"It's...well, um...it's a bug."
Hotaru knew the moment she said it, she'd make more enemies than friends in the village.
But she had no choice.
It was either give in and confess, or be stuck in this honeycomb with Matchmaker Akirabachi for 3 miserable more weeks.
"A bug?" Akirabachi buzzed, her towering antennae quivering to contain her temper. "How brave you've gotten all of a sudden. Do you really think I'm an indulging, patient honey bee who will let you forget you're in her nest?"
"Whatever you do," Hotaru remembered her father warning her before meeting the matchmaker bee. "Do not, under any condition, mention the word 'bug' in Matchmaker Akirabachi's presence...She's sensitive."
"Please forgive me! I didn't mean...I was only trying to say...What I meant was..."
Hotaru was speechless.
It was so hard to concentrate with a giant grumpy queen bee staring her down.
"One last time," Akirabachi resumed, with strained patience. "It is important that I know everything about these dreams you have. When you say 'insect', what exactly do you mean?"
They're bugs! Creepy little demon bugs! What more does she want from me?
"I already answered that," Hotaru replied, fed up with this whole thing. "How many times are you going to ask me the same question? Why is me dreaming about bugs so important? It has nothing to do with anything!"
"A daughter of the leading family, yet how can you be so impossible?" Akira groaned. "It has everything-EVERYTHING to do with matching you with a husband."
"But that's ridiculous!"
"Ridiculous?" Akirabachi cried, appalled. "I have brought soulmates together since long before your time! How dare you insult a clan elder like this!"
"I don't see how some dream has anything to do with marrying my match," Hotaru persisted. "Shouldn't you be asking me more useful questions? Like whether I even want a husband to begin with? Or if I even see myself as a good mother? Or why I was forced to come here in the first place?"
"Oh I see," Akirabachi scorned her. "You think my decision is based on things I don't care about, like what your favorite color or tempura roll is. Stupid girl. None of that ever matters in a real marriage! Do not forget why you were sent to me. You are not here to find a lover. You are here to make an alliance for the Kamizuru clan."
"There has to be another way to do that without marrying a stranger," Hotaru argued. "This whole matchmaking ritual is so old-fashioned! Why should I be forced to marry instead of being trained as a shinobi like my classmates? All because I'm a daughter in the leading family?"
"It's tradition!"
"It's sexist!"
"Refuse to marry and bring bad luck to our clan!" Akirbachi declared. "You know the Kamizuru curse. It is a bad omen to reject your soulmate. Every time it happens, a terrible tragedy comes to the Kamizuru clan!"
"That's just superstition."
"Brazen brat! How can you be so selfish!" Akirbachi wailed. "It is your duty to accept your match! Our alliances are built with leaders of noble clans who hold the power to protect us! And your insolence is only prolonging my assessment!"
"What do you want from me?" Hotaru shot back.
"For the last time, give me the name of the bug from your dream!"
"Even if I knew it, I couldn't tell you," Hotaru answered. "You're wasting your time."
"Do you not understand how serious this is?" Akirabachi questioned her."After our war with the Aburame clan, our ranks are so few now. An alliance by marriage gives us numbers to restore our glory. Power and recognition of the Kamizuru name is the promise your father made to his father, and the father before him."
"But I didn't ask for this."
"You are a Kamizuru," Akirabachi charged her. "An attack on one bee is an offense to the whole hive."
And remembering every tragedy that had led up to this point, every act of violence against the Kamizuru clan, Hotaru shrunk away from her longstanding resistance.
"Can this really be the only way?"
"It is your will of fire," Akirabachi reminded her. "A burden passed down to us through the generations. You must help your father achieve justice. Our enemies will pay. That is your duty."
Therefore, if it meant a loveless marriage, Hotaru would learn to live with it. If calling a stranger her husband meant a hundred armies for her dying village, she couldn't say no.
She couldn't forget the tragic history and suffering of her clan.
Knowing she was a Kamizuru, but being forbidden to speak about it. Being the butt of the joke to every other bug user clan. Living with shame and self-hatred as her clan's only identity.
Hotaru wanted nothing more than to prove the true strength of the Kamizuru clan.
But wouldn't marriage outside the clan only complicate things?
"If I tell you what I saw in my dream, promise me my father will never know about it," Hotaru said quietly. "He's got a lot to deal with in the village right now. I don't want to be a burden."
"Go on."
"I don't know what insect it was exactly," Hotaru said, thinking back on the fuzzy details of her dream. "But it looked like...a beetle."
Akirabachi's buzzing wings slowed, her body tense.
"Are you sure?"
"There was a honey bee on a lotus flower, collecting pollen for its hive," Hotaru went on, Akirabachi hanging on her every word. "Then the beetle attacked, ripping the bee in half with its pincers. And as the bee fought for its last breath, the beetle swallowed it whole, leaving nothing but a violent stain on the lotus petals."
"Bees are sacred to the Kamizuru clan," Akirabachi said, deeply concerned. "To take a bee's life without good reason is taboo. What you dream of is betrayal against our clan."
"Don't you think I know that?" Hotaru answered. "I know the risk of telling you this. But you're the clan's matron bee. If these dreams are a warning, you're the only one who can help me understand them. I know our clan is in danger, which means I can't worry about some marriage right now. I have to stop this omen from happening, before it destroys everything we've worked so hard for."
"It's not that simple. What haunts your dreams is a Kikaichū beetle," Akirabachi informed her. "Where have you seen it before?"
"I don't know," Hotaru replied. "I'm sure I've never seen an insect like that before. But what's so special about it?"
"Never mind," Akirabachi replied, though her five bee eyes looked more worried than ever. "We're finished here. I have everything I need to know. You may go. But for your sake, I suggest you keep this dream between us for now. Understood?"
"Wait, what do you mean?" the girl in Shino's arms whispered faintly. "You haven't even told me who I'm matched with yet..."
Puzzled and confused, Shino's inquisitive brow rose above his sunglasses as he looked down on the mysterious kunoichi he'd caught in his arms. A swarm of yellow jackets still buzzing angrily around him.
"Is she having a nightmare or something?" he wondered. "The bee poison should've killed her by now. Is she immune to it too?"
He scanned her over for clues of her identity, but her ninja headband was missing, leaving him with only more questions.
Who was this girl and why had she been sent to kill him?
"Whoever she is, she's sloppier than even Naruto," he thought. "Did she really think I wouldn't see her attack coming?"
"How can that be it?" the girl whispered in her sleep. "Wasn't this the whole point of me being here?"
"I'm sorry. I have no match for you," Akirabachi's voice echoed in Hotaru's memory. "You will never find a husband in this village. You are unmatchable. There is nothing I can do for you."
"What?" the girl's words were so soft, Shino could barely hear them over the buzzing of bees around him. "You're telling me...that this was all for nothing..."
"She's definitely dreaming," Shino said, as the girl's head of snow white hair fell against his firm chest.
She didn't move again, and Shino made sure of that by commanding his insects to restrain her out of harm's way.
"Now I can focus on the beekeeper."