Published: 3/9/2018
"We have a little bit of time left before you have to leave," Hayato-sensei observed as he glanced at his watch. "There's something I'd like to ask you about before I let you go. May I?"
"What is it?" I wondered. At this point of the session Hayato-sensei usually just let me talk about whatever I felt was significant. He didn't often try to steer the conversation himself.
"Souhei and I were speaking recently and you came up in a bit of an aside," Hayato-sensei replied a tad apologetically. "You've already talked to me about the fight—and of course I haven't shared anything you've said without your permission—but Souhei mentioned he was concerned that you might be bottling up your feelings about it. He didn't want to be pushy, so he hasn't made too much of a point to ask you about it, but he is a bit worried. So I thought I would check in with you: is there anything—anything at all—troubling you about it?"
"Hmm," I said and looked out the window thoughtfully. Uncle Souhei was fretting about me in such a way? I was a little surprised. If someone were to be worrying about me like that, I would have thought it would be Auntie Reiko, not him. Uncle was so cool-headed and distant. I had always taken him for the type who would rather let a person sort through her trauma on her own time, at her own pace, without getting involved.
"There are times when it might seem like he's cold," Hayato-sensei murmured with an indecipherable look in his eye, "but he isn't really. He's only trying to stay emotionally detached. He watches all of you, Suzu-san, and he does worry. No matter what he says, after all, he knows that you all look to him as a father."
I looked at him quizzically. That only begged the question of why Uncle felt the need to emotionally detach himself from us. But Hayato-sensei just shook his head and smiled a sad smile that said it wasn't his place to tell me.
"Well," I inclined my head, because in truth, it probably wasn't. And more than that this appointment was about me, not my uncle. "I haven't really been thinking about it so I don't have a lot to report. Nothing has really changed. He's… not here anymore. I have a new place in the Forces. It's weird being on my own, I guess, but everyone hits that point in their life sooner or later, so it's nothing to really be upset about, right?"
"That's a very healthy way of looking at it." Hayato-sensei nodded with approval. "I'm glad you can have that mindset."
There was a moment of silence and I realized after a moment that he was waiting for me to share the rest of my thoughts. I looked out the window again.
"I don't think I really want to talk about it," I finally confessed. "...It makes me kind of mad, so I'd rather just not think about it. There's no point in dwelling."
"So long as you know," Hayato-sensei replied gently, "that anger is a valid and reasonable response. You were attacked emotionally and physically in an unacceptable way. No one could reasonably fault you for it."
There was a long beat of silence in which we merely looked at one another. Then I sighed, "Of course not. In this case, at least, anger is a sign of self-worth, isn't it? I know that."
And I did know that. I wasn't upset with myself for getting angry; there would be no point to that. But there was a memory buried deep in my strange second consciousness from what the girl from Earth had had called her college days. For a time there had been a man she'd hated, and passionately so. In fact, she'd loathed him so completely that even I, removed from that life by several realities, found it a little difficult to think on him very deeply. I wasn't entirely sure what he had done; it was wearisome, in a way, to think too much about that part of her life. But he'd been ill in some way and it had made him angry and unreasonable and cruel.
The girl from Earth had suffered viscerally in those months. Not because he had hurt her—not in the end, anyway—but because she had spent her every waking moment nursing her anger. Nothing could make her happy. Everything made her mad. She spent so much time thinking about that man.
After peering into those far-off storm clouds, I realized that anger was a harrowing thing. I didn't have the gumption to invite that kind of hardship into my life. Maybe holding onto some kinds of anger, I thought, could be healthy. Maybe some people could dwell on that anger without being corrupted by it. But she hadn't been able to, and I had a feeling that if I tried, I wouldn't be able to, either.
Hayato-sensei, who had been gazing at me like he'd been looking into my very soul, suddenly seemed to relax. I blinked a bit; I hadn't even realized he'd been tense. He smiled at me.
"If you do, then all the better. I see there was no need to pry. My apologies, Suzu-san."
"Not at all… " I blinked again. There was a long beat. "Um… I guess that must be it for today, then?"
Hayato-sensei consulted his watch once more. "You guess well. You start training at the Intel Division today, don't you? I'd better let you go."
We stood and exchanged the customary post-appointment pleasantries. I scheduled my follow-up with Hayato-sensei's secretary, settled my monthly bill, and then headed off into the heart of the village.
The Intel Division stood between the hospital and the Tower and was as heavily guarded as either. It was actually quite fascinating to see how these three buildings created a triangle of absolute security. I'd only ever passed through this part of the village on messenger runs so I hadn't noticed it before, but if one stood at the very center of this space the sound of the village was nearly twice as layered as it was at the outskirts.
When I was here an additional hum was present beneath all the usual sounds of the village. It was a deep sound, barely audible, and at its edges a strange, hollowed-out melody echoed. It was rich and as complex as an orchestra but also somehow textureless and empty at the same time.
It was a bemusing sound and it took me many years to learn its source. In fact, it wasn't until after I'd had the opportunity to visit the ANBU HQ a few times that I realized that high-chakra shinobi would still echo when they suppressed their presences. In normal settings that echo was inaudible but if enough of them gathered in one place—like they did in the ANBU Base or in the village center—the effect was just like that of the one I heard: a textureless, empty orchestra. It was all the variety of sound with the substance of each signature taken out from it.
In the Intel Division itself I&E's base of operations was located in the wing farthest from T&I's. Several other units stood between us and them: Logistics, Cryptography, Domestic Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Research and Development, Equipments… The other offices were all accessible to whoever bothered to walk in, but the door to T&I was sealed and guarded openly by a tall and unabashedly menacing ANBU. That probably wasn't uncalled for, though. They were in charge of the highest of the high-risk prisoners; tighter security was more than expected.
The cultures of the units I could see were quite varied. In Logistics paperwork appeared to be attacked in a tag-team manner; a glimpse inside their office revealed that all of their scrolls were piled together on a common stand. When people went to pick out new assignments they went in groups of three or four, and there were a few large tables upon which several people could work together at once. Conversely, the population in Cryptography pointedly did not mix tasks. Their workspaces were extremely private; several of the desks had walls and there were next to no loose objects in their office. Everything was tidy, locked into large organizers, and had to be retrieved on an item-by-item basis with individual keys.
As for Domestic and Foreign Affairs, they were practically bleeding into one another. The shuffle of references between the two was constant. In fact, they were at the point that several of their bookshelves had been placed on dollies and were perpetually being wheeled about in the hallway between them. They, too, had individual workstations, but it seemed that everyone could walk up to anyone else's desk and seize its contents at will. I had no idea how their members maintained any sort of workflow with those kind of shenanigans going on, but as it turned out, D&FA—they were often referred to as a single entity despite being, in fact, separate units—was famous for its blistering, godlike efficiency. It seemed that whatever system they had going was effective.
There were several other offices in the Division but I didn't have time to look at them all before I had to report to my real destination, Infiltration and Espionage. Of all the offices I had peeked into today this one seemed the warmest. A sense of easygoing, casual camaraderie filled the air, and it was more tangible than the aura even the tightly-knit members of Logistics had been producing; there was a table in the corner devoted completely to snacks and several people were standing around and eating together. There were singular desks here, too, but they were more individualized. Several of them were decorated with personal belongings like pictures, colorful paperweights, small baubles, and even a few magnetic dry erase boards. Thankfully, people did seem to be keeping their hands off of one another's assignments. A handful were using the whiteboards to draw stick figure fights or tic-tac-toe boards without permission, though. I caught sight of one such person being smacked upside the head for erasing someone else's to-do list.
Several people were reading or writing when I arrived but many were not. Some were talking to their neighbors; I caught a pair quizzing each other with flashcards and another speaking only in sign language. Two women were leaning over a mirror in the corner, discussing methods of making false wrinkles while trio of men looked over their shoulders with interest.
I'd spent a sizable moment observing from the door before someone spotted me. She was a young black-haired girl—and she was a girl, probably only a few years older than me—with a classic long bob and traditional blunt bangs.
"Hey there, stranger," she greeted me amicably as she leaned back from her work. "What's your business in I&E today?"
A few interested faces glanced up to look at me. I briefly searched them for Erina-sensei but didn't find her. Did she have a desk here in I&E? Well, she was probably at the Academy right now anyway.
"Um," I said as I put a hand on the doorframe, "I'm looking for Imasaki-buchou… I'm the new apprentice," I added.
A faint ooh rose from the room. Word about the new recruit had spread fast, then. I guessed noncombat apprentices really were that rare.
The girl's eyes lit up.
"Hey!" she sprung up for a handshake. "Nice to meet you! I'm Anzu Imasaki, the unit head's assistant."
"Hey," I replied with a hesitant grin. I took distant note of her surname. "I'm Suzu Namikaze."
"Suzu-san, then! It's a pleasure!" she grasped my hand and shook it warmly. "Naoto's office is just over here. Come on."
Anzu led me to a door a few feet away from her desk. She opened it without knocking and ushered me inside to where a black-haired man was sitting at a desk in the center of the room. The space was sparse of decoration but there were so many scrolls and books of different size and color lining the walls that it almost didn't matter. A plant and a cup of water were situated at the corner of his desk.
Naoto Imasaki was staring out into space with his chin propped up on a hand. His gaze was idle but his other hand was running across the length of a scroll with steady deliberation. He tilted his head upon our entry and turned curious, if not somewhat unfocused, eyes in my direction.
"Hello," he greeted me. His pleasant smile was aimed about a foot over my head—at the height, I realized, where an adult's face would be located. "Welcome to I&E. I don't think we've met before… how can I help you, sir?"
I was too dumbstruck to reply. I'd imagined a lot of things about the head of Infiltration and Espionage, but never in my life would I have I suspected he would be blind.
"It's a girl, Naoto," Anzu giggled good-naturedly. "The new apprentice. Suzu Namikaze."
"Hello," I said once I'd finally found my voice. Naoto's unseeing gaze corrected itself with pinpoint accuracy.
"Oh, pardon me." He lifted his chin and dropped his arm. His other hand halted. "That's right, Misuzu-san was coming in today. It's one already, Anzu?"
"Just about," Anzu confirmed.
"My," Naoto murmured to himself. He took his scroll and began rolling it shut. "Thank you, then." He looked ready to say something to me when he paused. "Oh! While you're here, Anzu, would you mind fetching and transcribing the Unou report for me? Kana-san said that it was delivered today."
"Oh, if it's Unou, I did that already," Anzu replied. "They delivered it to my mailbox by mistake. I'll put it in with the rest of the afternoon load."
Naoto stood and aimed a fond smile at her. "Blessed girl," he said affectionately. "I&E would fall apart without you."
Anzu giggled again. "I know."
Familial exchange so ended, Anzu waved at me before returning to her desk. Naoto paced over to the corner of the room and retrieved the long, slim cane leaning against the wall there.
"Walk with me," he invited. He was already halfway to the door. "I've been inside longer than I meant to be."
Walking with Naoto immediately made it clear that his use of a cane was 90% unnecessary. Perhaps it was because he worked in the Intel Division and knew its halls by heart, or perhaps he was just very good at hearing other people approach, but any time a potential obstacle appeared he would glide past as smoothly as any sighted man. I followed along after him in fascinated silence, examining his stride and wondering at his serenity.
"Well then, Misuzu-san," Naoto suddenly said. We halted just beside a door to the courtyard. "May I ask you a few questions? I would like to know you a little better."
I found myself feeling wary. I didn't know why but something about his unshakable calmness was unnerving. It was scary when anyone was that self-assured, and doubly so that person was a ninja. His expression made one wonder if he had some sort of secret doomsday weapon in his pocket.
"What would you like to know?" I asked, shifting back onto my left foot.
His lips twitched. I was struck with the impression that he found me greatly amusing, which worried me even more. What exactly was he thinking about me? He was surely analyzing me, but what were his findings? His face seemed say that he was gleaning the innermost essence of my being just by hearing my replies. How was that even possible?
"Ah, don't be anxious," Naoto said as if sensing my explosion of worry. "Your place in I&E is assured no matter what you say to me today, really. There are too few of us for me to refuse you. I'd just like to ask you a few trivia questions is all."
"...All right," I agreed. I tried not to let my voice betray how much he'd unsettled me. The blind man smiled again.
True to his word his questions were very conversational. In a way it really was like trivia. My favorite color, my preferred book genre, my pastimes—for some reason, Naoto began to look very pleased when I told him I read girls' novels and liked to sew. By the time the questionnaire was done he was looking positively cheerful.
"That's excellent, Misuzu-san," he clapped his hands together brightly. "That's very helpful. I think I know just what to do with you."
Anxiety was quickly giving way to bemusement. I couldn't fathom how in the world could such hobbies as embroidery and teen romance would be of help to him. Naoto, though, just grinned and took off back in the direction of I&E, leaving me to scurry after his long, sprightly stride.
"Oyuki-san!" Naoto called when we'd returned. "Please come to my office for a moment. Misuzu-san, follow me."
The summoned Oyuki got up met us at the door to Naoto's office. Naoto's hand glided across the wood of the portal before alighting on the door handle.
"Oyuki-san, this is Misuzu Namikaze-san, our new apprentice," Naoto introduced me as he opened the door. "Misuzu-san, this is Oyuki Hanamura-san, one of our most senior infiltration agents."
She looked me over curiously. "Hello."
"Hello," I replied. She had the coloring of a standard Konoha shinobi—tea-brown hair and dark brown eyes. She was young, it seemed to me, but not that young. She was perhaps the same age as my foster mother.
"Oyuki-san, I was considering where in the unit I'd like to place Misuzu-san for training. What do you think? Would it be very difficult for you if I were to place her with your people?"
Oyuki looked at me again, but this time her eyes carried steely calculation. I went stiff as a board, which somehow made the sightless Naoto smile. Oyuki began an unabashed verbal assessment of me.
"Well, she's got decently good looks," she reported baldly. "You do makeup? No, that's your natural face? Then you'll do all right in that, I wager… hm. Were you thinking domestic or international focus, Naoto-san?"
"Domestic," Naoto replied. "I suspect she will have valuable insight into Fire Country's pop culture."
I let out a noise of understanding. So that was why he'd been so pleased to hear "girls' novels." Of course. This was probably the one field in which my consumption of young adult literature could be considered an asset.
"Oh, is that so? ...If that's the case the hair's going to be a problem."
Naoto blinked in confusion before he seemed to realize her meaning. Then he took on a look of dismay.
"Oh no," he said. "She's blond, isn't she? Of course she is. She's a pure-blooded Namikaze."
At this I gave Naoto a sharp look. Yes, it was true—my family line had married within the clan for at least the past five generations. This was common knowledge amongst the members of the House—we often had fun tracing our lineages in the clan registry—but I had made no mention of my blood status to him at all. How did he know about it?
The obvious answer was that he'd read about me before our meeting. But that only led to questions of where exactly he'd gotten that information It was doubtful he had access to the clan records themselves, but then again there was bound to be some documentation somewhere within the village administration that made note of my lineage. Was that just the power an Intel Division unit head had? Once again I found myself feeling unsettled. Who could say what else the village—and by extension, he—knew about me?
But that, I concluded a small moment later, was also what it meant to be a shinobi.
"What does that mean for her chances as an in-house infiltrator?" Naoto asked worriedly.
Oyuki made a thoughtful sound. I wondered vaguely if this was what models felt when their agencies were trying to find work for them. There was a strange pressure despite the fact that there was no helping at all what color hair I'd been born with.
"If you had marked her for Lightning, Earth, or Wind Country it wouldn't be a problem," Oyuki said after a moment. "But unfortunately the only blonds you can find here in central Fire Country come from the Yamanaka and Namikaze clans themselves. It's a dead giveaway that she's from a ninja clan. We could chance claiming that she's just someone's orphaned bastard, but in general we prefer our premises to be a little stronger than that. She'll have to dye her hair for most assignments."
"And what is the significance of that?" Naoto questioned.
"Well, it can mean a couple of things. In some cases it won't play into the assignment at all beyond the initial dyeing. But if she goes into a long-term mission she'll have to continually dye her roots as they grow in. Depending on the assignment this could go by without issue, but there have also been cases in the past where agents have come under suspicion and had their belongings searched. Things can get ugly if the dye is found. It's quite incriminating if there are questions about spycraft from the get-go; it usually takes a very airtight explanation to get out of that, if at all. And of course there are worries about supply if she goes into a rural locale," Oyuki added contemplatively.
"I see," Naoto sighed. "And in your experience, what is the outlook for light-haired domestics? How have people managed in the past?"
"Well, as you know, we have several Yamanakas in residence," Oyuki mused. "Yamanakas are perfect for this line of work," she added for my benefit. "Their information-gathering means are unparallelled."
Indeed, that would be the case, wouldn't it? I found myself reflecting over the image of a ponytailed Yamanaka girl making hand signs over an exam paper.
"Generally they have no trouble beyond what is standard in short-term assignments. By trend, though, they struggle in long-term lower- or middle-class personas even if they complete the mission without incident. They seem to shine best in high society. A great deal of our capital agents are, have been, and will be Yamanakas."
When thinking of the possible complications of espionage something as mundane as hair dye had never really occurred to me. But in hindsight it would be a significant matter. Anything that brought attention to or poked holes in an infiltrator's story could be exploited to disastrous effect. This was a field in which people could ill afford to be caught, especially when it implicated the village in places that it had no business being.
"Regardless of all that it's very possible for her to have a healthy career as a domestic," Oyuki concluded. "Everyone brings unique challenges to the field regardless. If it weren't this it would be something else. I wouldn't worry too much about it, buchou."
Naoto's face bloomed into a smile.
"I see," he said, looking restored to good cheer. "That's a relief. So what do you think, Misuzu-san? Would you enjoy learning about domestic infiltration? It's not a particularly glamorous focus but it's some of our most important work. Knowledge about Fire Country's inner workings is the backbone of all the village's collective intelligence."
I considered it. I thought about my life as a shinobi so far—all of the running, the walking, the foreign cliffs and unfamiliar plains and rivers. My time in carriages, sitting atop supplies, and my time keeping pace beside horses, and washing the dirt out from between my toes at night. And the violence, too, I remembered. Stabbing people. Being stabbed. Being beaten and throttled and watching other people bleed to death on the crags. In a way my life read like an adventure novel; I was just the sort of heroine protagonist who would overcome all of my childhood hardships and go on into a glorious future. Yes, that was the kind of story village kids read about in the books. The kind where the main character would become a war hero, cutting down the enemies of her people with fearsome aplomb, or maybe where she joined a secret circle of elites and became the ultimate ninja's fantasy—a loyal, shadowy protector whose excellence was entirely unmatched. Susumu's face flashed in my mind.
"What sort of matters do domestic infiltrators investigate?" I asked Oyuki.
"Well, to be honest, it varies greatly," she replied. "I'm an in-house agent myself and the bulk of my work tends to be industrial espionage. That's stuff like finding out business and tradecraft secrets for the benefit of Fire Country's own economy. If you go the route that most Yamanakas go you might end up doing the same with the merchant class—learning about production secrets, investigating suppliers, and so on. Or if you become one of the capital infiltrators you might end up in the Fire Daimyo's court, in which case you'd probably function as support for one of the long-term agents who have established powerbases. Basically you'd gather information about activities around the capital, which your supervisor would then use in conjunction with existing influence to steer politics in favor of Konoha's interests. And there's always the requests of clients to consider," she added. "Sometimes they do ask for exciting things but a lot of the time it's more of the same. As Naoto-buchou said, it's not a particularly glamorous specialization."
"It sounds so mundane," I remarked. "It's nothing at all like what I've been doing until now."
"Yes, we hear that often," Naoto smiled humorously. "We're not a very popular wartime unit, but I think you'd already gathered that."
Yes, I had, hadn't? Erina-sensei had said it too—no one bothers with this stuff in wartime. And yet here I was.
"I think," I began slowly, "that it would be wonderful."
A/N: Ay, you thought this was done? It's never done. I suspect the writing of this story will go on until I'm well into my sixties, haha.
What can I say about my absence? Oh, I don't even know how to articulate it. Sometimes life is just hard. Really hard. 2017 was a ride.
I think the story will seem a little disjointed at this point because of how long the pause has been and because of how I've changed as a person over the hiatus. There's no helping it, though; writing is a process. It'll have to be something I smooth over in the next edit, haha. (Yup, rewriting the rewrite—but as they say, all writing is rewriting.) But actually finishing this iteration comes first, doesn't it?
For all of you still riding this wagon, thank you for sticking around! I appreciate all the people who left me little messages of support in this past half-year or so. I hope people continue to enjoy the story of Suzu and her friends and family. Drop a review and let me know your thoughts and your hopes on what sort of direction this story will take after its long break.
Cheers,
Eiruiel
