Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Author's Note: A new antagonist is re-introduced in this chapter. They are an OC, and will be the only other OC to ever be a part of this story. Enjoy the chapter.
Chapter 14: Limb, Missing
Silently with bloodied knuckles, carry on
They arrived to Suna's gates fourteen hours after exiting Konoha's. It was quite the feat considering the trip took a week going a merchant's pace.
The first thing Natsuka took note of was the lack of damage. After witnessing one invasion, she'd been expecting a catastrophe on a similar level. But the gates looked to be largely intact, and she only saw a few plumes of smoke within the village itself. Perhaps the damage was not as bad as they'd been led to believe.
They were greeted at the gates by a small hoard of Suna nin, and with only a few words exchanged they were ushered inside the village. She was again taken aback by the lack of rubble and fire, the lack of bodies and destruction. She raised a brow at TenTen as they shared a silent look.
The village appeared empty, but she knew that was not true. With a missing Kazekage, the place was bound to be on high-security lockdown. Regardless, they did not pass a single soul on the way to their destination. Which, she learned a few moments later, was the hospital.
It was a shabby tan building only two stories high, and she remembered that Konoha was by far superior in the medical field. She wondered what TenTen would be doing.
Upon entering the building, the world suddenly came back to life. They were greeted by a cacophony of voices and figures streaking around and sprinting through hallways. An older looking nurse brushed clumsily by her with a clipboard in hand, but then spun around and pointed a finger at them.
"You! Which one of you is TenTen?"
TenTen raised a hand hesitantly into the air. "Me?" It sounded more like a question.
"Come with me," the nurse said brusquely, and then spun back around and started walking.
"Ma'am," one of the Suna shinobi at our sides said. "They haven't been briefed-"
"I don't care!" The nurse yelled without so much as a look back. "The Kazekage's brother is going to die if we don't help him now, so why don't you run along and go be useful somewhere else while we do our jobs."
As the nurse kept rushing down the hall, the rest of the group stood still in rather shocked silence. Finally, after a moment, TenTen took a small step, then another, and then started running after the nurse. "I'll catch up with you guys later!" She called over her shoulder.
The Suna nin who'd spoken cleared his throat, and she wondered if being lectured by the hospital staff was a regular thing around here. "The rest of you can come with me. Temari will brief you all on the situation."
The kazekage's- Gaara's- sister. They were led through a few winding hallways and up a flight of stairs at a brisk pace before arriving at what appeared to be a waiting room. A girl with four spiky tufts of blond hair sticking out from her head turned at their arrival.
She remembered her. The female teammate from the exams. So, she was Gaara's sibling. She wondered if his brother was the other boy she'd seen, with the ridiculous purple paint all over his face. There were two elderly people at her side, a man and a woman. They reminded her of Konoha's village elders.
"Thank you for getting here so quickly," she greeted them somberly. She gave Naruto a fond smile and he returned it with a cheery wave, though his heart didn't seem to be in it.
The elderly woman to Temari's right sneered wordlessly straight at Kakashi, but for some reason the man chose not to comment on the odd behavior.
"They took him yesterday. Deidara, a missing-nin from Iwa, and one of our own. Sasori," she spit out angrily. "They took us by surprise… we weren't prepared for anything like this to happen." She sounded angry and upset and scared all at once.
Natsuka didn't know whether to be disappointed in Suna because a mere two men had been able to abduct a kazekage, or fearful of the two men for being able to pull it off.
"With Gaara gone and Kankuro…" she trailed off and didn't finish her sentence. "I can't leave the village. I need you to go after them."
Well, this was news.
"What are we waiting for then! Let's go." This, of course, came from Naruto.
"Hold on there for a second, youthful blossom! We were instructed we'd be staying within the village for the duration of our mission." How Gai managed to exude such confidence and authority while wearing green spandex, she'd never know.
Temari grimaced. "That was the original plan, but your Anbu squad never arrived."
"What?" Kakashi sounded surprised, and though the Suna delegation probably couldn't tell, alarmed. "They should've been here hours ago."
"I promise, you're the first group from Konoha we've seen."
The room suddenly burst into a chaotic rumble of sound and voices as everyone started talking at once. Amidst the ensuing panic, frantic planning and rapid discussion, the lone Hyuuga sighed.
It seemed this mission was off to a wondrous start.
In another part of the desert, three masked Anbu faced off against two figures wearing identical dark cloaks with red clouds.
"How exactly did this happen?" Genma bit out through his mask. He ducked just in time to avoid a sharp wave of metal spikes.
The three-man squad, short a member for quite some time now, did not have the same fluidity it used to have. They'd been caught off guard on the way to their destination by two peculiar chakra signatures.
Signatures they now knew belonged to members of the Akatsuki.
"We should've been in Suna hours ago," Genma went on, annoyance coloring his voice and making it gruffer than usual. The sharp tooth clenching the senbon in his mouth gleamed.
"Yes, well," another voice spoke from some distance away, "tell me again why we decided to take a detour?" Shisui's attempt at a joke fell flat when he let out a wet cough at the end. He'd taken a short sword to the gut earlier in a shallow stab and it tickled just a bit.
"Hn."
"Itachi!" Shisui whirled towards the masked figure of his younger cousin and pointed a finger at him. "Can you get in the game, man?!" He shook his head at Itachi, as if annoyed that he was not currently contributing to the fight.
Never mind the fact that he was short an arm.
The Uchiha prodigy lost possession of it some time ago, when a wave of water as tall as a small mountain turned to stone in less time than it took his eyes to blink once. He was currently laying prone on the ground, mediocre bandage wrapped hastily over his missing appendage.
He'd underestimated to two mercenaries' cohesiveness and ability to work well with each other. The giant, blue-skinned man that was reminiscent of a shark had cast out a simple water jutsu that Itachi at first believed he'd have no trouble evading.
At least, that's how he felt until the other figure, a woman, slid up from the ground and turned the water to stone with a few quick hand seals and near silent words.
After twisting his body into an impressive array of contortionism to avoid fatal damage, he came away from the stone mostly intact. Besides his left arm.
Directly after that, Shisui delivered a brutal kick to the woman's sternum, and her control was lost as the stone wall dissipated and crumbled to the ground. Itachi's arm fell along with it, and it now sat off to the side in an inconspicuous little scroll, courtesy of Genma.
Shisui coughed again to clear his throat. "Why the fuck was that lady not in the dossier we were given?" With Itachi out of commission, they were down to two on two. A fair, even battle. It might be at least, if they knew anything about who they were fighting.
The man's name was Kisame Hoshigaki, missing-nin from Mist. Also a famed Seven Swordsmen. A formidable opponent, but no one the three of them couldn't handle together. The woman, however, was an enigma. She bore a slashed Iwa hitai-ate and used the village's characteristic jutsu's, but something about her seemed off. Wrong.
Never mind the fact that she had an unusual amount of chakra control, something that was certainly not characteristic of Iwa.
"You're chatting up a storm over there, little ducklings!" The woman called to them. Her voice, which could only be described at guttural and unhinged, would've unnerved lesser nin. Her long, dirty brown hair shifted as she swayed from the side to side, and the scars crisscrossing her face gaped horrendously when she smiled. Her teeth, though not as impressive as her blue skinned counterpart, were quite the sight.
Nevertheless, Genma just raised a casual brow and crossed his arms over his chest as he tried to catch his breath.
"What's your name?" Shisui called out.
The woman continued grinning. "My name," she spread her arms out wide, invitingly. "Is Tenma."
Shisui narrowed his eyes at the lack of surname. He tried to recall every bingo book, every dossier, every piece of information he'd read over or heard. He'd never heard that name before. Not from Iwa, not from anyone.
The woman looked a bit older than him, perhaps around the age of most of the Jounin sensei. He'd fought in the Third Shinobi World War as a young child and remembered fighting alongside Iwa shinobi when they'd been allies. He'd never seen this woman before.
The Hyuuga heiress suffered a brutal death at the hands of Iwa imposters. The real identity of the criminals still remained unknown.
A pair of very important eyes still lay somewhere or with someone, unaccounted for.
Deidara of the Akatsuki was a well-known missing-nin from Iwa. He'd been a renowned member of the Explosion Corps. His true identity could easily be proven and accounted for.
This woman was another story.
"What's a girl like you doing with the Akatsuki?" He asked, voice mockingly friendly. "Does your group really need two Iwa nin?"
If his attempt at goading her worked, she didn't show it. Rather, her grin only sharpened as she unleashed the short sword from its place across her back. Next to her, Kisame unleashed a sharp grin of his own.
"Enough talking," his timbre voice said lowly.
Genma grumbled a few expletives under his breath and Shisui braced himself. They were both fast enough to evade the shark man's attacks, but the blue man seemed to be in possession of a never-ending supply of chakra. His attacks would only cease when he was defeated or when one of them was caught by the writhing sword in his hand. The Samehada.
Shisui let out a slow breath through his nose and focused. The world quieted as his red eyes took in every detail. Itachi lay off to the side hovering in and out of consciousness, out of the fight and away from the fray. He would not be touched. Genma's chakra reserves were higher than Shisui's; he'd be able to take the forefront of attacks while Shisui came up with a plan.
A Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, and the anomaly known only as Tenma. How hard could it be?
Team Gai raced across enormous dunes of sand as quickly as their feet would carry them, pushing chakra into their feet to keep them stable and moving swiftly.
They'd departed from Team 7's company nearly an hour ago. Once Naruto discovered there was no one going after his friend, there'd been no stopping the boy. And after the chat she'd had with Naruto earlier, she didn't blame him. She felt as if she'd been enlightened to a whole new side of the kid.
They'd had to wait for TenTen to finish working on Kankuro before they could take off after the missing kazekage's trail. He'd been nearly fatally poisoned by the puppet master, Sasori.
Luckily, it looked like he'd pull through. TenTen informed them of this as they blasted into the desert, looking a little worse for wear but with a smile on her face as she told them the Kazekage's brother would live.
Byakugan already activated, Natsuka's eyes did not miss the state of TenTen's chakra. It was no matter, she was to play a medic role and interfere only when needed. And hopefully, they would have no need of her services.
She thought about who they may run into and suppressed a shudder. She'd only recently accepted bugs into her life, she didn't think she was ready for puppets.
"We've found ourselves in a most un-youthful situation," Gai said, voice grim and low. They still heard him over the sound of the wind. "I have the utmost confidence in you, my students. However, I would be afraid for even my own life in the presence of S-rank nin. I will only worry even more with the three of you there."
It was truly a gloomy day when Might Gai sounded so serious. It was an even gloomier day when Might Gai admitted to being afraid of something.
I wish Neji were here.
"Relax, Gai-sensei," she said as casually as she possibly could. "We're not the bratty Rookie 9, remember? We can keep our cool in any situation." She smirked, but it did not reach her eyes.
"Yosh!" Lee said only a bit shakily. "Believe in us, Gai-sensei!"
When Natsuka and TenTen nodded resolutely at the declaration, a true smile finally graced Gai's face. It wasn't the best motivational speech of all time, but it was the best they could offer.
Natsuka's head swiveled sharply when chakra signatures came into focus ahead. "Up ahead," she called out.
At once, the easygoing atmosphere shriveled up as Team Gai focused on what lay ahead. "How many?" Gai demanded. The role of friendly sensei was over as a commander took the helm.
"Five." Her veiny eyes squinted as she took in the scene they were headed straight for. If they were in a different environment the rest of the team might already be able to see the shinobi up ahead, but the dunes were the size of small mountains this far out into the desert.
Her hands clenched and a small noise escaped the back of her throat when she recognized three of the signatures.
"What is it?" TenTen asked quickly. In front of them, Gai cast her a quick glance out of the corner of his eye.
"It's Sh-" she paused. "Uh. It's an Anbu team."
"Yosh, Gai-sensei. Could it be the team sent out before us?"
"I'm afraid it might be, Lee." Incredulity laced their sensei's voice.
They continued on even quicker than before, their feet carrying them along the sand. The sun shone brightly and none of them escaped it, sweat dotting their brows. TenTen huffed ragged breaths, but didn't utter a word. Natsuka took a moment to peruse the signatures in greater detail.
"One is injured." Itachi. "I can't tell exactly what is it, but I think it's bad." She was making this presumption based on the fact that the young Uchiha wasn't moving. Just what could take such a prodigy down?
Gai grimaced and, if her eyes weren't mistaken, faltered for a single step.
She was so focused on their allies that she paid no attention to the two unknown signatures. While Itachi's chakra was sluggish and muted, Shisui's and Genma's remained remarkably energized. They were not seriously injured. She sensed worry and trepidation from the two men, but no underlying terror or unadulterated fear. That was good. Perhaps the enemies weren't so bad.
Team Gai crossed a particularly large crest of a dune, and suddenly they could see the battlefield below them.
The five nin, so far below, looked a bit like ants. But they did not slow, and soon the figures were taking shape and detail. Soon she could see the crimson in Shisui's eyes and the glint of Genma's senbon. She was a bit stumped – no pun intended – at the lack of a certain Uchiha's arm.
Some of her eased worry came back to her in an instant. Itachi Uchiha was missing an arm.
Beside her TenTen gasped, and she knew her friend had seen. No doubt she'd be to Itachi's side in just a moment.
By now, they'd definitely been noticed. But neither side even glanced at the new guests. Natsuka belatedly wondered where Team 7 was. They'd not passed any remnants of other signatures on the way here.
The four of them halted an appropriate distance from the two enemy nin, standing in a loose semi-circle around the two remaining Anbu. TenTen kneeled onto the ground by Itachi as her hand lit up in a green flame.
Evidence of the battle that must have already occurred littered the sand around them. It looked as if the dunes around them had been completely flattened, but sand lay around them in swirls and strange patterns, as if it'd been manipulated in some way. Natsuka quirked an eyebrow when she saw something strange laying amongst the debris of sand.
It only caught her eye because it was right in front of her feet, and because its dark color contrasted so much against the bright sand. Slowly, she crouched down into a graceful kneel and dropped a hand to the ground. She picked up the piece of stone and looked at it uncomprehendingly.
Suddenly, time seemed to slow as she rose to her full height. The piece of rock in her hand crumbled to bits as her fists crumbled it into oblivion. Distantly, she heard voices and realized Gai was speaking to the two nin facing them.
Distantly, she saw the red clouds decorating their dark cloaks and realized they were Akatsuki, but just as quickly realized they were not the Akatsuki they were seeking. It was not Sasori of the Red Sand or Deidara of Iwa in front of them.
It was far worse.
The enemy kunoichi landed gracefully on the ground several yards away from them. She straightened up and gave them all a rather frightening smile. She was a hideous sight; scars slashed across her face and her brown hair was a mass of dirty dreadlocks cascading down her back. The look in her eyes chilled Natsuka to her core.
Chilling cool gray eyes she'd seen only once before in her life stared her down for a second time. Natsuka's translucent eyes slowly slid to the alarmingly blue toned hulk of a man standing next to the woman. They matched, in a way. Both were unusually tall, but the woman was all limbs with an oddly angular face while the man looked about the size of all of Team Gai combined.
She realized words were gurgling out of her mouth. "Wha.. Wh-what-." Her eyes only strayed to the blue man – who wore an amused expression and appeared to be exchanging biting words with her sensei - for a moment before sliding back over to the woman.
Her open stare did not go unnoticed. "It's nice to see you again, little Hyuuga." The woman's voice was shrill and the words grated through Natsuka's eardrums and it was in that moment that she realized this was really happening.
Hands landed on her shoulders, and Natsuka was so spooked that she jumped a foot in the air. Her heart didn't even slow a bit when the breath of a familiar voice tickled her ear. "You know her." Shisui's voice was laced with many questions, but she didn't know where to start.
"Her name is Tenma. Where have you seen her before?" It didn't surprise her that he'd already made such leaps and deductions in the span of seconds. She'd never had such an adverse reaction to anyone before, not once. It also didn't surprise her that his tone suggested he already knew the answer.
But she didn't understand, not at all. "I killed her," she said blankly.
Thin lips stretched to reveal sharp, ugly teeth. "We met quite a while ago, but I'm sure you remember me," Tenma called out, voice soft and loud all at once. Next to her, her blue skinned companion quieted and glanced between the two of them, looking intrigued. Eyes roamed leisurely up and down her figure. "You've grown."
Suddenly Natsuka remembered things, very important things, and her train of thought came to a screeching halt before starting up again, this time going in reverse.
"You killed her."
Her words didn't seem to have any effect on the woman – on Tenma. If anything, her smile widened and she looked even more amused. "I seem to recall that it was my partner who dealt the killing blow. Shame, really," Tenma drawled, words slow and sweet. Goading.
"You killed her."
The hands on her shoulders, that she only just realized were still there, tightened. She shook them off without a thought and took an aggressive step forward. All around her, the world was silent. If anyone spoke, she did not hear it. If the wind blew granules of sand against her skin, she did not feel it. A dark strand of hair blew across her eyes, but she did not see it.
She was in a three hundred and sixty-degree field of vision, but in that moment, she only saw the monster in front of her.
Not my fault. Not my fault. I didn't do it. I didn't do it.
The mantra she'd forced into her head through the past year and a half raged through her mind. Inoichi Yamanaka's words found their way in as well.
You are not responsible for the actions of others.
She wasn't responsible for Hinata's death. She wasn't. She didn't do it. She wasn't guilty of that crime.
But the woman standing in front of her was.
Tenma's smile grew wider, and her teeth seemed to grow sharper, and her eyes glistened with a victorious sheen. She cocked her head to the side.
And Natsuka lost it. Completely, undeniably and irrevocably lost it.
All the pent up rage and frustration, all the guilt and turmoil that'd sat on the brim of her subconscious for so long and was just waiting to spill over. It didn't need a harsh shove, it only needed a gentle nudge. And the woman's silent smile, all conniving and remorseless, was all it took.
Later, she'd wonder if her actions had been intentionally allowed. She would wonder how it was possible for quite possibly the fastest nin alive to not catch her and hold her back, and just as soon realize it wasn't.
Even as her feet took her forward faster than she'd ever gone before, the world seemed to be moving in slow motion. Out of the corner of her wide, crazed pale eyes she saw the figures of her teammates. She saw TenTen glance up from Itachi just in time to see her spring forward, saw Lee's mouth literally drop open, and saw Gai's eyes widen and mouth tighten at the corners in alarm, but the Green Beast had no time to react.
Through her enhanced vision she saw Genma and Shisui, directly behind her, and felt their chakra signatures tighten in what she could only describe as horror.
No one's reaction surprised her. After all, it wasn't every day that one got to see a Hyuuga truly let loose.
And let loose she did. She realized in the back of her mind, as she got closer and closer to Tenma, that she had no plan of attack whatsoever and that it should alarm her that Tenma's expression had not changed, nor did the woman make any move to get out of the way.
She also realized distantly that a noise was coming from her throat, something between a growl and a shriek. If she'd been of sane mind in that moment, she'd have crinkled her nose and remark that the noise sounded reminiscent of a screaming banshee.
Her feet burned fiercely with the overwhelming amount of chakra she'd inadvertently gathered there. Tenma got closer and closer until she was all Natsuka could see, and her arms lifted and her dainty pale hands curled into pale claws to rip her throat out and-
And her hands latched onto pure, ragged, solid, stone.
Natsuka let out a horrified yelp as pain lit up her senses and several of her fingers got stuck, jammed halfway into the stone figure of Tenma. Up close, it was a remarkable sight. Facial features were etched into the rock where her face had been, and even the jarringly sharp grin was present. Whatever type of jutsu this was would require incredible control.
Too caught up in her rage to really take notice of the pain, she growled low in her throat and yanked her arms out of the crumbling stone throat. A flare of pain, and then she felt no more as the rage took over. Blood trickled down onto the hot sand, and the sounds of metal clashing on metal reached her ears and she knew the battle had truly begun.
Only seconds had passed since she'd first leapt into action, but it felt like a lifetime. She didn't care who was fighting the blue man, she only had eyes for Tenma.
Hand still clenched into curling claws, she whirled around, eyes still wide and crazed, searching for her target. In that moment, she looked like a predator hunting her prey. Only, she wasn't the true predator here.
She was forced to spin and jump away a good distance into the air when the sand around her feet started swirling and brushing up around her calves. She was disturbed to feel chakra within the sand itself, and even more disturbed by the feeling of dread it gave her.
Faster than one would think possible, an enormous amount of sand in the surrounding area lifted and moved as if it had a life of its own, and she was blankly horrified when the sand separated into chunks and slowly started to solidify. Into figures.
She was truly aghast when the sand seemed to darken and tighten, and suddenly it was not sand she was staring at but stone. And the stone was moving. Perhaps a dozen and a half figures, looming in a threatening circle around her.
She had no time to look around and find the true enemy, because wherever Tenma had run off to, it wasn't here and she had a bit of a problem on her hands. Her bloody, broken hands. She glanced down in mild surprise to see four of her fingers, two on each hand, twisted at odd angles. Her hands were covered in grime and cuts and blood, and she noticed a small white shard peeking out of her right pointer finger and realized it was blood.
How would she fight with broken hands?
How stupid could she possibly be, running into battle like this? She wasn't Naruto, for Kami's-sake. There was no time to dwell on the matter, however, because the eerie clones were closing in, and so was her panic.
She was incredibly confused and curious as to how clones made of rock could move with such fluidity, but somehow it was happening. She could see faint, almost translucent chakra networks lacing delicately through the chunks of rock. Not only would extreme control be required, but this woman must also be in possession of fairly large reserves. Natsuka gritted her teeth and crouched down, on the defense and ready to leap away, when a new figure leapt into the circle alongside her.
"While I really appreciate you guys showing up to help and all, I think we had this handled. You also could have made a slightly better entrance," he added as an afterthought. He was crouched on a knee beside her and his arms were hanging loosely at his sides.
"Stop lying through your teeth, Genma, or I'll rip that senbon straight through your cheek."
Genma gave her a tight-lipped smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. They didn't really have this handled, not at all.
Genma's usually impeccable appearance was in a state of array. His blue banana sat askew on top of his head, and the few visible brown strands of his hair were limp with sweat. His face was positively covered in dirt and he looked tired beyond words.
"Light em' up." He spoke quietly but clearly between the sharp needle between his teeth.
She blundered for a brief moment, taken aback. "Huh?"
"Hasn't that idiot been teaching you fire natured jutsu, kid? Think about it, what's Iwa's weakness?"
Iwa's weakness? What beat rock?
Oh yeah. Fire.
The one good thing about learning a brand new type of jutsu this late in her shinobi career was that she had a great advantage. The Byakugan gave her a step up in learning any type of new technique. She was born with a certain level of advanced control and a literal eye for detail that anyone not of her clan would never attain.
In the heat of a battle that'd only just started and with blistering anger still coursing through her, Natsuka grinned.
But just as quickly her smile faded. "Oh no," she muttered despondently.
"Hmm? Might want to hurry up kid, they're getting kinda close."
"Genma!" She squeaked. When she had the man's attention, she lifted her hands up for him to see. He took one look at them and raised a single brow before sighing in resignation. "Really?"
Lightning quick, he stood up in a blink and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, she assumed to teleport them away. But before she could retort that she was perfectly capable of moving herself, another voice shouted a few quick words.
"Fire Release: Great Fire Destruction!"
The hands around her shoulders tightened in urgency, and suddenly she was actually grateful for Genma getting all up in her space. She felt a small rush of wind and felt a few grains of sand swish across her face, and suddenly they were on top of a nearby dune, looking down at the destruction below.
Flames lit up the bizarre stone clones, and it spread faster than they could flee. The figures lit up in a row of dominos and quickly blackened before crumbling away into dust. Oddly, several of the clones writhed and shuddered, and Natsuka swore she saw their arms reach up into the sky as they crumbled, as if reaching for life. A shiver passed through her spine.
Shisui landed alongside them, and she figured she owed him a thank you. How annoying.
"Thanks," she muttered begrudgingly, not sparing the Uchiha a glance.
"Thanks?" Taken aback by the unusually sharp words, Natsuka's eyes widened and she looked his way.
"What the hell was that? Running straight at her?" His voice was louder than usual and lacked any of the pleasant humor it usually contained.
A strange feeling coursed through her and she realized she was a bit frightened. In all their months together she'd never seen Shisui so angry.
"I was just-" she began hesitantly.
"You were just nothing, is what. You didn't think, at all. We have no idea who that woman is, and you ran straight at her." Shisui was stiff as a board, and she hadn't realized how close they were. He was looming over her, face dark and grave.
"I just-" she started weakly.
"You don't even realize how dangerous that was, do you? We've been stuck here for hours, Natsuka." Uh oh, her full name. "That woman is powerful beyond belief. Her chakra manipulation is unreal, and on top of that, she's certifiably insane. She chopped my cousin's arm off!" His voice now verged on crazed, and she silently thought he sounded a bit insane himself.
"Now's really not the time," Genma drawled casually. He was standing behind her with his arms crossed. "She's gone."
"What?" Shisui asked quickly, head shooting up to his partner. "Dammit." She didn't think she'd heard so many expletives come out of her sensei's mouth in such a short amount of time in, well, ever.
She glanced down below, beyond the destruction of burned stone and levelled sand, and saw her sensei and Lee facing off against the huge man with the giant sword. They seemed to be at a bit of a standstill. Beyond them was TenTen, green glow visible from here as she worked on the younger Uchiha.
"We should go after her," Genma said, looking at Shisui.
"Why would she leave her partner?" She asked quietly, voice still hesitant.
"It's the Akatsuki, what wouldn't they do?" Genma rolled his eyes and casually placed a hand on top of her head, rustling her already messy hair. "You guys got this, right?"
She yelped in surprise and darted a quick glance between him and Shisui. "Huh?"
"Genma. No," Shisui started, but his partner cut him off.
"We have to go after her." He continued staring at Shisui in a rather pointed manner and she knew they were having some sort of silent conversation.
Some of Natsuka's adrenaline was fading and she was left feeling pain and confusion and above all, a sense of helplessness. She didn't like that feeling at all. "I don't understand," she said, voice stronger. "How? How?"
She lifted her bloody hands up to her face and stared at them, unblinking and unseeing. "I killed her. How did she survive? No one survives the Sixty-Four palms. It's not possible."
It was not every day that a Hyuuga was faced with such an illogical and impossible situation, and poor Natsuka wasn't taking it very well.
Shisui was frowning, but most of the anger seemed to have left him. "I don't know," he said, sounding drained. "But Genma is right. We have to go after her. We can't let her escape." He let out a deep sigh and rubbed a hand through his messy hair, looking frazzled. "You guys stay here."
The cogs in her mind were struggling to keep up with the situation. "You want us to separate?"
Shisui looked at her. "Your team should be able to handle Kisame. Right?"
'Right?'
The one word, the question added as an afterthought, fractured something deep inside her.
Shisui Uchiha didn't do anything as an afterthought. Despite all his humor and all his jest, all his pleasantry and all-around immaturity, Shisui didn't do anything without a motive. Beneath that rather shallow exterior sat a dragon, inhaling and exhaling calmly while waiting for a chance to breath fire through its razor-sharp teeth.
Sometimes she forgot her sensei was an elite shinobi. Sometimes she forgot just how powerful he really was. It was during those rare moments of remembrance that she would recall the day she'd met him. He and Genma seemed to have been literally in her path, just waiting for her to pass by.
And now here he was after all this time, through thick and through thin, and he was questioning her ability.
Once, Natsuka's ineptitude cost Hinata Hyuuga her life. She'd lost a clan heir, a life, because of her inability.
After all the therapy she'd gone through with her strange cactus-loving therapist, she thought she'd gained better control of her emotions. The steel wall around her heart was supposed to be impenetrable. And it usually was – words didn't often upset her. Except for when they came from someone she cared about.
Her heart stuttered in her chest as she stared into emotionless crimson eyes.
Shisui didn't do anything without a motive, and sometimes - during those rare moments - she wondered what motives lay behind his relationship with her.
This was one of those moments. Shisui's face was wrought with such tension and utter disappointment that she wasn't sure she could take it. Disappointment at her. She didn't think she could look at his face for another second.
And so she didn't.
"Yes. You're right," she said faintly, turning away. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw a hint of life spark in Shisui's eyes and she might have even seen a flicker of regret, but it was gone in an instant.
"Kisame is his name? He has… unusually generous chakra reserves." Her voice had become more distant with each word, until by the end, she sounded nothing but professional and aloof.
To her right she saw Genma grimace silently, and to her left she saw Shisui's hands clench at his sides.
"Watch out for his sword. It sucks chakra out of anything it touches and will only strengthen him." Red eyes flickered down to her broken hands.
She lifted mangled fingers and gave a casual wave. "TenTen will fix them."
She felt more than saw an arm begin to lift to pat her head yet again, but in a fluid movement she twisted forward and away, until she stood facing the two men. They each stared eat each other for a long moment, and it was the first time ever Natsuka recalled silence between the three of them being uncomfortable.
"Be careful." Genma finally spoke.
She merely nodded, and turned away before she could see them disappear. She did not return the sentiment.
Off in the distance, two green spandex covered figures rushed around in a swirl of flurries while a blue figure looked almost as if he was swatting at them like flies. That is, if flies were kunai wielding, bowl-cut wearing nin and fly swatters were legendary swords.
She took a deep breath and let it out in an even deeper sigh. What an exhausting day - in more ways than one, she thought. She blinked a few times, slowly, before flickering across the battlefield to where TenTen still sat with a prone and arm-less Uchiha.
The fight with Kisame still appeared to be going nowhere, so they could obviously use her help. And since she couldn't exactly utilize her fighting style without proper use of her hands, it'd be a good idea to go get them fixed.
She shot a quick glance down to the bone still peeking out of one of her fingers, and wondered if TenTen had any band-aids.
Another Author's Note: There was a suuuuuper tiny reference to a character from Grendel in this chapter. It's a great book. Anyway, I didn't intend for this arc to move so slowly. For some reason I'm just enjoying making it really detailed though. The next chapter will probably be the end of the arc. Thanks for reading~