One time in my life I was told that friends aren't people you necessarily choose, relationships aren't born of conscious choice. No matter how little you speak to people, no matter how little you relate people will come into your life and simply not go away, even if you want them too.
This was how I met Minami.
Just like told, she appeared one day at the orphanage, not that I paid her any mind. I had been there myself maybe a month, I was four years old when my grandmother had died. She was all I had, my father was an unknown, my mother had died of illness before my memories began. My grandmother ran a small stall and I helped her as much as I could counting on my fingers and trying to help her with customers. Every day was a struggle, always moving, always working trying to keep afloat, that was of course until she stopped moving at all.
I remembered that, while most other details were blurry I remembered her sitting there, not moving. Then when I went to the orphanage everything slowed down.
It was disturbing to not be moving, to be in such a crowded place, to be forced into the company of so many people all the time. I avoided them whenever possible. I played with stones, I liked stones. My grandmother taught me about different stones, she gathered them, she cut them and made them into jewelry. It was one of the few free things in the world because they were just on the ground, no one cared what you picked up from the ground. I collected them in little pouches and counted them, and stacked them while I remembered her until of course I found one day, they were gone.
Minami had stolen them.
It wasn't hard to determine she had done it because she didn't hide it at all. Any time she saw a kid with something she'd take it one way or another. The only time I've seen her not do so was when she tried to take a box with strings from Ume who responded by biting her so hard it drew blood. When I found her, sitting there in the courtyard, playing with my stones, some of which had been given to me by my grandmother I lost my cool. I wasn't prone to outbursts, not really, but I grabbed five rocks and in time threw them at her. One at each eye, one at her nose, one at her mouth. She was knocked back on her butt a bloody mess.
We were both taken aside and deprived of meals. It was the standard punishment which I think they did to save food. We were both forced in a little room while everyone ate. I had my bag of stones which I was counting in the silence. My anger had long disappeared, I had my stones back so what was the point in continuing to fume. As for her, I had no idea what her reaction might be. She was probably angry, probably going to throw a fit or blame me for what happened. That was fine, the adults were often angry at me when I didn't feel like speaking beyond what was required, if she attempted to hurt me we would just be punished more but that was nothing new. Which was why it was surprisingly when she spoke.
"Where did you learn to throw like that?"
I looked up at her surprised at the tone. She didn't sound angry. She put a hand on her face rubbing her nose.
"You really beaned me with those rocks, you were like half the yard away."
About a third of the yard away actually, the yard outside the orphanage was only six meters wide, I was only two meters away.
"Have you ever skipped stones?"
I blinked at the term. I hadn't heard it before.
"You haven't? I bet you'd be great at it. Come on, I'll show you."
She got to her feet and started towards the door only pausing a moment to listen before she pulled two bits of wire out of her hair that she wiggled into the door lock for a few moments before swinging open the door.
Well that was a rather unusual skill. She gestured for me to follow her and for a few moments I sat there and considered it. In the end I got up, it would be easier to leave with her than to explain to the adults why she wasn't here when I left. They would try to make me explain at least, they would shout at me for a few minutes most likely, maybe even give me a smack for not talking again. It really depended on who came, it would be less loud and easier to just go with her and avoid the trouble.
I followed her down the long windowless corridors, through several doors, occasionally she'd pause put a finger to her lips and I'd just stare at her when she did. Then we were outside and it was, beautiful.
The orphanage was hot, it was loud, it was sweaty. Every room was small, every bedroom filled with much too many people. There was no windows to open, no fresh air in this place, it was suffocating in more ways than one. When we were outside, we were in a walled yard, a wall much too high to climb though orphans would often try, and it was always packed with children trying to escape being inside all the time even in the winter cold. Now though it was night time, we were out one of the side doors and in the night air it was empty, it was fresh, it was cool, and it was silent.
Well almost silent.
Every night we could manage it, I went out with Minami. I couldn't navigate the orphanage without her at least not without getting caught. Every night she would chatter about the day, about the things she had taken. Sometimes went to a small standing pond and skip rocks (smooth flat rocks, not good for making jewelry, but good for skipping). Sometimes we would wander the streets around the orphanage, look at the sparse trees that lay at the edge of the village, and for some reason we would always go near the wall.
It wasn't until about four months after this had started that I found out why.
We walk against the wall when Minami pointed at one of the many gates that lined the wall that had been left ajar.
"Look, look, come on."
She whispered at me before pulling me forward. I followed her by habit at this point and we left the gate and by extension the village to the outside of the wall.
It was the first time I'd have seen it, but clearly not hers because she pulled me along against the wall and into the shadows. Near the far end just under the towers in a blind spot of the guards there was a small huddle of blankets and what looked like a few makeshift shacks. It looked abandoned at first but when we got closer I noticed the piles of blankets were breathing.
Minami crept forward in the darkness approaching the blankets and I watched a distance away. I didn't want to be involved in whatever she was about to do. Technically we were already breaking a lot of rules by simply being outside the village walls, not that Minami had any regard for rules as it is, but whatever was going to happen I probably didn't want to a part of.
I was correct in that.
She did a swift kick to one of the blankets and the person under it let out a cry. A dirty faced boy with pale hair pulled the blanket back and in bleary eyes looked at her for a few seconds and yelled.
"Your back!"
This roused the rest of the collection of people in the blankets who all erupted from their slumber and grabbed Minami in a large dogpile. They were all clinging to her, asking questions, pulling at her sleeves and picking things off of her.
It was big, noisy and Minami was enjoying it. At least until a voice cut through their noise.
"Everyone calm down, we don't want to alert the guard."
It was an older voice, and hobbling forward from the gloom was an older man. He looked a little older than the caretakers, but I couldn't tell really because he was heavily scarred. One of his eyes was missing, as was one of his arms. Looking closer in the darkness this was a recurring theme.
All the kids who surrounded Minami, all of them had some sort of injury or disfigurement. There was a dozen of them, from ages three to about fifteen it seemed. Like the man they carried scars. Some with shorter limbs than normal that noticeably affected their walk, some missing ears, eyes, with scars on their limbs if they had all four of them. The pale haired boy was missing both his shins. Not a single one unscathed.
"Minami, I see you ran away from the orphanage again. You know they get angry at that."
The man said with a sad voice.
"But they're so boring Oki-ji-san."
She started to rustle through her pockets.
"Besides, I brought gifts."
Out of her clothes she pulled out small toys, food wrapped in bits of paper, and cloth that she must have taken from the laundry. She even had a pair of shoes that must have been tied to her back. It didn't surprise me, I was well aware at how well she could hide things on her person.
"Minami I thought I told you not to steal, you don't have to be like that anymore. You aren't like us."
"I want to be."
She hugged onto a younger kid, maybe three years old who had a stump on one of their arms.
"I.. Oh right, I forgot. This is Mitsuki, she's a great shot."
I walked forward. That was what I was expected to do I suppose, but I felt decidedly out of place doing so. This was, I didn't know what this was. I had heard that people lived along the wall, I just hadn't known. But then no one said such things. It did explain why Minami kept stealing things.
"Also from the orphanage I see. Well I apologize if Minami has caused you any trouble, but you two should head back. We should be moving too. Come along."
There was a collective groan among the children but they all started to pack up the blankets.
"But ji-san!"
"Minami, go back to the orphanage."
His voice was solid and stern this time and Minami nodded her head.
That was maybe the strangest thing I'd seen tonight.
Despite their disfigurement they moved quickly and started to move along the gate. Minami didn't follow, in fact she turned around and let out a sigh. It was only then I spoke.
"You're family?"
"What's left of it."
She turned away.
"Two were missing, there's always someone missing."
She said again as we headed back to the orphanage.
We didn't speak of that incident again. Not really, we didn't really have too.
Minami continued to act, well like Minami. Sometimes we were caught sneaking out, sometimes we weren't. We never stopped, there was no reason to stop. They could smack us if they wanted, deny us food but they would never throw us out. In fact if we tried to stay out more than a day they would come looking for us. The orphanage was full because they were looking for orphans, but specific types of orphans, whole orphans. It wasn't until we went to the academy that I understood.
Our time at the academy showed us something about the world we didn't know before. Mostly that standing out was both a good thing and a bad thing. They wanted us to be creative but still do exactly what they said. It was an incredibly complex contradiction that most of the students had trouble with and either went one extreme or another.
Minami went one extreme, she stood out as much as often because she didn't care how much trouble she got into. The only reason she didn't run away like she did at the orphanage was because in her words, there was better stuff to steal here.
I went the other extreme. I was quiet and subdued, so the teachers generally ignored me. I had good chakra control so I was sent to the ninjutsu standard where I was taught an array of ninjutsu. We were told that to pass we had to learn how to use two elements, I learned water and earth, it was the simplest thing to do. The class focused on basic jutsu at first, then moved on more complicated jutsu, then we started using it in combat. I was never entirely interested in complicated jutsu and when we spared I usually used simpler jutsu more quickly to do more rapid fire hits. Or after a very interesting demonstration by Ume who had been unsuccessfully posing as Hiroshi for several days (at least I thought as much, we were warned that she was going to disapeared, I suppose since most of the class weren't in our platoon they were actually surprised), we were encouraged to start using jutsu in combination with other skills. In my case I just threw kunai at people who used jutsu that required more than one sign.
The teacher was rather amused at how I could always hit their arms regardless which side they dodged. It wasn't that hard, there was a pattern, they always moved the same way when they dodged. The only person it didn't work on was Suigetsu, but Minami had apparently stolen a large stack of seals from somewhere and wanted me to use some of the ones she practiced copying. Per her suggestion I wrapped it on the handle of the kunai to hide it, so when I hit Suigetsu with it the accompanying flash startled him enough to make him lose concentration enough to interrupt his jutsu.
Eventually we did our assessment. With some luck and a good shot at the odds we passed. Then we went into specialized training. I was sent to combat company, ninjutsu platoon, Minami was sent to support, genjutsu which she showed her discontent with by in her words trying to escape several times.
It was much the same as the ninjutsu class, except every day, all day with drills on dodging and chakra conservation. If you ran out of chakra you couldn't stop fighting, you had to keep going, keep fighting because if you stopped during a real combat scenario you died. That was main shift, a lot of the ninjutsu students had problems with. They had no way to fight without using large amounts of chakra, in fact we were taught to fight using large amounts of chakra in the most spectacular way possible. It was only now that most of them were focusing on what I realized early in the class.
It wasn't at all efficient or practical for long term combat.
Only Hiroshi really had the reserves to keep up that techniques, but even he couldn't manage it for very long. Everyone found their own solutions to those problems. Most of them just hid or dodged, spent as much time avoiding combat as possible to try and conserve energy. I like a few others would pepper our opponents with kunai to keep the distance to establish distance before launching range attacks.
We all built up a rhythm, a pattern. Everyone had a pattern ingrained into them. If you disrupted that pattern you could beat them, but only if they couldn't find yours. Other students found patterns, some of them tried to change theirs whenever I disrupted theirs, but in the end they would fall back into it. It was comfortable, and automatic. So the days blurred by like that, fighting every day, learning our patterns that itself became a pattern like the rest of our lives had been until the day of the graduation exams.
Then the pattern broke.
A stone stadium, with rows of examiners. The Mizukage watching, the leader of the academy was doing a speech. Then chaos started.
The swordsman Momochi Zabuza started the chaos. Everyone tried to act orderly but I could see it. The comfort of consistency was gone.
They moved us as the fighting continued in the city. We all moved together because we could do nothing else, think nothing else. Outside our formation was a threat we had no gauge or preparation for, a seven swordsman going rogue. Everyone was surprise, well everyone except for one person, but at the time I had no idea to know that she knew of patterns no one else did.
For the first time in several months we were all together, in the small bunker. Minami slid by my side and spoke quietly to me.
"What do you think is happening?"
She seemed, nervous? Well everyone was nervous so it wasn't a surprise.
"The adults are scared."
I said it as low as possible.
"The pattern has broken, they are afraid of what will happen when they try to fix it."
When patterns break is when you beat an enemy. When patterns break is when you must change or you will die. Life is a pattern until it breaks, they it is a struggle. Which was confirmed immediately when they said what was happening next. The next unexpected break in the pattern.
We were now genin.
We were going to the wall to fight.
We were going to fight the Kaguya and if we didn't struggle, didn't adapt, didn't change our patterns, we were going to die.
Minami griped my arm tightly when they announced the Kaguya was here. All her family, all those who lived along the walls were refugees of Kaguya attacks. Those who were not killed in raids, but not lucky enough to come out unmaimed. No village would take them because they couldn't work, no orphanage would take children who couldn't trained to be shinobi. They had stayed at the walls of Kirigakure because it was deemed the safest place, because the garrison was the strongest here that the Kaguya wouldn't come.
They had been wrong. As we were left to ourselves to prepare, not that five minutes was any real amount of time to prepare ourselves, she whispered low and quiet.
"Odds?"
"It depends on the amount of time we are on the wall and how large their forces are."
I said quietly.
"Not very good though."
"Not ours."
She said it again in a hiss. I didn't know what answer she wanted, but I doubt I could give her one that would satisfy her. So I told her the truth, it was all she ever got from me, and as much as she lied I have never caught her lying to me.
"If the Kaguya are already here, then they are most likely dead."
She didn't wince at the information. Likely because she came to the same conclusion. There was just sadness on her face. I felt sad too, I hadn't thought of them immediately but I knew for a long time their situation had always been a poor one. It was why we never stopped going to the wall, even though we were technically forbidden. Why I never stopped Minami from stealing the things of our classmates. Even though we had so little, they had nothing. We were protected because of some tip of the odds we were born and continued to live whole, while they by some other tip had not been. There was no reason for it besides of sheer statistics. Numbers didn't care after all, you couldn't really fool them, sometimes the odds are cruel. Our situation was no different now. Because even though we were whole and healthy now, it wasn't likely we were going to be when this was over. If we were alive at all.
We walked to the wall in formation, in order. There wasn't anything else to do. If we ran we would be die, if we stayed we would also very likely die. That was the cold truth of the numbers.
It didn't make it any less scary when we stood on the wall and saw the horde that awaited us.
We were all frozen at the chaos before us. No pattern to follow, no path to take. If we went down there we would die. If we stayed up here we would die, if we did nothing they would surpass the gate and we would die.
It wasn't until Hiroshi surprisingly spoke that we all acted.
"Strategy twelve!"
We all aligned ourselves to that strategy and sent the flood down before through the chaos it cut through the Kaguya before the next command came. We clung to it, it was our only path in this chaos.
"Seven!"
Now the students had to move aside as we went to the edge and sent light into the water below. It out of our hands and combined down the water then arced through it into all the wet and struggling Kaguya. But it didn't stop them, they kept coming. The next command came from Ume and I winced at it. Only about half the ninjutsu standard could use that technique and I was one of them. But I dare not break formation. If the pattern broke early we would die sooner.
I ran down the wall with others trailing behind me as we did the seals as fast as possible and let the energy pour the chakra pour into the water. Ice spread down the damp wall and pushed through the crowd of Kaguya, some were screaming, I could see it clearly as it passed to the edge of the distance though it was nothing compared to the screams of those caught in the steam. This was necessary, cold numbers, if they didn't die, we wouldn't live. It was sickening to look at but we couldn't break.
"Form a line off the wall! Triangle formation."
We retreated up wall in formation, one person always looking towards the ground, towards the Kaguya as we made it the top. As we did the melee company was called forward into the mob. My breath caught into my chest but I didn't stop.
That was wrong, if they went down there they would die. We needed to choke the wall, but no, the order was sent, if I yelled out a contradiction it would break formation, and it would cause confusion not that it mattered they had all gone, over the edge, into the sea of death.
I winced as I scanned the top but couldn't find who had yelled the order. As soon as got to the top of the wall all the ninjutsu standard course started firing off jutsu into the mob. Large scale jutsu, the most destructive jutsu they could use. This was no good, they were panicking and using too much chakra. There was no pattern, no rhythm, this was bad.
"Stop!"
I yelled this time. There was a startled look on the faces of those who looked at me. I most of them had ever heard me speak before. Not that that mattered, we had to reform, we had to find a rhythm.
"Strategy three!"
Strategy three was the Fire Line, it was when you line up to use water bullets. Every ninjutsu standard knew water bullet, it was the simplest offensive jutsu taught at the academy. There was some confusion but only for a few seconds as everyone reformed and we all shot water bullets off the wall edge of the wall. It wouldn't do much damage, but it didn't have too. In concentrated fire the main point was just to knock them off the wall into the battle below. Once they went down into ground below, they wouldn't come up from the horder again.
While we did that several of the swordsman standard stood on the wall to hold off the Kaguya who made it through the firing line.
They didn't last very long.
Several of them were pulled down and off the wall by the Kaguya who would push them off slightly or make them be hit by water bullets as they made their mad dash upwards. Any who fell off the wall would not likely make it back up, not in that horde. Only Chojuro who made an effort to keep moving and avoid our fire managed to stay on the wall but the actions of the other ninjutsu course students who used too much chakra earlier weakened the consistency of the line of fire. The Kaguya running of the wall quickly moved towards those weakened area and when the first one made it to the top of the wall the entire formation fell apart.
Several of the students scattered, others ran for cover. They were doing what they were used to doing as ninjutsu students, running and dodging and avoiding the trouble. It wouldn't stop them though because as the Kaguya came in a wave they were plowing forward.
I jumped back away from the edge as the things went to hell and pelted the Kaguya coming up with Kunai. Unfortunately they were all blunted, we were equipped for a graduation assessment not a battle and given no time to equip real equipment. Because of that I had to aim for tender areas, eyes, crotch, legs. If I could slow them down maybe we could stem the tide. I could see no hope of making an organized effort of those on the wall as everyone was running around, some fighting, others dodging, several falling as more and more Kaguya scaled the wall.
I quickly ran out of weapons as they came up the wall and had to start evading but I was running low on chakra too. Though that strategy was not working well for many of the students low on chakra. It wasn't looking good. I was caught by a Kaguya who slashed my arm with a weapon severing a tendon and making it lay useless at my side before they punched me in the gut knocking the wind out me as I lay on the ground. I knew I had lost to the numbers, I was going to die here as the odds said I would have. It was sad, not angry,
just sad, I didn't want to die, especially how this rampaging wolf would kill me. But I knew it had been coming so I closed my eyes and whimpered as I waited for the hit. It was then I heard it.
"Turtle stance!"
The garrison and every student with their senses about them responded instantly. There was a snap of wire as in the dry air there was a shimmer before it tightened. All the Kaguya rushing forward and the one standing over me were suddenly caught. The wire was heavily weighted on both ends and had been flung with some force from both sides of the guard towers.
Those caught were forcibly pushed together in a tight grouping stumbling over each other.
"Scatter!"
The voice came again and a few seconds later a kunai was thrown into the center of the mass and the explosion sent the cluster down in a heap.
I recognized that trap of course, as I recognized the voice. I had gone over it several times with Minami about why using explosives in close quarters was impractical because of the uncontrollable blast radius. Which made the solution of clustering the Kaguya with the wire then sending a blast in the center rather brilliant for preventing friendly casualties. Given the angle the kunai came from it must have meant.
I looked up and saw her standing up on top of the guard tower. She made a gesture for me to come. I quickly ran up the tower, as did several other students since more Kaguya were coming. When I got to the top I saw she was bleeding, there was a heavy gash on her stomach. On closer inspection it appeared she was hit with the recoil from a particularly taught ninja wire when it was snapped. When she set the trap she must not have been clear. She was bleeding heavily and breathing hard but she was smiling as she pointed off into the distance. I turned to see what she was looking at and saw a wave a shinobi coming from in the city. Reinforcements were coming. We had survived, if we hid properly we had survived. We had been lucky, we had beat the odds.
We weren't going to die today.
When the battle was finished we went to the hospital and after the bleeding was stopped forced to wait several days until they could properly give us stitches for our wounds. It was only then we were allowed to leave and immediately after we went back to the wall. The ground outside the village was still scarred, but all the bodies had been moved. We had been told they had been burned to avoid the spread of disease. There was no sign of them, not of the refugees, not of the Kaguya but the blood was still there. It was soaked into the wall, all over the wall, it would take several days of rain before it would be completely gone.
"Do you think they got away?"
No, I didn't think they got away. I knew of course who Minami was talking about. We were at one of the spots, just in the blind area of the guard tower.
"It's possible."
"If they saw them coming, they might have ran. They were good at running."
She said again.
"At least with the Kaguya gone, there won't be…"
She choked at the last word and sagged. Tears pooling in her eyes. I grabbed her around the shoulders and she leaned into my shoulder as she sobbed. Sobbed at the loss, the pain and the unfairness of it all.
The family she had wanted to choose, the one she wanted to stay with but couldn't was gone. The friends we had made at the orphanage, were broken. It was all broken, and there was no repairing the pattern.
All we could do was make a new pattern, a new normal, adjust, adapt so as to find that comfort again.
It would be hard, but there were still constants on our life to rely on for guidance. Minami knew that, because she as unpredictable as she tried to be was a constant. As was I. For now that would have to do.
