This is why a bee will always be superior to a...
And then it hit her.
Like a rock solid lump of beeswax to the face.
Hotaru froze in the middle of the bamboo forest, dropping the honeycomb she had just harvested from the bee hives.
A beetle?
She finally dared to finish her thought.
The insects used by the Aburame clan...are beetles.
"What haunts your dreams is a Kikaichū beetle," Matchmaker Akirabachi's voice came back to her.
"The Kikaichū beetle...why didn't I recognize it sooner?" Hotaru whispered, as she remembered every painstaking detail of Shino's bugs crawling over his face earlier.
The way Shino had stepped in to protect her from the Queen Bee with his bug wall technique.
The gentle way his bugs brushed against her skin when he gave her his chakra.
"Those bugs are exactly like the beetles from my dream," Hotaru realized, her skin crawling with goosebumps. "But what did it all mean?...She never actually told me...In fact, Akirabachi told me I couldn't tell anyone else in the village."
"I have no match for you," Akirabachi had said. "You will never find a husband in this village. There is nothing I can do for you."
"Now that I think about it," Hotaru couldn't turn her brain off now, even if she wanted to. "It was right after I told Akirabachi about my dreams that Kenji was murdered...Was my dream actually warning me about Shino? Or did Akirabachi use it as an excuse to throw me out the village?"
"These dreams you keep having," Akirabachi had said. "It is important that I know everything. When you say bug, what exactly do you mean?"
"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, let alone finding-"
A husband...
Could it be that Shino and me were...
Hotaru couldn't make herself finish that thought.
Out of the question! Why would Great Matchmaker Akirabachi match me with someone from the Aburame clan? Our worst enemy!...No, there has to be another reason why I'm dreaming about Shino's bugs. Besides, Akirabachi called me 'unmatchable'...That was the only thing she made clear to me.
But something didn't add up.
If under some definitely impossible and definitely hypothetical situation, Hotaru had been matched with an Aburame, it would mean anarchy!
It would mean chaos!
...Just like the chaos that led to Kenji's death...
Just like the chaos of her being framed for his murder.
Just like the chaos behind the kooky witch hunt of her exile.
The madness of her father sending her after a ninja like Shino Aburame, who she stood no chance against in a real battle.
Could it be...that all this time...the reason I was sent to kill Shino was because...was because he was my match?
Hotaru felt sick and dizzy, as the full weight of that possibility crushed her.
"It is your will of fire. Our enemies will pay. That is your duty."
My duty was to die instead?...Rather than accept my match with Shino, the Kamizuru clan wanted both of us dead...They saw us both as a threat...Could that mean Shino is actually innocent of Kenji's death?...That he's just a victim in all of this too.
Hotaru's vision blurred with her dizziness, hardly keeping up with her breathing as it all came crushing down hard on her.
Did they really think I'd actually go through with marrying Shino? ...That I'd ever love someone like him enough to turn against my own clan?
Dropping to her knees on the bamboo grove floor, her honeycomb scattering all around her as she stared dazed into the fog around her.
Her world yanked from under her feet once again.
No, it has to be a mistake...I'm just overthinking it...I can't get carried away by my emotions. I have to keep my head clear...I need to find out the truth behind Kenji's death...If Shino really killed him, I need to hear it from him myself...Find a way to get him to confess.
And then what?
If it turned out Shino really was innocent and had been framed for Kenji's death, just like she'd been framed, then who was the Aburame ninja she spotted outside her village that day?
Was Shino really the shinobi she wanted to kill in order to satisfy her desire for vengeance?
I have to get to the bottom of this.