.

When all else fails, determination outlasts.

I drew in a shaky breath and leaned back on my haunches, staring at my half-packed bag, bathed in the early morning sun's glow. A slight bite in the air nipped at my arms and legs. I enjoyed it while it was there; the temperature would take a turn towards scorching once we crossed over into the Land of Wind around noon that day.

Naruto and Sasuke worked to break camp on either side of me, blissfully silent. Kakashi stood at the edge of what remained of our camp and read. The only noises around us were the chirps and creaks of a forest waking up, with birds skittering around in search for worms and a whispered breeze calling the trees to life.

I raised a hand to my eyes and examined the burgeoning sunrise a bit to my right—it was somewhere in the range of seven in the morning. We had minutes before we were set to leave, hours before we were set to encounter our client.

Or, as my paranoid mind was beginning to suspect, our "client."

I found that I couldn't relax now that I knew things weren't anywhere as simple as Kakashi led us to believe they were. Maen and Jiraiya and the rest of their party were too far from the camp for me to sense them, but I couldn't get my mind off of it and how Kakashi had answered me when I'd questioned him over all of this.

"You're on a normal escort mission."

The implication that Kakashi's mission was different from ours wasn't lost on me. I'd wager anything that whatever Maen and Jiraiya were doing here, that was the real mission we'd been sent out for. And I didn't like anything about that. It was one thing to go into this mission blind when it was meant to be a regular C-rank, but now that it had developed into something else? A something else that involved this much firepower? It was the kind of validation that my paranoia really didn't need.

Plot twists like these would be the death of me.

"Ha! Hey look—I finished packing before both of you!"

"Shut up."

I tipped my head back, a sigh on my lips.

My morning was off to a great start.

.

.

We followed the northern border of Wind for the rest of our trip. The area was mountainous and vibrant compared to the endless desert of central Wind, but I barely noticed—my attention was on keeping my footing and scanning every inch of the world around me for chakra signatures.

Maen and Jiraiya were on the tips of my radar, edging their way around us as we got closer to our destination. After a point, Maen and the other ANBU dampened their signatures and Jiraiya's disappeared, gone in an instant.

I had a gut instinct about who our client was.

It wasn't a hard list to narrow down. Whocould require Kakashi, Maen, and entire squad of what I assumed were ANBU, and Jiraiya present to take them down? Tobi, probably. Or Itachi. Maybe a few of the other future S-rank threats. But my number one suspect was Orochimaru.

After climbing in elevation for most of the day, we found ourselves at the edge of a tiny village, placed right near the northern border where Wind met with Earth. On a winding hill that was pressed against a mountain side, a collection of small but sturdy-looking huts were built into earth, spread out amongst what few patches of fertile land could be found. The hill spiralled up, the houses growing more sparse towards the top until the hill evened out with the top of the mountain. Up there was a massive manor that stretched out with a perfect view of the whole village, the crown jewel of the village.

On the surface, it was a normal village. Rural and quiet. But it took a step towards unnerving when I noticed that it was empty of life save for one person, right at the top.

The signature was dulled and slowed; it was well hidden, by all accounts. If I hadn't been looking for him, I might not have even noticed the subtle parts of it that set it apart from an actual civilian. But I was and I did. There was an unnaturalness to it, an itching feeling that something about it was off, like the uncanny valley but with chakra. It was enough to stop me dead in my tracks.

Kakashi, who had been keeping tabs on me since the second the village came into view, set a firm hand on my shoulder and propelled me forward.

"What the fuck is this?" I hissed, grateful that Naruto and Sasuke were out of earshot.

"A mission."

"Who thought this was a good idea?"

"Nobody."

I tried to stop again, but his grip brokered no arguments. I settled for craning my neck up to look at him and glaring. "You're just going to leave us in the dark against that?"

"Tight schedule," he said lightly. He met my gaze and his eyes were sharp, at odds with the cheerful tone of his voice. "You know how it goes, hmm? Impolite to keep people waiting."

He dropped his hand from my shoulder.

I could feel everybody moving into their positions around the village. Maen and his ninja were scattered around the base of the hill. For obvious reasons, I had no idea where Jiraiya was, but I assumed it was somewhere either with the ANBU or closer up to the "client." They were set up like this was intended to be an ambush, which didn't make any sense to me. This wasn't a stealthy enough approach against anybody with a semblance of chakra sensing abilities, which I was confident this person would have.

What's their game?

We worked our way up through the village. It didn't take long for Sasuke to start to notice that something was awry, given the way his expression shifted from its usual annoyance into a careful suspicion. Naruto didn't seem to notice. He was too busy trying to guess at what our client would look like.

"I wonder if he'll be fat. I mean, we're going all the way up, right? So he's probably super rich! Man… he'll definitely be fat, then. He probably won't be nice. They're never nice. Hmm… oh, man! His house! We'll get to go inside that thing! It looks huge from all the way down here. Do you think he has, like, servants? Rich people got those, right? Lots of servants and cooks and…"

"Shut up," Sasuke said.

"Hey! Don't tell me to—"

"Shut up and look around."

"Eh?"

"Doesn't something seem off to you?" Sasuke demanded.

Kakashi leaned down and murmured, "Run at my signal." I snapped around to look at him, but he was already moving ahead to where the boys had stopped. He patted them both on the head.

"Nothing to worry about here," he said. It was scary how genuine it sounded. "Let's keep moving along, kiddies."

Naruto launched back into his babbling. Sasuke turned back to look at me and I knew my expression was less than reassuring.

Despite there being not a single soul in sight, there were signs of life all over the village. Smoke lazily drifted up from smokestacks, laundry sat on its lines and dried out in the heat of the afternoon. At one point, I almost stepped on a half-finished game of tic-tac-toe scrawled out in the dirt, the sticks used to play it left abandoned beside it.

There was no blood, no bodies, no sign of a tragedy—it was as if everybody up and left, however implausible that sounded.

The manor up at the top was as run of the mill as it could be. Black, sloped rooftops over cream-coloured walls, with a slew of rectangular windows pressed into them. The building itself matched the windows in shape, one giant rectangle encased by a short wall of black concrete that was more for show than anything else. The tips of blossom branches peeked up from the inner courtyard of the building. In all, it was a lovely sight of opulence and comfort, ruined by the ugly face that welcomed us the second we stepped past the threshold.

A fat man in his late sixties, dressed in luxurious, red silks, and covered from head to toe in jewellery. He was almost bald in the way that all old men were. What thin spindles of hair he had left were gathered into a precarious bun atop his head, looking like it might fall off hit by a harsh enough blast of wind.

But the outside matched the inside, in that something was off about him, despite there being no clear red flags. I found myself on high alert.

This was a trap, it had to be, regardless of the fact that there was no noticeable chakra output to create a henge or any other visual genjutsu. I found myself remembering that Orochimaru literally wore skins as a disguise, something that I would have seen with my own eyes had we gone through the chunin exams.

Sometimes, I fucking hated being right.

"Hello," he said, beckoning them closer. "You must be the ninja I have hired."

I felt the position of the ninja shift up a bit closer.

Kakashi put himself at the front of our group. "That's us."

He strolled forward, slouched, not seeming to be in any rush, and Naruto and Sasuke followed behind him. I felt like I was wading through waist-deep water as I did the same. Sasuke held back a bit, and I came to stand beside him.

"Wonderful. I am grateful that you were able to arrive so soon," Probably-Orochimaru said. "I have been eagerly awaiting this."

"The exams are always a treat to see," Kakashi said, perfectly conversational.

Again, the ANBU inched closer. It seemed idiotic—who were they trying to fool? There was no way that Probably-Orochimaru couldn't feel them coming, even with their signatures suppressed and a field genjutsu in place to further mask their presence, blurring and dispersing their chakra on my sense. But Jiraiya was nowhere to be found. Maybe Probably-Orochimaru could sense Jiraiya, even though he was completely hidden from me. Maybe he couldn't.

Given where I was, I had to hope for the former.

"What adorable little ninja," Probably-Orochimaru said. He clasped his hands behind his back. "Are you three excited for the exams?"

Naruto, oblivious to the entire rest of the situation, grinned at this. "Oh yeah! We didn't get to be in it, but it's gonna be super cool to watch!"

Probably Orochimaru chuckled. "So I see. And what of you both?"

Why is he dragging this out?

For the love of God, just attack us and get it over with.

My mouth was dry, but I managed a strained, "Sure."

Sasuke grunted.

I hoped that would be the end of it, but Probably-Orochimaru zeroed in on me, a delighted expression on his face. "Are you feeling unwell, child? You look a bit pale."

"It's been a hard day's travel," Kakashi answered for me. "It seems to have gotten the best of her."

"So I see." Probably-Orochimaru rolled his shoulders and shivered. "What wonderful news that is."

Kakashi went rigid. He didn't break the act yet, but he lifted one hand towards his head in preparation, feigning scratching it.

Probably-Orochimaru's head tipped back and a set of hands appeared in his mouth.

Behind his back, Kakashi formed a single sign with his hands, but it wasn't a hand seal. It was just one word: run.

I couldn't move. My legs wouldn't work. I watched, transfixed and horrified, as the entire skin-shell split open and Probably-Orochimaru became Definitely-Orochimaru, revealing himself in a mass of vile chakra and killing intent.

It was like facing against Zabuza, but worse.

Thick and heavy, tar poured down my throat, a snake wrapped its entire body around my very being and filled me with venom, tight, tight, tight. My knees went weak. I shook. Having my chakra sense wide open made it worse, so much worse, yet I couldn't seem to shut it off, I couldn't stop looking, please stop looking stop paying attention stop.

Stop stop stop.

Kakashi didn't wait for us, didn't give us another signal. He shot forward like a bullet and tackled a goo-covered Orochimaru. The ANBU from the ground soared up the rest of the mountain, landing one by one to encircle Kakashi and Orochimaru.

A hand clamped onto my wrist and nearly yanked me off of my feet. I tripped, not expecting it, and just regained my footing as I was pulled away from the scene by Sasuke, whose other hand was dragging Naruto as well.

The air behind us was filled with the harsh sounds of metal on metal.

I didn't let myself look back.

.

.

Kakashi held back, monitoring the progress of his students as they traversed the mountain path away from the village.

For now, the ten or so ANBU agents were entertaining Orochimaru. Kakashi wouldn't lie to himself—he knew that was all they were doing. They were alive by virtue of Orochimaru being arrogant and easily amused, a cat playing with a mouse before delivering the divisive blow.

Kakashi dropped and rolled on instinct, and a snake's head soared past where he had been standing and crashed into the pitiful concrete wall. He looked back to the fighting in the middle of the courtyard and saw that Orochimaru was laughing and smiling, revelling in the battle. He dodged all the blows aimed at him, not bothering to fight back.

Another snake came his way. Kakashi was ready for it now, though, and in the time it took for the snake to travel from Orochimaru to where he was, Kakashi had his hand alight with a chidori. His fist met with the underbelly of the snake as it flew overhead and sliced the thing clean open.

"Well, that wasn't very nice!" Orochimaru called. His laugh and smile died. "You're all boring."

One by one, Orochimaru started to swat the ANBU away from him like flies. He didn't seem to even care enough to aim for lethal blows—he just lashed out like the viper he was. Fallen after fallen after fallen.

And then he was on Kakashi.

Kakashi raised an arm to deflect kunai tossed his way, and a second later he shuffled a step over to avoid the path of a blade as it whistled by.

The blade flew back to Orochimaru, who didn't press Kakashi further. Instead, he stood with his hip cocked and his free hand rested on it. His tongue flicked over his lips. "I remember the last time we were here," Orochimaru said. "You were so much cuter! Wee, baby Hatake, who couldn't even manage to raise a blade against me. My, how you've grown."

Kakashi rocked back on his heels.

"Not going to answer me?" Orochimaru asked.

A shit-eating grin worked its way onto Kakashi's face and he shrugged.

Whatever it took to keep Orochimaru's attention on him. That was what he needed. Buy the ANBU a few seconds, Jiraiya another two minutes, and his students as long as possible.

In the background, the ANBU began to regroup, picking themselves up and forming their offensive positions once again.

Orochimaru grinned. "Ah, ah, ah!"

He raised the sword and whipped around, swinging the blade in a wide arc as he turned. A violent surge of wind followed the blade's path and sliced across the whole other half of the courtyard. All of the ANBU but one managed to avoid it. The unlucky agent let out a short, gurling scream, that ceased when he fell to the ground in two heaps, sliced clean in half.

Orochimaru turned back around to Kakashi. He readied his blade. "Now then. Your turn. Entertain me, son of the White Fang."

.

.

We were halfway down the village's path when I heard the scream.

I stumbled at the sound. It was blood-curdling and distinctly male, and for a single, heart-wrenching second, I thought it could be Maen. My chakra sense was closed out of necessity—without it, I couldn't see much past the overwhelming presence of Orochimaru. I had no way to try and feel for his familiar signature.

I didn't think it was him. That wasn't the sound of his voice.

But still.

What if?

Sasuke gave my wrist a sharp jerk to keep me from falling behind. "Go."

I shook my head and forced out those worries. It wasn't Maen. It couldn't be Maen.

Even as I tried, I couldn't seem to keep my mind straight. Having all of that chakra getting tossed around up there was like a flashlight being shined in my eyes, the light growing brighter each time a technique was used, even with my sense as closed as I could get it. The further away we got the easier it was. But we were still so close.

Please let him be okay.

We zigzagged down the jagged mountain paths. One wrong step could send us tumbling down the side of the mountain, something that would at best be a fall of a few feet and cause minor injury, and at worst kill us.

Let them all be okay.

I hopped over discarded carts and under laundry lines, cutting the most efficient way through the flat areas.

Please, just let them be okay.

Through a perilously thin path, Naruto started to slip over the side, and I hauled him back up by the sleeve of his jacket.

I need them to be okay.

We hit the bottom of the hill at a sprint.

There were two options open to us, at that point: we could keep going south, where the rocky ground levelled out into sand, or we could keep to the mountains and head east.

South would be safer to travel through but left us wide open. East was a bit more dangerous, requiring the same care that coming back down the hill took but providing some semblance of cover.

Sasuke pointed east and said, "That way."

"Right."

But Naruto wasn't paying any attention—he'd turned around to stare up at the top of the hill, where flames and gusts of wind and lighting erupted from behind what remained of the concrete walls. His fists were clenched at his side.

"Naruto," I said.

"Kaka, I don't—"

"I know," I mumbled, my throat tight. "I know. I'm sorry."

He gave a harsh nod and wiped away the moisture that'd started pooling in his eyes.

I grabbed his hand and twined my fingers through his, and started to pull him along beside me as we continued our way down.

.

.

Maen hated this plan. He hated every single part of it.

He hated how close the kids—his kid—got to one of the most powerful ninja ever produced by Konoha. He hated how it hinged on Orochimaru's mannerisms. He hated the inevitable losses he was inflicting on not one, but two ANBU squads.

And most of all, he hated that it was his plan, and the best chance they had at taking Orochimaru down. He felt like he should have something better. He was a Nara. This was their entire claim to fame. But with what they had to work with, this was the best that he could do, and the best that he could do had already gotten two of his comrades killed and two more injured.

He watched Kakashi and Orochimaru go back and forth and knew that if he didn't call Jiraiya in soon, that death count would go from two to three.

To give him credit, Kakashi held his own better than Maen would have guessed. The two of them had been at it for a minute, already, and all Kakashi had to show for it were some sword slashes along his arms, one on his side, and what Maen assumed was a couple of broken ribs. But all of those were starting to slow Kakashi down.

In this fight, Kakashi was at a distinct disadvantage—he was able to fight at a high level in all disciplines, but he specialized in ninjutsu, relied on it, and Orochimaru wasn't giving him any chance to fire off jutsu. The speed difference between the two was clear. Just to keep up, Kakashi had to have his sharingan open and it was sapping his chakra at an unsustainable rate.

Orochimaru used the sword to take pot shots at Kakashi while he himself fired off all manners of long-distance jutsu. He cackled as he went, not letting Kakashi stop for even a second.

Maen watched Kakashi duck and weave, trying to keep the injured out of the crossfire.

Two of the remaining ANBU picked themselves up off of the ground and, together, launched themselves at Orochimaru. The sword caught them before they got within an arm's length. One was run through, the other narrowly dodged.

Kakashi took the opening and dove at Orochimaru with a chidori, the second of the fight, and got a chakra scalpel to the side for his troubles. Kakashi stumbled back and his hand went to staunch the bleeding. It wouldn't do much. A wound like that from a chakra scalpel was going to require immediate medical attention, or he'd bleed out, whether from the surface wound or the internal damage.

"Oh, oh!" Orochimaru cried. He waggled his finger at the body of the now dead Crane, held in midair by the sword. "You almost got me on that one, so close! A shame."

The sword angled itself downward and the body slid off.

Orochimaru sighed, examining the blade. "You've gotten so dirty. I'm going to have to wash you when we get home."

Maen clenched his jaw.

There were another thirty seconds before Jiraiya was set to make his appearance, but they couldn't wait any longer. They were now down three ninja, five if he counted the two that were too injured to be of much use in a combat situation, seven if he included the two medic-nin that were forbidden from engaging. That left him, Bear, Fish, and Kakashi in proper fighting condition.

They were dead in the water, at this point.

Maen reached into his pocket and clicked the comms receiver once, twice, three times. And half a second later, there was a blur of motion as Jiraiya launched himself onto the scene in a furious flurry of chakra.

.

.

We went for as long as we could.

For a time, the ground was stable and we covered some serious distance, but eventually we hit a point where our choices were slow down or fall. So we slowed down. A fall wasn't a death sentence, anymore; the side of the mountain sloped down in a smoother way, rather than the sharp, sheer drops from before.

I thought our chances might be looking up a bit.

Then I felt it.

An initial explosion of chakra, palpable even from a distance. And then another.

"Wait," I said, turning in the direction of it.

"What?" Sasuke asked.

"Something… there's something going on up there, but I…" I hesitated. I let out a short breath and, against my better judgement, opened the full spectrum of my chakra sense.

The overwhelming amount of chakra blinded me. But I kept looking. My eyes adjusted and I started to get a bit more, and a bit more, and some of the details became clearer.

"Jiraiya's there…" I said. "It's him and… and that guy going at it right now."

"What about Kakashi?" Naruto asked.

I squinted. "I, uh… it's hard to really see?" Already, I could feel a headache coming on, pounding against my skull in time with my racing heart. "I can kind of see him, though, so he is alive."

And so was Maen.

The relief of feeling that sliver of his chakra, there, made it that much easier to breathe.

"But the two of them are really going at it," I mumbled.

"Who's winning?" Sasuke asked.

"Neither of them? I don't—"

And then, out of nowhere, there was a release of chakra that I could only relate to the sensation of a bomb going off. A strangled cry left my lips and I cut out my chakra sense, but not fast enough. Like accidentally looking into the sun, the sight of it left splotches in my vision and a part of my brain felt like it'd been singed. I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes to try and ease the sensation.

"What?" Sasuke grabbed my elbow and pulled my hand away. "What did you see?"

"Fuck… that was a lot of chakra," I croaked. "I don't know what it was from, though."

"Look again."

I swallowed and looked again. It was hard for me to make much of anything out, now. The fight seemed to be over given that there was no activity up there. The signatures were scattered around the village, and all but two were stagnant.

Both of the active signatures were heading towards us.

Orochimaru was on his way and Jiraiya was too far behind him to make a difference.

"Oh… oh no."

"What?"

You're screwed. "We're dead," I mumbled.

There was no way we could run from that.

I expected fear or panic. Some anxiety, maybe, a tightness in my chest and a shake in my hands, the lump in my throat that made swallowing feel like rubbing pieces of sandpaper together. Anything other than the numb void that swallowed me whole.

Fuck, I was so tired of all of this.

But I forced myself to go along with the boys as they sprinted away with renewed vigour.

As scared as I'd been throughout the day, a part of me was confident that whatever plan they'd hatched out, it would succeed. They wouldn't put us in this position unless they knew that they could win without a shadow of a doubt. Not even the team as a whole, but Naruto and Sasuke. The valuable assets on this team.

Now it seemed to have failed in spectacular fashion, and there was an S-rank ninja coming for us. Even as we ran I knew we had mere seconds before he would be here, flying over what we had to scale with care, covering the same distance in a fraction of the time.

How do you tell somebody that they're about to die?

In the books I read growing up, it was a common thing to see a heroic character go down in glorious fashion. That was especially true in Konoha. So much of the fiction was pumped out for an audience of would be ninja, whose deaths were an inevitability.

How do you accept it for yourself?

The hero always died and when they did, there was that one moment of self-awareness near the end, where they would reminisce on what they've achieved in their life. They found satisfaction in their end. They accepted it. There was a sense of peace in the hero being able to give their life for the cause, going down as a good and noble warrior.

You don't.

That wouldn't be me.

Despite the doom and gloom I felt, the numbness, I never was one to roll over and accept defeat.

Orochimaru was behind us and I knew who he had eyes for. In the short, short, short time I had to react, not even enough time to think about what I was doing, I bowled into Sasuke with my shoulder and knocked him off his balance.

I didn't know if it did anything. I didn't have time to see.

One second I was throwing myself to the left, right into Sasuke's side, and the next the world around me was black and I was gone.

.

.

There was a hand on his head. That was the first thing Maen was aware of.

The second thing to come was the memory of Orochimaru blowing the entire village to hell.

Maen pulled himself up into a sitting position, and the hand that was on his head moved down to his shoulder to help him.

"Sir?" the owner of the voice asked. That was Dove's voice.

Maen shook himself off and forced his eyes open. The world was a bit blurry—he'd taken a blow to his head, alright, enough to knock his mask off.

But over Dove's shoulder, he could see the shattered remains of the village. Huts were crushed, crops were demolished. Some of the debris was pooled at the base of the hill but he figured most of it had continued down to the bottom of the mountain.

"Report."

"Doe sealed the wound on Hatake's side—just sealed it, she didn't do anything about the internal damage—and Hatake departed. Bear followed after him, since he was uninjured. Right now, Dove's working on Fish."

"Orochimaru?"

Dove hesitated.

"Where?" Maen demanded.

"The kids."

"For fuck's—get me up, now."

Dove obliged, hauling him up to his feet. Enough was healed that Maen could keep his feet under him. He'd get proper treatment when there wasn't an S-rank threat within spitting distance. Dove reached into her pack and pulled out a blank mask that she handed to Maen, something that most ANBU medics carried with them.

Maen secured it in place and took off towards the east, the way he'd felt the kids flee earlier on.

They didn't have to go far. He found them in a dip of the mountain, where the ground was flattened out before it continued to flow downwards.

Naruto was unconscious. Sasuke was unconscious, Jiraiya bent over him. And Kasumi's chakra signature was weakly fluttering some fifty metres away, past the edge where Kakashi and Bear were hovering. Maen ran over to join them and spotted her.

Her body was strewn over the ground like a rag doll. She must've caught on a rock or a bump in the mountain, something that could stop her momentum. He saw some blood from minor cuts and abrasions along her skin. Nothing seemed to be bent at unnatural angles. But he knew that the worst of it could be internal and there was no way to know how much damage there was from far away.

Calm.

Composure.

Dove stood beside him at attention. Her gaze kept moving between him and Kasumi, and her shoulders were turned just enough to keep both of them within her line of sight.

"Dove," Maen said.

"Sir."

"Get her up here and get me a status report."

"Yes, sir."

Maen switched on his comms. "Doe?"

"Sir."

"Report."

"Fish has been stabilized, sir. There are some minor injuries but his life is in no danger. Really, once he wakes up, he should be to walk on his own, so long as it's light travel."

Maen glanced around their little area, contemplating his options. "Good work. If you've done all you can, bring him over here—we'll send him back to the village for proper medical attention."

"Right away, sir."

Jiraiya was still bent over Sasuke, having not glanced up for even a second since Maen got there. Maen made his way over and realized his initial sweep wasn't accurate—Sasuke actually was conscious, but he wasn't in any condition to do much of anything. His skin was pale and beaded with sweat, his face screwed up in pain even as he remained dead silent.

"Orochimaru got him with a curse seal," Jiraiya said before Maen could ask. "But he didn't get a clean shot. It's half-formed."

"Clean shot?"

"Based on what intel I have, he uses his snakes to apply the seals. Whatever happened, the snake didn't get a proper bite on the kid—it's keeping the seal from really digging its nails into him. I might be able to unwind it and undo the seal before the tainted chakra can get into the kid's system."

Maen knew little about seals, but he'd gotten some intel regarding cursed seals. He'd taken squads through a couple of Orochimaru's abandoned labs. He'd seen reports around the Anko Mitarashi situation. It was fortunate that the mark didn't fully form—having a proper curse seal on the last Uchiha was a disaster waiting to happen.

But he supposed it did explain where Orochimaru's initial interest in Team 7 came from.

"What about Orochimaru?" Maen asked.

"North," Jiraiya grunted. "I got a couple of good shots on him, so I know he's injured, and that'll be slowing him down. I was going to follow him, but between the kid's seal and the fox—"

"The fox?" Maen asked, voice harsh.

"Yes, the fox. You didn't feel that?"

"I wasn't awake to feel anything."

Jiraiya jerked his chin towards Naruto. "He blew up. Shocker of shockers. I knocked him out before he could do any damage to anything."

Maen pinched the bridge of his nose. "Great. Okay." He changed the channel on his comms and asked, "Dove, where's my report?"

"I can't move her, sir," Dove's voice answered. "I need to repair the damage to her neck and back before it's safe."

"How long is that going to take you?"

"Fifteen minutes—and that's just repairing enough so that she can be moved. Some of this damage… it's not possible to heal in a field setting."

Maen let out a long, slow breath.

She's alive. That's what matters.

He was ANBU Owl right now, not Maen Nara. He couldn't freak out about this. He had a job to do.

Doe arrived at their location with Fish in her arms, bridal style. Maen made a motion with his hand to beckon her over.

He put a hand onto his comm again. "Dove?"

"Sir."

"I'm sending you back with Jiraiya and the kids," he said. "You'll be taking Fish with you. Keep her and Kasumi stable. It'll be slow going, so you should be able to manage both, but if you think either of them are starting to fail, you have my permission to break away and get to the village yourself, but only if absolutely necessary. I don't want to take any risks with this group."

He had half a mind to send Doe back with them, as well, so there'd be a medic for each of the injured, but he couldn't afford it. His head was injured and Kakashi's side was injured, among other things. It would be short-sighted to break off without a medic.

"You aren't returning, sir?"

Maen's eyes cut to Kakashi, who was watching the exchange. "No. There's still more to do," he said.

"Understood, sir."

Maen nodded to Doe. "You've got a spare mask on you?"

Wordlessly, she reached into the pack on her side and handed a mask to him.

The porcelain was cracked. The split ran from the temple to the middle of the cheek, but the blank mask was otherwise undamaged. It would work.

Maen raised his voice and asked, "Can you track him?"

There was no question of who he was talking to.

It was impossible to tell what Kakashi was thinking at that moment. Kakashi had been the most vocal in opposing this whole mission in the first place, from the first meeting to the night before when they'd met up to finalize plans. He wanted the kids out of the picture. They all did. But calls had to be made and if Kakashi was half as mad at Maen as Maen was at himself, then at least that anger could be put to good use.

"Yes," Kakashi said. "I can do it."

Maen held out the mask to Kakashi. "Then it's time to serve your village, Wolf."

"Don't be stupid," Jiraiya piped up, attention still locked on Sasuke. "That's suicide—"

Kakashi reached out and took the mask from Maen's hand. He slid it into place overtop of his own. "Yes, sir."

"Don't. We'll get him another time. Four people are already dead. Nobody else needs to get hurt on this fool's errand."

"And if we don't pursue this, then those four people died for nothing," Maen said. "I refuse to have gotten four people killed and leave it like this."

"You can't fight him."

"Who said we were going to?" Maen countered. "I want to track him. I want to know where he is right now. I want something from this that the village can use to take him down."

When Maen looked at Jiraiya again, it was the first time he'd ever seen the age show on Jiraiya's face. "Stupid, impulsive brats… gonna be the death of me," Jiraiya muttered. He ran a hand down his face. "Fuck it. Fine. But if you come back with even a single other casualty…"

This time, it was Kakashi who spoke up. "We won't."

Jiraiya sighed. While he had superiority over them in near every sense, he couldn't make commands over ANBU. With Kakashi taking up his mask again, even for this brief period, there was nothing Jiraiya could do; nobody could stop them now except for the Hokage.

So with clear annoyance, Jiraiya waved them off. "Then get out of here."

Kakashi summoned a couple of ninken and gave them a second to sniff around, and after a short conversation with them in too low of a voice for Maen to hear, was ready to go.

"Bear, Doe," Maen said. "You're coming with us."

Bear ambled over, hands in his pockets, relaxed in the way that only an ANBU veteran can be when faced with this kind of situation. "Yes, sir."

"Then let's get this show on the road." Maen gestured forward. "After you."

Kakashi gave a sharp nod. "Sir."

Maen couldn't help the wry smile that pulled at his lips, despite everything.

Just like old times.