Slowly, the horizon brightened. The Aoyagi marines pushed east, cutting through several enemy squads to link up with the Aoyagi force advancing from the east. The link allowed a rush of ashigaru into Amber Sector and began expanding the friendly zone of control.

Team Seven had split up. Naruto was proving himself valuable in the field, so he and Kakashi stayed behind to provide support as the Hayashi and Aoyagi closed the net on the members of Gato's criminal empire. Sayaka and Hinata were given the option to either remain in the area as combat support or to rotate out of combat to help with things back at Hayashi Castle. Sayaka chose to stay, Hinata chose to go.

Hinata volunteered herself for the medical tent. She was no healer, regardless of Naruto's flattering, but she could make a poultice and brew medicine and knew how to prepare herbs for either, and in the medical tent it didn't seem to matter whether or not she was heir to Konoha's oldest and most powerful clan. It only mattered that she knew how to use a knife, mortar, and pestle.

It wasn't easy work. The orders were daunting—Hinata had never prepared an entire kilogram of poultice at once before—and the prep area was open to the rest of the tent and all its horrors. The sound of men in agony was hard to bear, but Hinata had volunteered and she would make herself useful. Though new, she had enough experience to, she hoped, keep up with the more senior members of the team. All poultice recipes were similar, after all, and it only mattered that she find the right ingredients and not accidentally take the wrong ones. Hinata had confidence in herself for that, at least. The pestle at her station couldn't do the entire kilogram at once… she would need to do at least eight batches, and the raw herbs would clutter her workspace, so best to take only two batches at a time…

She found herself liked. The prep area was too busy for anyone to shower praise, nor would Hinata have wanted it, but she was efficient with her knife and fast on her feet. Never underfoot, quiet, but clear about what she needed and when. It was probably due to Kakashi-sensei's teamwork training, but Hinata slid easily into the team at the prep area like a fish settling into a bed of reeds.

After a few hours, Hinata was moved over to the brewing area, where she replaced two older medics. The new work was much more challenging, with Hinata preparing ingredients as she monitored the pots with her Byakugan and called out to another brewer as each came to temperature. There were no fewer than twelve pots going at once, each with a totally different brewing time and temperature controlled by its own burner. Once, Hinata had to shout out across the entire tent that pot seven was going to boil over and that her partner had better turn the burner off. They caught it just in time.

"Good shout, Hyuuga-san," a passing medic said, and patted her on the shoulder once before moving on. Hinata smiled, ducked her head in thanks, and hurried back to the brewing station.

"Thanks, Hinata," said Hinata's partner, Hiroki. He turned down one of the stoves as Hinata put the herbs down at their station and began to mince. "You have experience brewing medicine?"

Hinata shook her head. "O-only when my younger sister was s-sick."

"Lady like you don't have servants for that?"

"Ah, w-well…"

Hiroki laughed and turned off the heat on one of the stoves to prepare for decanting the medicine that had been brewing. "Don't worry about it, I know how you feel. It's a good thing you learned, otherwise we'd be shorthanded. You do good work."

Hinata flushed and scooped her minced herbs into a pot, then began to fill it with water. "T-thank you."

They swapped pots, Hinata sliding around her partner as he placed the finished pot of medicine onto a singed mat of woven rice straw and she slid her pot onto the now empty burner. A flicker of chakra brought the stove to life, heating on high in order to bring the pot to a boil.

"It looks like things are quieting down," Hiroki said. He glanced out towards the hospital tent, where the influx of injured men—friend and foe—had slowed to a trickle. "I can manage on my own for now, can you run this batch down to the upper cells?"

"The cells?" Hinata asked. The pot came to a boil behind her, and she quickly turned it down to a simmer. "W-who is being kept there?"

"Ninja who surrendered or were captured," Hiroki said as he began to decant the pot into a thick-walled ceramic bottle, wrapped in a woven basket of straw with a loop of cord to carry it by. The dark, opaque brew gave off an intensely bitter and medicinal odor, making Hinata recoil in disgust. "This is a chakra suppressant and mild sedative."

Hinata looked askance at the bottle as Hiroki fastened on its lid. The drug was the only way to be sure that an enemy ninja or samurai wouldn't escape, even if they were being cooperative. You never knew if someone was faking it, after all, and even a genin might turn out to be a talented infiltrator who could catch you unawares. It was best to err on the side of caution.

Hinata imagined herself if the positions were exchanged—she the prisoner and a genin she did not know bringing her medicine—and then very carefully pushed that thought aside. She absolutely could not deal with that right now. She had enough on her mind already with everything that had happened the night before. This was no time to introspect.

"D-do you have a cup?" Hinata asked. "Or a b-bowl."

"Yeah, here," Hiroki said as he handed her a cup with a serious expression. "Take care, alright? The upper cells don't have anyone high risk, but it pays to be a little cautious."

Hinata nodded. "I understand."


The "cells" at Hayashi Castle were really just a large tarp, surrounded by guards, to protect the prisoners from the elements. It had been erected over a spot in the courtyard where, even if someone got free, they would inevitably be spotted and caught. Each prisoner had their hands tied behind and over their heads and bound to a pole with a short chain, forcing them to sit on mats made of rice straw.

Most of the prisoners were either potential sources of information or of high social rank. A few were there simply because they were very young—genin-aged children who could be a kunoichi or a ninja or a cabin-boy for one of the pirate crews or just a civilian who was unlucky enough to get caught in the crossfire but was lucky enough to be picked up by a Konoha ninja.

"Is it already time for the next round?" asked one of the guards. He was a chunin from the Sarutobi clan. "Alright then, miss, I'll accompany you."

"Thank you," said Hinata. She bowed slightly, then stepped across the threshold.

Three members of the Bando Clan had been shackled near the front of the tent, and they looked up as Hinata stepped in. She ignored them as they called out to her, pleading their case that this was a misunderstanding, that they had been strongarmed into cooperating with Gato, that they deserved to be released.

Hinata didn't know anything about any of that. The genin were not briefed on such matters. She hoped for their sake that it was true, but Fumiyo had not made it sound like her father had a firm grasp on the nobility in his city. Their claims could only be confirmed or denied after a session with a proper interrogation specialist. Until then, here they would stay.

So Hinata walked on, past the fourth and fifth posts, whose shackles were—probably temporarily—empty until she arrived at the sixth, where sat a kunoichi. She was Hinata's age, maybe younger, sagging against the chains which pulled her hands up over her head but too drugged to feel the pain of the metal cutting into her wrists. There was a splint on her leg, the dressing a little old but not due for a change quite yet, and her clothes looked old and very thin. She had no headband, but then that didn't mean much.

"Is it time again?" the girl slurred. "Oh it's different. Is a— it's— you're a girl."

Hinata wasn't quite sure how to react to that. "Um. Yes. I'm here to give you your medicine."

The kunoichi frowned. "Do I hafta? I dun wanna. It makes my head all loopy."

"I m-must insist."

"Nooo…"

Hinata took a deep breath and crouched down next to the kunoichi. It was probably a little early, or perhaps the last dosage had been a little heavy, but the girl was clearly too far gone to be any kind of threat. "W-what is your name?"

"Sempai calls me Ebi," the girl muttered. She shifted her weight so that her torso swung towards Hinata. "Yyyyou can call me Ebi-chan."

"Alright, Ebi-chan," Hinata said. Ebi's forehead bonked against Hinata's arm. "You need to take your medicine."

"Noooo," Ebi cried, thumping her forehead against Hinata twice for emphasis. "It's gross and makes me feel sick."

"This one is different," Hinata lied. She uncapped the bottle to pour out a cup and took Ebi by the chin. It was a little like getting Hanabi to drink her medicine when she was still very young. "Now b-be a good girl, okay Ebi-chan? You have to t-take your medicine."

Ebi shied away from the pungent fluid, but Hinata held her firm. Very reluctantly, Ebi opened her mouth so that Hinata could pour the liquid in.

"Meanie," Ebi coughed when the sedative had all been drunk. "Tha— that wasn't diff'rn a' all! I dun wanna—I'm…"

Hinata put the cap back on her bottle as Ebi's voice trailed off and she sagged against the chains. A thin trickle of saliva began to drip from her mouth as the sedative put her out. With a grimace, Hinata reached out to adjust Ebi so that she would lean up more against the pillar and not put as much pressure on her wrists from the manacles.

Unpleasant. But, Hinata told herself, it was necessary. To keep everyone safe.

"Let's keep moving," Hinata's guard said.

Hinata swallowed and nodded before standing up. The next prisoner was a ronin who seemed to take his situation in stride and drank his sedatives like they were water. Even so, he quickly fell asleep after draining the cup. After that came two more members of the Senfuku nobility, these ones unrepentant about joining Gato. They started complaining loudly about their conditions the moment Hinata approached.

Well, that was civilians, Hinata supposed.

So it went. There were three more genin, about seven ronin, and thirty-odd civilians of one walk of life or another. At least two were prostitutes from the red light district who had apparently picked up a few tricks from a kunoichi that had passed through a few years ago.

"We can't really do much, but you know, breaking a rapist's arm is good enough for our work," said one of the ladies blandly as she sipped at the sedative. "Of course, that means we got ourselves locked up here, so there's that."

"Yeah, well, it was worth it," said the other lady, looking very bored but very pleased with herself. "Them ashigaru thought twice about being creeps afterwards, didn't they?"

"That they did," said the first, and she drained the cup. "Gods, girl, can't you put any sugar in that? At least it would help with the aftertaste."

"I w-will mention it t-to my supervisor," Hinata said, not entirely sure how to respond.

"Did any Konoha ninja participate in this… behavior?" Hinata's guard asked.

"Nah, you guys are fine," said the second lady as she began drinking from the newly filled cup Hinata pressed to her lips. "One of y'all stepped in after we cracked the asshole's femur. Got the ashigaru to set up a perimeter and leave us alone."

"Put the fear of the spirits in 'em, he did," the first lady murmured, voice slurring. "Ah, but they weren't so bad. Gato's goons were worse."

"Aye, that's true," said the second lady. She scowled. "Abusive, they were. Couldn't keep 'em locked out either, could we? Else they'd just break in and take us all by force. Risks of the business, I guess."

Hinata swallowed, suddenly fiercely glad that Konoha had stepped in and put a stop to Gato's activities in Senfuku.

"Well, when the intel guy comes around, you give him a good telling of what happened," said Hinata's guard with a scowl. "Nobody should be treating people from Fire Country that way."

The second lady chuckled, eyes drooping. "You got it, boss."

"I wonder who taught them how to punch like that," Hinata's guard muttered as the two prostitutes passed out. "It's not that uncommon for ninja, I guess, that kind of chakra-enhanced punch, but still…"

Hinata pursed her lips but didn't say anything. It could have been Minami, back before she had become Lord Hayashi's retainer, or it might have been some other missing-nin. It wasn't like it needed to be a Konoha missing-nin either, plenty of ninja from Rock and Cloud and Mist wandered around and made themselves new identities, retaining their skills and making a living as they could. Who could really say?

"Well, anyway," Hinata's guard said, "there's one more guy who probably needs a dose but we don't have him tied up down here. He's not a flight risk or anything, at least according to the intel guys, but he is on suicide watch, so we have him up at the castle stockade under guard. I can walk you up there if necessary."

Hinata shook her head. "I k-know the way."


The prisoner in the castle was locked in the stockade reserved for disciplining unruly ashigaru, placed far back in the corner out of sight, where it was easy to control access and keep an eye on him. The other cells were unoccupied—the interior of the castle was not the place to store enemy prisoners, not when a skilled ninja might find their way in among them. This prisoner had been in the stockade for several months now, originally there because it was the only convenient place to store a prisoner, and kept there because, well, apparently he had lost all will to do anything. The interrogation team that had interviewed him was confident that he wasn't any kind of threat, and there were plenty of other things that needed doing. So he had languished here, not quite forgotten but not quite high enough on anyone's priority list to do anything about.

Hinata shut the door of the cell behind her quietly and contemplated the boy sitting in the corner. He was several years older than her, pale and long-haired, with delicate, feminine features that brought on a spark of jealousy. He had been given rough burlap clothing to wear, presumably after his own clothes had been damaged, and was chained to the wall so that he couldn't hurt himself. The manacles had been carefully padded with a layer of fabric between them and the skin. Long-term imprisonment was hellish if the prisoner wasn't treated correctly.

If Hinata was correct, he was one of the three ninja who had gone after Kakashi while she, Naruto, and Sayaka had taken on Momochi Zabuza. Her memory of that part of the battle wasn't very detailed—she had spent most of the fight trying to close the gap with Zabuza and failing—but judging from height and build, he was probably the one who had worn the mask during the attack.

The boy looked up at her, eyes half-lidded.

"Ah," he said. "It's you."

Hinata tilted her head. "Do w-we know each other?"

"I tried to kill you," said the boy. He laughed very quietly. "Have you come to kill me, miss?"

Hinata shook her head. "I have not."

The boy sighed. "Pity. Could I convince you to? You're a Hyuuga, right? One of the white-eyed demons from the Leaf. Zabuza-sama was very worried about you, you know."

"Was he?"

"You made the ambush very hard," the boy confirmed, nodding. "Lucky for us, Senfuku is full of canals. It made it easier."

"I s-see."

"I am told that dying by the hand of a Hyuuga is very painless," the boy said. "It is better than most poisons. I would prefer it that way, if you could."

"I cannot," said Hinata, feeling unnerved. What kind of conversation was this? "I am here t-to sedate you."

The boy's face turned into a scowl. "Of course. How typical of the Leaf to waste resources on me when they could just kill me and be done with it."

"T-that is not the point?"

"A shinobi who cannot do their job is nothing more than a broken tool," the boy spat. His face abruptly crumpled, tears running down from his eyes. "I failed. I couldn't protect Zabuza-sama. I was his apprentice but I wasn't able to do my duty. Why? Why am I still here?"

Hinata paused, eyes wide. This was the last thing she had expected. It was abundantly clear that nobody had bothered with talking to the boy about anything, which wasn't that surprising, but his grief had clearly festered.

"D-do you— would it h-help to know that it w-would not have mattered?" Hinata asked softly. "Y-your master was destroyed by a c-cataclysm from heaven. You c-could not have saved him."

The boy sucked in a long breath, leaning his head back against the wall, eyes streaming as he looked up at the ceiling. "I could have tried," he whispered.

Hinata stepped closer and kneeled next to him. She could not say that she understood that feeling. As the heir to the Main House, she was the subject of such devotion, and not the devotee. She could not fail in her duty that way, for that was not her duty.

"What sort of m-man was Z-Zabuza?" Hinata asked.

"A cold man," Haku replied. "Cruel and unsympathetic. Arrogant, sometimes, to his detriment, but incredibly strong. He was determined to cleave out a place for himself in this world."

"Why f-follow him?"

"Why not?" the boy asked. "My father tried to kill me for my bloodline, but Zabuza-sama saw it as something useful to him. Even as a tool, to be desired and thought precious…"

Hinata suppressed a shudder. The Land of Water, where the Village Hidden in the Mist resided, had long felt antipathy at best for wielders of exotic bloodline abilities. The resentment frequently broke out into wholesale extermination attempts, or at least that was what they had been taught in the Academy. Hinata had never had occasion to doubt this, but having it confirmed brought a sick feeling to her stomach.

"I understand w-why you would f-follow him, then," Hinata said.

"I was his keenest blade," the boy said bitterly. "I did not wish to kill, but I would do it for that man. It was the way I could be most useful, and I wanted to be useful for him."

Hinata took a breath, thinking. Hadn't it been said, in the Academy, that a shinobi must kill all emotion? To become no more and no less than a finely honed weapon. Iruka-sensei had not meant it the way that Zabuza had meant it though.

"Yet, I t-think, a w-weapon such as yourself m-must be expected to miss, occasionally," said Hinata. "A weapon m-must be directed, and not all s-strikes will hit their target."

The boy was silent.

"A shinobi is n-not unlike an arrow," Hinata continued, reciting from her lessons with the clan tutors. "Once loosed, it c-cannot be recalled. Even a p-perfectly formed arrow, shot perfectly, m-may be blown off course by the w-winds of fate."

The boy looked away.

"I think you should f-find a way to forgive y-yourself," Hinata said. She opened her bottle and began pouring out the last cup of sedative. "Once shot, an arrow can only f-fly as best it can."

The last drops of sedative dripped into the cup and echoed in the cell. Hinata set the bottle aside and picked up the cup to bring it to the boy's lips.

"My name is Haku," the boy said.

"My name is Hinata," Hinata replied.

"I am glad I met you, Hinata-san," Haku said. "Will you come again?"

Hinata blinked. Maybe it was unwise, but— "If you w-wish."

"I do."

"T-then I will," said Hinata. She lifted the cup. "Now, p-please drink."


"You uh, okay there kid?"

"Fine," Naruto rasped, waving at a passing chunin who had found him kneeling next to a canal. "I'm—"

Naruto gagged again and just missed getting puke on his bandanna. He spat, trying to rid his mouth of vomit, and restrained the reflex to wipe his mouth. The blood coating his hands would just make him throw up again.

"…right," the chunin said skeptically. "I'll uh, leave you to it?"

Naruto gave the chunin a weak thumbs up. At least throwing up made it impossible to actually smell the blood that had sprayed onto his face and chest. He would have welcomed it, if it weren't for the fact that he was now probably going to be really dehydrated while not having any water left in his canteen.

The chunin left, and Naruto sat back on his haunches to look himself over. As expected, his hands were basically gloved with blood at this point, and there were dribbles of the stuff running all down his wrists and soaked into his sleeves. The worst damage was on his front, where he'd been liberally coated after getting himself into trouble and having to improvise a spear to stab into a charging ronin's throat.

Naruto shivered at the memory. It should have been fine, especially since he was fighting with his shadow clones near the docks and five genin versus one ronin was at worst an even fight. But he'd slipped and left a hole open in their attack, and the ronin had managed to break through, screaming a war cry, ready to cave in Naruto's skull.

There was a broken pole on the ground, probably from one of the street-food stalls that sold to the sailors early in the day and very late at night. Naruto had grabbed it and thrust instinctively, and so gotten blood all over himself.

Naruto took a shaky breath through his mouth and looked downwards. He couldn't fight like this—he needed to clean up. The water looked cold, but cold and wet was better than warm, dry, and covered in blood. Into the canal it was then.

He landed in the water with a splash and gasped instinctively. At least it was summer, so the water wasn't actually freezing, but gods this was plenty bad enough. Cold water was good for getting blood out. If he was lucky the blood hadn't dried enough to cause any lasting stains.

Really though, Naruto thought to himself as he scrubbed at his hands to get the worst of it off, he would have to keep wearing these clothes even if they did get stained. It wasn't like he had all that much money—well, okay, he had that bonus for killing Zabuza, but new fighting clothing was expensive. He really didn't want to blow like half of that bonus in one sitting if he could help it.

That was what sucked, really, about being a young genin without a family. You were expected to mostly be training to make chunin. Team Seven was doing B-rank missions, sure, but they were doing ones that were supposed to be pretty easy compared to the usual. That meant they didn't pay as well either, even if it was tons more than the usual genin got paid. And it was only their second B-rank, and Naruto couldn't be sure that they wouldn't get put back on C-ranks for "rest and recuperation", which, like, sure, he needed some of that right now, but he also needed to pay rent and buy groceries, and C-ranks really didn't give him enough to afford new clothes special for combat. Unless he dipped into those savings, but man, he'd never had that much money before. He really wanted to not spend it all. What if he needed it sometime in the future?

Naruto grimaced and shucked off his jacket with an irritated noise. Honestly, Sayaka was a great friend and all, but it really pissed him off sometimes how she just did rich-person things without noticing. Those new clothes she'd showed up in were really, really cool, but like holy shit there was no way that Naruto could have just decided to get a new look. Maybe for casual wear, but like, only a clan kid could afford to just get those kinds of duds without really thinking about it.

A plume of red bubbled into the water as Naruto hurriedly scrubbed the fabric back and forth. He was very aware suddenly of how vulnerable he was—if some jackass got clever and climbed a roof with an arquebus, Naruto was so dead.

There was a thought there, though, now that Naruto was thinking about clans. The Old Man had said something about how he could register himself as a new clan right? What was his "ancestry" supposed to trace back to again, the Hirata and Naoi Clans? He could probably cobble together something for the registration paperwork, get himself inducted as head of the Uzumaki Clan, and, most importantly, get that sweet, sweet clan signing bonus.

Well, they called it a "gift" to "honor the clan's future sacrifices", and apparently it used to include land and supplies to build your own compound and stuff, but these days was just a chunk of cash that you could do whatever you wanted with. It was also, you know, a lot of money. Maybe not to, like, Hinata-chan, who probably had money coming out her ears, but for Naruto? Heck, it was like, enough to keep him going for six months without any missions. He just needed to get that paperwork filed.

…which he'd been putting off, because paperwork was really, really terrible, and the clan paperwork was especially complicated and obtuse. The genealogy had to be made up, which was fine but really terrible, and he had to provide an insanely detailed description of what his "bloodline trait" did while talking around the classified bits, and then there was the literal book full of clan law that he needed to actually read before signing anything, because it apparently had all sorts of weird obligations but also lots of useful rights and privileges. Just… it was over a hundred pages. One hundred. How did they even come up with this stuff?

Naruto huffed and dunked his head into the canal, then scrubbed hurriedly at his face. There was a lot less blood on it than there was in his jacket. Man, was it in his hair though? Ugh, could you even clean blood out of hair without shampoo? He probably needed to shower after this mission.

He stood back up and wiped the water out of his eyes, then sloshed over underneath a bridge to find some cover while he wrung out his jacket. The whole thing was just a huge slog, and he needed a solid chunk of time, and probably some help, to get it done and over with. Maybe he should ask if they could take a break after finishing up in Senfuku? They might miss some of the fighting in Wave, but, like, it was probably fine?

Probably.

"Hoy, Naruto," Kakashi called out from atop the bridge. "A passing birdy said they saw a genin throwing up in a canal and I thought it might be you. Are you alright?"

Naruto rolled his eyes even though, if he was honest, he was probably still a little shaky. Gods if he became known as that genin that puked all the time…

"I'm fine sensei," he called back while checking that the inside of his kunai holster was still dry. It was, which was what the holster was supposed to be designed to do, but it didn't hurt to check. "Where are we headed?"

"We're actually done for the day," Kakashi said. His head appeared over the bottom edge of the bridge. "This sector has been cleared out, at least for now. You good to move?"

Naruto nodded. "Yeah I'm fine. Let's go."


Time passed.

The fighting in Senfuku died down rapidly. The assault into Amber Sector had succeeded, far beyond the expectations of any of the planners. Konoha had gotten unexpectedly good intel, no doubt brought about by Gato's thugs being crueler than was prudent. The targets had been destroyed with no major complications, and the resulting loss in effectiveness had made enemy forces relatively easy to mop up.

The Hyuuga Clan, perhaps because it was their heir's first major combat outing, had performed particularly well. Their eyes had always made it possible for Konoha to coordinate effectively against its enemies. Pirates and bandits didn't really stand a chance against chunin and jounin who had honed their skills against the ninja of Iwa and Kumo. The number of Hyuuga present had allowed the entire city to be continuously kept within at least one Hyuuga's vision the entire battle, and so the Battle of Senfuku had ended in total victory.

Truth be told, it was mostly luck. But they said that luck was as good as strategy in warfare, so Konoha took all the luck they could get and ran with it. By the end of the week, Senfuku could honestly be said to be firmly back in Lord Hayashi's control, with his ashigaru patrolling the upper neighborhoods and the Aoyagi Marines patrolling the lowlands and the docks.

Control did not mean peace. Pirate sails had been sighted multiple times on the horizon, and the Aoyagi were leading out ship patrols in response. Raids to try and destabilize the Hayashi grip on Senfuku were expected, and a naval counter-attack wasn't out of the question either. In the city, there were plenty of troublemakers and criminals around trying to take advantage of the chaos that followed in the wake of battle. Those who hadn't been loyal to Gato tried to take advantage of the situation.

But there were some who were loyal, and they were the greater danger. Inevitably, some slipped the nets, changing into civilian garb and vanishing into the crowd. Some of them were ninja, or had received some ninja training, and all the deadlier for it. They would now want revenge for dead comrades, and a few ambitious souls would want to win favor by blowing something up and making it easier when Gato "inevitably" retook Senfuku.

As if the Hayashi, the Aoyagi, or Konoha would let him.

So Senfuku was still being treated like a newly conquered city, with military tribunals taking the place of the civilian courts and Lord Hayashi's retainers replacing the city magistrates. Guards, either Konoha ninja or Aoyagi Marines, patrolled the streets constantly and loomed menacingly over anyone who ventured out after sunset. Those without an adequately good reason—which was most people—were quickly sent back home until the sun came back up again. It wasn't the greatest for the popularity of either of the two factions, but that was fine. Konoha at least wasn't there to be popular. They were there to consolidate and enforce Hayashi control over the region.

But this also put the genin in an odd position. They were still useful, of course, taking up the essential grunt work or helping out the civilian population, but countering the kind of in-among-the-people threats that followed the fighting was the province of more experienced ninja who knew what to look for, if only because they fought the same way and could anticipate the tactics used. The genin could learn, shadow their superiors on patrol, but they wouldn't be sent out alone.

For Sayaka, all this meant was that she suddenly had her hands full with free time. Team Eight was shadowing a similarly composed team of chunin most days, watching and learning about target identification and nonlethal capture. Team Ten was doing the same, and in fact were supposed to be particularly good at it. The Nara, Yamanaka, and Akimichi had always been Konoha's go-to clans for non-lethal prisoner capture, after all.

Sayaka grunted in annoyance and grimaced as several wooden balls clattered down around her. She looked down at the grass she was sitting on and sighed. It was frustratingly hard to focus on her chakra control exercises today. She had gotten really good at the juggling exercise while waiting for the all-clear for physical training. Maybe she should do some conditioning exercises to change things up a little? But she didn't want to tire herself out in case Team Seven was called out for something.

Sayaka sighed and laid back, stretching out to stare up through the tree branches at the distant morning sky. The team had honestly been pretty out of it lately. They didn't spend that much time together, even if they probably ought to, and what time they did spend together was filled with the silence of too much to say and no way to say it.

Between the three of them, Team Seven's genin had managed to kill at least thirty people during their attack on Amber Sector, and if you counted Naruto's shadow clones, the kill count skyrocketed to at least a hundred. Probably more, but they had stopped counting after the sun had come up. It had begun to feel pointless.

Sayaka rubbed her eyes. She hadn't been sleeping so well lately. It wasn't like Naruto, who had nightmares she could hear sometimes before Kakashi woke him up. She just didn't find herself tired at night. Or, at least, she didn't find herself tired enough to sleep, and yet not alert enough to go on patrol. She had spent a few nights already sitting on the roof of the barracks, looking up at the moon and taking note of the steadily cooling evenings.

At least Sayaka wasn't alone. There were several chunin, and some older genin, who liked sitting up there too, watching the moon as it moved across the sky. Sometimes Sayaka even fell asleep watching the moon, and it was okay. Nobody judged her for it, and lately she had often woken up with a blanket covering her, next to others who had nodded off.

Sayaka counted herself fortunate. Hinata was taking it a lot harder, and Sayaka guessed that it was why she spent so much time in the medical tent. But the world hadn't come to any kind of crashing stop. It just kept on going. They'd even been given a bonus for performance beyond the call of duty. Was it really okay to be praised for such mass bloodshed? What was it even that she was so bothered by? Sayaka wasn't sure she actually cared that much about killing people, but was more bothered by how she wasn't that bothered. It was gross, messy, and horrifying in its own way, but now that the fighting was over, she felt like she was fine. Mostly, at least. That was… good, right?

Sayaka sighed again. She should probably ask Kakashi about it.

She groaned and pushed herself upright to see about killing a tree. Maybe not being that affected was an Uchiha thing. She would check when she got back to Konoha. Or, again, maybe Kakashi would know something. Whatever. She wanted to stop thinking about this.

The fighting in Senfuku had made Sayaka feel the need for something more percussive than just a fireball. Tenten had broken open shield formations easily with her wire-mounted kanabo, and Sayaka wanted to figure out how to do something similar. Sayaka knew firsthand that water ninjutsu could probably do something similar, but she also was just bad at water ninjutsu. There wasn't that much of a point fighting that uphill battle. Maybe when she was older and had more chakra reserves, but for now she wanted to do something with weapons or with her fire techniques. Another option was earth ninjutsu, but that probably had the same problems as water ninjutsu, and both wind and lightning techniques didn't really have the same impact as earth or water.

In fairness, wind wasn't exactly bad for pushing people around, and a lightning bolt could do some serious damage, but again, Sayaka figured she probably didn't have the chakra capacity. Easier than water ninjutsu at least, but probably she would need special training with Kakashi to get a hang of it.

So. Weapons, fire techniques, or a combination of the two. What could she do?

Sayaka flicked a kunai around her fingers as she thought about the problem. She didn't have any kanabo, but really, she didn't want to blindly imitate an older genin like that. It wasn't that Sayaka didn't want to learn, it was just that she just wanted to put her own spin on things—find her own way to fight.

So with large heavy objects out of the picture, that left finding a way to turn either shuriken or kunai into something that could hit with the same force and momentum. She couldn't throw that much faster, and honestly there was only so much you could do with speed. At some point you had to increase mass.

Well. Not necessarily. You didn't have to if you could somehow turn the kunai into an explosion. Explosive tags were the obvious solution—Sayaka made a mental note to get her own stack of the things, because really—but what if she could get a similar effect without needing them?

It was a little bit of a pointless task, because explosive notes already existed, but she could easily run out of explosive notes, and it was good to have a backup technique just in case.

Sayaka twirled her kunai thoughtfully. The Dragon Fire channeled chakra continuously down the wire, though she didn't need the wire these days. But what if she pulsed chakra down the wire? She wasn't really sure what would happen, but as a pure chakra manipulation exercise it wasn't that hard.

The real key was how to make the fire burst instead of just burn. She could make an immensely hot flame easily. The sensation was almost like pressing her thumb over the tap and watching the water spray all over the bathroom. The harder she pressed and the tighter the gap between thumb and the side of the faucet, the farther the water spurted.

So, what if she sealed the faucet completely and pressed especially hard? If fire ninjutsu really worked that way, then in theory she'd cause the "faucet" to explode.

Sayaka licked her lips and unspooled a roll of ninja wire from her pouch to tie around the ring at the base of her kunai. She crimped it tight, then casually tossed the knife across to embed it into the branch of a pine tree across the clearing. For good measure, she activated her Sharingan. It would help for reviewing her work after the fact.

The wire sizzled as Sayaka started pushing chakra through it. She frowned and pulled the chakra back. It wouldn't do to let it ignite immediately. Sayaka rubbed the wire idly with her thumb and tried to remember what it was like to only push chakra through something. Maybe if she treated it like it was just her hand…

The wire twitched as it was filled with chakra, at first merely going stiff before starting to vibrate in place as more and more of Sayaka's chakra was shoved down the wire towards the kunai. The kunai itself was starting to shake slightly.

Sayaka's frown doubled and she clamped down on her chakra, forcing it to stay tightly compressed along the wire and in the kunai. The experience was like nothing she'd ever tried to do with chakra. Without careful attention, her chakra tried its best to either ignite immediately or fizzle out into the atmosphere. But if there was one thing she had confidence in, it was her chakra control, and the vibrating wire slowly, slowly went still.

It was also rigid with tension, almost as if it would snap if more force were applied. The kunai in the distant tree fairly radiated with compressed chakra, burning in Sayaka's chakra sense like a beacon.

Sayaka took a deep breath, then raised the wire to her lips and blew sharply. The chakra in her lungs caught as it raced out, the flames hungry for more fuel. They found it in the wire, and devoured it greedily. Devoured all of it, all at once.

Well, "all at once" wasn't strictly accurate. The flames did have a propagation time of a fraction of a second, just slow enough that Sayaka had time to realize what was happening but too fast for her even to be surprised.

Then she was on the ground, vision whited out from the flash and ears ringing as she bit back a scream of pain. Her eyes burned from the brightness, and she could feel moisture that for a second she was terrified would be blood. But then it trickled into her mouth and she knew it was only tears, because her eyes were watering in reaction.

After a long time huddled on the ground, Sayaka forced herself upright, blinking rapidly as her vision cleared. That could have been bad. Flash tags, for nonlethal capture, were perfectly capable of blinding someone who got unlucky, and the flaring brightness of that fire hadn't been too far off. The noise, too.

"You'll need some way to deal with that if you want to make it a viable technique," Tenten said dryly.

Sayaka grimaced. She had really hoped she had been imagining the approaching chakra signature as she had been charging up the wire.

"Sorry, but Team Gai was finishing up perimeter watch when we noticed the chakra signature from about seven kilometers that way," said Tenten from her perch up in a tree. She gestured over her shoulder with a crooked thumb. "Neji checked to see what it was, and since we were at the end of watch I figured I'd come see if you wanted to train."

Sayaka rubbed at her eyes and pushed herself to her feet. "What did you have in mind?"

"Well if you're done flashbanging yourself, are you still interested in weapons stuff?" Tenten asked. She hopped down and pulled a scroll out of her waist harness with a flick of her wrist.

"I am," Sayaka said. "One moment? I want to see the damage."

Tenten nodded and tossed the scroll in her hand up and down thoughtfully, following behind Sayaka as she walked towards the tree. "What were you trying to do anyway?"

Sayaka pressed her lips together. "I was trying to have a backup in case I ran out of explosive tags."

The two girls came to a stop in front of where the kunai had been embedded in the tree. The wood had been shattered where the point had been stuck in, cracking it open so that the branch had snapped, then blown backwards. The wood had then split along the grain, leaving massive splinters peeling out and the bark rent. Pine resin dripped slowly down to the ground, which had been liberally peppered with shards of steel and slim needles of wood.

"Hmm," Tenten hummed. "Well I don't know that much about ninjutsu, but it looks pretty cool."

"Explosive tags are more destructive."

"Well," Tenten hedged, "it's not that much more destructive. And you came up with this idea just now didn't you?"

Sayaka made a vague grunting noise. It'd have been nice if Tenten hadn't actually seen the failure, but well, it was what it was at this point.

"Well if you want to keep working on it that's fine too," Tenten said. "I've got some of my own stuff to work on, but you know."

Sayaka sighed, then glanced over at Tenten. The older girl's eyes were looking off to the left and her grip on the scroll had shifted so that she was holding it casually off to one side.

It wasn't worth overthinking the explosive kunai right now. Sayaka could work on that later—it was really just an overcharged Dragon Fire technique after all. With Tenten right here, she had other, more important opportunities.

"If you're willing, I would like to learn."

Tenten broke into a broad grin. "Great!"