Hey everyone!

Just a reminder about my friend who is going to start drawing Kiyoko live on stream. She's going to begin today (August 12th 2020 at about 1pm Eastern Standard Time). Her plan is to hopefully finish it by the end of the week and she streams 1-4 daily. I plan to be there watching because I'm excited to see her interpretation of the information I sent and I hope you can join us.

UPDATE: She sketched out Kiyoko today (August 12th) and she looks amazing! We're on to the digital painting stage tomorrow and I am so excited for it! Please join us beginning August 13th at 1pm Eastern Standard Time and support a small artist. Have some chats with us about anime and please give her a follow if you enjoy her work.

Info below;

TWITCH = emkrosse

If you're curious about what kind of stuff you'll be watching her draw you can check out her instagram first;

INSTA = em . krosse *remove the spaces, you know how FF is a butthole about weblinks, if you're following my Tumblr I'm going to post her stuff there too

XxX

XxX

Civil Affairs

Chapter 27

Justice Denied

It had taken a few minutes, but I had finally managed to separate the two men. Well, by 'separate' I meant I asked for them to stop calmly, multiple times, and was ignored until they were both ready.

An hour later they were both sitting at opposite ends of my kitchen table, staring one another down. I had made some green tea for both men but while Genma was drinking with a hard expression Kakashi, still with my hand towel over his face, declined.

"Where have you been staying?" Genma asked the other man, raising a single brow. "I went to your apartment complex and the landlady said you moved out before your mission."

"Oh, here and there." Kakashi replied vaguely, keeping his tone bored. I remembered Kakashi mentioning months ago that whenever he went on long missions, he would put his few possessions in storage and terminate his lease. Apparently, it saved him money since he wouldn't have to pay rent while he was gone. Especially since he had no idea when or if he was coming back. I imagine Genma had suspected this, it sounded like something many ninja would do, but he didn't say anything more about it.

I still wasn't exactly sure what their small brawl in my living room had been about but apparently neither of them held grudges. They were suitably docile right now. Even so, the silver-haired jonin had a habit of getting under Genma's skin and I knew it was only a matter of time before they lapsed back to animosity. Still, I hope what Kakashi had discovered about the miscarriages, and all the work we still had to do, would be enough to keep them cordial for now.

"Do you have somewhere to stay tonight, Kakashi?" I questioned, coming from where I had been standing near the counter to join them at the table. I started to pour myself a cup of tea but when I realized the man's eyes were following my every move, I felt self-conscious and became clumsy. I lost my grip slightly on the pot and hit it off my cup, almost spilling it but catching it at the last second.

When he heard the noise my brother also looked at me but when he realized Kakashi was doing the same he glowered at the other man. Tension crackled in the air and I held in a sigh.

"No, but that's not a priority right now." He admitted to me, his tone relaxed as usual.

"Stay here." I responded simply, ignoring the sound of Genma choking on his tea. "I have a spare bedroom. It will suit you for now until you find an apartment."

"What!?" Genma exclaimed, "You can't let him stay under the same roof as you! It's not proper!"

I couldn't help the raised brow that I threw in my older brother's direction. Not proper? A woman having a male boarder was not uncommon. While Kakashi and I may have had a history, and there was bound to be at least a handful of people who misunderstood, it wouldn't be for long. He would have a new apartment in a few weeks and besides, I wasn't some dainty lady from the Warring States Era whose reputation was determined by her purity. That boat had long sailed, anyway.

"I'm not about to let him keep sleeping outside." I told him, giving Kakashi a look to indicate I knew that's what he'd been doing, "Besides everyone needs to be well rested and alert if we're going to conduct this investigation. Kakashi sleeping in a tree would put us at a disadvantage."

Genma grumbled to himself but he didn't continue to argue with me.

"Thank you, Kiyoko. I wo-"

"Here's a thought!" Genma interrupted the other man, and his tone seemed hurried. "I have a spare bedroom in my apartment since Kiyoko got her own place. Come stay with me."

The way he said it was more like an order then an invitation.

This was the first time I had ever seen Kakashi do a slow blink as he took in the other man's words - it was apparent to me that he was trying to find the perfect way to respond. I could just imagine what was going through his head as he looked into my brother's eyes. Sincere? Polite? Mocking? All of them would, of course, need to be hidden beneath layers of false boredom. While I hadn't known Kakashi long I did know that he rarely cared enough to mock or toy with anyone. He was always casual, playful, or bored...sometimes even dry but he was always polite.

Except when it came to my brother.

Something about Genma conflicted with Kakashi, just like something about Kakashi conflicted with Genma. From the outside looking in they didn't seem so different. Both were skilled jonin who were well known in the village and for the most part well liked. Both had seen hardship. Both were, in general, honest, and extremely loyal to the village. They even had a similar circle of friends - though it could be argued that was a result of their similar work. They should get along, but they didn't. Originally, I thought the pair were always at odds because of me but over time I had come to realize there was something fundamentally broken in their relationship. A value they didn't share or, perhaps, an experience they did.

"That sounds fine, Genma." He responded in a bored tone...though for some reason I sensed an edge to it.

Genma just glared in the other man's direction and I decided to move on from the subject as quickly as possible. We weren't going to get anything done at this rate.

"I have a contact in the Statistics Department who is going to discreetly review the original documentation again. She's going to meet with me here on Sunday." I informed them, keeping my expression level, and once more trying to ignore the anxious feeling I was getting. This would be the first time that I'd had to relinquish control on anything I've done and, honestly, it was hard to stomach.

Genma seemed to sense this because he cast me a knowing look.

"Are you really okay with that?" He started, "You're not exactly good at letting someone else do your work, Kiyo."

"I'm not necessarily okay with it but I don't have any other choice." I told him pointedly.

"You know," Kakashi started and though I sensed some hesitation he proceeded, "I could always break in again."

"And somehow make off with three years' worth of documentation?" I crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow at him, "Not only is that not feasible, someone is bound to notice, but I won't have it. I'm not going to break the law during this investigation...and neither will you. You're lucky I didn't turn you in when you first showed up with those documents."

"I knew you wouldn't turn me in." Kakashi responded simply, his eyes meeting mine as we began our first staring contest since he left the village. As usual, I lost and looked over at Genma.

"When Chika gets back to me on the weekend, we'll hopefully have something more substantial to go on. Until then we just need to be patient and you two are going to behave. No more breaking into the CAO and running your sticky ninja paws over everything." The last part was directed mostly at Kakashi, but the warning was relevant to Genma just the same. He was just as capable of getting in and out of the CAO undetected, so I didn't want Kakashi's little stunt giving him any ideas either. "Next time I see documents that weren't properly acquired I'll turn you in to Lord Third. Understand?"

Both men nodded though I had a feeling that if this investigation moved too slowly for Kakashi he might still take matters into his own hands.

XxX

It was Sunday, January 26th, 1463.

Any fears I'd had that Chika would miss something or not be thorough enough in her investigation were proven to be unfounded. I'd realized how competent she was when I had chosen to ask for her help but even I was astounded by her detailed notes. Every pattern or trend she'd noticed, whether they were specific to the miscarriages or not, were neatly taken down filling half a notebook. In the margins were page numbers, departments, check out dates and almost anything else we would need to know about where the documents were kept.

My hand was aching just looking at the pages of characters in her neat scrawl. How she'd managed to do so much in so little time, and not cripple herself, was an absolute wonder.

The four of us were sitting around my kitchen table looking over the various sheets of notes she'd brought with her. Despite being organized enough to keep it all in one notebook, Chika had suggested we rip the pages out to go over them. It was her belief that we might get more out of it if we could all review the documents at the same time rather than pass the book around.

My older brother seemed to be having trouble following some of the terminology and acronyms used by the CAO, which lead to the other woman needing to metaphorically hold his hand as he went through them. Kakashi had been dead silent ever since Chika had arrived, going between pages of notes with little reaction. I wasn't sure how much of them he understood, since much of it was shorthand, but he had a cold exterior that indicated even if he was lost he didn't want help. I just left him be and after the second time being told with a bored tone that he was 'fine', Mrs Hagane had left him alone as well.

He'd been so quiet over the last few hours that I jumped in my seat when he interrupted the silence. I was looking at a sheet describing a spike in requests for Declarations of Paternity in March 1459 while Chika explained one of her notes to Genma. There had been some light chatting, none of us brooding over the information more than the silver-haired jonin.

"Mrs Hagane," He started, and the other woman snapped her head up to look at him, blinking owlishly. Clearly, he'd surprised her as well. "I've been noticing something pop up a lot and I just wanted to make sure I understood what I was looking at…"

Chika nodded in understanding and stood, making her way around the table to peek over his shoulder.

"This string of characters here - this code. It starts with an animal but then moves on to a string of numbers and letters...what does that mean? You have several pages of these codes, but you didn't put a note as to what they are." Kakashi gestured to the pile of sheets that he'd been going over ever since the young woman had arrived.

"Oh, they're just an afterthought I had." Chika confessed, looking almost embarrassed, "I wrote down all the employee identification numbers associated with the documents I accessed. Kind of useless actually but something compelled me to take them down."

"Why do they start with an animal?" Genma questioned from where he was sitting. He'd maneuvered himself, risen slightly in his seat, so he could see the top of Kakashi's page.

"It was a system Lord Second thought of back in the day before the Civil Affairs Office became large. It used to just be an animal, a letter and a number but with the office growing so exponentially the numbers have gotten much longer." I informed him, well versed in the history of the office from my years of fascination with it. "Employee numbers begin with the zodiac animal associated with the year they were hired. I began at the office in 1459 so my number begins with Ox while Tamaki Morino, who was hired the year after me, has a number beginning with Tiger."

"Oh really? I actually didn't know that." Chika admitted, sounding rather interested. "But wait...if that's true why does my number start with Wisdom? That's not a zodiac animal."

"Lord Second was rather superstitious so he refused to use animals from the zodiac that he deemed omens. He excluded Rat, Dragon and Snake from the lineup - replacing them with the words Fortune, Wisdom and Longevity, respectively."

"Don't the rat, dragon and snake represent those values though? Why would he substitute them out?" Chika asked, tilting her head at her own question.

"What the zodiac animals represent depends very much on where you're from." I explained, remembering a conversation I'd once had with one of the refugees from the Land of Snow. I'd been helping Yuzuha direct them to their temporary housing when they became startled by a shopkeeper who'd used a dragon on his sign. "To many the Rat represents cunning and deceit, the Dragon represents wrath and evil, the Snake represents greed and mental poison...those were values that he could never tolerate. He refused to have his intentions misinterpreted. So, he just replaced them."

"What drew your attention to that, Kakashi?" Genma asked the other man, his face fixed into a severe line.

"Because I keep seeing the same one repeatedly. Ox-B12F8G." He responded carefully, his eyes never leaving the page.

"The same...ox?" I echoed, thinking about that information for a moment before it hit me. I couldn't believe I hadn't realized it before and suddenly everything clicked into place, I began muttering to myself as I desperately searched through the piles of papers I'd been looking at minutes ago. "The Declarations of Paternity...that's how...that Declarations. It's the same employee."

"What?" The other civilian woman eventually questioned, blinking at me. "What do you mean?"

"You told me that you calculated the miscarriages based on the number of Declarations of Paternity that were archived as unfulfilled." I repeated what the woman had told me nearly a week ago.

Chika nodded in confirmation.

"And you reviewed all those Declarations from the last three years and wrote down all the employee identification numbers, right?" I reiterated, looking over at Kakashi who still hadn't looked up from the paper.

"Well...yes." Chika conceded, though still looked like she didn't quite understand where I was going.

"How many employee numbers are on that sheet, Kakashi?" I asked him, knowing that despite his silence he had been listening to me.

"On this sheet alone, there must be close to sixty." He told me without a moment of hesitation.

"T-the right side of the paper are the employees who processed the Declaration and the left side are the employees who archived the Declaration as unfulfilled. I was able to pull the filing records from the clerk at the archives." Chika added, though I could see she was just trying to help and still didn't seem to get where I was going with this. Kakashi on the other hand had gone rigid in his seat and something told me he had connected the same dots I had. I didn't even need to see that sheet to know what was on it - to know what had so avidly caught the silver-haired jonin's attention. Genma had a solemn look on his face though whether that was because he understood or didn't I wasn't sure.

"And of those approximately sixty employee identification numbers how many of them are by the Ox ID you mentioned?" All eyes went to Kakashi and it was with that final question, without even needing to hear the answer I saw Chika's face go slack. As if she was suddenly remembering what was on the sheet and what she had overlooked despite the way she'd diligently recorded it.

"Too many." Kakashi replied, not even bothering to use his usual hard tone.

"Wait, you're saying that whoever filed those Declarations of Paternity is somehow responsible for this?" Chika's eyes went wide at the thought that whoever was doing this was a member of the CAO and had been for at least the last three years.

It was a haunting thought. We could have had lunch with this person or taken a coffee break...passed them in the hallway countless times. Chika, being as vibrant and happy as she was, probably enthusiastically said hello to this person at least once since she was hired. The office was large, but it wasn't so large that you didn't eventually get used to the faces.

This seemed like a huge breakthrough but when I caught the look in Chika's eyes, I could tell we both shared the same hopeless feeling.

"What did you mean earlier when you said that the employee identification numbers were useless?" My brother asked, proving how intently he'd been listening. "They don't seem useless to me."

"They are useless. Useless to us, anyway." Chika emphasized, her typically happy expression melting into a defeated one.

"I don't get it." My brother told me simply, looking at me with a straight expression. "Why?"

"Because there's only two people in the world who have the employee identification master list. Lord Third and The Director. It's confidential. No one can access it. Even when Shared Services makes our badges, they have to send up to The Director's office to get the number added." I explained, fixing my face into its usual passive mask. So close and yet so far.

Everyone knew their ID number by heart, just like ninja knew their service number by heart, but we couldn't just walk around asking people for their numbers.

"We have to approach either Lord Hokage or The Director then." Chika urged, looking between the three of us.

I shook my head.

"We can't do that yet. If we are right...this person will be facing execution so we need to be certain, which is exactly how Lord Third will feel. They'll want actual proof that this person is responsible otherwise they won't listen to us and then, by telling them, we've blown the whole investigation." I told her; my tone dry when I thought about the tricky situation, we found ourselves in. Nothing could ever be straightforward, could it?

"If it's an enemy ninja they'll take that opportunity to flee the second we start talking about it where others can hear...like Lord Hokage's office." Genma nodded in agreement as he added his concern. That was true.

There was a strong possibility that there was an enemy ninja among us who had successfully blended in for three years and was responsible for this. Thankfully, there were enough people involved already that eliminating us wouldn't be worth the trouble. Even if they managed to kill Chika and I the two jonin we had involved would be difficult targets. However, that meant the ninja would be most likely to flee since they had no other option.

On one hand, that was a good thing because the miscarriages would stop with the ninja's disappearance. On the other hand, that meant we would never have justice for the village's lost children and their families. We'd also never know who had planned such an atrocity to weaken Konoha – if another Hidden Village was involved it would lead to extreme political tension.

"Great, so there's nothing we can do?" Chika questioned, looking more defeated by the minute.

"Well…" Kakashi began slowly, his tone casual but I could sense an almost deadly intent from it, "There is one thing but you're not going to like it."

I snapped my head to look over at the man, who for the first time in over an hour was properly looking at me. I watched as his eyes slid over to Genma who simply nodded in the other man's direction before looking at me.

"Kiyoko, I know what you said but we don't have any other options." I frowned at Genma as he attempted to persuade me.

"What are you talking about?" Chika asked, her eyes darting between the three of us.

"They want to break in and steal the employee master list."

XxX

I had eventually caved after a few hours of sweet words and guilt-tripping from my older brother.

To my horror, Genma and Kakashi broke into The Director's office that night.

To my relief, they did not steal the employee master list.

What they did do was spend much longer then they probably should have pawing through the master list in the dark looking for any mention of Ox-B12F8G. They at least knew where to start, because as I'd found in Chika's notes the increase had begun as of March 1459. Since the identification number began with Ox, we could infer that this person had started working at the Civil Affairs Office in 1459 like I did.

1459 had been a high volume hiring year for the office so they were going to be looking for a lot of names but something between January and March 1459 narrowed it down enough to be possible. Chika had sent word to her husband that she wouldn't be home that night, despite the next day being a workday, so the two of us stayed up making idle chatter while we waited anxiously for the two jonin to return.

I had suggested that we wait until next weekend for them to do their part but both men demonstrated a frustration at the idea. They didn't want to wait. They had their next task, their next mission, and waiting wasn't an option.

It was a round 5:30 in the morning, the day having changed to January 27th, 1463 when they returned.

One moment Chika and I were alone in my kitchen, tiredly making our next pot of coffee and the next both jonin had materialized. If we'd been less tired perhaps, we would have been startled but neither of us had the energy. We just both looked over at them silently and with palpable anticipation.

Kakashi closed the short distance between where the two men appeared and my kitchen table, throwing a folder down onto the pile of Chika's notes.

"Koto Morita." After that he stood still as a statue, watching as I reached forward to open the file.

"I thought you weren't going to take anything!?" Chika exclaimed, looking visibly flustered by the fact that the two men had stolen from the office. It occurred to me in that moment that I'd never told her Kakashi had actually stolen the statistics documents that had been the catalyst for this investigation. She still thought I had checked them out discreetly.

"We didn't have much choice." Genma confessed, moving forward to stand next to the other jonin and reaching into his flak vest to retrieve a senbon. He stuck it in his mouth and began to chew it absently while he continued, "We didn't really have a way to copy the woman's photograph and we needed you both to see it."

If given enough time I could have devised a way to meet the woman with just a name but it was appealing to know what she looked like ahead of time. Maybe this way I could do some discreet scouting and never have to talk to the woman myself. I realized that had probably been Genma and Kakashi's thought as well...the more about her I knew, the less I had to be around her.

Now that the file was open, I found myself unimpressed by the image that looked back at me. Plain face, brown hair, dark eyes...there really wasn't anything remarkable about her at all. I suppose if you were an enemy ninja undercover in Konoha for three years that would be a good thing. I wasn't sure what I had been expecting - someone who looked eviler? Maybe?

Instead I was faced with a very average, very neutral looking young woman.

"Koto Morita…" I repeated as I stared down at her, my face in its usual passive mask.

If we were right, this woman was a monster and yet she looked just like everyone else. Weren't monsters supposed to look like monsters?

"Today when you go in to work, we need you to find out which desk belongs to her - don't get too close to her or touch anything." Kakashi began, sounding much like he was giving orders to me and I didn't really like it. He was my friend, but he hadn't earned the right to order me around and he was lucky I was too tired to tell him so. I could understand that he was used to just telling people what to do and having them do it without question but that didn't usually work with civilians. We liked explanations.

"Kakashi and I are going to check her home today while she's at work - we found her address in the file. Then tonight, when you get home from work, you tell us which desk is hers and we'll go investigate that. She could've set traps ranging from explosions to subtler poison-type traps so that's why we don't want you trying to go through her things." My brother elaborated, shooting Kakashi a look that the other man must've seen but ignored. Apparently Genma hadn't been too pleased with his tone either.

So, our plan was set.

All I had to do was walk into Registrations, pretending to be looking for a specific document that didn't exist, and look around while Rika Ito searched. I didn't look the least bit out of place as I gazed out across the sea of desks in neat rows - each of them filled with a civilian woman or man diligently working.

We had started at the CAO around the same time and I had been transferred to work in Registrations for a brief period that year. I don't remember seeing this 'Miss Morita' so, much like me, she must've kept to herself.

She was extremely easy to miss.

Even when I was purposefully looking for her it took me a second longer than usual to pinpoint her face, three rows from the back on the far east side of the room. Head down, brown hair in a bun, dark eyes obscured by bangs. I was in Registrations for thirty minutes and in that thirty minutes I saw her interact with no one, speak with no one…that was odd in the CAO. There was always someone wanting to tell you about their husband, children, pets or what they made for dinner last night.

This woman hid in plain sight. It was like her colleagues didn't even know she existed. Was this a ninja skill or was she just genuinely the sort of person no one noticed?

I observed her most of the time I was there, making sure to move my head from side to side like I was just boredly observing my surroundings. I didn't want to seem suspicious.

When Rika finally returned to me, looking confused by the false document number, I shrugged it off and admitted that perhaps I'd written it down wrong. Then without any further conversation I turned on my heel and left. I went back to my office but was distracted for most of the day. Even when Naruto crashed into my office, scattering my paperwork everywhere and detonating a small smoke bomb next to my filing cabinet, my attention couldn't be held. All I could think about was getting back to my house and meeting with the two jonin. Had they found something at her house?

Surely if she was an enemy ninja there were bound to be signs where she lived, right? There had to be something.

When I did finally arrive home both men were sitting on my couch, as far away from one another as they could. Genma had a senbon hanging from his mouth limply at he stared at the wall while Kakashi was pretending to read his book. Chika arrived not long after I did and was quick to bombard them with questions, which Kakashi ignored and Genma stumbled to answer.

"I don't think she's a ninja." My brother eventually stated, leaning back on the couch further with his arms behind his head, "We checked everywhere we could think of and couldn't find anything to indicate it was a deep-cover crash pad. No emergency bag, no scrolls, no weapons...nothing."

He gave Kakashi a sidelong glance but when the man didn't so much as move, he continued.

"Unless she's hiding everything in her desk at her office, which I suppose is possible, she's a civilian."

"Did you find anything, Chika?" I asked the other woman, looking over to see she was holding another small notebook in her hands. While my job had been to scout out the Morita's desk, Chika had been assigned to discreetly pull any documentation she could on the woman. I imagined it had been nerve-wracking since you never knew when you'd come across someone who was the other woman's friend. However, based on what I'd witnessed today I don't think the plain woman had any friends.

"Not really. She did immigrate here in 1458 from The Land of Tea but that doesn't exactly prove anything. If she is a ninja, she probably faked her origins and if she isn't a ninja, like Genma thinks, then that means it's probably true…" She trailed off as she stared at the notebook in her hands and I continued for her. "Which means nothing since there's no animosity between our two countries and never has been. There isn't anything we could see that would motivate her to do something like this."

I formed my face into a perfect mask trying to figure out a motivation for such a thing. She appeared to be a civilian woman from a stable, friendly country. So why would she ever do something like this?

"Do we have the wrong person?" Chika asked cautiously, eyes flicking between the rest of us. "I mean, is it possible she's being framed?"

I opened my mouth to confirm that, yes, it was possible when Kakashi interrupted me.

"Don't doubt our facts until we've taken a look at that desk."

He left no room for argument and we lapsed into silence until I decided to send Chika home. I made sure to tell her that we needed to at least attempt to get some sleep. We weren't going to be much good to anyone if we didn't try. We weren't like Kakashi and Genma - we needed more rest to function. I drew a quick map of Registrations on one of Chika's many notes that had taken up temporary residence on my kitchen table, making sure to mark with a huge X which desk belonged to Miss Morita.

Then, taking my own advice I bid both men goodnight and went up to my bedroom. I thought that I wouldn't sleep well but I ended up being wrong. I fell into a deep sleep as soon as I laid down and I didn't wake until my alarm, which was always set for 6:00, began blaring next to me. I was startled awake by how quick the night seemed to have passed and before I had even sat up, I was anxious for answers.

While I was sleeping the two jonin would have broken into the CAO and investigated the woman's desk. What did they find? I hurried downstairs and when I hit the bottom Kakashi was sitting on my couch but Genma was nowhere to be seen.

Still groggy from sleep I was quick to approach him.

"What did you find?" I asked slowly, both wanting and dreading the answer.

"A list full of names that if we trace, I'm sure belong to some families that are about to experience a tragedy or already have...and this." He reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like, at first, a small white pebble. I leaned forward a bit and scrutinized it but couldn't really decipher what it was.

"Don't get too close but try and smell it." He told me and he watched carefully as I moved a little closer, bending so the small thing was level with my nose.

"Is that...mint?" I couldn't hide the surprise in my voice as I straightened, the smell and appearance of the thing suddenly making sense. "Is that a mint candy?"

"A mint candy filled with a dose of arsenic just powerful enough to cause a spontaneous abortion." He returned levely, his voice never faltering even as I reeled back suddenly at the statement. Arsenic? It had arsenic in it?

"We found them in a decorative bowl in the top drawer of her desk, which was locked, along with some little mesh gift bags. My guess is she gives them as treats to her clients so even if the first dose didn't work...maybe the second or the third...or the fourteenth. I'm willing to bet those women felt sick in the days leading up to their miscarriage." He explained, his voice casual which gave his whole speech an even more morbid feeling.

Without giving it much thought, I flopped down to sit next to Kakashi, my mind spinning as I processed this new information. I didn't feel selfish when my thoughts turned to myself even though I should have.

Now that we had figured out that the woman was guilty and how she had been doing it my thoughts fixated on one subject - Tobiro.

Our Declaration of Paternity had been completed and filed by Rika Ito. I'd never met or heard of Koto Morita until we'd gotten further in this investigation. I'd never had any mints; in fact I don't think I would've found the smell appealing at the time with how my cravings had changed. I hadn't been sick at all, let alone with something comparable to arsenic poisoning, in the days leading up to my miscarriage.

Koto Morita was not responsible for my miscarriage. She was responsible for a lot of them, most of them in the village in fact, but she wasn't responsible for mine.

I cast a sideways glance at Kakashi who had returned the mint to wherever he had been safely keeping it. He said nothing. His gaze just remained straight ahead, fixated on the wall, and he sat eerily still. I considered his disposition over the last few days. He'd been so stoney and matter of fact about this entire thing ever since Chika had shown up with her notes. While he had continued to investigate, he seemed to have lost some of his fire and instead had been doing everything systematically. Like it was nothing more than another mission.

He'd known.

He'd probably figured it out as soon as we realized that it was the person who had been filing the Declarations of Paternity. He had probably recalled right away that our Declaration had been handled with the utmost discretion and care by the department head. We had never even crossed paths with anyone from Registrations besides Rika. I had been so focused on just solving it that I'd barely paid my own situation much thought until just now - if I had I would have realized the same thing Kakashi had.

This was a good thing though, in a strange sort of way. I hadn't been thinking about my own situation at all – I'd just been focused on the task at hand. Didn't that mean I was healing? Really healing? Ultimately, we had protected the village and we would get justice for the families that had been affected by this woman's senseless acts. I realized that this whole situation had nothing to do with me and, strangely, I felt relief. Why? I wasn't entirely sure. Maybe because that meant that the words I'd used to comfort myself, that it was just fate and bad things just happened sometimes, was correct.

That, unfortunately, meant that Kakashi was wrong.

Kakashi's wounds were still fresh and without someone to blame, with this denial of justice, he wasn't sure how to proceed. Now he couldn't deny that losing Tobiro was just a tragedy – he couldn't blame anyone or get revenge. That there was nothing else to it. For him, this unrefuted evidence that our loss was nothing more than a tragedy could be good for him. There was no longer any room for doubt or denial, so all that was left was for him to process this in his own time and accept it.

"Where did Genma go?" I asked after a few minutes. If I'd disturbed him from his thoughts, he gave no indication of it.

"To tell Lord Third. We have enough evidence now to have that woman arrested and taken to Ibiki Morino for interrogation." He responded in a bored tone, though I knew he was anything but bored.

I felt my chest clench and burn. Indigestion again, it had to be.

XxX

Koto Morita had been a civilian woman from The Land of Tea who, for her own personal reasons, considered ninja to be the problem with the world. She blamed them for everything and so, when given the opportunity to prevent future ninja from being born, she'd jumped at the chance. Lord Hokage and the Elder Council, when informed, chose to keep the entire matter a secret. It was dubbed the 'Lost Children Affair' and was swept under the rug with me, Chika Hagane, Kakashi and Genma being sworn to absolute secrecy.

Miss Morita was arrested discreetly and taken to be interrogated by Ibiki Morino, just like Kakashi had said. Under his supervision she admitted to her crimes and, within days, was executed privately.

Lord Third, to my shock, had specifically asked Kakashi and I whether he should inform the families affected. For some families, the pain was fresh and for others years had passed - they had moved on. It didn't take me long to figure out that he was asking our opinion because, while we hadn't been among Miss Morita's victims, we had suffered a very similar loss.

If we had discovered that we were the victims of Miss Morita's plot - would we have been comforted by that knowledge? Would it really give us closure to know we had someone to blame? Would it have given us closure to know that she was caught? Or would it only have made the wound deeper and harder to mend? Would it only have taken sadness and morphed it into anger? Would those who had already accepted the loss no longer accept it? For those who had not yet accepted it...would they ever accept it when told that someone had done this to them?

It was a difficult question and while I was still stumbling over it, Kakashi had answered.

He had told Lord Third that he wasn't sorry he'd pursued the issue - after all he'd put a stop to someone who was hurting the village he'd sworn to protect. But, no, he had realized that it would not give him closure. Knowing the circumstances would not have made the loss easier to deal with...not in the way he had originally believed.

I had little to contribute to his answer. I will admit that I think Lord Third was only really directing that question to Kakashi, so I just agreed numbly. I didn't think it would help them to know. Not really. Knowing wouldn't change anything positively for those families. They still had lost children; they would still never be able to confront the person who did it. I told myself there was nothing for them to gain in knowing. Not now when there was nothing for them to do.

With our answer, Lord Third opted to not inform the families though I suspected he never would have informed them anyway. He and the council had decided to make this matter a secret for a reason and telling the families would be counterproductive. It was a test, though whether it was for Kakashi, me or both of us I would never be sure. Nor could I ever divine it's purpose.

It was ironic. 'Justice' had been denied for Kakashi and I who had pursued it, but served for families that would never know they had been wronged.

Despite it being an independent endeavor, Kakashi and Genma were not disciplined though they were warned such actions would not be tolerated again. Chika and I, similarly, got the equivalent of a slap on the wrist from The Director – mostly I think she was happy we were so discreet and didn't tarnish the office's reputation. The two jonin were tasked with completing a mission report which then found its way into Lord Hokage's vault, never to be seen again.

By January 30th, 1463, the Lost Children Affair ended, and it became the second of the village's dirty secrets that was mine to hide. The first being Naruto's parentage, of course. One secret had already been too much for me.

I would wonder until the end of my days if Kakashi and I did the right thing. Despite what I had told Lord Hokage in his office that day I would never be fully confident in my answer – who was I to make that decision for someone else? We stopped a menace to the village, but I would always feel conflicted on the matter. I couldn't bring myself to regret pursuing it though because the outcome had ultimately been for the best. That was impossible to deny.

With that trial behind us Kakashi's eyes changed and, in their depths, I saw acceptance. Which made it all worth it since I knew he was ready to begin healing.