.


What a naughty boy was that,

to try to drown the poor pussy cat,

who never did him any harm,

but killed all the mice in the farmer's barn.


It's a while before she cries herself out.

But once she has, Haruko knows that she needs to get down to business. Her time is running out and if she doesn't do something fast, she's going to be stuck.

They're still in Gai's room together but they've shifted positions, now both laying on their backs, shoulder to shoulder. She stares up at the ceiling and folds her hands over her chest, interlocking her fingers.

Where to start?

She slips her fingers through a couple of seals, and she puts a minor auditory genjutsu in place around her and Gai. To any eavesdroppers, they're still laying in silence.

"You were right, earlier," she says. "Something's not right."

At her words, Gai sits up and frowns down at her. "What is it?"

"Something too big to try and explain right now."

Haruko turns her head to lock eyes with him.

Gai doesn't argue; he simply nods. "Okay. How can I help?"

She would rather that Gai doesn't help—she doesn't want him to get involved in this any more than he already is. But she can't do this on her own, and she needs to get to Minato.

She suspects that Danzo has at least one or two agents trailing her; looking back on her interactions with Minato, he probably has for far longer than she thought.

It was creepy before. Now, it's dangerous.

Danzo would have no qualms about eliminating her at this point if she attempted to back out of the mission or open up about the inner workings of ROOT, both of which she plans to do. If there's somebody hiding outside of her house, even just leaving the house might be enough to spark a confrontation.

"I need to find Minato, but I don't know how," she says. "I need tell him about what's happening, he can help—"

"He is not in the village."

Haruko sits up. "Since when?"

"A few days ago," he says. "The team was called to a mission on the frontlines."

What a coincidence it is that Minato would happen to be taking his team through their first bouts on the frontlines just when Danzo has this mission ready for her. What a pain.

"Kushina?" she asks.

"She is home," Gai says.

Perfect.

"She'll help. I'm not sure how much she knows about all this, but I know that she's probably the safest person to be with right now."

And Kushina might be able to help with the seal. Kushina's right up there with Minato and Jiraiya when it comes to seal mastery—if anybody can think up a counter for it, it'll be Kushina.

Gai goes to get up, saying, "Then we must go—"

Haruko lays a hand on his arm and carefully pulls him back down next to her. "Not so fast."

"What is it?"

"There are probably people watching me."

A little crease forms between his eyebrows. "Probably?"

"I can't tell for sure," she says. "But there's a pretty high chance of it."

"So we cannot just go over to visit Kushina."

"Best not to."

Gai frowns. "You could avert their attention with a clone."

"I'd rather not."

If that's their only option, she'll do it. But right now, Haruko can't stomach the idea of another version of herself walking around the village.

"I could provide a distraction while you run to their apartment," Gai offers.

She flicks him on the ear. "No."

"But you must get to Kushina."

"And you need to, too," she says. "I don't want to split up and give them the chance to use you against me if things go sour."

Gai's expression darkens, and for some reason, this is the point where she thinks that the reality of the situation has truly started to set in. Where he's started to understand that there is a tangible danger lurking in the shadows.

"We should simply evade them, then," Gai says. "If we leave together and head towards the center of the village, it may appear as if we are simply going into the market sections."

"And how do we get to the apartments?"

He falters.

And then it occurs to Haruko. "Oh."

They don't need to get to the apartments—there might be a way to have Kushina come to them.

Gai instantly leans towards her, eyes wide. "What?"

"The have a phone, don't they?" she asks.

Phones are still very much in the process of development in this world, but she knows that landlines grew more commonplace while she was away. At this point, most people in the middle class and above have landlines, and there are places where phones can be accessed by the rest of the population for free.

"Yes!" he says. "Yes, they got one last year!"

"And you know their number?" she asks.

"I have it written down. Minato gave it to me."

"Good. I've got a load of library books in my room that are a month overdue. We can walk them over to the library and talk to her using their phone."

"No."

Haruko raises an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"You must stay here," he says.

"Gai, I don't want you out there alone."

"If I leave alone, it is unlikely that anybody will believe something weird is happening. I am not the one they suspect."

"And what if they do?"

"Then I will deal with it," he tells her firmly, his hands tightening into fists in his lap.

She doesn't want him being alone just like she doesn't want him being involved in this mess in the first place, but she no longer has a choice. And she has to remember—Gai is no pushover. He's currently up for a jonin promotion at fourteen years old and frankly, in a fight, he's far more capable than she is. He doesn't need her to defend him. More than anything, she'd get in his way and distract him.

She can also see the determination in his face; he's made up his mind on this. Haruko can be stubborn, but she's got nothing on Gai. If this is what he thinks is best he'll dig in his heels and nothing she can do will sway him.

Haruko lets out a breath. "Alright."

Somebody might follow Gai for a bit, but she doubts they would deem him suspicious once they realized he was heading to the library. He isn't their main target and if he doesn't raise huge red flags, he won't be worth their time.

She hopes, at least.

Gai nods. He relaxes, the tension easing from him. "What do I say to her?"

"Nothing about what's actually happening," she says. "I get the feeling that somebody is going to be listening in to your conversation with her."

"Then… how do I get her to come over right away?"

A small smile tugs at Haruko's lips. "Tell her that neither of us have had dinner and that if she brings us Ichiraku's, I'll pay for it."

.

.

Haruko sits in the living room on the floor, cross legged, cycling through a few cat's cradle patterns as she waits for their plan to unfold.

Butterflies vibrate in her stomach. Her chest is oddly tight. As her fingers loop through the bright red string her entangled around her hands, she can see them shaking.

Nerves.

They're rather novel to experience, for her. Ama had her nerves—or the ability to comprehend them, at least—drilled right out of her. If it weren't such a dire situation, she might relish in the mundaneness of it. But it is, so she can't. She just has to sit and suffer like all the poor mortals of this realm.

Thankfully, Haruko doesn't have to stew for long. Half an hour after Gai first left, Kushina kicks down her front door.

She marches into their house. She holds Gai like a sack of potatoes with one arm and carries a massive takeout bag with the other. The pair of hot pink kunai-patterned pajama pants and matching shirt tip Haruko off to the fact that Kushina had probably been getting ready for bed, as does the fact that Kushina has her hair twined in a single, massive braid down her back. Haruko half expects Kushina to be in her slippers, but it seems that even Kushina draws the line somewhere and instead has on a pair of black ninja sandals.

Kushina dumps Gai down on the ground and drops the bag onto their dining room table. "So," she says. "What the fuck is going on?"

Haruko slips her thumb out of one string and hooks it through another. "A lot."

"Uh huh." Kushina points an accusing finger at Haruko. "You owe me 2,000 yen."

"Put it on my tab."

Kushina opens her mouth to respond, but something stops her. She turns to squint at one of their walls with a fiery passion in her violet eyes, her hands planted on her hips. The offending wall is devoid of decorations and seemingly undeserving of her ire.

After a minute, she blows out a breath. "Minato's gonna shit himself when he gets home," she mumbles.

"Oh," Haruko says. "So you do know."

"Not all of it, but I think I know enough. He warned me to keep an eye on you two while he was gone—now I see why. You've got two or three dudes just sitting out there." She waves her hand. "I'm not too good at this chakra sensing business, so I can't be sure, but there are definitely ninja outside your house right now."

Haruko sighs. "Voyeurists," she says. "How tacky."

Kushina side eyes her. "Yeah, right. So—on a scale of one to ten, how concerned should I be right now, squirt?"

"Contextualize the scale."

"One being this is the perfect time for me to nap and paint my nails," Kushina says, holding up one finger. Her hands flare out to display all ten fingers. "Ten being if I don't stick my nose in this situation right now, you're liable to be burnt to a crisp and have your ashes scattered around the Forest of Death for the tigers to eat."

Haruko drops the string from both of her index fingers and nabs them with her middle fingers, pulling them tight. She considers it with a little hum. "Eight?"

"If I don't intervene, we might find your dead body hanging from one of the power lines tomorrow morning?"

"Yeah," Haruko says. "That's fair."

Gai squawks from his spot on the ground.

"Then I think I'm bringing both of you back to the apartment with me where we're going to wait for Minato to come home and deal with this mess," Kushina answers cheerfully. "They'd have to be stupid to try anything while we're in there—that place is covered to Madara's asscrack and back with security seals."

Gai, recovered from his trip and subsequent dropping, sits up. He rubs at his head. "What of how we get there?"

"Easy. I grab you two, I grab the takeout, and I shunshin across Konoha. Minato should be back in a day or two, so I'll probably just stick you there for a bit."

Haruko nods and lets the string drop from her fingers. "So we should pack some clothes and essentials."

"Yeah, and quickly," Kushina says. "I'll help. Come on."

.

.

They get about five minutes to toss things into their bags, then Kushina flashes them to the door of the apartment she shares with Minato.

Haruko wonders if the ninja outside realized what happened, and what they'll do now.

Kushina practically pushes them through the door and slams it shut behind her, placing her palm against it. Haruko can feel chakra around them flare up and fizzle out. The security seals.

The seals are painted onto the baseboards all along the walls, weave a circular pattern the back of the door, dance across the ceilings in flowing lines. Haruko drops her bag and wanders over to the nearest one, tracing her finger along the swirling patterns. Kushina's work, she has no doubt.

"That's done," Kushina says. "Now, let's get to the actually important matter: dinner."

Kushina heads off into the kitchen with the takeout bag.

"Ah," Gai says. "What do we do with our bags?"

"Just leave them on the ground for now. We can deal with them later," Kushina calls back.

She hears Gai drop his bag on the ground with a dull thump. He walks over to her, his socked feet rhythmically patting against the floors as he goes, and wraps his hand around her wrist. She blinks, her attention drawn away from the seals. Gai smiles. He pulls her to her feet and walks her over to the kitchen, where Kushina already has the ramen out in bowls.

Kushina runs through a couple of hand signs and spews out a tiny cloud of flames from her mouth, heating up each bowl one by one. When Kushina hands it to her, Haruko takes her bowl with a small nod and settles down at the kitchen table, glancing around the apartment.

The decorating is surprisingly modern. Very unlike what Haruko would expect from a house that Kushina lives in. She wonders if they split the house responsibilities in half when they moved in—Kushina dealt with the security seals while Minato did all of the decorating.

At the thought, an image of Minato furniture shopping pops into Haruko's head and she smiles to herself. What she would pay to see that.

There's a simple lilac couch and chair set in the living room surrounding a glass-top table, and photographs and plants line the beige walls. A full bookshelf sits on one wall, an olive-green set of drawers against the other. It's simple but cozy. In a lot of ways, it reminds Haruko of her own house.

Haruko feels a poke in her side. She blinks, and finds Kushina watching her as Gai digs into his ramen with gusto.

On cue, her stomach looses a war cry of mighty proportions, furious over its continual denial of dinner, and she glances down at her belly. What power, what might. A fearsome warrior who refuses to suffer through the indignities she has thus levelled against it. How dare she to prolong its lust for sustenance? And so to ease her sins, she eats.

Once they've all finished eating and washed dinner down with a cup of tea, Kushina gets up and heads into the hallway. "I can show you guys to the rooms you'll be staying in," she says, waving them over. "I'll probably put Haruko in the guest room, and I'll stick Gai in Kakashi's kind-of-his-but-not-really bedroom."

"Ah," Gai says. "I do not want to intrude on my rival's space."

"I doubt he'll care. He barely even uses it, honestly—he likes the couch better."

Gai hesitates.

"Make a mess of his bed," Haruko says, staring down at the table. "Assert your dominance."

"A—assert… my dominance."

"Yes, exactly. That's the spirit. This is the kind of power play that'll give you an edge the next time the two of you compete."

"This feels like cheating," Gai says.

"How?"

"He is not here to make a play of his own!"

"That's kind of the point, Gai."

"Yes, but—"

"And that's enough of that," Kushina says.

She grabs Gai by the shoulders and steers him towards Kakashi's bedroom. Haruko distinctly hears Gai whispers the words, "For the betterment of our rivalry" as he walks inside and drops his pack on the floor.

Kushina comes back out. Haruko expects Kushina to drag her into a bedroom, too, but Kushina stops at the end of the hallway and leans her shoulder against the wall. She meets Haruko's eyes with an intense stare of her own.

"I won't lie, I don't know a lot about what's going on," Kushina says, her voice carefully lowered. "But I do know that whatever it is, we're going to figure it out."

Haruko folds her hands together on the table. "That's a lofty promise."

"And I have every intention of keeping it. Minato does, too."

"Yeah," Haruko says, nodding. "I know."

"Damn right you do." Kushina goes over and grabs the bag that Haruko left on the floor earlier, hefting it over her shoulder. "Now come on. You look like you're ready to drop."

She is.

She feels drained, like she hasn't slept in a week. Her body aches. It's not from training, since she didn't do any this morning—the blame falls on the emotional rollercoaster she's been thrown through in the last six hours.

Haruko forces herself to her feet, using the table to help push herself out of the chair. She stares down at her hand. The burn from cooking with Gai is still there, the skin around her palm puckered and red, a scar that'll never go away. But it will lighten, given time. And she supposes that that's what matters in the end.

"Thank you," Haruko says. "For coming and getting us on short notice, and for bringing us here."

Kushina smiles at her. It's the kind of smile that makes Haruko think that if Kushina decides to have kids one day, she'll be a fantastic mother. "Don't mention it," she says. "I'm just glad I could help."

Haruko lets Kushina lead her into the guest room. It's a lot like the rest of the house—modern, filled with earth tones, and comfortable. Haruko drops onto the bed without bothering to take off her socks or dress. She's tired and pajamas are always uglier than her dresses.

Sleep has always been a bit elusive for Haruko, but tonight, as soon as her head hits the pillow and her eyes shut, she's dead asleep.


One second, Haruko's sitting in silence, reading a fuinjutsu book that she can barely understand a fraction of. The next, the house is full of familiar laughter and shouting. Haruko studies the clock on the wall. Seven in the evening—almost exactly a day since Kushina came and picked them up. She expects nothing less from Minato.

He's the first one to emerge from his and Kushina's bedroom, a wide smile on his face that evaporates the second he sees Haruko sitting on his couch, reading one of his ridiculously complex books on fuinjutsu theory. Obito stumbles into his back.

"Hello," Haruko says, raising a hand to wave.

Rin pokes her head around both of them. "Haruko?" she asks. She squeezes out of the room. "What are you doing here?"

Haruko locks eyes with Minato. Blithely, she says, "Just visiting."

"Hey!" Obito shouts. "What're you doing in here alone? That's super creepy, even for you!"

"If you think this is me being creepy, then you've got a lot to learn." Haruko wiggles her fingers like a cartoon witch casting a spell, her entire expression completely blank. "For I am a Sanderson sister, and on the last day of October each year, I feast on the energy of a young child to renew my youth and vigor."

Obito leans over towards Kakashi and whispers, "What the hell is she talking about?"

Kakashi rolls his eyes, knocking Obito away with his shoulder.

Haruko jerks her hands forward. "Boo."

Much to her delight, Obito jumps at that, even as he tries to play it off. Rin giggles.

Minato seems to snap out of his daze and steps forward, pulling Kakashi and Obito out with him. "Alright, alright. All of you go on and rest—no training tomorrow. Take the day off and relax."

Obito gapes. "Are you—you're not going to address her just… just being in here?"

"Nope," Minato says. "Now shoo."

Rin, ever the tactful one, grabs Obito by the back of his shirt and drags him kicking and screaming across the apartment. "Make sure you rest, too, Minato, okay?" she says.

Minato eyes Haruko. "We'll see."

"You need to rest!" Rin says, halfway to the door. "And eat something, too!"

A fond smile takes over Minato's face, though he doesn't respond.

Rin points at her eyes and then points at Minato menacingly. Minato shrugs.

"Impossible," Rin mutters. But she perks back up and waves at Haruko and Kakashi. "Bye Haruko! Bye Kakashi! I'll see you guys later!"

All the while, Obito wriggles in her grip and shouts about his non-existent right to know why Haruko is stalking his teacher. Rin kicks the door shut behind them.

And then it's one.

Kakashi stands with his arms behind his head and stares Minato down like the sullen teenager hyped up on angst that he is.

"I dismissed you, too," Minato tells him, his voice hard but not unkind.

Kakashi doesn't budge in the slightest. Instead, he says, "I know something important is going on."

"Something important, yes, but it's very much not your business," Haruko says.

He scowls at her.

Minato sighs. "She's not entirely wrong. I wouldn't kick you out without a reason, Kakashi, you know that." He runs his hand through his hair, and he winces as his fingers catch on knots and clumps of mud. "You're right that something's going on. But it's S-rank information that I can't let you in on. Nobody else can hear the conversation we're going to have, not even Kushina or Gai."

Minato looks at her expectantly. She isn't sure if he expects her to protest, but if that's the case, she has no intention of doing so. Gai has seen enough—he doesn't need to be privy to all of the gruesome details that she and Minato are going to get into.

She can see the war in Kakashi's expression. The desire to obey what is, essentially, a direct order, battling with the burning desire to not be left out.

"Kushina and Gai are out grocery shopping," Haruko says. "Gai was aching to stretch his legs, since we've been cooped up in here all day."

Minato nods. "Why don't you go and help Kushina pick something out for dinner."

Kakashi's hands fall to his side. His gaze flicks between the two of them. Without a word, he shunshins out of the room.

A sigh escapes Minato, soaked in the kind of resigned exasperation that can only really come from years spent dealing with Kakashi. "Excuse me for a second."

Minato pops out of the room now, too, leaving Haruko alone. She opens the book back up and keeps on reading. It's not something she knows much about or cares much about, really.

Nonou never touched fuinjutsu and so Haruko saw no reason to, either. But one can only train with Kushina for so long before it inevitably makes an appearance. They covered it over two or three weeks, long enough for Rin and Haruko to be able to make their own explosive seals. When introducing the lesson, Kushina had imparted upon them the sage words of, "If literally everything else I ever teach you fails, this won't. Nothing kills a dude faster than blowing him up, that I can promise you."

It was a fun series of lessons, right up there with classics such as "How to Cut a Guy's Dick off With a Kunai 101" and "The Five Best Pressure Points to Send Your Opponent Down in Agonizing Pain." The prior was particularly interesting—Kushina had a field day when she figured out Rin could use chakra scalpels already, and insisted on accounting for that in the lesson, much to Rin's mounting discomfort.

Haruko finds she enjoys the lessons more for their entertainment value than any actual personal improvement, though some of the information has been useful. Haruko can firmly say her left hook and calligraphy have never been better.

And she can say that while fuinjutsu theory is mostly gibberish to her, she finds it to be interesting gibberish. It reminds her a lot of reading genjutsu theory. Possibilities, limitations, and the inevitable loopholes to those possibilities and limitations. And that's just on a seal to seal basis because like genjutsu, fuinjutsu is an art where, theoretically speaking, anything can be done if you can figure out a way to do it. There's just way more icky numbers involved.

Haruko closes the book over her thumb when she hears Minato pop back into the room.

"Good, okay," Minato mumbles. "Okay." He clears his throat. "Kushina said that she'll keep Kakashi occupied long enough to let us chat for a bit."

He comes over and drops down onto the chair near her, rubbing a tired hand over his face. He looks like a complete mess, covered in mud and blood in equal measure, visible bags under his eyes.

"You look terrible," Haruko tells him.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Minato makes a vague gesture at her. "Alright, so. Hit me with it. Short version of why you're here?"

Haruko sets the book down in her lap and opens her mouth wide enough for him to see the seal pressed into the back of her tongue. Everything about him sharpens instantly, like a predator coiling itself up to strike at the first scent of blood.

"To answer your question from a few weeks ago," Haruko says, her words garbled, "I can't tell you anything."

Minato is in front of her in seconds, his thumb on her chin to open her mouth wider and angle it to get a good look at the seal. "What is that?" he mumbles. Then he seems to remember himself and drops his hand, taking a step back. "Sorry. That was, uh. Inappropriate."

Haruko just leaves her mouth open.

More hesitantly this time, Minato inspects the seal, muttering to himself the entire time. "Hexagonal… even numbered. Curse seal, clearly, but… what's the root of it?"

"I don't know much about how it works," Haruko says. "I've never activated it before."

"If I were to guess? I'd say it incapacitates you somehow. Probably intended to keep information from spreading—the placement is meaningful, here. Symbolism is just one of many aspects of fuinjutsu and I doubt this specific placement is a coincidence. Working on that, if the goal is to keep you from saying something incriminating, it'd silence you. But I imagine Danzo is too clever to settle for just verbally leashing you, so I'd assume that it'll prevent you from being able to communicate full stop, be it verbally or through writing or gestures of some kind." Minato rubs his index fingers along the joint of his jaw. "But I can't say for sure until either you activate it or I take the time to expand it."

"I could activate it," Haruko says.

Minato's eyes narrow. "Don't."

"Why not?"

"Because it could be dangerous," he says. "I'd rather not take the risk, considering who we're dealing with. Better to unwind it safely."

Haruko tilts her head, her bronze eyes scanning him. "So you're going to try and release the seal."

"Of course," Minato says, looking at her oddly. "What did you think I was going to do?"

"I haven't really thought about it, honestly."

It's interesting for her, somebody who thinks and analyzes and plans. She hasn't given much of anything thought since entering the apartment. She's been content to sit around and read books she doesn't understand instead of contending with the disastrous situation that got her into this predicament in the first place.

"We're going to figure it out," is what Kushina had said. And when Haruko said she believed that, she meant it.

"It looks like it's a bit of a complex seal, but it's nothing that Kushina and I can't crack together in a few days," he says. "And if we really can't get it, I can send a message to my teacher and he'd probably be willing to give us some advice."

Haruko nods. "Okay."

"Okay," Minato echoes. He shifts his weight a bit. "So…"

"What?"

"I take it that you being here, and everything, means that you're willing to cooperate with me?"

"As much as I can."

Minato grins at her, the gesture equal parts warm and wild. "Alright. Then, I've got some files that I'm going to need. I'll be back in a minute."

Some files is an understatement.

Minato comes back with an armful of papers that he dumps all over the dining room table, so many that the impact sends a shudder through the poor table. He lays them all out. In total, Haruko counts four thick files.

He took the chance to change as well, and he now has on a long-sleeved grey shirt and a fresh set of dark blue uniform pants. His hair is still a complete disaster, though. Only a shower will be able to fix that.

Haruko marks her spot in the book and sets it aside to wander over.

The files each have labels. Her fingers skim over each one as she reads, "Current Agents, Past Agents, Accounted for Missions, and Unaccounted for Missions." She traces her thumb over the tabs that stick out of each file, marking subsections. There's at least three in each file. "You've been thorough."

"This is only information dating back the last ten years," Minato says. "If I had more time, I'd go back further, but I needed to be careful. You have to watch your step when you're preparing to accuse one of the most powerful men in the village of committing treason."

Haruko blinks and turns to look at him. "Treason?"

Minato gestures for her to sit down and does so himself.

Once she does, she waits for him to start talking, but Minato holds his silence and settles back in his chair, pinning her under his calculating gaze.

So Haruko grabs for the nearest file, the one labelled Current Agents, and jumps immediately to the "Of High Concern" tab.

Haruko lifts up the nearest sheet of paper. The face of a young boy stares back at her, the name 'Kinoe' printed along the top of the photograph. A ROOT mask sits on the side of his head, but she could have figured out that he was an agent without it—he has the vacancy in his eyes that gives him away.

She wonders if she has that vacancy in her own gaze. She'd like to think she could see it in herself, but the reflection in a mirror only shows you what you want to see. And that's assuming you know what to look for in the first place.

Haruko leafs through a few others.

Eventually, she stumbles upon a painfully familiar photograph. A woman whose expression is filled with kindness. The photo is black and white, but Haruko can imagine the verdant green eyes and light blonde hair anyways.

Ice fills her veins, but there's a bit of fire there, too—and not the good kind. Haruko sorts through the feelings like she's a dealer at a casino, pulling each card from the top of the deck and flipping it over to reveal its face to the eager onlookers. The cold, the pains of betrayal and abandonment. And that shred of fire? It's a rare one to her. Anger. At the realization that Haruko was nothing but a tool to this woman, just the same as Danzo. That all their time spent together was a grooming process so that Haruko could be the perfect agent one day.

Minato gently pulls the file from her hands. "Nonou Yakushi," he reads. "A jonin. Currently, one of the captains in our Medics Corp. Since she does most of her work in village, she splits her time between her duties within the Medics Corp and other odd jobs, mostly focused around children. The two longest so far have been her jobs at the Academy and the orphanage. They expect her to become the head matron pretty soon."

Haruko mulls over her words. The best way to do this is to work based only on what Minato is saying. She can't introduce any new information that has to do with ROOT, not explicitly. She'll have to work through asking questions and general comments. "You think she might be dangerous."

"I do," Minato says. "I think she might do with those kids exactly what she did to you—pick the ones with high potential and send them over to Danzo. As Head Matron, she'll be able to easily cover up the disappearances of any children she might send into ROOT."

"Why would she need to cover it up?" she asks.

"There are… rules around recruitment," Minato says. "You, for example, were recruited in the way all ROOT agents are supposed to be. Lord Hokage was made aware of your transition from a part of the regular forces into ROOT and he agreed to it. Theoretically, Danzo isn't supposed to be picking up civilian children and bringing them into ROOT. He's only to pull from Academy students or our regular genin forces."

"But he does pick up civilian children?" Haruko asks.

"Yes, among others he's not supposed to be targeting." Minato flips to the last tab of the Current Agents file and shows it to her. "All of these agents are ones I have reason to believe Lord Hokage was never consulted on, nor is even aware are currently ROOT agents. Most were under the radar because the regulations would have prevented them from being recruited legitimately."

Haruko counts over fifty agents on top of the six hundred that Danzo already has under his command. All of these profiles seem different, too. The other profiles were typed up with a typewriter, while these are handwritten.

"Handmade profiles," she says.

"Mostly," he says. "For obvious reasons, these agents didn't have profiles made up. So… I had to write them myself, based on what I could gather from mission reports and accounts. Some of them had standard files, those who were part of the regular forces at some point, and I could glean some information from there, but… most of them had nothing."

It strikes her, how much work he put into all of this.

Minato taps the file with his index finger. "And these are just the ones that I believe are still currently active," Minato says. He spreads his hands. "There are probably agents that I can't find any trace of, inactive or active, that were never accounted for, either."

One by one, he moves through the pages, his eyes locked on them. Only a handful of the profiles have photographs to go along with them, and many of the profiles are short, comprising of one or two paragraphs, if even that.

What a sad existence that must be. Known to nobody, your entire mark on the world summed up in as many words as a bog standard obituary.

"There are hard limits to how many agents Danzo can recruit. ANBU is the same way. As useful as they are, we only want so many of them running around to contain the security risk." Minato gives a wry smile. "But I'm sure I don't need to tell you that."

She wonders if he realizes just how accurate that statement truly is. Unlikely. But even so, it hits her right in the sternum and forces an uneven breath from her.

Minato moves back through the file and pulls out a profile. He hands it to her.

Her own face stares back at her.

The first picture on her profile is from her graduation day, at six years old. The second is the one they took of her right after she was given her chunin promotion. There's three years between the two and she looks almost exactly the same in both photos, save for a change of clothes.

Something else stirs inside of her. It takes her a bit longer to decipher it, this time, and even then she isn't entirely sure she's come out with the right translation. A little warm, a little cold, mostly sharp. Bitterness, perhaps? Tinged with a sprinkle of regret? Bitter that she ended up here, regretful that she didn't do something earlier.

But there's still a part of her that remembers how happy she was to be learning from Nonou. How she enjoyed the dancing, the makeup, and the way it felt like genjutsu was a new world at her fingertips that was waiting for her to explore it. A world that was scary, intimidating, and absolutely thrilling.

The two seem irreconcilable. Yet, a part of her is certain that they are, that negative and positive emotions can exist simultaneously, because the world is anything but black and white if you take a second to see with more than just your own biased eyes.

Wordlessly, Minato reaches over and flips to the next page of her profile, pointing to a specific section of it. The part of her profile with the timeline of her career. Most entries have only brief descriptions, intended to document rather than explain.

The entry he's got his finger on is dated November 14th, year forty-seven. The day she was attacked by Suna ninja. Haruko frowns, unsure as to where he's going with this.

Then Minato opens up the file labelled Accounted For Missions, and something cold and hard settles in her gut. It's a feeling like the nerves, except it lacks the ambiguity—dread.

The document he pulls out is the one sitting on top of the file. His eyes flick over it. "This document includes mission reports from two agents, Setsuna and Yori. Both of them describe how on November 12th, year forty-seven, four of them were dispatched to the south-western region of the Land of Fire. They were instructed to kill a Kusa spy who was headed towards the village with the intent to infiltrate. Agents Roku and Kei were killed in the fight."

Her chest squeezes, and each time she breathes, she can't quite get enough air in her lungs.

She gets the distinct feeling that Minato's comment earlier, claiming that she knew of security risk containment, was far more calculated than she gave him credit for.

"Danzo is the one who pushed for you to be declared KIA early on in the war," Minato says quietly. "It's not something the village does often, and it only does it for its ANBU divisions. Generally, it's for cases where the nature of the work is so dangerous that it's unlikely the ninja is going to return regardless, and it's always done with the explicit permission of the ninja in question. It's just easier to declare early to make things harder to trace back to us. Once a ninja is marked as KIA, their file is pulled from every source other than Lord Hokage's personal collection, limiting the chance that spies within the village can gather information on our more questionable missions."

Minato sighs. "You were never supposed to make it back, Haruko. Danzo went out of his way to ensure that."

"And yet, here I am," Haruko murmurs.

She shouldn't be surprised that Danzo was plotting her death that early, but she is. She was so useful to him, so loyal, and he was ready to put her down because she knew too much when she'd never so much as nipped at him.

Her hands fist in her skirt at the thought, and she forcibly unclenches her hands and smooths the skirt back down.

"You surprised him, I think," Minato says. "There are indications in Nonou Yakushi's files that she received severe disciplinary actions in the days that followed."

The petty part of her feels no twinge of sympathy for Nonou.

"Dad, Gai and I did a lot of training on our own. I studied for myself when I had time," she says. "I don't think Nonou was ever aware of how much I taught myself."

Most of the training was between Dai and Gai, but she was there enough that she picked up bits here and there. And Dai always made sure her taijutsu was passable.

Her time spent in the library was more frequent. She never struggled with ninjutsu, she just didn't have much use for it because combat was never her goal. More than anything, like with fuinjutsu, she just found the theory behind how jutsu worked to be interesting, and ended up picking up some useful skills along the way.

It was never anything she thought was Nonou's business, so she didn't mention it.

Minato nods. "After the attack, your profile received an update as well. Your taijutsu and ninjutsu score were bumped up, and you were marked as having potential kenjutsu experience."

That, at least, is one thing she doesn't have—that blow with the sword to finish the fight was luck.

"That mission," she says. "It was accounted for."

"It was."

"Does that mean that Lord Hokage knew about it?"

"It does."

She thinks about whether she really wants to ask what she's about to ask. She finds that yes, she does. "Did he know?"

"The true purpose of the mission?" Minato asks. His gaze hardens. "No, I don't think so."

And she supposes that she couldn't have expected him to. With as many ninja under his command as there are, the Hokage can only know about so much, and the mission seems routine if examined without the contextual information she possesses.

But it bothers her, just like it bothers her that Danzo was so quick to discard her or that Nonou played her like a fiddle for three years. That the Hokage, the one person who could have stepped in, who had all of the information at his fingertips, didn't see what was happening right under his nose.

"What do I know that's so dangerous?" she asks.

He picks up the Unaccounted For Missions folder and waves it around. "You see, that brings us to this lovely folder," he says. "These are all of the ROOT missions I've been able to uncover where there is no mention in any documents that they occurred."

"And some of my missions are in there?"

"All of your missions since coming back to the village," he says. "And I'm guessing a few of yours from the war. But I haven't been able to get any information on those—Danzo keeps what you did under lock and key." He drops the folder and shrugs. "I'm not going to know a lot for sure until we break the seal and you can actually talk about what you did in the war and what your missions since coming back from the village have been like."

The folder isn't too big, about an eighth of the size of the Accounted For Missions folder, but that it exists at all is grounds for concern.

"How, exactly, have you been getting this information?" she asks.

"A few sources," Minato says. "I've gotten into contact with a few ex-ROOT agents who were willing to talk, but a lot of it has come from my teacher, actually. Jiraiya. He's the current spymaster for the village. Once I told him what I thought was going on, he agreed to get me what he could. Most of what I've been doing is compiling and cross-checking what Jiraiya's sent my way, though Lord Hokage gave me access to some useful stuff, as well."

"And I'm the one who led you to start looking."

"Yes, you are," he says. "Though I will admit, this entire thing has gotten far larger than I ever imagined it would."

She nods, sitting back in her chair.

No wonder Danzo threw her under the bus. With how deeply Minato's been looking into this, the best thing Danzo could do was make her as discreditable as possible. And as much as it burns, the knowledge that now, she'll be able to burn him back tenfold, is better than sugar for forcing the pill down.

"Only a third of the unaccounted for missions have anything close to a report to go along with them. That accounts for about a tenth of the total missions taken in the last five years," Minato says. "For most, we're working on the assumption that there was a mission based on timeline discrepancies and hints from other reports."

She can see where the problem is, then. "A lot of smoke but only a few flames."

"Exactly."

"And if you can break the seal, you think I'll be the spark that can get a real fire going."

"When we break the seal, that's the hope, yes," he says. "Danzo's been going behind Lord Hokage's back for years, now. I don't know what he's trying to do, but I don't think it's anything good." He frowns. "And I'm definitely not a fan of his methods of doing it."

"Shouldn't the smoke be enough for that?" she asks. "It may not be a lot of definitive information, but it—" She pauses, unsure if she's about to cross a line. "If what you have is true, that sounds like enough to at least have his leash tightened, no?"

Minato folds his fingers together and rests his chin on it. He lets a slow breath out of his nose. "I don't just want him to check him," he says. His gaze sharpens, and Haruko feels the air fizzle and crackle. "I want to end him."

Now that—that is a sentiment she can get behind, wholeheartedly.

Haruko nods, her lips curling up into a smile. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay," she repeats. "But you should shower before you start working on the seal. You smell like somebody left a dead fish out in the sun for a week."

"Ah." He laughs a little. "Uh. Yeah. I think a shower would be nice."

"And take a nap. You still look pretty awful. You know, not getting enough sleep can lead to you getting wrinkles really early. Like, late twenties kind of early."

His expression turns wry. "I'll take a raincheck on that nap," he says. "Not until after I've started working on undoing that seal with Kushina." He turns to look at the clock on the wall, ticking away. "I'll go and tell her that the coast is clear. By the time she gets back, I should be ready to go."

Haruko stands up. "I'm going to make some tea."

"Oh, alright," Minato says. "Uh, there should be some in the cabinet by the stove."

She won't bother with that. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a little pouch of tea leaves, waving them in front of Minato. They're peppermint, a favourite of hers—she picked a bunch of them from some random lady's garden a few weeks ago and has been making some wonderful tea with them since.

"You carry tea leaves around with you."

"Of course I do," she says.

"Right," he says, his voice monotone. "Of course you do."

"Will you want a cup?"

He stares at the leaves and slowly, he smiles back at her. It reminds Haruko a bit of how he looked at Rin, earlier. A little tired and a little confused, but undeniably fond. "You know… yeah. I think I will."

"Okay."

She wanders over to the kettle and sets it to boil on the stove.

The chair scrapes against the floor as Minato gets up and makes his way over to the bathroom, mumbling something that Haruko can't catch as he goes.

But she still has one thing she needs to say to him, before he goes. She's had it in the back of her mind their entire meeting—the thing that broke Danzo's hold on her once and for all, the true indication of the threat he presents to her home.

"I think I'll always miss the tea I drank in Tatsuno," she says.

Minato stops dead in his tracks and turn to face her. His eyebrows are knit together in undisguised confusion.

"With the ceasefire still going, I hope that some merchants might be able to start bringing it into the village," Haruko continues, not looking at Minato as she searches through their cupboards for a mug. "They can only grow it in Wind Country, you know. And with how unpredictable war can be? Well. It'd be a shame if the ceasefire didn't last long enough for a few crafty tea salesmen to make the trip."

She pauses long enough to lock her eyes with his and see a touch of wariness creep into his expression.

"Uh huh," he says.

"It's really quite vital information," Haruko says. "Tea is important, nation-altering business. It'd be a shame if somebody got in the way of it. Rather treasonous, I might think."

Minato, flexing his genius muscles, puts the pieces together faster than she expects him to. "Danzo is threatening the ceasefire?"

She draws her fingers over her lips and makes a locking motion with her finger. Then, she returns to her task of tea making.

Minato waits there for a second longer before his footsteps trail away, accompanied by the sound of more harried, confused mutterings.

Haruko checks under the sink for mugs. She checks beside the fridge. Even the unlikely places, like small drawers that don't look big enough to fit mugs, she investigates.

Finally, when she stands on her tiptoes to reach one of the cupboards above the sink, she finds the glorious mug vault and pillages it for the lone pink beauty sitting at the back of it, only just within the grasp of her piddly arms.

With her tea leaves bagged and sitting in her cup, Haruko stands in front of the sink as she waits. She leans on the counter, pushing up on it to get a look outside the window. Minato and Kushina have a plant sitting on the sill outside the window. It's basking in the warm March evening, the rim of its light blue pot damp. A patch of green breaks through the dirt. The edge of a stem, on the verge of sprouting.

Spring is here. And oh, is she ready.


AN: Thanks to Sage Thrasher, MonsterCatMusicGirl, and Ruby for betaing this chapter! The unsung heroes of the ff world, lemme tell ya.

So I've now cleared through my back log for this fic, so you can expect me to go back to my usual flaky update schedule, especially since I decided to give Fade to Black some love again because it's been ages since I've given that fic any attention, so I'm working up a backlog for that fic before I'll be setting my sights on this fic again. Especially because my detailed plans kind of end here? So I have? A bit of planning to do? Yikes. Okay. Fun.

Anyways, thank you all for the continued support!