Chapter 10

Before, she had cared about shallow things like what to wear to school and what others thought about her, though she also took care to do well academically and musically.

She cared about what others said and thought because other people would judge her, consciously or unconsciously, but all the same, that would be the difference between getting the preferred job or not, because when other people liked you, they gave you opportunities.

Society would judge her, based on her food preferences, the way she talked and dressed and acted and maybe it was because of the image that she constantly had to put up that she found it so easy to lie to others.

Just a little white lie here, things that didn't even matter, but she stored away all these lies and remembered them, because that was the most important part about deception. It wouldn't do to forget your own persona, would it?

Things such as what she got for her birthday last year, her favourite colour, what she had for breakfast that day. The lies would slip out without her realising, and she would play along because she couldn't take back what she said, not after fabricating such a detailed story.

In the end, everyone saw her as a different person. That was okay. She didn't mind. She was different, depending on what they wanted to see in her.

To her teachers, she might have been the dedicated and studious straight-A type of student, while to her friends she was the sarcastic and dare-devilish one in their little group, or the kind and understanding type.

So being a spy was easy for her. All she had to do was lie, very subtly, because being obvious would ruin it all. Gestures - how you laughed, how you greeted them - were much more important that talking, though that played a role too.

She changed herself to become who she wanted to be, who she needed to be, until in the end, she wasn't really sure what herself meant, apart from the fact that she is her, and her is me, because she was no-one and everyone at the same time, and yet she was more aware of herself than anyone else ever could be.

"My name is Naoko. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

A bow, and a smile.

After all, she is the only one who knows all the faces that she puts up, all the lies that she lets slip, the only one who even knows what she is inside - a liar and an insecure brat.

But that's okay. She can hide it.

Naoko had arrived back at the Shimura compound five minutes late, despite having used chakra to speed up running. She hadn't expected anyone to be waiting for her, but everyone was there.

"Hime," Jirou greeted quietly, dipping his head forwards. In his hands was a bouquet of forget-me-nots that he handed to her. His little sister - the younger Naoko - was crying. She hugged the older girl, mumbling something through her sobs.

Naoko was lost for words. She couldn't say anything. She would cry if she did. She took the flowers gracefully and hurried over to where her brothers and everyone else were standing.

Everyone in the crowd was gathered around them. "Thank you, Hime! Good luck!" some shouted. "We love you! Don't forget us!" others cried. "P-Please accept this gift,"people mumbled shyly, and she couldn't help but smile.

"You were always my idol, Hime! I want to be like you in the future!" a girl yelled loudly, but the only thing that registered in her mind was, Why would you want to be like me?

People that she thought hated her were now hugging her and giving her their thanks. People that she had only ever recognised as filler characters, as people who didn't really exist, seemed realer than ever.

A smile danced on her lips as she finally realised: you never know what you have until it's gone, and oh, just how true that was.

She had never realised how lucky she had been Before, and she had never realised how lucky she was now. The Shimura clan wasn't just a group of fighters sent to die anymore. It was her family, her home.

"We named her Naoko, after you."

People that she had never thought to remember the names of were suddenly registering in her mind as the boy that helped her when she tripped, the man that she got her ribbons from, and before long there was a mountain of gifts in her arms.

"You're slow."

"You're always going to be my best customer. Thank you, Hime," he said, and she already missed the way he ruffled her hair, even though she always used to hate it. She had never made friends, and yet now, she felt like everyone was her friend. She didn't… understand…

"You're a good kid, Nao-chan. Please don't disappoint me again."

"Let's go, or we'll be late," the other sacrificial shinobi said nonchalantly. She nodded as they took off, waving goodbye to the other clan members as they disappeared into the distance. The silver brooch was pinned to her kimono. As she leaves the compound -home, her home - she remembers the memories she never cared to remember before.

"I'll never be able to fight again."

"I… I don't want to go," she whispered as they finally left, and realised that for the first time in a lifetime, there were tears in her eyes and dribbling down her face. "I don't want to go!" she screamed. "No! Please! Don't make me leave home!" But it was too late. Nobody spoke a word to her.

"I am proud of you."

Having the forget-me-nots in her hand made her realise the finality of her decision on an impulse, weighing her down like lead. Isamu squeezed her hand and smiled with a sorrowful look in his eyes.

"Be s-strong… my baby… okay?"

She was silenced immediately. She was the only reason that he would be staying home. It was thanks to her. She had taken the responsibility instead of him.

"Hiroshi Sensei, I brought your favourite."

She barely spoke through the entire journey, and only muttered a greeting when she arrived at the meeting place. She had never realised the weight of her words at the time. Only now did she know. There was no going back.

"I love you."

During the last day of traveling, she is put in the carriage with the civilians and Elders, and the woman carefully dresses her carefully, though she knows how to do it herself, and applies cosmetics under her eyes to hide the bags. She braids her hair in a complex fashion with no small amount of yanking and tugging, but Naoko does not complain.

The lady is one of her mother's friends, she remembers vaguely. She was the person that cooed over her chubby cheeks when she was one or two years old, the woman who smells like her mother used to (not Nanami, it's her mother, her first mother).

The journey is long and tiring, but Naoko is determined to not whine. She wants to make the most of the few hours she has left with her family.

"You… You look beautiful, right?" says Isamu quietly.

"Thank you," she replies, a faint smile dancing on her lips. He was always the handsome one out of the three of them - the one with the charisma, the charming one. Even after he got an eyepatch and wooden leg, that has not changed.

"I wish you didn't have to do this," Ichiro tells her. "But you… I know you're smart and responsible, and I…" He trails off at the end, his face scrunching up.

Naoko smiles again. "I understand." And she does understand. She understands it all. It was her choice anyway, it was her dream. Sacrifices must be made.

The carriage comes to a halt, and she quickly hugs the two of them and never wants to let go, but she knows she must. She had a fine meal before this. She can't help but feel like it is her last - as if this is her death sentence that she is facing.

She hugged them. She never hugs them.

"Be safe while I'm gone, okay?" she whispers as she releases them and searches for any creases on her kimono, and she realises that her face is wet.

"You too," Isamu says, rummaging around. "Here," he says, dabbing a handkerchief on her face, and she quickly composes herself and tries to blend out the make-up so it is less noticeable.

She plasters on a smile once again as the Hono clan members come into sight, their flaming hair and burning eyes seen a mile away.

The Clan Head greets her brother politely, but they make no small talk. Naoko sees Kenta (Pip) standing behind the Clan Head with his brothers and sisters. There are four children, one girl and three boys, while the second youngest boy is obviously going to be the exchanged one, with a pile of gifts behind him and a bouquet of flowers in his hands.

There is a young woman standing to the side, who also has gifts, though not nearly as many, Naoko notices snidely. She has copper coloured hair and amber eyes with pale skin. She has no callouses or scars and no muscle, and she would be the exact image of a perfect lady, if not for the poor quality of the fabric.

Naoko steps beside the shinobi accompanying her - a man by the name of Keisuke with black hair and brown eyes, and stubble lining his chin and bags under his eyes.

On the Hono side, there are two Clan Elders, as well as the Clan Head's brother and sister, both of whom had a startling similarity to Kenta (Pip) in terms of appearance, with their chalky skin and the shape of their noses and lips and the structure of their faces.

The two Clan Heads walk up to each other, cut their right thumbs with a kunai and write their names on the contract using their blood. She cannot help but notice the slightest quiver in Ichiro's hands as he writes.

Then she steps up beside her eldest brother with Keisuke on the other side, as do the Hono, and they step onto the other side. Isamu gives her a small grin as she now faces him and the other eight Shimura, and her skin prickles weirdly as she feels their gazes on her.

"Please take care of them," Ichiro says quietly. He smiles at her, and she cannot help but wonder if Keisuke had any family. Nobody was there to say goodbye to him, although he received gifts from other clan members.

"Of course," the Hono Clan Head replies.

They bow to each other before each clan leaves. There are civilians with each clan so there is a small carriage, and Naoko enters this small carriage with the Clan Head's sister and daughter, lumping her gifts along with her.

She sees the expression on Pip's face. She can see the smugness concealed under his neutrality, and she feels something inside of her burn in anger, because what right did he have to be happy while she was dying inside?

She unwillingly leaves Keisuke's side and allows someone to help her up, awkwardly perching next to the Clan Head's daughter. The space inside is small and the atmosphere is awkward, because everybody seems to be at a loss to what to do with a Shimura - and an unfriendly, glaring Shimura at that.

As she looks back, she can see the Shimura members leaving as well. Nobody is turning back, but she can see Isamu and Ichiro running and the carriage before them bobbing up and down as the horses slowly lead the way.

Goodbye, she thinks, and her heart aches in a way. She knows that she will never see her family again, but she accepted, she chose this responsibility for her brother, so she cannot cry and cannot try to escape. She knows that she has to leave.

It is what she wanted, after all.

Madara… doesn't know what to say.

"Hashirama…" he says quietly. "Naoko isn't a spy. She can't be a spy." He has seen the wounds she has gotten, the should-be fatal injuries and scars that would give away her presence as a shinobi instantly.

There was no way she would be able to blend in like that, unless she used a jutsu, but Naoko wasn't subtle like that - at least, not the Naoko that he knew, but the Naoko that he knew was the one that had tricked Hashirama into thinking that she was a civilian, way back before she had gotten those injuries.

"Well she is," Hashirama retorts bitterly. "I don't care. She's sneaky and manipulative, and very subtle. She's so subtle, in fact, that she makes you think that she isn't, but she is!"

"She isn't," Madara replies bluntly. Spies were dirty, the low of the low, the people who did the jobs that nobody else wanted to do. Naoko was a lady, not a spy. She couldn't trick his eyes - she couldn't, and she wasn't a spy. She wasn't.

"She is!"

"She isn't!"

Hashirama sighed. "Well, never mind then. Let's spar today." Madara nodded, even though he knew that there was something that Hashirama was hiding, but it really was none of his business. They sparred. Madara won the match, even though he could tell that there was something on Hashirama's mind, distracting him.

"Remember when she disappeared for seven months?" Hashirama asked. Madara nodded, remembering showing off the sword that he got for his birthday half a year beforehand. He remembers seeing the jealous way that Naoko looked at it, as if she had never gotten something like that before. She probably hadn't.

He had always been weary around the girl. She was too… perfect, in many ways, and yet she was most likely going to be the least perfect person that he knew. Something about her made him feel queasy, and he was always on guard around her.

It didn't help when she had purposefully told him that he had pretty eyes. Naoko wasn't the type to say things like that. She had a purpose behind those words, an intent that he had felt and understood immediately, as an Uchiha who had recently activated his Sharingan.

And it's then that he realises how much she knows - about his eyes, about everything.

He knows that Hashirama feels to same, although to a lesser extent. He rarely does that weird mood swing thing that he does around Madara all the time, and the last two times they have met, he is always watching her when he thinks that she doesn't know, watching her with anger and frustration.

When she had gone for seven months, he had always had that strange ribbon around his hand. It was Naoko's, to be sure, but he had only blushed when Madara asked about it.

("I never knew she was your girlfriend, Hashirama!"

"I-It's not like that!")

Then that time, her chakra level had been dangerously low, and she had looked terrible, to say the least. The girls in his clan would never have gone outside looking like that, even if Madara knew that Naoko had done her best to look decent enough for them, but Hashirama had… for loss of a better word, he had panicked… and hugged her.

Hashirama looked skywards, leaning his head back. "I just wish that…"

"She's never coming back, Hashirama," Madara interrupted. "Stop thinking about her, because she isn't going to return. There's nothing we can do about it."

He knew his words were harsh, but it was true, and Hashirama's weeping wasn't going to do any good. At least they had received a proper goodbye. At least they didn't have any false hope, coming to the Serpent River every day, only to find that Naoko was, once again, missing. There was no point.

"...I suppose you're right," Hashirama replied quietly. "Race to the top of the rock, Madara?" he asked, his mood turning a complete one-eighty. Before Madara could reply, he was already on his feet and running. The Uchiha raced to catch up.

"Heh! I guess I'm faster!" Hashirama laughed boisterously. "Loser!"

"BASTARD! You had a head start!" Madara yelled. "It's not fair to compare our times when you started before me!"

"S-Sorry…"

Her kimono is getting creased after spending three days in the carriage with nothing to do. She had already opened all of her gifts and sealed them in a scroll. She wasn't stupid. She knew that the Clan Head's fourteen year old daughter wanted one of the combs.

It was ivory with jewels studded on one side, and she had to admit it was pretty, but she had already collected eight of those so far and there was no need for so many combs.

She was annoyed, because it was rude to stare and sigh, but the annoyance subsided after she realised that the girl was still young and innocent, and only fourteen. She would have been like that too, had she not decided to pursue the path of a shinobi. Besides, it would be good to get on her good side, seeing who she was.

"Here you go," she sighed, and wrapped the comb in a handkerchief before passing it to the girl, jealous of the girl's perfect skin and protected innocence.

"Thank you," the girl breathed, cupping the comb carefully. "Thank you so much." She carefully does not roll her eyes, but instead smiles gracefully. "I know you must be feeling homesick right now, but we'll take care of you," the girl says reassuringly, determination in her brown eyes. "Don't worry."

How she wishes it was true.

Her heart is not in it when she smiles and greets people as she arrives, and it exhausts her, attempting to appear as though she is not hearing their whispers and excited squeals. She is exhausted, even though she hasn't been the one doing all the running and carrying, but she feels heavy and sluggish, and… well, exhausted.

The Clan Head's daughter leads Naoko into one of the rooms inside the clan's Main House, ordering the others to leave, something that Naoko is glad for, as she slumps onto the already made bed in the corner of the room.

Normally, this is when Naoko would probably start organising her things and create lists as to what to do. She had always been a blood Type A sort of person who hated messes, but instead she formed a Shadow Clone, ignoring the drain of chakra as it performed the menial tasks of loading and sealing.

It took much longer than she had expected. Even though originally she only intended to bring a backpack with only the bare necessities, she ended up bringing all her gifts along, which meant that most of her things didn't fit into the room, large as it was.

The room was painted yellow and white with hardwood floors. There were hints that showed someone else had lived in the room for a while, although it clearly couldn't have been for very long, as their old compound had been rebuilt only a few months ago.

Piling all her clothes onto the floor, she chose ten kimonos for different occasions, with half of them for casual situations or training, while shoving the rest in Kauri's - the Clan Head's daughter's - direction.

"Here. Take a look and choose a few," she said, storing several gifts and necklaces into scroll.

"Wha -? Really?" Kauri asked, before selecting three easily. They were the larger and more loose-fitting ones, and probably fit her well enough considering how short she was. Naoko reached the top of her ears despite the age gap, being relatively tall for her age.

It took her a further ten minutes to choose which things to store in a scroll and which to store in her wardrobe, and another ten minutes for Kauri to boss around other accompanying shinobi and finally decide that the bed was better where it was originally.

Naoko could easily have done it herself with a little chakra enhancement, but it was probably better for others to do it as she had limited chakra left, a little over a quarter of her chakra remaining. She tired out easily and had quite a small chakra pool, even for girls her age.

Kauri helped her to get changed into a more formal kimono and for the first time since arriving, Naoko finally felt less on edge with the feeling of the familiar weight of the silver brooch pinned to the front of her clothing.

The Hono compound was very similar to the Shimura one, and yet so different at the same time. It was… exasperating. She felt the urge to cry, but carefully masked her emotions and tried to suppress them so that she wouldn't - couldn't - feel anything anymore.

It would be humiliating to cry in front of someone else, especially on her first day. That wouldn't do for a first impression at all, would it? She lay on her bed for a while, not really listening to Kauri's mindless chatter but occasionally giving grunts of affirmation.

It was strange how easily Kauri was tricked, especially when Naoko was trying to show that she was tired in a subtle way, and yet it completely went over her head. It occurred to her that perhaps civilians just didn't notice things like that.

"Kauri-sama, Naoko-sama," one of the shinobi grunted. "If you'd care to join us for the banquet." He opened the door, allowing the two girls to exit, before escorting them to the larger hall in the centre of the compound.

She looked around the room, seeing only one other with dark brown hair, everyone else sporting ginger or auburn hair. She froze. Her eyes locked with someone standing behind the seat on the same table as the Clan Head, with two empty seats beside him, where Kauri was already heading towards.

Hey… Pip.

Hashirama was still speechless. He fingered the turquoise necklace. It had been given to him as a birthday gift years ago, and he had never stopped wearing it. It was the first and only thing that he had received that year which wasn't a ninja tool or something similar, but he doesn't remember who from.

Nevertheless, Naoko had never remarked on it before, and he always wore it underneath his shirt. There was no way that she would know about it, unless she was sneakier and much more perceptive than he had thought.

He had been so angry at her - no, that didn't nearly describe the rage that he felt. He was infuriated and couldn't help but feel betrayed - knowing that she had been the one who had spied on his family, the one who had completely ruined his life, the one person that he thought was his friend and the one person that he might have been able to trust outside of his clan, because most of all, it meant that peace could never really be achieved, and that his clan was right.

She was wrong and horrible and stupid and an utter traitor and he absolutely hated her. He was so enraged, and seeing her that morning, chatting to Madara as if nothing had happened had made him see red.

But hearing her words and sensing the sombre ambiance around them, all of that dissipated immediately. Damn it…

In the time he had spent rehearsing how he would beat her into a pulp the next time they met in his mind, he had never expected… this.

"Goodbye."

Hashirama grabbed the glass vials, his head spinning.

"I need to talk to you." Hashirama turned around and smiled tiredly at Tobirama.

"Not now, Tobir-"

"It's important." Seeing his serious expression, he followed his younger sibling to his father's room in silence and sat down inside, anxiousness settling down in his stomach.

Thanks for all the support with the last chapter! I hope you enjoyed this one just as much as the last. I have a pretty busy weekend so I'm posting it today instead, but I hope everyone is doing well.

Thanks!