.
It is not only for what we do that we are
held responsible, but also for what we do not do.
I twirled my spoon around the bowl of soup, my eyes drifting off to stare at the still-dark morning sky. An untouched cup of tea—green and with a hint of honey—sat on the kitchen table in front of me, wisps of steam curling off its surface.
"How's your teacher doing?"
I turned to look at Tazuna, not stopping the absent motion of my hand. "Alright. He's at no risk of bleeding out and isn't showing any sign of infection."
The sounds of utensils scraping against bowls and food being chewed droned on in the background, Sasuke and Tsunami both in the process of finishing their meals as well. Naruto was upstairs, sound asleep, as he was staying behind for the day to help Sasuke keep watch on the house.
Aside from a brief, half-second glance at Inari the night prior, he had avoided us like the plague, remaining holed up in his room during dinner and refusing to come down for breakfast, despite the fact that his chakra signature indicated that he was awake.
It was probably for the best.
"Why hasn't he woken up yet?" Tazuna asked around a bite of his breakfast.
"Chakra exhaustion," I answered. "If we're lucky, he'll come around again today, but I doubt it. It'll probably at some point tomorrow that he wakes up."
"Great. Guess I'm just stuck with you brats for now, then."
"Sucks to suck," I muttered.
A tired, half hearted scoff sounded to my right; Sasuke was staring down at his plate but there was the ghost of a smirk tugging at his lips.
"Which one of you is coming with me?" he asked.
"I am," I said. "Sasuke and Naruto agreed to take charge of watching the house while I go with you to the bridge."
There had been, to my surprise, no resistance from either of the boys when I proposed that arrangement the night prior. Naruto didn't seem eager to protest anything I said at this point and, somehow, Sasuke had had no desire to spend any extended amount of time alone with Tazuna—who would have guessed?
"We're leaving in fifteen minutes," Tazuna told me. "I want to be there before the heat gets too bad."
"Got it." I pushed back from the table. "I need to go get changed and finish packing, then. I'll be back down in a few minutes."
My feet had carried me halfway to the entrance of the kitchen when Tsunami called, "Kasumi."
"What?" I asked, turning to look at her.
Her lips had pulled down into a slight frown and the lines around her eyes had tightened, her gaze shifting between my dishes and my face.
"Was the soup not to your liking?" she asked. "You barely touched it last night, as well."
I blinked. "It—no, it was fine. I'm just not hungry."
She appeared unconvinced. "Is that all?"
No. "Yeah, honest."
"If that's the case, I'll pack it for you," Tsunami said. She abandoned her own breakfast and gathered up what I had left of the meal. "You can bring it with you for later."
"It's fine, I can eat when I get back."
She turned her attention back to me and stared me down with hard eyes. "I insist," she said, a heat and vehemence in her voice that had me biting back any further refusal. "It'll only take a moment. I'll have it ready for you when you come back down."
I nodded and continued on my way upstairs.
Packing the rest of my things into my bag was a short affair. I threw extra bandages—just in case—into the front pockets, extra water bottles and ration bars into the main pouch, my drawing pad into the middle nook, and emergency money into the inside zipper. There was some distance to walk so I did my best to pack light.
With that accomplished I slipped off my pajamas and redid the bandage that covered the top half of my arm, double checking the wound for any sign of infection. The mesh had taken the brunt of the damage, leaving the garment with a chunk of exposed ninja wire that had lost its fabric covering to show for it, but a wound was a wound and I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.
A t-shirt and a pair of shorts went overtop a layer of mesh, my kunai holster found its place on my thigh, and I was ready to go.
I opened the door to the room and took a step back, startled, when I found Sasuke waiting for me in the hallway. His face was set and his shoulders were squared and there was something clenched in his fist.
"What—"
"Take these," he said and shoved a couple of ration bars into my hands.
The packaging crinkled in my grip. They were the same as what I had stowed away in my bag, some of the higher grade bars made by the Akimichi.
I frowned. "I've got some already packed."
"Then eat these ones too."
"I don't need to, I've got enough—"
"You skipped dinner and breakfast," Sasuke said.
"I wasn't hungry."
His scowl, ever present on his face, intensified. "You not taking care of yourself is a danger to the mission."
The words sent a jolt through my system; my fingers locked in place where they were curled around the ration bars and my back stiffened.
"Look, it's fine—"
"It's not."
I could stand there and argue with him or I could accept defeat for the sake of my peace of mind.
"Thanks," I muttered and shoved the bars into my pack.
Sasuke gave a jerky nod, hands sliding into his pockets. He stared at me for a couple of seconds. Then, he nodded again and turned on his heels, slinking down the hall to his own room.
.
.
Walking through the village for the first time was an experience.
The streets were filthy, with so much garbage and rotten food littering the ground that the stench permeated every breath I took in, a layer of grime coating every inch of the pavement. Shops were closed and boarded up. There were people begging for food on every corner, the desperation of their situation painted clear across their gaunt faces.
"How long has it been like this?" I asked.
"The village?" he grunted in return.
"Yeah."
Tazuna heaved a sigh, a hand rising to rub at his chin. "Few years? Five, at most. It was gradual, at first, when he first started taking over the trade routes. He only took a small section at first. Nobody was happy about it, but nobody thought to stop him, not even when it began to inch outwards. Then out of nowhere he swept up the rest and got a full stranglehold on the whole industry… everything just went downhill from there."
"And now he's starving everybody out."
"Slowly but surely," he confirmed. "He keeps people who're useful to him alive, gives them extra food and other supplies. Anybody else just has to get along as best they can."
"I'm assuming you don't fall into that category."
"Not by a long shot."
As much as I hated Tazuna for the position he had put us in I had to admit that, to some extent, I felt a grudging respect towards him for having the guts to stand up against a tyrant when he just as easily could have kept his head down. There was still a part of me—a very, very large part of me—that wanted to punch him in the face for the position he had put our team in, but at least walking through that village, seeing the dire reality that the people of Wave were facing with my own eyes, I could understand what motivated him to do what he did.
Sometimes, you had to fuck somebody else over for the sake of the ones you loved.
.
.
I sat on the bridge, legs crossed and eyes shut, monitoring the area through my chakra sense.
There was no high ground available for me to keep watch from, no hidden niche I could set up camp at while I kept watch. It had my nerves sparking some, but I managed to reign them in without much issue.
I was somewhat confident that the day would go off without a hitch. With how little time had passed, Gato would have recently become aware that Zabuza and Haku had failed, if he even knew at all, leaving little chance for him to have scrounged up somebody to send in their stead. If he was going to send more ninja to kill Tazuna he'd do it the next day or the day after and I intended to be around when that happened.
I needed to know who he sent—more specifically, how strong they were. Whoever he sent as a followup to Zabuza and Haku would be telling of what type of ninja connections he had.
Gato was a corrupt business man, not a ninja, and I doubted that he was capable of comprehending the differences in strength that were present among ninja. Few people who lived this far off from the villages could. Case in point, he genuinely believed that a collection of civilian thugs and a couple of low-level ninja would be capable of taking down Zabuza and Haku. It might have worked with Haku, as they could have overwhelmed him, but Zabuza? Not a chance. That was obvious to anybody with half of a brain and any experience with ninja to draw on.
There was an unpredictability to Gato in that he could afford to throw jonin after jonin our way, but that he could end up sending mere genin out of ignorance.
The sound of my stomach growling snapped me back to reality, the cold gnawing in my belly hitting me in full force. I turned my gaze up to the sun, which was beginning to start its descent towards the horizon and marked the time as past noon, past when I should have eaten.
I reached for my bag, removed the tin, removed the spoon, and forced the liquid down mouthful by mouthful. When it didn't make a reappearance, the ration bars followed. It all tasted like ash. I didn't let myself spit any of it out, though. I choked down every last bit and hoped that my stomach wouldn't reject it.
I had to keep it together. I had to keep myself in top condition.
I was fine.
My eyes fell across the various men gathered, working to save their home. My mind conjured up images of Naruto, Sasuke, Kakashi.
There were more lives at risk than my own if I slipped up, misstepped, and cracked under the pressure.
I was fine.
.
.
The house was silent when Tazuna and I returned.
Naruto was training out front, Sasuke was buzzing around on the edge of my chakra sense, Tsunami was somewhere upstairs, and Inari had wandered off to who knew where in his quest to avoid any and all contact with the rest of us. Everything was as I had expected to find it, a small comfort.
I slid my shoes off, tossing them onto the mat, and padded into the kitchen. Tazuna did the same and headed straight for the stairs behind me, thudding towards the upper levels of the house. I rinsed out the dishes, discarded the ration bar wrappers, and made myself a cup of tea that I doubted I would drink, flitting around the room more on habit than anything else. Even so, the tea came with me, sloshing back and forth as I climbed the staircase.
My destination was the bedroom Kakashi and I were sharing, as it was my turn to check his bandages and replace them if necessary. I was standing at the door, my hand closed around the doorknob, when the sight of Tsunami pacing caught my eye, one hand splayed across her forehead and the other wrapped around her midsection. She was muttering to herself, whispered nothings that were too faint for my ears to catch even as I strained them.
I let my fingers slip off the brass, my hand fall to my side.
Tsunami didn't look up as I pushed the door open and took a step into the room. "Is something going on?" I asked.
Her head snapped up to look at me. "What, I—no dear, of course not." Her eyes flicked up to the clock that hung on the wall of the room and back to me. "It's nothing. I should really be starting on supper."
She gave me a tight smile and brushed past me on her way out, patting my shoulder as she did.
I let her go.
There were a million and one reasons that Tsunami had to be worried and anxious, all of which fell under the category of 'not my business'. I was there to complete my mission, not pry into their personal lives.
I closed the door shut behind me, crossed the hallway, and got down to the actual reason I had headed up stairs in the first place: nurse duty.
The rebandaging and disinfecting of the remnants of Kakashi's wounds took all of half an hour to complete. Once finished, I secured the last of Kakashi's bandages with a small sigh, rocking back on my heels to judge my work—it was sloppy but functional, which was enough for me. Besides, Sasuke would be fixing them in the morning, so my haphazard job didn't need to last for that long.
He was healing well, with no sign of infection and the mending process of the wounds moving along nicely, something that I had chalked up more to the fantastic healing properties of chakra rather than my or Sasuke's bandaging capabilities. The big gash, the one I suspected Kakashi sustained trying to block a blow meant for Naruto, would leave a jagged scar along the skin of his forearm, but the rest would heal and fade without anything to show for it.
Even without the full extent of my chakra sense, I could feel the shift in his chakra, conglomerating around the wounds that littered his skin as it circulated through his body. ninja healed at an accelerated rate even without the aid of medical ninjutsu. It wasn't absurd, mind, but it was noticeable, which was the only reason ninja lived through half the shit that they did.
I walked over to my bed and collapsed on top of it, ignoring the heaviness of my eyelids and the stiffness of my limbs.
Whether or not the chakra-boosted healing would be adequate nagged at my thoughts.
Gato could have been sending enemies our way the next day. I would be able to evacuate the men on the bridge, I was certain of that, but having a jonin around would go a long ways to easing my frayed nerves. Yet, with how low Kakashi's chakra reserves were even after a day of rest, I was questioning my previous claim that he would be awake at some point the next day, not to mention what state he would be in if he did. He wouldn't be in any condition to engage in a serious fight without another few days of bedrest to allow for his chakra reserves to reach a respectable size and his skin to finish stitching itself back together.
He would get there eventually, but until then, we were on our own.
We had to figure things out for ourselves.
A hand rose to finger the messy, unkempt braid that my hair had been pulled back into since the previous morning, strands of auburn flying loose and swishing around my shoulders—I couldn't be bothered to weave them back into place.
"Hey! Hey, Kaka! Come on, dinner's ready!" Naruto called, the words muffled and garbled by the door.
I gave one last look at our teacher before I hauled myself upright and padded out of the room.
.
.
I took a bite of the soup, the taste identical to that of what we had eaten this morning and the night before, sweet, a vague hint of some meat tinting the broth, and stared out the minuscule square window imprinted into the wall above the sink.
The only upside I had found in the Land of Waves so far were the gorgeous sunsets.
Luminous pinks and purples and oranges spilling out over the azure expanse, greeting the sun as it dropped below the horizon and ushered in the night. There were sunsets like that in Konoha, of course, but there was something about being away from home that made the sight of it all the sweeter, a sort of foreign mystique that I couldn't quite shake as I feasted my eyes upon it.
The day had come and gone without incident.
Sasuke detected no suspicious persons in and around the forest, Naruto didn't see anybody come within eyeshot of the property, I hadn't come across anybody while guarding the bridge. I doubted that would last through the next day, so I took the chance to let my shoulders droop and my mind unwind itself from the mental knots it was running itself into. I let myself take a minute to breathe.
"Inari should have been back by now."
The spoon fell from my fingers and my heart skipped a beat; ice coursed through my veins. If there had been any soup left in my mouth I had no doubt I would have choked on it.
What?
Tsunami was wringing her hands, eyes flicking from the empty chair beside her to the front door of the home, a palpable wave of anxiety rolling off of her. The air around the dinner table grew stifling, her words sending both the boys and myself into high alert.
No.
It didn't take a genius to discern the implication of her words—which, given the fact that I hadn't bothered to account for the safety of Inari and Tsunami, hadn't even considered that they might become targets in my own machinations, I felt I was the exact opposite. Leaving Naruto and Sasuke behind to guard the home had been a formality in my mind, a 'what if' scenario that I hadn't given a passing thought.
No.
It couldn't be.
"When did he leave?" I asked her.
"I—I'm not sure," she murmured in a trembling voice. "I left to go get groceries during the early afternoon, and by the time I returned, he had already left for the day."
I turned my attention to the boys.
"I was scouting in the forest most of the day," Sasuke said.
Naruto squirmed in his seat. "I dunno… it was, uh… maybe around noon?"
"So roughly six hours ago," I said. "A lot of distance can be covered in six hours."
"He's not allowed to go far and he has to be back in time for dinner. He knows that."
"Either way, he's nowhere in a six kilometre radius," I said.
There was no trace of Inari on my chakra sense. If he was on his way back to the house I would have been able to sense him. Either he had started walking in the opposite direction of the house and never stopped, or there was something preventing him from coming home.
I hoped for the prior but expected the latter was the reality of the situation.
The thought had me shoving away a rush of nausea.
"He's probably fine, right Kaka?"
I clenched my fists so hard that my nails engraved eight well-formed crescent shapes into the skin of my palms. "I'm going to go and scout around," I said. "Can you send out some clones, Naruto? We'll cover more ground that way."
"Uh, yeah—yeah, of course."
"I'm coming," Sasuke said.
I waved a hand at him, a vague, nonverbal way of expressing my assent. I couldn't be bothered to stop him.
We departed in silence without delay.
The first place we investigated was the path that led towards the village. It was a desolate, winding road, made up of dirt and lined by forest on one side and the ocean shore on the other, the perfect place to snatch up a child without witness. I had no training in tracking, nor did Sasuke. The Academy didn't cover it. Instead, we were forced to rely on my charka sense and the child-sized footsteps imprinted into the dirt every so often, what of them hadn't been swept away and buried in dust by the breeze that rolled off of the ocean.
We didn't have to go far, though. The sense of dread, which had begun to build the second we'd left the house, swelled when I spotted a blue and white striped hat that lay discarded in the middle of the road, crumpled and stained.
I jerked to a stop, my eyes glued ahead of me.
No.
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
Seeing it there, with no hint of Inari's chakra signature in the general vicinity, was a punch in the gut that I had attempted to, and failed at, steeling myself for. The minuscule ray of hope that I had held wilted in the face of reality.
It had been left behind as a message, waiting there for us whether we found it that evening or stumbled upon it on the way into the village the next morning.
The placement of the hat was deliberate and unnatural, as if it had been set down rather than knocked off. More than that, Inari would have picked his hat back up. He had been wearing it the one time that I had seen him. He wore it in all of the pictures that were littered around Tazuna's home. He wouldn't have left it behind.
"That's his hat," Sasuke said.
"Yeah," I said. "That's his hat."
I closed the distance between myself and the hat.
There were no obvious traps. No explosive notes, no chakra that I could sense. I stooped down and lifted up the hat, revealing a note that had been left beneath it. I forced my hand to steady when I reached out and plucked the note up off the ground, holding it between my thumb and my forefinger, my breath catching in my throat as I read what was on it.
"What does it say?" Sasuke asked, an edge in his words.
My voice shook as I read out, "It's either the bridge or the boy, your choice."