Haru's head felt on the verge of exploding. Moaning, she tried to move, and was rewarded by a fresh stab of pain.
"Don't move too much, now…" a soothing female voice told her. Haru opened her eyes weakly and saw a feminine silhouette looming over her. That figure started to mutter something else too, but the world swam and Haru lapsed into unconsciousness again.
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The recent turn of events, Sakana Kaiyou mused, were advantageous after all. He had been assessing Haru's abilities since they left Kiri, like any good commander. Her endurance and stealth were marginal, but the clincher would be her fighting skills. Everything else would work to her advantage in Konoha, but decent combat abilities were essential to the mission. By Kaiyou's estimation, with only a kunai she should have been able to eliminate maybe one of the soldiers before being overwhelmed. Kaiyou had been positioned and prepared to kill the remainder. She was, after all, only a two-week genin.
So he was surprised when Haru quickly took out one of them by ambush. Intrigued, he let her continue. The way she turned the tables on the second foe was inelegant and unpolished, but admittedly inspired. She was definitely her father's daughter, Kaiyou thought with some nostalgia. She was well on her way to defeating the last one when a moment of carelessness cost her the battle.
His attention focused on the fight, his guard was down when the Konoha shinobi tore through the clearing. He had barely enough time to conceal himself. It was pure luck that they didn't notice him and he wasn't foolish enough to think otherwise. He had not expected any Konoha shinobi in the Wave archipelago, though, he reflected, he probably should have anticipated that Konohagakure would do some reconnaissance of their own.
When the squad departed, carrying an unconscious Haru, Kaiyou initiated pursuit, sticking to the shadows in true shinobi fashion. Konoha, he sneered inwardly, they're soft. Kiri shinobi wouldn't have hesitated to abandon a civilian, or kill if his survival happened to be a liability to the mission.
Through the fog of annoyance in his mind, it dawned on him that this turn of events could be advantageous after all. She had a one-way ticket into the ranks of Konoha shinobi if she played her cards right. He grinned to himself. This just might work.
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"……Moegi, are you going to carry that kid around until she wakes up? We're moving so much slower because of her."
"It doesn't matter anyways, the mission is done, I'm sure the old lady wouldn't mind if we took one more day. Besides, I call the shots here, Kohonamaru-chan."
"That's right, Moegi, rub it in. I swear, I was this close to passing the jounin tests too. The old hag hates me, I swear."
"Pfft, whatever. Admit it, Konohamaru, I'm just a better shinobi than you are."
Shinobi! Haru's eyes flew wide open. There were three other people, one woman and two men, leaning against a tree each. With a quickening of her pulse, Haru noticed that they all wore Konoha forehead protectors and Konoha-style flak jackets. As if they could sense her disquiet, they glanced at her.
Haru tensed when the kunoichi walked over to her side and touched her forehead lightly. "You're awake. You were out for a few hours… what were you doing out there?" It took Haru a few moments to realize that the pony-tailed woman was asking in a concerned instead of accusatory tone. I don't have my forehead protector… they don't know I'm from Kiri! If she was careful, she just might get out of this alive.
One of the male shinobi, apparently the one called Konohamaru, was fixing her with a penetrating gaze. "Where's your family, kid?" he asked.
"Killed, by the Water invaders," Haru replied without hesitation, looking him in the eye. Inadvertently, thinking about her own parents, her eyes began to water. She looked away.
For a moment it didn't seem as though he believed her, but then he asked again, "Do you have any relatives here?"
For a moment her mother's face flashed through her mind, but Haru suppressed the thought and shook her head instead, avoiding Konohamaru's searching gaze. He broke off his questioning to glance at his female teammate, who glared furiously back at him.
The kunoichi crouched down and looked at Haru intently. "Would you like to come with us, to Konoha?" she asked, brushing a stray lock of hair out of Haru's eyes. The shinobi called Konohamaru grimaced in a here-we-go-again expression. The other male shinobi, a bespectacled man, merely shrugged his shoulders and yawned.
Haru was stunned by this unexpected offer. She immediately recognized that it was a free pass into the heart of the enemy's lair. She had no idea what Kaiyou would make of this, whether he was tracking this Konoha team, or even whether he was alive. However, she realized with a rising sense of despair that she didn't really have a choice— these three Konoha shinobi had already seen her face.
Mindful that the Konoha kunoichi was awaiting her response, Haru replied, "Y-yes, I'd be glad to." She gave the kunoichi a shaky smile to conceal the sinking feeling she was getting.
The kunoichi grinned and gave her a brief hug. "I'm Moegi, by the way." Haru muttered her own name by way of introduction.
" 'sup," the bespectacled shinobi said, "my name is Udon. Pleased t' meet you," punctuating his sentence with wet sniffs.
"Konohamaru," the spiky-headed shinobi huffed.
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With Haru awake, they made much better time, and managed to reach the northern coast by late afternoon. Walking through dense shrubbery, they emerged onto a deserted beach. A small boat bobbed up and down where it was moored, right where they had left it. Personally, Moegi wasn't sorry to leave the Land of Waves. She'd take Konoha over the humid, salty Land of Waves any day.
When they had all boarded the boat, Moegi called out to Udon, who nodded. He made a shallow cut on his thumb and performed a Kuchiyose. With a puff of smoke, a large turtle appeared in front of the boat. Udon threw sturdy ropes over the turtle's shell, and patted it. "Alright, Kame-kun, take us out!"
With Kamemaru pulling the boat, the miles went by remarkably fast. Within an hour, the Land of Waves had disappeared into the horizon. There was nothing but water all around them, and only a lone sea hawk flew high above, its keen eyes no doubt tracking some marine prey.
Moegi glanced over at Haru, slumped near the stern. She was gazing pensively in the direction of the Land of Waves. Moegi went over to sit nearer to her. "I saw you fight the four Water grunts back there," she said softly. Perhaps it was exhaustion and the fading light playing tricks on Moegi's perception, but she thought she felt Haru tense up ever so slightly.
"I was- they needed to die," Haru blurted out harshly. She gripped Moegi's hands in sudden earnestness. "Allow me to learn ninjutsu, Moegi-san!"
Moegi thought Haru's wording to be slightly odd, but didn't dwell on it. After all, despite the completion of the Great Naruto Bridge (or the "Great Tazuna Bridge" as it was more commonly referred to nowadays), a lot of the Wave islands --such as the one Haru came from— were still isolated enough to engender colloquial dialects of their own.
Moegi squeezed Haru's hands reassuringly. "I promise you."
A/N: So..... here are the first three chapters of the story "I, Spy". Finally, it's published! Any sort of comments/criticism is more than welcome. =] I'm not quite ready with the rest of the chapters yet, but they are in the works. Stay tuned! Many thanks to Holy Wolf for beta-reading this, your advice has been invaluable.