Hunt Down the Moon
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Out to save the world, fleshing out one character at a time
Or four (seven if you count the dogs) at once!
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Just so you know: Inuzuka Hana, Kamizuki Izumo, Hagane Kotetsu, Tatami Iwashi, Mozuku, and Shiranui Genma are all real, certified, appear-in-databook canon characters. Akira, Amaya, and Katsu have been given original names but are canon creatures. Characterizations of Kotetsu and Genma owe much to their players at the Naruto RPG Imamade Nandomo. The plot, however, is all my own.
Chapter One: Enter the Dynamic Duo
The Chuunin lounge smelled of bad coffee and stale cigarettes and cheap Chinese take-out, and the unseasonable heat wave wasn't helping matters much. Inuzuka Hana wrinkled her nose and wondered if getting up to open the windows would really be worth it. True, there was the off-chance of a breeze, but walking to the windows would bring her past the small knot of young men reclining against the wall by the water cooler, and her headache was bad enough already.
Even from her seat at the far end of the room, where the plastic-padded benches were wide enough to let her three dogs spread out (and hot enough to cling stickily to her bare legs; who'd have thought there'd be downsides to wearing shorts in a heat wave?), she could hear the other Chuunin talking. They weren't making any effort to lower their voices, and she was willing to bet that not all of the paper cups they clutched contained anything as innocuous as water.
"That was your fault," a spiky-haired man a few years older than Hana was growling to another young man whose straight dark hair fell like a shield over his right eye and cheek. "You were the one who spiked the Jello. Idiot."
His friend smirked. "But you gotta admit, watching Tonbu dance on the table—"
"—was enough to give me nightmares, thanks very much," a third young man muttered sourly. Hana recognized him, although he hadn't worn that silly pointed beard when she'd last seen him—which had been years ago, when they'd taken the Chuunin exam together. Hana had passed and Tatami Iwashi hadn't, and she'd gone on to medical and then veterinary training, leaving old classmates and acquaintances behind.
Only now she was back, stifling in a lounge she hadn't visited in years, because Konoha needed all the ninja it had, and somehow Hana found that tending her family's dogs and helping out at the hospital and running a few tracking or border-patrol missions every month or two wasn't enough anymore.
Screw initiative. What did it get you but a worried family, an odd look and a half-hearted lecture from her adopted older brother (who was just, she privately suspected, relieved that she hadn't decided to join the ANBU), and a long wait in the Chuunin lounge for missions that somehow never came?
Problem was, she didn't fit any of the typical patterns for Konoha ninja. Her distinctive appearance—cheeks tattooed with crimson fangs, canine teeth just long and sharp enough to give any would-be lover second thoughts—and the nin-dogs she could not leave behind immediately excused her from any of the usual kunoichi missions. She and her three nin-dogs were a team of their own, and they fit uncomfortably at best into the regular team dynamics of 'normal' shinobi. She was a vet but not quite a medic, a Chuunin who'd never led a human team, a kunoichi who could never go undercover.
And unless there was a missing-nin to be tracked, a runaway to be found, or a dog to be healed, she was pretty much extraneous.
Akira's heavy head shifted in her lap, and the dog rolled an inquiring brown eye up at her. She rubbed his ears, biting back her grimace. Of course the dogs could sense her unhappiness; they'd been together for nearly fourteen years, and Akira, Amaya, and Katsu were nin-dogs, shinobi in their own right, who could read her mood from the slightest change in her scent or the barest twitch of her muscles. She didn't have any right to upset them…
But, blast it, didn't those idiots by the water cooler have anything better to do than compare the stories of their latest drunken escapades?
"At least I don't perform strip teases on the bar when I'm drunk," Iwashi was saying heatedly to the Jello-spiker, who just grinned.
"I wasn't drunk that time. Anyway, haven't I been hearing some fairly incredible stories about your singing abilities? Mozuku here says you had the whole bar in tears…"
"Tears of pain, more like," a bespectacled man snorted, lifting his paper cup in a toast to the flushing Iwashi. "Swear a dying cat would be more musical."
"But you're one to talk, Izumo," the spiky-haired man put in, leaning down to refill his cup from the water cooler. "D'you think I can't hear you singing in the shower every morning?"
"Isn't it wonderful to wake to the sounds of running water and joyful music?" the Jello-spiker asked blandly. This time all three of the other men snorted derisively. Izumo grinned. "Besides, singing when sober is much better than singing while drunk. It's so much easier to remember all the obscene lyrics."
"Speaking of which," Mozuku said with a flicker of a glance towards the door, "did you hear the latest about Kurenai-sensei and—"
His voice cut off in a rather unfortunately high-pitched Hey! as Hana's kunai whistled past his nose and embedded itself in the wall. Four pairs of startled eyes swung round, and Hana found herself on her feet in the midst of an equally startled tumble of dogs, head pounding, chest heaving with breaths that came much too hard for something so simple as throwing a kunai. Her hands trembled with fury, and she fisted them deliberately at her sides.
"I don't know what you heard," she snarled, "and I don't care. But Kurenai's a friend of mine and a comrade of yours, and I'll thank you to keep your filthy tongues off her name. Or I might have to rip them out."
At the moment, with her headache pounding more fiercely than ever and her simmering temper erupting in righteous wrath, the threat was entirely sincere.
Mozuku straightened, opening his mouth indignantly, and Hana's dogs bristled. Surprised as they were, they'd caught her mood instantly and spread out in attack formation, muscles tensed and hackles raised. Akira and Amaya took the left and the right, and Katsu stood in front of Hana, deep chest rumbling with his low growl. They'd already picked out their targets, and their black lips curled up to bare gleaming white fangs.
At least Mozuku and Iwashi looked suitably impressed. But of course the other Chuunin couldn't let it stand at that. The spiky-haired man leaned against the water cooler with his arms crossed over his chest and his brows lifted in sardonic amusement, but the Jello-spiking Izumo took a quick step forward, already armed with a boyish grin and a What-can-you-do? shrug. "We didn't mean any offence, ah, Inuzuka-san," he said, dark eye glancing from her dogs to the crimson fangs tattooed on her cheeks. "If you'd care to join us, I'm sure we could find some topic more suitable to all tastes?"
"Like PMS mood swings," the spiky-haired man muttered to Iwashi out of the corner of his mouth. Izumo shot him a hard stare.
Hana's stopped just short of including shuriken.
"I'd rather discuss thumbscrews with a Stone Country torture-master," she snapped, and felt nastily vindicated (if a little puzzled) at how the charming smile dropped abruptly from Izumo's face, leaving it curiously blank. The spiky-haired man muttered something a little louder; it sounded like "You bitch."
She could really have used a good fight right then, and for a moment she hesitated, half-ready to start one. But the Chuunin lounge wasn't the place for a brawl, and it certainly wasn't the place for a young kunoichi anxious to prove herself to start…proving herself. A wordless snarl did nothing to alleviate Hana's feelings, but at least it left her with the last word. She spun on her heel and stalked out of the room, dogs clustering around her legs, head pounding worse than ever.
Gods she needed to get a mission and get out of Konoha…
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Shiranui Genma found Hana in her favorite training spot, a clearing just outside Konoha's walls and only a short distance from the Inuzuka estate. She'd worn out her anger rough-housing with her dogs, and now the four of them lay in a panting, tangled heap, too hot to even move from where they'd fallen. The dogs' heavy fur scratched Hana's bare skin and overheated them to the point of near-prostration; she'd begun to wonder idly if they would object too much to being clipped like horses for the summer, or if Katsu's pride would overwhelm his sense of practicality. She'd lay odds on the pride.
Even with her senses overloaded with the ripe scents of crushed grass, bruised leaves, human sweat, and human and canine blood, she still managed to catch the familiar tinge of polished steel and faint musk that always clung to her adopted older brother. She groaned, closed her eyes, and counted five. "I'm in trouble, aren't I?"
Genma chuckled. Leaves rustled as he pushed his way through the last of the undergrowth girding the clearing, which meant that he was alone and relaxed; a Genma in full Special-Jounin-Former-ANBU mode made no more sound than a ray of sunbeam trickling through the forest canopy. Amaya whined and lifted her head for a scratch, and Genma crouched down beside the tangle of dogs and woman to comply. "Not trouble exactly," he said lazily. His senbon clicked against his teeth as he shifted it to the other side of his mouth. "Unless you count Yamashiro Aoba bursting into the Jounin lounge shouting that I'd better get down to the Chuunin lounge quick and put some kind of leash on you before you took the place apart."
Hana pushed herself up on her elbows, scowling. "Where does he get these stories from? He wasn't even there. And anyway," she added, "I kept my temper. Barely." She ripped out a handful of grass and dribbled it over Akira's back; he grumbled half-heartedly but didn't bother moving.
"They're so stupid!" she burst out at last. "I don't know what I've been missing, these past five years, and I'm beginning to think it should stay that way. I can't get a regular mission, can't get a decent-by-the-gods conversation, can't even get any friends…"
"You've got me," Genma pointed out, stretching out on his back beside her. Amaya instantly plopped her head onto his chest, and he tousled her ears. "And Kurenai-san, and Raidou, and that whole mad hornets' nest you call a family. And the dogs here, of course. What more d'you want?"
She glared up at the sky, and then at Katsu, who'd draped himself over her lower legs and refused to move. But… "I dunno," she confessed at last. "I thought…I thought being a vet and a part-time tracker was enough. And then it wasn't anymore, but now that I want a mission, I can't get one. Maybe I should try for Jounin rank; maybe I could be more useful there…"
"If you want to," Genma said, tickling Amaya's nose with a blade of grass. The bitch crossed her eyes and sneezed, and Genma threw the grass blade away and at last looked up at Hana, his brown eyes as serious as they ever got. "If you really do feel you're not doing any good here as you are. You're saving lives, not taking them—"
"I'm giving distemper booster shots to puppies and routine dental check-ups to every dog I can pin down without losing a hand," Hana snapped. "Maybe if I'd been a medic, not a vet… But I am a fighter, Genma, it's what I'm bred to be, and the dogs and I are going crazy pinned up here. I'd even jump at—at—" She stumbled, clutching in vain for any mission horrible enough to express her feelings.
"A tracking and retrieval mission with the Dynamic Duo and a third, as yet unnamed, Chuunin?" Genma suggested.
"Actually that doesn't sound so bad; I was thinking more of—wait." She twisted round to face him full-on. "Tracking and retrieval with the who?"
Genma seldom really smiled, but when his eyes crinkled in a certain way and the senbon dangling from his lips tilted upwards, she knew it was about equivalent to a full grin on somebody else. "The Dynamic Duo," he repeated himself, fishing one hand inside his vest. Paper crackled. "Hagane Kotetsu and Kamizuki Izumo, specializing in scroll techniques and interpersonal diplomacy, respectively. Gods know how they've managed to work together all these years, let alone stay friends, what with Kotetsu's snark and Izumo chatting up every girl he meets…"
"Wait a second," Hana said slowly, her brain at last catching up. "Izumo. Snark and… oh gods. Kill me now."
He pulled the folded paper out of his vest at last and handed it over, smirking. "There's the specs, if you want it. Iruka in the mission office says it's B-level at least; there's a good chance of enemy shinobi between you at the target. They need a medic and a tracker to round out the team, and I told 'em I thought you could do the job."
"Thanks a lot, aniki," Hana said sourly, but she took the paper, eyes already scanning the specs the mission office had provided. "Retrieval of a stolen scroll from a minor feudal lord on the north-western border of the Fire Country…said scroll thought to be shinobi in origin and may possibly contain forbidden jutsu…risk of intervention by enemy ninja high…"
Genma, listening to her with a wry little quirk to his lips, flicked his senbon to the other side of his mouth and scratched Amaya's ears.
If nothing else, the results of this mission were going to prove very interesting.
Author's Note: per iamzuul's advice, I thought I might just indicate to those of you who are not as minor-character-obsessed as I am where these characters appear.
Inuzuka Hana: Inuzuka Kiba's older sister, a vet and a Konoha Chuunin, who appears briefly in the manga in chapters 137 and 235. When she fights to defend Konoha, she is accompanied by three large grey nin-dogs.
Kamizuki Izumo: one of the two Chuunin examiners who conduct a special "pre-test" for the genin hoping to enter the Chuunin exam; he later comments on the fights in the third Chunnin exam and works as an assistant to the Hokage. Always seen with his best friend, Hagane Kotetsu.
Hagane Kotetsu: see Izumo, above, the difference being that Kotetsu has spiky hair, allergies, and a nose-wrap. Also that their characters are way different, but you've probably already figured that out...
Tatami Iwashi: one of the Chuunin examiners, who brings Anko the video-tape of Gaara's team entering the tower in the second Chuunin exam, and who later accompanies Genma, Raidou, and Shizune on their ill-fated mission. He's got a silly little pointy beard and a rather impulsive temperament.
Mozuku: the Chuunin examiner with square glasses who accompanies Izumo and Kotetsu when they find the bodies of the three Grass genin that Orochimaru killed before the second Chuunin exam.
Shiranui Genma: referee for the third Chuunin exam; also, in my own fanfic backstory, the adopted older brother of Inuzuka Hana.