An existence built on lies has a hard time accepting simple truths. Not all moths fly towards flames, and not all sharks hunt wounded prey.
Respectively Kishimoto owns his characters, as I own mine.
X
"This is a great honor that Tsunade-hime has bestowed upon you. And in return all of us as well. We trust in you to conduct yourself well as a member of this clan and as a shinobi of the Hidden Leaf."
Shibi was a man of few words, however Sachi was better off with far fewer.
"…are you listening Sachikoto?"
The orange haired girl jumped a bit while a few of the others in the crowd of Aburame clan members sighed. Rolling her neck to mask the sudden waking from her impromptu nap, Sachi pretended she had been listening all along. It was impossible to read Shibi's expression.
"Yeah, yeah Shibi-sama, I got it," said Sachi with a yawn, "I won't let the family down."
"Upon your success your name will be inducted into the Senior Annals of the Collectors."
Sachi sat straight as a board at the words, gold eyes flashing. "Seriously?"
Shino fidgeted beside his older cousin, the tension in the room was climbing steadily despite her nonchalance. "They mentioned it briefly at the beginning of the meeting Ane-san."
Sachi threw her hands up in the air and let out a voracious yell. Some covered their faces, some muttered to their neighbors, Sachi's eruptions were a fairly common, but altogether not anticipated. Shibi stared dispassionately forward while Shino smoldered with embarrassment.
Being named a Senior Collector was everything Sachikoto Aburame had ever wanted in life. To be a collector was to be one of the most decorated Aburame. It meant that not only were you a terrifyingly strong ninja, but one that could bring in the enemy alive. Essential for a village such as Konohagakure, which had an underbelly that thrived on the looted information of other villages and ninja. Succeeding now would mean that not only would she be the youngest Senior Collector in Aburame history, but the first in twenty years to actually gain the title.
Shino returned to his father's side as they all filtered out of the room. He was fully prepared to get a lecture about how ridiculous his cousin was and how important it was that he not be like her. Instead his father was chuckling softly.
"Father?"
"It's almost humorous Shino," his father said, "One of the most clever Collectors of the Aburame…and she's a complete idiot."
"She's one of the youngest Collectors ever…but she does sleep through every meeting," said Shino, attempting to defend his cousin and failing. He'd looked up to Sachi his entire life; she was four years older and was one of the most talented in his clan. On top of being one of the Hokage's hand picked ANBU. Despite her loud and often crude humor, her lack of seriousness and her all around playful demeanor, completely opposite of the typical Aburame, made her often a point of ridicule instead of pride.
"You're really serious about her induction if she succeeds?" asked Shino.
Shibi placed a hand on his son's shoulder as they escorted the last of the elders from the meeting building. "If she does well then yes. This is a high risk mission, and casualties are to be expected…"
"Do you believe she can do it?"
The evening sun caught his father's dark glasses and shined with a sharp glare. "I believe…that if nothing else the Akatsuki will not know what hit them."
Xxxxxx
"So…the bets are placed against me this time?" Sachi gripped her leg a little tighter; counting to one hundred with a foot over her head had gotten easier in the last couple of years. Her flexibility had gotten her out over more than one sticky situation that her mouth had gotten her into.
Shino sat with his plastic bug box beside him, the sun was slowly setting and fireflies were beginning to show up on the fringes of the training field. His cousin switched legs, holding herself perfectly still as she stretched. It was the only time she was still, usually she was leaping and bounding her and there, her twin braids floating through the air behind her.
"It is an S-class mission…"
"They're sending my whole team with me. I'm not doing this by myself. Anyway it's not like they can send Kakashi or something," replied Sachi haughtily, "they already know his tricks. But mine…ha, they don't know what they're dealing with."
Shino fiddled with the strap of his box and said nothing. Sachi relaxed her pose, putting her hands on her hips and giving him a look. "Well?" She was dressed mostly in the regimented ANBU clothing, trading out pants for shorts and leg and arm armor for custom made gauntlets and grieves that held a great number of spring loaded daggers that could be released with a small pop of chakra.
"Well?"
Letting out an exasperated noise Sachi strode towards him. Ruffling his hair as if he were still a small boy instead of seventeen. "Collector! Doesn't that mean anything mister Aburame heir?"
He swatted away her hand and she laughed. Despite her teasing, the two were as close as real siblings after growing up together, there were no others close to their age in the clan. The Aburame were not overly coddling people so the only playmates they had were each other. Deep down Shino was worried for her, as she was for him.
With a practiced ease Sachi flipped herself over him and landed upon the beaten and chipped target stump he leaned against. "A Collector brings in a captive alive. Perfect for interrogation. This is your everyday pest control, this is high class strategy and tactics, perfect mission for me."
Shino rolled his eyes, "You're going up against Akatsuki."
"A bunch of crooks in cloaks."
"S-class criminals with unknown powers."
"far from unknown, ototo," said Sachi as she pulled out her bingo-book and waved it in front of his face. It was torn, tattered, but most of all, note-filled. If a target wasn't dead or captured there were scribbles and notes stuck all over the pages. She had only shown it to him twice before, and despite himself, he was rather impressed by it.
Sachi, since she was on her way toward being one of the most decorated Collectors, had an extended bingo-book, not just criminals from the Leaf data books, it also included lawbreakers from all the villages near and far. That and the reward money associated with each.
Sliding down to sit beside him she flicked through the pages quickly. "Last meeting we had we got to update these. Slowly we've been getting info on Akatsuki and this is where we keep it." Her golden eyes flashed under her forehead protector.
"Then this is top secret information?" asked Shino.
"Well yeah."
"Then why are you showing me?"
Sachi looked like she bit into a sour grape, "Why wouldn't I?"
"Father is right, you don't take anything seriously."
"Hey," Sachi punched him in the arm, "I do. I take you seriously don't I? I can't possibly bring in all of these guys by myself. That's why I tell you. Maybe you'll decide to be a Collector too one day. Or hell you might want some quick cash…"
Shino gave her a small smile and met her eyes over his dark glasses, "Thanks Ane-san."
Xxxxxxxx
"The targets are suspected to be deep in River Country, which makes this mission almost impossible," began the ANBU in the monkey mask, "We're going to start panning the hilltops first, long range communication is going to be rough for the transmitters if we go into the valleys. In case anyone runs into danger, light a flare. There are small bunkers located in the hills, they'll open with a simply release kata."
"How many days do you think we're going to be at this that we're going to need bunkers?" asked Sachi, the only one who wasn't wearing a mask in the small five-man team.
"We're to stay out until we can say without any hesitation where Akatsuki is moving," replied monkey mask.
"Then shouldn't we be headed to Kirigakure instead? That's their seat right?" asked the hawk mask.
"We have intelligence telling us that the might have another lair in River Country, along with secret routes that are helping them get to the different villages unseen since tracking is so difficult. We're going to break down those communication trails and try to hound them back into a corner," replied monkey mask.
"Who was the last to report Akatsuki in the area?" asked Sachi, her voice was steady and even. She could feel the soft wet press of the early morning dew settling around her. Waking up early had a tendency of making her more serious, and the fact that her reputation of Collector was on the line made her drop her usual funny and carefree demeanor for one of cynical dark humor. She'd been inducted into the Black Ops at fourteen for a reason.
"Kushima, he reported that it appeared to be a standard two man team," answered the tanuki mask.
"Uchiha Itachi and Hoshigaki Kisame were reported not too far from our first rendezvous point. We'll meet at those coordinates and try to pick up the trail from there," said monkey.
Without another word the group vanished into the early sunlight.
Xxxxxx
'Bringing in the Uchiha would mean I wouldn't have to work until the winter,' thought Sachi with a cold smile. She had slid down her dark sun-visor over her eyes, it was connected to her headband and allowed her to slip into the emotionless Aburame mask.
The amount of money in the bingo book for the two missing-nin would not only make her rich, but famous as well. But it would be hard earned cash; there was a reason that they were worth so much money in the first place.
"No one is to engage alone unless victory is assured," said the monkey as he rushed by beside her. She scowled, knowing that the comment was more or less targeted at her. She had a reputation of taking on more that she could handle more often than not.
However this time she had a secret ace up her sleeve.
'Those bastards won't know what hit them,' she thought as her team came up to their first rendezvous point. The group skidded to a halt at the fork in the road, the sun was just peaking up over top of them, they had spent the good part of the early morning just getting to River Country.
"Create a perimeter, we stop here for a moment," ordered monkey. Hawk, tanuki, and crane did as was bid while Sachi stretched out.
"Listen to me well Aburame, I don't want you engaging Uchiha Itachi," said monkey suddenly. Knocking Sachi out of her daydream of infinite cash.
"What do you mean? Are you crazy?" spat Sachi, "If I bring him in-"
"You can't. Not one person here can, not without a sharingan. We are just a tracking team," said monkey, his voice was sharp.
"That's a load of shit, you said if we get the chance we engage. I didn't come along just to tail these guys without taking at least one of them down!" hissed Sachi as her dreams of money and fame began to deflate.
"Both of them are out of your league," growled monkey. Sachi stomped her way over to him and grabbed him by the front of his armor.
"And since when we're you privy to what my league even is?" whispered Sachi.
"You think just because you've got the title of Collector that you're so far above us. Newsflash bitch, you're not. Bringing in D and C rank criminals doesn't make you shit."
The kick happened so fast that hawk and tanuki barely stepped foot back into the clearing before monkey slammed against a tree and popped into a cloud of smoke. He reappeared at the other side of the clearing, far from Sachi, and adjusted his cracked mask.
"What the hell!" yelled crane as she rushed to monkey's side.
"Let me get one thing clear to you all, I'm here to bring in some Akatsuki ass, and if any of you get in my way…" The sun glared off of the dark glass that shielded her eyes. The other ANBU paced hesitantly around the scene.
Hawk held up his hands in front of him, "I'm with you Aburame-san."
Tanuki agreed quickly after him, which left them all to turn to the other two who stood farthest away from Sachi.
"I'm still leader here, I call the shots," growled monkey.
"Tsunade-sama said we were to engage if possible, you going to cross her?" said Tanuki as he sat down to the side of the road and pulled out a chakra pill and a rice ball.
Crane and monkey exchanged a look and with a great level of distaste submitted. The two however refused to sit anywhere near the others while they ate a light lunch.
"Tell you what Sachi, you really did a number on him, his nose broke through his mask," said hawk as the three lounged.
"Ha, not my fault he's got a bigger nose than dick," said Sachi with a glance over her shoulder. Tanuki choked on his rice as hawk all but fell over in laugher. Sachi spared them a smile and dug into her spring roll.
Xxxxxxxx
The trail was better than anticipated, and it didn't take them long to fold into one tight v-shaped formation. Monkey was a gifted tracker and had sensed the two chakras far off into the distance. He assured them that their quarry would have no idea of them coming.
The sun was beginning to set, Sachi's stomach growled and her feet began to ache. But the anticipation of bringing in such a huge reward…
'this is it, this is going to make them all wish they'd been nicer to me. I'll pay off all my bills, rent an nice apartment, hell maybe even get a cat!' she thought to herself.
"They…they've split up!" said monkey suddenly. Hawk cursed under his breath loud enough for Sachi to hear, and the team came skidding to a halt.
"Aburame, Kentin, you head west, Namura, Jalin, you're with me," ordered monkey.
"Which target is which?" asked Jalin, who was wearing the crane mask.
"I can't tell, one of them is using a genjutsu and is masking it," answered monkey, "Now hurry up or we'll lose them."
"I can track ours I think," said Kentin, the hawk.
Monkey nodded, "we'll meet back here in one hour if nothing comes out of it."
Sachi and Kentin nodded and turned, racing back into the dense rocky cover.
Xxxxxxxx
Kisame absolutely hated the Land of Rivers. It wasn't because of its large leafy trees, or its unfriendly street vendors, it was a tad simpler than that.
"If I step on one more lose rock I'm going to flatten this goddamn mountain with my bare fists," he snarled as yet another foothold came loose under his sandal.
Running through River Country just wasn't that easy, it wasn't flat or gradually sloping like Konoha or Kiri was, it was all one giant hill that turned into another hill that turned into a rockslide into a raging river. It took someone who was used to the bumpy terrain to navigate it with any sort of speed.
On top of that the amount of time that he'd been stuck moving through the damn country had doubled now that it became the safest route to drop of vessels without being detected.
Of course that whole 'not being detected thing' just got blown out of the water. They were both lucky that the crows that Itachi had monitoring a radius around them spotted the ANBU before they were right on top of them.
"And now I have to fight in this godforsaken place," he grumbled aloud, he hadn't been able to eat in almost four hours because of the pace Itachi kept. To say that Kisame was in a grumpy mood was an understatement.
"This had better be a good fight," he mumbled just as his foot went out from under him. He slid, rather ungracefully to the bottom of a small ravine where a small brook babbled along happily in the failing light. He, of course, cursed the entire way down.
The temperature down near the water dropped and a cool breeze ruffled the edge of his collar and felt like fingers running through his hair. He almost enjoyed it, almost, until Samehada twitched against his back at the scent of chakra in the air.
Xxxxxxx
It was impossible to tell which of the two-man team they had been tracking until they were right up on them. Sachi and Kentin hid in a grove of hemlocks above where Kisame stood below. He knew they were there, just unsure exactly where.
Sachi flicked open her bingo book and skimmed the pages. Initially she'd been disappointed to see that Itachi wasn't the one she was tracking but whenever she pulled up Hoshigaki Kisame's page…
"Look at those zeros…momma's going to need a ride to the bank baby," whispered Sachi as her eyes went wide at the numbers.
"Don't get hasty, we still have to bring him down. You know what they say about him, he's like a tailed beast…without the tail," said Kentin.
Sachi stashed her book and flicked out a kunai from her holster. Golden eyes wide and sharp like a cat's beneath her tinted lenses. In her empty hand she whispered a few words and a moth took flight out of her palm.
"You know what they say, the bigger they are, they harder they fall."
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