"For greed all nature is too little."
-Lucius Annaeus Seneca
"It is Nice to Meet You."
The rain hasn't stopped in three days.
It falls like a blanket, sheet after sheet after sheet, non ending, following Hana like an angry diety intent on punishing her for her failures and misdeeds. If it weren't for the straw kasa hat covering her head and neck from the downpour, she'd be absolutely and irredemeably soaked. Her rough leather cloak blocks only enough water to keep her torso semi dry, underneath the rags passing for clothes are damp and water drips from her fingers; Hana's geta sink into the cold mud with every step, leaving bare feet filthy. She tells herself she trembles because she is cold and wet, not because of the rain or the memories it brings. She looks at her chilled limbs with some disgust, palming the metal flask at her side. It's empty. Lips curl in distaste. Maybe there is still-?
A man's voice floats from behind as shaking hands raise the flask to her lips, and cold water splashes against even colder skin. Its empty, truely empty. Not even a drop of sake left. How many times has she tried to take a drink now? Uncountable times. When had she finished her supply? A week ago. She wants to retch.
The days have blurred together, an unending loop of dawn and dusk in this horrible downpour.
Why was she here again? Hana would rather be anywhere else, anywhere there isn't rain.
Maybe Suna. Immediately she discards the thought. She hates sand too.
She watches the torrent with dull black eyes and the flask falls to her side, clutched in a white knuckled grip.
"Nin-san," the man is beside her now, cowering beneath an umbrella that has seen better days; water drips on the man's balding head and runs the length of his round wizened face to the salt-and-pepper beard springing from his cheeks. Sallow skin and sunken eyes. Fukasu, a mere farmer, her employer. The War has been rough on him. On all of them. "The wagon is stuck, my sons cannot lift the axle."
She's here because this man has promised her money. Money in exchange for her protection across the horrid mountainous terrain to the village where he will market his produce. They'd left the lowland valley behind for the rocky cliffs of the mountains five days before. Hana never asked why he wished to travel north when there were closer villages, but had a feeling the warfront was drawing closer by the day, and perhaps those villages had already become consumed.
Hana gives her best smile, yet it doesn't reach her onyx eyes. "I'll take care of it, o-jiji-san."
His disgruntled features lighten her own somewhat.
The wagon is laden with heavy bags of rice, and large enough to be pulled by a horse, but Fukasu's gray mare is old and hagard, maybe even sickly, it is a sordid looking beast that has seen better days - stark ribs and protruding hips - and for all the coersion the two young men give the animal, it cannot pull the back wheels free. Ichirou and Jirou. Twins, they are, perhaps only two to three years younger than herself, fifteen or sixteen years old. All ribs and bones, like the horse, lanky limbed and dull eyed, with mops of dull brown hair beneath their own straw kasa. There are so many like them now, people hungry and starved, scrapping what little they can from the soil.
War is not easy on the weak.
They watch her with silent distrust as she walks towards the wagon, giving the mud patch a considering look; the sons give her a wide berth, and she does not blame them. She wouldn't trust a nameless, villageless, nukenin like herself either.
Trembling hands grip the drenched wood and she heaves upwards. Muscles buldge in her arms and her back burns something fierce as scar tissue stretches over tender muscle. Her feet plant in the mud and do not slide thanks to the latching chakra on her soles. Wood creaks ominously as she lifts. She is a tiny thing, and she is used to being underestimated.
Yet she is strong. She is stone and she is unmovable.
"Su-sugoi," Jirou gasps, as slowly but surely the axle is lifted from the cloying muck. Both the brothers together couldn't lift the heavy weight.
Hana's posturing can only hold the burden for so long. "The horse," is her terse command. Hopefully it doesn't betray her tremble.
"H-hai!" Ichirou gives the tired horse a good shove.
With a lurch, the wagon jerks forwards, and finally, the wood slips from her calloused hands. A breath of relief escapes her lungs and she rests the back of her fingers against her burning forehead. She's broken out in cold sweat, and her throat is dry as a bone. The tremble in her limb is more noticable now. She swallows.
The brothers look upon her with something like awe, caught between fear and admiration. Shinobi can do incomprehensible things to civilian eyes. What was a simple feeding of chakra to increase muscle strength output looked superhuman to them. When she was a child she remembered looking upon her sensei in the same manner. Ibi-taisho had been a strong man, all bulk and hard humor.
Hana looks back to the rain with a feeling of dread upon her shoulders as the creaking wagon continues slowly onwards. Her hands splay out in the rainfall beyond the protective curtain of her brown cloak, and for a moment the deluge is much too dark to be water, far too red.
"See, no problem," a ragged thing her voice. Even the declaration sounds flat to her, strangled and gasping. She grasps at the empty flask on her hip, the smooth metal soothing her callouses.
A warm hand snags her wrist before she can attempt to drink. The touch stills her.
She can't remember the last time someone has touched her so peacefully, and something inside her lurches much like the wagon, stuttering and confused.
"Enough," Fukasu orders softly. Maybe she should be annoyed that a civilian thinks to order her, an Iwa shinobi (she is nukenin, yet she is proud), but those old eyes hold her tongue. Fukasu is a man getting on in years, and he has seen many things. His look is sad, it's understanding.
His gaze terrifies her.
One step back and a jerk of an arm is all it takes to break the loose touch of the man's fingers. She almost expects a struggle.
She can't meet his eyes, for how thoroughly he sees her.
"Thank you, Nin-san, for your assistance," Fukasu bows and hobbles after his sons.
Hana's head pounds, her body shakes.
She wants the rain to end.
The village is another day away, and they reach it without further problem. The rain has lightened to a drizzle, perhaps a mere mist. Here people move quickly from house to stand with distrustful and worried glances. Fukasu's rice brings a glimmer of hope to the eyes of the hungry, and in some a glimmer of greed. Hana is not an imposing figure in the least, and she does not look a shinobi in the rags she wears. This is fine.
She is used to being underestimated, she is but a single pebble among many.
When a thin man rushes the wagon just outside the market place, Jirou cries out in alarm.
Hana is quick, like a mongoose set on the snake, and her fist meets the man's guts in a very satisfying punch, sinking into his diaphram with a force that throws his body back raggedly into a building with a horrible crack. The broken figure falls into the mud, limp and unmoving.
Her punishment is solid, and relentless.
When no further movement from the crowd is made, she nods to Jirou at the reins, and the wagon clatters on, villagers rushing to part. The show of force will make them think twice, she hopes.
Night falls quicker that day than the others. Hana is jittery, and tense, and on edge. There is a weight at her neck she cannot shake, even though the rain has slowed to a light mist. It reminds her of the front lines and taking watches for enemies in the dark. She surveys the crowds of the marketplace like a hawk, and waits while Fukasu haggles prices to buyers. By the time the cart is empty, the farmer and his sons have heavy pockets, colorful purses full and brimming.
She knows such a thing might end them. Wealth is scarce, and war has made even good men desperate. They were lucky to reach the village without a fight hauling food, but an empty cart has a different cargo.
"Nin-san," Fukasu calls her attention as they near the village gates.
"O-jiji-san," she responds, huddled in her cloak, the first time they spoke since the rain. He smiles vaguely this time.
A weighty burlap bag of ryou presses into her cold hands, and she is not rude enough to count it. Fukasu kept his word, money for protection, and they had never agreed on a set amount. It already seems too heavy a weight for her services. Hana ties the cord to her belt, and thanks him sincerely with a small bow, "thank you, Fukasu-san."
"Nin-san, if I were to double the payment, would you escort us home as well?" the man is hopeful.
He knows.
Their money will kill them.
A dry tongue rolls behind her lips, and she eyes the sky apprehensively, dreading the thunder that hails the return of rain. Fingers tremble against the empty flask on her hip as the roar breaks the sky. She doesn't want money -not anymore- she has enough to get what she wants. Enough to last a while. "Sorry, ojiji-san. I am tired of the road for now," her smile is empty. "Perhaps next time?"
There will not be a next time.
The old man's frown is clear, and behind him his sons fumble with the wagon. The horse huffs and hot steam leaves the mare's snout. He doesn't relent.
"Our farm is large, and we are lacking hands. Since my wife passed it lacks a woman's comfort. I sincerely invite you to stay on our lands." His son's are quiet, well behaved men, and they are not hard on the eyes. Hana's stomach curdles at the father's desperate bow. She doesn't deserve the consideration.
A hand slips from her cloak. It is not a woman's hand; a woman's hand is soft and delicate, and made for gentle touches, Hana's hand is calloused and scarred from battle. It shakes from too many memories and too little liquor as she grips his shoulder. "I am not made for such a life." She is stone, she is unyeilding. "I will only bring you trouble."
"Very well," the old man straightens with a heavy sigh, "Thank you for your protection, kunoichi." those eyes are too knowing, "do not drink away all that you have earned."
Yet, as the rickety wagon exits the city gates, carried away by her wave goodbye to the farmer and his sons, Hana turns to do just that.
She pays for a bottle of homebrewed doburoku upfront and sinks low into a Tavern corner, back against wall and eyes towards the doors.
The unfiltered sake takes a cloudy appearance in the wooden cup from poorly skimmed rice stalk and Hana gives the beverage no consideration before she downs the entire glass with one gulp. It's gritty on her tongue and against her teeth, and sweet, too sweet for her taste, but it warms her chest in all the right places and stills the tremble in her limbs.
The tavern is full of ragged war-weary people. People who have lost their sons, their daughters, wives, and homes. Their land has been torn by battles and their food striped from them by the military forces that march through, wether they be Suna, Konoha, or Iwa. Hana's stomach rolls, and she feels sick. Hidden in the corner of the tavern, with her bottle of sake, she tries to ignore the continuing storm over head and the horrible weight pressing on her shoulders like a collapsed mineshaft.
The weight is guilt.
She poors herself another cup, and ignores the hard eyes upon her.
And another.
And another.
"Kunoichi," a gruff voice interrupts her half-sleep hours later when the sky is pitch black.
Hana's eye cracks open, the normally seedy and loud atmophere of the tavern deathly quiet. There are very few people remaining at such late hour, other than those who have no where to go. Her head is pounding beneath the hood of her travelling cloak, and the sake glass clutched in her fingers is dolefully empty. She's not sure why she's awake. She's tired, and it feels like she's been through the ringer.
A hand stretches longingly towards the bottle of sake, and a half-formed curse leaves her mouth like a grunt when she finds it empty. When the shadow across her table shifts minutely she remembers why she's awake. On the other side a man stands. He's unfamiliar, and strikingly tall. Too tall, she thinks, as she's forced to raise her aching head just to look at him.
There are many traits that stand out about the man, and she takes it in instantaneously. Dark gold skin hints at birth in the lands east of Konoha; Kumo, Taki, or maybe even the northern islands of Kiri. His torso is bare, muscular and defined, a peak physical shape that tells Hana he's ate suficcently, unlike many of the villagers here, and even herself, yet his simple pants are worn ragged with holes speaking of constant travel. Hair brown as the mud outside, shaggy and unkept, spills over sinewy shoulders and down his back.
There are many features that are less than normal. Features that tell her that this man is a shinobi beyond his well fed appearance. Perhaps it's the semi-mirrored patchwork pattern that's been sewn into his skin with what looks like black leather strips, or the tattoo prison-bands encircling his forearms, so faded and blue she can't tell his country of incarceration.
No, Hana decides, her heart sinking low to her stomach as she meets his eyes, the only facial feature he has not covered with that half destroyed cloth mask. She's never seen a civilian with eyes like that. Scalera so blood shot they're almost black and green irises the color of fresh aspen leaf.
There's a look in those frightening orbs, like a rabid dog that's bit into a long awaited bone. No civilian has eyes cruel as those.
Hana is dangerouly alert, and her body coils against the chakra that burns the air like a hungry fire, "What's it to ya?" she slurs.
A muscle twitches in his forearm-
She ducks, crouching low to the floor and chair toppling as debris and wood shatter under fist -occupants of the tavern scattering with yells of fear. Her cloak is pinned to the wall above, clutched in the fist of the man. No doubt he meant her neck. Hair spills freely around her cheeks and unfurls down her back, no longer contained by the hood.
"You're fast," the unnamed man mutters as green and crimson eyes swivel down, a deadpan tone that sends shivers down her spine. It irritates him, her speed - - she'll take it as a compliment. Yet he looks at her like one would an insect, or grass, or something that isn't thought twice of.
Its the look of a shinobi who is confident in their abilities.
She needs to move, move, move, move.
A leg sweeps out to catch her side but her upper arm takes the blow instead. A mistake, that, and as she's blown through the tavern wall and into the street, she realizes that dodging his strikes is paramount. She hits the ground hard, and doesn't stop rolling until her back collides with the building behind the tavern, and her skull cracks nastily against the wood.
"Hack!" she retches, doubled over, vomiting nothing but half digested liquor into the muddy dirt. The sharp taste fills her nose and mouth, and there's a little sting from where shes bitten the inside of her cheek.
Wiping her lips of foul bile, Hana blinks through blurry vision only to find sandles before her.
"Nuke-nin make for high bounties," those terrible eyes pin her, as she's given just enough time to meet it with a dazed gaze. His deep baritone voice is somewhat muffled through the thick cloth about his mouth. "I intend to collect." He stands completely loose, waiting for her move.
"Over my dead body," might not be the best wording to use, but she gets her point across to the bounty hunter. There is a fresh pain in her hip, and the opposite arm is already bruising from punishment, mottling yellow and blue. She thinks wood slivers are lodged in her side. Muscles groan as she takes Iwagakure's basic defensive stance. He has too much raw power, she'll be completely crushed if she goes head on. His chakra is a coiled thing against hers, and heavy. Her stores are little.
The man says nothing, but his intense gaze sends blood rushing to her head.
His fist is upon her, blackened and iron hard. The lopping grace of his form reminds her of fluid trapped in a remarkably human container, and she places the style as modified Takigakure basic. Hana dives forwards, her speed and much smaller figure slidding between his legs and forwards like a spring. Another building breaks under the impact of his fist and Hana's mind is dizzy; he has no care for anything other than collecting her bounty. If she can't lure him out of the village, the entire area is trashed.
These people have already lost enough.
She doesn't want to be the cause of more loss.
Not again.
She runs.
The man flanks her, and a leg swings up. Fabric flutters just over her head - she bounds backwards, one step, two steps, geta glancing atop the mud, unwilling to take another blow, unwilling to let a single hit connect. Hana's arm throbs as a fist glances against the already terrible bruise, and she rears back as an elbow catches the very tip of her nose. Yet for every foot of space she makes between them, he closes tight. Lightning cracks the sky as they clear the village and bound down the road.
This is far enough, she thinks, eyeing the mountainous area where only a few wind-bent pine trees grew.
It reminds her of home.
The bounty hunter stands across from her, arms at sides and waiting for her to make a move. She's entirely defensive, as defense is oft the best offense. Hana takes a moment to spit loose hair from her mouth and draws on her reserves, waiting. She can only hope he makes a mistake.
He stands there watching, calculating, naught more than a dark shadow against the rocks - she needs to be quick-
-He's upon her!
She ducks beneath another elbow-
She'd played that trick too many times.
He expects it.
A knee catches her beneath the chin instead, her teeth clank together, grinding-
A fist slams again into her already damaged arm, and something pops.
Hana's cry catches in her throat -sound conveyes weakness, she cannot afford it- white hot fire flooding her shoulder. Her opposite hand clutches the limb. Knees sink into the cold mud as she gasps for air, fingers fisting in mud, tears rushing and clouding her eyes intrinsic with pain.
She is not in a state for battle. She hasn't eaten in days, her chakra stores are running on dry.
"You're weak," the man mutters, dissatisfied. "Junk like you wouldn't have a bounty."
Weak. She's always been weak.
Brittle.
Never the stone Iwagakure wanted.
His feet plant in the clay before her, and he looks down upon her sourly, brows furrowing over hard eyes. Her chakra pulses heavily through her, down her arm to encover fractured bone, flowing like lead down the length of her forearm and into the burning tenketsu of her fingers, surging deep into the ground, deep through the cracks of stone and into the earth. She feels the rough edges, the planes and shards, and pulls.
Brittle stone is often sharp.
A fist raises to finish her-
-Her opening!
Flesh and sinew part, and something rips with a soft metal on metal tinkle, scatters around her mud drenched knees.
"You-!" the bounty hunter gasps furiously. His blackened fist is inches from her face, and she follows the length of the scarred limb to those uncomprehensiblely angry eyes. "-Kekkei-?!"
Her forearm is encased in lucid carbon-crystal, and shoved deep into his guts. Hot blood sprays against her skin, and there is a taste of iron in her mouth.
She is used to being underestimated.
The tall figure slips limply from her makeshift blade, and collapses backwards onto the wet road. It is not a killing blow, but it is a mortal blow. Darkness blocks her vision, yet she makes out the shape of dark guts spilling into the road and hears the hagard gasps for air, the lilt of organs escaping soft meaty casing.
The tenketsu of her arm scream in agony as her molding chakra realease the carbon bonds, and the makeshift blade breaks. Crystal falls in chunks atop the freshly red clay. She is dizzy.
Brittle.
"My surname is Moroi," she informs the dying shinobi, whose hateful eyes pierce her through. "It's written 'easy to break'."
As Hana shifts to rise, there is a clinking of coin. Her fingers scrape in the muck until she finds the source and her own blood runs cold. Lightning breaks the sky for the second time. Ryou litter the ground like fallen autumn leaves, glaring with fresh red blood in the flash. The weight on her shoulders press with dread. These woven bags cut from his belt- purses- colorful purses-
"You didn't-" Hana's voice breaks raggedly- she stumbles to her feet in exhaustion. Her vision blackens, her mouth is dry. Reserves are low, her head is pounding.
It's on the wind, the smell of rain, of blood.
She trips forwards into the muck as the bounty hunter catches her ankle. The hot convulsing grip cannot hold her for long and she wrenches the limb away, kicking wildly to release herself, until she can scramble to her feet.
Just down the roads bend-
Death.
The wagon lays smashed, broken in two by one decisive hit. The mare is broken, bones caved and neck broken. Three dark shapes crumple across the road one after another in a line.
They'd been running. Back towards the relative safety town brought.
Back towards her.
The final flash of lightning hails the rain, and cold wet drops slap against her skin, like an angry punishing kami.
Fukasu, Ichirou, and Jirou lay dead in the road, broken and bloody.
Hana knew what would happen.
She knew.
And she let them go anyway.
Hana falls to her knees and stares with dead eyes at the fallen men, because it's all she can do, and she tells herself it is from exhaustion and stress of barely keeping herself alive, and not because of the memories the rain brings, and not because she cries. Not because she regrets. Her bare scarred hands clench in the mud.
She doesn't see Fukasu and his sons laying in the dirt, she sees the faces of comrades long dead, faces that used to smile and now belong to rotting corpses, faces that haunt her with every drop that falls. Black mountains beyond the road look more of towers of steel, and towers of pipe, and towers that belch rain.
Her fingers clutch desperately against the flask at her side, and she just wants one drop, just one miserable drop.
Hana does not sense-!
A leg collides into her spine full force and the scar stretching the expanse of her shoulders screams as the air leaves her lungs.
She doesn't know which way is up, even though she's on her back, gasping for air. Her vision is doubled, and blurry, and she hurts. Gods does she hurt. There's blood in her mouth and mud in her nose, or maybe its the opposite. Hana groans and tries to sit up but there's a heavy weight pushing her down, and her eyes roll to find reason.
The man she just killed straddles her body, hulking form filling her vision completely. There are no guts spilling from his abdomen, but there is something else, black and viscous, and nonsensical, and it writhes against her, slides against wet skin like wriggling snakes.
Is she dead? Hana wonders in a daze. Is she in hell?
As a huge hand engulfs her throat, and squeezes, she realizes she's not dead quite yet.
She struggles, gasping for air just beyond her reach and clawing desperately at the immoveable fingers around her neck.
Blood lust rolls from the man in waves, and his chakra pours over her and- gods, how did she think she could fight that?!
"Its's been a long time since someone wounded me," the man grumbles at her, and four sets of shining green eyes waver in her cross-eyed vision. Her legs are kicking, geta stuck in muck and toes curling into the dirt as he slowly strangles the life from her. Her back arches, but he is too heavy to be thrown. She slugs his chest with her good arm, over and over, but he takes it like she is little more than an annoying wasp. "I shouldn't have let my guard down."
The blackness is closing.
Her mouth opens in a strangled gasp, chakra boils in her veins like molten fire, reaching, searching, desperate-
-His free fist pulls back.
"My name is Kakuzu," Kakuzu informs her darkly, "Written 'bishop', and 'capital'." He pauses in consideration, his brows furling into a scowl so dark she can see her death before it reaches her, "Hajimemashite."
The fist collides with her face.
Hajimemashite: It's nice to meet you.
I hope everyone enjoyed! This is set before Kakuzu joined Akatsuki, because I don't feel like messing with the story line. Akatsuki hasn't even been formed yet; Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru have just been named Sannin if anything! So lots of miser Kakuzu coming your way, yey!