.
You can never cross the ocean
unless you lose sight of the shore.
Blondie yanks the earpiece out of her ear and tosses it onto the ground with a look of annoyance.
Hiwa slips her hand into the pocket in her kimono and flicks the disruptor off, again, and the sounds of Genma and Kakashi filter back in, no less unpleasant than before. She doubts they even realized she was offline for a few seconds.
"Forward. Guard, right."
"Got it."
Bathed in the glow of the late evening sun, a golden aura that illuminates her utterly forgettable face and form, Blondie advances. She does so without the grace of the dancer or the power of a fighter. There's nothing particular about her gait. No limp, no pattern. She strides as if she could be walking through a city or the beaten dirt path of a rural farm village, and she wouldn't be out of place in either.
It also makes it impossible for Hiwa to try and gauge her strength. She could be a genin or a jonin. There's no giveaway.
Hiwa holds her ground.
She wonders if Blondie knows what's happening right now, or if this is some kind of grotesquely hilarious coincidence, that Blondie's standing above what will soon be a graveyard of all her comrades and is none the wiser.
"Back—back."
"Shit. Wait, let me—" The sound of metal against teeth, and then a distant gurgling noise.
Blondie gets right up beside Hiwa, so much so that her shadow looms over Hiwa and engulfs the book in front of her, lengthened by the hour, before Blondie stops. "I should have trusted my gut, with you."
Hiwa tilts her head. She sets her book aside, looking up and giving Blondie her full attention, a playful smile on her face. "Oh?"
Blondie clicks her tongue. "Come on. None of this. We both know what's going on, here."
"Do we?"
Hiwa watches as Blondie's fingers climb towards her waist like she might prop her hand on her hip or slip it into her back pocket.
"Ugh. You're one of those."
"Forward. Keep forward. I'm sensing a clump, in the room on the right."
"Got it. Lead the way."
"That's going to take some clarification."
"One of those assholes that insists on playing games. Acting all dumb."
The sound of a door slamming against concrete.
"I'm not acting dumb," Hiwa says. "You're being vague."
Screaming and shouting, groans, the heavy noise of flesh hitting flesh and the crunch of bones being ground to dust.
"Well. If this is too vague for you, then—"
The stray curse word, here and there.
Two things happen at once.
In one fluid motion, Blondie reaches into her back pocket, palms a senbon, and cocks her arm to throw it right into Hiwa's throat.
And with a second head start, Hiwa slips her fingers into the rat seal and lashes out with her shadow to lock Blondie in place before the senbon can fly.
The Nara Shadow Imitation Technique: Hiwa's least favourite ace in the hole.
Years ago, when she was young and adamant to avoid going to her training and had all of that time to kill, she napped a lot. That's true. But she picked up another habit during that time alone, a point of interest, if you will, that she practiced when there was nobody to see her and snitch.
Hiwa decided that she was going to teach herself how to do the technique because her father told her not to even think of trying, and at that point, Hiwa decided she should do it anyway.
He never found out. So she never regretted it.
But her grasp on the technique is tenuous at best, and her unskilled use of it would make any full-blooded Nara shrink into the shade of their tree in horror. It's reliable enough but limited far beyond what it's supposed to be.
She doesn't think of it as the Shadow Imitation Technique, at the end of the day. It has such a narrow usage. She prefers to see it as a Shadow Control (Kind Of) Technique.
Hiwa takes a few seconds to gauge the level of drain she's experiencing from holding Blondie in place. It differs from person to person. And from what she seems to be taking to keep a grasp on Blondie, she's got ten minutes, at most, before the technique will drain her to the point of fatal chakra exhaustion. Seven minutes and less, and she'll live. But she shouldn't cut it closer than five minutes for the sake of comfort.
"You're a Nara?"
"Half."
A piercing whirr.
The sound is so loud that the audio around it crinkles and Hiwa doesn't completely mask her wince at that.
"That's the alarm," Kakashi says, grimly. "Sooner than expected."
"Great. How much do we have left?"
"Sixty percent, at least."
She remains seated. Blondie remains standing.
And neither of them will be moving anytime soon.
Hiwa can hold somebody in place, but that's about all she can do. She can't make somebody else move, or the jutsu breaks. She can't move herself, or the jutsu breaks. She can't even try and signal for Rei because as far as she's aware pulsing her chakra disrupts her control over the yin chakra in her shadow and, once again, the jutsu breaks.
The upside is that her chakra reserves are alright enough that she can hold the jutsu for an alright amount of time.
Blondie laughs. It's bitter and cold, and Blondie looks a bit surprised when it comes out. "Wow. Fuck me, I guess. That's it?"
"Now you've lost me."
"I'm dead," Blondie says. "Just like that. I don't have my mic on me, I don't know how to break this, and I can't currently defend myself." She sneers. "All I can do is stand here and bitch like a fucking defenceless baby."
The only reason she can do even that is that Hiwa's long learned that trying to control something so intricate is generally a waste of chakra. In a fight, unless others are coming, better to let her target move their head and guarantee the rest of their body stays than try and keep all of it frozen.
Because what Blondie says isn't accurate. Not with Hiwa, at least. That's just a consequence of her being self-taught—the Shadow Imitation Technique is unbreakable. Right now, though, if Blondie did try and fight Hiwa's control, she might not be able to break it, but she'd complicate things. The more Blondie fights, the more chakra Hiwa uses up to keep her in place. No fight, like this? It makes Hiwa's job easy.
And because she sees no harm in talking to somebody who can't take action, Hiwa says, "Yeah. You are."
Infiltrators are chess players, in that respect—they know better than anybody that once they're in checkmate, the show's over. Most carry poison, for in those situations, to take themselves out before any secrets can be spilled. She's confident Blondie carries some, not that she can reach it.
Hiwa never used to. But now, hers sits in a seam on the inside of her obi.
"I think we're going to have to split up," Genma says. "They're starting to spread and raise defences."
"Fuck off."
"Fine. Take the right, I'll take the left. I'll route back to you when I finish."
"Alright."
Hiwa's sure the radio is about to get a whole lot more chaotic if that's possible.
And she's only one minute in.
"So, what's your big plan?" Blondie asks. "Oh. You've got me. Now what, huh? Gonna torture me? Take me back to Konoha with you for interrogation?"
"We're going to wait."
"Until what? Your comrades finish up butchering my comrades?"
And as if to punctuate the question, Hiwa hears a scream that cuts off into eerie silence.
"Yeah."
Another bitter laugh. "Great. What a showing, for Konoha. Living up to that friendly reputation, of yours."
"We do what we can, and I can tell you do, too. Encroaching on our land and interfering with our financial and agricultural stability like this? That sounds like the typical brand of Kusa nastiness to me."
Two fights at once.
Metal hitting metal in a way that sounds like distorted echoes of the same fight. Voices overlap, jutsu being thrown around and calls being made.
"At least we're honest. Kusa has never had any qualms about doing what needs to be done. You all insist on acting nice while you creep around in the shadows." She wrinkles her nose and curls her lips. "You assholes are worse than the rest of us if you ask me. Bunch of filthy cowards."
"Fire Release: Flame Bullet!"
Hiwa feels the ground beneath her shake. Blondie feels it, too, from the way her expression tightens.
"Won't be too much longer, I don't think," Hiwa says.
Anger burns bright and hot in Blondie's eyes, and it turns the otherwise soft brown of them into something as hard and unforgiving as the mountains. Killing intent rolls off of her for the first time, now, and it hits Hiwa like a tsunami, as if the floodgates holding it back were dropped and it was left to pour out of her with enough force to level a village.
Thankfully, Hiwa isn't cowed easily.
She instead levels her gaze with Blondie and asks, "Since neither of us is going anywhere, I have a question for you: what made you break from our trail?"
Blondie scoffs.
"I know it was at the festival," Hiwa says.
And to her surprise, Blondie's expression loosens. The killing intent fades into a buzz. She eyes Hiwa up with an odd mixture of haughtiness and cold amusement when she says, "You have your village's idiocy to thank for it."
"Was it idiocy if it got us here? You're not exactly coming out on top."
"Status?"
"Getting there. Probably about forty percent done the right wing."
"Considering it goes against the obvious, logical way to organize a mission, I think so."
"Good. I'm seventy percent done with the left. Expect me there in no more than three minutes."
Hiwa's confusion is genuine when she shakes her head. "What are you even talking about?"
"Understood."
"Where's that famed genius-level Nara intellect? Get left behind? Come on."
What does the festival have to do with mission organization? That sounds like it's referencing a foundational, ground-level decision. And for it to be a product of the 'village's idiocy' implies it's not just something Hiwa and Genma did. It was bigger than them. Or intended as a more non-personal dig?
The only thing Hiwa can think of that traces that far back about the festival is that the two of them were even there in the first place.
Hiwa thinks, at this point, about what specifically Blondie even saw. It was her and Genma right after he kept her from face-planting, and the two of them were still—
Oh.
Hiwa's face heats up.
Because for Hiwa, there was nothing fake about her reaction to that, and in retrospect, she doesn't think Genma was playing it up for the cover, either. Blondie witnessed what was a very real moment of physical intimacy between them.
Something that Hiwa herself has acknowledged was a distraction and unideal. Which is exactly why Konoha—while lacking formal rules against it—tends to avoid sending two people who are involved like that out on missions together.
She sees no reason for Kusa to be any different.
Blondie cackles, and the sound rattles around in the air like a stone being shaken inside a tin can. "Look at that. Maybe she's not so stupid, after all! Get it?"
"Think so."
"Kusa would never dare send two people so compromised out on a mission."
"We weren't when the mission started," Hiwa says.
A grunt of pain.
Genma.
Hiwa fights to hide the panic from leaking into her posture or her expression.
"Is that supposed to make it better?" Blondie spits. "Now you're making me look bad, sweetie. That I couldn't catch two people as incompetent as you."
"Status report," is the sharp call from Kakashi.
Another grunt and a snap. "Fine. Knife to the side. Nothing vital, just hurts like a bitch."
"You did that all yourself," Hiwa says. Her voice sounds distant. "Didn't need my help."
Stabbed.
But he's still moving, talking, and fighting, and she trusts him to know what is and isn't considered dangerous. She forces herself to shove it out of her mind.
Three minutes in. She has four more left.
They're holding on—she'll hold on, too.
Without Hiwa taking the initiative to keep the conversation flowing, Blondie seems content to keep quiet, after that. There's nothing but the rustle of the breeze through the foliage, the water happily gurgling in the pond, and the occasional random civilian walking past.
Four minutes.
"Solo objective complete. Routing over to your location."
"Got it," Genma grunts, his voice thin.
When another young man—a boy, more accurately—walks past, not acknowledging either of their presence with his wrapped up he is in the book he's reading as he goes, Hiwa casts a curious look at Blondie.
"Not going to try and ask for help?"
Blondie looks at her like she's completely brainless. It reminds her of Kakashi, in a way—the way it beautifully blends utter disgust with surprise and bewilderment. "Yeah. Right. Like some little civilian brat is going to be able to do anything."
It's Hiwa's turn to give Blondie a look of disbelief. "Kick up a fuss? Cause a commotion? Try and distract us?" She only says it because, at this point, there's no hope for Blondie to make it out of this. No amount of help could derail their mission.
"And risk getting a bunch of innocents killed in the process?" Blondie asks. "Obviously I'm not going to do that, you dipshit. How do I know you won't just take out anybody who makes this too hard for you?"
"Because we wouldn't kill innocent Fire Country civilians?"
"You don't know your village very well, do you? How sad for you."
"We wouldn't—"
Shouting, grunting, the sound of somebody hitting the ground and—
"Are they still considered innocents, to you, if they're impeding the mission?"
Hiwa's jaw tightens. "Yes."
The chirp of birds.
What is that?
Louder chirping, joined by crackling, and it's getting louder.
"Doubt I can say the same for your comrades, though."
A thud. A sigh of relief.
"Nice save," Genma says. "Thanks."
"Neither of them would kill anybody here who isn't a Kusa ninja or intimately involved with helping operations."
Blondie's smile is wicked and sharp, and Hiwa's gut twists. "The fact that I doubt you believe that is why I'm still standing here quietly like a good little hostage."
Hiwa thinks back on her conversation with Genma.
She'd like to think that he wouldn't. She can be sure that he would hesitate. And that he wouldn't want to do it.
Kakashi isn't somebody she can even begin to try and predict, for better or for worse.
"Don't like hearing it?" Blondie asks. "Don't like remembering that you're as awful as the rest of us?"
"I never forgot."
Because how could she?
Morality is a funny thing, Hiwa has found. She carried over dredges of her own from her last life into this one. That ability to view life as something that shouldn't be taken easily. The inherent aversion to cold-blooded murder and meaningless violence that is so quickly bred out of prospective ninja in the Academy. In her old life, she was considered grey, even, for the work she did for the American government.
She's about as white as snow in this world, now. That's always been clear to her from the moment her dad entered her into the Academy and she was handed a weapon. The pommel of the kunai fit perfectly in her palm, and that was the click moment, for her, where she realized this was a world where rather than wait until the hand was big enough to grasp the handle, the handle was shrunk to fit the child.
Hiwa adapted.
She stepped a bit further into the grey zone, gave up some of her inhibitions and compromised, and realized that one day, the village would look at her boundaries and tell her to leap over them.
It happened when she was eleven, out on the frontlines, and she killed a Kusa ninja who was the same age as her.
She's done awful things, and she can never forget that most of the people she's loved and cherished in this world have done things that would make her stomach turn, too.
She has never and will never forget the day she was seven and her father came home from a mission with a smile on his face and a little gold souvenir in hand for her. He picked her up, spun her around, and laughed, saying he was sorry he was gone for so long. Two days later, she overheard him discussing with his teammates the aftermath of their mission, wherein they turned a Kusa mining village to dust to try and strangle Kusa's weapon production. Each and every civilian died.
She loves her father and she cherishes his memory more than any material object she will ever own, even as she remembers having to run to the bathroom and vomiting for a solid five minutes after hearing that, only to wave her father off and claim she had a stomach ache. He didn't believe her, and she never overheard him talking about his mission work with teammates again.
It's why she won't hold it against Genma or Kakashi, that they can't see from her perspective. It's why she fights for her village, with the heinous things it has done, continues to do, and will inevitably do in the future.
She can't forget the innocent lives taken every day. She won't forget the faces of the people she has killed who didn't deserve it.
But good people can do bad things.
Genma and Kakashi both are good people. Her father was a good man.
Much as she'd like to think they won't commit atrocities, she knows that they will. And in this world, that doesn't make you a bad person. It makes you a ninja.
"I can't forget."
"Yeah? You think so? We'll see."
Five minutes.
She's starting to flag. She can feel that burn in her navel like she's just run a marathon even though her breath is even and her heart rate is steady. A sign that she's burned a giant chunk of chakra at once, beyond what her body is designed to do.
"Ninety percent done. Estimated one minute to completion."
Her estimation was close—she thinks she can last another few minutes. Two and a half, maybe. And at this point, she knows that if she dares to let go early, she's dead. There's no winning a fight against Blondie.
Hiwa hedged her bet. She'll see it through.
She breathes out, listening.
Clink. Clink. Cli—
"Got him," Genma says. "How many more?"
"I can sense another four more. Two are in the room ahead, one is at the end of the hallway, heading towards us, and the last is down the hallway, to the right, and inside the mapping room."
"Easy."
"I'll take the two, you slip ahead and get the oncoming one."
"On it."
Worst case scenario, Hiwa risks breaking her jutsu to try and radio for backup. Though it sounds like they're close enough to being done that she'll squeak by.
"What's your name?" Hiwa asks.
"Fuck off."
Thirty seconds tick by and Hiwa doesn't expect anything else, as the sounds of Genma and Kakashi cleaning up the stragglers rage on in her ear.
"Mitsuki," Blondie murmurs. "Name's Hagare Mitsuki."
Hiwa nods. "I'm sorry, Mitsuki."
"Yeah? Good for you. I'm sure that 'sorry' will do me a whole lot of good in a few minutes when I'm dead, huh?"
"Probably not."
And maybe she's saying it for herself. Hiwa doesn't know, and she doesn't have the energy to think about it too much because her time left to hold this can be counted in seconds not minutes and she's really feeling the drain. Her head's a bit foggy and if she stood up, she thinks the world would swim, as if she'd spent the last six and change minutes upside down.
"That's the last of it."
"Good," Kakashi says.
"Hiwa? You see anything?"
She thanks her stars that Genma is doing the most Genma-like thing, in this situation, and checking in with her the second he's done.
"Hiwa?" he asks again, an edge to his voice.
"Go," Kakashi says. "I'll finish cleaning up."
"Roger."
She watches the section of grass from the corner of her eye.
And she waits.
Her gaze focused where it is, she doesn't see what ends up happening—all she knows is that one second, she's blinking away stars, cashed in on her bet and stuck seeing if she picked the right number, and the next her world is black.
.
.
The second the blonde woman goes down, Hiwa crumples forward like a doll whose strings have been cut and Genma's heart stops cold.
He's never moved so fast in his life.
The blonde woman's body gets kicked aside—dead by a kunai to the throat, thrown with enough force to borderline behead her—and Genma gathers Hiwa up in his arms. The wound in his side twinges in protest, but Genma ignores it as his hand flies to her throat.
A steady heartbeat pulses under his fingers.
He closes his eyes and bows his head, all the air leaving his lungs.
She looked like she was dead.
And that? That's got a one-way ticket to his nightmares.
With his thumb, Genma lifts her eyelid. Her eyes are rolled back into her head—she's out cold. No physical injuries. His mouth twists down into a frown. Chakra exhaustion is the only thing he can think of. Which makes sense with the jutsu she was using.
How close was she to the edge, though, to pass out the second the jutsu broke? What would have happened if he was even half a minute later? He let her fall. She trusted him to catch her, bet her life on it, and here she is on the ground anyways.
One more person he failed.
One more person he cared about that would be dead because he wasn't enough.
"How is she?"
"Alive," Genma says. "Chakra exhaustion, I think."
Kakashi hums. "She used it?"
There's only one thing 'it' could be.
"You knew she could use it?"
"It's come up before." He nods at her. "And I can tell you right now, we might as well just start the trip back to the village. She's going to be out for a few days, given she hasn't slept much as well."
Genma stares down at Hiwa's face. Save for the few flecks of blood splattered on her cheek from the blonde woman, she looks like she could be asleep in bed, not having just taken herself out via chakra exhaustion.
He tries to wipe the blood away with his sleeve. The blood smears, and when Genma checks his sleeve, he realizes there was already blood on there from earlier.
Kakashi crouches down and cleans the mess off with a little grey handkerchief produced from Kami knows where. "She knew what she was doing," he says. "She's a lot of things, but Hiwa's not reckless. She knew it was going to work out."
"She could have died."
"So could we."
"It's—"
"Exactly the same," Kakashi says coldly. His eye shoots down to Genma's side, where blood is sluggishly leaking from the wound. "And regardless, entirely irrelevant, because as I said, she wouldn't have let it get to that point."
Genma grits his teeth and one of his hands press down against it. "You don't know that."
"Maybe not. But you should."
Genma lays Hiwa down and gets up. He steps back.
Kakashi eyes him. "Don't do anything stupid."
"Kakashi."
And at that, Kakashi only shrugs. He slides an arm under Hiwa's shoulders and one under her knees and lifts her off the ground. "Come on. Let's get our things and move. With the alarm having gone off, Kusa got word that we've cleaned the place out. We can't be here when they are."
"Rei—"
"We'll go find her after we've gotten our stuff out of our rooms and headed out. I already sent one of my pack to track her down and get her up to speed on what's happened."
Genma clenches his jaw. Hiwa's head lolls against Kakashi's shoulder, her entire body limp and her face pale, and he looks away. "Alright."
"Then get a move on."
A/N: This was meant to go out last week but i... forgot... because i now work Saturdays and for whatever reason that's thrown my ability to update on schedule completely out of whack because i keep forgetting. i almost forgot today, too! but i didn't! so here we are