"—Did you know, Sir, that in Konoha, you are considered a legal adult once you reach genin status? And that, in a strange coincidence, the orphanage is no longer obligated once a child is recognized as an adult?"
She finished what she considered a sufficient explanation, and stared unnervingly still at the foreign kage.
"Ko! What are you doing?!" Another member of the genin corps furiously whispered. "You can't say things like that to foreign leaders! What part of shut up and clean up did you not get?!"
She turned cold eyes on the girl being annoyingly loud, "Konoha is about to have more concerns than a mouthy genin."
Picking up an empty drink tray laid out for the executive class, she continued down the tunnel towards the kitchens, heedless of the frantic questioning behind her.
"Ko! What did you sense?! Ko, what's going on?!"
She snorted, in the strictest definition she certainly was a sensor type, but not in any useful degree. Even comparing her inborn ability to the class of Senju-sama or even the Inuzuka was laughable.
The most she could do was know the taste of different chakras. And in a world where it was as common as air, if she didn't know the individual chakra intimately, then she couldn't recognize it. She couldn't even track with it as a taste left no trail, if she trained her whole life with the ability, the most she would be able to do is spot a henge of a friend somewhat reliably.
But that chakra of the foreign kage, no matter how masked, one couldn't twist themselves into infinite variables, she knew that one. It sat heavy and bitter at the back of her throat. Syrupy dark melted chocolate dripping down, dangerous in its alluring potential.
There was only one man with that chakra, and fourteen years wasn't long enough to forget its taste.
Or the feeling of abandonment, betrayal. Hurt, not being good enough, and acceptance, knowing that she would never be good enough.
For the village, for a family, or for him to come back for.
"So, how are you doing with the invasion? Any lingering paranoia?" Nara-san leaned slightly back in his seat, idly fiddling with a pen, the picture of nonchalance.
She heard the unspoken question of if she would be back to the toil and grind of the genin corps. As if she had been doing anything but, the aftermath of the attack leading to nothing but days and nights of construction and rehabilitation labor.
Yet despite the inaneness of the question, her shoulders dropped the line of tension drumming through them minutely. That other genin corps member, the annoying girl, had perished in the first line. But she had not managed to tell anyone before being taken out by the Sound, a small mercy. For Ko.
She tilted her head slightly, "Are you qualified to be playing therapist?"
Nara-san pointed the pen at her meaningfully, "Avoiding the question and you know that. Besides, who else after you disqualified Yamanaka-san. Some believe that I'd be more resilient to a 'conflict of interest'"
His air quotes made her snort, but not laugh, not show teeth, her illogical fear of flashing burgundy canines halting her. She didn't even want to talk, afraid that with the movement of her jaw, the parting of her sealed lips, that blood would gargle and flood down her chin.
But not talking would only draw the session out longer, she knows from experience. At least Nara-san is laid back enough, on the surface at least, to not cite her for insubordination.
She coughed once, violently and suddenly, her momentary distraction overwhelming her with the coppery taste of freshly split blood. She wasn't sure she could ever become accustomed to Nara-san's rather 'unique' chakra signature.
"Feeling alright there? Not coming down with anything hopefully." He enquired, pleasantly even. The bastard. As if he wasn't perfectly aware of the discomfort that being in enclosed spaces with him caused her.
She fell back against the wooden chair, in a calculated easy sprawl. Rolling her shoulders, she finally got around to his initial question to end the session, "I'm in the genin corps Nara-san, I'm always paranoid. I'll continue performing my duty as usual under the new Hokage."
Instead of dismissing her as usual, a wounded pout found itself on Nara-san, what, "Aw Ko-chan, still with the stuffy Nara-san? You know that makes me feel old. Aren't we friends?"
He was messing with her.
He adopted a faux thoughtful expression. Tapping the pen against the scar cutting through his lip he mused, "What is it dear Ino-chan calls my lazy son? Ah! Shika-kun!"
He was definitely messing with her.
He sent a grin her way that chilled her spine. Her corp-mates once likened it to a wolf, but Ko disagreed. A wolf hunts to eat, to survive. A herbivore hunts for the kill.
"Wouldn't a nickname bring us much closer Ko-chan?"
She snarled, "I'd rather die." And stood up so fast the spindly wooden chair was kicked behind her as she paced towards the door, but his voice stopped her in her tracks,
"That can be arranged."
In the corps, assumed familiarity with her superior's superior would eventually get her killed, as corps members would sell out their own mother for a chance at a favorable posting, but Commander Nara Shikaku could get it done so much faster.
She turned around to face him, his eyes sharp and jaw set, they were apparently about to discuss why she was really called in.
He tapped at a sheath of paper he unearthed, one flimsy paperclip trying its hardest to hold the sheets together, "Sit down, I have a few questions about your Invasion Position."
She let out a curse as her toe stubbed against a flat edge in the dark of the barracks. Judging by her position, Ai probably left her kit outside her parameters, again.
She passed another set of bunks and sighed in relief when she reached hers, laying down and tugging the blankets up and falling into sleep.
"Ko, did you not put out or something? Commander Nara was in a mood when I got called in today."
Or not.
Coming from the bunk above her. Emon must be back. Great. He spent every other weekend visiting his parents, but lived the rest of the time in the barracks due to the almighty rows he and his sister would always get into.
She thought back to the last few numbing days of construction and petty gossip spread to liven the work. Earlier in the morning someone had spectacularly failed in the execution of an earth jutsu and ended up having the chakra buildup misfire, landing a teammate in the emergency tent.
Yeah, that sounds like Emon.
"You should try doing your job rather than depending on someone to prep him for you."
She could hear rustling as the man shifted around, "You just think you're better than us because you know some clan kids."
"Speak for yourself Emon. And you wouldn't have to deal with Commander Nara if it wasn't Commander Itō that you hit. You know Itō-san always goes easy on you."
Ah, Ai was present too, though by her rough voice, woken up, and not too happy about it. Emon could apparently hear it too as he just huffed and said nothing further.
If she makes it back to Konoha she's going to gut that rat bastard from division 2-A. She should have been running file gopher right now, not on 'border patrol' with a squad unfamiliar to her.
There's apparently a saying in Cloud that prey backed into a corner becomes the predator, though whoever likened that to Cloud had never hung around the barracks long enough for the gallows humor to come full play.
Squadron Leader 400D9 caught her gaze with his last eye, "I'll say hi to your parents for you ey?" The teasing lilt barely left the air before two halves slid apart in bloody carnage.
Ko was that last one left. But she was used to that.
She stared down at the lone kunai in her white knuckled grip, felt the unknown substance, but certainly that of her comrades, congeal in her hair, and blinked.
Between one blink and the next, the sharp tang of hot sauce and corrosive pineapple melted away, her kunai already rusting from the browning blood coating it's surface. The daytime that had seemed so elusive before now broke down in big bright rays, lighting up the field of broken bodies in gruesome pastels.
Feeling the pain in her hand from where many headbands were cutting her palm, Ko stumbled up from her crouch and began the long trek back, red shiny footprints trailing off into the tree line.
"Ko-chan, can you tell me what the last thing you remember is?"
Nara-san rested his forearms on his desk, peering at her without scrutiny. Like he actually cared about his question. She knew what he really asked.
Are you breaking?
Almost nineteen years old, fifteen being for the service of the Country, and only now she was seeing the obvious fractures. It's a wonder that she took so long. The burnout rate in the corps was astronomically fast, although most didn't live to see it, being that they were, in every sense of the word, cannon fodder. Their division made up of orphans and street kids, manipulation and backstabbing just tokens to be exchanged to try and hold on just a little bit longer. To escape from the Shinigami just a few more days.
She hated Emon.
With Nara-san staring at her, waiting for an answer he knew she would not give, all she could think about was how much she hated that snot nosed teenager.
He had a family, and siblings, a backup plan. And he chose to be here. Not only that, but he could walk away.
She never got that choice, lost in the constant shuffle of being someone else's problem, she wasn't even sure if she knew how to make an independent decision not based on orders, beyond her petty small rebellions. Don't speak when not spoken too. The base rule of the corps, and the easiest to break.
The buildup at the back of her throat became thicker, and rough fingertips grazed the edge of her jaw, lifting her chin to meet Nara-san's dark gaze, who even on one knee was taller than her by a head.
"Ko-chan, I'm going to need that answer. I have a feeling you don't want me to call in Yamanaka-san."
Her hand unconsciously swept over a row of bandages hidden by her thick dark pants, a gut wound, fatal if left, painful, but one of the longest ways to die. Long enough to make it through the gates.
"I left the border, and returned to Konoha"
A small frown tugged at the corner of his mouth and she knew, in the freefall where her gut would have been, that she had answered wrong. Somehow, telling the truth, and the only answer she had, was wrong.
In the pause, he trailed from her jaw to examine the healing gash across her cheekbone, now a raw bright red of new skin thanks to the application of healing chakra,
"What do you think the month is, Ko-chan?"
Instinctively, did he think she was an idiot, she spat out "July".
But looking past his disheartened, almost pitying, expression, she looked out the window and observed for perhaps the first time in a long while. The trees, that were so bountiful in their village, were burnt oranges and falling browns, and the littler ones held no leaves at all.
She was fighting the currents of time, it seemed, and was losing miserably.
With a hand on her shoulder, Nara-san stood up, but kept her in the chair.
"I'm going to take you off of active duty. With the hubbub of the administration building I'm sure they wouldn't mind a new assistant for the time being."
The new Hokage. A renowned medical ninja with her apprentice who she trained herself from a young age. The tower guards, most trusted in the village. She was being monitored.
Threat. Liability. Tool. And eventually, taken out.
It seems like she's achieved what few before her have in the corps, outlived her usefulness.
The hand around her wrist slid her out of her thoughts and to standing pause, awaiting new orders.
Nara-san made for the door with a soft still pitying, "Hey none of that. I'll take you to your new station, but I can't stay much longer. Be nice."
She wished she could say that being led through the office hallways and across the village by Nara-san was unexpected, but it was quite the norm. He always had her by the wrist or the arm, notably one time with her arm in a sling he had tugged her along by the strap of her messenger bag. It was like he thought that she would make a runner at any give, although the difference being in their ranks, she didn't see the point but did see the futility if she had half a mind to do so.
The Hokage tower, a short squat building, stood out for its bright red among the surrounding darks of the other structures. She didn't have long to linger on the tactics of having such an obvious building before being inside and shoved into an outer office with a "Have fun!".
A girl pouring over an ungodly thick book in the corner of the room giggled and gave her a slight wave. She focused on the girls unevenly choppy hair and with a frantic short laugh the thought that it would send any Yamanaka into a stroke ran across her mind.
Cautiously stepping over to the girls table, she searched her mind for any conversation starters, desperate to not just sit alone and wait for a command.
"So you, um, work here?"
The girl bobbed her head, "Sort of!" She stuck out an ink covered hand, "Hi! I'm Haruno Sakura!"