Hunt Down the Moon

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Many thanks to Hagane Kotetsu of Imamade Nandomo, for allowing me to play with her characterization of Kotetsu; even more thanks to my beta-reader, Phoenix of Eternity, who refuses to allow me to fall back on ninja!logic, and who is the reason this chapter is so late. Greatest thanks of all to Naruto's creator, Masashi Kishimoto, for giving us this world to play in.

To anyone who was actually waiting for this chapter, I'm sorry it's so late. However, I assert that the wait has been in a good cause. I've been distracted by the creation of the Naruto RPG "Shades of War," an original-characters RPG set at the time of the Second Great Ninja War. We've got some awesome writers and a truly terrific story, and I highly recommend stopping by my livejournal (link through my user profile; there's also a direct link to the RPG in my user profile) for more information.

And yes, this is a blatant plug.

A final note: I have absolutely no pairings in mind for this story. I can't stop you from reading into it as you please, but keep in mind that Authorial Intention leans heavily in the direction of friendship, comradeship, and brotherly love.

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Chapter Two: Teamwork and Tempers

The mission specs said that the team was to assemble at Konoha's small south-western gate at 2130 hours, ready for immediate departure. That left Hana barely two hours to formally accept the mission at the office, pack, conduct a final check-up of the wounded dogs she'd be leaving in the clinic for her two teenage assistants to handle, hunt down her mother and her brother Kiba to say goodbye, and figure out exactly what she was going to say when she met her new teammates.

As she should have expected, the last one took the most time. When she slung her pack over her shoulders and left the Inuzuka compound with her three dogs at her heels, she was still trying to decide whether to pretend the confrontation in the Chuunin lounge that afternoon had never happened, or whether she should have it all out at the start. If a team were run like a dog-pack—or the Inuzuka clan—it wouldn't be a problem; she'd fight her teammates singly or together until she could force them to submit to her will and follow her lead.

But humans weren't dogs, and she couldn't expect them to behave in a rational, straight-forward, canine way…

Unfortunately.

Just play professional, Hana decided at last, as she took to the roofs to avoid a blocked-off street where the damage from the attack six months ago had not yet been cleared up. Although her flak vest was modified to fit like a second skin, eliminating the scroll pouches her fighting style rendered useless, and although she'd chosen to wear tight-fitting shorts instead of the looser trousers most shinobi favored, it was still a Chuunin uniform; she was still a kunoichi of Konoha, and she wore the vest of a rank she had sweated and bled to earn. As long as she kept her temper, she could deal with her teammates on equal ground.

And if (when?) they managed to provoke her beyond the limits of human tolerance (or Inuzuka temper, which was even shorter), well, a small amount of bloodshed could work wonders for team dynamics.

Roofs, and thinking time, ran out at last. Hana dropped to the ground on the street a few hundred meters short of the gates. The law that forbid any buildings within two hundred meters of Konoha's walls, a distance too far for even the best ninja to jump, was exceptionally useful in times of defense but generally annoying the rest of the time, especially when you were in a hurry. She jogged the rest of the way towards the open gates, her dogs loping around her. Amaya, ranging a little ahead of the rest of them, was the first to catch the scent. She barked sharply and stopped, waiting for the rest of her little pack to catch up.

Hana shaded her eyes against the orange glare of the setting sun and took a deep breath. The wind came from the west, carrying the scents of the three shinobi standing by the gates. Well-treated leather and faintly oiled steel, sweat, a tinge of blood, a whiff of something subtle and spicy. Her brain automatically sorted out the individual scents of the three men and memorized them: one who smelled most strongly of old paper, one who carried that faint spicy odor, one whose scent she knew already from competing against him years ago.

Her mouth twitched in a reluctant smile. Tatami Iwashi was still using that cucumber-scented shampoo.

He was also the only one to acknowledge her and the dogs as they trotted up to him. Spiky-haired Hagane Kotetsu, leaning against the wall and studying a scroll, didn't even look up. Beside him, Kamizuki Izumo sat on the ground with his knees drawn up and his hands dangling between his legs, head tilted back against the wall and his single visible eye closed. He seemed to have gone to sleep. Iwashi glared at them, then stepped out to meet Hana a few yards from the gates.

"Hana-san," he said. "It's good to see you again. I'm, ah, sorry about that incident in the lounge this afternoon—"

"What're you apologizing for, Iwashi?" Kotetsu demanded loudly without looking up from his scroll. "As I recall, we weren't the ones eavesdropping on a private conversation. Or throwing kunai."

Hana reined in her tongue with difficulty. "I'm sorry about that," she said at last, stiffly. "Is this the full team?"

"Now that you've consented to honor us with your presence, yes," Kotetsu said, rolling up his scroll with a snap and stowing it in his belt-pouch. "I suppose it would be too much to ask if you've already been briefed?"

"I read the mission specs," Hana said. She was beginning to wonder how old Kotetsu was; he couldn't possibly be more than twenty-four or twenty-five, six years older than herself. How had he managed to live so long without goading anyone to the point of homicide? "Tracking down the thief of a valuable scroll stolen from a minor daimyo in Honji. The scroll's quite old and may contain forbidden jutsu, and the thief was probably a shinobi, with possible back-up. Mission is B-rank, with combat a near certainty."

"Congratulations," Kotetsu drawled. "I didn't think many members of your clan learned how to read."

Hana's fingernails bit into her palms, and the sharp tips of her canine teeth pierced her lower lip. She wiped away the trickle of blood with the back of her hand, trying not to wish that it was Kotetsu's blood instead. Tearing out someone's throat with your teeth was terribly inefficient, anyway. "Look," she snapped, "I don't know what you've got against me or my clan, but I already apologized, and on this mission I'm your teammate, not your enemy. So let's just shut up and get the job done, okay?"

Kotetsu's dark eyes glittered. But as he opened his mouth, Izumo's quiet voice cut him off. "We're wasting time," he said. "If we leave now, we'll be in Honji by dawn." He pushed himself to his feet in one lithe easy motion, adjusting the straps of the pack over his shoulders. "Inuzuka-san, you and your dogs take point," he said. "I doubt we need to look for ambushes yet, but it doesn't hurt to take care. Iwashi'll be behind you, then me. Ko, you guard the rear."

"Got it," Kotetsu said, checking the binding of the shuriken holster at his right thigh. Iwashi glanced quickly from the two other men to Hana and her dogs, then shrugged and settled his pack a little more comfortably on his back.

The fourth human member of the team let out her breath in a long, thoughtful sigh. This wasn't the Izumo she remembered from the Chuunin lounge. The smell was the same, and the dark shield of hair over the right side of the face, and even the casual lounge of the wiry body. But he seemed curiously still now, strangely quiet and grim; she could not imagine this young man spiking Jello at a party or strip-teasing on the counter of a bar. Kotetsu seemed to have noticed the change as well; he looked up from his holster long enough to shoot his friend a sharp, probing glance when Izumo wasn't looking.

Then his eyes flickered on to Hana and narrowed into a glare. Hana returned it in full force.

It was probably a good thing Izumo seemed to have been appointed captain for this team, if he were the only living being capable of making Kotetsu back down. Hana tried to convince herself that the sudden shift in his personality was a good thing as well; calm and focus and seriousness were necessary qualities in a Chuunin team leader.

But she couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong there. And as she and the dogs headed past the men to take point, she couldn't help but notice the new acrid tinge of worry in Kotetsu's scent.

-

They stopped shortly before midnight to refill their canteens at a shallow stream and massage the aches from their tired muscles. Hana dug jerky and energy bars out of her pack and split them between her dogs. After a moment's hesitation, she offered some to Iwashi as well.

He gave the jerky a dubious stare. "What is it?"

"Venison," Hana said, scissoring off a bite with her sharp canines. "Think I've got some beef, though. And the bars aren't much of anything but sugar and fat and carbohydrates." Tasteless as old cardboard, but they offered the calories her ravenous metabolism demanded.

Iwashi still looked a little dubious, but he accepted a bar and tore off the wrapping. Lacking Inuzuka teeth, he gnawed on a corner for several seconds before managing to break the piece off. Hana finished her handful of jerky and tried not to laugh at Iwashi's expression as he chewed industriously away. "You don't have to finish it," she said at last, taking pity. "What you've got already should last you a couple hours."

Looking relieved, Iwashi rewrapped the rest of the bar and shoved it in his belt pouch. "Thought I was gonna lose a couple teeth there," he said feelingly. "You like that stuff?"

Hana shrugged. "It's standard trail rations for my clan," she said. "Soldier pills work great for a while, but when you go off 'em you're ready to crash and sleep for a week. This stuff doesn't take anything out of you, and it keeps you going as long as you need it. Stores indefinitely, too, and the dogs can eat it."

Speaking of dogs, hers had finished their rations and were starting to get bored. Katsu had waded into the center of the stream and was watching the tiny minnows swirling around his legs as the cool water soothed his tired paws. Akira and Amaya were curled on the bank, dangerously close to sleep. Hana whistled softly, and was gratified to see their ears swivel towards her immediately, pricked and alert. She tossed a final strip of jerky to Katsu, who swallowed it with one snap of his heavy jaws, and then closed the oilskin packet and returned it to her pack. "Ready to go yet?" she asked, shrugging its weight back onto her shoulders.

Iwashi glanced upstream. Izumo and Kotetsu knelt on the bank a short distance away, crouched over an open scroll whose surface glowed faintly white in the light of the waxing moon. Kotetsu was tracing his finger over the scroll and arguing in a low voice; Izumo was listening skeptically. "You've spent too much time in Intelligence," he said finally. "Paranoia's catching up with you. Maybe he doesn't trust 'em either."

"Who doesn't trust who?" Iwashi asked, stepping forward to glance curiously at the scroll.

"It's who doesn't trust whom," Kotetsu corrected, snapping the scroll back up and returning it to his belt pouch before Iwashi could catch more than a glimpse, "and it's none of your business. If Captain Izumo thinks it's not worth worrying about, I shall obey his orders."

Izumo punched him in the shoulder. "Come off it," he said amiably. "Look, we'll keep our eyes open, okay? If it's a trap, well, we'll just spring it and see what happens."

"What's a trap?" Iwashi wanted to know.

"Your mouth," Kotetsu said. "And, like a good trap, it should close." He pushed himself to his feet, cool in the face of Iwashi's glare. "I'll take point from here," he said. "Inuzuka, you and your dogs bring up the rear." He faded into the darkness, invisible within half a dozen steps.

Izumo paused a moment longer. "Stay alert," he advised them. "And, Inuzuka-san, try not to talk so loudly when you're chatting with Lover-boy here. It makes Ko jealous." He grinned cheerfully at them and vanished after his friend.

"Lover-boy?" Iwashi sputtered.

"Whatever cheered him up," Hana said darkly, "has something to answer for."

Dynamic Duo, indeed. Izumo seemed to switch moods at the snap of a twig, and Kotetsu's surly sarcasm was going to get him maimed one of these days. They should sell tickets. At one time or another, he'd probably offended half of Konoha, and Izumo must have accounted for the rest.

Still, she couldn't help noticing that Kotetsu wasn't the only one whose scent was now overlaid with the acrid flavor of anxiety.

Paranoia or not, she sent her dogs out to cover their flanks.

-

The sun rose slowly at their backs as the team broke from the woods and ran down the long sweeping curve of a grassy hill. Below them a lazy river bisected the valley, with rice-fields spreading dark green on its banks. Then the hill rose up again, terraced with fields, cut by the long dusty ribbon of the road that wound up through the town sprawling over the hillside and up to the castle crowning its crest. It was one of the old-style castles of heavy stone, probably predating the First Great Ninja War; from a distance it looked grand and imposing, but as the Konoha shinobi drew closer Hana saw that its outer walls were sadly dilapidated and that the roof was missing tiles. The town—which, despite its name, was barely half the size of Konoha—was in even worse condition, and the citizens walked with sullen, downcast eyes and gave the ninja a wide berth. The air was heavy with resentment and fear.

"Low on funds," Kotetsu whispered to Izumo. "Ripe for the buying."

Izumo shrugged an uncomfortable shoulder. "It's the mission," he said. But all the same, he glanced over his shoulder at Hana and Iwashi. "Watch out, you two," he said. "Keep your eyes open."

Iwashi, who had been unusually quiet since they'd crossed the river and begun the long walk through the rice paddies and up the hill, jerked his pack higher up on his shoulders and asked in a low voice, "You don't think—"

"We're thinking all the time," Kotetsu said without turning around. "It's how we're still alive."

Rebuffed, Iwashi shut his mouth and fell back a step to walk beside Hana. Amaya leaned against his leg, begging for a scratch. She'd always been the friendliest of the dogs, and at the last break Iwashi had forever endeared himself to her by offering her the rest of his energy bar. Katsu, who did not approve of friends, clung to Hana's side, stiff-legged and bristling. He glared at everything that moved, and when Akira tried to slide past him to investigate an odd smell further up the street, Katsu whirled and snapped.

"Knock it off, boys," Hana hissed. The last thing they needed now was a fight, with tensions already this high and tempers already so taut. Katsu and Akira both gave her slightly wounded looks, but they drew apart without argument. Akira forged ahead a little, nose to the ground. The odd smell seemed to come from that alley on the other side of the sake bar…

"Inuzuka-san," Izumo said mildly, "this close to Earth Country, dog is a delicacy. I'd suggest you don't let yours go wandering off on its own."

All three of the dogs bristled and snarled. "They can take care of themselves," Hana said coldly, but she whistled Akira back to heel. He came reluctantly, glancing back over his shoulder at the dark refuse-strewn alley.

"What was it?" Hana asked.

Akira's ears flattened to his skull, and he did not meet her eyes. He couldn't tell. His body language shouted of embarrassment, tail tucked between his legs, head lowered in shame. He was the best tracker of the three dogs; they'd seldom encountered a scent he could not interpret. But this one… He growled softly at the thought.

Hana sank her fingers into the thick fur of his ruff and dragged them up to tousle his ears. "It's okay," she said. "Don't worry about it. We'll be heading out of here soon enough."

The dog leaned gratefully against her thigh, and his tail untucked enough to thwack the back of her legs.

But his hackles stayed bristled for the rest of the climb uphill to the castle, and the humans weren't the only ones who were snappish with worry.