried in the other man's gut. He doesn't think about his own death, because it'll come when it comes. In the meantime, they've got the mission.

But the mission's pretty much hopeless, by now. They're down to eight chuunin and three special jounin and just one full jounin, and they've got a full fifteen kilometers of border to hold against more Iwa shinobi than Raidou cares to count. He's read Sun Tzu; he knows they haven't got a hope. They're sick and starving and scared, and all they can do is hope to hold the border long enough for Konoha to regroup, to fortify, to be ready when Iwa breaks through.

So Raidou thinks he's scared of failure, and he doesn't much mind that. Death's not something he can stop; it'll come for him eventually, and no matter how hard he fights, it's not going to matter when the life drains from his eyes. No point in fearing death. But success and failure are in his hands, and this is one fight Raidou's not going to lose. Not with the stakes this high, not with Konoha counting on him.

Even if they don't know he's out here.

-

He's just coming back from sentry duty, half-frozen and completely soaked and wondering how many nights of wet toes it takes to develop trench foot (if any less than eight, he's doomed) when there's a movement in the darkness, under the pouring rain. He freezes, fingers flashing down for a kunai before he changes his mind and reaches over his shoulder. If he loses a kunai in this mud he'll never find it again. He inches his katana out of his sheathe instead, and nearly screams with nerves and fury when the rain-slicked metal squeaks.

The movement stops. Raidou holds his breath and dampens his perilously-low chakra. If Iwa's making a push, there's not much they can do about it. They're all as low on chakra and weaponry as he is, and with Matsuyama gone, there's just three full four-man squads, all cobbled together from the last survivors of other squads.

Not much to do but go down fighting.

His katana whispers free, and he rearranges his hands on the soaked grip, gathering just that little bit of chakra that'll help him walk on the mud instead of sinking knee-deep. Another chakra sparks in reply.

Something about it makes him pause, just for a moment. The chakra doesn't feel threatening, just…wary. He knows killer intent—he's got enough of his own bottled up and leaking out—and he doesn't sense it here. Urgency, certainly. A little fear? He increases his own killer intent, broadcasting as much as he can—I'm a big scary jounin, go away and take your invasion with you!

And a voice whispers out of the rain: "Rai?"

It has to be genjutsu. There's no possible way—

But how would they know his name?

Raidou tightens his grip on the rain-wet hilt of the katana, trying not to let the sword's tip waver and lower in traitorous trust. "Identify yourself," he barks, and even he's impressed at how low and rough his voice sounds. He sure doesn't sound like a sixteen-year-old boy, frozen and starved and scared.

He doubts he looks much like one either. He hit six feet a year ago, and since then his body seems to have concentrated on filling out, echoing his father's strong build in dense muscle and bone. His flak vest is more brown than green, both with mud and with blood, but it's still the vest of a Konoha chuunin, and his rain-dulled hitai'ate is still centered on his forehead, under a sodden forelock of muddy brown hair.

He's a shinobi of Konoha, and the only way they're making it past him is over his dead and dismembered body.

But the voice in the darkness doesn't seem all that impressed with his bluster. "That is you," it says, and behind exhaustion and pain and worry there's a thin thread of humor in the voice. It's a woman, he's pretty sure. A young woman, a girl. Who calls him by a nickname no one's used for years…

He can make out a shape now, deep black in the rain-soaked darkness, moving towards him with the sucking goop of the mud dragging at her heels. Slender, he thinks, and quite a bit shorter than him. Still, he doesn't relax his guard. He does bite his lip, hard enough that coppery blood floods his mouth, but if this is a genjutsu it doesn't yield to pain. The girl slogs closer through the mud and the rain, and he thinks maybe, if her hair weren't just as soaked as his, it might be dark and frizzy…

"Don't tell me you don't recognize me," the girl complains, and at this point she's close enough to push his katana down, reach out, and thump him on the shoulder. "Well, I know I've grown up some, but it's only been three years. Good gods, you've grown. You sure you haven't got some tree in you?"

"Suzume," he says. His voice flattens with sheer astonishment. "What are you doing here?"

She sniffs, and there's a flicker of light in the darkness as she shoves her glasses up on the bridge of her nose. "Arguing with an idiot, obviously. Is there someplace dry around here?"

"We're on the front line of a war," he says. "In case you missed it. I thought you were back at the Hokage's Palace pushing paper?"

"Encrypting information so classified you'll never in your life get near it," she corrects loftily. "And breaking their codes, too. I've got a message for your commanding officer, Gensaki Tairo. Where is he?"

"Most of him's out there." Raidou jerks a thumb behind him. "We got his dogtags and his head. Saitou Kenji's our only jounin right now."

She's quiet for a long moment, and when she speaks again her voice is oddly husky. "The Fifth Company left Konoha with ten jounin, eight special jounin, and fifty-four chuunin. How many are left?"

"One and three and eight," he says, before he remembers that this might be a genjutsu, might be a trap, and he's just given away all their weaknesses to the enemy. His fingers tighten on the katana grip, and he eases it up again, trying not to signal his movements.

She sees anyway—she was always good like that, if this is her, which he's very much not sure—and her rain-speckled glasses glint again as she tilts her head. "Rai, you idiot. You think I'm a spy?"

"I don't know who you are," he says, and his voice does not tremble. Much. "But if you're from Iwa, I swear you're not getting back."

For a moment her exasperated huff is his only answer; she seems to be thinking. "You don't have the newest codes, so giving you the right answer wouldn't do any good anyway. And if I gave you the code from two months ago, that wouldn't be any proof; I'd've had plenty of time to get the answer. But if I really am Suzume, I'm your old genin teammate and I've been cooped up analyzing Intel and working on codes in the Hokage's Palace for the past three years. There's no chance I'm a spy. So what's something only I would know?"

Of course his mind blanks. He can think of their team's early days, when they quarreled at any pretext, and when quarrels inevitably denigrated into him pinning her and her trying to light his hair on fire. He can think of Toshi's attempts to calm and separate them, of Ryoma-sensei's roaring, of missions, of Toshi's and Ryoma-sensei's deaths… But all of that is an open book to anyone who's done his research, and a spy who knows that only Suzume ever called him Rai is a spy who knows a hell of a lot more.

She's waiting, and he wants to believe he can see the old signs of impatience: her arms crossed, her chin tilted aggressively, her foot attempting to tap the mud and just getting stuck instead. Watching her isn't helping, though, and in desperation he reaches for the first thing that comes to his mind.

"What present did you give me when I made chuunin?"

"You are an ass, Namiashi Raidou," she hisses. He knows that tone of voice; it's the same note of irritation-hiding-embarrassment that used to creep into her voice when Toshi would tease her about her (lack of) breasts, or when Raidou would make fun of her for teenage breakouts while his own skin remained (inhumanly, Suzume insisted) perfect. The mud sucks at her feet as she rocks up onto her toes; even so, she's still nearly a head shorter than he. "If you're angling for another kiss, you're not getting it."

It's Suzume.

Something in his chest writhes into a tight knot, and for a moment Suzume is in real danger of actually getting that kiss. The katana in his hands makes that impractical for the moment, and by the time he's sheathed it again he's got himself under control. He settles for a thump on the shoulder. "It really is—sorry about that, but we've had—last week—it's been hard," he finishes, already tugging her after him towards their hidden camp. "But you've got news? A message for Saitou-taichou? How the hell'd you even get through?"

"I've got my ways," she laughs, half-jogging to keep up with him. She shakes his hand off her shoulder, and takes it in her own instead. "Had no idea I'd find you here, though. I tell you, when I recognized your chakra—" She hesitates, and her voice softens a little. "I thought maybe you'd died, and I'd never even know. I try to look at the casualty lists every week, but there're so many…"

"We'll have more to send back with you," he says, grimly. She doesn't answer, but her hand squeezes his, and the knot in his chest loosens just a little.

Only a few of the Konoha shinobi are at the little camp when Raidou pushes his way through the concealing brush and ducks under what shelter the spreading pines offer. Saitou Kenji is one of them, and he looks up from brooding into the fire with alarm that turns quickly to wonder. "Merciful gods," he breathes, and springs to his feet. "Our messenger got through?"

Suzume nods, tugging a scroll out of her vest and handing it over. "Four days ago. He's in the hospital now; they say he'll make a full recovery."

Saitou nods, half-hearing her words; all his attention is focused on the scroll he's unrolling, and Raidou watches his eyes flicker across the page, his expression change. For a moment a wild, wonderful hope lights the jounin's face, and for the first time in the months he's known the other shinobi, Raidou realizes that Saitou really isn't that much older than he is.

"Reinforcements dispatched with all possible speed," Saitou reads aloud. "Command to be relinquished to Jiraiya, and in his absence to— They're sending one of the Sannin and the Yellow Flash here?" he demands.

Suzume smirks. "Your messenger was very persuasive." The smirk fades a little, then; she glances up at Raidou. "We didn't know you were so badly off. He said there were still twenty-eight men…"

"Eight days ago, there were," Raidou says. "Things were bad, just before the rain hit. Saitou-taichou, what are our orders?"

"Hold the border until the reinforcements arrive," Saitou says, rolling the scroll up reluctantly, as though he can hardly bear to conceal those precious words. "They shouldn't be far behind the girl, though. She's attached to Jiraiya-sama's unit as a code-talker and on-site analyst." He offers Suzume a heady grin. "You heading straight back to meet up with them, or can we offer you what hospitality we've got?"

Her fingers curl against Raidou's palm; he realizes with a shock he's still holding her hand, and then wonders why he doesn't let go. He looks down at her instead, seeing only a dark mass of dripping hair, until her head tilts and she glances up at him in return.

Her face is narrower than he remembers, thinner, but the pointed chin is still the same, and the mismatched eyes—one blue, one grey—behind the rain-speckled glasses twinkle back at him with a hint of her old mischievousness. She's pretty, he thinks, with an odd lurch in his stomach, and wonders when she became so. When she stopped becoming just annoying-as-hell Suzume the pyro, and became…

Something must change in his face, because suddenly she's grinning at him, and her thumb is stroking over the base of his thumb, and she's looking back at Saitou. "I think I'll stick around a bit. Sample this famous hospitality."

Raidou's not sure what to make of that speculative look on his captain's face, but he doesn't have much time to think about it. Suzume's tugging on his hand, and the knot in his chest and the lurch in his stomach are combining to make him think that following her really isn't such a bad idea.

Maybe, he thinks, they've got a hope after all.

Maybe, he thinks, as he pulls a lock of her hair to redirect her course towards his soggy bedroll, and she slaps his hand, and they share a grin and a laugh and a glance that lingers just a little longer than it should—maybe there's more than one way to cheat Death.