Five years before, est.
She almost forgets, just for a little while, about what's waiting for them around the corner. Shoko finds a peace in her routine, looking after Neji and Naruto, training, spending time with her friends, with Kakashi. It's a peace that lets her relax, even if it isn't for long.
The sun hits her back and warms her through her clothes, and she hums softly to herself as she swishes her walking stick ahead of her – more a warning to those around her than a tool for herself – and does her normal weekly shop. It's quiet, people are getting themselves ready for the summer solstice festival, and she enjoys the solitude of a quiet town.
Neji will be with his uncle and cousin for the festival, and Naruto had would be with Iruka, leaving her with an evening to herself. Unfortunately, Kakashi and Kurenai were on a mission, Gai was escorting the Hokage and Asuma was in the hospital on his last few days of recovery after he overdid it on his last mission. So she would enjoy the festival from the peace of her apartment, away from the fireworks that reminded her too much of the sounds of war.
She still has nightmares, they wage their own war in her mind at night but through some heavy meditation exercises she finds enough sleep to manage herself. It's an odd balance of insanity but it works.
The chakra of the village twists and billows around her like a blossom freefalling in the wind. She can feel them all, some days it becomes overwhelming and she has to disappear into the forests just to breath, but for the most part it's just a reminder of how alive everything is. Sometimes' that's just as bad.
Alright, she thinks to herself as she finishes the last of her shopping, Vegetable soup for dinner, I've got some incense to make the apartment smell nice and the book Kurenai gave me to enjoy.
Learning braille had been hard, finding braille books had been just as hard. Still, she was nothing if not resourceful and so were her friends. It was sitting at her table, spoon in one hand and book splayed beside her that she first felt it.
Venom.
It hitched in her throat and got stuck there, and enveloping feeling of killer that she hadn't thought to feel for another decade yet. She flies to her feet, knocking her soup to the floor and spinning in her apartment, silent, waiting. It's there, lingering in the chakra of the village leaving a feeling of sickness behind it.
She stands there, holding her breath and waiting for something to leap out at her but nothing emerges from the emptiness around her. When her lungs are ready to burst she lets herself breathe again, senses ready and waiting.
So, instead she looks.
She reaches into the depths of the village and she looks for the darkness. It's there, like smoke, thin and hard to grasp but definitely real.
What's stranger is that when she reaches out for it, it reaches back.
Her breath catches, a sharp inhale, as the smoke reaches back for her in curiosity the same as her own. It twists and pokes at her chakra, and she twists and pokes back at it. She becomes so wrapped up in this smoke that she doesn't notice the clamour outside her little world as the festivities begin.
The smoke thickens, emboldened by her own response. There's a definitive feeling of danger all around it but she's mesmerised by the sensations and for once, truly blind to everything around her.
It's a person. It's someone's chakra, but why is it so…it's almost like sickness.
She feels bad for the person, their chakra has become soiled by something monstrous and it makes her own chakra ache. But when she tries to pinpoint it, it drifts away from her. Then, as suddenly as it appeared, the smoke thin chakra vanishes.
She searches, reaches out as far as she possibly can and stretches her chakra as thin as the air itself, but it's gone from her.
"That…that was weird."
"Yes. It was."
When his knuckles rap on the door, he expects Shoko to answer right away. Kakashi wasn't entirely sure what drew him here; he wasn't scheduled to arrive home for another two days and he knew Shoko wouldn't be expecting him but even so, he wanted to see her first. It hadn't been a particularly hard mission, but he hadn't stopped for almost a month and he wanted rest before he endured another mission report.
He knocked again, just in case, and the door drifted open.
Immediately, alarm bells went off inside his mind. Shoko always locked the door, too aware of her own vulnerability without her eyes to ever be careless, not to mention her constant wariness. He pushed it further open, waiting, ready.
The first thing that caught his eye was the dish on the floor and what looked like vegetable chucks around it, having clearly been knocked onto the ground. There was also an angry looking crack on the far side wall that definitely hadn't been there before.
Someone had been here.
He turned; did he go straight to the Hokage or to the Hyuuga? The Hokage might do something, the Hyuuga definitely would. He was tired, and he really wanted a hot shower but he dashed across the rooftops to the Hyuuga compound and didn't bother waiting at the gate.
Lord Hokage was less than pleased to see him, Kakashi didn't know why.
"Do you know where Shoko is?"
The older man glared at him from his desk, a cacophony of paperwork all around him along with some very nervous looking assistants.
"What?"
"Someone broke into her apartment; do you know where she is?"
Less than ten seconds later he was running back across the village rooves, with Lord Hyuuga alongside him as they returned to Shoko's apartment. Sure enough, her brother came to the same conclusion he had and they were rushing to see the Hokage.
Before he'd even been home an hour people were searching for her in the streets and the forests around the village, every available Hyuuga was out searching and quite a few village ninja too. He had been so tired when he got home but now he was totally wired.
He'd scoured her apartment up and down over and over again, but there just wasn't anything there. No signs of fight, no signs of forced entry, the only clue that there'd been any kind of scuffle was the bowl of soup on the floor.
Poor Neji was too distressed to even talk.
"Hey boss," Urushi greeted appearing from the forest "I've got a scent, it's weak and…well it's all weird, but I've got it."
"Good, I'll speak to Lord Hyuuga and then we'll go after it."
"Be quick boss, I'm not sure why but its fading fast."
Somehow, he didn't think Urushi was just talking about the scent.