Chapter 11

The second of stunned silence passes like an eternity. Zabuza finally tears his eyes away from the impossible thing thrashing offshore when the barrier protecting the Academy flickers. Zakuro's jaw clenches as a familiar towering figure dashes away and outwards, something besides Samehada thrown over his shoulder.

"We're going to take care of sealing the biju," he says without taking his eyes off Fuguki, "get down to the village, do whatever you can for the people there."

Zabuza nods curtly before hurrying down to the flooded ruins, Kotone already darting ahead faster than he knows should be possible.

The survivors are largely gathered atop the highest buildings, a few bobbing perilously in the floodwater clung to floating debris, tossed about violently with each crashing wave. Kotone is dragging two such victim to the group gathered on a nearby roof, reaching and shouting encouragements as they near, and pulling at them when they're near enough, engulfing them in the crowd (he can tell by the way the water is no longer repelled beneath her feet that she's shut her chakra gates again). Zabuza finds a small cluster of civillians desperately latched to the seat of an overturned boat, within the air pocket it forms, and drags them to safety as well. Fires have broken out around the ruined village as the wiring shorts and catches the few dry walls and furnishings. They navigate around them as best they can for time, douse them with huge torrents of suiton techniques when it can't be avoided. It seems endless, back and forth, hunting for stragglers and collecting them, Hatsuka's rats scurrying along the wreckage searching, until the rooftops are threatening to spill over back into the drink.

Ishida thanks him when he hauls his younger son to safety, but doesn't recognize him.

The overwhelming barrage of chakra from the sanbi makes it difficult for Hatsuka to isolate any smaller signal, but slowly he's becoming desensitized. Between his rats and his keen chakra-detection, the smaller boy able to locate a few survivors within the flooded rubble of buildings. At length, it's apparent that everyone who can be saved has been, and it's time to turn their attention to the huddled survivors.

Kotone's the one who starts righting the few intact boats and dragging them to shore, but actually getting them in is the difficulty; the villagers are paralyzed with fear. Earthshaking roaring rumbles across the water to drown out the sound of the waves, ferocious lightning strikes split the sky, one after another, as Ringo tries to chase the beast father out to sea. And while he's no sensor-type himself, he swears he feel it too, not the way Hatsuka does ("It's like screaming," he tells them, "like looking into the sun, but I can't make it stop."), but as something instinctual, deep in his gut, reverberating in his bones, and perhaps they're feeling it too.

He feels like a shepherd dog, staring down this terrified herd of wide-eyed charges, all watching him apprehensively, but with the knowledge that he's all that's keeping them safe. He's young, but settles into authority so easily they can't help but notice. When he gives them orders, they listen.

Slowly, they start shuffling their children and the most gravely injured towards the boat, and the three of them together can drag it to the edge of the flooded village in seconds, towards the little farm he remembers at the top of the hill, beside the road. A wail rises from the crowd when they turn to leave, the groaning of the injured rising with the cries of frightened children. Hatsuka can't take his eyes off of them, heartache laid bare across his face. "I'm… I'm gonna stay here, keep everyone calm." Hatsuka tells his teammates haltingly, heartened when they nod in return before rushing back out into the waves.

They split up to cover more ground, hauling boatloads of panicked civilians over the wild floodwater. Reaching the safety of the higher ground again, parents scramble over the sides and rush towards their children, all gathered calmly around Hatsuka. He has them facing the forest so they can't see the creature ravaging their village, but he can still keep an eye on his teammates, as he distracts the children with the stories he tells his siblings, and the "cute big mice" he produces from his sleeves.

They're helping the last of the villagers into the boats when an unearthly scream rattles across the ocean, shaking the air and seeming to pass right through him as a light brighter than Ringo's lightning radiates from the beast and then collapses onto itself and sends a powerful shockwave whipping across the surface of the water. It sends a huge ripple through the floodwater, waves rushing up and then dropping the boat suddenly. He's already run-down from the rapid and continual usage of chakra, but Zabuza's remaining strength is enough to keep his footing on the water's shifting surface and the little boat righted, though the passengers inside are tossed about as the massive waves gradually calm and then still entirely.

Slowly, blinking in bewilderment the frightened villagers peer over the edge of the now-steady boat, into the empty expanse of Open Ocean. They look to him for answers, but he's only vaguely more informed than they are.

Nearby, Kotone's similarly braced against one of the boats, and slowly, reluctantly, releases it poised to grab it again as though anticipating another tidal wave at any moment. He watches, eyes narrowed as she falters for a moment, one foot dipping beneath the surface of the water before she collects herself again, and when she starts for shore, her movements are slow, limbs heavy.

She's closer to the shore and Hatsuka's little survivor huddle, but he overtakes her easily and is waiting when she arrives, watches as she drags the little boat to shore running on nothing but willpower and the knowledge that it's what she's supposed to be doing. She had already been exhausted when they'd arrived back at the watch station, and now she only manages a few unsteady steps before collapsing onto the waterlogged grass.

"'m fine," she mumbles when Hatsuka kneels to fuss over her, waving him off with a clumsy swipe of her arm. "Just need to…. lie down a little..."

"Fast asleep." The other boy's mouth quirks to the side disapprovingly as he drags her farther up the slope to drier ground. "She's going to drown in that mud."

Gradually, the assembled swordsmen make their way back to shore, all some degree of weary, and bloodied, and battered. He can make out the shapes of Jinpachi and Kushimaru, skulking away into the forest. Some, like Zakuro, mingle with the civilians, giving instruction and organizing a mass voyage to Kirigakure where they could be housed temporarily and their wounds could be treated. The able-bodied villagers have rolled an eerily-familiar cart from the little farm's barn, and most carefully load their wounded inside while a few others hitch it to an old, ill-tempered, horse.

Fuguki still has something slung over his shoulder and it becomes clear, when he drops it with an unceremonious thud from his considerable height, that it's a boy.

He's barely conscious enough to react to the impact, slowly, groggily sitting up, blank pink eyes blinking slowly. Dull sandy hair falls into his face over ashen skin, eyes ringed by dark circles and a line like crude sutures down his left cheek that looks as though it's been burned into his flesh.

Zabuza recognizes the much smaller man who wanders over to be Hiramekarei's wielder, and he plunks down beside Kotone to avoid their attention as he eavesdrops. "Could you have possibly picked a worse kid?" the other man sneers up at Fuguki, nudging the unresponsive child with his foot. "This one was half-dead before we crammed the damn thing into him. He looks worse than Ringo."

"Precisely," he recognizes Fuguki's slimy, falsely pleasant tone. "He's a temporary measure. I wasn't about to waste a promising student, and the younger the child the better the seal holds. He's what, eight, nine?"

"I'm fourteen."

A quick sidelong glance finds both the swordsmen caught off-guard, staring down at the little creature who had spoken. The boy had finally sat up completely, and was now staring up at the swordsmen meekly. "I'm fourteen," he repeats timidly. "I'm going to be a genin in a few months, I'm just… I'm just small." He can see it, now that he looks: the boy's sickly, with a kind of unnatural frailty that suggests stunted growth, but older than Zabuza. Beside him, Kotone has an eye cracked open, and though she's struggling to stay awake, she's taking this all in as well.

Fuguki's staring at him with a mixture of disbelief and rage, that's hardly helped when Zakuro saunters over as though drawn to the scent of embarrassment. "They started taking older children when the curriculum… changed," he beams. "Nice going, Fuguki." The swordsman turns his attention to the boy, encouraging him to his feet though he doesn't help. "Come along," he insists too-cheerily. "Yes, that's it, up we get. We're all going this way," he shoos the boy in the direction of the crowd ambling towards the road, a more insistent gesture prompting the two swordsmen after him, "got to get you back to the village, safe and sound. Stick with these two. That's it."

The bubbly façade deflates the moment they're out of earshot, and Zakuro's shoulders sag, his face in his hands as he takes a deep breath. "Well," he begins with a heavy sigh. "I suppose I should be thankful it wasn't worse. From what I hear, you both did brilliantly today. Zabuza, excellent work organizing the extraction, Hatsuka, fantastic job keeping the locals safe and calm. This could have been much worse," he takes in another slow breath, looking between the two of them proudly. "Not every teacher gets two natural-born leaders on his squad," his smile falters as his eyes fall on his third student. "Kotone, get up," he snaps. "We don't have time for this."

"Sorry, Sensei," she offers weakly as she hauls herself to her feet, keeping her eyes low as they set off with the rest of the displaced civilians and assorted swordsmen. Hatsuka nudges a soldier pill into Kotone's hand, and she actually accepts it. The kunoichi's looking more alert moments later, and Zabuza can go back to concerning himself with the snippets of conversation he can catch between the older ninja.

Zakuro's away from Fuguki, and is chatting more amicably with a stout, bearded man Zabuza recognizes as Akebino Jinin, the owner of the Helmet-Splitter, Kabutowari.

"Sandaime-Sama was so sure," he growls, brows furrowed. "The Sanbi has always reformed far out at sea, in deep water. Always well away from the shoreline. We were here as a precaution, but…"

Zakuro sighs, shaking his head. "I know. This wasn't supposed to happen. The ANBU team better have killed that kid when the plan went tits up. If this gets back to Konoha…" Even from behind them, Zabuza catches the uneasy look they exchange at the thought.

He pauses when he notices a sudden absence beside him, and a quick glance over his shoulder finds Hatsuka crouching to the road, one of his rats frantically chattering as it scurries up his arm. The boy's eyes go wide, and he glances from his teammates, to his sensei, who's also stopped to watch him.

"Um," the boy begins cautiously as he stands again, glancing towards the woods. "Sensei, you're going to want to see this."

Jinin offers to stay with the villagers, and with a quick nod of thanks, Zakuro's ordered Hatsuka to lead the way, and they take off after him. They're not darting through the trees for long before they come to a clearing, and even before he sees it, Zabuza's startled by the unmistakable metallic smell in the air, overpowering even the fir trees surrounding them and the briny wind coming in from the ocean.

The clearing is drenched in blood.

The lifeless bodies of Kirigakure ANBU operatives litter the ground, some scattered, some in a great gory heap, holes in their flak jackets where a blade pierced straight through the reinforced material.

Zabuza can only take in the carnage with a kind of stunned disbelief. That the boy from the woods—Hatake, was capable of this by himself…? It's not outright fear, and he refuses to call it jealousy, but the Demon is cautiously intrigued, and can't help but contemplate the outcome if he'd been uninterrupted earlier.

Kotone's creeping carefully through the battlefield, and he can see her tracing the fight through the footprints and impact sites and the pools of blood. She quickly finds one with no body to go with it. "This is a fatal amount of blood, especially for a smaller person," she says decisively. "Nohara Rin died here. No sign of the body, but…" She inclines her head curiously, gently prods at the large imprint in the blood-slicked grass where someone must have knelt, or sat for quite a while. "Probably brought the remains with him. He must have killed her," she muses. "When he realized what she was."

Hatsuka grimaces. "D'you think? I mean, you don't cross an ocean, break into an enemy village and then out again to rescue somebody, and then kill them. I mean…" he kneels beside her and then sits in a way that would make the same kind of indentation. "It… it looks like he held her. You don't kill someone you care about."

Kotone's brows dip lower, in that distant puzzled look she gets and slowly shakes her head. "If it's what the village needs you to do…" Hatsuka's eyes widen in momentary surprise, and from the corner of his eyes Zabuza catches the distasteful twitch of Zakuro's mouth. Zabuza himself has no doubt that, while she'd take no pleasure in it, she'd kill any of them if she was ordered to. It's not something he perceives as a threat, or even an offence, just this immutable truth about her. That Kotone's loyalty to the Mizukage is absolute and unquestioning is just something he's always understood.

"Hatsuka's right," Zakuro interrupts curtly, giving the ghastly scene one last rueful g glance. "Konoha shinobi are encouraged to form bonds, and value their teammate's lives, and camaraderie. The seal was supposed to prevent her from taking her own life, but seals have failed before. More likely, though, it was one of these idiots by accident, in which case they're lucky they're already dead," his lip curls in disgust.

Hatsuka disperses his rats hunting in vain for another body, and though he picks up a trail that likely belonged to the boy from konoha, it ends at the coast. Zakuro sends them ahead to watch over the villagers and deals with the corpses himself.

It's a long, quiet, march back to Kirigakure. The villagers are silent, and though he glances between his teammates every so often, even Hatsuka is silent. The three jonin are bringing up the rear to keep a careful watch on the horse drawn cart, and up ahead is a conspicuous break in the steady stream of weary villagers— a bubble of mistrustful civilians repelled by the single young boy staggering along between them. There's a disturbance—the boy stumbles— and the crowd behinds him scatters, parts like a river around a boulder to edge past him as carefully and as quickly as they can while the exhausted child struggles to stand again.

Beside him, Zabuza catches the momentary pause of consideration before Kotone quickens her pace. The old farmer driving the cart starts, calls out a hissed warning to try and catch her attention, but the girl ignores him. He turns to them, face imploring, and gestures helplessly towards them. "Doesn't she know what that is?"

"She knows," Zabuza replies flatly.

Kotone has never been afraid of monsters. Zabuza, of all people, would know.

/ / / /

He flinches when she comes up behind him, so she stops, and waits for him to calm again before speaking. Slowly the boy— older than she is, really, but he feels like a child more than she ever has— crack a pale pink eye open, studies her carefully, knelt beside him in the dirt road.

"I'll carry you," she says, and his face lights up, "it will be faster that way." It feels wrong to let him think it's a kindness when there's nothing of the kind inside of her, to let him think she's more than she is. The gesture purely utilitarian, as is everything she does. He nods, wearily, and she carefully helps him on to her back, lighter than he should be and bony joints digging in to her own thick muscle. She can feel that he's trembling.

He slumps against her, face buried in her shoulder, and she soon thinks he's fallen asleep. A deep groan soon afterwards proves otherwise, and a sidelong glance finds him grimacing in pain, eyes clenched shut. "I can hear it," he says weakly, and it comes out near to a sob. "What did they do to me…?"

"They sealed the three-tailed beast inside of you," she says evenly, thought she suspects he knows this already, "it's the only way to contain something like that." She's moving much faster than he could alone, long strides taking her through the nervously-parting crowd up towards where the rest of the shinobigatana have settled at the head of the group, the best-protected place to keep the jinchuriki. From the little whimpering sounds he's making with each unsteady breath, the kunoichi is fairly certain he's trying not to cry. "There's another one, already. Utakata, I think his name is. He's a lot younger than you, so I'm not sure if you'd get along… and of course, I've never actually met him," the sounds have subsided slightly, and perhaps having something to listen to, to focus on, is helping to take his mind off of his situation. Kotone has never been good at friendly conversation, but she knows people who are, and does her best to imitate them, to try to be them for a moment. "I believe he's Sandime Sama's… nephew, or something similar. My understanding is that he's being taught privately by a few very well-respected shinobi. That's probably how they'll train you, too."

The boy's quiet for a long moment, but she can still feel the tension in his body. "It's talking to me," he says finally, voice shaking. "What should I do?"

"I don't…" she starts, worrying her bottom lip in thought. "Have you… have you tried answering?" She can feel him hesitate before settling back down against her shoulder.

His grip tightens in the dark fabric of her clothes, still quivering. "It's… it's saying they're going to kill me," he whispers. "That they're going to put him in someone else, and I'm going to die. That's… that's what they were saying earlier, wasn't it?"

"I… can't speak to what Sandaime Sama's going to decide," she says carefully, feeling the note in his voice speaking to a rising panic. She should fall back and get Hatsuka. Hatsuka could deal with this. She isn't good at this, at comforting people… but it's her the jinchuuriki is clinging to, the cloth of her hapi his hands are fisted in. She can't know if what she's saying will calm him, but she can at least say something she knows is true. The thing that's true above all else. "You were going to be a genin, soon, right? A shinobi. Shinobi all have to be prepared to give their lives, if the Village asks it. But, I don't know if it will come to that. This is just… the task they've chosen for you." Without thinking, she gently raises a hand to lay over his clenched fist, hopefully reassuring.

"Your hands are shaking," he notes quietly, and it is, a combination of the exhaustion that comes with opening her chakra gates and a side effect from the artificial stamina she's drawing from the waning soldier pill.

"I'm not afraid of you," she assures him. "Shinobi are to give everything they have in service to the village. That goes for me, as well."

He hums, quietly, thoughtfully, and she thinks she feels him go to sleep. She can only imagine the toll the sudden addition of a sealed tailed beast would take on a sickly-frail body like his. She can hear him muttering quietly to himself though, and wonders if it isn't more of a trance as he converses with the beast. 'Isobu', she hears him say softly, again, and again. 'Isobu'.

"Thank you," he mumbles, gently, and it takes her a moment to realize he's speaking to her, but he's pausing, expectantly, and it's a moment before she understands what he wants.

"Kotone," she offers.

From the corner of her eye, she can see him smile at her. "My name is Yagura."

/ / / /

Pale, morning light is rising on the horizon by the time the village is nearby, in sight but for the thick mist blanketing the road and forest. Yagura is asleep in earnest, breathing deeply and steadily against Kotone's back. With Yagura asleep, and no need to speak, she's felt bold enough to move closer to the famed swordsmen towards the front of the group, and has been quietly shadowing a particular petite kunoichi with spellbound attention to her every word and movement.

Zakuro had rejoined the group hours earlier, their pace slowed to a crawl by the large number of civilians, and she shrinks away a little when he advances, passes by her without a word to walk beside Ringo Ameyuri.

"Don't look now," she hears him tell her, likely assuming it's too low for her to hear, with a tiny bob of his head in her direction and a roll of his eyes, "but you've got an admirer, Yuri."

She suddenly regrets overstepping her station, intruding where she has no right to be, and something cold she can't name settles into her stomach, prickles under her skin. She ducks her head and lowers her eyes, until a shadow falls across her sandals and she slowly looks up, surprised to find Ringo walking backwards, considering her with a sharp toothed grin. The last time she went to the Medics for a routine assessment, they'd told her she was five-foot-six, so she's considerably taller than the legendary kunoichi looking up at her, not that it seems to phase her at all. Ringo's confidence gives her the bearing of a giant, makes it easy to overlook the dark circles below each eye, her gaunt features. She's paler than even Kotone. "Juzo's told me about you," she says, eyebrows raised. "Says you want to be one of us, someday."

Kotone's brain has gone blank and fuzzy, an unfamiliar feeling despite her frequent bouts of dizzying fatigue. She can only nod stupidly at the other kunoichi, blinking, stunned.

Ringo smiles, a bob of her head gesturing to the sleeping boy slung over her back with her sharp chin. "Well, you're certainly brave enough," she lets out a light chuckle as she turns back towards Zakuro. The sound catches in her throat and ends as a rasping cough.

There's a warmth gathering in her face, Ringo's smile, her acknowledgement, her approval fluttering through her thoughts in a loop she can't— doesn't want to— stop. Zakuro-sensei is never pleased with her, never praises her. She's been training harder, and harder, pushing herself, breaking her body and exhausting her brain in an effort to improve, to be a better shinobi, a more useful weapon, but it must not be enough. He always has advice for Hatsuka and Zabuza, flaws he's noticed in a strategy or stance, refinements to make their already impressive skills more lethal, more perfect, and though she's eager for his guidance he either responds with a dismissive 'good enough,' or looks over her entirely, as though she isn't there. It's an ache, something cold and empty, failing to fulfill her only purpose. So this, the lightness, the warmth gathering inside of her is entirely undeserved. It's wrong of her to want it so badly. She reminds herself quietly that it's wrong of her to want at all.

Ringo's started coughing again. It's a deeper sound— wet, hacking, persistent. Zakuro starts at the sound, drawing close, hands held hesitantly towards her, but she waves him away, breath rattling in her chest, and presses on. She collapses just as the village gates become visible through the mist. In a frantic flash of movement, Zakuro has gathered her lifeless form into his arms, and darted away towards the village, towards the hospital, as fast as his legs can carry him. Kotone can do little more than watch helplessly, the other swordsmen looking on in grim silence.

Soon though, she finds a ninja that she knows as Suikazan Fuguki looming over her, one massive hand outstretched expectantly. She understands what he wants, and gently nudges Yagura awake as she sets him down, and Fuguki's swept him away before she has a chance to say goodbye, as she understands would be polite, given their time together (however short).

The river of trudging civilians never stops its slow crawl forward, forking when they meet the nearest wing of the Mizukage's sprawling complex— most towards the main building where they'll be housed temporarily, the cart pulled around to the hospital. She loiters outside as they filter in, guided by frantic chunin barking orders, until someone taps her shoulder. She hadn't heard Zabuza come up behind her, and mentally reprimands herself for her carelessness.

"Our orders are in," he says gruffly, arms folded across his chest. "Reports of flooding and major damage are coming in all along the western coast, and the near side of the islands. We've got twelve hours to rest and repack while they draw up plans, and they we're out again for disaster relief. Hatsuka's already headed home."

Her head feels heavy when she nods her understanding, limbs leaded as they start back towards the apartment. She hops in the shower as soon as she's home, washes the ash, and salt, and mud from her hair and clothes, before wrapping herself in her largest towel and hurrying back to her room. She'd only meant to sit on her bed for a moment while drying her hair and daydreaming about what to finally fill her empty stomach with, but the next thing she knows something grasps and shakes her shoulder and she jolts awake.

She comes to her senses to find, to her horror, that she's still in bed, and instead of early morning the sun is already setting again outside. Zabuza's standing over her, backing away as soon as he sees that she's awake and averting his gaze uncomfortably. "It's time to go," he says, studying her ceiling. "I tried to wake you earlier. I… couldn't."

She's relieved to find that she's still covered by the towel, but besides that one of her warmer blankets is thrown over her. Had she somehow wormed her way beneath it in her sleep, or…? "Sorry," she replies, mortified, and he disappears immediately when she moves to lift herself from the cold damp bedding, soaked by her still-wet hair.

She throws on a clean set of clothes, before dashing around the house trying to pull together supplies for several-day mission before colliding with the full-pack Zabuza holds in her path. "There's some food in there," he grunts, still not meeting her eye, but given her embarrassing performance today, she can only assume he's irritated with her. "Are you…?" He's struggling with his words, a sharp breath filtering through the wrappings across his face as he starts to say something and then reconsiders again, eyebrows furrowed and eyes always very deliberately away from her. "Are you alright?"

Kotone grips the pack tighter, and though she'd rather keep her focus on it, forces her eyes up just enough to watch him through her dark lashes, head ducked timidly. "Sorry," she repeats. "Thank you for getting everything ready— it won't happen again, I promise."

His eyes flicker towards her, brow furrowed in momentary confusion, and she can see a reply forming, can tell from the shifting of the bandages, from the sound of the breath he takes in, but he bites back on it. "Let's just go," he says instead.

/ / / /

Hatsuka's mouth quirks as he glances from his soundless teammates to the rapidly darkening sky and back again. The jonin stretches, rocking back and forth on his heels as the uncomfortable silence only grows longer and Zakuro's unusual lateness grows more perturbing. He sighs, slumping back against the gates when neither of his companions offer to fill the awkward stillness—Zabuza is very pointedly ignoring Kotone again, as she munches on a riceball from her bag, eyes downcast. He's not sure what's going on between them— presumably more that digging in to mission rations prematurely— but what he does know is that there's no way he'll get a straight answer if he asks. Instead, he contents himself trying to guess the time from the progression of the fading sunset colours down towards the treetops, if only to keep his mind from the fact that every second here is a second they're not pulling villagers from the wreckage of the Sanbi's rampage.

Finally, Hatsuka spots him coming up the sloping path to the gate. Beside him, Kotone leans forward, narrowing her eyes slightly as she peers through the dim evening light before recognizing him, hurriedly jamming the rest of her onigiri into its container and back into the pack before he reaches them.

Zakuro barely acknowledges them when he meets them, replying to Hatsuka's greeting with a weary inclination of his head, and just keeps going, a few heavy walking paces before breaking into the running pace they'll need to reach the nearest village as soon as possible, and they follow.

Hatsuka pushes forward after miles of silent travel, alongside Zakuro, and watches his face for any hint of an answer, worry plain across his own. The swordsman sighs at the boy's concern.

"Ameyuri Ringo died today," he says just loud enough to be sure the other two hear, as they near the shore, his voice dull and distracted. "She was seventeen."

"I'm sorry," he says quietly. It's probably a terrible idea, but the sight of his unconquerable jonin sensei fighting back grief makes his stomach sink and his heart ache. "I didn't know she was sick."

A grim, humorless, smile tugs at his mouth like a twitch. "Ameyuri's been dying as long as I've known her."

The floodwaters have receded when they reach the village beside the academy. Instead, it's a matter of rotting, algae-slicked wood and muddy ground complicating the efforts of the few villagers who stayed behind, and neighbours from nearby farms. Kirigakure shinobi are already at work. They're to survey potentially unstable buildings, move the worst of the rubble, and any other feats needing extraordinary strength or a ninja's skills, before moving on to do the same in the next village. From there, reconstruction will be solely in the hands of the village's residents as they return to what's left of their homes.

Very little remains standing and salvageable. They spend forty-eight hours clearing the wreckage, Hatsuka recovering the remains of victims whenever he can, hoping that they will be given a proper burial when the community is restored. (In all likelihood the shinobi staying behind to return to the academy will simply burn them all in a great, unceremonious, heap as they do with ninja's bodies, or dump them into the sea like dead academy students, but he can hope). He's always careful about his rats' lives, the lives of the many tiny friends who are his constant companions, but they're agile and competent and good at fitting into tight spaces, easily sniffing out the drowned and crushed remains of the unfortunate souls lost to the disaster. He largely handles this task while his much larger, more physically inclined teammates tackle the heavy lifting; however, Zabuza does drag the corpse of an old woman from the wreckage of a little shop. He and Kotone share a look as he pauses over the body, but they say nothing.

Zakuro's sullen throughout their task, but a genuine grin flashes, razor-sharp, across his face as they head southward, insisting he knows somewhere they can rest for the night before continuing on. He leads them to a little cabin just off the main road, thick smoke rising from the chimney. According to the sign posted by the door, it's a blacksmith's, and Zakuro throws the door open and strolls boldly inside.

"Nobody at the counter, eh?" he calls loudly, still smiling. It's almost obnoxious, a tone that would be embarrassing if it wasn't so fond, didn't seem to be drawing on some deep familiarity. "Aha. I see what kind of place you're running here." His voice is heavy with irony and reverberates off the wooden walls of the empty weapons shop. Hatauka catches himself staring at the gorgeous craftsmanship of the swords mounted on the walls, enough to rival that of his own family's prized katana (almost). Cases along the sides of the store hold more common shinobi weaponry— kunai, shuriken, as well as more unusual weapons, all perfectly balanced and of superb make. His teammates are similarly preoccupied, Zabuza carefully turning a knife in his hand, eyebrows raised approvingly. Kotone's face unreadable but Hatsuka's always assumed that her interest can be gauged by the time she spends studying something, and she's seemingly intrigued.

"Well, I'd recognize that pain in the ass' voice anywhere," a gruff voice rumbles from the doorway behind the counter that seems to open to a dark stairwell, and uneven, clunking footsteps on wood rattle along with it. The man who emerged from the stairwell was approximately Zakuro's age, with thinning, steely-grey hair that may once have been black, and black eyes that gleam mischievously in spite of his rough tone. Despite his age, the man is powerfully built, a wooden crutch to his right beneath one thick arm.

His right leg ends just above the knee, the leg of his samue pinned up.

"Misao. The hell do you want?" he growls, but he's grinning fondly as he says it and the other man leans in to deliver a good natured clap on the back.

"This," their teacher tells them, warmly, "is Kajiya, a teammate from my own genin days, until, well," he gestures vaguely towards the crutch and Kajiya rolls his eyes. "Couldn't fight anymore, so he went from being a weapon to making them. Best in the Land of Water."

"Damn right I am," he says, slyly, "and those arrogant bastards from the Land of Iron can kiss my ass."

A quick set of footsteps pads up the stairs and a girl about their age peeks out from behind the blacksmith, her red hair pulled up and her face flushed from heat and streaked with ash. She's gorgeous, and Hatsuka gives her a wobbly smile, which she returns shyly, and his stomach fills with fluttering.

Zakuro introduces them briefly as his former genin, introduces the girl as Kajiya's adopted daughter and apprentice, Kiku.

Kajiya has Kiku bring them food down in his forge as he and Zakuro reminisce and laugh upstairs. It's cramped, with the four of them in the basement eating and then napping between the equipment. Kiku sits dangerously close to the fire and the immense heat it spills into the room, but she only smiles when Hatsuka offers to switch places, and insists that she's used to it.

Kotone is polite, but not outgoing, speaking when spoken to and answering with short, courteous statements that invite no further conversation. Zabuza says nothing for the rest of the evening, and Hatsuka notes a tension in his body, a kind of uneasiness in the feel of his radiating chakra, that had been growing since they left the village by the academy. From the way she's studying him, Kotone sees it too.

They leave at dawn, Zakuro smirking at him knowingly when he lingers just a little too long between bidding Kiku goodbye, and actually leaving. Zabuza's demeanour hasn't improved, and if anything, by the time they reach the next village, his eyes have taken on a hard, distracted glint, betraying the intensity of whatever it is going on inside of him. The feeling Hatsuka gets through his chakra, if it were anyone else, he might interpret as panic.

"Do you know what's up with him?" Hatsuka whispers to Kotone as they approach the fishing village and the villagers that come out to meet them.

"I might," she says quietly. "But I hope I'm wrong."

Zakuro greets the village leader, offers his sympathies for the catastrophe, and quick exchange outlines what's been done and what needs doing. Zabuza stalks off the work before they've finished talking, shoulders square and eyes forward. Zabuza, whose gaze can be downright paralyzing, and he'll level it at anyone, stubbornly, defiantly, but today he looks past the civilians as though they aren't there, as though he can simply will them from existence with cold indifference. They start to stare, and whisper among themselves immediately, and though he's there to help, Hatsuka feels an immediate surge of dislike for them. He has to listen to enough of Risu's vile tirades to know how common those attitudes are, and though they're hardly the first to look at Zabuza suspiciously, they're certainly the most persistent.

Despite his efforts to ignore them, though, Hatsuka overhears a couple of women gossiping. "Does… does that not look like Kazue's boy to you?" one says to the other behind her hand in an apprehensive whisper bordering on disgust. He furrows his brows in confusion but refuses to engage them, tries to forget he heard anything.

Kotone gives him his space, interceding whenever a task involves cooperating or communicating with the locals, and Hatsuka follows suit. All the while, he can see her watching him carefully out of the corner of her eye.

This village was spared the brunt of the tidal waves' devastation, only the homes and buildings directly on the waterfront destroyed. The piers and all the docked fishing vessels have been completely destroyed, however, a common thread in all the reports from the affected settlements.

An awful creaking sound is the only warning before a building collapses, a careless team of overzealous civilians starting to try and repair it before it had been properly assessed. Zabuza's closest, responding rapidly with a flurry of handseals. The pressure of the water bullet technique slams into the debris as it topples, forcing it away from the cowering men. Kotone reaches the site an instant later, even her impossible second-gate speed too late to have saved them.

There's a younger man, perhaps in his late teens, among the otherwise middle aged group. Gasping and pale from shock, he blurts out a thank you, but the others do nothing but glare uneasily as the jonin turns and slinks away to work elsewhere. Kotone and Hatsuka deal with the rickety building.

They're chatting amongst themselves in what they must think is a subtle tone, but it's difficult to ignore, even over the sounds of grating concrete as they dig buried tools from the rubble and check for more precarious points.

"Yeah," Hatsuka overhears one of the men, gaunt and bearded, tell the youth, gravely, "I guess you're too young to remember Kazue, huh. The poor creature."

"Why?" the boy asks, in that play-horror that sometimes disguises a thirst for scandal.

"She was weak in the head," another adds with an awful grimace and a vague gesture temple-wards. "Wandered around in a fog, babbling nonsense. Saw things that weren't there, started crying in the middle of the market once. It was awful, everyone having to stand around, pretending not to notice until she went away. Harmless, but… well, when she… died, no one wanted to take on another Kazue."

Hatsuka's been eyeing the group with abject loathing and a kind of sick feeling settled in his stomach as he works, but across from him Kotone has gone completely still.

"It just goes to show what happens when you get bad blood into the mix—" says the first one again with a contrite shake of his head.

There's dead silence as Kotone stands and starts towards them, her strides even and her face an eerie blank.

"It's my understanding," she says to them when they notice her there and freeze, "that the accepted response is to thank someone when they pull you out from the wreckage of a fucking building." Her is voice as dead and cold as her eyes, and she's watching them, unblinking, unflinching, unnatural. "Of course, if you're so averse to his help, I'd be happy to put you back under it."

She excuses herself as they gape in horrified silence, turning and striding right back beside Hatsuka to pick up her work as though uninterrupted. It's a moment before Hatsuka can join her, taking a second to stare in amazement because though there was no telltale fluctuation in her energy output, he's fairly certain he just saw Ume Kotone get angry.

As rewarding as it was to watch, the thought of being on the receiving end of that icy rage sends a chill down his spine.

Now officially at war with Konohagakure (an enraged Komohagakure, by Zakuro's estimates), Kirigakure can't spare ninja of their caliber any longer. A bird arrives with a message ordering them back that afternoon, and Hatsuka's never been quite so glad to see a village shrink into the distance. There's an unspoken agreement between he and Kotone not to mention the village, or anything that had happened there, best for Zabuza's bruised pride to pretend the whole ordeal had never occurred, that they'd heard nothing, learned nothing. The following months are a rush of frantic assignments, to the coast, to the islands bordering the Land of Fire, and occasionally— first reconnaissance and then increasingly bold missions into the Fire country itself, skirting dangerously close to Konoha. Their clashes with the leaf ninja become more violent, even as the war elsewhere dwindles. The ninja known as the Leaf's Yellow Flash singlehandedly defeats a thousand Iwa-ninja, and the Tsuchikage finally admits defeat. Their conflict with Kirigakure, however, is not so easily ended.

The fishing villages destroyed by the Sanbi have been unable to recover in this hostile climate, the price of fish skyrocketing. Civilians and Ninja alike to hungry, but still Sandaime refuses to concede. Kirigakure, he insists, will fight to the last man. Even if they did surrender, Hatsuka doubts there'd be any mercy for them. Minato Namikaze is named fourth Hokage shortly after the Land of Rock's surrender.

He was Nohara Rin's jonin sensei.

At least, Hatsuka muses to himself one night, holed up in a secluded patch of Fire-Country forest as Kotone bandages a deep gash in Zabuza's arm, her hands shaking violently even hours after her chakra gates are shut, that things have gone back to normal between them. Nothing like a string of close brushes with death to clear the air.

They make it home and re-group at Zakuro's place after handing in their reports. It's mid-february and the old house lets in a persistent chill. He, Zakuro himself, and Kotone are going over the details of the next day's assignment seated around his kotatsu (Zabuza's reading over Kotone's shoulder, stubbornly refusing to climb in with the rest of them. "Zabuza thinks he's too cool to get cozy with us," Hatsuka teases, mock-pouting and grinning when the scowl he receives in return is almost good-natured).

They hear footsteps crunching in the snow outside before the knock. They've been expecting Juzo back from a major assignment in the Land of Fire but the sound— the weight, the rhythm of the footfalls— is wrong, and Zabuza straightens and steps back from the kotatsu for a better vantage point from which to suspiciously watch the entranceway.

"It's not locked," Zakuro calls warily, pulling his legs from beneath the blanket to turn and face the door.

Hatsuka recognizes the man who enters by reputation. Zabuza had related his first encounter with him long ago, while he was still living with Zakuro, and the other was still under Ringo's tutelage. Sea-green hair typical of the island's population falls into his face, but his dark skin marks the man— Raiga— as partially foreign as much as his chakra does. He'd taken an interest in Zabuza when they'd met, but when the standoffish little demon had rebuffed him, he'd taken it very personally. Despite their mutual animosity, though, Raiga is completely ignoring Zabuza when he steps into Zakuro's home, dishevelled and bruised, blood seeping through his sleeves in places, but despite that he's smiling. It's an unpleasant smile though, something rueful in it that makes Hatsuka uncomfortable. His eyes are shining with unshed tears.

Kotone shifts uneasily beneath the thick blanket, her focus on the newcomer and her eyes apprehensive. He knows how hard she works to ensure that her expression always matches her words, matches her voice, and Raiga… isn't.

Zakuro stands suddenly, his jovial demeanour hardened into something dire and deadly serious. "Where's Juzo?" he demands.

Raiga sighs, heavily. "Oh Misao," he replies, voice thick with emotion, theatrically so. There's something almost gleeful buried in his frenzied sadness, in the great joy he seems to take easing the thing he's got hidden behind his back into the open, in Zakuro's wide-eyed shock. The younger swordsman holds the shattered blade out to its former master, Kubikiri hocho reduced to the pommel and a foot of ragged metal. A tear slips free from his eye, rolling down the curve of his smiling cheek. "I have such terrible news."


AN: I've got terrible timing because I'm certain this week's episode is going to be the one where you see these guys! I'm torn. On the one hand, I'd love anything more on Kirigakure and the shichinin, but on the other, there's how I've been writing everyone xD; hopefully I won't need any major revisions but it's always a possibility. Thank you so much to everyone reading and those reviewing. I'm so happy that people are enjoying this 33 Thanks again, and see you all next time! Which may be sooner than usual. I'm working on this for July's "camp nanowrimo" so my goal's to get 30k of this story written by the end of the month.