The tent rattled dozily. Like a balloon, it billowed as Tobirama hiraishin-ed into it.
He stood at the foot of the ruined bedding, only just noticing the scent in the air and the stains on his green blanket.
He had never laid with a woman in his own bed before. Discomfiting as it was to his moral-self, he felt briefly as if he had crossed a landmark as a man.
Comically, he felt…dirty.
'Maybe she was seducing me on purpose.'
Abruptly, he shook his head and threw the feral thought from his mind before it could trigger any more insecurities. It was futile, he knew, to reminisce negatively over what had passed. Their relationship, although unusual, was nothing short of genuine.
Cautiously and mechanically, he crouched down and took the blanket and the sheets from the mat. Curious, he sniffed them, taking an involuntary inhale of some familiar scents, including whatever remained of Chieko.
His chest felt tight and he cleared his throat as he stood up. Too often now, he felt himself become distracted by traces of her in his memory, in his room.
'Get it together. She's only been gone a few hours.' He would have to bare through her absence, maybe for years.
He bundled up the sheets and strode out to the back of his tent, dumping them in the empty, wooden tub.
He spent the next twenty minutes rubbing and soaking the sheets in soapy water- which wasn't difficult for him to arrange- doing his best to rinse every memory of the night from them.
'Where will she go?' He pulled the blanket out and wrung it a few times. It felt weighted, so he squeezed it some more until all the excess water was gone. 'She doesn't even have a plan.'
Realizing a little too late, Tobirama considered that he probably shouldn't have let her leave. 'If the Uchiha find her they'll take her eyes first, then her life.' A part of him doubted they would kill her so quickly. There would be some punishment- Tobirama wasn't too familiar with the customs of her clan, but he was familiar with their temperament.
'Maybe she'll go far from these lands…' He mused as he dunked and scrubbed the bed-sheet, 'Her best bet is probably towards Mizu no Kuni.'
She would be stupid to cut through Fire country; that was entirely her clan's territory and there would be no place for her to hide, not even under a clever genjutsu. The best direction was the opposite way, to the mysterious land of water.
'Then again, Mizu no Kuni isn't the safest place.'
There were strange, horrifying stories of violence very different from the necessary violence of war that Tobirama had heard from his father's comrades. They chilled him to the bone.
Hanging up the heavy sheets to dry, he felt a familiar ping of chakra, that bleeped in and out of his sensory range within a flash.
'Mizuki?'
Annoyed that he was being spied on, Tobirama resigned to join the outside world and put away thoughts of this tent and of that girl. He hoped that she would stay alive and out of trouble.
Comfortingly, albeit smugly, he reminded himself of his attempt at collateral damage-control.
'She better not find that tag.'