AN: Before anyone gets the heebie-jeebies imagining Hinata the seductress, let me reinstate that each chapter is supposed to explore a different facet of kunoichi life. They won't all be doing the same thing, but all their actions affect the events in the story. This particular chapter, by the by, was meant to be a little rushed and sudden. Leave long flashy battles with catchy one-liners and preachy monologues to the boys, I say.

Also, the excerpts at the beginning are, as far as I know, real. Some I got from books, some from the internet. If you see a mistake, don't hesitate to let me know.

Hinata

The neko-te were usually used by the female ninja. The weapon is strong iron fingernails that were fastened into leather bands fitted on the fingers, and resembled claws that were also dipped in poisons. The eyes were a favorite spot for slashing.
- Dr. Maasaki Hatsumi

Tamayuki Tsuga's opulent office was dark and empty, save for the deep shadows of midnight that settle heavily in the corners, under the carved wooden desk, and behind the thick, ornate door. Had the young noble been in his office at this time of night (but he was not, being otherwise engaged with a delicate young lady in a bedchamber just down the hall from his wife's rooms) he might have been startled to see one of those shadows detach itself from the gloom near the window and glide noiselessly across the floor.

But then again, had he been there, he would not have seen the shadow anyway. That was the whole point.

The shadow, now solidifying into a delicate but distinctly human form, reached a gloved hand into the desk drawers, moving papers, scrolls, pens, and various pieces of loose money around disinterestedly. She made no noise when the search turned fruitless, but her face under the dark grey mask was distinctly disappointed. She had hoped that the information she needed would be written all nice and neat and waiting to be carried off, right there in his desk. It was never, ever that easy, of course, but one could always hope.

Hope was something Hinata did quite well, actually. It was a sort of survival mechanism that she'd developed early in her childhood, somewhere around her third birthday when she met her cousin and witnessed the first in a series of events that eventually drove him to hate her, and all the rest of her family. He disliked them now, of that she had little doubt. But he might someday be able to see past the prejudice between his part of the family and hers, might be able to go around the bog of political maneuvering and the obvious gulf between his natural talents and her own. Someday, they at least might even be friends. It was unlikely, but she hoped for that day just the same. It helped, hope.

She also hoped that the scroll she knew the son of Tamayuki Shigure had received today from an unknown source was hidden in this office somewhere. Heaven help her, she really didn't want to prowl through the whole house in search of it. The mansion and the grounds surrounding it were huge, and Hinata knew from experience that it could take hours just to stroll around such an estate casually, let alone make a detailed search. Hinata had a marked advantage over other shinobi when it came to looking for things, though, which was partly why she'd been sent on this mission.

Veins in her cheeks and eyes bulged out as a rush of chakra coursed through them, and suddenly everything in the office, the hallway, the surrounding rooms, and the gardens just outside the window came into painfully sharp focus. She turned slowly in the center of the room, scanning the walls for some sign of a secret niche or safe hidden in the intricately-decorated paneling. She had seen the scroll arrive, and known immediately that her days of watching Tamayuki Tsuga's house were at an end. Whatever was written on it, the scroll carried such importance that the young son of the Tamayuki lord had gone to elaborate lengths to hire not one but three guarded wagon trains all coming to the estate at various times, while the real scroll had arrived in a discreet leather bag from a plainly-dressed peasant. Hinata had watched the intricate dance of deception, and known it for what it was.

But she had not seen where Tamayuki Tsuga had taken the scroll after it had made its way through various servants to his hands at last. Which meant she may have to waste the time and chakra looking all over his house at night for it –

There! In the floor, under a cleverly concealed trap door. The paneling of the trapdoor was thick, but she could see the small, plain box fitted into the square hole in the foundation of the house. It took her less than a minute to find the very fine seams of the door and only another moment more to work a thin trickle of chakra into the cracks. She had no time to figure out the combination of the safe, so she settled for reaching in with her chakra and breaking the lock from the inside. No one was better than a Hyuuga when it came to damaging the insides of something without harming the exterior. Her father was the best of them all at it - but she shoved that unhappy thought away with a grimace. Now was not the time to dwell on her childhood.

The door opened silently – the hinges were well-oiled. She reached in and extracted the box, flipping it open. Yes, the scroll was there. The red wax seal was already broken, so she peeled back the edge and scanned the first few inches of parchment. It looked like a standard assassination contract. She frowned, unrolling it further. But with which village? Not Konoha; there was no silver leaf emblazoned in the top left corner like there are on Konoha contracts.

There was only one reason a nobleman planning regicide would insist on a written contract that could incriminate him later, Hinata knew. Most assassination contracts were spoken agreements. A shinobi was secure in the knowledge that their client would pay the promised price, because no fool would hire an assassin and dream of not paying, lest he become the next target. No, this written contract meant that there was more than one nobleman involved, and the contract was a means of ensuring that none of them could turn in the rest of the conspirators without being named a traitor as well.

The signatures of the noblemen involved were probably at the end of the scroll. Hinata tugged on the roll, and her eyes widened as she finally caught sight of the names etched under Tamayuki Tsuga's –

movement -

she launched herself to the left, tucking one shoulder and rolling smoothly along her hip back up into a crouch. Her attacker was on her before she completed the motion, though, and the air whistled as the sharp points of her opponent's ashiko sliced through the space that her neck had only recently occupied. Even as she dodged back, jumping lightly to put the heavy wooden desk between herself and the other, Hinata's mind made a snap evaluation of her opponent: muscular, lithe body. Dressed entirely in form-fitting dark garb that would be too slick to grasp and left few doubts about her gender. Ashiko foot-claws strapped to each boot and shuko hand-claws on her knuckles. No other discernable weapon, but that didn't mean there were none.

This was poorly timed. Hinata vaulted over the desk and aimed a blow at the masked head. The other kunoichi slid neatly under her outstretched arm, and Hinata twisted to avoid the counterblow meant to slice open her belly. If this kept up, they would be forced to start making noise that the many servants and even Tamayuki might hear, and then they'd either both be caught or innocents would be killed in the cross fire.

Hinata slipped instinctively into her Gentle Fist stance, and once again felt the rush of chakra to her eyes as she activated the Byakugen. She waited for her enemy to press the attack, trying to reduce the risk of moving around and making the floorboards creak.

Noting the sudden change in tactics, the other woman dropped into an unfamiliar stance, hands splayed wide and knees partially bent. The dim moonlight from the window glinted on the steel claws adorning her feet and hands, and abruptly, Hinata saw the way to end this battle. Thrusting her left hand into her pocket, she launched forward with her right hand outstretched, hoping to end this the clean way.

But the enemy was quick enough to dodge her frontal attack, ducking once more under her slightly-glowing palm. Very well, Hinata thought with a note of regret. The messy way it is. Before the other woman could change the direction of her dodge, Hinata brought out her left hand again, each finger now adorned with a viciously sharp neko-te. Occupied with avoiding the right hand, the enemy never noticed the left hand until three metal points scored into the soft gel of unprotected eyeballs.

The enemy opened her mouth to scream, but Hinata was prepared for that too, and her knee slammed into the enemy's chest, knocking all the air from her lungs. A moment later, the Leaf shinobi redirected her chakra-glowing right hand back into the enemy's skull. She caught the body as it crumpled, preventing it from crashing noisily to the floor.

Someone was walking down the far end of the hall outside the room. Hinata focused her advanced eyesight briefly, checking for danger – it was only a young woman, moving in the soft way that servants in a grand house were trained to move. Not another shinobi…nonetheless, it was time to go. Hinata reached down and plucked the dropped scroll from the floor, tucked it into her belt pouch, eased the trapdoor shut with her free arm, and then she and the body were out the window and halfway across the courtyard, all in a bare handful of seconds.

It was only then, as Hinata let the body fall to the ground at her feet, as she held up her hands before her face – one bloody, one clean, both deadly – that she let herself take one deep, shaky breath, only then that she let herself shudder all over, once. Then she clenched her hands and relaxed her shoulders and stomach muscles, scanning the area quickly and efficiently. Nothing caught her piercing eyes save the glint of moonlight on the body. She reached down and pulled the face mask away, revealing the forehead protector that had been obscured beneath the material.

Finally she dragged the body to a carefully manicured grove of trees, concealing it from the casual observer, and removed the neko-te from her left hand.

She pulled another scroll and a pen from her pouch. The Byakugen was also good for writing messages on paper in the shadows of the night, and she put it to good use now as she scrawled her brief report. The words themselves were whimsical, and to anyone who might happen to intercept the message, they would seem little more than the random babbling of a child or insane person. To a shinobi of the Leaf, however, they would translate roughly to this:

Assassination contract, no Village symbol evident. Contract was guarded by hired Stone ninja. Tamayuki is the leader of five conspirators:
Kuroda Takumi.
Akimoto Baiki.
Miura Kento.
Kurokawa Kazuma.
Hamano Shun.

She rolled the scroll up tightly and made a few brief hand seals. A little puff of smoke at her feet cleared a moment later to reveal a large brown owl blinking calmly up at her. "Hokage-sama," Hinata directed in a whisper, tying her message to the owl's leg. "Quickly."

The owl hopped onto her offered arm, and stretched his great wings wide as she threw him up into the clear night sky. Now all she had to do was return the scroll to its hiding place and clean up any stray drops of blood that might have spilled on the pristine wooden floor. Only then can she consider leaving the premises, going somewhere safe to rest for awhile. She would lie low, wait for instruction from Konoha, and in the meantime, hope that the stunned, ravaged face of the strange dead kunoichi faded from her perfect memory.

She slipped out of the shadowy grove, little more than a shadow herself, leaving the corpse of her unknown enemy behind.