Summary – Hana X Izumo, references to past tense Kotetsu X Izumo. Nothing explicit. The mission where a deceit was invented and a friendship was made.
Rating – T although it probably doesn't even need that high of a rating.
Hana finds herself on a mission with Izumo. She hates how people outside her clan treat her and her dogs, why should this one be any different.
Who are these characters? Izumo is one of the chuunin proctors and also one of the chuunin assigned to help the 5th. He is one of the two that tried to trick everyone into thinking room 201 was room 301 before the beginning of the chuunin exam. Hana is Kiba's older sister. She has 3 dogs who do not have canon names as far as I know. She is a vet but since she is an Inuzuka it is reasonable to assume she is capable of missions as well.
Key to dialog:
"blah blah blah" is speaking
'blah blah blah' is Inuzuka/dog speak
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A dog under a divine moon – chapter 2
She woke up hours later when it was still dark to someone calling her name. She stretched out from under the pile of warm dog fur she was in and crawled out of her tent.
"I want to get an early start. We'll leave as soon as you're ready." Izumo was walking around the campsite putting out the fire and getting his stuff ready to go. Hana just nodded and started getting her pack put back together as the two dogs she had been sleeping with stretched and wrestled a bit with each other. As she was getting everything back in her backpack, she noticed the third dog was following Izumo around. That was strange, normally the three were inseparable.
Hana shrugged it off and indicated she was ready, without another word they were making their way towards rock country at the same quick pace as yesterday. Izumo was still taking point, but this time her third dog was between her and Izumo with the other two behind her. She made the decision she'd have to ask her dogs about what was going on. They stopped for a quick break for lunch, but the friendly talkative Izumo of last night didn't seem to be making a reappearance. Her one dog was sticking to his leg with a surprising amount of determination. Finally, with the lure of jerky she got the dog to leave Izumo and come over to her.
Rubbing his head as she pulled off pieces of jerky for him she asked, 'What's up?'
He gnawed at the jerky, giving his best doggie sigh as his eyes looked up at her, 'I don't understand humans.'
She kept scratching his ear, 'We aren't that hard to figure out.'
He stretched out his paws, 'Yes you are.'
Hana realized Izumo was looking over at her and frowning. She looked over at him, "Is something wrong?"
"I forgot you could actually understand your dogs and all."
She tilted her head, "Is that a problem?"
He shrugged, "Guess it depends on the topic."
"Oh" She looked down for a second, "I was just wondering what was up since Ichi here was being so protective of you."
He nodded, "Well I guess at least my dramatic breakup should provide good conversation." He couldn't keep the dejected sound out of his voice.
"Actually, Ichi wasn't going to tell me anything beyond humans are hard to understand." She took a piece of jerky for herself, "If you want to talk about it, but if not that's OK too."
He looked over at the dog and smiled, "Sorry Ichi, I should have trusted you more."
Hana was surprised as Ichi got up, walked over to Izumo, and put his head down on the man's leg. Izumo didn't seem surprised and just started rubbing the big grey head.
"He doesn't normally like other people." She was keeping an eye on the two as she tossed jerky to her other two dogs.
Izumo shrugged, "Maybe he just has a weakness for sentimental fools." He sighed, "We need to get moving. We need to get into town soon if I plan on making my meeting." With that, he stood up and quickly got his pack back on. Hana assumed he didn't want to talk any more as he took off, not really waiting to make sure her and the other two dogs were ready.
They reached the town in Rock country not long after sunset. Izumo grabbed a room at an inn while Hana waited with the dogs, then he snuck them all in through a window. Once everyone was in the room, he sat down on a chair and put his head in his hands.
"Izumo-san?"
He looked up. "Yeah?"
"What's the plan?"
He sighed, "Umm, yeah. Kotetsu had this part planned out." He took a deep breath, "I'm sorry. I need to pull it together. OK, the original plan was for Kotetsu and I to go to the club where the meeting place is and meet out source, but we'll just improvise, right? I guess this gives us two options. Either we do everything the same but I go into the club alone, or we leave our best source of backup if things get wrong and the two of us go and meet our source." He absently scratched at the top of Ichi's head.
Hana surprised herself by not bristling at the thought of her dogs being left in the room. This wasn't like other times when people had suggested that, this time she knew they were honestly being considered in Izumo's plan. She took a deep breath, "Don't take this wrong, but I don't think you should be doing it alone."
He tried to smile, "You're probably right. This part should go fine without major backup, sides I'm sure you can more than handle yourself in a fight. We'll have to go in unarmed."
The next half hour passed quickly as they both got ready to go and meet the information source. He nit picked her outfit though, finally giving her one of his T-shirts to wear instead of any of the clothes she brought with her. She wasn't usually on undercover missions, and when she packed for this one, the possibility of being undercover was very remote. Finally she was wearing jeans and a black T shirt that Izumo ripped the collar of and the sleeves of to make it more of a tank and then tied it at the waist to bring it in a bit. He was just wearing a dark blue T-shirt and jeans. When he grabbed a bag of makeup out of his backpack, she did give him an odd look.
He just smiled, "Hey, don't look at me weird. Do you know how many times I've covered up the red on Kotetsu …" His smile dropped as he obviously thought of Kotetsu. Hana had forgotten about the red Tattoos on his face, several clans marked their members, but Kotetsu always had his covered in the village so it hadn't occurred to her. She remained quiet as Izumo covered up the fang shaped tattoos on her face and did her makeup. He smiled at her when he was done, "There, that wasn't that bad now was it."
She glanced at herself in the mirror. With her mouth closed, she almost looked like she didn't even belong to the Inuzuka. It was odd, "I look so different. I've never done an undercover mission."
He smiled, "Don't worry. You're with an expert. I don't think you look that different though."
"Expert?"
He shrugged, "I don't go on a lot of normal missions. I don't have the fighting ability you do. Let's head out." With that, he took her hand and led her out of the room.
The club was very loud when they got there, and she just hung onto his arm and remained quiet. She saw enough other women doing the same thing that she didn't think it was too odd. She just didn't think they were doing it for the same reason she was. Occasionally he would pat her hand in a reassuring manner as he walked around the club, stopping at the bar to get them both a bottle of beer before finally settling at a table at the far side of the room.
He leaned over to whisper into her ear, "Our source isn't here yet, so just relax." When she looked up at him, he gave her a reassuring smile and whispered, "You're doing good."
He was scanning the room so she decided to do the same thing. She was very grateful for the reassuring hand on her arm though. If this were a battle, she would be completely confident. A tracking mission would be no problem, but this was not something she was good at. Heck, she wasn't good at going out for drinks and fun with the chuunin she knew back in Konoha. She wasn't even good at doing family gatherings with the other Inuzuka about her age.
She saw a man walking towards their table, and Izumo waved towards him. The man sat down in one of the empty chairs and took an appraising look at Hana. Izumo just grunted and pulled Hana a little closer to him. The other man's glance narrowed at the protective gesture.
Izumo pulled an envelope out of his pocket before quietly saying, "You have what we discussed?"
The other man nodded, "Maybe I want more than what you're offering though." His glance had once again traveled over to Hana, "She may not be your cute friend, but she isn't half bad."
Izumo's voice was firm, "No deal. She is not on the table."
The other man rolled his eyes, "Whatever. You're too boring. I risked a lot to get this information, shouldn't I expect something nice in return."
Izumo sighed, "Double the money, you can buy yourself someone with the extra."
The other man smirked, "Oh I see. This one is your girlfriend."
Izumo growled low in his throat, it seemed almost like a noise one of her dogs would make, "Look, do you want the money or not. She is not on the table."
Finally, the man pulled out an envelope and set it on the table. Izumo handed over a thicker envelope and then checked the contents of the envelope he received as his actions were mirrored on the other side of the table.
Izumo stood and grabbed Hana's arm, "We're done." With that, he led her towards the door with a very determined look on his face. He was growling low in his throat as the approached the inn; he was making frequent glances and taking a very circular path there to make sure that they weren't followed.
Hesitantly she spoke up, "I don't smell anyone following us." She wasn't sure what had made him so upset, but as far as she could tell, the meeting had gone as expected.
He didn't say anything until they got back to the room and the door was securely locked. The three dogs made sure Hana was fine by sniffing all the strange scents on her before looking over at the agitated man. Ichi walked over to him and butted his head against his leg.
"I am sorry, Hana-san." He was biting his lip. "I shouldn't have brought you with me."
Ichi was whining pitifully as he kept butting his head into Izumo's leg. Izumo sat down and started to pet Ichi absently. He opened up the envelope and scanned its contents again. "We'll be heading out in the morning. We have the location of a missing-nin from leaf. We are only to verify and then send word to leaf. If he isn't there, we leave for home. If he is there, we wait for an ANBU squad and monitor." He sighed again, "I'm sorry. I thought I was OK to go on a mission."
"Izumo, it's all right. Nothing bad has happened." She walked over to him, not bothering to hide the concern on her face.
"This is so fucking pathetic of me." When she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and hugged him, he collapsed into her. She sat there with him, murmuring something about it being all right and they didn't have to go to work until morning. The other two grey dogs came over and contributed their fur and warmth to the pile on the carpet of the hotel room.
Softly she asked, "Do you think it'll help if you talk about it?"
He sighed, "I don't think anything will ever help." He was absently stroking Ichi's fur.
"The breakup is worse than you were letting on?"
Izumo looked down at Ichi's brown dog eyes looking back up at him, not looking Hana in the face, instead looking at Ichi. "I probably shouldn't be saying half of this, but I need to or else I think I'm going to fuck up on this mission. I do a lot of undercover work. A lot of undercover work, as in … well .. undercover." He gestured with his head towards the bed to make sure she understood his meaning.
Hana was trying to remind herself that most humans put a lot more stock in sex than the Inuzuka did. She just rubbed his back a bit in a motion similar to the way he was petting Ichi. He took a deep breath and continued, "I think it put a lot of stress on things between Kotetsu and me, but maybe I was just thinking there was more there than there was. I started getting jealous, he started arguing, and it just got worse and worse. Then a year ago he told me to get over it and we should start seeing other people." He paused and looked up at the ceiling, "He did, I didn't. He went and told my grandmother to set me up. I was stupid and thought that he actually loved me, like forever and ever loved. Guess I should have known better. Last week I came home from a solo mission early. When I got back to our apartment, he wasn't alone. Guess it took that to get it through my thick skull that it was really actually over."
"You should have told someone, have some time to figure things out before going on a mission." He voice was soft, she wasn't used to seeing a fellow shinobi this emotionally honest.
He shrugged, "I report to Ibiki, he said this one needed to be done. He was nice enough to take Kotetsu off the mission, sorry about lying earlier."
She nodded, "I'm glad he didn't send you out alone."
He smiled and looked over at her, "Ibiki said it was a good thing he was sending an Inuzuka with me, according to him, members of your clan never show any interest in their teammates anyways so I could do my usual Kamizuki thing and just keep quiet."
She smiled back at him, "That's cause normally our teammates don't pay any attention to our dogs and just dismiss us as the strange looking dog clan."
"You're beautiful." His eyes widened as he realized what he said.
She smiled, "Thank you." She glanced down at Ichi who was nearly asleep with his head on Izumo's leg, "You're very nice. Are you feeling less bad?"
He nodded, "Yeah, a little. I think admitting it helps." He sighed, "You want the bathroom first, we'll need to head out early."
She nodded and disentangled herself from the dog pile, "Take care of the boys for me." She padded off to the bathroom with her pack. She was very quick, the longest thing was washing off the makeup Izumo had put on her. She walked out about fifteen minutes later to see Izumo play wrestling with the three dogs. As she opened the door, it appeared the dogs had won and were covering him in celebratory slobber.
She giggled a little, "Well, you could certainly fit in around my house. If you want a water bath instead of one from those guys, I'm done."
He looked up at her, his cheeks slightly red, "Yeah, Umm … yeah." With that he grabbed his pack and walked into the bathroom.
She sat down on the bed and was soon covered in dogs. "Well you guys, you all seem to like him."
Ichi snuggled into her side, 'He's nice for an outsider.'
She nodded, "He is nice."
Ichi rolled onto his back, 'You should have more friends. Your mom is right that you keep to yourself too much.'
She growled softly at him 'I keep to us, not to myself.'
Ichi looked up at her with his brown eyes, obviously not even bothering to reply. She crawled under the blankets of the bed as the three dogs piled in with her. It was a big bed but three large dogs and a girl tended to fill it up. She looked at her pack, "I think Izumo might be planning on having a portion of the mattress."
One of the other ones yawned, 'We fought him and won, we get the bed.'
She shook her head, "Somehow I doubt he'll see it that way."
She had just gotten comfortable when the bathroom door opened up and Izumo walked in wearing shorts and a T-shirt. He looked over at her as he turned on a small lamp on a table, "You should get to bed, all four of you. It's going to be a long day tomorrow." He turned back to the table and started to go over maps.
She lay there for a few minutes in the dark before asking, "Aren't you going to rest?"
"No." He just flipped through some maps before deciding to elaborate, "I need to come up with a plan by morning."
She sighed and rolled onto her side and tried to fall asleep. She must have succeeded because it seemed to be some time later that she realized the room got darker and the bed got lighter as Ichi hopped off. Figuring the dog was just going to check up on his new favorite non-Inuzuka she went back to sleep.
--------------- Notes ----------------
OK I changed my mind and am just posting this whole thing today, assuming I get part 3 of 3 grammar and spell checked and edited today.
Comments would be loved; this story isn't about anyone popular so I know it won't get many reads :)