AN: Little over halfway of what I have written now..
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The first time she runs across Captain again he's with Kakashi and they are discussing something while waiting for Kakashi's team to complete the forest of death. While they could be waiting inside the tower, instead they have gone to pick up food. It is pure chance they are going to the same Akimichi restaurant that Himitsu is with a long string of game birds draped over her shoulder.
"Kakashi-san." She inclines her head politely and Kakashi returns her greeting before being amused as her eyes roam over Yamato and she smiles. "Nice to see you again, Sempai."
"What's with the birds, Himi-chan?" Kakashi asks as Yamato doesn't seem to know how to respond, he remembers when he inspected Naruto's home she mentioned hunting to help support them.
"Akimichi request. I don't mind them, since they will pluck and clean them."
"Oh?"
"We are just getting something to eat, want to join us?" Kakashi asks and he can feel Yamato's surprise but it is a rare treat to see Himitsu smile though she teases that she won't pay for his share.
The two are comfortable talking and Himitsu doesn't even attempt to catch Kakashi removing his mask though he just uses a low genjutsu which Yamato knows he only does when comfortable. So it is not Himitsu but the other patrons he is hiding from. The girl he sees now is still serious and yet she seems at ease, something he soon realizes is because Kakashi is giving hints about how Naruto is doing.
"It was pretty funny seeing Sasuke and Sakura's faces when Naruto came back with plenty of fish and was smoking some for later." Kakashi tells her and Himitsu...
She smiles and there is something to how she does it that makes her look her age but it never changes how old her eyes are.
"So how did you recognize Yamato here?" Kakashi asks as he knows what his former teammate was up to and that she shouldn't say anything, for all he knows the girl before him is Huntress and wouldn't that just make her parents proud of her? He doesn't know how well she keeps secrets.
For the first time, Kakashi hears Himitsu laugh. It's the one Naruto spoke of one day to Sakura that when Himitsu is truly and completely amused that it feels like chakra bubbles along his skin. He'd thought it the exaggerated tales of a brother who has a very talented sister for all that her rank to Naruto is only chunnin. Right then though there is a sudden lightness, a softness, a pure indulgence that is so ...kittenish..it makes it entirely apparent that generally Himitsu is being far too old. Her very chakra humms happily and seems to invite them to share in it. It is brief before she closes back off and Kakashi has the peculiar sensation she unconsciously is seeking something when she does that. As if she's reaching out...and not finding something.
"Scent, Kakashi-san."
Yamato reacts comically and Kakashi tilts his head. He knows Himitsu has a good nose but everyone smells things different. "How so?"
Himitsu hums softly and her eyes lock onto Yamato, unblinking. It's a slow regard and her mouth seems to smile but Kakashi recognizes it as the parting of her lips how she enhances the scent. "Like the loam and woods of the very forest itself right after a rain. It's a very pleasant smell."
She doesn't know of his gift and yet there is a lilt to how she speaks it that makes Kakashi amused because that is not how a young girl should have her voice pitched and it makes Yamato look cornered.
Very entertaining to see a man in his twenties be flustered by a young teen.
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The time Naruto has until he fights is a month. He has a teacher and tells her plenty before she actually meets the pervert.
Unfortunately Jiraiya meets Himitsu alone first and Himitsu is a tall young woman with a face and demeanor that makes her seem far older. So when Jiraiya makes a lewd comment, and it is certainly not one that interests Himitsu, it is to be met with a sneer and her turning to walk away.
He makes the mistake of grabbing her shoulder.
Himitsu's reactions are not those of a young woman. They are those of a much older woman who has handled unwanted advances many times, from those she had no interest in or had simply tired of. From a place where claws and teeth were used to enforce ones words. She cannot help her instinct and so Jiraiya is not only sent flying, which he manages to recover from rather impressively, but has unconsciously chakra enhanced her hands and so deep gouges are in his shoulders. Not as deep as it could be but it was like she had claws instead of hands and there is blood. Jiraiya is starting to yell at her, livid when Naruto shows up and goes straight over to Himitsu babbling happily.
"Nee-chan you met the pervy sage I see!"
Jiraiya has quite the freakout realizing this is Minato's daughter. Kushina's daughter. The underaged girl and he just hit on her.
When they settle things later he's actually very proud of her and her reactions and praising her. The information that he's their godfather is a bit of a shock but is taken well.
Jiraiya is really interested when he spies a sealing scroll instruction manual sprawled in the room. He doesn't know why Himitsu is so nervous about them for all that she's happy to get advice, and wishes Naruto had more of an interest. But really, that Himitsu is so wary just shows she knows it is a very dangerous art and too many never think of it that way.
It turns out she'll be gone for his actual fight. Naruto wants to be upset, he does, but Himitsu headbutts him softly and works a braid into his short hair to hold a bead for him to wear and smiles.
"I have no doubt you will win."
Naruto clings to her but answers as only he can. "Believe it!"
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Himitsu is going on a very long mission with Ongaku-sensei and two of his fellow Jounin that were there when she'd crashed his apartment. It will take them to a number of villages while the exams are going on so they can gather intel. Himitsu after a point is to branch off in each and work on her roster of names and targets while Ongaku and his group can work the bars and locations she cannot.
It gives her a chance to run into Shiro.
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Shisui is overjoyed when she breaks into his home and is waiting for him. Because it is Himitsu who is there and not Huntress, and for the first time Himitsu smiles at him and returns his hug tightly.
He doesn't know why she's not resisting acting friendly but since he's so alone..it's good to have her there.
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Himitsu spends a few days with Shisui. He's got friends in this side village way out between the areas of Fire country but they are civilian only sort. He's adjusted to being with one eye and just keeps dreaming of if somehow he and Itachi could ever return to Konoha. He manages to sneak off and train secretly so that his skills do not fade.
Perhaps it is how safe she feels staying with Shisui, and being out of Konoha, but Himitsu sleeps better than she can recall.
She wakes up though to Shisui's "Hey when did you get a tattoo?"
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Himitsu can't even think to reply as she throws herself in to see a mirror, terrified. It is not the dark shapes she feared though.
On her shoulder's are subtle dark brown and black variegated spots. Just a few.
She sinks to the ground holding onto them.
Luckily Shisui thinks she just thought that they weren't really something she'd gone through with and likes to tease her she shouldn't be drinking at her age. Many do, so it is believable.
The words won't stay in though.
Himitsu grabs Shisui's hand as he's about to tease her and he immediately goes silent. All the small ways she's shown friendship outwardly here in his tiny home are astounding and Shisui just wishes he'd been in the village to see whatever changes were going on.
Green eyes reflecting the meager candlelight meet his and Himitsu smiles. He's one of her first friends and always looking out for her, she can give something back.
"They're like my eyes Shisui."
He's brilliant after all, even if it is Itachi who is the acknowledged one. "Will I ever know?"
Himitsu looks up, Shisui's let his sharingan activate often that night as if to sear her visit into his memories to take out when he needs them. She smiles faintly.
"Not everything, but a little at a time. I'm adjusting to trusting friends still."
He smiles at her. "Thanks for finally letting us in." It's not said bitter or with judgment though but an honest quiet relief. Because all three had figured out Himitsu was just not good at telling they were friends even if they acted like them. It was as if she just didn't know how to express it. Shisui runs his fingers over the markings and hums.
"they suit you. Is that why you got the mask?"
She nods and Shisui chuckles, just wondering. After all if Naruto holds the Kyuubi..
Why would being the child of the last Kyuubi holder and the Yellow Flash give Himitsu feline eyes and spots?
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The spots on her shoulders give her so much comfort. She doesn't hide them. She sees no reason to even if she dons Huntress's mask it only lends a nice atmosphere to her disguise and they are easy to henge away if she feels like it. The rosettes are gorgeous.
They give Himitsu courage and so the next time she separates from her team to catch down a name in the bingo book she lingers after. Alone. Secured in a cave with seals drawn around she sits and pulls to memory what Mito and Kushina wrote about in their scrolls.
It doesn't take long and then she's in her mindscape.
It's the first time she's been here as Uzumaki Himitsu and it is curious how different it is from the one she had gotten familiar with as a little girl the first time around. None of the methods she knew from then had worked this time though and so having a solution is wonderful. Himitsu looks about, curious as she turns.
The ground beneath her is different, the scent, the plants and colors are all ones from her previous life. But here the trees are mostly those she knows from Konoha, and the stars have mixed constellations above.
Still there's a reason and she goes to find the lake. Because there has always been a lake. It is made of silver and black an inversion of the night sky. Once it was only silver, but her soul has ever been tainted by the runes and the tiny pin pricks of shadows are not something that will ever brighten away. Himitsu smiles and crouches down, lapping at the silver water that is liquid and fire, the air and grit all at once. She hears the same sound ever so slightly off from the drops falling off her own face and looks up.
Across the stream crouches her reflection.
She's beautiful. Different from her now. The limbs are a little more compacted, the shoulders broader and less curves to her. There's no bust for it seems only humans have permanently swollen teats unlike most of nature. Spots cascade over her skin save for a few areas, hips, forearms and legs where they shift into stripes. Her hair is golden rod and the same hue takes precedence over tan in a few areas. The eyes are vibrant green and reflective, hair as it was before it was shorn. Long and matted with tangles and braids, bone beads and wooden ones, even a few stones here and there and a feather or two. A very large bite mark mess on both sides of her neck and the front by her collar bone from many seasons of laying with another. She was never the sort to let one at her back. Her jaw is different, and when she parts her mouth ever so faintly the sharp teeth can be seen. Her hands and feet have dark claws on them, her ears pointed and tufted and her demeanor wild.
"Rhyshrra." Himitsu whispers out and the form shifts until it is a great cat covered in spot and a few stripes with fur a deep golden rod who stares at her. Waiting.
Himitsu breathes out...
And awakens to four legs.
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It takes time once again to adjust to her second skin. It is not as easy, not anymore, to transition. When she was Rhy it was breathing in and out, no prickling sensation. One was a much hers as the others. Now there's a crackle of chakra to it and it is disorienting but thankfully not painful. Just takes a lot longer and she cannot be caught halfway, she's tried just in case.
Because she misses her claws in battle. They do not happen, Himitsu will have to content herself with forming them just out of chakra.
Her instincts and skills are all very off, but it has been fourteen years and so she simply relearns to hunt and climb. She can use small amounts of chakra in that form which is interesting and finds out it can allow her to slightly change her vocal cords for a very crude attempt at speech. It is a sort of temporary jutsu though and not a comfortable one.
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Himitsu returns with a number of bounties to collect, stories of Ongaku and his friends when hungover, and a very at ease demeanor.
Learning the third Hokage is dead and all that happened destroys that.
It seems she'd gotten fond of the old man and can add his name to those she never let know meant something to her. Himitsu takes no shame in collapsing into tears at the funeral and holding Naruto as he does the same.
