Land of Tea… Ouza Island… Nakayama Estates... Mid Afternoon…
She hates us.
The thought echoed in his brain, as he dodged another round of shuriken that Midori sensei casually threw at oblique and acute angles. He dodged what he could before performing a quick substitution jutsu with a piece of firewood that he cut for Ki the day before. His clone was sliced up and down with a dozen shuriken before it collapsed into a puff of smoke and a dropping firelog.
Daiki quickly pulled out a kunai, barely parrying a high landing swipe by a ninjaken wielding Midori sensei clone. He ducked under her next swipe, backing up into the stable. Midori sensei's clone advanced aggressively on, making sure he had no room to maneuver or escape. As her blade sang a song of imminent death, coming close to ripping open his throat if not for slipping on some rotten hay.
Instead of getting impaled, Daiki rolled to his side and pulled a hidden ninja wire with his free hand. Unleashing a salvo of flechettes from the ceiling he had prepared earlier. The clone pulled back instantly back into the grassy yard, just missing two dozen flechettes striking into the floor.
Taking advantage of the momentary retreat, Daiki's body flickered into a potential backstab. Only to land into a trap. Hidden by a simple genjutsu, the freshly cut yard that Rin-san had cut two days before, was now an entire grove of wildly moving vines. Which quickly ensnared his legs and arms in rapidly tightening and jiggling green mass. He tried for a moment to break free, before realizing the uselessness of it.
He instead watched Rin-san, dodge, parry and attack empty air in front of him as Midori sensei drilled Ki in pushups and pullups by the shed that he and Rin-san agreed to clean out for Ki. The thought came back, unbidden and full of dark undertones.
Ki hates us.
Daiki didn't know how to feel about that. For a teammate he had barely known for close to two weeks at this point, he felt… attached to her. There was a quality to her that he could appreciate, that so many other civilian girls he had met simply did not have. A drive, a mettle, a resolve, a force of personality that kept fighting against Midori-sensei every time she could. It was hate and rage molded into a person. A path of hate that was focused on them too, Daiki thought sourly. Remembering Ki's comments how much they stunk. Even after he and Rin-san bathed three times a day to get off that stink.
Or more likely, Daiki thought darkly. He could relate to Ki hating them. After all, he was used to it. He had been disdained and hated. Belittled and bullied. Forgotten and wasted. Throughout his life in the clan. His dreams crushed under the foot of the clan, and the aspirations of his overbearing parents. Humiliated by his sister and former mentor. Treated less than a cripple. And what did he feel toward the village and clan? Anger. Violent, all inducing rage that he kept under check by apathy and laziness.
It was sort of why he had taken such a ferocity to the training that Midori sensei had offered. He had been offered a chance. He wasn't going to be the sage reborn. He certainly wasn't going to be a prodigy like his sister. He didn't want to become a paper pusher or sneered at by everyone in the village. Daiki wanted to show the world he was really capable of. A capability of extreme violence.
Maybe that was why he prefered her as a house mate than his own family. While Ki hated them, she treated them with a modicum of respect. She shared her house with them, shared her food, and sometimes talked to them.
Truth be told, ever since becoming a part of Midori sensei's team, he and Rin-san had barely returned back to the village less than a handful of times. They had moved into the crumbling and ruined estate. Cleaning, repairing, stocking and repurposing trash and leftovers from the previous owners to their own uses. They had made the main mansion, for at least a few rooms, livable. With the eventual goal of making the entire estate something approaching a state of comfort. A needed treat after a day of exhausting training.
Didn't matter if Ki was a monster or creature that the village captured. Even if she was, well, kind of supernatural. At first, he just thought she was exceptionally smart. Just, no one, and Daiki meant no one teaches themselves the Land of Snow's alphabet after being shown to them in a one hour sitting. Or picking up lip reading that he showed to her twice. It was probably why the village picked her up, if she was this smart, think of how valuable as an assassin she would be.
He just hoped she didn't decide to put a blade into his back first.
Daiki felt a hand on his shoulder and the loosening of vines gripping his limbs. Breaking out of his brooding, he saw a sheepish looking Rin-san and grim faced Midori sensei standing behind him. "A stellar subpar performance so far boy, but an improvement over a fortnight ago. Your genjutsu release is still non-existent and your footwork is tangled as the Great Tree's roots, but you've got preparation. Let's see how you are against your peer. Midori said, gesturing to Rin-san.
"Uhh… you want us to spar?" Daiki hesitantly said. It had been many years since their beginning days as a genin team since he had tested his mettle against his friend. A thought that made him nervous.
"No, I want you two boys to try to kill each other for a change." Midori sensei deadpanned. Her eyes lingering on Daiki. "You've had a fortnight to refresh your skills. It's a test to see which of you has taken my training to heart." She said, patting each on their heads.
As Daiki squared himself against his friend and rival, his mind remembered it had been a scant two weeks since he came here. The training schedule had been intense and exhausting. Mornings had been the time of endurance strength training, and refresher courses in kenjutsu and taijutsu, that Midori sensei favored. With it being broken up by a series of midday lectures in everything from geopolitics, tactics, and camouflage to the customs and traditions of each of the elemental nations. Afternoons were times to apply what was achieved that morning, by trying to land a hit on Midori sensei. After which Midori would instruct any reinforcement courses that she felt were needed. A far cry from the lackadaisical training he had received three years earlier.
His mind snapped back into focus as he realized that the spar had begun, and his friend was about to punch him in the face. Instead of bracing or avoiding it, Daiki let his friend through his guard, his hand grabbing a kunai. The hit momentarily dazed Daiki as he stumbled backwards, playing up being hit. As his friend came from the rear, going for an overhand haymaker, Daiki swiped in front of Rin-san. Rin-san dodged, but the kunai ripped open shirt in the process.
Rin-san dodged to the left, and threw a feint that Daiki dodged, before blocking Rin-san's kick to the calf with his knee. Daiki rolled backwards, throwing his kunai to force Rin-san back. His friend instead merely sidestepped the kunai and closed the distance, throwing a succession of quick attacks targeting his head, throat and kidneys. Daiki used his forearm to block the punches, before he launched himself forward with a quick kick to Rin's shins, looking to unbalance his opponent. Instead, his friend launched a series of shuriken that he narrowly sidestepped.
Daiki's frustration grew as over the course of the next minute, he tried vainly to break through Rin's guard. His punches and kicks missing or being blocked by Rin's forearms or knees. Only to find him subject to a series of quick jabs by his friend. Leaving bruises on his torso and shoulders. With little choice, Daiki drew another Kunai trying to stab him in the kidneys, but Rin parried it.
They fought a kunai duel for another minute. A series of ducks, dodges and swipes as both maneuvered each other to find the best opening to land the fatal blow. Rin's guard was still nearly unbreakable. It was only when he broke up Rin-san's badly formed Riposte by parrying his friend's blade with enough force to cause it to fly out of it. Allowing Daiki to step forward and slap his friend across the face.
His friend meanwhile, recovering from his lost blade, took advantage of his poor footwork to trip him. Sending him to the ground in a heap and his last remaining kunai flying across the yard. Prone and vulnerable, his friend went for the death blow, as Rin drew his last kunai.
Daiki rolled along the dirt, his anger and rage building, as he dodged his friend's attempt at stomping on his torso. Rolling into a kneeling position, he launched a spread of flechettes at his friend who body flickered on top of him. The kunai dully gleamed in the afternoon sun. Instead, Daiki shoved himself up into Rin-san's body, momentarily stunning his friend and his fist, unnaturally hot, shoved into his friend's side. Through his fist, Daiki felt an explosion under the skin, like the blood vessels had just exploded under his friend's skin.
His friend retreated fast, and Daiki, feeling a rage that he never felt before, followed suit. A rage that wanted his friend dead. A rage that made his fists unnaturally hot. A rage that shut down any objection from his mind. A rage heedless of the consequences ahead.
Daiki followed his friend, who had one hand on his side, to the side of the mansion. His fist shot out to catch Rin in the side of the neck. A great spurt of blood seemed to erupt out of Daiki's neck, as he fell forward onto the ground. Daiki, heedless, leaned down to bring his fist to bear as Rin, quick and agile, broke through his guard and slammed something sharp into his head. The world went dark as the rage abated, and he heard the moans of his friend and the screams of Ki.
Land of Tea... Ochagakure... Kashiwaya Inn... Night…
"Uncle, it was unmistakeable, only the Yuduru could be blind, stupid and insane enough not discover it and nearly throw him out of the clan in the process." Midor saidi twirling her emerald eyes upward. "For once, Hotaru-san actually made things better with her public temper tantrums."
They were outside the Kashiwaya Inn, sitting on long stone benches in front of a vast and elaborate underground karesansui garden, waiting for the monk. Behind them grandiose ryokan sprawled out right in the heart of Ochagakure, built in the style of traditional mainlander architecture. The inn where visiting and potential clients would stay in the lap of luxury. Built on top of an ancient geothermal spring, the inn granted clients indoor bathing opportunities unmatched in this section of the world with the corresponding luxury they expected visiting a hidden village.
A needed bit of opulence as most clients were either influential kuge messengers of various daimyos or secretaries of wealthy titans of industry asking after Sage Tea. The remaining would be the few kazoku or mayors interested in securing police, garrison or bandit hunting contracts at Ochagakure's reduced rates.
Her grand uncle, Junpei-sama brushed off a lint on his haori, looking thoroughly doubtful and unimpressed. "You'll forgive me, Midori if I find the concept that Yuduru hasn't identified or developed one of their most coveted and primordial talents, questionable?"
Midori threw her hands up in the air, exasperated. "Lately most things coming from that clan have been questionable. Besides that, when was the last one? 61 years ago. Yes, I looked it up in the archives, she died just when you became clan head, if I'm not mistaken. Strange how an ability that manifests once every 20 years, just disappears."
Her uncle crossed his arms in front of him, scowling at Midori. "What are you implying Midori?"
"You know exactly what I'm implying uncle. Especially in regard to the changes of the village toward the current curriculum Sage Tea ceremonies and police contracts." Midori thought the village had changed far too much even in her lifetime, but digging back into the archives had even more poignant changes since the Cha-Hi war decades ago. Ochagakure had become a distorted shadow of itself. This hadn't happened by circumstance. This had been policy.
Junpei-sama eyed her with barely concealed annoyance and irritation, but his posture straightened as he considered her words. "What do you need from me?"
Midori turned around and sat beside him on the stone bench. She turned her to stare into his dark veridian eyes, "I need manuals, techniques, fighting styles, whatever you can get. Then you can pass it off to me, where I can start applying them to the Yuduru boy."
Junpei-sama fiddled with his pipe. Emptying out the old ashes and tapping in Sage Tobacco, before lighting it with a traditional flint. Junpei-sama puffed away silently, as Midori waited for him to complete his marked ritual. Lowering his pipe, her uncle sighed, rubbing a finger against the side of his forehead. "I'll see what I can do. Though, if the Yuduru catches on and you're right, you've consigned that boy to an early death."
Midori cocked her head, "I very much doubt that uncle, one little word to Hotaru-san should end whatever pathetic plot Yuduru plan. Hotaru-san loves her brother a bit too much to be healthy."
Her uncle puffed and waved her away, "Enough, with your cavorting gossips. What about the Toki boy? Have you been able to confirm Toki clan reports?"
Midori turned her head back to the garden, "No, not at all. I don't think Toki has the full picture, I don't know if I have the full picture."
Her uncle raised an eyebrow, "You're not usually this doubtful of your observation skills."
Midori pressed a finger against her bottom lip, and chuckled once. "It's not my observation skills I'm doubtful about, I'm doubtful at the conclusion I've reached."
Her uncle raised the other eyebrow, "And that conclusion is?"
Midori ruminated on whether to tell her uncle, or give some other convincing lie. A look from him, told her otherwise. She began tentatively, "His clan ability reminded me at first of the Deidara clan techniques. Specifically the boy attempts to shape it just like the Diedara clan does with their chakra shaping clay"
Her uncle leaned forward, his eyes sparkling with questions. "That's weird. I do know Toki abandoned using that method years ago, when the current Toki shaping techniques using gusts of wind came into style. Where did he pick it up?"
Midori nodded. Good he's following along, "Unknown. He claims that the way he shapes them now gives him the most control. I subtly did an elemental chakra test to check. Instead, I find out that the boy doesn't have the typical Earth and Wind combination of most Toki, he's Earth and Fire."
Her uncle turned toward her, his pipe lifted out of his mouth. "Actually, not that rare, as it happens from time to time with Toki I've learned." Her uncle started puffing his pipe again, before looking at her again. "There's something else that isn't there. I can spot you being evasive 1,000 leagues away. Drop it, this garden has enough sound eaters that we could use it as a public torture and interrogation cell, and no one would be the wiser. So, why don't you spit out what you're dancing around."
Midori sighed. "I think he has the Toki clan founder's primordial ability."
Her uncle coughed violently, as his pipe flew onto the ground and a very surprised expression was evinced. "Are you saying your team has two primordial talents?!"
"Well, technically three if we count the witch-child. To be sure, I haven't confirmed it yet. Though I theorize that if I could get Iwa chakra clay or hardened chakra clay, I hazard he could manipulate it far more easily than his current… creations." Midori elaborated.
Junpei-sama leaned back, a hand rubbing on his face before he spoke. "I hope for your sake, these reports are not fabrications to get out of the monotony? Describe in more detail how you realized that he might possess Toki Seikei's abilities."
Midori twirled one of bangs absentmindedly, before sighing and began relaying her observations. "There's not much to tell honestly. I saw it for a split second, I'm not even sure he realized what he did. He took a piece of fallen glazed tile from the ground before shaping it, in his hands mind you, into kunai that he then slammed into Yuduru boy's skull."
Her uncle let out a long stream of curses before getting up to lean on a nearby tree. His face looked like he was suffering a coronary. "By the Kami, I'm too old for these sorts of surprises. What are the chances that there are two primordial bloodlines that just happen to reappear when we most need them? This is a fucking contrivance, or Kami sent mission. And what the fuck are the Yuduru and the Toki doing? I know they are not blind to know what to look for."
So maybe it wasn't policy after all, or the other clans had merely cut the Chamei out or this was a performance by her uncle. Midori wasn't entirely sure she believed that her uncle was entirely surprised by the "ineptitude" or "policy" of the other clans. But since she played this hand, she might as well tell her uncle her other theory.
Midori shrugged, "It could be that they are only now being unlocked now."
Her uncle squinted at her, "Explain yourself now, no more spooky silent psychopath routine. I have half the mind to break up your team and tell Nosotchu and Jun about what their clans have missed."
Midori squatted on the ground in front of the waves of carefully grated sand before pulling out a kunai from her pack. "Well, let's look at the facts." She said, drawing tallies into the sand.
"Those boys have been squatting in that rotting estate with the witch-child since day one. They've been living with her, doing her chores, eating with her, sleeping in close proximity, Kami, they might be bathing or doing Sage knows what together. And given what we know so far of the witch-child, that might have an effect." Midori ticked off.
Her uncle seethed, he gave her a look approaching anger. "You didn't tell us that they were living together! Given her chakra negation abilities, that could have killed them or lobotomized them!"
Midori rolled her eyes, and waved her uncle's comments away with the point of the Kunai. "It was a necessary risk. Also, I can't just keep guzzling down Sage tea and be awake for days on end. As we agreed, she needed other guards, and this at least seems to keep her locked down. For now."
Midori sighed, "Now where was I? Yes, the witch-child's abilities. My reports already detail everything else, her intelligence, her passive abilities, and most significantly of all her draining various fuinjutsu runes I have around the estate."
Her uncle sat down against the tree, "Explain, because I'm not catching your meaning."
She stabbed her kunai into the ground, and growled in low whispers. "What if the boys had their abilities sealed. And the child merely undid the fuinjutsu that kept them from breaking out? It would explain much about their past treatment."
There was a growing silence for several minutes, as both Midori and her uncle stared at each other unblinking.
Junpei-sama began. "The implications…"
"Are bad. Now, think about what would happen if we placed her right by a bijuu fuinjutsu?" Midori finished.
Her uncle shivered and pulled on his haori, and bit his knuckles to steady his nerves like she had seen him do a million times. "Y-you know what this means right? The K-Konohagakure-Kyuubi attack 12 years ago! That…"
"..is purely conjectural. Though, it does make our plans to fight the mizukage potentially messy. Obviously, I can't fully endorse my conclusions, they are merely the end result of the current information available to me." Midori relayed.
While her theory definitely sounded like an open and shut case, she hadn't found any fuinjutsu seals on their boys bodies and that the other clans were participating in a conspiracy just didn't sit right. The Yuduru and the Toki were as much at each other's throats as they were with the Chamei. So, Midori was sure something else was going on. "Uncle, I'll keep observing and monitoring them, but sending them against some Kiri rebel nukenins is probably not the best idea."
Her uncle was silent for several moments, before he spoke again. "Unfortunately, in this case I can't change it. We've already approached the builder."
Midori sat crossed legged on the ground, hoping her uncle was speaking through after what she dropped on him. "I thought you were going to wait until he approached us?"
Junpei-sama shrugged, "That was two weeks ago, and since then Mei already tried to have him killed. Thankfully, one of our up and coming ANBU were able to spirit Tazuna out of there. Doesn't help matters that Konoha is moving fast and in about four weeks they are planning on dropping elite genin squads on the Land of Waves and Gato is finally sending an awful amount of supplies to the resistance."
"Fuck." Midori swore. "Does that narrow our time window down?"
"For the moment no, Tazuna has informed us that he is currently waiting for the supplies to arrive 7 weeks from now. Will mean you have 6 weeks to complete whatever training you can do, before taking a week to escort Tazuna back to his village. After that, you're on your own. Unlike your last mission you'll need to kill your target. Even if you have to poison the entire Land of Waves to do it." Her uncle said, returning to his bench.
"... How severe are we talking about removal limitations?" Midori was starting to develop a bad case of 'bad feelings' about this. This was going to be the Land of Moon all over again.
Her uncle swept his hand through his thinning white hair, "All of them. Hell, I'll even authorize combat with the Kono garrison squads, though I suspect they are stuffed with clan heirs and heiresses given the chatter that we've picked up."
Midori stood up and holstered her kunai. Back to suicide mission business? Great. "We have any idea what elite jonin they have babysitting them with?"
"A few, Uchiha Obito, the hole ninja with his partner Nohara Kakashi, the copy ninja for sure. Possibly a few others like Senju Dan, Hyuga Seo, Maito Guy, being named dropped."
"So, in other words I have to worry about Konoha A+ special jonin crawling up my ass? Along with possible Kiri rebel kekkei genkai? This is just a kami forsaken suicide mission!"
"Then you're going to need someone to start assisting with the training." A silky smooth beguiling voice penetrated their argument. Midori instantly drew her ninjaken with her left hand while simultaneously conducting a one handed summoning seal, bringing forth a host of poisonous butterflies.
Rising up from the sands that she was tallying and stabbing earlier, a fat bald man wearing a mostly blue with white highlighted robes, stood before them. On his person were two dozen blades. From throwing onoes too long bladed katanas from miniature kamas to more than a half a dozen kabutowari. He bowed in front of them, "Yasutake of the 17th Wave, at your service."
Land of Water... Iwa Ookama... Resistance Outpost 271... Evening…
In between howls of incredulous laughter his master finally seemed to regain a degree of sense. "So… let me get this straight, Mei. Kisame, big fish faced Kisame, and not one of his many little fish faced relatives got his ass beaten into the ground by a tea serving wilting flower of a ninja! The old man is losing it, and now you are, what going to ask me to assault Ochagakure all by myself?"
"Oh now there's a thought." Terumi-sama girlishly giggled, as she stroked her long auburn hair with her free hand, a smile touching her plump lips. "No, I think not. There is something to be said for a vassal minor village that serves good tea I hear."
Haku stood behind his hunched over master, Momochi Zazuba, who was currently taking a whetstone to the edge of Kubikiribōchō. While across from him sat Terumi Mei, the Bubbling Mist, leader of the resistance and best chance to put the Bloody Mist into a much postponed grave. Behind her still, was an assortment of different bodyguards and advisers that kept their hands on their weapons and their hands ready to sign.
Considering how well Haku knew his master, this meeting had been so far; relatively civil. Considering that the last meeting caused six tavern brawls, half a city to burn down and a small-scale witch hunt, his master must have needed something to sit down with his biggest rival. Not that Zabuza-sama ever told him anything.
"Weak. What use are they for patsies if they won't even cleanly finish a kill?" Zabuza-sama growled, his hands sharpening the elongated sword with practiced and rhythmic movements. "Better to massacre Ochagakure and plunder their treasure chests. The loot alone would be able to feed our rebellion for decades to come. Then dealing with that cheat, Gato. "
"Oh my dear Zabuza, as much as I appreciate your invaluable advice, plundering Ochagakure would be far more trouble than it would be worth. Think of all our valuable clients we would lose because we cut off their tea supply." Terumi-sama looked relaxed, but Haku could detect a slight spasming of muscles in her arms. Master hit a weak spot.
Zabuza-sama pointed and growled. "I don't buy it. If the Bloody Mist had any good ideas, it was conquering and incorporating Ochagakure. Who needs a minor village buffer state anymore if all they do is pour tea, and spread their legs?"
"Who needs a minor village that conceals their kills behind poisoned tea cups and depraved sex acts? Or has cultivated a reputation of being nothing more than wannabe ninja and outcasts? Ocha are far more dangerous than they seem, perfect allies to help us defeat our common enemy." Terumi-sama said, leaning forward, cupping Zabuza-sama's chin with her left hand.
Zabuza-sama slapped her hand away, "Woman, I don't need your charm. Tell us what you want so we can go back to killing the Bloody Mist's badly trained genin."
Terumi-sama looked hurt at first, her charming smile crumbling into a frown. Then something dangerous lurked behind eyes as she tapped her finger against her lips. "As charming as ever, dear Zabuza. Suffice to say, we are sure Gato will betray us the moment the bridge builder and that abominable bridge is but food for crabs and sharks."
Haku could hear his master grind his razor sharp teeth as his master formed an answer. "Is that so? Then it should be simple. You kill this Gato."
Terumi-sama smiled. Haku tensed up as a wave of intense killing intent passed through him as Terumi-sama's smile turned dangerous. "We understand each other perfectly, my dear Zabuza. This Gato must die if he can think to con the true inheritors of the Waters of Time and the Mists of Fate. However, he must die at the right time. "
"Then, get Ao or Kisame or whatever tool you have to do that. I don't see why we are talking about it now." Her master growled.
Terumi-sama's eyes darted to several scrolls and papers lining a corner of one table, before looking back at his master. "I suggested as much to this Gato, strangely he was adamant that you and your team should be the one to take this contract."
Haku could hear Zabuza-sama's jaws pop. "Bah, this smells fishy as week old fish caught in a crab trap. Not taking it. Tell this Gato if we meet face to face, I'll be using Kubikiribōchō to harvest him."
Again, Terumi-sama's smile faltered and crumbled in a narrow line on her face. "And here I was hoping I could persuade you to take it, how sad."
His master leaned back, his hands momentarily still. "Woman, you couldn't pay me with Yagura's corpse to do this job. I wasn't born in a tide pool. "
Terumi-sama lifted her index finger up. "Perhaps, there is a different coin I could offer you instead."
His master cocked his head, and growled. "What is that supposed to mean, woman?"
Terumi-sama said words shoved a kunai through Haku's heart. "We found out your little sister is alive."
For what seemed like an eternity submerged beneath the surface, neither his master or he reacted. They both had experienced far too much bloodshed and war after nearly little more than a decade at war to believe Terumi-sama without proof. And proof was hard to come by when Yagura launched a pogrom in the middle of the night, all those terrible years ago.
Haku could still sometimes hear his parents screaming, crying, fighting when he slept. How they tried to get him out, only to be overwhelmed by a tide of samurai and civilian ninja. Even their clan's kekkei genkai couldn't save them, only to consign them to the grave. Only surviving when his master saved him from being burned at the stake. He would never forget their cries as they were ruthlessly butchered by the 'Demons of the Hidden Mist'.
His master reacted first, growling in a low whisper and hefting his blade onto his shoulders. "Bullshit, Yagura killed her along with my clan."
Terumi-sama crossed her legs and leaned back,"Thought to have been killed, my agents in Kirigakure tell different."
"I saw her corpse with my own eyes, woman. Stop playing whatever mindfuckery you're trying 'cause it ain't workin."
"Then explain this." Terumi-sama said, bringing out several black and white photographs of what looked like rows upon rows of young genin wearing tactical vests and padded armor, standing at palm salute. A red circle highlighted the person in question that looked damn near like a grown up Rikona, Haku thought. There were other photographs of course, each complete with this look alike completing mission courses and training with other apprentices of the sword.
Haku had been friends with Rikona, his master's sister, when he was just a young boy. Their two clans having been allied since the very inception of Kirigakure. While the Momochi clan was not highly respected or as powerful as his clan, the Yuki. They often formed a strong partnership by the Momochi's powerful water techniques and swordsmanship with his clan's kekkei genkai, the Ice release. And it was often practice to pair up clan members at a young age with a corresponding member from the opposite clan.
Rikona was, in Haku's eyes, his friend, partner, and most importantly his mate of the spirit. They did everything together. Surfing the waves of the beaches of Kirigakure, in hidden coves and caves. Practicing each other's poetry to mixed reviews. Pushing each other in developing their combat capabilities. Normal kid stuff, Haku thought before that night.
He saw her corpse. She had been only five. He had seen her throat had been cut by kunai. She had bled out as she tried to crawl to his clan's compound. After being… ravished by... something. Haku didn't want to think about it anymore, as he mumbled under his breath. "Can't be."
His master was silent, popping his jaw in and out. His finger slowly ripping the photographs apart with his grip. Terumi-sama merely crossed her legs, her eyes examining them. "I know you came here after funds, as your principal ally was killed when Yagura exterminated the water court. I can provide that and smuggle your sister out of Kirigakure, in exchange for taking this job."
His master stared at her as if insulted. "No. I'll get her out. My tools shall get her out."
Terumi-sama rolled her eyes. "Not without me, no you are not. Unlike the last time you were Kirigakure, things have changed drastically. New rings have been completed throughout the hidden village. Checkpoints have been set up throughout to ferret out infiltrators. Identity papers now required to enter or leave a district. Asymmetric randomized patrols by ninja and kami alike prowl. The old smugglers' coves have been sealed and booby trapped. Not to mention heavy ame presence that makes up for Yagura's lack of talent. You couldn't enter under cloak or assault."
His master stood up, "We'll take our chances. Goodbye Mei."
She grabbed his hand. Haku drew his needles while Terumi-sama's bodyguards tensed. "Think for a second, Za. I've been building up a network to overthrow Yagura for close to a decade now. I can secure identity cards, papers and trusted ninja to spirit your sister to safety. And all you would ever need to do is one little job."
His master growled, shaking his hand free of Terumi-sama's. "Don't bullshit me, Mei. There is no little job. There will always be another job. Another killing. Another little problem that needs to be taken care of. Before I get to see my sister. The plain truth is I don't trust you or your motives. You were too long his whore, for me to ever trust you."
Terumi-sama smiled, a genuine smile. "My dear Zabuza, I respect you too much to do that to you. If need be I swear a part of my spirit as collateral to liberate your sister."
Haku was disquieted, swearing a part of one spirit was an extreme act, one that he could not trust Terumi-sama to keep. Though, judging by the uneasy and shocked looks by her advisers, they too were not keen on it either. So, it was unknown whether she was being truthful or if it was one of her many games that he and his master were part of.
His master instead returned to the seated position and resumed sharpening his blade, his only response being. "Tell me about this little job, again."