In the morning, since she was unable to sleep anyway, Hitomi left her bed a few minutes before dawn and took the scrollpack she had prepared for the mission, her movements rushed and numbed by the exhaustion that was seriously starting to weigh her down. The first hours of the morning were always the hardest after an almost sleepless night: she would feel better in the afternoon, physically at least. Her mind was a whole other story, one she had decided to ignore for as long as possible.
She left the house before anyone was up and was very careful to avoid the tea room where Ensui went to properly wake up every morning. At such an early hour, the only people awake and around were shinobi going home after their latest missions and the ones that were leaving for their next one. Her back stiff, she stood next to the Gates after nodding in greeting to Izumo and Kotetsu. Pakkun had left her halfway to meet with Kakashi and probably report to him. This idea slightly unsettled Hitomi. She hadn't exactly broken down hysterically but being unable to sleep after seeing her first murder was probably something a sensei would want to monitor.
Naruto and Sasuke arrived almost an hour later and seemed to realise immediately that something wasn't right with their adopted sister – maybe from the way she was standing, the tension in her shoulder line poorly hiding her discomfort. Naruto walked to her and shifted so their forearms would brush against each other; Sasuke stood to her other side but didn't touch her. After a few minutes, he gestured to get her attention and put a fresh little apple in her hand. She raised an eyebrow and he shrugged. "No dishes in the sink this morning, nor any smell of soap, which meant you didn't eat this morning. Eat now."
The command was said in such an impassive voice she obeyed without thinking about it, the first mouthful bursting with tart juice on her tongue. She drank a sip from her gourd and continued eating slowly under Sasuke's vigilant stare; when she was done, she threw the apple core on the ground, as all Konohajin did in hope that a tree would grow there. The Land of Fire didn't lack trees, quite the opposite, but all the shinobi who had been raised there agreed on at least one thing: you never had enough trees in front of you.
Kakashi arrived not so long after that, the client in tow – that the two men shared a lack of punctuality didn't surprise Hitomi, and nor did the scruffy, already sozzled look of the bridge builder. His clothes betrayed a wealth long past, and his hand was wrapped around a bottle of alcohol like his life depended on it. It had probably helped him lie when he had requested the mission. Only liquid bravery could make someone stupid enough to lie to a high-ranking shinobi.
"Are you fucking kidding me? This is the team Konoha gives me for that super important mission? They look like brats, especially the runt in the middle!"
Hitomi was already opening her mouth to defend Naruto, since he had been the one insulted in the canon, but then she realised she was the runt in the middle, with her adoptive brothers flanking her. Any other day, she would have probably laughed it off, but exhaustion had always aggravated her temper. She stepped towards the man, killing intent already blooming on her skin, but Kakashi's strong hand on her shoulder stopped her. His thumb was pressing slowly against a knot of nerves, threat or promise of pain if she attacked Tazuna. "Come on now, Hitomi-chan, you can't attack the client who hired us to protect him, alright?"
"Yeah, that's right!" the bridge builder boasted. "You're all gonna take me to the Land of Waves, and you better do a good job! I'm very important an' all."
Hitomi resisted the impulse to roll her eyes, allowing her body to relax slowly under her sensei's hand to make him understand she had regained control over her anger, that she wasn't gonna turn berserk and make a pair of shoes and a pile of minced meat out of their client. After a few seconds, he patted her shoulder and let her go. That simple gesture of affection made her understand he knew what was making her react so badly. She knew he had been in her shoes once, another sensei patting his shoulder in a silent promise everything would be okay. Had he known, too, that it was a lie?
A few minutes later, the four shinobi and their client left the village. Their first day on the road was eventless, which threw Hitomi off-balance. Since the canon had never been very clear on temporality, she should have assumed such things would happen, but she was really disconcerted, as always, when time tricked her into thinking something would happen earlier or later than it really did. She had spent the whole day looking for the first sign of the ambush waiting for them somewhere, terrified by the idea, unable to control the tension affecting her every reaction – in vain. The Demon Brothers were just so lazy.
She put herself forward for first watch but Kakashi wasn't having it, and both Sasuke and Naruto supported him on that decision. Irrational anger invaded Hitomi's mind for a moment. She pushed it down severely, refusing to act childishly during her first mission outside the village. This was also an important step in her career. And if that reason wasn't enough of a muzzle, she knew, deep inside, that she was being unreasonable: she had to sleep if she wanted to be strong enough for the ordeals to come.
She dreamed of blood and tears, of the taste of iron and salt on her lips, of an endless sea and a mountain in the mist. Sasuke was the one to wake her up, a hand against her mouth to muffle the yelp that always escaped her when she woke up from a nightmare. He had learned those uncontrollable habits that clung to her skin, he who had spent so many nights in her bed, he who expected similar demons to meet him in his sleep.
Despite the nightmare, most of the exhaustion that had wrapped around her bones like a second skin was but a memory. She left the bundle of blankets she had used as a bed, shivering in the cold air, and sat on the tree stump her brother had chosen to stand watch. The ghost of his body heat lingered there, as well as a hint of chakra, discreet and appeasing. She sighed, a puff of white mist escaping her parted lips. When she had been on the road with Ensui, an eternity ago, in the icy nights that the Desert threw at them, she had loved trying to decipher shapes in their breaths. That time seemed so completely over, and she didn't miss anything more than the feeling of being minuscule and safe, wrapped in the benevolent and feral shadow of her master.
Silently so as not to wake up her companions, Hitomi unsheathed Ishi to Senrigan. The tantō was still so magnificent it was almost painful to look at, still deadly sharp, still very slightly infused with Shisui's chakra, although it had started to fade. She had never really used it, had never brandished it with the intent to kill her opponent. In a few hours, or maybe a few days, she would have too, and the mere idea tied her stomach in knots.
Nothing could protect her from that unavoidable development, nothing in her power anyway. All she could do was make sure she was ready. Her fingers snatched the whetstone without her even thinking about it and started sharpening the blade. The rhythmical, long strokes soothed her, as did the soft fiction noise each time stone kissed chakra-infused steel. She couldn't help but touch that sword like lovers touched each other, with care and tenderness – and love, too.
Could she, just like this blade, grow sharper in Kakashi's care? He was so different from Ensui, so loyal to the village and its power that it almost blinded him. If she went to him with her secrets, he would probably repeat them right away to Hiruzen, so sure of doing what was best for her, unknowingly sealing the fate of a child he had sworn to protect. After all, like everyone, he thought ROOT had been disbanded. If even the Hokage didn't know that it had reformed, how was he, loyal and keen to please the man he admired so much, to know the village's darkest and best concealed secret?
Hitomi, however, was unaware that Kakashi's faith in Hiruzen had irrevocably wavered. He had been torn by the attribution of his Genin team, since he hadn't been ready for such a charge, but he had accepted it because it had been his duty, because there were only a handful of shinobi in Konoha good enough to teach and the others already had their own team to care for. He had accepted, because Hiruzen had always taken good decisions – hadn't he? It was one of the things that made him a great leader, one of the reasons the clans still trusted him and followed him despite the disasters and conflicts that had hit the village under his rule.
Some of those disasters and conflicts hadn't been his fault. Others had been.
Other decisions had continued gnawing at the absolute trust he had offered to the man. More of such decisions had only been avoided by Kurenai's lucidity. Minato's son, alone in a flat, without any supervision, at barely twelve years old? It would have been a folly, even the Hound could see that. As for Sasuke… Kakashi had heard, in a bar Jōnin liked to patron, that the Councilmen had pressured the Hokage to refuse her wardship request. A little boy, not even out of the Academy, would have been forced to live alone where his family had been massacred, if his sister in arms hadn't received support from the Nara, Akimichi and Yamanaka in her request. Just thinking about how things would have turned out in that eventuality made Kakashi shiver in horror. The boy was already messed up as it was; his sensei had gotten closer to him and knew which path he would have followed then. Even with a loving adopted family, he wasn't quite saved yet. They all had a long road ahead before reaching that destination.
As for Hitomi… Hitomi was such a thorny problem. She was the unknown variable in Team Seven, the only one of the three children who didn't remind him of the team he had once been a part of. Most of all, she was unpredictable, he had realised it many times at his own expense. Sometimes, she behaved in accordance with her age, laughing carelessly with her adopted brothers, and sometimes… Sometimes, redoubtable intelligence gleamed in her eyes, a feral power that wouldn't concede victory to anyone or anything. Kakashi was afraid when he witnessed that look in her eyes. It reminded him of the boy he had been once – so self-assured, so certain to be right in whatever he did.
The mission he had taken her along for had landed a heavy hit against Hitomi's assurance, Kakashi saw it. He had expected it to – she was so sweet deep inside, so little prepared, a child. Akin to a stormy sea, a quiet, cold fury had ragged inside him when he had seen her so broken and terrified afterwards. That feeling had washed away more of the respect he had once blindly offered to the Third. Kakashi's duty went to his entire village and its wellbeing; the village needed a strong, healthy generation to protect it. Kakashi only had distaste for the rotting roots hiding far below the surface.
He was the first to wake up that morning and stared for a while at the young kunoichi. The unsheathed tantō, a true work of art in the Copy Nin's opinion, was carefully laying on her legs, the recently sharpened steel throwing cold reflections where the light was shining upon it. He couldn't see the girl's face, only long, wavy strands of her dark hair dancing in the wind, and the dew shining around her.
She turned her head towards him when he stood up and greeted him with a slight nod, silent as to respect their teammates' sleep. Her eyes had changed, a subtle evolution he couldn't miss. If she didn't overcome the numbness that had come after the shock, she would grow cold, distant, would slowly lose her taste for the relationships so dear to her heart, for any type of feelings. Kakashi was ready to resort to extremes he didn't quite comprehend yet to stop that from happening to her. Konoha didn't need one more killing machine. "At ease, Hitomi-chan. No one will attack us here, now that the sun is up. Come and help me make breakfast."
Docilely, she sheathed her weapon and left her seat. In her gait, the ninja she would one day become was already apparent. She still lacked the perfect silence, redoubtable flexibility and quiet assurance that inhabited her shishou's steps, but, one day, it was unavoidable, he would ensure she inherited each of those characteristics, and Kakashi could see it better than anyone, he who had had one of the best teachers the village had ever known as a master. "Say, Hitomi-chan, how do you feel being out of the village again?" he asked as she approached him.
"I had missed it," she said with the slightest hint of hesitation. "I love Konoha, but the world is full of things you can't find in our village."
"You loved the Desert too, right?"
"The sand was annoying, slipping everywhere and all. But the smell of dunes and sun… The best friend I had there smelled like that back then. I wonder if it's still the case."
The girl's hand briefly brushed against the bump in one of her pockets, where she kept her communicating notebook. Since she was out of the village again, she wrote to Shikamaru as well as Gaara, and had given notebooks to her mother and Ensui so she could talk to them too. During the hour of free time Kakashi had granted his Genin the previous night, she had written to each of them to tell them about the beginning of her mission and what she had seen in the Forest of Fire. With the civilian pace they were forced to take for Tazuna's sake, she had plenty of time to look around.
When Naruto and Sasuke woke up, she had had time to prepare eggs, to cut thick slices of bread and to garnish them with leftovers from the previous day's meat, quickly reheated in what was left of the fire. Managing a camp was very different with four shinobi than it was with only three, and having a civilian charge disturbed their habits as well. She had had trouble adjusting but felt better that morning, without exhaustion to numb her senses and thought process.
They broke camp an hour after the sun had risen. Two hours later, Hitomi finally saw that sign of an ambush she was expecting and fearing at the same time. Her eyes spotted the puddle, ten centimetres in width, that was laying in the middle of the way, and she had to suppress a sigh: this was just so fucking stupid. There had been no rain whatsoever in days in the area. Since they had left Konoha, they hadn't seen anything akin to traces of a past shower, and yet here that puddle was, so limpid it looked like it had formed barely a few minutes earlier.
She tapped her thigh in a seemingly erratic rhythm, using the Konohajin morse. She had learned that at the same time as the sign language, at the Academy, and had made sure her friends and cats could use it as well. The noise was weak, but she knew that Kakashi, with his hearing akin to a dog's, heard it. "Suspect element, she said. Probable ambush. Orders?"
The answer came quickly. "Stand down. Ascertain target."
Therefore, she pretended she was shocked, terrified even, when the two ninjas sprung out of the puddle in the middle of their group and sliced Kakashi in three pieces. She didn't have to look too deep inside herself to find those emotions: her heart was throbbing in her throat in anguish. She just gave them time to move clearly towards Tazuna then unsheathed her tantō and sliced her thumb open before slamming her hand against the ground. "Ninpō: The Iron Claws Brigade!"
Her three cats built for fighting appeared in a puff of smoke. Hoshihi stood in the middle, the tallest and most ferocious of their group, and immediately threw himself on the closest of the Demon Brothers, the one who was attacking Naruto. The two other cats followed, black and grey fur turning to a blur and a storm of feral hisses. At the same time, Hitomi stepped in front of the other assailant, Sasuke with her. She exchanged a glance with her brother and, without a word, they decided what to do.
With a brutal shove of her sword, Hitomi bought Sasuke the distraction he needed to stick that terrible shuriken chain the brothers were renowned for to a tree with a kunai. It didn't stop the duo for more than a second, just enough time to shed the now useless weapon. Despite that, they were still heavily armed, and the one Hitomi and Sasuke were fighting against seemed extremely offended to have been forced to abandon his favourite toy against mere Genin. He rushed towards Sasuke, steel claws extended, approaching his exposed throat.
"Water Style: Water Whip!" Hitomi didn't lose a second and made the weapon snap in the air, wrapping it around the enemy ninja's throat so she could pull downwards with all her strength to make him lose his balance. On Naruto's side, Haīro yowled in pain, dark red splattering his grey pelt. Fury exploded in her summoner, anger and failure mixing inside her to create an unstable and dangerous gush.
Hoshihi didn't give her time to be distracted or upset: every bit as furious as she was, he hit the nukenin so hard at the base of his spinal cord that he made the man scream with all he had. The first of the brothers fell on the ground, the cat immediately jumping to his throat mercilessly to end his life with a miserable, wet gurgling sound.
The last brother hissed in anger and doubled his efforts against the two children facing him. Hitomi's attack had barely annoyed him and he was slowly getting the advantage on them, one hit after the other. Suddenly, he managed to make her trip and to push Sasuke away. He raised his steel claws, the gleam of a cruel smile in his eyes, and…
And a kunai went through his hand like butter, stopping him from killing the girl who had his brother's blood on her hands. His eyes widened with sudden terror and with the pain rushing through his arm, he realised, far too late, that he had never had the slightest chance of killing Hatake Kakashi. Neither he nor his brother had been strong enough for such an opponent, and yet they had thought… The last of the Demon Brothers was thrown against a tree, his spinal cord breaking with a sickening snap, and he stopped thinking forever.
Deep silence fell on the road all of a sudden, its soil already drinking blood. Hitomi tried to catch her breath on the damp patch of grass where she had fallen so close to her own demise. She was slightly dizzy, her muscles sorer than they had ever been in any training. The knee the other ninja had hit to make her fall hurt and throbbed, a bruise already blooming on her skin. Tazuna, who had been protected all that time by Kurokumo and Naruto, was as pale as a corpse behind the sea of clones the jinchūriki had used to shield him, but he was alive and well.
That much couldn't be said of the Demon Brothers. In the canon, they had survived this encounter. As she recovered, Hitomi couldn't tear her gaze away from the body fallen under Hoshihi's body, still bristling in anger, and more specifically from the dark red wound on his throat. For her cat, this hadn't been more than taking out a particularly feisty prey. For her… It was the first death she was truly responsible for. The fact that this responsibility was indirect didn't matter.
She sat up, her eyes wide and her skin sickeningly pale, her hands contracting like talons around the guard of her tantō. Something balled like a fist inside her chest and she realised, as if she was out of her own body, that her breathing had turned hoarse, shallow, painful. Her shoulders tensed weakly, a buzzing sound invaded her ears, and she stayed there trying to understand, unable to calm down or stand up.
Suddenly, Kakashi's hands and chakra were on her. She lost her eyes in his, both of his, one black and the other red, red… A shudder ran through her whole body like a ripple through still water and her eyelids dropped down.