Author's Notes: Yeah, new chapter! It's another fairly slow chapter, but think of this period as the calm before the storm. There's a little time in Rain and then everything explodes, and there's important character developments in here.

Anyway, I would ask any readers to review, if possible, it's always heartening to know people care enough to say something.

Thanks all!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or any portion thereof, and make no claims on its copyright. However, all original characters and events are my own property.

Chapter 18 – Dripping Glances

(the next day)

The forest, when it finally wrapped around them behind tall hills, was most welcoming to Mizain Yi. Under dripping wet eaves and long vines she felt at home again. The rainforest, the environment where she had grown up, was familiar to her, and her friend. Likewise it was friendly to her powers, as the perpetual dampness and regular rains provided essential sources for Mizuho. The desert was my enemy, but this land is an old friend, she thought. Yi took great solace in this change of environment, and of the warmth beneath the great trees, another welcoming difference from the frigid desert nights.

As they walked Yi noticed that Ise did not seem to enjoy the rainforest as she did. In the past few days of traveling she had learned many things about the shark-blooded ninja, and had learned to read his moods. They had spoken to each other of many things, of their childhoods, their training, and more, avoiding only the hard subjects of their mutual journeys and their status among the ninja of their homelands. Yi had swiftly come to appreciate talking with Ise, finding in him the first person she wished to speak to since Shiro. That memory brought a sudden stab of pain, and a swift avoidance, as always, but Yi pushed past it, focusing on the mist ninja who walked before her.

"Do you not like the forest Ise?" Yi asked, breaking the silence that usually stretched comfortably between them on the march.

"It is better than the desert," Ise responded genially. "Still, I find it confining in here, the trees are too close, I long for the sea's openness."

"I see," Yi replied, and silence returned. It makes sense he would prefer open lands, a shark swims in greatly open spaces, nothing like this. Also, Yi noted, a spearman is somewhat disadvantaged in these quarters. I wonder though, what Mist is like, what do you call home Ise? She resolved to ask him later that evening.

Yet that day, at noon, Ise stopped unexpectedly.

"What is it?" Yi asked.

He pointed to a tall outcrop of rock in the distance, rising high above all the surrounding forest. "If I recall geography correctly, since we can see that flat-topped mountain we have entered the country of Rain."

"So, why does that mean we stop?" Yi wondered aloud.

"I'd rather not barge into the hidden village of rain unannounced. We are unexpected," Ise told her. "We should probably find the nearest village and see if there's a ninja representative willing to guide us."

"Isn't that risky?" Yi asked him, knowing that revealing themselves to the Rain ninja was not without its dangers.

"Yeah," Ise nodded. "It is, but what else can we do? Still, we should come up with an excuse, a false story is important, there's no need to tell the truth entirely to the Rain."

"Do we need false names then?" Yi suggested.

"Hmm…" Ise thought about it, and a great number of considerations flashed through his mind swiftly. "I think it is better to keep our own names as close as possible, since we will be in residence for some time, and a slip up could be greatly compromising. Still, Mizain is not a good name to speak of, so perhaps you could be Manoaka Yi?"

"Manoaka?"

"A family in Mist. There are some ninja among them. It is fairly innocuous." Ise sighed. "Names are one thing, but what of a story. I'm not good at this sort of thing; I haven't gone on missions outside of Mist country before."

"I'm hardly a seasoned traveler either," Yi quipped. "What reasons can you think of for a ninja to travel abroad?"

"Spying," Ise said without hesitation. "That's the most common, but it will hardly do as an excuse."

"But it helps," Yi said happily.

"How?"

"If everyone simply assumes we are spies then our excuse will be questioned less." Yi paused and her forehead tightened in thought. "We're trying to hide my powers right?"

"Yes, in a village of ninja hiding my own nature is impossible," Ise sighed again. "More's the pity."

"Then we make it so people don't suspect you," Yi said. "You'll be my guardian, that way no one will suspect the fierce Hoshigake of anything. That's one half of the excuse, now we just need a question of why I'm traveling."

Ise nodded with an open expression, acknowledging Yi's suggestion. "Unfortunately, there aren't that many reasons we can offer as to why we need to stay over at Rain for the winter. I think we must name Stone country as a destination, its passes will be closed with the storms, so the waiting is acceptable, but why should I take you there? You're certainly not an ambassador, or a hunter nin, and we can't claim you are from a powerful family. That doesn't leave many options."

"There is one," Yi said with a sigh, but a strangely mischievous look on her face. "I'm a young woman of marriageable age."

"What?" Ise had no idea how to interpret the mark.

"It's simple, chunin," she playfully mocked the rank with her tone. "Say I have been sent by Mizukage to discuss potential offers of marriage with any number of stone houses, with the objective being to trade jutsus once the ceremony is done. Isn't that a suitable excuse?"

"I suppose," Ise answered. "Stone and Mist are not strong allies, but there are relations. Also, the letter I have with Mizukage's seal can be used to back this story, even if its contents speak to something else entirely…" Outwardly Ise obviously accepted the idea, but Yi knew he had another question waiting.

"But?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm curious why that is the particular ruse you would pick. It's not one most girls, even trained ninja, would take as a first choice," Ise's shark eyes bored deeply into Yi, and as she looked into those eyes it seemed as if he was asking if she really cared so little about such things as love and friendship.

Yi was thankful then, that she had an answer. "It's not something I want to do, but something I know how to do. My father planned to arrange my marriage within the year I am certain. He has done it to all my relatives, and in his mind I have already wasted two years on childbearing without being useful. I can play this part well, and few others."

"Two years of childbearing?" Ise coughed. "Are my eyes so easily fooled, I could have sworn you were younger than I was?"

"How old are you then, Ise?"

"Sixteen, almost seventeen now."

"I will not be sixteen for another five months, your eyes are quite correct," seeing Ise's blank stare in response, Yi plunged on. "Why are you so shocked? I became a woman two years ago. I have been waiting to be married ever since."

Ise looked slowly at Yi, and she could feel his eyes upon her hair and eyes, the parts that marked her out, the flame tinged pieces of her form that revealed the Mizuho's touch. "I didn't want to ask about your family, it was not my business, but I see I will need to now. In return," his face grew pained. "You can ask whatever you wish about my family."

"Then ask," Yi said honestly.

"We can walk and talk," Ise resumed his tread. "With our story fixed the situation is acceptable. I suspect we won't be stopped by a rain ninja until tomorrow morning. My first question then, did you leave your family to flee an arranged marriage?"

Yi laughed outright at the remark, leaving Ise puzzled, and troubled as well, for her laughter was filled with a sickening black bitterness to match anything he held in memory of his own family. "Flee an arranged marriage, would that it was something so simple. However, your question misses the point completely chunin, I didn't leave by choice, my father banished me."

"Banished?" Ise grew thoughtful. "Explain in detail. Why?"

Yi laughed again. "Actually, I think it's so you could find me." When Ise blanched she simply kept going, enjoying the act of the throwing the resolute Mist ninja off balance, it was the first thing that had made her amused in many days. "He tossed me out as a sacrifice you see. My father can foretell the future in some ways, he knew the Mist was coming, so he banished me to protect the rest of the family, he knew you would be satisfied with me, and he could go on hiding."

"That makes no sense, surely you could reveal all the family's secrets-"

"Not at all!" Yi's laughter and amusement almost managed to cover the deep sadness and tortured regret that bled out of her with the words, and someone simply watching and listening might have never noticed, but Ise could smell her discomfort, and felt the raggedness in her, the torn edges. "He's not so foolish, not my father. He has a jutsu for everything, including wiping away portions of his daughter's mind. I've forgotten almost everything now, locations, names, even faces of my relatives; they're all blocked from my mind, hidden within me in a place I can no longer go. I could never find my way home, or even point the way. Everything's gone, everything except my father's face, and-" Yi stopped abruptly, her voice stumbling with incredible sadness, and Ise saw tears trickle from her eyes. He said nothing, however, simply marking the hesitation. "Anyway, he banished me, but I ran off in the night before he could arrange everything he wanted. Still, nothing's changed from his plans, since you found me, and there's nowhere else I can go."

"That is terrible," Ise said first, and his feelings were genuine. "But it is also good." At Yi's miserable shock he smiled his toothy smile. "You don't understand, look at it this way. I thought you had run away from your family, and no matter what the circumstances, that would have been a betrayal. However, it seems you were the one who was betrayed. Now I can trust you fully. It may hurt you, but it proves you are a ninja as only the hard things can."

"The hard things?" Yi asked, feeling now the sadness in Ise's voice.

"Ninja endure hard service, harder than any other, because we must put it before everything else and can never betray," Ise answered, repeating words he'd been told long ago. "It is only by enduring hard tests that we are proven as ninja. So I have been told, and I believe it."

"Why?"

"He," now it was Ise's turn to laugh in bitterness. "I suppose it's only fair. You can have the story of my family as well. It is not a pleasant one."

"Tell me, please," Yi begged. "If you are willing, I would like to know, I think it could help me, help both of us."

"Perhaps," Ise muttered without confidence. "It is a long story I suppose, but most of it means nothing. The Hoshigake is an old bloodline, shark blood has flowed in ninja from the ocean region since long before the Hidden Villages emerged from the great wars. There have been many strong warrior ninja from the clan, but they have all been viscous, and it is said of us that 'a shark's face marks a shark's heart.' That is, Hoshigake have no mercy or kindness in them. Members of my family are known for giving in to killing urges, for losing control and letting the shark's voice, which is concerned only with taking down the prey, and puts no value on the life of humans, or of secrecy, take control. Still," Ise paused. "That doesn't mean that much. There are other bloodlines cursed just as bad." He turned to Yi. "Your father told you of the purges I suppose?" he asked.

"Yes," Yi nodded sadly. "He said your family survived them."

"We did, yes," Ise answered with equal sadness. "We should not have."

"What? Why?"

"There is only one reason why the Hoshgake, why any bloodline, survived in Mist during the purges," Ise told Yi with blood chilling frankness. "When the purges began those bloodlines possessed a ninja who was strong enough to be essential to either side, and who chose to fight for Mizukage. In the case of my family it was my uncle, Hoshigake Kisame, a ninja of tremendous strength and monstrous chakra reserves. He came to Mizukage's side for one reason only; there would be more bloody killing that way. Still, this choice and his strength bought him a place as third among the Seven Swordsmen and preserved our family.

"I was born only two years after the purges ended, and I was taught all my childhood to admire my uncle, to look up to him as a savior, and an example of all a Hoshigake could become. My parents, my relatives, even others outside the family always told me, to 'be like Kisame.'" Ise laughed then, a horrid drowning sound, one that sucked happiness into dark depths and buried it in airless blackness. "'Be like Kisame' they said, they told me to emulate him even as his list of horrid and barely acceptable deeds grew longer and longer, even to the point when Mizukage and Akai determined his power was no longer enough to justify the liability."

Yi watched as Ise turned his head back to look into her face even as he walked. She saw the salty tears gather at the edge of those pale colorless eyes, but never emerge, for sharks do not cry, and so Ise could not let the grief free.

"Then he killed my brother."

It was delivered in utter deadpan, emotion had fled the shark-blooded ninja's voice as if it had never been there, yet Yi heard a cold anger leaking into the end of those words, and as Ise continued she felt a great fear for the first time. It was a different fear than anything she had felt in many weeks, for it was not a fear for herself, but for another, and she could barely hear Ise's words as the dark memories spiraled up to identify this fear, and the one who had brought it out of her before.

"I was there when it happened, my brother sent me away, for I was a child, to get help. I brought the Warlord, Akai, strong enough to beat Kisame, and he did, and drove the traitor away, but not in time to save my brother. Kisame escaped, and the greatest symbol of my family became synonymous in Mist with treachery. Such is my test, to remain loyal in the face of revulsion, for to all others I bring only memories of the traitor. Kisame is my uncle, but it is said I could pass for his twin. The shark blood is strong in us both, so we look tremendously alike. I hear its voice within me, the voice of that blood; it is a cold anger, where yours burns hot, but otherwise the same. That is the test I must endure."

Ise had become lost in his own thoughts as he spoke, so much so that even as he looked at Yi he looked past her. It was only when he finished that he saw the tears pouring down the beautiful girl's face, as stream of water flowing from red eyes, as if blood could shed tears.

"Ah, ah, I'm so sorry…" Ise stammered. "I didn't mean to upset-"

"No," Yi replied, struggling to compose herself. "It is not your fault, but mine. Your story is terrible, and my heart goes out to you, or it would were I not so selfish that I can think only of my own failings. That is the source of these useless, useless tears!" She screamed. "Useless!" Then suddenly, Yi stopped, the dark memories had gone, banished once again by her anger, by denial and regret, pushing the guilt away. "I will tell you, someday," Yi spoke to Ise. "I promise, please believe me." When Ise nodded she recklessly went on. "I'm sorry I lost myself; let's just walk in silence for a while."

"Ah," Ise responded, and they continued on.

That night, after they had made camp, eaten, and practiced their skills a bit Ise suddenly stopped in mid-motion. Yi looked at the sudden move, but at Ise's silent gesture made no motion. Both scanned the dark trees above them in the almost black light of rainforest evening.

Finally Ise paused. The scents were confused in the torpid rainforest, so he could not pinpoint the rain ninja, but he was certain he was there. "Come out already Rain ninja," he spoke loudly and clearly. "We're not here to do battle, and will travel under your guard as you wish."

The rain ninja dropped from the tree immediately thereafter. He was a tall, thin man in dark green and brown, colors suitable for this forest realm. He carried no weapon openly, but Ise could smell strange substances about him, unnatural things he did not like.

Smoothly the Rain ninja bowed before them. "Mist ninja is it?" He chuckled behind a strange breathing apparatus, a device commonly worn by Rain ninja to allow amphibious operations. "You are far from home. You must see our leader before going any further."

"As you wish," Ise replied, and Yi nodded her assent as well. "Lead the way then, I offer you all the courtesy at my disposal, little though it might be."

"I am certain our brothers from Mist will be most welcome," the thin ninja responded, and he smiled beneath the breathing apparatus, but it was a smile neither Ise nor Yi could see. "I'm afraid haste is necessary, so please follow me quickly tonight." Ise didn't like it, but there were no other choices. The two Mist ninja fell in behind their Rain guide and began to travel through the dank, oppressive jungle.