A/N – Happy Friday and Jummah Mubarak, I hope you all are doing well! There's another small, teeny-weeny AN at the bottom with an explanation and translation for something, just fyi.
A huge thank you to those who are taking the time to review, I love you all and cherish your words~
(Minor cursing in this chapter, Kyohei has a potty mouth.)
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Inuzuka Kyohei was bored out of his mind.
At first he'd felt smug that he beat out ANBU Hawk, that smug bastard of a Hyuuga, as the Hokage's preference to conduct such a sensitive mission. But now, as he repositioned himself in the tree that allowed him the perfect vantage point of the woman he was surveilling while she sold her vegetables, he was beginning to wish his teammate and rival would have been selected instead.
He was scowling, not that his mask allowed the twisting of his facial features to be shown to the world. It was his fifth week of trailing the woman while Hawk, Stag, and Rat watched over the Jinchuuriki on their own. At this point in time, he would have given the world to be re-assigned back to guarding the blonde-haired brat again.
At least the kid was amusing.
Kyohei was of the opinion that the trouble maker would have made a good Inuzuka. Uzumaki Naruto reminded him quite a bit of his first-cousin, Kiba.
The little prankster never failed to make his long shifts of guard duty pass with ease. As an ANBU member, he was not to be seen or heard, and that meant that Kyohei was granted a front-row seat to all the shenanigans that the little kid pulled on a daily basis without needing to intervene and discipline him.
It was perfect really, and Kyohei would be lying if he said he didn't enjoy watching the trouble that the boy caused. Sure, he preferred field work to a position that was basically a glorified babysitter, but he wouldn't complain.
He admired the little devil and his guts, to a certain extent, and he adored observing the host of the Nine-Tails drive Umino Iruka to an early grave, he had never cared for Umino in the first place. The man had a 'higher-than-thou' attitude and was only a mediocre ninja who gave self-righteous speeches about the Will of Fire and their duties and shinobi, even though all he did was play with snot-nosed brats all day. He and Iruka had gone to the academy together, and Kyohei had developed a distinct distaste for him early on.
So yeah, he liked watching the kid push all of Iruka's buttons until the man blew steam from his ears.
It was always interesting to see what new stunts Naruto would pull on any given day, and it turned a task of observation that, at times seemed quite mundane, into an everyday comedy show that he received free admission to with front row seating.
Of course, Kyohei regarded his work highly and realized that he had been selected for the serious task for both his skill and discretion. The seasoned Jonin and ANBU member might have been a rowdy Inuzuka to the core, but even he realized how important this guard duty was.
Having a Jinchuuriki within the village could always pose an extreme danger, and threats from rival villages or rogue shinobi were always prevalent. The power that resided sealed away within the belly of Uzumaki Naruto was tantamount, one that they couldn't afford to lose.
A village with a Jinchuuriki was a village with power, a village both feared and revered. And if they lost that power to another village, they would not only lose face, but military prowess and allies.
It was vital that their host was well-guarded at all times until he was powerful enough to do the job himself, but until then it meant that it was up to Kyohei and his squad to keep a keen eye on the boy, ready to strike at any threat in any given moment.
He supposed it was only natural that, as the leader of his squad, he would be chosen to trail and scrutinize this young woman who the young Jinchuuriki had become so attached to, despite her meager attempts at redirecting his affections. Not a single thing she had tried worked, only seeming to make him stick to her harder and with more determination. She had eventually given up and accepted his friendship, even if half their conversations were her berating him on his lack of manners or scolding him to eat healthier. Uzumaki didn't seem to mind, however, and continued to stick around both the woman and Umino.
It was like some sort of boring, sappy, slice-of-life novel. And he hated it.
The last week had been somewhat interesting, especially after the events that lead to Uzumaki's graduation. But that had been the highlight of it, and he hadn't even been able to get a taste of the action. He'd been stuck at his post, watching the woman drink tea and clean her apartment that night.
The woman was a model citizen. Proper, kind, and hard-working; though she seemed somewhat meek and a bit air-headed at times, and was quite naïve to a fault.
Her cooking made his mouth water, to a point where he was surprised she was not married yet. Most civilian girls married in their late teens or early twenties, the majority of the time through arranged marriages.
The first week or so had been interesting, as he trailed her and watched her go about her daily life. But he would be damned if this wasn't the single most boring mission he had ever taken.
He had watched the woman for weeks now, giving daily reports to the Hokage on all the boring tasks she performed; her boring interactions with her boring friends, selling her boring vegetables to boring civilians with that infuriatingly mild and boring smile that seemed to never leave her face. Even Kyohei could tell the smile was fake, and he was surprised she had fooled the others around her so easily.
But he didn't really care about her fake smiles and proper mannerisms.
Kami, he was so bored.
The summer heat made the black regulation uniform he wore seem even hotter, even though he was consistently circulating his chakra to help his body cool faster, there was only so much charka he could expend to help keep his body cool while still suppressing it enough to make sure he was not noticed by any other Konoha nin.
He was hot, bored, stiff-limbed from crouching for so long in the tree he was stationed in, and thoroughly agitated with such a menial assignment that had no indication of ending any time soon. He wasn't sure how much more of this he could take.
He would have even preferred scouting duty over this, and he hated scouting duty.
He heaved an inaudible sigh, allowing his chakra that coated his skin in a minor cloaking jutsu to move with him as he repositioned himself to recline lazily against the trunk of the tree, continuing his surveillance of the woman below him in a more comfortable position.
She was re-arranging her produce into geometrically pleasing designs as she chatted away with the rambunctious and gossiping woman who sold silks across from her. He watched as she wiped at some sweat on her brow, using the sleeve of a blue, summer yukata to dab delicately at her forehead in place of a handkerchief.
It looked to be a slow business day for her, which meant an even more boring day for him.
His gaze drifted lazily to the butcher, who had paused in cutting the cartilage from a rack of pork ribs he had been working on to sneak another peek at the woman. This time however, she just happened to look up at the same time, catching his eye and offering a small smile and light wave before returning to her conversation and vegetables.
The butcher, Keiji, if he remembered the name correctly, flushed furiously, and immediately turned back to his work with vigor. Kimari seemed to have her head in the clouds around 80% of the time, or so Kyohei believed, and had yet to notice how often the young butcher watched her.
Ugh, civilians.
Pansies, all of them.
It was like an entirely different world these civilians lived in, so peaceful and so unlike the life of a shinobi, unaware of the many sacrifices that were made by the ninja of this village so that they could continue to live the way they did; and it was a life that Kyohei had no interest in ever living. He preferred the rush of exhilaration that came from battle, from putting his skills to the test and pushing his body to the limits.
The life of a shinobi was short, but at least he was free from societal expectations and old-fashioned traditions that served no other purpose than to stuff people into molds of what other people wanted them to be. Civilian life, full of manners and dumb traditions, was nothing more than a ball and chain as far as he was concerned.
Kyohei was truly free, and he and his ninken companion, Aki, would never regret entering into service as a shinobi.
The civilians were so traditional, so old-schooled, so boring. Kyohei was about ready to go and slap some sense into the butcher if he didn't grow a pair and ask the girl out already. Surely not all civilians were such prudes?
Back at the Inuzuka compound, such reserved behavior was laughed at and the source of jokes for many of them. He failed to understand why so many young men in this village had a problem taking what they wanted for themselves.
The butcher wanted Kimari as his girl? Then he ought to go and be an alpha dog about it, bag a mate, and raise a pack. Simple.
He ought to just woo the girl right out from under the butcher's nose, just to show him how it's done. The thought made Kyohei smirk viciously. It wasn't a half-bad idea, the girl was pretty enough, if a bit dull, and Tsume had been nagging him for a while to have a pup or two before he croaked or forgot how to 'use it'.
Her words, not his.
Having a talk with Tsume would probably give Keiji a push in the right direction, or maybe just scare him straight to death, he could never be sure with his aunt. Kyohei would have scoffed at the schoolboy display of affection from the young butcher if he hadn't been worried of being overheard.
His attention was drawn back to the two young women again, when they dissolved into girlish laughter about something or another that Kyohei didn't really care about, bringing their hands daintily up to their mouths as the giggled.
He was sure that he was going to kick the bucket soon if things didn't liven up, or perhaps he might actually retch from having to watch such sickening displays of child-like crushes or listening to the incessant female chatter.
Inuzuka Kyohei was bored.
vvvvvvvvvvv
It was hot outside.
Summer was in full swing now, and I was grateful for the light fabric of my summer clothing that allowed a gentle breeze to permeate the cloth and brush at my skin. There were very few buildings that had air conditioning units here, so the small things, like lighter clothes or gentle breezes, helped to ease the heat and the discomforts it brought.
The cicadas were buzzing loudly in the trees, an out of tune, natural symphony for the listeners below. The sun was hot, without a cloud in the sky to shield the rays. The humid air seemed to cling to the skin in a fashion that was both wet and stifling, dampening clothes as the day went on.
It was summer all right, no doubt about it.
Konohagakure was situated in the very heart of the Land of Fire, a land that was adequately named for its warm and temperate, year-round climate.
Winter here only meant a slight drop in temperatures, cold enough to have the need to add another layer to keep warm, but never enough to snow or make the air feel bitterly cold. But Summer? Summer here was almost unbearable.
Lamees had been no stranger to the desert heat, but that heat had been tolerable in a relatively dry climate. It was the humidity that really got you here in Konoha, making the air feel multiple degrees warmer than the actual temperature outside.
I let my thoughts drift for a brief moment to my young neighbor.
Poor Naruto was probably on the verge of a heatstroke by now. The boy had only recently been assigned to his genin squad with Hatake Kakashi, just as I remembered. However, I had not realized just how hard Kakashi would push them with all the low-ranking missions to perform.
I'd hardly seen Naruto over the past week or so, the young ninja was consistently occupied with many D-ranks and would return quite late at night. And I could only imagine how hot and tired he must be today, with the sweltering heat the way it was. I didn't envy him in the slightest, that was for sure.
I dabbed at the sweat on my hairline with my sleeve for what seemed like the thousandth time already, watching as Machi pulled out a slim, wooden fan from her obi and unfurled it to begin waving it vigorously at her reddened cheeks.
When days got too hot, like this one seemed to be, many shoppers preferred to run their errands at dawn or dusk, staying indoors for the hottest hours of the day. It was often that stands and shops would close down as well when the heat became too much to handle.
But I wouldn't be closing anything today, despite the heat. There were still enough customers sprinkled throughout the hours to warrant keeping my stand open and bearing through the rays of the sun. I was fortunate to have a canopy over my stand, one that my grandfather had built years ago and I had hung paper, cut-out decorations from.
We had made the decorations together, my grandmother had apparently been a lover of kirigami, the art of paper cutting, and I found that it was a fun craft as a young girl. I continued to make new kirigami paper decorations over the years, changing them out every few weeks or so to hang my new creations from the canopy of my vegetable stand. I had gotten good after years of practice, and the bright decorations caught the eyes of many market-goers, which, in turn, attracted more business.
Laughter from Machi was what tore me from my thoughts on the delicate, paper decorations.
"Ne, Kimari-chan!" She called jovially, a hint of amusement and taunt carrying in her voice. "Better brace yourself!"
I looked up hesitantly, her voice sounded a bit too cheerful. It was a tone she only used for certain situations, and my stomach coiled nervously as I remembered that today was Wednesday, which could only mean one thing.
Wednesday was the day that Maito Gai came for his vegetables, claiming that mine and 'Jii-san's produce was the most, and I quote, 'deliciously nutriciously youthful sustenance within the supreme land of eternal fire'.
I wasn't sure I was prepared for what was about to take place.
"GOOD AFTERNOON, BLOSSOM OF KONOHA! I HAVE RETURNED TO PURCHASE YOUR PRODUCE!"
But I supposed I didn't truly have much of a choice. He was coming alright, whether I was ready or not.
I heard him long before I saw him approaching, the loud voice carrying and projecting throughout the marketplace. Shopkeepers ducked under their stands and closed their booths in anticipation, choosing that exact moment to take their lunch or close their stall to go on break. The market looked quite empty now.
Coincidence? I highly doubted it.
I rolled my shoulders back, took a deep breath, plastered a false smile to my face, rooted my feet firmly to the ground, and turned to face the eccentric, leotard-sporting shinobi of the Leaf.
"Good afternoon, Maito-san, how may I help you?"
And then he was there, appearing in front of me with astounding speed that I never truly got used to, even though he had been buying vegetables from my grandfather and I since I was eleven.
"And what divine selections do you have for me this week? The eggplant from last week was so delicious I could hardly contain myself! Such rich nutrients, such bold flavor!" He clutched at his heart dramatically before kneeling to bring his head level with my vegetables, inspecting each one with a sharp gaze.
He had, thankfully, lowered his volume somewhat upon arriving at my stand to peruse my selection of produce. I took his dramatics in stride, answering in a steady and mellow tone.
"This week I have more eggplant, corn, cucumber, edamame, and bitter melon. The corn is the first of the harvest, so the flavor isn't as sweet as it will be in another week or two." I advised, and he nodded seriously, picking up an ear of corn and inspecting it in grave contemplation.
The first fruits of the harvest always tasted less flavorful than a mid-season harvest.
"Yes, yes, of course." He continued to nod vigorously, as if we were discussing a cure for terminal diseases instead of an ear of corn. "I shall treasure your insight! What scrumptious and nutritious bounty of nature would you recommend?"
"The okra and cucumber are at peak harvest right now; the flavor is very nice and refreshing. I prefer the cucumber, myself." I answered honestly.
And it wasn't a lie, the cucumber was wonderfully refreshing in the heat, especially when chilled.
"A wonderful suggestion! Please bag them for me, Kimari-chan!"
I immediately did as requested of me, taking the reusable bags from his outstretched hands and loading them with the majority of produce I had carefully arranged on my display. The man sure did eat a lot of veggies, though I could see why he needed the extra food, he hardly stopped to breath and never ceased his training. And somehow, despite all of it, still had energy to spare.
Before I had ever moved in next door to Naruto, Maito Gai was the only character that had ever become acquainted with me, and that was only because Maito Dai, his father, had also bought vegetables from my grandfather.
I traded the bags for the coins, the amount smaller than normal because of our discount to active service ninja and veterans, a policy that 'Jii-san had insisted on and one that I upheld in his memory.
Maito Gai, however, had always insisted on doing a little extra, claiming that the discount was too generous. So, a tradition had been born between the odd shinobi and my grandfather and I. Gai would only accept the discounted produce if we challenged him to new levels of physical fortitude.
And judging by the way he was now looking to me expectantly, he was more than ready to receive his weekly challenge. The man was practically bouncing in anticipation.
"Alright, Maito-san, I thought hard about it this time." I said, forcing a tone of mock-seriousness.
"I am ready! Bestow upon me your demand!"
"Five hundred push-ups while maintaining a handstand, on top of the hokage mountain." His face brightened at my newest challenge for him, and he flashed me a terrifying smile that I was sure he meant to be charming. I suppressed the urge to cringe.
"A perfect challenge! I will leave immediately to do as you have requested, beautiful blossom born of Spring!"
He was gone before I had the chance to tell him I had been born in Autumn, disappeared in a whirlwind about as quickly as he had appeared, no doubt off to the top of the hokage mountain to begin his push-ups.
I ignored the way that Machi was cackling from across the way in her family's stand. It was amusing, however, to note that the rest of the vendors at the market all seemed to miraculously return from their well-timed breaks around the same time, just as Gai had left.
I exhaled the breath I'd been holding, caught Machi's amused glance, and promptly burst into laughter along with her.
This village was sure full of distinct personalities, that was much was certain. I never seemed to have a boring day.
vvvvvvvvvv
"'Ka'? No, 'tsu'. Wait, no, it would be 'su', wouldn't it? No, that's not right either…" My grip on the library book tightened, crisp white pages of poetry within the borrowed book crinkling slightly in my frustration.
It was a lovely evening, and I had taken my book, some spare paper, along with a pencil to the top of the roof of my apartment complex. The fading lights of day were mixing beautifully in the sky, a myriad of bright colors that blended and swirled like the easel of an artist.
I might have taken longer to appreciate the gorgeous sunset if I had not been so upset with my current endeavors. It seemed that, no matter how hard I tried with my limited education, I never really got a good grip the strange symbols that they used for their writing system.
"I think this one is the symbol for 'field'…no, it has to be 'tree'. Or was it 'mountain', maybe?"
I was about ready to rip my hair out as I continued to mumble to myself.
I was copying the poetry from the library book I had taken the day prior onto fresh paper, copying the kanji symbol by symbol and trying to piece together what the words of the poems might be with the limited knowledge I had of the Japanese writing system.
Kanji was a monster.
It made little sense to me, even after years of attempting to remember all the symbols and the grammatical rules and structures. It had taken little time at all to learn the language, spoken language was something that came relatively easy for me, but the three different writing systems were something I'd never truly been able to grasp.
It was so unlike Arabic, the beautiful cursive alphabet that connected and flowed like a gentle breeze across the paper. It was so unlike any alphabet I was familiar with from my past life, but I supposed that was why I had never gotten a good hold on it; it wasn't an alphabet at all.
The Kanji and Hiragana writing systems were even vastly different from each other. Hiragana was closer to an alphabet, a system of syllables used to almost 'spell out' the spoken language, which made it much easier to use and comprehend. Hiragana had been easy to learn and had given me little trouble. Unluckily for me, the elemental nations seemed to prefer the use of Kanji over the more simplified Hiragana.
Kanji was completely symbol based, and there was no way to spell out anything phonetically. Each symbol looked somewhat different from each other, which meant that the only way to be able to read and write to a point of literacy with Kanji was to memorize thousands and thousands of symbols and be able to use them interchangeably.
And, as if that wasn't tough enough already, there were times when the two different writing systems were blended together. Hiragana was used as a sort of 'glue' for the sentence structures, for things like conjugations or particles that had no symbol or equivalent in Kanji.
So, what the end result came out as on paper looked more like a jumbled soup of unintelligible Kanji with bits or Hiragana sprinkled throughout.
It was, as you can imagine, thoroughly frustrating.
My goal of literacy was one that was years in the making, but I truly had no idea where to go for better instruction. There weren't classes for adults for this sort of thing, and I had only received a year and a half of formal education at the civilian academy before I had been forced to drop out to help my grandfather when the war got worse and times got tough. It was also somewhat embarrassing to admit that I couldn't really read or write, as a twenty-year-old woman ought to.
By the time the war with Suna was over, I was much too far behind my peers to entertain the idea of being able to catch up, and my grandfather was of a generation that had lived before the school in our village was even constructed. He wasn't literate either, and he didn't believe it mattered.
When we were younger, Machi and I had attempted to put our heads together and combine our limited knowledge to see if we could teach ourselves, but it had failed. She had never even been enrolled in school at all, her father had only deemed it necessary for her to learn to manage the accounts and learn the family business. So, she could haggle somebody's last coin away from them, knew how to tell quality silks from false or lower quality fabrics, and could balance her family's accounts, but she didn't know how to read.
I sighed in defeat, lowering my pencil to my lap and lifting my hand to rub at my temples. I had a headache coming on, and could already feel the subtle pounding in the back of my skull. Perhaps it was time to call it quits for the night and get some rest. I hadn't been feeling very well over the last few days, and had noticed the beginning symptoms of what felt like cold or flu yesterday.
My mind made up, I snapped the book shut and gathered my materials, crumpling the sloppy kanji characters angrily in my grasp and shoving it inside the folds of my yukata.
If I haven't learned by now I probably never will. Ya Allah, why is this writing system so complicated?
I continued my internal grumblings as I found the staircase that lead back down from the roof of the building to the level my apartment was on, fishing around in my clothing for my keys as I moved down the stairs, exited the staircase, and turned the corner to bring me into view of my front door.
"Hey! Kimari-nee! Long time no see!"
The loud volume of his voice startled me so much so that I gasped in surprise and dropped the book and my papers of copied Kanji and Hiragana, sending the papers fluttering to the ground in a mess.
"Hello, Naruto-kun." I heaved an exasperated sigh, mumbling an agitated greeting to him as I bent to begin retrieving my materials.
"Sorry, Nee-chan." He gave a small laugh and sheepish apology for having scared me, an occurrence that was quite common, unfortunately.
Years of living through shelling and missile strikes in my last life, as well as living under the constant fear and stress of being discovered in this life had led to some very real and very extreme anxiety for me. It was something I struggled with daily, and at times it seemed to take over my life. And in this life, I had no outlet. Nobody to talk to and nobody to rely on. I was alone.
Sure, I had my friends and acquaintances, but I was nothing but an imposter among them.
The thought at times was almost too much to bear.
He squatted down next to me and picked up a few of the papers, shuffling them back in order. I paused for a moment when I felt that tell-tale tickle in the back of my throat, turning my head to the side and covering my mouth with the sleeve of my yukata as I coughed, the sound wet and just screaming 'sick'.
I didn't miss the curious glance he sent my way as he handed them back to me.
"Whatcha doin' with all this?" His tone was curious, blue eyes honing in on the sloppy Kanji that littered the paper that held my many unsuccessful attempts at deciphering the poem from earlier. "And you don't sound too good, you feelin' okay, Nee-chan?"
"It's nothing much, really, just studying some poetry. And it's just a little cold." I replied breezily, attempting to redirect his focus elsewhere. "You've been working hard lately, no?"
"You betcha! And you'll never guess where I'm going tomorrow!"
Redirection successful.
How simple it was to direct his attention where I wanted it. He was like a poster-child for ADHD.
"Where?" I tried, lifting a curious brow as I gathered all my papers back together and stood along with him, my frustration from early now abandoned.
You just couldn't stay angry around this kid, he had a way of finding joy in just about anything.
"No way, you gotta guess. I'll bet you'll never get it!" He demanded as he took a seat next to me on the ground, both of our backs to the outer wall of the apartment building.
"Hmmm." I stroked my chin, pretending to be deep in thought for his amusement. "Are you going to train with your sensei?"
"Nah, good guess though. I'll give you one more try."
"I've got it!" I clapped my hands together. He looked back at me, eyes sparkling as he waited my next attempt. "You're going to come to my vegetable stand tomorrow and buy something healthy for yourself instead of that junk food you eat! I've got some eggplants and carrots just for you, I'll make sure to save them."
"No way, gross!" He stuck his tongue out for emphasis, and I elbowed his ribs for sport. "I'll just tell you, you won't guess it." He stated in such reassurance that I could only nod along. "I'm going to the Land of Waves!"
My heart leapt in my throat.
So soon?
I had thought there might be more time until then. It was hard to have a good sense of time, between our daily lives here and what I remembered from the canon plot. I remembered what would happen, assuming that it all proceeded as normal, but I wasn't sure about exact timelines, or even how much time passed between these events.
"O-oh, really? Is it for a mission?" I asked nervously, as if I didn't already know the answer.
"Yeah, an escort mission, my first real mission to another land! Pretty cool, huh? I'll bet you're jealous, right?"
I took a brief moment to collect myself, attempting to rejoin the conversation as naturally as possible.
"Very jealous." I nodded along, which seemed to appease him. "They're famous for their roasted seaweed and water chestnuts, I've always wondered what it tastes like. You'll have to tell me how the vegetable stands there look."
His face fell somewhat.
"All you think about is stupid ol' vegetables." He grumbled, albeit light-heartedly.
I laughed at that, though the chuckle quickly morphed into a cough. turning my head to the side and hacking into my yukata sleeve once more, I earned myself a worried look from the young pre-teen.
"You should go rest, Nee-chan, so you don't get sick." He said, this time in complete seriousness, and I nodded in agreeance. I was definitely coming down with something, of that much I was sure.
"I will. Help me up, genin-san?" I asked with a small smile and he immediately complied, helping to my feet and seeing me to my door.
My keys jangled as I turned the lock until it clicked and the knob twisted to allow me access to my apartment. I stepped inside and turned, chewing at my bottom lip for a moment as I contemplated what to say.
He was leaving tomorrow, to take part in a mission that would eventually lead him to face off with one particularly vicious S-ranked missing nin and his subordinate. But he didn't know that, he had no idea what awaited him in Wave Country.
So far, things had proceeded according to the plot, my existence here hadn't seemed to have too much of an effect on anything, and I could only hope it would continue throughout this mission as well.
"Naruto-kun?" I called hesitantly when he turned to leave, and he looked back when I spoke his name aloud. "Just…be careful, okay? You have to become Hokage one day, so come back safe. I'll be waiting to hear you say 'tadaima'."
His eyes widened drastically, mouth falling open to gape at my words.
It hit me then, as I observed his astounded expression, that this might just be the first time anyone had said something like that to him. But in that moment, I didn't care. I just wanted him to come back safe and sound, so that he could live his life the way it was meant to have been lived without any interferences from my existence here.
This boy deserved to have his dream fulfilled, and I would do my best to make sure my being here didn't directly or indirectly stand in the way of him living a full and happy life. He would become the Hokage one day, I'd make sure of it.
"I'll come back safe, Kimari-nee. That's a promise-'ttebayo."
Please bring him back, God. I don't know why I'm here, or what purpose this is all for, but please bring him home so he can live fully. Keep him safe.
"And if I say 'tadaima', you gotta say 'okaeri', got it?" He gave me an enthusiastic thumbs up and a large grin for emphasis.
"Alright, it's a deal." And with a warm smile that I returned to him, I shut my door, taking his promise and hoping desperately that it was a promise he would be keeping.
I tried to go about the rest of my evening routine as normally as possible.
However, when my dinner was ready and the simmered vegetables and rice sat in front of me, I found I had no appetite. My stomach was roiling, and it wasn't just from the nervous anxiety that was eating at me as I worried for Naruto's mission – I truly felt sick.
I boxed the food to eat at a later date, cleaned the kitchen, and trudged towards the bathroom.
I took some time to splash some cool water on my face, and it was then that I realized that the water felt much cooler than it ought to. Lifting a palm to my forehead, I was able to confirm what I had already begun to suspect – a fever, and a high one at that.
My skin was scorching, hot to the touch. A thin layer of sweat clung to my form as my body fought whatever virus it seemed I had picked up.
I'll just take Naruto's advice and rest up, I'll probably be fine by morning.
With that thought I slipped out of my clothing, put on my nightclothes, and crawled onto the futon in my bedroom.
I didn't bother with the covers, and had hardly felt my eyes flutter closed before the clutches of sleep overtook me, the pounding in my head and heated skin giving way to a feverish sleep filled with horrible nightmares – along with the memories of my past life that I would have rather forgotten.
vvvvvvvvvvvvv
Kyohei was once again scowling.
Their Jinchuuriki had already left the village hours ago on his first mission beyond the Land of Fire and the rest of his squad had been dismissed back to their normal rotations until he returned, but not Kyohei.
He was stuck in the same god-forsaken tree he had been in for the last five weeks, watching Sasaki Mari as she writhed and sweat on top of her bedding.
It had been almost a day now that she had been stuck in a lucid and feverish state, and Kyohei was beginning to get nervous.
Surely, somebody would know to come check on her, right? One of her neighbors? A friend? She hadn't left her apartment in a day, and from what he had observed had also not risen from her futon since the moment she had lain her head down on it. Whatever illness she had, it was certainly a nasty one.
He could see the sweat on her body all the way from his perch in the trees, he could hear her ragged coughing and wheezing as well. And she didn't show any signs of snapping out of it any time soon. He shifted where he stood, channeling more chakra to his eyes so he could sharpen his vision like a hawk.
The cool, buzzing sensation of the pin-pointed chakra made his eyes tingle, but it allowed him a better look at the sickly woman that he needed.
Her hair was plastered to her head, the long brown locks tangled and soaked in perspiration. Her clothing clung tightly to her body, outlining her womanly figure and making the labored rise and fall of her chest all the more prominent. Her skin was pale, paler than it normally was – and the girl was already quite fair-skinned in the first place.
He cut off the excess chakra to his eyes, allowing his vision to return to normal.
Kyohei crossed his arms, fingers drumming against his forearms in relentless indecision.
He was only on surveillance duty, it wasn't his job to play nursemaid. But then again, if the fever didn't break and nobody came to help her, there was a fair chance she might succumb to the illness or live with irreparable damage to her brain and body if her bodily temperature ran high enough. And so far, it looked as if she was completely on her own.
His frown tugged deeper on his lips. Out of all the postings he could possibly have been assigned, he had to have been assigned to this? He wasn't quite sure what to do. He wasn't an iryo-nin or a nurse, nor did he want to play the part.
He could just leave her there, sure, but even he had morals. The Hokage most likely wouldn't question his intentions or motives if he intervened to get her the help it seemed she desperately needed. The job description for this assignment hadn't mentioned anything about what to do in the case she might need help, but then again, it hadn't mentioned anything saying his involvement was explicitly forbidden, per se.
He continued drumming his fingers against his arms, the indecision of what to do eating at him as he watched her lips move in fevered mumblings, oblivious to her surroundings.
Most likely lucid, he surmised darkly, which could only mean that the fever was getting too high for her body to handle. He needed to make a decision, and he needed to do it fairly soon.
Out of plain curiosity, he channeled chakra to his already sensitive ears next, the cool trickle of energy slowly making its way through his tenketsu to flood into his eardrums.
Immediately, he could hear it all. Her neighbor on the level beneath her was washing dishes. The man down the street was humming a lullaby to a screaming baby. A dog barked from two kilometers south of where he stood. A bird chirped in the tree adjacent to him. He could hear every damned cricket in the entire village.
The noises swam in his head, momentarily overwhelming his senses, until he focused with the expertise he was known for to narrow his range of hearing so that the girl was all he could hear, blocking out the barrage of random sounds that threatened to split his head in two. And then it was quiet, the only thing he could hear was the mumbled speech that slurred from her lips.
He listened for a moment, unable to make out what it was she was saying. The words were slurred, her speech completely unintelligible. His eyes narrowed at the strange-sounding words and mumbled speech.
He briefly entertained the notion that perhaps he hadn't directed enough chakra to his ears, but quickly threw that thought out when she finally spoke one word aloud clearly enough to make out.
He staggered backwards when he heard it, nearly losing his footing on the tree limb with wide eyes and a heart that pounded so hard he feared it might dislodge itself from his chest.
"Astaghfirullah."
That wasn't a word that was part of the common tongue spoken within the elemental nations.
He balked at the sound of it, realizing then why the lucid and fevered mumblings of the sick woman sounded so odd to him. None of what had left her mouth was anything that was recognizable because she was no longer speaking the common tongue. There was only one spoken language in this world of theirs, and she wasn't speaking any known dialect of it.
But that wasn't what shocked him so violently. No, not at all.
What made his heart pound in his throat, what made his blood roar in his ears, what made his eyes bulge in disbelief, was the fact that he knew exactly what language it was that fell from her feverish lips. He recognized it, though it had been twenty-eight years since he had last heard anything other than Japanese.
He was almost certain she was speaking Arabic. And the reason he knew that fact and had been able to identify the language he should never have been able to know was simple:
Before Inuzuka Kyohei had been born as Inuzuka Kyohei, he had lived and died as Ivan Mikhailov.
And suddenly, Kyohei's life had just gotten much more interesting.
A/N Part 2 – "Astaghfirullah" means 'I seek forgiveness from God', it's a prayer of sorts. I won't add a ton of Arabic or foreign language in this fic, but when I do, there will be cultural or linguistic explanations at the bottom of the chapter for your ease and convenience.