Rise

by wenwenwrites

Seven years after the Sandaime Hokage's assassination, a group of children are dragged into the war for the homes they barely remember. In which Kakashi is forced to the forefront of yet another war, Itachi is given to maudlin internal monologues, Shisui alternates between coping and dissociating, and Zabuza wonders why he couldn't have left the honor to the fucking samurai.

10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Hinata Has An Early Life Identity Crisis

Starring Hyuuga Hinata in the curious case of the girl who could be anyone but herself.

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MISSION REPORT D-72

Per last report, targets AT1, AT3, AT4 and allied noncombatant NCHS positioned in [REDACTED] base under care of ACHN and ACNS. Current status unknown.

Operative Cat-15 experienced physical fatigue, slight depletion of chakra, contusion to left shoulder, fracture to middle right rib. Status adequate.

With AT2. Established base in inn room in [REDACTED].

Operative CAT-15 established undercover identity of traveler caught unaware in snowstorm. Achieved employment at public stables for 100 ryo per day. Income sustainable if supplemented by street theft. Accompanied to employment by AT2.

AT2 expressed following symptoms: cough, congestion, fatigue.

Purchased: eucalyptus salve, green tea, honey, chicken broth.

Goal: alleviate symptoms of sickness in AT2. Remain undercover in [REDACTED] until AT2 has recovered. Procure necessary nutritional supplies for AT2 to continue projected age-appropriate growth.

Goal: rendezvous with targets AT1, AT3, AT4, allied noncombatant NCHS, and allied combatants ACHN and ACNS to ensure continued security and wellbeing.

No contact with enemy combatants.

No contact with allied combatants.

END REPORT

-Operative Cat-15

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The mantle of Hyuuga Hinata, firstborn daughter of Hyuuga Hiashi, heiress to the noble Hyuuga Clan, inheritor of the strongest doujutsu and most powerful taijutsu in the Elemental Nations, she who will hold the fate of her entire clan in her hands was a heavy one to bear. It bowed her shoulders and weighed down her tongue until she hunched under the former and stumbled over the latter. It dogged her footsteps and loomed over her until she cowered in its shadow, unable to break free.

Matsui Moe, however, had no concerns besides filling her belly and having fun and finding a safe place to sleep at night. She struggled with none of these, because despite having no parents, Moe was a cheerful, charming girl, and whenever she snagged an apple from the fruit cart on one of the market corners, the storekeeper pretended not to notice.

Hinata liked being Moe. Nobody expected anything from Moe, and her life was hard but comfortable. Like any port city, Kitakyushu had its fair share of street urchins running around its streets, and its citizens never blinked when one or two appeared or quietly vanished. She went where she pleased and nobody questioned what she was doing perched on the low wall just before the harbor, looking out towards the docks because the townspeople knew little Moe liked watching the sailors and the ships come in and go back out to sea.

She swung her legs absently, blinking away the sting as the sea breeze brushed tangled strands of hair into her face. Four hulking ships bobbed at the shore today, looming over the docks at which they were tied. Two sat idle, deserted as its sailors enjoyed the food and beds and other pleasures of solid land. The other two buzzed with activity, one offloading and the other onloading. The distant figures scurried to and fro, swinging up and down the rigging, maneuvering huge crates from deck to shore or shore to deck, and clustering and scattering just as quickly.

The years spent with Neko-sensei, before Itachi-sensei had found them, had taught Hinata that street children truly were the ones who knew the goings-on in towns. It was in part why the Hidden Villages valued child prodigies as much as they did - rare as they were, no other could move so easily and gather so much valuable information as a child. Civilians did not suspect children, and even if shinobi did, there were simply far too many leftover, forgotten children to police them all, and certainly no one to feed them or take them off the streets, though civilians would undoubtedly protest if the children were culled.

It was no great struggle to return to the streets - easier now, that she was Moe and not a hunted heiress. Moe was free to meet the eyes of the other townspeople with her brown-not-white eyes, to smile winningly at them in a way Hinata never would have dared. She wore Moe like the colored lenses and the hair dye and tattered, worn shirt that went with her persona.

"Moe-chan!"

Moe turned, eyes crinkling automatically in a smile as the other girl waved at her. "Ohaiyo, Ida-nee," she said cheerfully, and pointed back towards the ships. "Look, there's four today!"

"I see that," Ida said indulgently. "Come on, Moe-chan, you can't spend all your time just watching the ships. Kiyomi-baa-san gave out some biscuits earlier and they were only a little burnt."

"Oh," Moe said wistfully. "I like her biscuits."

The other girl beamed and pulled out a package from behind her back. "I brought you one!"

Moe gasped in delight and reached for the biscuit, then hesitated, biting her lip. "I don't have anything yet," she admitted.

"I know," said Ida, rolling her eyes, and shoved the biscuit at her. "You can make it up to me tonight."

"Tomorrow?" Moe hedged hopefully, opening the package with greedy hands. "The Kagamaru is still unloading, and I was planning on trying the south district again today."

Ida sniffed. "You'll never catch me down there. Everyone knows that's where the shinobi are - they're stingy, and they'll kill you if they think you're spying? You're lucky you're still young enough to not look suspicious."

"I'll bring you back something tomorrow," Moe promised, stuffing half the biscuit into her mouth and chewing as fast as she could. "It's a Thursday," she said, muffled, "so that fish restaurant's throwing out the old stuff."

"Fried pollack or no deal, Moe-chan," Ida warned, plucking the cloth back out of Hinata's hands and tipping her head back for the last crumbs. "I can't keep just feeding you for free."

"Yes, Ida-nee."

Moe would have to steal the fried pollack, she mused, watching the older girl saunter away. Every city was different, but the street kids in every city had a code, a hierarchy, and Ida held a lot of sway as the younger sister of one of the drug runners for the Chokoto Syndicate. Moe herself had found herself vaguely under the teen's protection in exchange for choice foods from the more dangerous south district.

She leaned forward, bracing her hands against the low stone wall on which she sat, and watched as the command crew of the Kagamaru convened just past the docks. The merchant ship was a regular; Moe herself had seen the vessel six times in the two months she'd been in Kitakyushu, and some of the other kids had heard from an acquaintance of an acquaintance that it had returned with the same frequency every month for years.

Eventually, the movement of crewpeople slowed to a trickle as the setting sun lit the surface of the water with its golden rays. She drummed her heels briefly against the stone wall and hopped down. There was nothing more to see here, so she picked her way back into the town proper.

Moe darted between a pair of ox-drawn carts, ducked a woman balancing a basket of potatoes, and dodged a kick aimed at her by an irate storekeeper. That baa-san hated when she and the other kids ran through the square, hated all the street rats polluting Kitakyushu. For that same reason, she was Moe's favorite store to pickpocket. She always had stone fruit, no matter what the season, and Moe loved stone fruits - peaches and plums were her favorite.

She didn't have time to swipe one today, though, not if she wanted to get through the Kumata Gauntlet before nightfall - and only the dumbest street rats let themselves get caught in that strip between the central and southern districts in full dark. Most didn't come back. Those that did were missing a part of themselves - if not in body, then in mind.

Moe hesitated, just on the near side of the stone arch preceding the Kumata. Dilapidated warehouses yawned on either side, rough-hewn stone and scratched glass concealing the favored haunts of the drug-mafiosos, people-traffickers, and hunter-smugglers. Moe had never been in those herself, but Ida's friend's rival's youngest cousin had run through the closest one on a dare once and come back shaking and white as plaster, physically unharmed but unable to speak a single word. Three days later, he threw himself off the midtown bridge and drowned. That had been enough for most of the street rats to stay out of the South district - no matter how good or rare, food was not worth losing one's mind. Besides the Kumata Gauntlet, there was only the Hisato Thoroughfare to get there, and that had guards posted at all times specifically to keep rabble like her out. Supposedly, it was to prevent robbery, but everyone knew it was to keep the gutter trash away from the rich people.

The supply wagons, however, were only permitted in the Kumata, so it was safe enough to travel as long as other people were around and the sun still shone. And it did, if weakly, so Moe took a deep breath and scurried through the archway in tandem with the cured meats merchant in his rickety mule-drawn cart.

The wind swept between buildings, hissing eerily across the Kumata and lashing against Moe's face. Something clanged in the shadows and she flinched, straining her eyes in the direction of the sound, but there was nothing there. Something small and dark darted down a side alley. "Hey there, darlin'," drawled a voice from the opposite side, and Moe instinctively ducked so the cart was between her and the voice.

The Kumata was long, but the leering eyes that stared out at her languidly did nothing as long as Moe stayed in the shadow of the meat merchant's cart. At the far side, she ducked into a side alley as the merchant took the main road, her feet lighter and the air filling her lungs more easily now that she'd made it into the South district safely. The back-alley streets here were worn and familiar, their shadows comforting instead of sinister.

She trotted down the alley between the barbecue restaurant and the silk shop and took a sharp right, where a set of stairs descended sharply into the storm cellar beneath the grocery store that'd been shut down due to a rat infestation. The door at the bottom was locked, but Moe slid out the bent hairpins she kept in the cloth wrapped around her arm and picked it deftly. It creaked open, spilling light from the distant street lamps into the cellar, and she plucked the electric lantern from its hook next to the doorframe and hurried down the concrete steps.

The door clanged shut behind her, and then the only light came from the swinging lantern in her hand. She set it down on the rickety table at the bottom, humming absently as she turned towards the corner she'd piled a nest of blankets in. Under it, she had a can of green beans, one of chicken, and a handful of packages of crackers -

Out of the corner of her eye, a shadow detached itself from the rest and Moe whirled, stifling a gasp.

"All clear. No tails," he said, voice low. "Do you have anything to report?"

She blinked hard twice, three times, each time closing her eyes longer than the previous. She took a deep, fortifying breath. "N-no," said Hinata. "N-nothing out o-of the o-ordinary."

"Gaara is in the sewers still." Sai handed her her mask and cloak. "We have twenty minutes until check-in."

"H-hai," she acknowledged, bringing the bone-mask up to her face. She swung the cloak over her shoulders and pulled the hood over her head. With a soft click, she turned off the lantern, leaving it on the table as she led the way up the second set of stairs into the store itself.

The store was less dark, dim light filtering in from the outside to light the bare metal shelves. Hinata ghosted past them to the stockrooms, where the stench of blood still hung over sloped floors. She pried up the grate at the center and peered down into the yawning darkness. She let herself drop, the damp, fetid air rushing past her as she fell through the black. She landed lightly atop the water with just a shift of chakra. Above her, the metal grate clicked back into place, and she moved aside so Sai could touch down beside her.

A low hiss. A tiny flame bloomed in the darkness, and above them, a pair of green eyes glowed from behind a white bone-mask. "The sewers are still empty," Gaara announced, annoyance betrayed in the way his eyes flickered towards the rust-red hair plastered against his mask.

"Acknowledged," said Sai. "We will proceed to base camp. Hinata?"

Her Byakugan activated in a blink and a small pulse of chakra, muffled by the concrete around her so even the enemy shinobi in the district would think it only the erratic fluctuation of an untrained civilian. The entire sewer system bloomed before her eyes, and far above, the bustling labyrinths of the streets.

That wasn't important, though. She stretched her sight along the sewer tunnels. "T-there's some f-flooding and t-two b-blockages," she said. "T-the d-direct line under the K-Kumata G-Gauntlet is c-completely i-impassable."

"I cut through the dry tunnels on the west side," said Gaara, deeply resentful with just the suggestion of a snarl. "Many needles."

Hinata repressed a shudder. "S-s-sorry," she said meekly, swallowing as his eyes narrowed.

"If it was the only way to tail Hinata, it had to be done," Sai said dismissively. "Base camp is to the northeast. We will not have to pass through the dry tunnels again, and when the tide rises, it will likely clear the blockages. Take point, Hinata."

"H-hai," agreed Hinata, and stepped carefully across the surface of the water.

The journey was largely quiet, interrupted only by their footsteps tapping on the water, the skittering of Sai's otherwise-silent ink sentry rats, and the occasional agitated shift of sand from the massive knapsack slung across Gaara's back. The air changed, blowing in on them with a fresher, saltier edge to the oppressive mugginess of the sewers.

Hinata stretched out her vision again, to the sea, the beach, the base camp, and her focus divided, almost walked into the grate. She stopped short before her mask hit the slimy metal, and her attention snapped back to her immediate surroundings. "I-it's clear," she said.

"Gaara," Sai prompted, then added, " gently ."

Hinata's widened field of vision let her see Gaara's narrowed eyes, if not the rest of his face beneath the mask, but she knew he was scowling. He gestured, short and abrupt, and tendrils of sand snaked out to pry at the grate.

The debris that had been caught in the grate swept out in a rush, and all three of them swayed as the water level dropped. Sai made the plunge first, taking a running start and sliding feet first, nearly horizontal, through the narrow tube. Hinata followed, pressing her eyes and mouth shut and pushing against either side of the tube to propel herself through the sludgy water. Not a heartbeat later, the breath was stolen from her lungs as the tube dropped out from beneath her. She opened her eyes and landed on her feet, stumbling forward a few steps to stand beside Sai as Gaara followed her out, twisting midair like a cat and landing on all fours.

"Disgusting," Gaara spat, shaking the water out of his hair and waving his hand to replace the grate amid a hiss of sand.

Sai dripped discontentedly. "It is our best option while the main sewer lines undergo maintenance," he said.

"A-ano, c-could we s-stop to c-clean o-off before w-we go b-back?" Hinata suggested, discreetly flicking sewer water from the hem of her cloak.

"Yes," agreed Sai. "I believe that is also our best option."

With a faint crusting of salt from their hastily-taken and hastily-dried dip in the ocean, they reported for their check-in with about fifteen seconds to spare. Their base camp had been an abandoned mine, forgotten years ago when the tunnels collapsed. Now, with the addition of discreet air vents, it served as a Hanabi-ha center of operations. A very small, distant center of operations with only a small impact on the overall war effort in Kiri, but busy nonetheless.

Shisui-sensei raised an eyebrow at them as they pulled off their masks, crunching faintly as the fabric of their cloaks shifted. "Cutting it close, Team Genbu," he noted.

"Ready to report," Sai responded, standing a little straighter. Hinata fidgeted with the mask in her hands, sliding her fingers absently over its smooth surface.

"Go for it," said Shisui-sensei, leaning back against the rough-hewn counter and crossing his arms.

"A nuke-nin team arrived in the South district in the afternoon, around 1650 hours," Sai recounted. "No pursuers, no visible injuries. One male from Ishigakure, one male from Sunagakure, one female from Takigakure. Likely at least chuunin, if they still wear their hitai-ate. The Sunagakure male is likely a sensor; he sensed my sumi rats but couldn't trace them back to me."

Shisui-sensei nodded thoughtfully. "It can't be helped," he said. "Kitakyushu is neutral, so mutual spying is not unexpected. As long as they don't follow you back, there should be no problem. Anything else?"

"The third Konoha team, designation W-12, departed in a northwesterly direction, 1400 hours," Sai continued. "Nothing further."

Shisui nodded. "Hinata-chan?"

Hinata fumbled the mask, just barely snagging it before she dropped it. "H-hai!" she stuttered. "The K-Kagamaru d-docked today at f-fifteen - 1450 hours," she corrected. "The c-command crew d-disembarked f-first and s-several u-unmarked crates were c-carried off w-with the r-rest and t-taken into the t-town. The H-Hijumaru is p-preparing for l-launch, but n-nothing s-suspicious was l-loaded yet."

"The crates were taken into one of the warehouses," said Gaara shortly. "Hinata was not followed."

"Copy that," said Shisui-sensei. "Get the written report done before you take off tomorrow, but get some rest tonight."

"Hai," said Sai, and Hinata echoed him.

"Good work, kids," Shisui-sensei said cheerfully. "There's another team rolling through tonight, you know the drill." He tapped a finger against his temple. "And keep your afternoon open tomorrow - we'll need to cobble together the op but we'll probably hit the warehouse then."

"Hai," Sai repeated.

Two makeshift wooden doors and a dusty corridor led them into the common room they shared with the rest of the pack. Hinata slid into the warm glow of electric lanterns behind Sai, brushing the crusted salt off her cloak and letting the door close behind her and Gaara.

"Hinata-chan!" Naruto greeted enthusiastically. "Gaara! We have fish!" He waved his plate in the air, and something white and flat went flying.

Only Sakura's reflexes, snapping up with her chopsticks to catch it, saved his fish. "Watch it, baka!" she snapped, slapping it back down on his plate. "Hinata, I'll get you some before this idiot knocks it all over."

Perched on the counter over her shoulder, Sasuke rolled his eyes discreetly. "What happened to you?" he asked between bites of rice. "Did you roll in a salt flat or something?"

"We were unfortunately forced to submerge in sewer water in order to return," Sai said blandly. "So we bathed in seawater to rid ourselves of the smell."

Hinata bit back a smile as Naruto burst into raucous laughter. "Sai!" he crowed, as the older boy brushed the white crystals from his cloak carefully. "You didn't!"

Gaara scowled. "Did," he grumbled, but his resentment had lost its edge.

"Well," Temari said wryly, appearing in the opposite doorway. "We'll never run out of salt." Gaara's posture straightened, angling attentively towards her, and she smiled at him fondly. Hinata watched wistfully. "Go on, get some food," the older girl urged. "Otherwise Naruto will eat it all again."

"I'm hungry!" Naruto made a face as Hinata accepted a plate from Sakura.

"Last night you ate Haku's share except a bowl of rice!" Temari scolded, reaching out to slap the back of his head.

"He said I could have it!"

"Yeah, and then he had a ration bar after dinner," she shot back.

Naruto faltered. "He did?" he asked in a small voice.

"Yes. He did," said Neji-nii-san coldly, sliding out of the same doorway to the sleeping dorms and levering Naruto with a disapproving stare. "Haku-san is both older and taller than you. It follows that he needs as much if not more food than you."

Hinata observed a rare moment in which Naruto seemed completely at a loss for words. She bit her lip and looked down at her own plate. She didn't need as much as Haku or Naruto, and she didn't mind eating the ration bars even if they were tough and tasteless. Should she offer him some of her food?

" - can't get as much fresh food," Temari was saying, "so we have to share what we do have."

Hinata opened her mouth, but the words caught in her throat. Frustrated, she closed her mouth again, staring down at her rice. What was wrong with her? It was just Naruto-kun, and she'd lived with him for nearly three years and known him even longer that that. She knew the favorite foods and birthdays and best jutsu of everyone in this room, but even around her friends, her pack, her throat constricted and wouldn't let the words out. She tried again. "A-ano..." It came out as a whisper. "Y-you - "

"That's it!" Naruto burst out. "I just have to find us more food and then we can eat as much as we want!"

"Naruto," Sakura said, adopting a lecturing tone as she twirled her chopsticks in one hand. "Shisui-sensei already told us we have to avoid the civilians as much as possible, and buying a lot of food will make people suspicious." Naruto's face fell again, screwing up in consternation and disappointment.

Hinata could fix it. She could give him the food he wanted and even needed more than she did. She just had to get the words out, and Naruto's bright smile would chase the misery off his face. Hinata swallowed. Across the room, Neji-nii-san narrowed his eyes at her and shook his head, just the tiniest movement. Humiliated, Hinata snapped her mouth shut again and stared at her feet. Neji-nii-san didn't approve; of course he didn't.

Her cousin had a preternatural ability to know what she was thinking, and he would no doubt lecture her, in that stiff, formal manner of his, that the heiress of the noble Hyuuga Clan should not be giving her dinner away to a lowborn nobody. Because Hinata was not her own person; she belonged to the Hyuuga, and to give in to her desire to be selfless was selfish in itself.

Sakura had been watching their exchange with her mouth twisted into a frown. Hinata knew she did not like Neji-nii-san. Despite the other girl's lack of a shinobi bloodline, Sakura was just as observant as Hinata, and caught each and every one of their silent conversations. Hinata wished she could tell her that Neji-nii-san was just looking out for her best interests, but this too she knew her cousin would protest, barbed and deferential and defensive all at once. It was a Clan matter, after all, and outsiders should not interfere with or even be privy to their interactions.

Behind her, Sasuke regarded Hinata briefly with hooded eyes before flickering to Neji-nii-san, but he merely turned back to his food with the faintest hint of a scowl. The Uchiha Clan raised its children almost as carefully as the Hyuuga and with many of the same rules.

Hinata ate mechanically, standing halfway behind Sai like a coward the entire time, and willed her hands to stop shaking.

Hinata woke before dawn, as she always did, and stared up at the bottom of Sai's bunk. Her dream, with its vague warnings and worries, slipped away, leaving behind a flash of a battle not yet fought and the stirrings of discomfort, fear, and a sense of urgency that drove her out of her bunk and into the small open room the pack used for sparring. She sank into her kata, letting the familiar movements soothe her troubled mind. Absently, she reached into her sleeves for the pair of hiogi battle-fans San had carved for her from the great antlers of a moose and added them to her kata, snapping them open with a flick of her wrist.

Neji-nii-san did not so much like her use of the hiogi in their family's traditional taijutsu, but Hinata had argued that it served to disguise the style - furthermore, the extra balance the beautifully crafted fans lent her had even let her take and keep the offensive in a spar between the two before it had ended as it always did, and Neji-nii-san had grudgingly accepted their utility in combat.

Hinata twirled, bringing the splayed blades of one up to block an imaginary blow, and with a deft flip of her hand, hurled the other at the wooden target board opposite the door. It flared gracefully before embedding itself into the wood. She stared at it, chest heaving as she stopped, frozen with her hand still outstretched.

"I recommend that you don't actually stop in the middle of battle," said Haku lightly from behind her, and she jumped and clutched her remaining fan over her heart. He smiled apologetically. "Sorry," he said.

"I-it was n-not y-you," Hinata said quickly, flicking her fan shut and tucking it back up her sleeve. She felt her cheeks flushing at her blunder, and she was desperately, pathetically glad Neji was not there. "I-I wasn't p-paying enough a-attention."

"It was a good throw." He padded over to the target on light feet and inspected her hiogi briefly before pulling it free with deceptive ease. He held it out to her, and she took it carefully and slid it back into its holster. "I don't have much experience with fans," Haku mused, "but I could give your pointers, if you like."

Hinata hesitated and bit her lip. "A-aren't you t-tired, H-Haku-san? Y-you were o-on w-watch the w-whole n-night."

The cloak slipped off Haku's shoulder as he stepped back. He tugged it back up absently and wrapped it across his chest more securely. "Aren't you?" he deflected mildly. "You and your team have been out constantly, and you didn't sleep long."

Hinata tipped her head away almost involuntarily. "I c-couldn't," she murmured, sliding her fan back into her hands and turning its folded form over and over.

Haku watched her sympathetically. "Lately I feel restless as well," he admitted quietly, eyes not quite focused on her face. "My purpose is to serve Zabuza-san and be at his side, yet - " he hesitated for a long moment, " - I am here, on the other side of the sea," he finished, just a hint of bitterness in his voice. "Useless."

"Y-you're not u-useless," Hinata insisted, glancing up at his wooden expression. "Y-you're o-one of the s-strongest of u-us, and I-I'm sure Z-Zabuza-sensei k-knows that."

"If he thought that," Haku said stiffly, "he would have brought me with him."

"Y-you have h-heard the s-stories the t-teams bring b-back f-from the f-front l-lines," Hinata said quietly. "M-maybe h-he's just t-trying to p-protect you."

"I was Anbu," Haku said coldly. "Hunter-nin. I protect Zabuza-san. If he needs to protect me, I am worse than useless to him. He may as well have left me in the trash where he found me." He glanced sideways, as if surprised to see the worried frown hovering at the edges of Hinata's face. "I apologize," he said lightly, and the harsh planes of his face melted back into something softer. "It wasn't my intention to burden you with my pointless musings. Perhaps I should sleep after all. I hear we are planning a raid tomorrow."

"The K-Kagamaru," agreed Hinata. "T-the crew c-cleared the s-ship for i-inspection but m-most l-likely will t-take back a w-weapons s-shipment to d-deliver to K-Kumo. S-Sensei wants to s-steal them b-before they l-leave."

Haku hummed. "It's distressing that merchants would smuggle weapons to Kumo - the very village that would trample their country beneath their troops' feet on their way to Konoha," he noted distantly.

"G-greed," Hinata murmured, splaying open her fan one rib at a time.

"Greed," Haku echoed, and left her to her katas.

When Hinata left the training room, she passed Gaara and Temari on their way in. The first didn't bother acknowledging her, while the latter sent her a cheery wave. "Hey, Hinata! Good session?" The older girl reached out a hand to ruffle her hair, the same way she did Gaara and all the younger kids, and Hinata's instincts fought between flinching and wishing she'd do it longer.

"A-aa," she managed to get out, keeping a wary eye on her teammate, who was suddenly watching her intently with hooded eyes. "I-I just p-practiced with my f-fans for a b-bit."

Temari sighed wistfully, hand going up instinctively to the massive weapon slung across her back. "I wish we had the space for me to work with mine," she said wryly. "I miss San's forest."

Hinata nodded agreement. The training room was too small and too poorly shielded by seals to use anything particularly destructive or chakra-intensive - and there was only the one, so training sessions were limited to an hour each to accommodate solo, pair, and team sessions. "I-I will l-leave you t-to it," she said politely, and sidled back to the kitchen area.

Sasuke was already there, banging around with bad grace. While Team Suzaku could all cook reasonably well, Sasuke and Hinata were nominally the ones on their respective teams who took charge of food preparation - Sasuke likely from sheer self-preservation in the face of Sakura's persistent over- and under-cooking and the sheer disaster that was Naruto's, though Hinata felt guilty just thinking something that unkind. Hinata had learned cooking from Temari and rather enjoyed it, compared to Gaara's general distaste for menial work. In Hinata, the Hyuuga had inadvertently bred the perfect Branch Hyuuga wife instead of the Main Family leader they had intended.

"D-do you n-need any h-help?" she offered as he thumped a large crate of tofu onto the counter and sent the water sloshing out onto the counter.

He glanced up. "Yeah. Can you julienne the carrots? I wanna make sukiyaki for lunch." He grimaced. "Sai's got breakfast duties."

Hinata bit back a wince. "H-he's not t-that b-bad," she defended loyally. She picked through the refrigerator for the carrots and took a knife from the rack.

"Sai cooks like we're in the field, with field rations, all the time," Sasuke said bluntly. "And he doesn't know how to salt things." It was true: Sai tended to favor aggressively simple, bland meals. He shuffled through the boxes scattered on the counter. "Where's the flour?"

Hinata glanced up from her knife sliding easily through the carrots. "I-it's in the s-same c-crate as the s-salt," she offered. She watched curiously as he hefted the flour. "W-what do you n-need f-flour for?"

He looked down at the bag in his hands and back up at her. "Udon," he said, in the manner used to state something obvious. "For the sukiyaki. We're out of dry noodles."

Hinata wondered if her father would also consider Sasuke the ideal Branch Hyuuga wife - his only flaw being, of course, his Uchiha blood.

She finished reducing the carrots to short, thin strips and reached for the cabbage next. With ten mouths to feed - sometimes more, depending on whether or not other Hana-ha teams had stopped by - a staggering mountain of food was required for each meal, when they could afford the fresh ingredients. Preparation ranged from an hour for the less culinarily-inclined to well over three for Haku or Sasuke when they felt restless.

She watched under her eyelashes as Sasuke dumped nearly the entire bag of flour into a giant vat, sending up plumes of white powder that he ducked, then liberal handfuls of salt without bothering to really measure it out. In retrospect, Sasuke's cooking style was not so different from Naruto's, yet somehow Sasuke's always turned out well. There wasn't really a spoon big enough for Sasuke's intended purpose; instead, he used a baseball bat to stir in the water. Hinata suspected he would have used Temari's battle-fan if he thought he could get away with it.

Sai wandered into - no, arrived, because wandered implied Sai ever did anything without explicit purpose - the kitchen as Hinata was shaving slices off a massive round of beef and Sasuke was rolling out a portion of his udon dough. He blinked owlishly at the piles of vegetable scraps and light dusting of flour coating every flat surface.

"G-good morning," said Hinata a little guiltily. Sai opened his mouth to respond.

"This isn't breakfast. It's lunch," Sasuke said abruptly, hovering over his half-formed noodles defensively.

Sai closed his mouth. "Noted," he said, faintly bemused, and turned, unsurprisingly, for the rice. Sasuke watched him with the faint shadow of a scowl but his dough dragged his attention back.

Sai's arrival signalled that of the rest of the pack, which trickled in little by little to perch in inobtrusive corners and watch the chaos unfold. Sakura was first, scooting on top of the far table with her legs swinging free to untangle a snarl of ninja wire. Haku drifted in next with a bundle of cloth, a needle, and some thread. Temari and Gaara followed, and the air of menace Hinata's teammate usually wore like his cloak was muted.

"Looks good, Sasuke," said Temari, leaning over the mound of uncooked noodles in the center of the counter.

Sasuke sort of grunted and eyed her warily, but the effect was somewhat diminished by the white dusting in his unruly hair. "Almost done," he said.

"You might even beat Sai," Temari said playfully, seemingly oblivious to the way Gaara peered at the other boy suspiciously.

"This is not a competition," Sai frowned.

Sasuke snorted.

"I know," Temari said fondly, and nudged Gaara over to the tables.

"Masks up." Hinata jumped a little as Neji-nii-san strode in briskly, Byakugan activated under his bone-mask. "We have company. Two teams."

Temari pulled hers down from the top of her head and Hinata yanked hers up from where it hung by the straps around her neck. She dropped her knife belatedly and lunged for her cloak, discarded near the door.

"What the hell," Sasuke grumbled, leaving white fingerprints on his cloak and shoving his mask on his face and a bandana over his hair. "Sakura, go tell the idiot before he stumbles in here and gives himself away."

"Way ahead of you." Sakura vanished out the door in a swirl of her cloak, neatly sidestepping Neji-nii-san as he moved deeper into the room.

Hinata stacked her cut vegetables into little piles in one crate, the meat in another, and stuffed the entire thing in the refrigerator case. Sasuke did the same with his noodles with a disgruntled set to his shoulders. Gaara picked up a cloth and began wiping the flour off the furniture with an air of tolerance.

"Will they be joining us for breakfast?" asked Sai, frowning at the vat of miso soup bubbling on the portable stove.

"Evidently," said Neji-nii-san with the shadow of a scowl.

"Where's Shisui?" Sasuke demanded, futilely brushing at his cloak.

"Shisui-sensei," Neji-nii-san said pointedly, to which Sasuke rolled his eyes discreetly, "is currently debriefing the squad leaders. I expect they will be finished shortly."

"What's the news?" asked Temari, and it would have been casual had everyone in the room not discreetly turned towards Neji-nii-san or stilled just a little to hear him better.

"Nothing from Itachi-sensei or Zabuza-sensei," he reported, and Sasuke and Haku sighed silently, almost in unison. "One of the teams briefly ran into Hatake-taichou during a front-line skirmish when he extracted them from an ambush, but he moved on quickly."

"A-are the t-teams i-injured?" Hinata asked timidly.

Her cousin glanced at her dismissively. "One shinobi has six broken bones in his left hand and arm, two have acute symptoms consistent with near-drowning, another is missing an ear and has recent extensive scarring on her right side torso." Hinata stifled a gasp and Temari's eyes were grim beneath her mask. "The other team is relatively fresh and has only superficial wounds and light chakra exhaustion."

"How long are they staying?" asked Temari quietly.

Neji-nii-san shook his head. "Not long for the uninjured team; they're mustering out to Kiri. The injured team might stay longer to recuperate. They will likely receive an assignment to a support position similar to ours."

"Yeah, the kids and the cripples," muttered Sasuke, and Hinata's eyes widened at his caustic tone.

"Sasuke!" Temari admonished sharply, narrowing her eyes at him from across the room.

"You mean 'Shi' while we have company ," he retorted, but ducked his head nonetheless.

"I'm here!" announced Naruto breathlessly, skidding into the kitchen with his mask haphazardly perched on his face. "What'd I miss, besides Sasuke being an absolute bastard again?"

" Shi is not a bastard, watch your mouth, Roku ," warned Temari, crossing her arms across her chest.

Naruto waved irreverently. "Oh my gods, is Sai - sorry, is Hachi cooking?" he demanded, flopping down theatrically across Temari and Gaara's laps. "Temari-nee, why ?" Hinata stifled a giggle. Gaara reached out hesitantly as if to run his fingers over the other's mask but pulled back his hand abruptly.

"How do you remember one codename but not the other?" muttered Sasuke derisively, and Naruto stuck his tongue out.

"I can cook," said Sai, turning from his pot of soup and looking mildly insulted.

"You cook like you would rather be doing anything but cooking," Sakura interjected, wandering in to sit between her teammates.

"I make efficient meals," Sai corrected, and Team Byakko groaned in unison.

"Everyone takes turns cooking," Temari reminded them. "We have to suffer through your meals too, Roku."

"Too?" Sai frowned, narrowing his eyes at Temari.

"I cook great!" Naruto insisted. "I do like the exact same thing that Shi does!"

Around Hinata, the entire pack groaned or rolled their eyes this time.

"Then why does yours always taste like sand?" Sakura demanded.

"Don't ask me, Go-Go-chan, ask Shichi. He's the sand guy," protested Naruto.

"No," said Gaara.

"Fine," said Naruto. "It's Kyuu-chan. She's been sabotaging me."

Hinata jolted as everyone glanced at her curiously. She took a panicky breath even a she let her mind shift, recalibrate. Kyuu was cold and reserved but unafraid and warm with her packmates; a fighter, a teammate with loyalty only to her pack and her cause. Kyuu was everything Hinata wished she could be but was not. "Even if I did sabotage Roku's cooking it is not as though it could get any worse," Kyuu drawled.

A pause. "Man," said Roku gleefully. "That's still - "

"Creepy," said Shi under his breath.

" - awesome!" finished Roku.

"Jealous?" murmured Kyuu sardonically, leaning back against the counter and raising her eyebrow at Shi. He wrinkled his nose at her, torn between amused and disdainful.

"It's a useful skill to have," said Ichi, methodically folding away his mending.

Roku jabbed an accusatory finger at him, which he regarded serenely. "You're just sayin' that because you're good at it too!"

"Seriously," added Go. "You can make people think you're a girl ."

Across the room, Ni was watching Kyuu with narrowed eyes, but she tilted her chin up and stared back. She wasn't afraid of him. He broke eye contact first. "They're coming," he announced to the room at large.

"The food is nearly done," said Hachi, poking at his pots.

"I hate eating with the mask," Roku grumbled.

Rei-nee rapped Roku's head gently with her knuckles. "Get off me and Shichi," she said. "Try to pretend like you're an actual shinobi."

Kyuu could hear the sulk in his voice. "I am an actual shinobi," he complained, but hauled himself upright.

"Kyuu," said Hachi. He jerked his chin at the pot of rice steaming gently on the counter, his own hands full with the soup, and she slipped behind him to get it as he carried his burden to the tables.

"Okay, everyone," called Juu. Kyuu set the rice down next to the miso soup and turned to the doorway. Most of his face was swathed in bandages in the style Kiri nin preferred. The pack swivelled curiously towards him and the cluster of shinobi clustered behind him. "We have company," he announced. "They'll be staying in the south wing, so I don't expect you to have much contact outside of meals and guard shifts."

He gestured, and a man with a heavily plastered arm in a sling stepped forward, followed by another man and two women, one with bloodstained bandages wrapped over her head. All four wore battered flak jackets, and their clothes were stained and torn to reveal blood or bandages or both beneath. "This is Chuunin Morita and his team - Jin, Akiko, and Nobu. They're walking wounded, so Rei - keep them off the guard roster for now."

"Hai," said Rei-nee, eyeing the newcomers with interest.

Juu waved at the other team hanging back in the doorway. "That's Chuunin Akimoto and his team: Yagami, Nakamura, and Hidaka. They're here for two days." He turned slightly to address the newcomers. "Teams, meet Rei, Ichi, Ni, Shi, Go, Roku, Hachi, and Kyuu. Ranks classified."

"You're shitting me, sir," Nobu barked out a half-laugh. "Masks and codenamed numbers zero through ten? I thought 'Juu' sounded fishy."

"What happened to San?" asked Nakamura curiously. "Why don't you have a Number Three?"

Juu paused. "We had a San, but she is no longer with us," he said, and Kyuu watched with amusement at the deliberate misleading as the teams exchanged wary glances. "Teams Suzaku, Byakko, and Genbu are all tagged for infiltration work, so masks and codenames are necessary." He shrugged. "Orders," he said carelessly. "You know how it is."

One-eared Akiko scoffed. "But it's okay for them to know our names?"

Juu rolled his one visible eye. "No offense, but you're not that important. Kiri's interrogators wouldn't care about you."

Interestingly, Akiko seemed to relax at that. She nodded at Morita, and on some unspoken signal, the team moved as a unit to one of the unoccupied sides of the table as the pack crammed in together on one long side. The other team, however, exchanged glances and stayed hovering in the doorway. Juu paused halfway from retrieving a stack of bowls from one of the crates on the counter. "Problem?" he asked lightly.

"Yeah, I got a problem," growled Akimoto belligerently. "You jerking us around right now. You expect us to believe that these midgets - " he gestured abruptly at the pack. " - are undercover agents?"

Kyuu shifted slightly in her seat, attention now firmly on the team standing tense in the doorway.

"Well," Juu said. "Yes."

"Bullshit," Akimoto spat. "They're green as the grass. I bet they'd be in the Academy still. That one's barely tall enough to walk!" He jabbed a finger at Shichi.

Shichi's hooded eyes turned murderous in a split second, and his control slipped just enough to let loose a hint of killing intent. Kyuu stiffened, but just as fast he wrestled it back under control.

"Shichi can take care of himself," said Juu. "Is your team going to eat?"

"Do any of them have field experience?" Akimoto demanded.

Juu set down the stack of bowls decisively. "Okay," he said, swivelling to face the other team. "Stop." He advanced on Akimoto, stopping just in front of him. His slight frame was dwarfed by that of the much larger man, but he stared him down evenly. "I am their commanding officer, and right now, yours. Sit down. Eat your breakfast. My teams and their operations have nothing to do with you."

Akimoto sneered down at him. "It does if it'll get us killed acting on intel they get. And you, sir ," he spat derisively, "have to earn my respect if you want to command me or my team."

The killing intent hit Kyuu like a stone wall, and flickers of the fear and death from half-remembered dreams came roaring back and knocked the breath from her lungs. Juu watched Akimoto calmly as the bigger man staggered, one knee hitting the ground under the brunt of his sakki, and the blood drained from his face. Juu raised his gaze to the rest of Akimoto's team. Their eyes were wide in shock as they stood frozen behind their leader. Hidaka swallowed audibly.

"Sit," Juu invited, as friendly as he might if he were asking an old friend to dinner, and just as quickly as it manifested the killing intent vanished.

Cautiously, Akimoto's team edged around their gasping leader's hunched form, giving Juu a wide berth as they joined the wary audience at the table. Kyuu sat frozen, one eye on the Juu and the other on her team and the rest of the pack. Like her, Hachi and Shichi watched the confrontation, muscles tense and ready to move. Shi, Go, and Roku had their hands discreetly on their holsters. Team Suzaki ignored the spectacle and ate their rice. They were the only source of movement in the room.

Juu-returned his attention to Akimoto. Drops of sweat had beaded up on the older man's temple as he gritted his teeth. "Well," Juu-said to him pleasantly. "Are we done?"

Laboriously, with as much dignity as he could scrape together, Akimoto hauled himself upright and shot a poisonous glare at Juu. "Yeah," he grunted. He moved to shoulder his way past, but Juu sidestepped neatly back into his path and forced him to stop short.

"I said," he enunciated pleasantly. "Are we done, chuunin?"

Kyuu felt her heartbeats tick by as Akimoto glowered at the ground. "Yes, sir," he ground out, and only then did Juu let him pass. The table let out a collective breath. Roku reached for the soup instead of his kunai, and Kyuu felt herself relax minutely.

"Damn," muttered Nobu under his breath, eyeing Rei-nee as she popped the last bite of her rice in her mouth. "You all have balls of steel. Juu is terrifying when he's angry. I think I pissed myself a little."

Rei-nee exchanged a glance with Ichi. "He's not angry," she said, a slight frown in her voice.

"Perhaps annoyed at best," Ichi agreed. "I don't believe I've ever seen him truly mad - and certainly not today."

"Juu has little patience for posturing," added Ni in a low voice, spooning the miso soup over his rice. "However, he appreciates being taken lightly even less."

Nobu and his teammates shared an unspoken conversation in the creasing of their eyes and narrowing of their mouths and tiny nods or shakes of their heads. Kyuu tilted her head interestedly, and at her side Hachi watched quietly. Morita finally spoke up in a hushed murmur: "How strong is he, to be able to pull out sakki like that out of nowhere?"

Kyuu's eyes flickered to Hachi, who glanced at Rei-nee out of the corner of his eye before looking away again. Rei-nee hummed absently, reaching for the soup. "Don't know," she said. "I never met him in Konoha. Strong enough to hold a small command, even if it's on the outskirts of the war?"

"Was he Anbu? He's gotta be at least tokujou," said Jin.

"He wouldn't be Anbu if he's all the way out here," disagreed Akiko. As one, the team turned to scrutinize Juu, poking amicably at his rice next to a visibly tense Akimoto. "General or Command Corps, do you think?"

"Any information regarding any of our identities, including name and rank, are classified," Ni said stiffly.

"Keep your pants on," grunted Nobu, letting his bowl thump to the table with a little more force than necessary. "Idle talk, nothing more."

After breakfast, six hours of Moe on the streets of Kitakyushu. After that, two hours of Kyuu in the base at lunch. She had little time to be just Hinata, but honestly, she preferred it that way.

"All right, kids," said Shisui-sensei. He leaned against the main table in their briefing room, a relatively large room with a series of rickety wooden tables of varying sizes and little else. The pack perched, leaned, or stood in a rough semicircle around him, masks off but in easy reach. "This is your briefing. The room is shielded with privacy seals - no eyes, no ears, no chakra output. Let's get this done."

Beside where Hinata sat with both legs dangling off the side of a table, her teammate opened his hand and let the sand slither out, rolling it over and over his wrist absently.

Shisui-sensei folded his hands into a seal. In a surge of chakra, his genjutsu caught them all up to create a visualization of the barest structure of a warehouse near the Kumata Gauntlet - an empty suggestion of a building in blue lines. "This is the location of the operation," he began. "The Kagamaru docked yesterday afternoon, and as you know, they're repeat weapons smugglers - namely for outposts in Kaminari no Kuni. Intel gathered by Team Genbu suggests they have a shipment stored in this warehouse to the east of the Kumata Gauntlet while the rest of their goods are loaded and inspected. Unfortunately, due to the presence of several teams of both Konoha and unaffiliated shinobi in the South District, including at least one sensor-nin, we're unable to get direct eyes on the package itself. However, Sai was able to send some scouts in. Sai."

Sai stepped forward, stopping just short the illusionary warehouse. "My sumi rats were able to locate the package but not verify its contents," he reported. "There are eight civilian or genin-level guards stationed at the warehouse at night, rotating between stationary and patrolling. Additionally, I can confirm floorplans for the warehouse." He traced their outlines in the air as he spoke, and Shisui-sensei's genjutsu added more lines to accommodate his descriptions. "Large bay doors on the east wall. Seven regular doors: three each on the north and south walls, one on the west wall here. Dividing wall here. Stairs here and here, along the north-south walls. Offices upstairs here, here, here, and here. Windows half a meter below the ceiling along all walls. Bathroom and kitchens, industrial hoses and drains." His finger sketched rough boxes in the largest ground floor room. "There are metal racks in most of the warehouse space and pallets in between rows. The package is here." He pointed at the center of the warehouse.

"Team Byakko, you guys are the distraction," said Shisui-sensei, and a white circle pulsed on the north side of the warehouse. "I don't care what you do, just draw the guards away from the south wall."

"Yes!" Naruto whispered gleefully.

Shisui-sensei paused and frowned. "Nothing too loud or destructive," he warned. "The last thing we need is more attention." He eyed the three suspiciously, but besides the grin Naruto was obviously swallowing down, they blinked back at him innocently. "Gods help us," he muttered under his breath. He jabbed a finger at the team. "No maiming, no killing, and no property damage, " he ordered. "Team Suzaku has point. Locate the package and retrieve the contents. If possible, replace with something of similar weight. Minimal chakra use." A red dot appeared on the south side.

"Hai," acknowledged Temari, exchanging a glance with Haku and Neji-nii-san.

"Team Genbu, secure the perimeter. No civilian interruptions, and report immediately if any shinobi get curious." He regarded the three teams evenly, and in front of him, the genjutsu expanded to include the outlines of surrounding buildings and the edge of the Kumata. "This is a covert operation, but if things go south, I'm your backup and extraction." He pointed at one of the buildings adjacent to the warehouse. "I'll be on the roof here, but remember that if you're discovered, the operation is blown whether or not you need me to pull you out. Everyone rabbits and regroups at the rendezvous. Questions?"

Hinata hesitantly shook her head, mirroring Sai. Neji-nii-san studied the map thoughtfully before Shisui-sensei cut the flow of chakra and dispelled the genjutsu. "You have enough experience that I trust you'll handle the finer details yourself," said Shisui-sensei, and Hinata shivered at the implications. "Team leaders, report your tactical plans at 1800 hours. Last run-through is at 1900; we leave at 2000 hours."

The teams all had different pre-mission rituals. Team Genbu's started with a nap. When Hinata blinked awake after a solid two hours of unconsciousness, she made out Sai already up, crosslegged and hunched over a scroll. She climbed out of her bunk and shuffled her way over. He'd drawn out a map, like Shisui-sensei's genjutsu but in two dimensions with his thick black ink. He looked up as she approached before returning his attention to the map. "There are far too many avenues of entrance to secure," he said absently, frowning. "Even if each of us takes a corner and one covers two sides of the warehouse, even if we hold just a one-block radius, there is a good chance that the adjacent buildings will yield many potential witnesses from their own doors - especially if Team Byakko is permitted to design their own distraction."

Team Byakko was known neither for their subtlety nor self-restraint. "W-we could f-focus on the s-side T-Team S-Suzaku is e-entering o-on," Hinata suggested. "T-Team B-Byakko can p-prevent anyone e-entering f-from the n-north w-wall."

"We have no other reasonable option," Sai agreed, resigned. "Do you have any thoughts on this, Gaara?"

Hinata looked up to where their third teammate perched on his top bunk, staring down at the map with narrowed eyes. "No," he snapped, without shifting his gaze. Sai waited patiently. "Yes," he amended after a pause. "We can smell them approaching upwind."

"Seabreeze," Sai muttered. "Wind blows east to west. Good point." He tapped the southwest corner of the warehouse. "This is the most crucial position," he said. "Lines of sight along the south and west sides of the warehouse. Smells from the east. Gaara, you take this position; ground level. There's a stack of old crates and a boarded up stoop you can use for cover." Gaara made no indication he'd heard the instructions, but that was normal. He wouldn't be the one to let the team down.

"I'll be on the northeast corner," Sai continued, "where I will have sightlines along the north and east sides. Hinata, you will be here." He tapped the building to the southeast of the warehouse. "On the roof of this building. Sentry position."

Of the three positions, Hinata's was the safest - it was high above street level, where any action was likely to take place. But she was not the one who should stationed there. "I - " Hinata had to stop for a shuddering breath. "I-I-I - I think I-I should b-be on the n-northeast c-corner," she squeaked, and fought the urge to duck her head.

"Oh?" said Sai.

He sounded interested rather than dismissive, so Hinata took a fortifying breath and plunged on. "Y-you n-need the v-vantage p-point. Y-you are the p-point of c-contact between u-us and the o-other t-teams and S-Sensei. You n-need to be a-able to s-see b-both of us."

Sai scrutinized the map silently. Hinata instinctively twisted her hands together. He didn't agree; it was a bad idea. Of course it was, Neji-nii-san said she needed to think like a shinobi instead of a scared little girl like she always did and she was trying to be brave but she was still wrong. She wished she could take it back -

"A logical point," said Sai, jarring her out of her thoughts. "You will have the northeast corner, in that case. Redirect any comers and incapacitate where necessary." Hinata took a shaky breath as Sai rolled the scroll back up. "I will report to Shisui-sensei," he said. "You and Gaara can continue preparing for the mission."

The wind rushed in from the sea, tugging Kyuu's hair and battering the shaded wraparound glasses she wore, the kind that Ni favored to hide his eyes. The night was dark and cold and shrouded in seafog that hung in the air and dampened her hearing. It did not obscure her Byakugan's sight, but very little could hide from her eyes when she chose.

She leaned against a coiling door that was rough and patchy with rust, swathed in the shadows lent by the stoop. The warehouses yawned out before her in lines and shapes, leeched of color by the darkness. Hachi perched three stories up, motionless on the corner of the building, but she knew his creatures flitted and scuttled in the alleys, through the warehouses themselves, and deep below their feet, crawled along the walls of the sewer tunnels. Opposite her, though she did not look through the walls of the target warehouse, Shichi sat on a stack of crates, chin propped in one hand and hood pulled low over his half-lidded eyes. Like Kyuu and Hachi, he had been sitting there for almost two hours.

The guards had finished their walkaround, their first of the night, and retreated back into an office for a round of cards. Full dark meant the alleyways were deserted save the occasional townsperson still making their way home, the neighboring warehouse that shipped soy sauce and miso and tofu was closed up and still, and the drug- and people-traffickers haunted the Kumata. Still - minimal civilian witnesses. Kyuu breathed in, craned her head to check the streets behind her, then turned back to face front. The movements of the people on distant streets behind her appeared to her like ants, scuttling on their way on trajectories yet unknown to even her, but around the target there were none. She signalled to Hachi with just a twitch of her fingers: all clear.

Hachi's head dipped just a little in response. One of his birds swerved abruptly midair and swooped down on Team Byakko, sequestered in the mouth of narrow alley a few blocks down from Kyuu's position.

Roku shoved Go, who slapped him back and nudged Shi, who glowered at her in turn. Shi sauntered out of the alley, cool as can be, and set a stack of wooden pallets alight with a flick of his fingers - a match, not a katon. He shoved the used match back in his shuriken pouch and strode away. Behind him, the flames picked up, licking merrily at the splintering wood. Kyuu sidled along her wall as their light pushed her shadows back. She shook her head. Juu would have their heads, no property damage .

"Hey!" Roku barreled out of the alley next and pounded his fist on the nearest door of the target warehouse. "Hey, there's a fire! Hey!"

At first, nothing happened. The four figures stayed hunched around their cards upstairs, silhouetted against the orange glow of the window. After a moment, their heads started to turn, annoyance in their postures. Finally, one slammed his cards down and clumped over to the window to peer out. Immediately he whirled, shouting, and the three at the table scrambled to get up. They rattled noisily down the metal stairs.

Outside, the flames licked hungrily at the outside of the building. Roku beat ineffectually on the warehouse door until it was thrown open and the men poured out.

One of them immediately threw Roku up against the wall, another started shoving the flaming pallets onto the ground. The others crashed back inside, charging back undoubtedly towards the kitchens for the hoses. "The hell did you do, you little brat?" demanded the man holding Roku, giving him a little shake.

All eight guards accounted for. Kyuu signalled Hachi again, and this time he would signal Rei-nee's team.

Meanwhile, Go flew out of the alley and onto the man holding Roku, beating on him with feeble fists. The man turned, dropping Roku. One of the men dragging a hose out of the building dropped it and rushed to pull her off.

"Get off him!" Go shrieked, ducking before the other man could grab her.

"Yeah!" added Roku, glaring at the man above the bandana wrapped around the lower half of his face and brushing his clothes off indignantly. "Next time you can just burn, old man!"

Behind Kyuu, a man turned into her alley. "The hell is all that?" he muttered, craning his head in the direction of the shouting and glow of the flames. Kyuu had seen the man briefly when he'd wandered down off the Kumata five blocks back, but only now was he too close to the operation.

' One civilian ,' she signed to Hachi, moving only her hands. ' Moving to neutralize .'

She didn't need to move to track his movements. He coughed, shuffling right past Kyuu without seeing her. She peeled away from the wall, shadowing the man's footsteps. He was much taller than her, his shoulders rounded with hard work and jacket worn but sturdy. She wrinkled her nose. Her sense of smell was far weaker than Shichi's or Roku's, but one would have to be scent-blind to miss the waves of alcohol emanating from his breath. It was a minor miracle the man had not yet been mugged, wandering through a place like this drunk.

Kyuu thought he must be overdue.

Just before he reached the corner, Kyuu rose up onto the balls of her feet and slammed her fist into the back of his head. He went down like a sack of sand. She took him by the wrist and dragged the limp body backwards, depositing him back around the corner. After a moment's hesitation, she patted down his jacket and pants until she found the wallet in his back pocket. She pulled out the stack of folded ryou and tossed the empty wallet back on his chest. She left him there and slipped back to her post.

Atop his roof, Hachi had angled towards her almost imperceptibly. ' Status? ' he signed.

' Clear, ' she signed, and he turned away again.

Go and Roku's argument had escalated into a yelling match with the warehouse men that dragged in the other men one at a time as the fire sputtered out under the blast of the hose. She tuned it out. It was not important to the mission, and Go and Roku had immediate backup in Shi if they needed it.

Instead she watched her alleys, and she watched Hachi out of the corner of her eye. She caught the flash of his hands - to Shichi, not to her: 'negative' and ' two ' and ' neutralize ' and ' caution ' and ' backup? ' Kyuu stiffened, bringing up her hands in the seal that would summon her through-sight, but Hachi snapped a sign in her direction. Hold. She waited, still tense, because her time in San's forest had taught her that all good hunters were patient and her time on the run with Neko-sensei had taught her that all bad prey was impatient.

Instead, she watched Go and Roku duck away from the warehouse men, now all but two grabbing for them like the townschildren chasing chickens. There was an art to looking clumsy while every movement was carefully calculated, but Roku had none of that. His clumsiness was in no way calculated. He tripped over a man's outstretched foot, pitching under another's grasping arms, and tumbled into a stack of crates that knocked into a third and sent him sprawling in the dirt. In contrast, Go was nimble and crafty, deftly whipping her ponytail away from the man that tried to grab it in one meaty fist and pushing off another's back to launch herself away from the tussle.

"Bleh! Can't catch me!" Roku crowed, hurling a handful of loose dirt at a man's eyes. The man yelped and stumbled backwards.

"Yeah, don't you mess with my friend, you giant jerk!" Go shrilled, backing away towards the alley.

"Ah, just let 'em go, Nakahiro, they're just a couple of dumb kids," called one of the men manning the hose.

" You're dumb, Nakahiro, I'm just a kid," Roku sang gleefully.

"Shut your damn mouth!" snarled Nakahiro and lunged. Roku dove away and landed in a crouch on all fours, then leapt away, cackling.

A sudden, small movement caught her eye; Shichi's hands flashed at her urgently. Four Konoha shinobi approaching from north-northwest. Withdraw immediately. In a blur of dark cloth, he vanished off the corner of his roof, leaving her alone in her doorway.

Hinata's panic choked her, freezing Kyuu's limbs and ripping the air from her lungs. Frantically, she clawed for Kyuu's calm focus.

A particularly strong gust of wind lashed the walls of the alley. With a whoosh and a crackle, the fire roared back alive, sparks catching on another pile of wood debris further down. The men and Go and Roku scattered with shouts.

The flames threw new light on Kyuu, and she shrank back. Withdraw? Roku and Go were still entangled with the warehouse guards, with the fires cutting them off from Shi and their best avenue of escape. Should she help? Hinata dithered, but Kyuu couldn't afford to, not with a Konoha team closing in. She turned away from Team Byakko and darted back towards the Kumata, vaulting neatly over the fence into the next lot. A dull roar rumbled through the air. Kyuu turned in time to see a plume of flame break the darkness of the night sky, and she huffed a dismayed gasp.

Her chakra-sense blared a warning and she had just enough time to suck in a frantic breath before a hand snagged her mid-flight and clamped around her throat. She gagged, one hand flying up instinctively to the shinobi's wrist as he slammed her backwards against a concrete wall. The back of her head cracked against the unforgiving wall and busts of white and black exploded across her vision. Desperately, she caught the shinobi's other hand with her own as he reached for her mask.

"Who are you?" the shinobi snapped, tufts of brown hair falling over his leaf hitai-ate. Though only a little taller than Juu, he lifted her off the ground easily.

Hinata kicked against the wall but couldn't find leverage. Kyuu's battle calm slipped further and further from her grasp as panic wracked black claws through her mind. The shinobi squeezed, and Hinata reached desperately for her chakra. "Who hired you?" the man demanded. "Who do you work for?"

" - ack," Hinata choked out.

Even as her vision blurred she could not miss the slight figure storming towards them. Sand swirled at his side, agitated as a swarm of hornets. She let go of the man's hand around her throat to desperately sign ' no sand' at Gaara because the second their identities were discovered they would have to run again, and she did not want to run anymore. The sand dropped to the ground all at once with a hiss, but pure malice rose in its place, covering him like a second cloak.

The man loosened his grip slightly and turned towards the new threat, and that was enough for Hinata to wrest back both Kyuu and control of her chakra. She blasted raw chakra from the tenketsu in her palm and sent the shinobi flying backwards. She stumbled, landing in a crouch next to Shichi, and wheezed for air, glaring at the shinobi as he rolled to his feet. "I am one of us, and we are pack," rasped Kyuu defiantly. Hachi's lithe form alighted on the roof behind the shinobi, blade in hand. "And nobody owns us."

The shinobi glanced between her and Shichi's masks warily, flitting over their furred cloaks and the snarling wolf's visage San had painstakingly carved. Kyuu drew her battle-fans and shifted her feet. Shichi crouched low, dripping sakki, and prowled forward on light feet with bloodlust in his eyes. The shinobi tensed, a kunai appearing in each hand.

Kyuu feinted, snapping out a hiogi to its full width, and caught one of the shinobi's kunai in between the slats of the other when he jabbed at her. Shichi lurched forward, fingers curled in imitation of the claws he normally wielded, and lashed out at the shinobi's legs.

"Shit!" spat the shinobi leaping backwards. Kyuu flicked her wrist sharply and wrenched the kunai from one hand. He sent the other spinning at Shichi, but silent Hachi who could hide even his intent flashed behind the shinobi in a shunshin and struck a single hard blow to the back of his head with the hilt of his tanto, narrowly dodging the reflexive strike. The shinobi hit the ground with a thud and Shichi stopped short with a nearly-silent snarl.

Kyuu glared at the surrounding alleyways, chest heaving and ears straining for signs of witnesses or ambushers. A flickering orange glow lit the sky back in the direction they'd come from. The warehouse was well and truly on fire now.

"We leave," said Hachi, looking down briefly at the crumpled Konoha nin. "Now."

Droplets of sweat beaded up on Shisui-sensei's face as he strained to hold his handful of green chakra to Hinata's neck. His eye was no more than ten centimeters from hers, and so she could see the sharp anger in it quite well.

Hinata was quite familiar with the Hyuuga displeasure - her father's cool disapproval and Neji-nii-san's icy hatred, which smoldered long and slow into a cold rage. She had heard too of the Uchiha wrath that ignited abruptly and burned fast, which she had seen hints of in Sasuke. Perhaps she believed Itachi-sensei and Shisui-sensei to be different, as they had never before demonstrated more than a mild annoyance.

But today, Shisui-sensei's famous Uchiha temper lit in a flash and sparked Hinata's urge to sit very still on her table to avoid drawing his ire. "I don't know what you were thinking," he said, biting each word off deliberately. "And I don't care. You defied orders. You revealed our presence to the shinobi who want to hunt us down. Your actions almost got your comrade killed tonight."

Behind him, separated from Shisui-sensei by a single table, Team Byakko stood stiffly in a row. Naruto watched Hinata, guilt in his wide, blue eyes. Sasuke glowered at the far wall, but his shoulders were hunched. Sakura worried at her lower lip with her teeth, eyes darting between Hinata and Shisui-sensei.

On one side, pressed against the wall, were Sai and Gaara - the former at parade rest, the latter slouched slightly and rolling a ball of compressed sand in his hands. On the other wall was Team Suzaku, so still they could have been sculptures. Each of them tracked Shisui-sensei with wary eyes.

The chakra in Shisui-sensei's hand coughed and sputtered out. He whirled away from Hinata so quickly she flinched from the sudden movement and slammed his hand onto the surface of the nearest table. It splintered with a loud crack. "Look at her!" he demanded, jabbing a finger back at Hinata. "If he squeezed longer, harder, just a centimeter to the right, she could have gotten a crushed larynx or a broken neck or brain damage. All the chakra and chakra control in the world can't fix brain damage!"

Her hand rose unconsciously to her bruised throat and the heat rushed to her face as the pack's eyes drew to her automatically, unwillingly. Only her wheezing breaths broke the silence. She had been the only one caught, shaken like a mouse in a cat's mouth and tossed aside like a woman battered by her husband, and she withered under their eyes. Neji-nii-san's narrowed at her balefully. She of all people should not have been snuck up upon and brutalized so easily.

"We - " Naruto began bravely, but Shisui-sensei glowered at him and he subsided.

"You burned down half that warehouse and brought a third of the Konoha teams in the entire city down on us," Shisui-sensei hissed. "You're lucky they were too interested in the warehouse to chase down a couple of kids. And you don't get to rely on luck on the battlefield."

"We got the weapons," said Naruto in a small voice. "Right?"

"Yes," said Shisui-sensei in a deceptively calm voice. "But when the Konoha shinobi don't find the weapons while searching the warehouse full of contraband , the crew of the Kagamaru will know it was stolen before the fire, and not by Konoha agents. Do you think they'll be back?" With a final glare at Team Byakko, Shisui-sensei turned back around to Hinata, who couldn't quite hold back a flinch, and willed the chakra back to his hand. "You're not just my students, now," he said, voice so low it rumbled in Hinata's ear as he leaned forward to press the chakra against her throat carefully. "You're shinobi. You follow orders, you complete the mission, and you definitely do not get your comrades injured or killed."

Hinata wrung her hands together anxiously. She knew it was Team Byakko's mistake that led to the Konoha shinobi investigating the warehouse, but she'd been the one who'd been noticed. Neji-nii-san had not said such things aloud in months, but he was right - she shouldn't be in the field. She was a liability.

"Team Byakko," Shisui-sensei barked, and Hinata flinched, jolted out of her thoughts. "On the ground. Pushups."

Sakura glanced at Sasuke, whose glare didn't lessen in intensity. Both dropped to the floor quietly.

"How many?" Naruto asked as he followed, though Temari shook her head at him - the tiniest movement.

"Until I tell you to stop," Shisui-sensei snapped, and the chakra in his hand wavered. He closed his eye briefly before glaring again at the bruising on Hinata's neck with intimidating intensity. "Or will you disobey that order too? Do them until you feel like dying and then keep going, because that's what will happen to your teammates the next time you pull something this stupid."

The cool wrap of Shisui-sensei's chakra gradually soothed the harsh burn of Hinata's breaths catching in her throat, and after half an hour marked by Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto's forms bobbing up and down rhythmically, Shisui-sensei stepped back and let the chakra flicker out at last. The glow of anger had dimmed from his eye as well, and Hinata breathed easier. "I can't fix everything now," he told her, scrutinizing the mass of purpling. "But I mitigated the worst of the damage."

"T-thank y-you," Hinata whispered.

He shook his head, mouth pressed together. "This shouldn't have happened," he muttered. He turned slightly to address the rest of the pack. "You are all suspended," he bit out. "What affects one of you affects all of you. Don't leave this room." He stalked out of the briefing room, and the door clicked decisively shut behind him.

Hinata stayed frozen on top of her table just as the rest of the pack save Team Byakko stood arrayed about the perimeter. Time marched on, and Hinata's heartbeat thundered in her ears. Nobody spoke.

Sakura's breath grew ragged first, arms trembling from the effort it took her to push herself off the floor. She was always first to stop running, first to be tagged out of sparring, first to exhaust her chakra. Sweat soaked through her hair and the back of her shirt, and her hair hung lank about her flushed face. Sakura faltered, her entire body shuddering with the effort to keep herself off the ground, and Hinata shivered in commiseration, rubbing her arms subconsciously. She was beginning to understand why this was a group punishment.

Hinata…

Hinata couldn't just watch Sakura struggle alone. Not when she'd caused this with her own weakness. She stepped forward, almost as if in a trance, and the focus of the rest of the pack snapped to her immediately. She wobbled, pulled her cloak off her shoulders almost absently and let it drop behind her.

"Hinata-sama," Neji-nii-san said reproachfully, breaking the silence for the first time in an eternity. Hinata wouldn't let herself be deterred, not from this.

She knelt in front of Sakura, and the other girl glanced up at her blearily. Silently, Hinata angled her hands on the ground at shoulder width, set her feet, and lowered herself in a pushup. Her throat throbbed in time with her pulse and she breathed deeply as she sank into the next.

"Follow my voice, Sakura," said Temari quietly, and Hinata opened her eyes in surprise. She hadn't realized she'd closed them. The older girl nodded at Hinata, once, and focused on Sakura as she herself maneuvered into the plank position beside her. "Down. Up. Breathe."

Sakura sucked in a sob, but her eyes were clearer now, fixed on Temari doing the pushups next to her. Sai dropped down next to Hinata and on her other side was Haku, then Gaara and even Neji-nii-san until the breathing of all her packmates grew choppy and uneven.

Hinata lost herself in a haze of pain and resolve.

Sakura hit the ground first, arms giving out beneath her, and she landed with a soft grunt. She lay still, panting, before struggling to push herself back up, her entire body shuddering with the effort. Then it was Sasuke, faltering halfway through pushing back up and hitting the ground with a muted thud.

"Get up, bastard," rasped Naruto. Sweat drenched his shirt and dripped to puddle beneath him. Gritting his teeth audibly, Sasuke shoved himself up.

Gaara snarled wordlessly, a brief blast of sakki battering at Hinata's nerves, but despite his well-known hatred of all things physical he did not get up or storm off.

Hinata dropped her head, closing her eyes against the black spots that danced across her vision. She knew if she tried to bend her arms again she would fall, and if she fell she did not know if she could get back up. Even as her muscles screamed and her vision blurred and her heartbeat measured the hours ticking by, even though the ache in her throat grew raw and sharp, and even though this was not Hinata's punishment, she would not allow herself to stop. She was pack and this was her pack and this was right.

"What the hell are you doing?" Someone grabbed Hinata around the middle with strong hands, and she flailed mindlessly, panic cutting through the veil around her mind as she was hauled upright. She exhaled in relief when she recognized Shisui-sensei's face, but her breathing stuttered again when she recognized the fury in his expression. "Sit down, don't move," he ordered her, lifting her easily onto a tabletop. "All of you, get up," he barked at the rest of the pack, and they scrambled to find their feet. Shisui-sensei turned back to Hinata. Healing chakra sparked to light in one hand as he leaned over her and he pressed it against her throat carefully. "I just got through telling you how you almost died, why would immediate physical exertion ever sound like a good idea?" he snapped. "I'm not a medic-nin. If anything more serious develops, I can't fix it."

He glared over his shoulder at the rest of the pack staggering upright. Temari's cheeks were flushed, and sweat plastered her bangs to her forehead. Neji-nii-san's hair stood up in odd spikes, and Sai swayed on his feet. Naruto and Sasuke trembled from the effort just to stand still, and Sakura's eyes were vacant. "Whose idea was this?" he demanded.

Temari raised her chin defiantly, and Shisui-sensei narrowed his eye at her. "Did you even think - "

"I-it was m-mine," Hinata interrupted in a hoarse croak, and Shisui-sensei whipped back around. "Gods above, Hinata-chan," he grumbled. "Everyone else, get out. What are you trying to prove, Hinata-chan?" he asked, as if to himself as the others shuffled out. His chakra soothed the worst of the throb in her throat.

"I-I'm n-not," Hinata said meekly, watching the cords on his neck stand out. She ducked her head guiltily. Shisui-sensei had already spent so much chakra and effort on healing her earlier.

He caught her by the chin with his free hand. "Shh. Careful," he murmured. "Your team was supposed to go back out today," he reproached gently. "I came back here to call you for your briefing."

Heat rushed to Hinata's face. "S-sorry."

The chakra in his hand coughed and died, and he shook his head ruefully. "I am proud of you, for doing that for your friends," he admitted, ducking his head to meet her eyes. "Just - don't do it again. The mission can be postponed today, but the war won't always wait."

The waning sun warmed Hinata's face, and though breathing deeply burned her abused throat, she welcomed the fresh air after spending most of the day underground. The bustling townspeople hadn't looked twice at her, but the press of people has suffocated her nonetheless, and she was relieved to escape the city proper for Moe's favorite perch by the harbor. Like clockwork, Ida would saunter up any second now.

"Hey, Moe-chan! Check this - Moe-chan, what happened to you?" Ida grabbed her by the chin abruptly to get a better look at the angry bruising ringing her throat.

Moe tried to smile, but the corner of her eyes crinkled, betraying the fresh pain from the sudden movement. "Kumata," she whispered, and pressed her lips together. Her entire body ached and she could barely shuffle let alone walk, but her throat burned with fresh agony.

Ida frowned, her mouth a dark slash in her pretty face. "Told you to be careful," she said reprovingly. "Check this out." She brandished a poster at Moe, the kind the city officials used to post announcements in the square and throughout the streets. "There's some kind of new gang around mucking around the Kumata districts. They're real dangerous, and I want you to steer clear of that area for now. Especially since you got yourself beat up!" she scolded, and shoved the poster at Moe.

Moe took the poster and unfurled it. She sucked in a startled gasp. "W-where did y-you get t-this?" Hinata stuttered, heart pounding. The inked picture was of her - or rather, Kyuu, standing tall with battle fans brandished, face covered by a snarling wolf's visage and the rest of her in her fur cloak. Behind ink-Kyuu crouched Gaara, similarly masked and cloaked, fingers curled into claws. 'Yorozuku,' the poster read. 'Wolves: unknown organization wanted for questioning regarding criminal activities. Dangerous.'

"Coupla streets down. They just put 'em up. From the shinobi, I think." Ida looked her curiously. "What's wrong? Moe-chan?"

"I-I," Hinata panicked, mind fizzling into blankness.

Ida's eyes narrowed, then widened. "You saw them," she said wonderingly, "didn't you?"

She could not think of the words to dissuade the older girl, or a reasonable denial, so she nodded meekly. She glanced up at Ida beneath her eyelashes before fixating on the ground again.

Moe. She needed to be Moe right now, not Hinata.

Ida's gaze held a mixture of curiosity, horror, and badly concealed eagerness. "Did they do that to you?" she prodded. Moe nodded, still staring at the ground. "Did you see them real close?" Ida demanded.

"Yeah," said Moe, then frowned. "Yeah, but - " she waved a hand at her face.

"What did they want?" asked Ida reverently.

Moe paused and swallowed painfully. "A home," she whispered.

She kept the poster tucked into her waistband as she hurried back to her cellar in the South District, and it weighed down her steps and her mind. Her hands shook as she picked the lock, and she dropped her makeshift picks and her Moe persona both before she could jimmy the door.

Sai melted out of the shadows at the bottom of the stairs, a slight frown marring his normally expressionless face at her visible agitation. "Status?" he asked, looking her up and down critically for any obvious new injuries.

"I-I'm f-fine," said Hinata hurriedly. She yanked the poster out and thrust it at him.

Curiously, he took the paper and unrolled it. His posture stiffened as he scrutinized it thoughtfully. "Hmm," he said. "Shisui-sensei will want to see this." He reached behind him and unfolded a second poster, flattening it on top of the first.

Hinata's eyes widened. This figure was hidden behind a battered Konoha Anbu cat mask and plain cloak, but she recognized him even in sketched lines by build and posture. "T-that's - "

"Yes," said Sai grimly, surveying the ink likeness of Shisui-sensei.

'False Anbu wanted for assault, arson, and impersonation of a Konoha shinobi,' the poster read. 'Extremely dangerous: do not engage. Report all sightings to local authorities.'

Shisui-sensei sighed when he saw the posters, tired more than anything else. He studied them carefully, taking in every detail with a practiced eye. Finally, he rolled both back up. "Well," he said at last, looking back up to the pack ringing the table anxiously. "We have work to do, our Yorozuku."