.
Death is not the greatest loss. The greatest loss
is what dies inside of us while we live.
I crept forward, crouching down in the bushes, and raised a hand to move stray branches from my path.
The silhouette of a sprawling building greeted my gaze, the mansion made visible by the light streaming out of its windows. That was our destination. That was Gato's base.
Both of the boys remained in a thicker part of the forest. From my peripheral, I caught sight of Naruto fidgeting and Sasuke directing a sullen glare at the ground in front of him, his hands shoved in his pockets. Their lips moved, annoyed eyes met and parted—they were bickering. Kakashi followed at my shoulder rather than stay behind—for a man who shouldn't even be standing, his movements were silent and carried out with a surprising amount of grace. I envied his ability to mask his condition.
I altered my path a smidgen to avoid the sight of a civilian guard that was skulking around the perimeter of the base. His head appeared to be shifting out towards the forest every so often, remaining turned to stare out into the trees for a split second and then facing forward again, as if he wasn't expecting to see anything each time he looked.
Idiot.
"Inattentive guards," I mumbled, my voice pitched for Kakashi's ears alone. "Either Gato's trying to lull us into a false sense of security, he isn't expecting us to strike tonight, or he was too stupid to alert his security teams of a potential threat."
Kakashi made a vague noise of assent but offered no other reply.
I gritted my teeth and kept to my job.
When we were close enough, I dropped down to one knee, and the grasp I held on my chakra sense loosened. The tenebrous night was breached by an abundance of sparks, flickering with life; every chakra signature in the base, both above and below ground, fell within my grasp. The building had two visible floors, but the four layers of signatures displayed to me marked the base as having two underground levels as well.
A pair of signatures stationed in the middle of the top floor gave the loudest calls for my attention. Brighter than the rest, but not that bright. Genin. It sat in a strategically sound part of the building, as there were far fewer windows peppered along the walls of the uppermost level when compared to the rest of the building, giving intruders fewer chances to get inside. Upon closer inspection, the windows all seemed to be guarded, to boot.
The signatures weren't alone in that room. There were three other wispy collections of chakra in the near vicinity, one of which I was certain represented Gato. The other two could belong to other guards, business partners, prostitutes—it was impossible to be certain of anything except that they were civilian.
I closed my sense and took a deep breath, massaging my temples to ward off the headache forming in the space between my eyes.
Kakashi remained silent.
"I found two genin in the middle of the top floor," I said. "There's three other signatures in the room with them—one of them is Gato, I'm guessing."
"Inari?" Kakashi asked.
"Haven't found him," I replied.
His signature wasn't familiar enough that I could pick it out of a crowd, especially not when that crowd comprised of hundreds of civilian signatures packed inside a single building. People were making deals, partaking in various recreational activities—some more savoury than others, I assumed—and generally doing the types of things that were done inside a major crime hub. There was a lot happening and I had to sift through all of it to find Inari.
I started from the bottom, the lowest underground floor, and filtered out the signatures from the rest of the building as best I could. His chakra, the outline of the shape smaller and churning with a unique intensity, caught my attention as I scanned one of the hallways near the middle of the floor.
"He's on the bottom floor," I said. "Two signatures are on either side of him, and another two just in front of him—they aren't moving at all."
"Good."
Kakashi turned and slunk off, a waved hand over his shoulder serving as my signal to follow him.
Both of the boys looked up when we approached.
"Did ya find him?" Naruto asked, reigning in the volume of his voice at the last second when Sasuke elbowed him in the ribs.
"Quiet down, idiot."
My mouth pulled down in a frown.
"None of that now," Kakashi said. "We have a job to do. You're ninja—act like it."
Kakashi gestured towards me. "Yeah, we found them," I said. "He and Gato are pretty much in opposite parts of the building."
Naruto's expression brightened a fraction and then drooped, the whole of the statement hitting him. Sasuke grunted, scuffed his foot against the ground.
"The plan isn't changing," Kakashi said. "Kasumi, I want you to focus on Naruto and Sasuke—I'll handle myself."
I forced down the mixed emotions of annoyance and frustration, that infuriating hint of relief, and nodded. "Sure."
"Sasuke, you're going to come with me. I'll pick our point of entrance and lead you to the downstairs entrance, then we'll split off from there," Kakashi said, directing his eye to Sasuke. He gave him a hard stare. "You're going to be relying on Kasumi to direct you. If she tells you something, you aren't to argue with her."
Sasuke grunted in reply.
Kakashi's gaze didn't waver from him. "Sasuke, am I understood?" he asked. His expression didn't change, nor did the volume of his voice or the laxness of his posture, but his tone had gained an undercurrent of steel.
"Yes."
"Good," Kakashi said. He huffed out a breath and raised a hand to rest it on his hip, tilted his head. "Naruto, you're going to come with us as well. I want you to provide support for Sasuke while the clones are out and creating chaos. In case Kasumi struggles with keeping track of you two and the people around you, your job is to make sure Sasuke gets to the target safe and sound. Is that clear?"
"Uh-huh."
An aura of tension drifted between the boys but neither of them would argue with direct orders, not with the stakes that were at play.
"Kasumi, I want you stationed near the point of entrance," Kakashi said. "I want you to have it in your line of sight."
"Got it."
"Keep things clean," Kakashi continued. "Disable anybody you can and take the clones out as you go. They'll be helpful to cause chaos, but they'll get in our way as easily as the enemies if we aren't careful." He straightened and clapped his hands together. "All settled, then. Off we go kids."
It took two trips around the building for Kakashi to make his decision.
There was a large window straight past the tree line from where he stood, wide open, light streaming out and the smell of fresh cooked meat wafting through the air. I could sense a handful of people milling around the room and an area attached to it that was filled to the brim with signatures, but the windows along the nearest wall revealed an empty hallway. It appeared to stretch past the actual dining area, reaching further than the mass of signatures contained in front of it. It was a pathway for staff to ferry meals throughout the building—perfect for what I assumed Kakashi had in mind.
I picked the nearest tree and scaled it. The vantage point from the top branches was ideal, a place where I was hidden from sight by the foliage but still had a clear view of the building below. A bit of chakra on the soles of my feet, a bit of chakra in my hands, and I was secured to the tree; I shut my eyes and opened up my chakra sense.
"What's the situation like on the inside?" Kakashi asked, his voice crackling over the intercom.
"Four in the first room, maybe thirty in the room adjoined to it," I replied. "The hallway that wraps around is empty, though."
"Update us as we go."
"Understood."
There was an explosion of chakra to my left, an army of Naruto clones filling up the forest around me. Hundreds of them. Naruto created more clones than there were people in the base. That was ideal, as the job of the clones was to cause a ruckus, to overwhelm the people inside, to distract them and take out who they could, while the real Team 7 accomplished the objectives.
"Everybody clear?" Kakashi asked.
"Yes."
"Yep."
"Yeah."
"Alright," Kakashi said. "Go, Naruto."
The sheer volume of the stampeding clones rivalled that of thunder cracking through the sky during a vicious storm. One by one they shoved their way through the window, flooded the kitchen, and worked their way out into the dining hall, the entire room becoming one giant buzz of nervous chakra.
Kakashi, Sasuke, and the real Naruto slipped in after the last clone—as I suspected, they took the hallway tucked into the edge of the building.
The entire situation was a giant headache for me, a case of sensory overload like I had never experienced, with hundreds of signatures around the building that called for my attention and pricked at my awareness. I struggled to keep from being overwhelmed by the spectacle; staring at it was like staring directly at the sun. It was close, it was bright, and my chakra sense kept attempting to force itself shut in response.
Kakashi made a point of pulsing his chakra every few steps to hold my focus on their group, and he had instructed Sasuke to do the same. The fewer enemies that were active and moving around, the fewer clones that were present, the further they went, the easier things became.
Breathe.
"Group of three coming up on your nine."
Kakashi's signature broke ahead of the boys and headed straight for the civilians who were clumped up together. I expected the signatures to disappear. Instead, they dropped in quick succession, dulled but not snuffed out.
"Any others in the immediate vicinity?" Kakashi asked.
Focus.
"There's two to your north-east, but they're occupied with the clones," I said. "Three more past them—they're heading towards the other two, I think. Then there's a couple coming up on your twelve, but there's also a group of clones between you and them so that should keep them occupied while you slip ahead."
"We need to take the path to our twelve," Kakashi said. Their signatures went on the move again. "Target updates?"
Don't get distracted.
My grip tightened on the bark, bits of it digging into the skin of my palm.
"The signatures of the ninja on the top floor are a bit agitated. They moved a bit, too, probably guarding the door. There's just one other civilian signature with them," I said. I shifted my focus, forced out a breath. "There' only two signatures around Inari now. The other two went to investigate the commotion, I think. Oh—there's a civilian signature coming up on your three, ETA ten seconds."
Kakashi moved to meet them head-on. They offered him no resistance.
Forward, forward, forward. Winding, bobbing, weaving. Two distinct blobs moving through the madness, a third trailing behind that blended into the mass so well that I stopped attempting to keep track of it.
A minute had ticked by when I felt their signatures stop.
"Here," Kakashi said. A pause, a ruffling of clothes; those words weren't meant for me. "We're separating."
"Understood."
Kakashi's chakra went from pulsing to tucked in, a conscious reigning in of his chakra that was a habit I assumed had been ingrained in him through years of experience. In contrast, Sasuke's chakra grew more distinct, a lone grey cloud intermingled with a bright summer sky.
The boys started their descent towards Inari and though the majority of my attention remained with them, a part of it took note of the utter lack of activity that followed in Kakashi's wake. That was how I tracked Kakashi. Not by his own signature, but by the absence of signatures, the blank spaces of energy, that formed in the top level of the building. He left nothing behind, the signatures of the clones dispersing first and the human signatures second as he carved a path upwards.
Naruto and Sasuke were done with their floor in a handful of seconds. The way down was close, within the first few hallways they searched, and at that point it became my job to guide them towards their goal.
At the same time, Kakashi was nearing the top of the base. The genin signatures refused to abandon their charge. They would rethink that decision once they grasped the full extent of the threat heading their way—that is, if they were alive long enough to do so.
"Take the nearest left."
Their signatures moved a bit further down, made a sharp turn in that direction.
"As soon as you can, turn right."
A breath, two, and a ninety-degree shift in their movements.
"Go straight for as long as you can."
Forward, forward, forward, forward—a lack of motion.
"There's a left and right turn," Sasuke grunted, his voice somewhat laboured. "Which one?"
I wanted to say neither. Inari was further forward, further into the base, but if they took a left turn then they'd be moving away from him. "Go right."
Compared to the upper levels, the population on the bottom floor was sparse, with few clones and fewer civilians. Half of the people there were guarding Inari, and the other half were scattered amongst what I assumed was a labyrinth of hallways and rooms.
The light of chakra on the top floor burnt out—the entire visible part of the base was dark, save for the dim streak of metallic that was Kakashi.
Gato was dead. He was dead, gone, no longer a threat to us, to the village, and the entirety of Wave country.
A breath gushed out from me and the load on my shoulders lightened.
I waited for Kakashi to announce his completion. He remained silent and instead his signature stopped, slumped down, fell against something—a wall, presumably. His chakra was low. Moving around required little chakra, but having to keep his legs augmented for such a long period had worn his already low reserves down.
There were people heading in Kakashi's direction, guards from the ground floor who were making their way up to defend their boss.
"Kasumi."
Naruto and Sasuke had stopped moving.
"Sorry," I said, mentally shaking myself. Stupid. I forced my attention back to the boys, forced my mind to roll over the words that I had tuned out. "Right now he's twenty degrees northeast of your location. The path is making you overshoot. Just take the first path on your twelve that you can, but don't retrace your footsteps. I don't think you missed the right way."
"Tch."
The base was beginning to drain of signatures, those who chose to flee sprinting out from the doors and taking refuge in the forest. I didn't blame them as, regardless of his current lack of activity, I assumed Kakashi had plans for anybody that remained once he went on the prowl again.
I counted one, two, five, eight, thirteen signatures—I lost track and my attention snapped back to the boys.
"Signature on your left," I said.
I expected Sasuke to be the one to jump ahead and take the fight; Naruto's signature was the one to make the first hit. Sasuke's followed, a hair behind Naruto, and the opponent went down in the blink of an eye.
"Heh," Naruto huffed, the sound harshened and distorted by the comms. "How was that?"
"Whatever."
"Keep moving," I said. "You're getting close."
Inari was close, terribly close, enough so that I began to entertain the thought that my pessimistic outlook from earlier in the evening had been unfounded. I could taste our success.
They made it to the end of their hallway, took out the two guards who awaited them.
They hooked around the corner and sprinted forward.
They met up with the remaining two signatures that stood between them and Inari.
My breath rattled in my lungs, baited. My fingers curled around the branch beneath me in a grip that had the bark cracking under the pressure.
It wasn't either of the two boy's voices that alerted me of our success.
"You… you're here?"
That laugh that burst from me was near hysterical. My hands released the tree and weaved together over my mouth, a tear falling from my eye that I hadn't felt gather.
I had never heard that voice before—Inari hadn't so much as spared us a word after our arrival—but the boyish squeak and exhausted brittle that enraptured the spoken words was unmistakable.
"Yeah, Inari," Naruto answered. His voice was hoarse, scratchy, as if he were crying too. "We're here."
A strangled sob, distant and muffled, whispered from the speakers, and Inari's signature moved forward to collide with Naruto's.
"We've got him, Kakashi," Sasuke said, his voice smug. "He's fine. What now?"
"Good job. Make your way out and head back to Kasumi," Kakashi answered. "I'm nearly done."
Any hints of the hardened soldier that had slipped out earlier, doling orders with precision and an expectation of absolute obedience, were gone.
"Need help?" Naruto asked.
"Mah," Kakashi answered. "I'm a tired old man, but I can take care of myself."
His chakra was lower than I liked, but he wasn't using much of it to keep himself functioning and fighting—he'd be fine to finish up, though whether he'd be able to make it back afterwards was up in the air. Even then, should he not be able to make it back, Naruto could conjure up more clones and carry him on the trip home.
While neither of the boys seemed to have clued into it, I had a niggling idea of what Kakashi planned to do and why he wanted the boys out of the building when he did it.
Konoha ninja didn't leave messes and loose threads behind, and Kakashi was no exception.
"We're on our way," Sasuke said. His signature shifted. "Idi—" A short exhale. "Naruto. Grab the kid."
"Yeah, yeah."
Both groups moved towards each other.
Naruto and Sasuke wove their way through the floors. Sasuke took the lead and removed any imminent threats, and Naruto brought up the rear with Inari in tow. There were some who had been missed on the way down that headed towards the action. I wondered how many of them would laugh in the face of two children only for a foot to be planted in their mouths to silence the sound seconds later.
Kakashi was going downwards, but he wasn't in any rush to get to his destination. He had taken out the odd straggler when they got close earlier—he hadn't touched any of them, nor had his chakra fluxed, so I assumed he was taking them out with thrown weapons—and he kept that going. His progress was slow and little chakra circulated through his body. He restrained himself, saved his energy.
Naruto and Sasuke burst from out of the front door of the building rather than going out through the kitchen window. Inari continued to cry, his sobs loud enough that I could hear him from my position. The wails shattered the stillness in the air, sent it careening to the ground where it splintered into an irrevocable disaster. He was lucky that stealth was no longer a requirement.
I turned my comm to the private channel, linked to Kakashi and Kakashi alone. "They're out of the building."
"Thanks," came the dry reply.
Regardless of whether or not he had asked for the assistance, Kakashi acted on it, picked up his pace and started to move through the floors with gusto. His signature flashed with a hint of life and he began to circulate the chakra to his lower body again.
By the time Naruto and Sasuke worked their way over to where I was, Kakashi had torn through what enemies were left on the top and ground levels, leaving not a soul behind.
I forced my chakra sense shut.
That pungent copper, which I was certain besmirched the air inside the base, filled my nostrils. Either the blood on the floors had grown copious enough to leak out of the windows or my mind was playing tricks on me. When the boys gave no reaction, made no comment on the smell, I knew it was the latter.
I dropped from my perch to meet them halfway.
Part of me felt numb with disbelief at the sight of Naruto, Sasuke, and Inari all walking towards me unharmed. We had succeeded. I hadn't thought it was possible, wrapped up in my melancholy, fed up with the fact that everything had progressed into a worse and worse situation.
I was glad that I had been wrong. I had never been felt so glad to have been wrong.
The weight, which had seen a partial release earlier, when I first heard Inari's voice over my comm, fully lifted from my shoulders.
"What's Kakashi doing in there?" Sasuke asked, his eyes locked on me.
"Yeah—I wanna help!"
"It doesn't matter," I answered. My gaze cut to Naruto. "Trust me: you don't want to help."
Naruto blinked.
Sasuke, sharp as ever, scowled. "Oh." He dropped the subject, and instead sent a glare at Inari. "Naruto, shut that kid up."
"Don't be an ass!" Naruto cried. "He's just upset. I think he's allowed to be a crybaby right now."
"Did either of you check him for injuries?" I asked.
"He's not bleeding," Sasuke answered.
As inadequate as it sounded, that was a fair assessment to make when you had a limited amount of time to move. There had been no chance for them to look. The main injury we had to be on the lookout for was a lost finger, and that would have been clear within seconds of looking at him.
Naruto adjusted him, the action awkward and betraying his inexperience with kids. He was holding him incorrectly, too, with one hand fisted in Inari's shirt and the other cupped under his knee, like a child holding a teddy bear.
I held out my arms. "Give him to me."
Inari was light and bony and thin, weighing less than some of the weights I had used to train some days. I wrapped one arm around his back, the other underneath his rear, and settled him on my hip, the way Maen had done with me when I was that small. His sobs kept up.
I put some distance between us and the boys, between us and the base. I set him down on a tree stump and stared at him straight on. His eyes stayed down on the dirt.
"Hey," I said. "Look at me, Inari."
He didn't move.
My fingers came under his chin and I forced his gaze upwards. He jumped at the contact but I didn't give him the chance to pull away.
"Huh—"
"Are you hurt?"
"I'm hungry," he mumbled.
"But you're not hurt?" I asked again.
"Nu-uh."
He was tired, he was hungry, he was traumatized, but none of those things were what I could deal with. All I had for him was first aid, should he need it. He didn't, therefore I could do nothing for him but ease the stress that he was under.
"Good, thank you."
I added a bit of chakra to my finger and tapped him on the side of the neck, the area below the base of his right ear. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he was unconscious in a heartbeat. I steadied him before he could fall, picked him up, slung him over my shoulder.
The vagus nerve, which ran along the side of the neck and connected to the brain and the heart, was a favourite when a ninja needed to knock somebody out in short order. Hitting Inari's was the kindest option to all involved parties.
"Wha—hey! What's wrong with him?"
"He's unconscious," I said, walking over to where they were. I stooped down and laid him out over the grass. "He's fine."
"You knocked him out," Sasuke said.
"Yeah. Problem?"
He shook his head and smirked, offering no response.
I went to look at Naruto, expecting him to offer no protests, but the expression on his face iced my insides and froze my pulse.
"Naruto?" I asked, unable to keep all the panic from my voice.
Sasuke stiffened.
"The clones," Naruto mumbled. "The clones I had at the house… somebody just popped them."
It took a second, two, three, four, five, for the words to sink in.
The clones we left behind at the house had been popped.
Horror was the first reaction, creeping and slithering and vine-like, gripping my heart in a vice grip that promised to squeeze every out every last bit of life. Anger, white-hot, flickered in the embers of my soul and attempted to restart what had been smothered. Grief followed that, a rain cloud from which a torrential downpour spurted and drowned me from the inside out.
Then, those all faded, overtaken by a numbness that left me hollow.
The clones we left behind at the house had been popped.
"Kakashi," I said. I was still linked to his private comm. "We need to leave."
"What is it?"
"Naruto's clones were popped. I think Tazuna and Tsunami are dead."
No response.
Naruto sniffed, whimpered, on the verge of tears, but Sasuke looked to be as shell-shocked as I was.
The clones we left behind at the house had been popped.
They were there as a last resort, guards that were meant to defend against a civilian threat, at best. Scare people off. Make them think twice about attacking.
The clones we left behind at the house had been popped.
They had been a precaution that not even Kakashi believed would see use. Two clones could handle most civilians. Gato had hired a ninja, probably just some cheap genin who he never intended to pay. He had to have sent somebody capable of handling the clones to the house and there was only one reason he would have done that.
The clones we left behind at the house had been popped.
Gato was dead, gone. His reign over Wave Country was over. The people had a chance at life, an open sea to trade as they wish and feed themselves again.
And yet, Gato had gotten the last laugh.
"Start moving," Kakashi said. "I'll catch up. If you encounter an enemy before I do, you are not to engage."
I envied him—he didn't sound the least bit bothered by the fact that they were dead. It didn't sound like it mattered to him.
I wondered if Kakashi had put any thought towards keeping Tazuna and Tsunami alive, if he had truly cared when he decided on our plan for the evening, decided on what precautions would be taken to ensure their safety.
"Understood." I shut my comm off. I looked to Naruto and Sasuke. "Let's go."
.
.
Kakashi cut down the man in front of him, slit his throat in passing with a kunai.
He would be chastised for the outcome of the mission. His client was dead, his mission was a failure, and he shouldn't have even continued with it in the first place. It would mar his near-spotless record.
Kakashi didn't care about whatever backlash he was going to face upon his return. He knew that the favour he earned from the daimyo of Water would outweigh any shame the loss of a simple peasant client would cost the village. Hiruzen wouldn't be impressed, but he would also see the entire team returning alive as worth the cost.
Kakashi had briefly considered that Gato was luring their group into a trap. The likelihood of it happening had been small in his mind, but he still knew it was a possibility and he could have left one of his students behind to guard against it. He could have left two of them, even.
He could have.
To do that, however, would have been to leave his students isolated and in danger for the sake of two people that he didn't particularly care for. Tazuna was an old man who attempted to do something good and went about it all the wrong way. Tsunami was a kind young woman, innocent, and undeserving of the grief-filled hand she had been dealt in her life. Neither of them were worth the risk to his students.
Kakashi flung a kunai with one hand, a careless flick of the wrist, and it stuck an opponent down the hall in the eye. He walked past, grabbed the hilt and twisted, shoved it far enough that it caused fatal brain damage, and jerked it out again.
Sending his students down a couple of floors without him? Not a concern as they were never out of Shunshin distance.
Sending them a couple minutes ahead, giving them something to focus on while he finished up? He didn't think twice about doing it because there were no immediate threats in the area and he would be joining them shortly.
Kakashi swept the woman's legs out from under her, knocked her to the floor, and stomped on her nose with his heel. Her skull collapsed beneath his foot like it was nothing more than a grape.
Leaving his students fifteen kilometres away and out of comm range? That wasn't happening.
Kakashi had let his students get hurt enough already. He didn't care what it cost—he didn't dare let it happen again. Kakashi assumed that Hiruzen would understand, but again, even if he didn't, Kakashi didn't care.
He wouldn't fail his students again.
.
.
The house was ashes when we arrived.
It was a two-hour trek from the base, as Kakashi was incapable of travelling at typical ninja speeds. We didn't rush back. It was understood that Tazuna and Tsunami were dead from the second that Naruto reported the loss of his clones—at least, for all of us but Naruto. He had attempted to push us forward until the reality of things sank in. All of his words dissolved into silent tears after that.
There we stood, in front of what had once been a home, watching the remains smoulder and flicker with flames that hadn't yet died out. The early hints of morning showed over the water; the sun peeked up over the horizon and the sky bled a crimson red which seeped out like a disease.
I wrapped my arm around Naruto's waist and rested my head on his shoulder. Sasuke didn't protest when I grabbed his hand and twined my own fingers between his. Naruto cried. I didn't cry, nor did Sasuke. Kakashi had a resigned exhaustion about him that he masked with a slouch.
We took Inari to the village. We knocked on some doors, met with a few of the villagers, explained what happened to who would listen, and after a couple of hours we found a family that agreed to take him in. The couple recognized him upon first glance, knew him by name, as did their children. They shook their heads and muttered words of grief upon hearing about Tazuna and Tsunamis death. They called Inari a child of heroes.
Hearing that reminded me of every reason I never wanted to be a hero.
They offered us a place to stay, as well. Kakashi didn't have to pose the question to us as the answer was obvious. He refused, was gracious, gave a few charming words. We left at the first opportunity.
It all passed in a haze. I made no attempts to pay attention.
I was tired. I wanted to go home.
From the home of the couple, we went straight to the entrance of the village and headed out into the forest, away from the Land of Waves. None of us were fit to travel, and Kakashi made it known that he planned for us to set up camp for the day within an hours walk of the village. We needed to leave. All of us needed to leave.
My feet walked the path away from the village, kicked up dust on the way out.
I knew I would never return to that village for as long as I lived.