Author's Intro: This story deals with the fallout of Orochimaru's death and Sasuke's subsequent destruction of his secret organization, and what happens to a number of people who were or are in that order. Numerous manga spoilers.
In the Key of Seeking
Only a ninja can beat a ninja. It was one of the hundred ninja sayings, not the most profoundly phrased among them, but simple and accurate. A wise man, or ninja, applied it more broadly, and understood that it was necessary to understand something before you could defeat it, or even catch it.
Looking at the woman performing now, delicately plucking the strings of her samisen as she slowly circled about the inn's common room reciting a long, sad ballad, Kane reasoned that it took a mimic to spot a mimic.
There were inaccuracies to the comparison; of course, the world was never so simple as its outer edges appeared. Kane was a mimic in the fullest sense. She could not have sung that sung, but she could stand forth and perform it, having seen it done, an acceptable facsimile to fool the disoriented and distracted patrons as they languished their way into drunkenness. The woman who unleashed her exquisite tones upon the disinterested audience was not like that; she was a true performer. Notes and arias burned out of her, filled with passion and power, music to move men. All this was real, and proclaimed true talent and skill. This lady sang with the verve of a true musician.
The level of emotion was absolute truth. It was the direction that was false.
A song of lost love and lost hope this slow descending score, tragic and depressing, to tear the heart and bring forth tears. The singer invoked these things, a sure demonstration of artistry, but they were a lie. Her desires were the opposite, to reveal and rejoice at destruction and the irresistible pull of fate that overmastered all efforts of men. Hopelessness was her muse, despair her proclamation.
It was a horrible thing to look upon, men pulling their hearts into alignment with the universal plight of mankind in an effort cast down unto the abyss, and Kane quivered with her awareness and the desire to scream defiance at this perverse mockery of music.
She said nothing, remaining wholly silent, knowing with bone-chilling certainty she had traced at last the elusive woman she sought.
At length the sundered melodies concluded and the artiste took a brief round of applause and a far more significant round on contributions. With a smile pleasant and sincere she refused three offers from rich men for drinks or rooms, for she had beauty born of alien allure, and the fascination of the horrific. Kane saw in that smile promises of dread and deranged nightmares. They were lucky she was busy, who knows what awaited anyone who received an acceptance.
A final bow and she left, claiming another destination before the long evening ended.
Kane followed. Not immediately, such an act was a fool's choice, and a good way to get skewered by the entertainer's walking staff. It might masquerade as a piece of wood, but doubtless it was a rare sword to match its tally of blood spilt. No, she waited a space and then left after amiably settling her tab. She even paid with real money, though it would have been child's play to avoid bothering. The tea, for a ninja does not take sake unless in training or the deception demands it, had been good, better than the standards of such a place demanded. Kane cared nothing for culinary achievement, but professionalism could yet wring admiration from her heart.
As she walked down the streets of the small post town she kept to a measured, easy, commonplace pace. Such natural motion would not make her true identity easy to pierce, but neither would it be particularly hard. No extra steps, no deceptive motions or manipulations of chakra to appear especially ordinary were invoked. It was not her intention to sneak up on her quarry. She was not hostile, and such a move might well prove fatal. Indeed, the encounter might be of great lethality even if the approach was as gentle as summer wind.
Ultimately she was anticipated. The singer waited at the edge of town, resting easily against a gnarled tree, aged and wracked with disease. Kane suspected the once vibrant plant was not long for the world. No doubt the other found it comfortable.
The night was not well illuminated, but there were few clouds and half a moon struggled to enliven the gloom with silver reflection. It was enough for Kane's rapidly adjusting night vision to make out the other woman clearly, but to lose some details. There was no way to tell if it was a smile that graced her face, or a frown.
"You did not clap," the woman remarked, idly in appearance, but it was dubious in insincerity.
"Did you want applause?" Kane questioned. "For a sham performance?"
The other woman laughed, and in that moment the lies that bound her up and made her seem nothing more than another kunoichi pretending to be a traveling performer vanished like moonlight before a thunderstorm.
Her singing voice had been melodious, powerful, and grave.
Her laughter was the shrieking of a mad devil. No other comparison sufficed. Kane felt a wave of fear crest inside her just hearing such a voice, knowing the promise of horrors it was prepared to uphold without hesitation.
"You perceive well, and hide yourself from perception equally well," the witch's laugh vanished. "Had you not intended to seek me out I think I might have missed you entirely. Seeing you now, in the losing battle of light, I do believe you were right to do so."
Kane nodded almost imperceptibly. She was not unafraid, that would be foolishness, but she was hopeful. It was no longer belief, it was known: this woman was the person she needed to find.
"Follow me," the false entertainer beckoned. "We need a place to talk."
There was not much of a forest by the post town, a small collection of trees crammed between surrounding farms along rocky land unsuited to rice planting. Scraggly and bent, they were tightly packed together and of an age, planted here together since the last major cutting for firewood and construction.
They found a small open place there, a little circle not much wider than Kane's height, and she was not a tall woman, surrounded by brambles but clear within. The brambles were no real barrier to kunoichi, and the pair stepped inside easily. The performer put her samisen down, laying it against a warped fallen trunk, half-rotted, and then laid back against the same, as comfortable a position as might be had. "Gather tinder and kindling, I'll light a small fire, talking in the dark is boring and makes for poor jokes." She smiled with something resembling honesty then.
Kane did this, the matter of a few moments only, and the other woman lit a little crackling blaze in a space she scrapped free of undergrowth with her staff. She looked upon the flames with strangely childish fascination, highlighting her youth. Kane was herself quite young, but surely her strange discussion partner was not more than ten years older than she. Her greater power, obvious so close, spoke to a deep understanding, and also to the price that might be paid for such things.
Wonder about that though she might, Kane was not worried about price; she suspected she had no way to avoid paying more than there was to give. Such was the way of ninja.
"Well then," the woman looked up from across the fire. Her face was thin and pale, delicate in a way filled with danger, a porcelain doll that might break into razor sharp pieces and cut anyone who handled with anything but the most meticulous care. Her eyes were dark, and the right hidden by strands of black hair masking that side of her face. Only her mouth, accented with bright, artificial coloring, provided a splash of color. "Why are we here?"
"I came looking for the one called Himei Onna," Kane began, unsure of herself now that the moment had come. How do you reveal soul scarring secrets to a complete stranger?
"You have found her," the disguised kunoichi smiled, a predator's glare. "But I am not called Himei Onna, I am Himei Onna. Do you understand?" Her words dripped with malicious emphasis.
Kane nodded. She had no idea of this woman's real name. In the bar she had called herself Maika, but that simplistic reference was clearly nothing more than a stage alias. As one who had worn unending false labels herself, grasping the difference between a label and a name was easy. Himei Onna, horrid though it was, a crude insult meaning shriek woman, was a proper fit.
"Now that you have found me," Himei Onna continued. "Perhaps you'll tell me who you are?"
"Tsuchi Kane," she recited. "Special Jounin, Iwa Village." It was not only said, she took the labeled forehead protector from a hidden fold inside her traveling skirt and let it glimmer in the firelight, revealing the double mountain symbol of her village. It was a powerful thing to do, for to claim that affiliation falsely, to even possess one of the slender pieces of metal when one did not deserve it, was to invite death from almost any ninja.
"In such ways as it is measured, Suna village holds claim upon me," the frightful kunoichi replied. "But between us, this is irrelevant."
Kane understood. She had studied her quarry, knew the shattered ice woman was a shinobi miko, a religious ninja, and had duties strange and tangential to the concerns of the villages. In the distance of the firelight the tangles of bureaucracy unspooled.
"Tsuchi," there was no smile on the other woman's face. "Not much a name that, more like a marker." Her long, narrow eyes peered deep and past Kane's face. "Are you then a recruit, or an orphan?"
The question was well sent, and spoke of quick wit, and words that struck hard. A ninja could earn the name of Tsuchi, the name of the country of earth, only two ways, by foreswearing all past bonds and taking up the village's banner, or being born an unknown, and given it as the village's claim. "The second," Kane answered, with a glimmer of pride. She had cause, having done good service under that name, and it had been many years since she last regretted possessing it.
"So it is," the other reflected, her body relaxing easily as the fire flickered and struggled to live. "You have sought me out, Kane of Iwa," she nodded ever-so-slightly. "That much has been well done, for there is an imbalance cut deep within you, and it grows worse."
So the woman could see it. Kane felt a soft surge of relief; she had not come so far and risked so much for nothing. This dark and destructive creature possessed the understanding she needed, and from understanding came opportunity. Know your enemy. Know yourself. Kane suspected she must do both things at once, and this woman might provide the means. "Can you help me?"
Himei Onna almost laughed, but stopped herself just short. "I can do many things, Kane," she replied, raising a narrow eyebrow. "Whether I will or not is the true quandary."
That was indeed the crux of the matter, as the kunoichi had sensed from the beginning, and feared. How do you ask the darkness to drag you back into the light? She could only hope. Not pray, such an act would be the height of foolishness at this stage. "What will you do?" Kane did not make an appeal, she was a ninja. She simply asked to know.
"I haven't decided yet," a cruel smile, predatory, answered her. It seemed, looking at that quirk of the lips, that it was far easier to smile all the time when one's smile held malicious amusement than happiness. "I want to know the whole story."
The request was fair enough, and Kane had expected something like it. She had not anticipated telling such a story by limited firelight in the middle of the night after a long day, but it was clear the shinobi miko would hear this appeal now or not at all, and as the supplicant there was really no choice. "Where should I begin?" Kane questioned.
Himei Onna's smile this time was not cruel or amused, but held a flicker of warmth, or perhaps curiosity. "Begin at what you believe is the beginning."