Kifu felt an overwhelming anger take over. The anger wasn't new. It always seemed to fester underneath the surface, destroying any chance she ever had at tranquility. Kumji's legacy. But that had been her choice, many years ago.
It wasn't that Kifu couldn't handle it. Of course, she felt like she reacted more explosively than most of her fellow Tribesmembers. She had enough decorum to keep from sounding like Kumji, so she hoped. Unlike him, she tried to heal – it was just always out of her grasp.
Times like this, however, where she was faced with scenes that so vividly reminded her of her late mentor, she lost her restraint. Any chance she had at reigning herself tight and sticking to a plan unraveled. People were hurting, dying, and losing their chances at a peaceful life that Kifu would never understand – and Kifu possessed the means to stop it all. The reaction was knee-jerk and beyond her control.
Thought abandoned her, and years of bodily lessons flooded her muscles. Kumji had taught her more than anger; he taught her how to harness it into a deadly weapon. She pounced forward, her fingers skillfully releasing the tie around her knife, and she intended to kill them all.
Before she could make it more than a step, arms wrapped deftly around her chest, pulling her back into their body, pinning her upper arms to her side. It jarred her, just enough to break the cloud of fury. Confusion wriggled its way in. How had Taya made it to Kifu so fast? Taya was not quick.
Holding Kifu back wouldn't help. It wouldn't help her. It wouldn't help those before her suffering. Kifu snarled, wrenching her body aside to release Taya's grip, but the prison of the arms held fast. Except – the body behind Kifu didn't feel right. Didn't feel like Taya. Too small. Kakashi?
"I won't allow my comrade to die," he breathed fiercely into her ear.
His words snapped the sharp hold the anger held over Kifu. She still wanted to move, to fight, but her mind struggled to regain control over her motions. "Me?" Kifu spat.
"If you throw yourself into that, alone, you won't make it out alive," Kakashi reasoned with that same emotional tone. His voice sounded so different than it ever had before. Passion behinds his words really made a difference in how he spoke.
Kifu squirmed again, trying to break his hold on her, but he held tight. Judging from his grip, it wasn't a struggle for him.
A whisper from another trauma, compliments of Leno this time, threatened to break Kifu's refound connection with her brain. "Let go," she growled hostilely.
"Is this how you behave as a squad captain?" Kakashi demanded of Kifu. "You have a team. You're not going to sacrifice yourself – " He cut himself off, though his intonation suggested that he'd originally had more to say.
Kifu snarled, jerking to pull away from him. Kakashi held fast, his grip unwavering. Kifu struck out at his shin with the heel of her foot, but even that didn't seem to register for him. "Let me go," she repeated venomously. No matter which way she twisted, she couldn't break free.
Kakashi remained silent and stony. His hold was inhuman.
Kifu didn't know how to break free. She became increasingly more convinced that no matter what she did, even if the trick worked on a normal opponent, Kakashi would keep a hold of her writhing body. She stilled despite her mounting panic, her breath coming out in sharp pants. She'd learned that she could never relinquish control over herself.
"This isn't your mission."
"My mission is what I say it is," Kifu snapped. She leaned forward against his arms, but gained no more freedom.
"This isn't what we left your village to do," Kakashi reiterated with no little calmness. It was almost contagious.
"They're dying!" she barked. She thrust a hand forward as best she could, despite his arms holding her elbows to her torso, to punctuate her words. "You're okay with that?" Her voice bordered on hysterics, shrill beyond her control.
She felt his chest heave in a lengthy sigh.
"Well?" Kifu demanded sharply. She kicked again to no avail.
"They're already dead," Kakashi said. His emotion left his voice, leaving behind a detached coldness Kifu hadn't expected from him. She knew that he was an assassin, but this was ridiculous.
"They're not! They're screaming! They're running!" She threw herself forward again, her toes biting into the soil for traction. Her eyes swam with the strength of her emotion. "They're still alive!" She roared incoherently as she struggled against Kakashi, somehow still minutely in control over her volume. "Kakashi!"
"What do you think you're going to do?" Kakashi queried. Kifu balked at the levelness of his tone. No one reasoned with her with such composure. "You can't kill them before they kill everyone else. True, they're not dead yet, but they will be before it's all over. Think about it, Kifu."
Kifu let her body fall slack, forcing Kakashi to hold up most of her weight. He didn't seem to mind. "We can try," she argued weakly. She still felt angry, but defeat fell on her heavily. She hadn't thought about it. She could have evened the odds. She could have killed the ones massacring the innocents and given them a chance to fight for themselves or run away. Why didn't Kakashi see that?
"You will die," Kakashi said matter-of-fact. "You don't have the tools to fight that many people in this world."
What an odd way to say that. Kifu didn't know what Kakashi meant. "You're condemning them."
"That's war. I'm saving you and your people. Your Tribe needs you."
Kifu wrinkled her nose and hissed through her teeth. They didn't need her. She was a convenience to some, a bother to many, but none of them inherently needed her. They'd move on without her. Even Idai. Especially Idai. She wouldn't have to worry about growing up in Kifu's shadow any longer. She could create her own identity.
Kifu regained her footing, taking her weight back from Kakashi. His arms relaxed almost imperceptibly from around her middle, but Kifu knew that she wouldn't break free if he didn't will it.
"'We determine their size, their mission, and their dispatch point,'" Kakashi quoted. "My advice? Failing to assassinate their raze group is not an advisable intermission."
"Let go," Kifu repeated with resignation. She lightly shook her shoulders, and they came free from his grasp. She didn't make to run. She wouldn't deceive him to get her way. She'd given up their lives in favor of her own. But Kakashi was right; she wouldn't have been able to save them before the slaughterers had killed them all. She knew they'd execute their hostages to keep her from saving them before they'd allow anyone out of their kill zone. Kifu realistically wouldn't escape with her life, no matter how well Kumji trained her.
"They have a lot of people to expend for annihilation," Kakashi commented. He observed as people fell to the massacre, unblinking. Kifu couldn't watch. It turned her stomach more than she could physically handle. The screams and pleas were difficult enough.
"To what goal? Why kill everyone?" Kifu asked Kakashi weakly. She turned her eyes to the ground, swallowing hard to control herself.
"Not everyone." Right. They did have hostages. Kifu saw them when she'd been riled up enough to watch their blood flow.
"Why, though?"
"Kill the men. The threats," Kakashi inferred. "Kill the elderly."
Kifu swallowed again, unable to keep up with the amount of saliva her mouth produced. "Keep those they can assimilate into their army," she added thickly. Her knees gave as she physically covered her mouth with stiff fingers.
"Yeah."
"Keep those they can … make their slaves," Kifu whispered through her hands.
"Yeah."
"Shewnosh," Kifu cursed. Her fingers curled enough to press her knuckles against her lips as she squeezed her eyes close.
"That's their goal."
"Why?"
"Could be to expand their army." Kakashi's foot shifted slightly beside Kifu. She heard its slight rustle despite the desperate din just beyond. "Could be to expand their territory."
"Aggressive expansion regardless," Kifu murmured so lowly, she hardly heard her own words. She swallowed a couple more times, trying to get her throat under control. The threat of vomit didn't leave. "I need to get out of here. We need to find Taya and figure out who's in charge."
Kakashi tapped her lightly on her shoulder before grabbing her by the upper arm and hauling her to her feet. Kifu staggered, biting her teeth together hard. "No one here," Kakashi said. "They might have a field commander, but no one here is the kind to organize men like this together."
"Taya already knew that," Kifu said. She opened her eyes, swept her gaze over him, and then lightly pushed her way through the brush.
"Taya's this way," Kakashi said. He gently grasped her by the arm to correct her path. Kifu delayed her step to allow him to lead.
They came across Bin first, laying calmly in the undergrowth. Taya stood a few paces away, her back pressed up against a tree and her arms crossed over her chest. "There's too many of them," she commented lowly.
"I know," Kifu said.
"We should circle them and follow their path back to their operations," Kakashi suggested.
Kifu pursed her lips before nodding curtly. Taya pushed herself away from the tree trunk and began leading the way again, giving the dying village a wide berth. Kifu squeezed her hands into tight fists to keep them from shaking as she allowed herself and her companions to give up. She couldn't help but feel responsible for every subsequent death following their departure. The only consolation to them pressing forward was the possibility of them cutting off the tyrants at the head, before they could continue laying waste to more peoples.
The greenery quickly ate up the sounds of the dying, though birds remained suspiciously quiet in the wake of the violence. Taya had no problems following the murderers' path from their origin. They had too many men to hide signs of their passing. Heavy feet laden with leather shoes stomped most of the vegetation at ground level further into the soil. Passing legs snapped lightweight plants, obliterating them into sad shadows of their former selves. Kifu could distinguish footprints pressed into the earth from one another, but she couldn't follow one particular trail. There were too many of them. The raze group was comprised of more men than one single Tribe had members.
As they walked, Kifu allowed her brain to switch off. Her thoughts often felt like wandering, working into a furious frenzy until Kumji's gifted wrath ate through her heart. But Kifu nipped those thought tendrils quickly. She couldn't worry about what-ifs, nor about the morals of the situation. She couldn't beat herself up anymore. She needed to stay deadly. Ready. In control.
Instead, Kifu watched Bin trotting along with them. Bin would alert them to oncoming visitors, before they were spotted and felled. Bin knew when things were about to go sideways, and would warn them one way or another with body language. Taya knew how to read Bin much better than Kifu ever would, but Kifu knew enough to use him as a tool.
Far too quickly, but after half a day of walking, they came across more people. It was obviously a mobile camp, but the materials of the shelters were unlike anything Kifu had ever seen. The roofs and sides looked to be made out of canvas or leather, propped up on spindly frames that swayed when touched. There were many of them – so many, Kifu couldn't fathom the entire scope of their problem.
Taya balked, physically taking a step back and throwing a wayward prayer out to her god. Her hand passed over her forehead, heart, and stomach, before pausing stiffly at her lips. Kifu pulled up beside her before turning her back completely to the camp. She needed to put physical space between her and this problem. She thought she was in over her head earlier. Now, Kifu didn't know what to do at all.
"Conquerors," Kakashi murmured. His eye scanned the entire camp, drinking in the detail and spinning the information through his brain. Kifu appreciated him for it. Better someone else than her. "This is an army."
"We can't stop this," Kifu muttered through a thick tongue.
"We came here to see if we had to," Taya reminded Kifu.
"Do you think a mountain will stop them from coming to take our land?"
"No," Kakashi supplied for Taya.
Kifu slipped into a crouch, resting one knee on the ground for balance as her vision swam. She pressed both thumbs against the bridge of her nose, rubbing along her sinuses. "This is hopeless. This is beyond anything we can do."
"What do you want to do?" Kakashi asked.
"Pretend they don't exist," Kifu said quickly.
Kakashi hummed with disappointment. "With a base camp this large, I wouldn't be surprised if the group we came across isn't their only one attacking the locals." He paused, probably scrutinizing the camp further. "They haven't been here very long. A couple months at most. They're probably expanding at an incredible rate."
"What's a month?" Kifu asked lowly.
Kakashi physically jerked in surprise. "What do you use to measure time?" he asked in return.
"Suns. Moons. Stars."
"Oh. Well, it's about a lunar cycle, then."
Kifu blinked. "You think they did all that in a couple short moons?" she asked incredulously.
"The grass hasn't died yet."
Kifu looked over her fists, couldn't see through the brush they were hiding in, and ended up taking Kakashi's word for it. "Okay, but what can we even do?" Kifu asked. "I – I don't know."
"We can wait to see if they get closer," Taya suggested. "With a camp this big, it'll be easy to tell from smoke and fire if they're moving towards the mountains."
"I could have someone watch from on top of the mountain," Kifu mused. "And what if they do get close? What if we're under threat? That's only a delay."
"You'll be closer to home and your supply chain," Kakashi said. "It'll be a lot easier for your Tribe or Tribes to maneuver and stay healthy than it will this bunch of people. They aren't self-sufficient like this. They need people to bring them food and tools from somewhere else."
Kifu nodded slowly. "Okay. That's a – hmm. But if they're taking down villages on their way over, won't that re-supply them?"
"Not to the scale they need."
"If they get close, we can pull together groups to take out that supply chain," Taya said. "It wouldn't be very difficult for people like me, who are used to living away from the Tribe."
"I wouldn't want Amina on a mission like that," Kifu said.
"No. Me neither."
"That would be a good task for Remy," Kakashi suggested.
"Maybe," Kifu said. "Those aren't exactly details we need to focus on yet. Is waiting our best – our only – option?"
"It's your best option," Kakashi affirmed.
"And the only option I can see," Taya conceded. "The three of us aren't doing anything to an army this large. Even if we take out little pieces at a time, we won't get anywhere before we're found. We need to return to the Tribe with this information or risk all their deaths."
"I'm worried about the raze group," Kifu said. She pressed her knuckles to her lips, holding up her head.
"You don't think we can handle one of those with more, um, fighters?" Kakashi asked her.
"I'm not keen on losing Tribesmembers," Kifu said with a sneer. "You, me, and Telk might be able to avoid dying, but Remy's made it clear that while he has the skill, he won't kill. And … most Tribesmembers aren't trained to kill."
"I'll fight with you," Taya said.
Kifu closed her eyes and nodded gratefully to her friend. Taya was one of those she was afraid of losing. "There's a very real reason only Telk can match my skill in a fight. Our Tribesmembers are not taught how to engage in a fight to the death. They're not taught how to fight against multiple adversaries. Kumji and his people taught me, but he taught me specifically to become his weapon. He wanted me to annihilate my Tribe for him."
Taya's earlier resolved gaze fell, avoiding Kifu's direction. Taya knew vaguely of Kifu's history, but no one had told her anything specific. Least of all Kifu. Until today, she hadn't known what exactly had happened to Kumji. He'd simply disappeared from everyone's lives. Only Neto, Büks, and Kifu were in the know over his disappearance.
Jiogi had been the mentor for both Kumji and Taya. Jiogi had been adequate at hand-to-hand in his prime, and had taught Taya how to hold her own in the wild world, but Kumji had taken things a step further. He'd found people outside of the Tribe to teach him things Jiogi wouldn't, or couldn't. Kumji took Kifu to those people to craft her into Kumji's perfect weapon. Kumji was proficient before Kifu killed him, but Kifu dedicated her best years of learning to the art of war. And Telk had been her sparring partner all along, growing and learning with her. Through her.
"Kifu ..." Taya pressed her lips together but said no more.
"Most people in the Tribes don't know the things I've done. Half the Tribe doesn't trust me because my life is secret. I don't need them seeing why it's secret."
"You're going to have to set aside personal inhibitions," Kakashi warned her.
"No, it's fine. I could step down from my position if they want me to." She paused. "Neto won't let me," Kifu added in a mutter. "What I mean is that I won't risk anyone else. I don't have blind dedication backing me up to ask this of my people – and I don't have the skill to keep everyone alive. And if there's ever an after this … I can't let them throw me out. I can't leave this life like I left my life before." She drew in a shaky breath. "They will exile me if they all know." Except the Tribes didn't exile. By their own rules, they put the threat down. That had been Kifu's job for over fifteen years, eliminating Kumji and later Renza, but it had always been done in the dark.
"That's Neto's decision," Taya reminded Kifu gently. Her eyes still wouldn't meet Kifu's.
"The entire Tribe would turn upside-down. Anyone affiliated with me might go down with me. Anyone that knew everything. Especially Neto." Telk. Eljah. Büks. Jiogi. And Idai would get caught up in the crossfire.
Kifu cleared her throat and forcefully stood to her feet. "That's also beside the point. If the raze group gets sent after us, we have a force of four to go up against them. The other Tribes may have warriors to send with us, but I'm very serious that no one will handle themselves well. I'm leery about sending you, Taya."
"You may be my superior now, but I remember a time when I was in charge of you. When I was in charge of your life and safety."
"That doesn't change anything," Kifu said deadpan.
"You shouldn't sugarcoat the reality of the situation," Kakashi said, "but I'm not sure you can afford to hold people back because you don't want to lose them. I've watched friends fall in battle before. It's not easy. Difficult after the fact. But it's for the good of the village. In your case, the Tribe."
"These people won't know that they're out of their depth," Kifu hissed. "I know my people, and I watched those men massacre. My people won't stand a chance." She struck the bottom of her fist into the palm of her other hand. "If we do nothing now, I'm telling you, we have four of us to rely on to take out the thirty or forty men of a group explicitly designed to kill us. Kill them before they kill us." She thrust out an arm in the direction of the mountains. "We aren't meant to be killers in the Tribe. I do the Tribe's dirty work, but it's just me. We're not a bunch of assassins in an assassin corp."
"How many raze groups do you think this army has?" Taya asked. The question was directed to Kakashi.
"I couldn't tell you."
"Why?" Kifu asked her.
"If we take out that group tonight – ambush – that's thirty to forty less men we'd have to worry about in the future. They'll be tired and caught off-guard."
Kifu would be lying if she said she expected such a suggestion from Taya.
Kakashi looked between Taya and Kifu, assessing their frames of mind. "We'd be more likely to deliver this information to your leader, and it would potentially set this army back a little. I doubt those are their best men, but they'll be the most violent."
Taya finally looked back in Kifu's direction, holding firm eye contact. "We should deal the first blow."
"And what of their reaction?" Kifu queried.
"Doesn't matter. They won't know where we came from. We'll be long gone before they know to retaliate."
"And then we watch from Tribes land for their approach," Kakashi finished thoughtfully.
"You're both in agreement?" Kifu couldn't help the sadistic smile tugging at her mouth. She liked the idea of those murderers dying. They deserved it.
"Your original mission is accomplished," Kakashi said. "We determined their size, their mission, and their dispatch point."
"You wouldn't let me break cover because you said I'd die," Kifu said suspiciously.
"You wanted to rush in without a plan. Yes, I've watched comrades die, and that's why I won't let it happen again. That wasn't for the good of the Tribe."
"I don't understand your line."
"The line is that I won't allow my comrades to die, but each of my fallen comrades have been shinobi of skill, too."
"What? And if they die anyway, it's for the good of the village?" Kifu asked snidely.
"We chose our paths. We accept the inevitable fate attached to the shinobi lifestyle."
"That's why we do this now," Taya said. "We're not shinobi, whatever that is, but we're the closest thing the Tribes have to whatever Kakashi's describing. Our people chose to leave difficult lives for the promise of peace far removed from trading society. You and me, Kifu, we chose different paths."
Kifu snorted. She didn't chose to become Kumji's weapon, but she could see how her choices put her into such a predicament. She had something to prove and Kumji harnessed her childish anger. "Great. Let's kill some bad people."
She cast one last, lingering look at the terrifying spread of tents that belonged to the giant army before falling into step behind Bin. Taya led them back in the direction of the massacred village, this time with the full intention of avenging those innocents' deaths. As well as adding a small sense of security for their Tribe's future.
While Kifu still felt unsettled, she picked food for Kakashi as they travelled. She was used to foraging as she moved. She'd made it habit throughout her younger years, after learning what to look for. Even though she didn't feel like eating, she knew that didn't mean that those around her didn't. She often forgot about that. Eventually, however, Kakashi began discreetly tucking the food away rather than politely eating what was given to him. Kifu quit trying.
The tension in Kifu's gut increased as they neared the site of the massacre. The forest darkened as the sun slid away, but that didn't stop them. Tired was the last thing Kifu felt.
"We're here," Taya whispered. Kifu didn't understand how Taya knew where she was at all times. She didn't know how Taya knew they were in the same area as this morning. It was quiet, except for the calls of the last few birds, crickets, and the trill of toads. Kifu didn't hear voices or movement. She didn't smell smoke or blood. Everything looked the same as everywhere else in the forest.
Shifting into a stealthy gait, Kifu slipped past her group to investigate the area before them. She didn't have far to go until she was on the opposite end of the village. Taya's abilities were uncanny. Kifu took quick evaluation of the situation, and returned. "They're gone."
"We didn't pass them on the way back. I would think they'd return to their base camp," Kakashi mused.
"Are you any good at tracking?" Kifu asked him.
"Probably not," Kakashi said.
"Back me up if I need it, then," she ordered. She retraced her steps, moving as furtively as before. Kakashi hadn't acknowledged her, and she didn't hear him behind her, but it didn't bother her. Even if he decided to not follow her direction, Kifu didn't particularly need someone to watch her back. It was just safer.
Kifu paused at the edge of the foliage, crouched low to the ground, as she assessed the open and bloody expanse before her. The army's raze group left the bodies of their victims discarded untouched after death. Expressions of fear, pain, and surprise painted the faces of all the dead Kifu could see. No one was left alive. No one chest rose and fell with breath. No eyes squeezed shut in agony with no hope of being saved. Black lifeblood coated their bodies, their clothes, the ground, and the sides of many of their buildings. Each drop, every spray and arch, told another story of another violent and unforgiveable act.
Kifu could hear her heart beat in her ears. She could feel her own blood pulse in her throat.
Keeping low, Kifu slithered into the clearing, exposing herself to anyone that may have stayed behind. She kept a hand on her knife situated on her hip, untied in case she needed it quickly.
She carefully stepped around the puddles shining with the last vestiges of sunlight from the sky, but the bottoms of her feet were thoroughly coated in sticky blood before she made it very far. Even after running into Kumji's group of slavers, she'd never seen anything like this.
The air not only had a sour scent to it, but Kifu could taste the metallic blood on her tongue. These were not new sensations to Kifu, having hunted large game for most of her life, but she'd never tasted the thick scent of blood on the air even working on a carcass.
Her feet danced over bodies and through buildings, treading silently no matter what she ended up stepping on. She needed to figure out where the slaughterers went before she lost the finer points of her vision to the dark. She didn't need to be a master tracker to figure out where thirty men trod off to, but losing the majority of her sight exponentially as the sun set increased the difficulty level.
Kifu scanned the periphery of the village for signs of broken branches and crushed foliage. Her eyes caught on to places where the villagers frequented, their paths worn from daily use. Plants didn't enjoy growing where they were repeatedly trampled. She saw places where people had broken free from the massacre, reaching the relative safety of the woods, but they had been cut down regardless. Kifu saw the snap of their fervent breakaway, bookended by a thick spray of gore across leaves and bark. Sometimes she saw pieces of their bodies, but not always. The wilderness claimed their bodies back: food for the forest. Kifu did not see an exit point for an army.
"They didn't leave."
Kifu whipped around to face the source of the hushed voice, one hand flung up before her defensively. People didn't sneak up on her, but Kakashi had managed to do just that.
"You didn't check the buildings?"
Coldness dumped through Kifu's veins, fear shooting strongly down her spine. "That doesn't make any sense," she hissed. The village was completely silent, save for the typical sounds of the forest as day segued to night. Frogs began singing in place of the birds, completely out of place considering the visage of the village all around Kifu and Kakashi. They took hostages. They took hostages, right? Hostages wouldn't be mute. An army wouldn't be noiseless.
"They could be more skilled than anticipated."
"Doesn't matter," Kifu sneered. She saw Kakashi tense up infinitesimally as she shifted back into her rage, but she wasn't yet seeing through a curtain of red. "We need to find them all before we go in and slit their throats. It's better than they deserve."
"Well, you probably should have a plan for if you can't, uh, slit their throats before they know what you're doing," Kakashi advised.
"Oh, thanks. Wouldn't have thought of that," Kifu said snidely.
Kifu did not like the idea of fighting in close quarters. She'd never done so before. Her entire life since joining the Tribes and learning under Kumji, Kifu had fought with ample space. She'd learned to watch her flanks and remain hypervigilant of all around her. She preferred fighting with the staff for that reason. It was easier to keep herself protected when she kept enemies at an arm's length.
For that reason, Kifu wondered if she could find a happy medium between getting caught in the middle of her dirty work indoors or luring them outside where she was most confident in her skillset, but where their numbers would immediately overwhelm them. The odds did not favor her.
"Do you want our help?" Kakashi asked her flatly.
Kifu pushed out a quick breath in a huff. Her eyes flashed to the nearest building. The few whisks of blood across the siding nearly blended in with the wood grain. "Can you see inside the buildings well?"
"Not clearly."
Kifu spun on the ball of her foot and cursed under her breath. This was quickly becoming a bad idea. She wasn't about to drop it.
Gesturing sharply to Kakashi, she led them swiftly out from the middle of the village, back to where Taya and Bin waited for them. Taya watched her expectantly, though she didn't say a word.
"They're taking shelter in the village buildings," Kifu told her, returning to her normal volume. Taya didn't bother hiding the shock that crossed her face. "I want to take them out tonight. We need an accurate count of their numbers, in the number of buildings they occupy." Kifu didn't want to give them the luxury of dying in their sleep, but she was sure that she'd get her way near the end. She didn't typically enjoy letting people suffer; she'd seen enough of it from Kumji's group. But these people? They deserved it. And Kifu knew how to make someone feel pain while simultaneously taking them out of the game.
"From what I saw, they're already asleep for the night," Kakashi added. "That doesn't mean they'll stay that way. We shouldn't assume they'll be unarmed because they're caught off-guard."
"I can't be very quiet," Taya warned Kifu. Her fingers brushed over the head of her axe.
Kifu turned to look pointedly at Kakashi.
His eye widened before returning to its relaxed state. "I can, sure."
"If this gets away from us, I can't defend myself without moving freely," Kifu said. "It's going to get away from us. There are too many of them. People don't die quietly."
"Ah, I see." He hummed contemplatively to himself, turning to stare off in the direction of the village.
"If there are too many to a building, the others will wake and corner me," Kifu considered out loud. "Truly, any way you kill someone in their sleep, they're going to make a noise." She watched Kakashi as he processed silently. "Vocal reflex, muscle reflex, it doesn't matter. Bodies have automatic reflexes, regardless of its attachment to its head."
"We can make it work if we get all three of us in a building and there aren't more than, eh, six men," Taya said.
Kifu shook her head. "It's not going to work. We're not all going to go through each building like that."
Taya frowned and fidgeted. Kifu admired her; she was incredibly tough in the face of so many problems. She'd never seen her so uncomfortable. Outright murder wasn't something Taya was used to. Kifu wanted these men dead in cold blood. Revenge as well as prospective future protection. These men wantonly killed once, they'd do it again. It didn't matter if they did it because they liked it or if it had been strictly by order. They were agents of chaos and death. They went against the natural order of things.
"It's in our best interest to figure out how many buildings they occupy," Kakashi said.
"Yeah," Kifu agreed impatiently.
"If you're looking for advice, I need to adjust strategy off that fact alone."
"Go," Kifu commanded.
Kakashi took off in a wink, disappearing in a whisper of greenery.
"You're trusting his word that much, huh?" Taya asked Kifu lowly.
Kifu didn't hide the flash of discomfort. "He stopped me earlier. I almost tried to end their murder spree. He's a good balance to what Kumji taught me."
"Have you seen enough from him to place all your trust in him?"
Kifu licked her lips. Now she avoided looking at Taya. "Yeah. I think I've placed my life in his hands more than I realize already." It wasn't just Kakashi saving her from throwing her life away in the haze of rage. Kifu saw how easily he could have taken out not only Eljah, but also foresaw him single-handedly playing with Telk and Kifu if he really wanted to. Kifu had observed enough of the way he held himself back and hid it all under layers of masks. He didn't need his physical face mask to hide behind. He had everything else less tangible covered, too. He freely admitted he was an assassin, and Kifu firmly believed that if he wanted her dead, she'd have been eliminated already. Kakashi knew what he was doing, proved that his words weren't all smoke, and he was more dangerous than them all.
Taya's expression softened. She had a good idea of how little Kifu trusted. "Where did he come from?"
"The gods, I think," Kifu whispered. Nothing else explained how he showed up. How his world was so different from theirs.
"I think I need a better answer than that," Taya almost laughed.
"Truly. He showed up in the middle of our Tribe land. He doesn't know why. Baku and Roicho found him. They don't know why. But I … I can let my guard around him, and that doesn't make any sense, Taya." Kifu felt like she was pleading by the time she made it through her last sentence. Kifu didn't trust people. She trusted Telk and Eljah, because she'd been friends with them since before everyone else had hurt her. They'd helped her through the fallout of failed relationships, platonic and romantic. She trusted Taya because Taya was the reason she'd joined the Tribe as a child. She'd been the first person in Kifu's life to extend a hand. She trusted Büks because she'd brought more awkward problems to him than she'd ever contemplate bringing to anyone else. But that was the extent of her trust. Everyone else had failed her one way or another, hurting her when she was supposed to be helped. She didn't even trust Neto completely.
"Oh."
Kifu scoffed. "I appreciate your insight."
"No, sorry. I swear you're a different person every time I come back to the Tribe. I don't know if I can help you in this."
"Life keeps trying to kill me, everywhere I turn," Kifu muttered. "I didn't have any expectations for life when I ran into you and Jiogi, but this isn't what I anticipated. I'm not sure I like who I turned out to be." Her hands were stained from a lifetime of bad decisions and she couldn't find a way back to the innocence she'd had when she ran away from her family. She wanted to be a hunter, not a housewife, but what Kumji crafted her into was not what she'd envisioned. And Kumji was just the beginning.
With every horrible turn in her life, Kifu had to cut off her hopes. She had to steel herself against the new levels of darkness she wouldn't have fathomed existing before they'd happened to her. She had to survive becoming a weapon, and stop the destructive hand that held her. Just when she thought she was getting over the atrocities of that situation, Leno singlehandedly destroyed what remained of her shattered trust in others. Things only got worse after Telk and Eljah pulled Kifu out of the darkness of that relationship. Kifu couldn't raise Idai after barely bringing her to term, and she handed her care off to Mai. She couldn't help Renza despite giving her all into mentoring him, and she couldn't convert him to a sound frame of mind. She failed over and over, and still Neto pushed her harder. Demanded more and more out of her. So Kifu stuck around under the weight of his expectations, essentially running the Tribe with little guidance from him as he worked to hide his failing health from everyone else. It'd been like that for more seasons than Kifu could count.
"It's not too late to start over," Taya said softly. Kifu blinked and looked Taya back in the eyes. It wasn't pity. It wasn't disgust. She didn't expect whatever emotion this was from Taya. "That's what the Tribes are about."
"I can't forget what I've done. I can't forgive myself for most of it." Kifu ground her teeth together and dipped her chin away.
"Something to think about."
"But how? How can I change who I am after all this, Taya?" Kifu asked so quietly, the words almost didn't make it through the lump in her throat.
"You have to consciously be better."
Kifu bared her teeth, her expression short of disgust. "You realize that while Kumji's dead and I'm not longer his weapon, Neto's been using me just as much? After Holmu died, I'm the only one Neto turns to. He's worse off than people think. So paranoid. He gave Holmu Kumji's position in the Tribes on top of his own – and that all fell to me."
Holmu was the only buffer between Neto's demands and Kifu after Kifu slayed her mentor in self-defense. Holmu was kind and perpetually patient, and Kifu sorely missed his optimism. Before Kumji's betrayal, Kumji had been the Head Hunter. Holmu had been the Head Warrior. The Tribe didn't need someone to lead an army, but just in case, Holmu made sure that people could hold their own in a fight under pressure.
Holmu had also been about the only reason Kifu could carry on with Kumji's pressing demands of Kifu's energies. He'd offered her words of encouragement when Kifu was ready to give up. Kifu never knew how much Holmu knew about her and Kumji's extracurricular activities, but he never held any contempt toward her, even when she was her most broken. She still mourned him.
"So? Be better."
"How?" Kifu snarled. Impatience scrabbled around her chest.
"It starts with how you talk to yourself. How you let others treat you. That includes Neto, dear." Taya reached out and set a hand softly on Kifu's shoulder. Kifu had to work to keep from pulling herself sharply away. "You're not the Tribe's hidden weapon. You're a person. I remember the child that ran away, Kifu. Be her."
Kifu dropped her eyes, scrutinizing the ground between her toes. "I don't know if I can do that, Taya. She's gone."
Taya took her hand back, setting both hands on her hips and looking off in the direction Kakashi disappeared off to. "Like I said, something to think about." Her attention flicked back to Kifu. "You have friends, right?"
Kifu swallowed. "Yeah."
"They'd probably be alright with helping you sort through all this. And if not, I'm your friend, too, Kifu. And I don't have any more excursions planned."
Blinking furiously, biting down on her lip, Kifu forced her head back up. "I don't think I want anyone else to know what happened with Kumji. I wouldn't make it if those two left me, too."
"Fair. You still have me, and I know now."
Kifu forced a smile to her face. She didn't feel any better, and the expression probably came across as more of a grimace. "You're not allowed to leave me now." She jerked her head in the direction of the village. "We're going fell some murderers."
Taya puffed out a small laugh, but Kifu could tell that it was more forced. This had been Taya's idea, but she was not comfortable with taking the lives of other people. Kifu believed it was this group's abhorrent deeds that superseded Taya's characteristic moral inhibitions. Taya was fair. She loved to give people – or in Bin's case, animals – another chance. "Right by your side, boss."
"Just waiting on Kakashi." Kifu felt out of her element. She was reactive. She did not plan. It worked when she was taking care of herself, but it didn't work when she was trying to lead a team. While Kakashi had told her that he led an elite group of assassins, and he'd offer her his advice when she needed it, she greatly appreciated him for entirely taking the lead on this situation.
When the Tribes had been at war with the slavers, Kifu wasn't in command. It all fell to Holmu. He was a spectacular commander. He could balance people and their strengths and weaknesses. Kifu tried to emulate his methods in the way that she ran the Tribe, but she felt completely out of her depth. She felt as if she were flailing. That things were falling apart all around her, all within the span of two suns.
Kifu looked skyward, where the stars began popping up like dandelions in the great growth season. The brightest of them all, the star that marked the peak of the hot season and the beginning of a new year, was nearly at its zenith. It wasn't situated over the top of a mountain like it would have been if Kifu had been home, but she knew exactly where to find it in the sky regardless.
Kakashi returned, the hushed breath of plants announcing his arrival. Both Kifu and Taya looked at him expectantly.
"Thirty-four men in thirteen homes."
A dirty expression briefly crossed Taya's face. They weren't homes any longer. Their caretakers had been slain.
"And they're all accounted for?" Kifu asked. She didn't expect Kakashi would have left stones unturned, with what little she did know of him, but she'd learned that asking obvious questions prevented terrible disasters.
"Yes."
"Course of action?" Taya asked. She looked at Kifu.
She lightly shook her head before flicking her chin at Kakashi. She wasn't going to be the one to make a bad decision. Of course, if Kakashi led them astray, that would have been the result of Kifu's poor choice. She really trusted that Kakashi had more experience in these matters.
"That's two or four men in each building, not three," Kakashi added.
"Four is pushing my limits in keeping safe," Kifu admitted. Even in an open space, four opponents was ridiculous.
"If you want to split completely up, I can focus on those buildings." He shoved his hands into his pockets and turned so that he could look back in the direction of the dark village. "We have other options. I could accompany one of you in each building, with one person looking out on the outside. We would be better off starting with the buildings with more men, even though there are fewer of them." His face turned back to Kifu. "That's a safer option."
"I'll keep watch," Taya said quickly. She grimaced, as if she expected a smart remark from Kifu about cowardice. None came.
Kakashi tilted his chin down. "You and Bin stay hidden, but centered. Alert us with an inconspicuous noise if anything changes out there."
"Bin's a wolf," Kifu said flatly. "We don't control him."
"Oh." Kakashi sounded genuinely surprised, like it hadn't occurred to him. Kifu couldn't help throwing him a disgruntled look. What kind of world did Kakashi come from where he'd treat a wolf like a human solider?
"He'll stay by me if I ask him," Taya said. "He might prove useful." Then again, Taya had a lot more control over her canine companion than Kifu thought possible. She'd never understand Taya's connection to Bin.
"Kifu, you're with me. Go for the quickest kill you can. Let me know if you need help."
Kifu scoffed. "Help?"
Kakashi acted as if he didn't notice his brush against her pride. "If we can't make it through every building before they're all awake, we'll take the fight to Taya and cover her. Keep your backs safe, watch each other's sides." He looked back toward the village. "These people don't have skill, but they're bold. That makes them just as dangerous."
Kifu wasn't sure if she should appreciate him for coming up with a cohesive plan that sounded as if it had potential, or if she should be offended for him treating them like Tribeslings in the process. Some of the points he brought up felt so trivial, they didn't need mentioning. Taya, on the other hand, didn't seem to mind.
"That inconspicuous noise. What kind of noise?"
"We used bird calls in Konoha."
"It's night," Kifu pointed out. Birds slept with the sun.
Kakashi hummed thoughtfully to himself. "A warning woof? Like Bin would do for you."
"Would that be loud enough to alert you?" Taya asked. Kifu didn't know what noise they even meant. Bin communicating verbally to Taya didn't make sense. Bin was a wolf.
"I'll hear it," Kakashi confirmed.
"That's our plan, then?" Kifu asked. "Are we ready?" Kifu was. She itched to start. Her lung capacity felt smaller in anticipation. Her spine locked with tension. Pre-meditating the demise of another, let alone thirty-four others, was new to Kifu, and she wasn't sure she really liked it. She killed Kumji out of self-defense. She killed Renza in the heat of the moment after warning him various times what his actions would amount to. And the slavers? She killed them without a second thought on the battle field. This was different. It would have been an acceptable act before Kakashi stopped her. But well after the fact? While the men slept? She almost felt as wicked as them. Kifu wasn't a cold-blooded killer.
She really couldn't believe that this was Taya's idea.
Taya pulled her axe out of the harness holding it to her thigh. "I'm ready."
Kakashi didn't join in to their affirmations. He simply stepped forward with the foot further away from the village, pivoting on the one still grounded, and began leading the way forward. Kifu immediately hopped in behind him, choosing her footing easily despite the lack of lighting. The moon hadn't woken from its daily slumber yet, and wouldn't for a long while. Kifu hoped to be done with the terrible task before it came over the tops of the trees. As a crescent, it wouldn't have much illumination to offer anyway.
The four of them broke from the edge of the woods within heartbeats of one another. While they were all stealthy beings, Kifu was relieved when she could no longer hear the susurration of their passing. The delicate sounds of disturbed foliage felt unnaturally loud to Kifu's ears. It sent a sensation akin to ants crawling across her skin.
Taya stepped around Kifu when she paused at the mouth of their path. She deposited her bow and quiver on the ground, away from where they could get trampled. She wouldn't need a long-range weapon in the work they were about to do, and she didn't want to see these items destroyed. Her bow had been through a lot in its lifetime.
Kifu caught up with them as Kakashi wordlessly communicated with Taya. He pointed her silently to a strategic location. She nodded deeply once, twisted her hands to Bin like it was a language he understood, and led him away. Without wasting a beat, Kakashi guided Kifu to their first building.
Anxiety mounted within Kifu, flooding her limbs with jittery feeling. She knew she'd be fine once she was doing something, but the lack of tactile work and extended time for her brain to go wild with alarms wasn't helping her. She always worked better in the moment. If she gave herself too much time, nerves took over for the worse.
She followed at Kakashi's heel, barely keeping herself from crashing into him as he moved. He set a brisk pace until he reached the first doorway. Kifu sidled over to his side, her stance falling to something lower and more stable. Kakashi motioned with all fingers for her to take one side, and then he entered the blackness of the building. Kifu couldn't follow him inside as swiftly, though her eyes did adjust rapidly enough. All she could make out were vague shapes, all inky gray.
Kifu moved slowly, brushing her toes gently across the ground in case she missed something with her eyes. She could barely make out Kakashi. His dark clothing stood out slightly darker than his surroundings. She did not, however, see the four men they were stalking.
Kakashi helped her. He pointed slowly to each man, waiting for Kifu to acknowledge him each time. He then gestured to two men again. Kifu took it as his soft order to handle those two men while he took out the other two.
She didn't know what she was doing. True, she knew how to kill a man. It wasn't very different from an animal in the field. Slitting the throat was the best way to ensure that her prey was down. An animal could get up from a shot through the heart, even if the arrow didn't pierce the heart directly, but it couldn't get up from a cut across the throat.
That had been Kifu's method for humans, too. If she could get in close and past a person's defenses, she'd go for the neck if she could. If not, she'd end it that way anyway. Cutting the artery, the trachea, had been a lesson drilled hard into her.
Was that the best option when she was killing them in their sleep?
Kifu swallowed hard, though found it difficult for the lump in her throat. She thought she'd get better in the moment, but she was intensely aware of her hesitation.
These men were monsters. They deserved worse. Kifu and Kakashi were doing the world a favor in putting them out of their rabid misery. It's what Kifu would do if a predator animal began wantonly killing. She'd do it without a second thought. Animals felt suffering when they struck out blindly. She didn't understand how this could be so different to what she'd done before in her life.
Her breaths became sharper. She couldn't get enough oxygen. Her ears buzzed. The corners of her vision swam threateningly. She couldn't act.
A hand grabbed her upper arm. Kifu whipped her knife up swiftly, contorting her body away. All the symptoms of her anxiety flushed away instantaneously. Kakashi grabbed her fist around the hilt of the knife with his open hand. His expression gave away nothing.
Without a word, he twisted her hand and plunged the blade of her knife directly through the heart of her victim. He held her hand fast for a moment, registering the shake of her limbs, before letting go. "I'm trusting you to keep control of yourself," he murmured. His eye bore into hers, intense. "Can you do this?"
Kifu turned her eyes down, staring at her fist around the knife's hilt with the blade buried deep in the man's chest. Kakashi's hand that had been around her upper arm had transferred to the man's throat, holding it firmly to the table and clamping down to keep him from crying out. A muted gurgle managed to make it through, and then he began flailing.
Kifu pulled her knife quickly, bringing it close to her chest in a poor mimicry of a hug. The man heaved a couple more times before falling still.
"Well?" Kakashi prompted fiercely. He looked away and shifted his energy, relaxing back to the Kakashi he'd been all along. "You're not obligated."
No matter what this did to what remained of Kifu's morals, she couldn't ask Kakashi to eradicate the entire company alone. It had to have done something to him inside, just as it ate at her. He was still a human being with feelings, even if he kept them determinedly hidden away. This was for the good of the Tribe. For the good of the ecosystem. They were cleansing a festering rot.
"No, I'll be better," Kifu said resolutely. Kakashi's gaze returned. She could vaguely hear Kumji's voice in the back of her head, berating her for her hesitation. She wasn't a child anymore. Sometimes she had to do what was difficult.
Kakashi stared at her a moment longer, searching her. "You're not an assassin. There's no shame in admitting you can't."
"I said I'll do it," Kifu hissed. The small flame of her ever-present fury flared. All she had to do was remember what she'd witnessed that morning. The gory images were fixed in her mind; recall wouldn't be difficult.
Kifu turned to look at the other man Kakashi had asked her to dispatch. He was already gone. In the time it took Kifu to stall and lose her wits, Kakashi had slain three in utter silence.
"Thirty more men," Kakashi reminded her. "Twelve more buildings. Let's go."
Kifu forced her step to match Kakashi's as he left and made a beeline to the next building. As before, he pointed out each man, and then pointed to the two he expected her to exterminate.
Kifu approached the nearer of the two and stared down at him. Red flashed across her vision, reminding her of the monster hidden behind the peacefully slumbering facade on his face. She vividly recalled the ambiguous men forcefully bringing people down to the ground and slicing them to pieces. Kifu wanted to do it to him. She couldn't.
Trying to keep her movements minimal, working hard to breath past the lump still in her throat, Kifu plunged her knife deep into the man's chest, right where the heart rested. It worked before; she wasn't about to experiment with her way yet. She threw herself over the man's body, holding him down with her entire weight, and pulled the blade promptly out. She leaned over his throat, blocking his voice from working before the life left him. Warm blood spattered across her thighs and stomach, staining her for her dark actions.
She didn't allow herself time to think. She hopped down expeditiously and moved on to the next man, taking him out in similar fashion.
If she shut out her emotions, her fears, it wasn't so bad.
Kakashi stood before her, sizing her up. "You okay?"
"Let's finish this." She was near her zone, where her thoughts remained shut out. It was the best state to be in while in less than exemplary situations.
Kakashi took her words for face value and led the way to the next building without delay.
Kifu barely made out Taya's hidden form on their way to the third building. She stood alert, her stance wide and ready. So far, they were all safe. Kifu wanted to finish things and get out of there. She'd sleep well once they were a safe distance away from this field of death.
Kakashi pointed out the men, as before, but Kifu didn't need his help in distinguishing human from living space anymore. Just as it took her time to learn how to spot the presence of large game in the twilight hours of day, Kifu only had to learn the signs of their existence. She dispatched her first man quickly, using the same method as she had before.
Kifu leaned her entire weight on the hand holding down the man's neck when she noticed Kakashi jerk as if he'd been slapped. Her eyes jolted in his direction, immediately inferring that his kill had gotten the better of him.
He turned abruptly, noticed her attention on him, and pointed deeper into the building. "The other two are yours." In an eyeblink, he disappeared through the door just as a sharp, high-pitched whistle cut through the air. The sound ended as quickly as it started. An alarm call. Not one that Taya had earlier agreed upon.
Instinctually, Kifu wanted to race out into open air to assist. Her body lurched forward off of the man's corpse, but she'd only gotten in a couple steps to recover her balance. She hesitated, hovering in one spot, before regaining her wits. She'd have to dispatch the remainder of this building before she could leave. Allowing them to live would only open their defenses from behind.
One man stirred in his sleep, and Kifu pounced on him first. She slammed the blade of her knife between his rips, the entire weight of her body behind the strike. As soon as her knees landed, she pulled the blade out and pressed its edge to his neck, allowing it to sink into his flesh. She watched over her shoulder at the doorway, hoping to get a glimpse of the cause of alarm.
She missed the last man waking.
Her toes tapped the floor with ease before she noticed him.
His groggy confusion saved her from a skirmish.
Kifu struck quickly, flinging herself forward into him. She twisted with practiced ease to keep her balance while he struggled to stay upright. She threw a knee into his chest, sliced with her knife, landed on him for cushion, and finished the attack with the knife embedded in his heart.
Few sounds escaped from the exchange. No sounds reached Kifu's ears from outside.
Kifu burst out of the building, digging her heels in to the earth to stop herself at the threshold. She looked around with worry, trying to find signs behind Kakashi's immediate withdraw. The place Taya had hid was empty.
Twenty-two men remained in the raze group. They couldn't afford their silent plan going awry this early. The sheer numbers were still against them.
Crouching low, Kifu sauntered over to the place she'd last seen Taya. She hoped to glean some information concerning the rest of her company's whereabouts. Kifu didn't think she could continue this mission out alone while they toiled in the unknown, lest her nerves crumble and fail her. Kakashi was the one with the information on the enemies' locations. And her team was more important than the mission in the first place. With her head clear for some semblance of thought, Kifu would never risk Taya's life.
Kifu didn't have time to search the dirt for answers. She heard small signs of a struggle from the other side of the structure, possibly attributed to Taya's and Kakashi's disappearance, but she hadn't been the only one. Two men stumbled from the building over, sobering up quickly as they stepped under the stars.
Kifu didn't wait. She dashed toward them with as much speed as she could muster, knife brandished before her. Whatever her prey had been fixated on before switched at the slight noise of her incoming footfalls.
One man shouted unintelligibly and pointed at her. His partner sidestepped away, and Kifu took note of his position. He wasn't running. He wasn't flagging others for help. He simply stepped away from the immediate confrontation to aide his companion, should he fail. It was a decent enough tactic, if Kifu had the skill level of a peasant.
The man under direct attack brought up an arm to catch Kifu's knife arm, as if to deflect the blade away from himself. Kifu allowed her forearm to slam into his, letting the guard to take the brunt of the impact. Balancing herself quickly, Kifu drove her knee between the man's legs and allowed him to simply drop. She'd worry about him in a second.
The second man came in wide, brandishing his much larger blade in at an arm's length trajectory. Kifu watched him, unmoving, until he brought himself in closer. Ducking his blade with ease, she threw herself into him from the squat of her dodge, and drove the point of her blade through his back. He screamed. Grimacing at the noise, Kifu pulled her knife free, tugged his back into herself, and drew the cutting edge across his neck. He dropped gracelessly.
She returned her attention to the first man. He staggered back to his feet, one hand holding his crotch. He tried to gather himself into a more intimidating stance as Kifu approached, but for naught. His head snapped back in the force of Kifu's knick, and he fell in slow motion to his back. Kifu stepped beside him calmly, dropped her knee onto his chest, and dispatched him like his comrades before.
When she assessed her surroundings, she saw no more foes. No more than twenty men left to assassinate, but Kifu still had to find Kakashi and Taya.
She scampered off to where she'd heard signs of a scuffle and finally caught sight of her teammates. A few men already lay at their feet, still. Taya worked on fending off two men, Bin snarling beside her, while Kakashi dealt with three. The odds were not in their favors.
Kifu managed to bring herself in close to the melee without alerting her opponents. It allowed her to pounce on one man's back and slash his throat before he even completely lost his balance.
Taya embedded the head of her axe in a man's shoulder, eliciting a growling scream from the man. Kifu could hear Taya's curse; she aimed for something else. She wrenched the axe free just in time to jump back from her second opponent's attack. In the heartbeat of time, Bin took the opening and flew across Taya to sink his teeth into the already wounded man's other arm. The man howled. Unblinking, Taya swung her axe into the second man's collar, and brought him down as Bin shook the first man into pieces.
Kakashi held an oddly shaped double-bladed knife in one hand. He moved quickly, more on the defense as he kept the two men left on him back and away from Taya. Kakashi acknowledged Kifu with the briefest of eye smiles, and then the two people he'd been playing with crumpled. Dead.
The man pinned under Bin quit his howling with a soft thunk of Taya's axe, and silence remained. Kifu stood up tall, a little thunderstruck. What all had just happened? She hadn't actually seen Kakashi strike finishing blows, had she?
"That's nine less," Taya said a little breathlessly.
"I took out two more that wandered out of their hut before finding you guys," Kifu said.
Kakashi hummed. "Eleven men left, then?"
Kifu shrugged. She wasn't about to work that out in her head.
Taya pointed into the dark, a ghost of a smile flashing across her face. "That man, he wandered out to take a piss. He died before he finished." Whatever amusement Taya had dropped completely. "I don't know where the other men came from." She looked to Bin and patted his head. "I think Bin alerted Kakashi, because it wasn't me."
"I'm surprised we don't have more of them wandering out of the buildings," Kifu said. She spun around, eyes darting from one doorway to the next. "That got a little loud."
"Spoke a little soon there, boss," Taya said lightly. She pointed off to a building, where a man looked about with confusion. Kifu could have taken him down with her bow, if she hadn't left it behind for safe keeping.
Kakashi, it appeared, didn't have the same long distance limitations as either Kifu or Taya. He swung his arm almost casually and threw the odd knife he'd been using into the man's chest. He staggered back with wide eyes before falling deeper into the building. Kifu snapped her attention to Kakashi, a little alarmed at his accuracy with a knife over such a distance.
"Ten left," Taya said.
"You're not supposed to throw your weapon away," Kifu said slowly. It was something she'd chide a Tribesling for, or a less experienced adult. Kakashi was neither.
"I have more," Kakashi said. "Kunai are meant for throwing."
So that odd knife was called a kunai. Kifu would have to ask him about them later, when they weren't trying to exterminate an entire group of rabid men.
Bin bristled beside Taya again, his lip pulling away from his white teeth in a warning smile. Taya gently placed a hand on his mane and sunk back into an athletic stance with her axe at the ready, her eyes scanning for the reason to Bin's alert.
"They're gathering forces and organizing, aren't they?" Kifu asked flatly.
"Seems that way," Taya replied, tight lipped.
"Good. We'll get this over sooner that way," Kakashi proclaimed. Kifu couldn't help but send him a sidelong glance. She did not appreciate feeling overwhelmed. A couple at a time were more than enough for her.
Two men exploded into view from behind a building wall behind Bin, alarmingly close for having escaped their notice. Kakashi reacted instantly, separating the two of them and pushing one toward Kifu, as if he were an offering. Kifu rolled her eyes and tripped him up further before he could regain his balance from Kakashi's push. He stumbled into the wall, catching himself heavily with his arms. Slamming her body into his, she reached around and dragged her knife across his throat, and immediately spun to put the wall to her back for protection.
"They're pretty awful at defending themselves," Kifu commented.
The remainder of the men fell on them. They materialized from hiding places and shadows deeper than the comprehension of their eyes. These men weren't tired, out with their dick in their hands for a midnight piss, or wandering confusedly to investigate an odd noise out of place amidst the screams of the toads and frogs. No, these men knew what they were up against and they were ready: weapons in hand, still painted in the viscera of the villagers, and poised to kill.
"You should work on the timing of your words," Kakashi grunted. He deflected the blade of an incoming machete with another one of his kunai, redirecting the momentum of its trajectory for his advantage.
"I do have a habit of speaking hastily tonight, don't I?" Kifu quipped. She ducked low to avoid a swung, and launched herself into the man's legs to bring him down to the ground. Before she could strike a killing blow, she had to roll away from another man's attack, and she missed her opportunity. She sprung back to her feet, now an uncomfortable distance away from the protection of that wall. And her teammates.
The men shouted and screamed, but Kifu saw it as more of an intimidation factor than anything else. One's yelps rose above the din of the struggle, and Kifu caught Bin attached to a man's limb out of the corner of her eye. Taya came in heavily to back him up.
Kifu found herself primarily on the defense, deflecting blades with her forearms and ducking out of the way when she couldn't bring her arms up fast enough. Even if she saw openings, she couldn't switch to the offensive long enough to take it. She was forced backwards, stepping further and further away from Kakashi, let alone Taya and Bin.
A knife came in toward her side. She slapped the wrist away with the palm of her hand. A hatchet swung in from her other side. She stepped back and deflected the little momentum left with an arm guard. Kifu didn't have the time to assess her opponents; she had too many of them on her. It took her entire concentration to keep them from sliding behind her or from landing a solid blow.
Her defenses started to slip before she found an opening for offense. She couldn't move fast enough to deflect the blade edges before they bit into her skin. A soundless snarl captured her face as her stamina dwindled. Kifu wasn't meant for this type of battle. She wasn't going to win. Sweat beaded across her lip and forehead, cascading down her temples and nose. The palm of her hand held tight to the hilt of her knife, but she knew that she couldn't adjust her grip or risk losing it entirely.
Eventually her back bit into the side of one of the buildings. Kifu was left with nowhere to go, and she didn't have the opportunity to assess the status of her comrades. All that remained in her world what was immediately before her and behind her: a wall, and three monstrous men with murder in their eyes.
Kifu needed to think. She needed to strategize and risk more than her skin to make it out of her corner alive. With a feral growl, she threw herself sideways into the man with the hatchet. She waited for that infinitesimal opening when he wouldn't necessarily be off-balanced, but when the hatchet head wouldn't find itself buried in her shoulder. The man opposite him missed his strike, as Kifu was suddenly gone, but the man in the middle managed to bury his knife into the flesh of her upper arm. The hatchet man stumbled backwards, but wasn't out of the fight. Kifu ripped the knife from the middle man's grasp and let gravity take it to the ground.
Middle man staggered forward and into the wall, cutting off the man farthest from Kifu, if only temporarily. He roared, reaching toward his back, but his coordination was gone.
Using his blunder to her advantage, Kifu kneed the hatchet man in the gut before he fully got his feet back underneath him, and dragged her blade across his throat. She readied herself for one of the other men to strike.
The disarmed man bellowed incoherently and made no move to reach for his discarded knife. The last man, his face glowing with rage, plowed through him and made a calculated leap to Kifu. One-on-one, even tired, Kifu had the advantage. She easily slithered out of his reach, blocked his next attack with the arm guard, and levelled a dirty kick into his knee. He crumpled before the pain registered. Grounding her foot, Kifu drove her knee up his nose. The man fell gracelessly, silent. Despite feeling confident she'd killed him without blade, Kifu slit his throat just in case. A hunter always finished the job.
All that remained from her group was the mysteriously hysterical man.
Kifu looked about her quickly with a predatory glance, ensuring she was safe from additional assailants, and sauntered up to the man, grabbing him by his hair. He almost didn't seem to notice before she ended him as well. Seeing a kunai in his back as he dropped, Kifu grabbed the blade and brandished it to its owner, twirling it between her fingers. "That's the best shot you had?"
"It looked like you needed a little help," Kakashi shot back with one of his eye smiles. Even from far away in the dark, Kifu could see the exaggerated squeeze of his eye.
"They were still pretty bad at defending themselves," Kifu said in defense. She stepped over the bodies and towards her companions.
"They had little training," Kakashi agreed.
"Only rage," Taya added.
"And muscle," Kifu finished, punctuating it with a yawn. "That was the last ten?"
Taya nodded her chin downwards in affirmation.
"Sleep, then. I'm grabbing my bow. We'll head back towards the mountains until we can't smell blood. And we're sleeping until new sun birds wake us."
Even close, Kifu didn't see emotion cross Kakashi's face. Taya raised a brow at Kifu in a brief show of bewilderment, and then wordlessly led the way back to where Kifu had deposited her bow and quiver. To sleep so soon after an adrenaline-filled event seemed far-fetched, but they only had so much time before the sun rose again. Their excitement would fail by the time they distanced themselves from this gory scene. Nor would guilt keep Kifu awake. For Kifu, it didn't matter how she brought about a death, so long as it was humane as possible. Those who let another suffer were the brutes. Those who killed for sport were the monsters. Killing had to have a purpose. Removing these monsters from the world was justified.
Taya's uncanny sense of direction took them away from the silent village without further complication. She moved carefully, but with purpose. Bin remained by her side, trotting as tirelessly as always.
Kifu walked silently behind Kakashi, watching his feet as they carried him over the dark forest floor. The steady rhythm of their march through the trees were enough to turn Kifu's brain off and allow her to coast without thought. But that never happened. She couldn't help but remain victim to her wandering thoughts. To think about how close Kakashi had come to emotion when he'd asked if she could play the part of assassin. If she truly could take a leaf from his book.
Did he even like himself? Could one truly like themselves after taking a life? How many people had Kakashi killed solely because he'd been ordered to in his life before the Tribe? Was that why Kakashi never felt like he was really there?
Kifu knew nothing about this man. She didn't know how she could come close to understanding him.
As if feeling the weight of her scrutiny, Kakashi looked over his shoulder at her. "Hmm?" His steady forward pace paused so that she caught up to him and they were almost walking side-by-side. For now, the underbrush was fairly clear, compliments of the acidic pine needles coating the earth.
Kifu opened her mouth as if to ask him one of those burning questions, but hesitated. Just because Kakashi was the first killer she'd come across that didn't want to threaten her and her world, didn't mean that she could completely open up to him without thought.
"What's on your mind?" he asked her. She appreciated that he spoke softly enough that his voice wouldn't carry to Taya.
What could Kifu say that wouldn't sound silly? Naïve? Childish? She wanted to think that Kakashi wasn't the man she expected, but at the same time, his behavior and actions in that village didn't come as a surprise. She still trusted him despite it all – and that perhaps scared Kifu more than anything.
Kakashi watched her with his impassive eye. "Are you remorseful of your role?"
"No," Kifu said quickly. She didn't feel any dirtier than she had before. This was less personal than the other reasons for blood on her hands. "I … I guess … how long have you been … doing this?" she asked uncertainly.
"How long have I been an assassin?" Kakashi asked. His brow raised minutely.
Kifu faltered. That was a horrible question to ask.
"I've been a shinobi since I was five. An elite jōnin since twelve. I joined the ANBU, the assassin corps, soon after that."
"A shinobi – what is that?" Kifu asked. The blood throughout her body felt cold. Twelve. He'd become an assassin, at least specifically an assassin, when he was twelve. Kifu hadn't even become Kumji's apprentice at that age.
"Our village's version of a warrior."
Kifu's breath hitched, and a shock of ice spilled down her spine. Did Kakashi mean to say that he'd been a warrior since he was five? Kifu didn't have the means to fully comprehend the repercussions of such a thing.
"It was all I had in my life," Kakashi explained. "I dedicated myself to it. It's not as bad as it sounds," he added passively.
"I – I didn't even have dreams of becoming a hunter that young," Kifu said. At least, she didn't think so. She wanted to be with her father all of the time, but she didn't want to be just like him until well after her brother, Shinka, was born.
"Our village knew war better than it understood peace," Kakashi continued. "Our young are raised up as shinobi. It's, well, normal." He breathed deep, the whisper of his breath faintly audible over the sounds of their feet. "Our childhood isn't necessarily robbed from us that way, but I'm sure many shinobi had better youths than your Tribesmembers. It sounds like you might have been lucky to have less ambitious dreams for your future before you joined the Tribe."
Kifu pressed her lips together and slid her eyes away. Kakashi wasn't wrong. Kifu did have a pretty decent childhood, even if her play was almost always controlled by an overbearing adult. "My apologies. I may have judged too quickly." Kakashi said nothing. "How do you … forgive yourself?" Kifu asked.
Kifu didn't let every death weigh on her; she wouldn't be able to bear it if that were the case. She understood these men were monstrous killing machines that needed to be put down, as she would do for any pained predator that killed prey without eating. But killing a human being was absolutely a line that she crossed and could not forgive herself for having done so in the first place. She still saw Kumji's tight expression as the light left his eyes. Kumji was not a good person, but he was a person Kifu knew well before fate guided her hands into red.
"I don't," Kakashi said with an edge Kifu wasn't expecting. She started, her eyes returning to him in a single jump. "Time doesn't dull the pain. It only makes you focus on other things, too. We need to find our reasons to keep going."
Kifu licked her lips before dropping her eyes back to the ground. She'd called it when he first arrived. Kakashi was broken and asked to protect. Just like Kifu. She only wished that he'd had more profound advice to offer her for it.