.
The realization of ignorance
is the first act of knowing.
"Shiranui Genma, right?"
Genma squints. "That's right," he says. He's leant up against the doorframe, his left hand still holding onto the front door of his apartment. "Who're you?"
It's an unfamiliar man, an Inuzuka with a beagle ninken sat dutifully at his heels. Genma can't imagine an Inuzuka sniffing at his door can mean anything good.
Might be an unfair assumption, Genma can acknowledge that.
Hiwa hasn't had any issues with the Inuzuka since they exiled her, as far as he's aware—not that they've had a proper conversation since they got back to the village. And thinking about it, he's not sure that she would have told him, at this point.
It puts his paranoia all the way up to high alert.
"Inuzuka Taru," he says. "An old friend of Hiwa's father."
Genma shifts the senbon around from one side of his mouth to the other, not bothering to hide his skepticism. He carries it through his posture with a languid sort of air. "That so?"
Taru frowns. "Yes. Look, I just—do you know how long Hiwa's going to be gone on her mission?"
Now, it's Genma who frowns. "Mission?"
"You didn't know?"
"No."
"I see. Well, if you find out when she's going to be back, can you send word my way?"
"Why are you asking?"
And there's a cold sort of contempt that leaks onto the older man's face. "If Hiwa hasn't let on, then it's not my place to tell you. Not my business to throw around."
"Then you won't get anything out of me. Your clan has done enough to her—show me proof and I'll promise to pass on the information."
The expression fades from Taru's face, replaced by something closer to grudging respect, though Genma would hesitate to call the expression anything close to kind. Taru reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a wallet.
He holds it out, and the wallet falls open.
There's a photograph in the little window on one side of the wallet. It's grainy and black and white, with age marks and creases in it. There's a man that Genma assumes is Taru, a solid twenty years younger than he is now. He's got his hand on the shoulder of another man who's holding a baby. Instantly, Genma knows where he's seen the other man—just a few days ago, in another photograph on Hiwa's bookshelf.
That must make the baby in his arms a tiny, swaddled Hiwa.
"That good enough?"
Genma's shoulders ease. "Yeah, sorry."
Taru slips the wallet back into his jacket, his eyes never leaving Genma's face. "Don't be," he says. "You're right to be suspicious of any Inuzuka asking after her." His gaze sharpens. "Good to know you're doing something right, at least."
And his shoulders stiffen right back up. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means she caught me up to speed on what exactly is going on between the two of you," he says dryly, "and I know that you've made a mess of things, even if she hasn't exactly made the best choices at this point, either. But I'm glad that that's not sending you running for the hills."
"I promised her I wasn't going to leave her high and dry, and I don't plan on breaking that promise anytime soon," he says, careful to keep his voice level. "But I'm not sure that's any of your business, either way."
Taru shakes his head. He takes a step back from the door, shoving one of his hands into his pockets. "She made it my business. And I just wanna throw this at you, kid: you lose every fight you refuse to show up to."
Rather than answer, Genma goes to close the door. This conversation isn't one he needs right now.
Taru sticks his foot in before it can shut. "For what it's worth? I don't know why, exactly, you're stepping back from her. But if it's even remotely related to some twisted 'do it for her' bullshit, you're not doing her any kindness by making her choice for her."
Genma's hand falls away. He stares at Taru, eyebrows furrowed. "What are you talking about?"
A small, tight smile worms its way onto Taru's face. His gaze goes distant, lost somewhere over Genma's shoulder.
"I lost my wife Kimi when I was twenty," he says. "We were together for a year. Then she was killed, one of the first casualties of the Second War. I was on the mission with her, watched her go. And let me tell you, that… you don't get over that." He clears his throat. "Thought that would be the end of it. Didn't want to hurt like that, ever again. But you know what happened?"
Taru laughs. "One day, a few years later, I met someone. A fantastic woman named Tsubaki. Kind, gentle, caring. She was soft where I was sharp. And we had great chemistry. There was nobody else in the room, when I was with her, the way we clicked. But… I thought I'd—I dunno. Ruin her, or something stupid. 'Cause I was damaged goods and she wasn't. So, I didn't say anything to her. Watched as she went about her life from ten feet back for years. And one day, I get word that she's in the hospital, bleeding out, and she wants to see me."
Genma bites down on the senbon in his mouth so hard that he swears he hears his teeth crack.
"She got sliced open, right along the side. Nasty gash. Medics were doing all they could, but they weren't sure she'd pull through. They brought me in, 'cause she said that she just wanted to see my face, one last time, before she went." The beagle at his side nudges his hand, and Taru throws a smile down at the ninken. He stoops down and runs his hand along the dog's head, from top to tail, and sighs. "And I'd never felt like a bigger jackass in my entire life. There I was, thinking it'd somehow be easier for both of us, if I didn't try and get too close. But it didn't hurt any less to see her like that—honestly, hurt more. Because I realized that I'd screwed both us over, thinking I was doing the right thing."
Quietly, Genma asks, "And what happened?"
The grin that lights up Taru's face makes him look ten years younger. "She lived. Had to retire, but she lived. And the first thing I did when I saw her was propose." Taru pulls a chain out from under his shirt where two wedding rings hang. He loops his thumb through the silver one and shows it to Genma. "We celebrated our twelfth anniversary a month and a bit ago."
He gets back on his feet and brushes the dirt off his pants. He pins Genma with a look that makes him feel transparent, and Genma resists the urge to close the door here and now.
"Just think about that, yeah?" Taru says. "I got lucky. I got the chance to make things right. Not everybody gets that."
He stands there, staring at Genma.
"Yeah," Genma finally says. "Yeah."
"Good. Send word when you find out how long she's gonna be gone, remember?"
"I will."
And Taru walks off down the hall and Genma stares at the empty hallway, feeling a bit like he's been smacked upside the head.
"Huh," he murmurs to himself. "Guess I fucked up, didn't I?"
He's in the same clothes he slept in, but in a daze, Genma slips his feet into his sandals and grabs his house keys off of the table by the door. The door falls shut behind him with a quiet click and he locks it, slipping his keys into his pockets as he heads down the hall, too.
Genma might not know how to find out how long Hiwa's going to be gone, but he knows where he can start.
.
.
As he expects, Genma finds Kakashi situated at the memorial stone.
Kakashi stiffens the second Genma breaks out of the trees and into the clearing. Genma half expects him to flee, but he doesn't move a muscle.
Rather than stand back and wait for Kakashi to finish with whatever he's doing, Genma approaches the stone himself. There are thousands upon thousands of names carved into the stone, lined up on either side of it. He keeps his eye out for one. And it takes him a bit, but he finds it, in the first third of the names.
Inuzuka Kimiko.
Genma bows his head, eyes closed.
When he straightens and opens them again, he sees Kakashi watching him, statuesque in posture.
"Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to ask you something," Genma says.
Kakashi inclines his head.
"Any chance you know anything about the mission Hiwa was sent on?"
"Didn't know she was sent for one."
"Neither did I, 'til a friend of hers came to me looking for her. Wanted to know how long she's going to be gone for."
Something weird shifts in the air between them and Genma wishes he could put his finger on what it is, exactly, but he can't. It feels charged, almost. Sharper. And Genma knows that he's missing something.
"Can you find out?" Genma asks.
Kakashi gives him a vaguely insulted look that has the word 'duh' painted all over it, and in a flash, he's gone.
Genma turns his gaze back to the stone.
Inuzuka Kimiko.
Further down, he sees Hamada Hiro, and then another handful of names later Ogawa Shinji. There's a mess of male Inuzuka names that follow afterward—he wonders which of them is Hiwa's father.
And then as if magnetized, his gaze gets pulled down to Namikaze Minato.
Genma shakes his head.
Tomorrow, he'll come back with flowers. For now, though, he heads back home, in no rush to get there as his mind runs laps around everything Taru dropped into his lap.
.
.
"Seriously? This is twice in less than a week—what about having this office hidden in the pits of T&I makes you think 'yeah, I'm gonna go and sneak into that place' instead of waiting for me to be out and about in the village to talk to me?"
Kakashi stares blankly at Jiraiya.
Jiraiya rolls his eyes. "Let me guess. You want to know where the hell Hiwa is?"
Another look.
"Kami. Look, she's in Grass Country, alright?"
"Alone?" Kakashi asks, his voice as sharp as a diamond's edge. "With tensions this high?"
And with the tenth around the corner?
She won't be at her best. He's seen first hand that the anniversary interferes with her ability to make it through her missions and with stakes this high, he can't see how Jiraiya thought sending her out alone was a bright idea.
"Yes, alone, because it's both too dangerous and too suspicious to send her in with a partner right now. Getting good enough paperwork to send one person through the border was a pain in the ass enough," Jiraiya says. When Kakashi opens his mouth, Jiraiya silences him with a harsh look. "Or backup. I sent you last time because it was safe to do so. It's not, this time. You go in there to try and give her support and you're more likely to draw attention to her."
"Where?"
"Yomitan."
If Kakashi goes at full speed, he can be there in a day. Maybe less.
Jiraiya mutters a curse and pinches the bridge of his nose. "You want me to send you anyways, don't you?"
"Nobody should be alone behind enemy lines with a war around the corner."
"Yeah," Jiraiya drawls, "that's all it is."
Jiraiya pushes his chair back from his desk and wanders over to the board on the wall. There's a map of the Elemental Nations hung up, pins stuck into it all over the place. There's a line of red pins along the border between Fire Country and Grass Country, along with a dotted line of blue parallel to it that Kakashi knows represents the outposts Konoha's set up over the last few weeks since tensions started to grow with Kusa. There's only one pin inside Grass Country—a green one with the number fifteen sloppily written on it.
Hiwa's the only Konoha agent in the whole of Grass Country, right now. If anything goes wrong she's going to be a sitting duck. And by the sounds of it, Jiraiya had her enter Grass Country under a civilian disguise—odds are good that she doesn't even have Rei with her. Too dangerous to try and get such a massive ninken through the border with Kusa hovering around it like a bunch of guard dogs themselves.
Out of the blue, Jiraiya laughs.
Kakashi stiffens.
"You know what?" Jiraiya says. "Fuck it. I know exactly what you can do."
Jiraiya goes back over to his desk and picks up one of his brushes. Flipping it over so he's holding it from the brush end, Jiraiya points with the handle. He drags it along the border and knocks all the red pins loose, then curves it up to land on where the green pin is.
He turns back to Kakashi and jabs the air with the brush handle, aimed at Kakashi. "You go in there and you carve a fucking path. Take out any and all Kusa nin you meet at the border, hunt them down like the rats they are on the way up to Yomitan. If Lord Third wants a show of force to scare them off, might as well sick our Copy-Nin on them." A twisted, ugly smile breaks out on Jiraiya's face. "You make them piss themselves, you hear me? Put them down. Make them run for the hills with their tails tucked between their legs. And if all goes well, by the time you get to Hiwa you can just extract her because Kusa won't want anything to do with us and we won't need the information she was sent for, anymore."
That's something Kakashi can do.
"When do I leave?"
"I'll get back to you. I'll go talk to Lord Third right now—tempting as it is, I can't make that call on my own. But it could be as soon as tonight."
Kakashi nods, already feeling the adrenaline pump through his veins.
"Good. Go pack. I'll send an agent for you when I get the answer."
"Yes, sir."
.
.
Hiruzen leans back in his seat, his pipe stuck in the side of his mouth. He pulls it out and exhales a puff of smoke. "You think that wise?"
"I do. Minato's reputation as a one-man army single-handedly ended the war. Seeing his student out there, tearing apart squad after squad on his own? They'll be reminded of it. Let them make that association. If Kakashi can dismantle their main line of defense on his own, that'll kick them off the fence."
Hiruzen turns his eye to Shikaku who shrugs. "It's plausible," Shikaku says. "The only question is whether or not Hatake actually can decimate that many on his own. There's at least six or seven squads lined up along that part of the border, right now. Can he take out thirty-some-odd chunin and jonin on his own in quick succession?"
Jiraiya thinks of the fire in Kakashi's eyes.
It was a white-hot scorch, a heat Jiraiya knows comes out when there's a comrade's life on the line. Especially a comrade like this.
"With what's at stake?" Jiraiya says. "I think he'll manage."
Hiruzen nods. "Very well. If he's willing and confident he can do it, I give you permission to send him out."
"Thank you, Lord Hokage."
.
.
"Should only be a few days," Kakashi says.
Genma leans back into the couch, eyes narrowed.
He can't say that he knows Kakashi as well as he knows somebody like Raidou, especially with that damn mask in the way, but Genma has been around him long enough that he has what he considers to be a 'good enough' grasp on Kakashi and his mannerisms.
And he doesn't think Kakashi's lying. He thinks Kakashi is skimming the details. Because Kakashi isn't carrying himself casually—he's carrying himself the way he always does right before they leave on a mission, a hair too wound up to ever be considered relaxed. A close enough imitation of casual that it skates past most people's radars unless they've seen both and taken the time to compare them.
"What's the mission?" Genma asks.
Kakashi smiles, and that just cements Genma's suspicions. "She's out gathering information."
"Wow. I never would have guessed that she, as an infiltration specialist, would be sent out on a mission to get information."
"Definitely a surprise."
Genma pinches the bridge of his nose. "Kakashi, what the hell is going on?"
And Kakashi flaps a hand at him, headed for the door. "Oh, nothing. Nothing for you to worry your pretty little head over."
"Is she alright?"
Kakashi stops. He looks over his shoulder at Genma, his face impossible to read. "She will be," he says.
They're three words that hit Genma in the gut.
But he doesn't think there's anything he can do at this point. She's already out there, and if he were to put money down, he'd bet that Kakashi's on his way over to where she is.
He has to sit and wait until she's back, and hopefully by that point he'll have his thoughts sorted well enough that he'll be ready for her. He thinks he knows what he wants to do—or, rather, what he doesn't want to happen.
No matter what he does, he can't get Taru's warning out of his head. Their situations aren't the same, but they're close enough that Genma would be an idiot not to give what Taru said serious consideration.
"I got the chance to make things right. Not everybody gets that."
If he backs away from Hiwa now, he's pretty sure he's going to spend the rest of his life running. Running from everything that tries to get too close, everything that hurts, everything he thinks he can't do. And from a Konoha ninja? That's a shameful way to live.
The fear is still there. He's terrified of how bad it'll hurt if he loses her. But that's exactly what will happen if he steps back, and he knows that, has known that the whole time, really. It just seemed easier to lose her by his choice, not by the universe's. A kunai to the gut that he could prepare himself for instead of one that sneaks through his defenses under the cover of night and takes him by surprise.
But he can't imagine how badly the regret would scorch him if he had to wonder for the rest of his life what this could of been if he'd taken the leap. How the yearning for a second chance would follow him like a shadow, having thrown his first one away because he couldn't get his head out of his ass.
He'll wait for her. And if she'll still have him, he'll work things out with her.