Author's notes: Inuzuka Shinzou is someone who has just become more bitter, more hardened as the years pass.

o-o-o

o-o-o-o

o-o-o-o-o

Time passed. The Second Shinobi War was all but won in the countries of Wind and Rain, but stalled against the combined might of Earth and Lightning. Forces were unable to obtain the badly-needed information they required for full assault, although they managed to hold steady. Konoha and Iwa stabbed each other, bleeding drop by bitter drop. But even death by a thousand paper cuts is no less fatal than decapitation. It was just a matter of time to see who would be the first in inflicting the thousandth paper cut.

oOoOoOo

At night, when the other troublemakers had their fill for a moment and were recovering their energy for the next day of ruckus, and Kakashi was tucked away in bed, Tsume studied with Yamanaka Yuu. The man had decided to use her sense of smell to increase her perception and memory retention. Each night, he filled Sakumo's spare bedroom with a new strong scent, and made Tsume repeat the name of the scent in conjunction with the Shinobi Rule, in addition to critically thinking through different scenarios where the rule would be appropriate. "Onions. Rule Sixteen. A shinobi must always expect and prepare for the worst." Then she glared at him through watery eyes. "I hate onions. I can't smell anything else but onions now."

"I'm sure the rule is feeling the same love," Yuu said with a yawn. Despite Tsume's memory difficulty, she had a fairly good grasp of complex ideas and the uncanny ability to reduce said complex ideas into straightforward statements. And once she had grasped the straightforward statement, she stopped there, almost as if her brain decided any more effort would be too troublesome - he never thought that he would be stuck working with someone who was the worst combination of two diametrically opposing clans. "You don't give much thought to the worst expectations, anyway. Or much thought in general. And I say this as a professional mind-reader."

Tsume fumed and rubbed at her watery, irritated eyes and plotted about how she was going to tar and feather the man, but use molasses instead of tar because she liked the scent of molasses much more. But she would have to practice first with the process, because Yuu, no matter how pretty his long, sleek blond hair was and how he fussed over it, was not a man to be underestimated.

Getting Tsume to memorize the complex and extended handsigns of ANBU was ultimately impossible. It took six months of Yuu's careful and meticulous tutoring to have her successfully memorize the fifty Shinobi Rules and some of the more common mathematical formulae and algorithms that the Academy used. Even if her self-esteem hadn't been so battered by the years of verbal abuse her great-grandmother put her through, Tsume still would've struggled with rote memorization.

So, two months before the next Academy graduation, Tsume agreed to let Yuu enter her mind and implant the entire ANBU handsign dictionary. "Is this going to hurt?" she asked, concerned, as she knelt in front of him. They were in Sakumo's study after she made sure that Kakashi had been fed, bathed, and tucked into bed. Tsume didn't question why Yuu told her it was necessary to memorize the dictionary, bless her blissful little heart.

"You'll feel a pressure," Yuu replied, fingers slowly forming the clan's mind-transfer technique seal.

"No, my brain. I don't have much left of it so – erk." She slumped over backwards as Yuu fell into a world of pain.

oOoOoOo

"You wanted to talk to me?" Inuzuka Shinzou's face was lined and her wild silver hair was sloppily tied into a bun on top of her head. Everything about her was faded, except for the clan markings on her cheeks that were a bright crimson reserved only for alphas. She stood at the entrance of his pit, tired but not worn. She was the oldest ninja Orochimaru knew – her files didn't give an exact age, likely because she had been an adult when the First invited the Inuzuka clan to join Konoha, and she never admitted to anything. He was sure she had to be at least ninety years old, but was still quite able to outrun and outfight most shinobi fifty years her junior. Orochimaru waved her to the table where he had various maps spread open, overlapping each other. She kept her gaze turned on him as she knelt at the table. Her four ninken – massive sleek hounds that easily rivaled wild wolves in size, speed, and deadliness – remained standing at her back, watching him with the same wariness. Their eyes gleamed in the lantern light. It was early morning, but the underground quarters never saw daylight.

"You're a blunt woman," Orochimaru said as he braced his chin upon a raised fist and studied her.

"I know. So skip the bullshit and get to the point."

Orochimaru was absolutely certain that he didn't like blunt women. "Your great-granddaughter will be graduating from the Academy in two months."

Shinzou snorted with disdain. "I doubt it."

"And even if she wasn't, I would still have a mission for her, but require a guardian's permission."

She frowned and tapped her claws against the surface of his desk. How did all the Inuzuka women manage to have claws instead of fingernails? Orochimaru concluded that it had to be a family technique, seeing as how the unclaimed Inuzuka sons didn't have the claws. "That means the mission is at least A rank."

He had to be careful how he approached this. The Inuzuka clan was fiercely protective of its young, and even though Shinzou didn't appear to have much by way of any fondness for this particular young girl, there was a likelihood that culture and tradition would override that lack of fondness. "Indeed. It has a very high potential of being a suicidal mission-"

"Permission granted." Orochimaru watched Shinzou silently, and she smiled ruefully before shrugging. "Tsume is worthless, even as a meat shield. So if she dies on this mission, it's no loss to the clan. If she survives – well, then she's proven that she's a capable girl, and that there's still some distant hope for her yet."

Orochimaru dropped the fist and straightened. "Her sense of smell is extraordinary. Far greater than anyone else in the clan." The loss of such would be… a shame. Orochimaru valued the rare and the priceless, although not as much as he valued the fruition of his ambitions.

"It is indeed. And it nearly got her killed before – what's to stop it from succeeding a second time? Tell me, do you know what it's like to care for a drooling, incontinent vegetable? Or a vegetable whose brain is so turned into mush that she can't even drool? I know I'm called heartless, and for good reason, too... I brought Konoha to her knees when my granddaughter died in childbirth and Tsume's sire refused to give me the baby. I loved and raised Tsume as my own. But I should've recognized it was just a sign of how she was destined for great failure.

"She died face-down in a pool of her own blood, there in the Nara forest. Oh, Tsume looked just ghastly, the way the blood congealed around her eyes, her nose, her ears. She had once been a cautious, quiet child, thoughtful and extremely intelligent, just like her sire, but after she died – that thing that returned is not my great-granddaughter. I had such high hopes – she had so much of me, in her, and all that spilled out on the ground, lost forever."

Orochimaru watched as shadows and light drifted across Shinzou's aged face, and remained silent. In his experience, people spoke to fill silences, and usually said what could not be asked. Shinzou closed her eyes, tilted her head, and continued. "The world is cruel to able-bodied ninja, and ruthless with the crippled. I once thought that I was doing a kindness, preparing Tsume for what life would be like when I wasn't around." She smiled at him, her teeth gleaming in the dark. "The truth is, she's weak prey, and I am really nothing more than a savage predator at heart. That was who I was before Konoha was born, and that's how I will die."

"Then, as a savage predator, you have no qualms about your twelve-year-old great-granddaughter being sold into child prostitution."

The smile widened – the teeth looked particularly sharp. The four ninken growled behind her. "I'll sell her for you myself."

oOoOoOo

Tsume drifted in a field of red where the colors seemed inverted. It was a good thing she liked red things (especially hair, so rich and vibrant in color), otherwise it would be horrid. Every time she turned her head to look at the torn landscape, her vision swam. She couldn't smell anything, couldn't find her legs beneath her, and couldn't feel any emotions. She heard a voice… Damn Uchiha, if I wasn't the best – fuck, child! Stop bleeding like this!

It seemed familiar. As if she had been here in a dream once before. Black triangles appeared over her head, and a voice, as cold and as dry as a graveyard, whispered, "Do you know what they say about curiosity and cats, child?"

She heard the echo of her own voice, so distant and very young. "No, Uchiha-ojisan. I'm Inuzuka – we don't have cats."

"Doesn't matter. You'll learn that dogs die just as easily as cats."

And she thought: I've seen before, but I can't remember where.

oOoOoOo

Tsume awoke to Yuu cleaning her face and muttering darkly beneath his breath. The rag was red. "What happened?" she asked, trying to focus despite the pounding agony in her head.

Yuu laughed; it sounded like a shrill scream that echoed around in her head. "I don't know. I've never seen the likes of this before, and I don't know any of them who currently have this particular level of cruelty – to savage a child's mind so completely that it's nearly destroyed, and then not finish the job." He touched her forehead. "I couldn't sort out of the damage, but I've got the dictionary loaded in your mind, and I even managed to tweak your memory a little bit – I kind of pulled a little more chakra into the areas for your memory, to increase its capabilities." His expression softened at her confusion. "It's like your nose, how you increase the chakra there to increase your sense of smell. It's not much given the original damage, but it will help with the math and short-term memory."

"You mean I could've increased chakra in my brain and remembered things sooner? How come no one ever told me this before?"

Yuu sighed as he rinsed and rung out his rag over a dish of lukewarm water. He resumed cleaning the blood from her ears. "Because the brain isn't something anyone can go poking around in. It's so complex and so vast and still quite unknown. Look, the brain runs on chemicals that balance delicately, like an upright teeter-totter. If you pull chemicals from one part of the brain to increase stimulation in another, then the teeter-totter dips, and the part of the brain that you took the chemicals from doesn't works as well."

"So, no fiddling with my brain, that's what got me in this mess in the first place when I was six?" Tsume touched her scalp; it felt very tender. "Grandmother said I overloaded it in the first place by smelling too much."

Yuu's expression was shrouded as he helped her sit upright. "Your brain wasn't overwhelmed – it was shredded from the inside-out, although I don't doubt you sniffed out the cause in the first place. Here, drink this." She dutifully sipped the water he gave her, feeling like someone had activated an exploding tag attached to the top of her head.

"…let's not do this again," she whispered after she drank her fill.

"I concur."

oOoOoOo

This had to be one of the most fulfilling duties to come with the hat, Sarutobi Hiruzen reflected as three of the Academy teachers sat with him at his desk, the student files spread out before them. The paperwork was enough to kill a normal man, but the satisfaction of reviewing the future of his village – the young, bright souls that would carry on the legacy of all those who came before them – was something he looked forward to year after year (although the anticipation was morbidly bittersweet this year, knowing that he'd be sending them off still as children into an active war).

Really, he ought to be out in the warfront, leading like the First and Second had, not trapped behind the desk. But the Council didn't want him to leave Konoha – someone had to protect the beloved village, especially when enemy forces snuck so close half a year previously that dear Senju Nawaki was killed in a trap barely five kilometers outside of the great wooden walls. ("Our shinobi still need a home to come back to when they're on leave and when the war ends, and you're the only one who can protect said home." Pretty words that didn't ease the burden on his heart and shoulders as he watched the backs of his shinobi receding in the distance, instead of standing at their forefront.)

Despite that, however, even the arguments with the Academy teachers were fun, if not a bit heated.

"Gentlemen," Hiruzen said, knowing there was a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his lip, "I fail to see what could be wrong with this team."

Genko glared at him. "It's an all-female team. That's just not done, Hokage-sama. Girls become simpering faucets after their hormones kick in, if not during Academy, and all they think about are boys and clothes and boys, and did I mention boys? That's why we try pairing two boys with one girl, to make sure that the boys can be an encouraging example of how an developing ninja learns to excel and improve themselves."

Hiruzen stared – what had I been smoking when I scraped you off the bottom of the barrel as an Academy instructor? He carefully scooted his chair away from Genko. "What flowers does your wife like?"

"I…I don't understand, Hokage-sama."

"It's a very simple question. What flowers does your wife like?"

"Roses, sir."

Hiruzen jabbed his thumb at the window. "I'll be sure to send a bouquet of them to your wife, along with my condolences of the loss of her husband, after you go tell Inuzuka Tsume, Uzumaki Kushina, and Mitarashi Kokoro that they are simpering faucets with hormonal problems, and far too much interest in boys than in developing their skills as kunoichi."

"That," said Toushiro, "is not the problem, as far as I can see. Any one of these girls is more of a tomboy than most of the boys in the Academy. The problem is, this team is not well-balanced."

Ah, yes, the dreaded bane of every decision. Balance. "Oh, I don't know about that," Hiruzen said as he picked up the paper that listed their grades and looked it over again. "They already know their weaknesses and strengths; they know how to complement each other's strengths and to steady each other's weakness. How much more of a balance does one need?"

Toushiro leaned back into his chair and groaned. "Just what exactly are you trying to achieve with this, Hokage-sama? They don't have the makings for a tracking squad, since Inuzuka is the only one with that capability; they can't do melee, since Mitarashi doesn't have the strength or the stamina; they certainly can't do infiltration, because Uzumaki and Inuzuka don't have the subtlety – or the silence – for it. Besides, I feel that it's not fair to drive Hatake Sakumo into an early grave with such a team, even if he did directly request the Inuzuka brat."

Hiruzen personally felt that if Hatake could survive knowing his son was the responsibility of a then-eleven year old girl with memory issues while he was off fighting a war, it shouldn't be a problem handling these three girls.

He reconsidered after remembering the darling little dresses and cute ribbons that Kakashi still wore... Hatake shouldn't have too much of a problem. Instead, he said, "Just because a team doesn't appear to have an immediate specialty doesn't mean it wouldn't manifest as their talents emerge and develop. While I agree that Inuzuka would fare well being switched to the team with the Aburame and Hyuuga to create the ultimate tracking team, I feel that it's not what we need right now. Neither of you are seeing what a stabilizing force Mitarashi is to Inuzuka and Uzumaki, with her tactical mind."

He bit back a smile at the disbelieving looks they gave him. "Stabilizing? We're talking about the same Mitarashi, yes?" Genko asked. "The smart one of the bunch who's just as sadistic as her brothers? The same brothers who are top in their field of torture and interrogation? If you're trying to make this into a team of ruthless bloodthirsty killers, then it's perfect, sir. Just perfect. They're too loud to be a good assassination team, but they have all the makings of a berserker squad. Maybe even a first-rate search-and-rescue team, if they're willing to all become medics. But in which case, Hatake Sakumo shouldn't be their sensei, since medical isn't his forte."

"Mitarashi does like to push the envelope, yes, but ultimately she has a healthy idea of her own limits, especially as a child," Hiruzen explained as patiently as he could. Even teachers sometimes needed to be taught. "Uzumaki has also learned to be careful with herself. But that's just it – these two have learned; Inuzuka Tsume cannot do that. The amygdala in Inuzuka's brain is too damaged to produce fear, and thus she truly has no concept of consequences. Fear serves a healthy purpose in our lives. It keeps us safe, makes us reconsider foolish ideas that would cause pain, forces us to look harder at situations, and helps produce adrenaline. Inuzuka will always go where even the angels fear treading. Mitarashi enjoys the challenge of going where angels fear treading, but she can usually guide Inuzuka into solutions that aren't self-destructive. It helps that Inuzuka trusts Mitarashi's judgment, even when she can't understand the reasoning behind it.

"Uzumaki is creative, resourceful, and unconventional, so she provides fresh ideas to counter Mitarashi's sadism, and is the most likeliest to survive whatever Inuzuka lures them into. They listen to and respect each other; their teamwork is solid. And they're flexible, gentleman. That means they can be molded to do whatever needs to be done – whether it's infiltration and reconnaissance, tracking and scouting, melee, sabotage, or search and rescue."

Hiruzen puffed on his pipe a moment as the two Academy teachers considered his words and the team. Then he added, "You're seeing them as a whole unit based upon some very unfortunate incidents at school." He ignored their shudders. "You're seeing each as an individual compared to the rest of the class. You must see them as a whole unit that succeeded rather well in turning Konoha upside down on her head."

Toushiro poked their stack of files, looking resentful. "How did they manage to get enough molasses to plaster the Monument and then cover it with feathers? What was the purpose?"

"I think that alone should prove that their stealth is not something we should worry about. Besides, look at it this way – we'd have to separate the girls to put them on separate teams. That means that you will have three jounin turning their disgruntled eyes upon you. Sakumo has already expressed interest in Inuzuka, and Uzumaki trusts him since he helped her and the other Whirlpool refugees. I'm sure that he wouldn't even mind Mitarashi's… unconventional sadism."

After all, Hatake Sakumo was one of the few persons alive who enjoyed Shimura Danzo's dubious friendship as much as he respected Danzo's leadership. Danzo was not an easy man to like. Or to survive under said leadership, even if the White Fang of Konoha was undoubtedly equal in power and skill to any of the Three Sannin. Hiruzen rubbed his hands together in satisfaction. "It's a win-win solution all around!"

Genko looked uncomfortable. "Be that as it may, Hokage-sama, it just doesn't seem right to put those three together. We saw the damage they could do just in the Academy. What kind of damage would they wind up doing if they're unleashed as a single trained force against the world?"

Hiruzen briefly considered that possibility, and then shrugged. "As long as the girls are aimed at our enemies, I don't really care about the damage. More power to them, says I."

oOoOoOo

The night before graduation, when Tsume had been proudly expecting to stand shoulder to shoulder with her classmates the next day to receive her forehead protector, was the night Grandmother Shinzou took Tsume away from the village. "You've been requested for a mission out in the field by the Sannin," Grandmother told her. Then Grandmother did a double-take as Kakashi skipped past her with purple ribbons in his hair, carrying a basket for Aunt Natsumi.

"Uh, I can explain…" Tsume began as her great-grandmother's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Never mind. I don't want to hear about it. I've already told the Hokage that Orochimaru-sama has requested you for a long-term mission that will take you out of Konoha for at least three months."

"But what about my team? My sensei – I don't even know who I'm supposed to be assigned with, yet!"

"They'll still be here if you survive the mission. Pack a light bag – where you're going, you're not going to keep anything, not even underwear." As Tsume grabbed Kuromaru's water bowl, Grandmother shook her head.

"No, not that. Kuromaru stays here."

Tsume reeled back as if she had been struck. "But – but he's my partner. You don't leave your partners behind! And don't I have the right to refuse a mission?"

Grandmother's grip on her shoulder was painfully harsh. Tsume felt her arm going numb. "I am not giving you the option of refusing. I'll not have you shame my clan by refusing this mission that Orochimaru-sama has personally requested you for. This mission will make or break you – I expect it to break you, and Kuromaru is too obvious for this mission. Either you leave with me, or I bury you in an unmarked grave. One way or another, my clan will be rid of you, tonight."

Tsume made one last effort to rile her great-grandmother, to get some kind of reaction that wasn't this bitter disappointment. "If I can't take Kuromaru, then he gets to stay with Kakashi – not on the compound."

Grandmother shrugged. "I don't care. Do what you need to do to get ready. We leave in one hour."

Tsume was ready in ten minutes. She then took ten minutes more to write letters to Kokoro and Kushina, telling them not to worry because she would be gone a few months with Grandmother on a special mission, and asking Kushina to watch after Kakashi in Tsume's absence. Then she spent the next forty minutes clinging to Kakashi and Kuromaru and telling them how much she loved them, because it just wasn't right that Grandmother told the truth when she said she didn't care where Kuromaru was sent. Because if the Head of the Inuzuka Clan didn't care, it meant that Tsume couldn't expect to return alive.

oOoOoOo

Grass Country looked like a gigantic prairie, Tsume thought. When she had dreamed that she would one day leave Konoha to explore the world, she never expected it to be like this. Grass wasn't flat like she expected it to be – there were many different hills, vales, gullies, and buttes that disturbed the land, breaking up its uniform structure. It was covered with wild grass and oats taller than Tsume, dotted with patches of sagebrush and thorn apples. There weren't trees the way she was used to in Fire Country – at least not where they ran, since she had heard of forests of gigantic mushrooms (and could even smell said mushrooms from a great distance away).

Here, the ground was treacherous, and the pace that her great-grandmother set was neck-breaking. Tsume couldn't see over the top of the grass and Grandmother never let her know when she ought to jump – Tsume learned this the hard way by repeatedly tumbling headfirst into multiple gullies and vales. For all that her nose told her of her surroundings, it was hard to tell how close she really was to big, empty spaces.

Each tumble down through the air meant that one of Grandmother's ninken hauled her to her feet by the collar of her shirt, like an unruly puppy. But Tsume allowed it to happen – wishing bitterly that it was Kuromaru that dragged her to her feet – and would resume the pace, resolutely ignoring her bruises and scrapes and flagging exhaustion. Grandmother said nothing, but merely watched with flat, uncaring eyes. If she wasn't always running beyond Tsume's vision, disappearing into the long grass, then Tsume would be able to watch and time her own jumps just right.

It felt, Tsume thought with a wrench in her heart, like Grandmother was leaving her behind forever.

oOoOoOo

Konoha's camp was underground. In this part of Grass Country, structures could be easily seen from a distance, which necessitated that quarters be kept below the horizon. Tsume couldn't decide if the camp looked like an ant hill, or a gopher colony.

As Grandmother gripped Tsume tight by the back of her neck and pulled her through the camp, Tsume decided it was definitely a gopher colony. Way too many holes to be an ant hill. Most of the Konoha forces were barefaced and looked as exhausted as they smelled. They also looked much older than her, even the ones she recognized from her last year's graduating class. Grandmother brought Tsume to a nondescript hole and pushed her down the tunnel. The tunnel was smooth, if slightly cramped, and led to a wider underground room, about the same size as her bedroom back home.

It was empty, except for a rumpled sleeping roll and a small wooden table, and dimly lit by three oil lamps and a scatter of glowing handprints on the walls. "Sit there and wait," Grandmother said, pointing. Tsume was quite glad to do so. Her legs felt rubbery and weak after the harsh pace her great-grandmother had set, forcing her to run the last four days on barely any sleep or food. She could smell the countries of Earth and Waterfall. "I'm going to go find him." Grandmother left with the ninken following at her heels.

Tsume waited a few minutes, but she remained alone. She crawled over to the sleeping roll, ignored the fact that it stank of Orochimaru, wrapped herself up in it, and fell asleep.

She awoke some time later to Orochimaru's not-so-gentle shaking, sat upright, and rubbed at her eyes. She wanted to roll over and go back to sleep, but something told her that ignoring him wouldn't be in her best interest. Besides, Grandmother never saw fit once in the four days of traveling to tell Tsume anything about the mission, and Tsume wanted to know. Orochimaru's hair was like a blotch of ink in the dim light, and his skin sallow. She could smell Grandmother waiting just outside the tent. "Did you have a good trip?" Orochimaru asked, though his voice sounded mechanical – as if he didn't care if she had a good trip or not.

"It was fast," Tsume said carefully, since Grandmother had reacted severely to the one time she voiced a complaint. Her shoulder still ached miserably from that reaction, although her face had stopped throbbing yesterday, despite the ongoing bruising on the left side of her jaw and cheek.

"You did make good time to be here, especially with the recent Academy graduation." Orochimaru sat cross-legged in front of her, studying her face. His emotions were hard to detect, although she could smell the curiosity and… hatred? She couldn't tell. Not even Danzo had made his emotions so invisible to her nose. Maybe Orochimaru didn't feel much of anything, which really went far in explaining why Jiraiya called him a heartless ass. "I wish I didn't have to do this," he said finally. "But we're losing in Iwa. If we don't get more information, we'll lose the warfront here, and that could allow Ame to regroup and strike at us again, and we don't have the forces to continue slogging through a standstill."

She sat upright and matched his posture, sitting cross-legged with her hands on her knees. "What can I do to help Konoha?" she asked, dutifully.

"Did you learn the ANBU signs?"

Yes, she signed, eager to showcase her newly acquired skill. Yuu put in my head. We practiced.

"Good, good. Now, let me give you some details. This is not… you do not have to accept this assignment, regardless of what your grandmother may have said. It will be very risky; twelve kunoichi have already lost their lives – Uchiha, Yamanaka, Hyuuga. The best of the best. I've tried everything else that I could think of to obtain this information, sending people to different places. I've tried infiltration, snakes, buying informants and moles, everything. But the moment we got close, people – and snakes – are killed. They kill anyone who asks questions regardless of how innocent those questions may appear to be. If they sense the person has chakra of a ninja and aren't in the inner circles, that person winds up dead. I'm hoping it will be different for you, because you don't have to ask questions or poke around. You just have to keep your nose open… But you're so young – just a baby, really." He tugged one of her spiky locks of hair with a maudlin smirk. "And to think I was once your age."

As Orochimaru looked at her, Tsume suspected he was having second thoughts about giving her the mission. She had to do this – she knew she shouldn't be trying to prove Grandmother wrong, but something like this would do more – it would prove to Tsume something.

"I'm not scared," Tsume said, reaching out to touch him. He stared down at where she had placed her hand lightly against his. "It needs to be done, right? For Konoha. So I'll do it." Because if she could do this, proving herself capable to Grandmother, then she would make the second step to becoming Clan Head. Tsume's plan was very simple. Step 1: Become a ninja. She had already succeeded at this, even if Grandmother had dragged her out of Konoha before she could get the forehead protector that she worked so hard to earn. Step 2: Do great things, be noticed. Step 3: Become Clan Head, after being recognized via Step 2, after Grandmother eventually kicked the bucket.

Orochimaru was a tall, lean man, but there was something about him that seemed wilted – and hungry. And angry. She didn't know if she smelled the emotions so much as she felt them. "There's a part of me that says I shouldn't be asking you to do this mission – that I shouldn't even consider anyone even close to your age."

"Then don't ask." Tsume tried to draw herself up and look as grown-up as possible. Which probably wasn't such a great success, because she knew that if any human could be the runt of a litter, it would be her. (She always added an extra five centimeters to her height, just to make sure her hair was accurately represented.) "I'm agreeing to this, and you just tell me what I need to do."

Orochimaru gently took her hand, so very little, into his own. "Why not? There's much more at stake than just you." He straightened. There was a predatory gleam in his eye. "Still, you must know more before you agree to this mission. I may be more ruthless than my teammates, but not so much that I do this without feeling some level of remorse. Your great-grandmother is going to sell you into sex slavery." Orochimaru paused as he studied her face.

Was Tsume supposed to act surprised? Shocked? She knew the bare mechanics of sex and that it usually didn't involve people as young as her, but she had been watching her clan breed pups for years. Or was it because her great-grandmother would do the selling? Well, it certainly sounded like something Grandmother would do anyway, so… Tsume shrugged, unable to give Orochimaru a verbal response.

"You're going to become a child prostitute in a brothel that is frequented by the strongest, the most cruel shinobi leaders of Iwa. You won't have backup – once you're sold, you will have no way of contacting us. We will not even attempt to contact you for two months, minimum. You may not even survive the brutality as a prostitute alone, even without asking questions, because I will put a seal on you that will convert the sense of your chakra into desire. These will be harsh, cruel men who have no qualms brutalizing your body. It will be vicious, it will be painful, it will be lonely, and if you do survive – I'm not sure you'll want to. It will change you, but not for the better. Is this S-ranked mission something you are still willing to accept?"

If she did turn down the mission, Tsume didn't think that Grandmother was going to bother with another four days of travel to return to Konoha when there was probably a shallow ditch outside the camp useful enough to bury a twelve-year-old simpleton. It would be more practical to do the mission and, quite frankly, probably had a lower casualty risk. (Inuzuka Shinzou versus S-rank Iwa nin? Yeah, she'd have a better chance surviving the Iwa nin.) Tsume cocked her head to the side, and gave him the honest truth, "I'm not scared."

Orochimaru looked at her with something like hunger. "What must it be like, to never know the paralysis of fear? To never have your hand or your mind stayed from difficult choices and decisions? It seems that no matter how powerful a shinobi may be, there will always be that level of fear, to be frightened of death or failure. But to be powerful and to not experience fear – how liberating that must be."

She squirmed uncomfortably. Was she supposed to answer those questions?

Orochimaru's voice dropped into a whisper. "Do you fear death?"

Did she? Tsume tried to imagine death. She thought it would be like a black, endless nothingness, smothered in dirt, and only felt sadness because she didn't want to leave Kakashi or Kuromaru behind. "I don't think so. Probably not."

Orochimaru squeezed her hand tightly for a moment before saying, "I fear death. But death is something that should be overcome, and you did so once already. Your mind was dead, but the Slug Princess brought it back to life. Ah, but not all of it; you never fully recovered the extensive damage to your amygdala. It would seem that which is dead will remain like that, in some part. Fascinating."

Tsume looked elsewhere from his eyes. She didn't feel fear… but she was starting to feel very uncomfortable, like she wanted to scrub her skin until the creepy-crawly sensation was scraped away from her insides.

Orochimaru dropped her hand. "If you can tell us how many troops, their supplies, where the supplies come from, and where they're stationed – at least the leaders, it could be enough to win the war. If I can take out the head, then the body will fall. I need to know where, when, who, and how many so I can wipe them out."

The smell of her great-grandmother hadn't changed – maybe that meant that Tsume shouldn't feel so uncomfortable with Orochimaru. On the other hand, it was her great-grandmother, so maybe she had every right to feel uncomfortable. "Okay. But how am I going to tell you my information if no one's contacting me?"

"After two months – perhaps in three or four – I will send someone to you. There must be a lengthy absence of you being beyond contact, so as not to attract suspicion. You'll need to get the contact alone with you, and report the information via the hand signs you learned, without being caught. Anticipate having sex with your contact – not an ideal situation we encourage between our ninjas in the field – but look at all your options when you're there, and figure out how to do it. That's imperative – you cannot get caught. I think that if no words are exchanged to prevent chance of eavesdropping, if the hand signs are made out of sight, the contact will be in and out of there without alarm. Therefore it's most ideal for your contact to hire you for sex, and for you to service him as a prostitute. Exactly how you'd do anyone else, even the Iwa shinobi.

"But now I need to put this seal on you, and your grandmother has to remove you out of the camp before we run the risk of my men gangbanging you to death before we can even get you on the auction block." There was something sinister about his smile. "Virgins do sell better than used goods." Orochimaru stood up, and gestured. "Now rise, and remove your clothes."

She blinked owl-eyed up at him. "What? Why?"

He made an impatient noise before reaching down and yanking her to her feet. "I have to put the seal somewhere on your body that it won't be detected by anyone who pays for your services. Which means I need to look at you in your entirety."

The need to wash herself increased as Tsume stripped off her clothes, even her underwear at his repeated order. She shivered in the cool air as his gaze burned over her. She and Kakashi often bathed naked together (mostly because she got drenched when bathing Kakashi as he practiced water attacks, so it just seemed practical to take her own bath at the same time), but Orochimaru was… well, he wasn't Kakashi.

He twirled a finger, and she wordlessly turned around in a circle, fighting down the urge to cover herself with her hands. "You look like an ugly boy," he said disdainfully. He tossed the clothes back to her. "Good thing the seal will make up for your lack of attraction." After dressing, he told her to sit.

Orochimaru knelt down beside her and took her bare foot into his hand. He looked at her toes critically. "Short of anyone with a foot fetish, this is the safest place." Then he bit her big toe.

"Hey! Ouch!" He ducked her kicking foot. She saw silver-purple characters scroll across her entire leg, flashing heat and tingles across her body as it stretched upward to her collarbones, flickered against her skin, and then retreated down under her toenail, which turned into a solid purple color. Her head and body buzzed. "What did you do?"

"I placed a siren seal on your body." Orochimaru's eyes seemed to glimmer in the lantern light, and his mouth twisted into an ugly smile. "Even as you are, nothing more than a genin with barely any chakra worth mentioning, it's enough to be considered a threat that must be removed at all costs when you cross paths with the people you're supposed to get information from. This seal will convert their awareness of your chakra into lust, and with any luck, you won't be the thirteenth kunoichi I'll lose. Now, leave."

Tsume started for the entrance. She heard Orochimaru move – the rustle of his clothes – and then felt one of his arms wrap around her shoulders and pull her back against his chest. In the corner of her vision, a cascade of black hair obscured Orochimaru's face. His voice was smooth and low as he whispered in her ear, and his other hand stroked the inside of her thigh. "When you do not experience emotion – or fear, in your case – then there's an empty hole within looking to be filled; it creates a vacuum, which – for good or for bad – nature abhors. You're going into this mission with a very large void, and you're going to immerse yourself in the most vile degradations ever devised by humans. Heed my warning. I have seen the void, child, and it has seen me – it is inside of me. You too will also have to stare into your own void, so fill it with something you can tolerate staring back at you. If you don't fill it, the ugly depravity will do so for you."

oOoOoOo

Ten days later, Tsume stood on a sloping alpine meadow over a town that Grandmother refused to name, but said was barely half a day's travel from Earth's own Hidden Village. (Tsume believed Grandmother, since she could smell a city that was full of Iwa shinobi.) Grandmother looked worn and bruised, mainly because she and her ninken had spent too much time and energy battling petty bandits and miners who went after Tsume with ugly lights in their eyes. Apparently, men didn't have to have a lot of chakra – or any, from the looks of some of those bandits and miners – to be influenced by Orochimaru's seal. Grandmother had left her forehead protector with Orochimaru and removed her clan markings, but kept her ninken. Now, the ninken hid downslope several kilometers away in a cluster of aspen; it would not do to be seen by ninjas lurking or lingering in the town.

Grandmother knelt on front of Tsume and put her hands on Tsume's shoulders. "If one of us should die before seeing each other," Grandmother began, in a way that clearly made it sound like she fully expected Tsume to be the one to croak first, "I want you to know that you were never… unloved."

Tsume knew she should stay her tongue, but she didn't like the cool, detached look in her great-grandmother's eyes. "But I wasn't wanted." And besides, what was the worst that could be happen at this point if she revealed her thoughts? Tsume was already set to be sold into sex slavery. "You know, it's hard to feel loved when you're not wanted."

"True."

Tsume struggled not to cry. "All I ever wanted was to be loved and wanted by you. You were the only mother I ever had, and I did everything I could except roll over and die to make you happy."

Grandmother shrugged. "If you truly wanted that, then you should never have tried getting yourself killed by the Uchiha. So if you must hate anyone, hate them."

"What?" Killed by who? Sure, she kicked some of the Uchiha boys in the balls every now and again, and had developed an admittedly questionable hobby out of giving Fugaku a hard time, but she didn't think that qualified as a death wish. "Why?" They weren't selling her into sex slavery. Besides, that was Shinobi Rule #49 (hibiscus tea with lemon): Shinobi must not hate their enemies, for hatred makes one blind to one's own weaknesses, allowing one to be manipulated and exploited by the enemies. Which was why she tried not to be hateful or bitter towards her great-grandmother. (Tsume also wondered if she was the only one who remembered many of the Shinobi Rules after #30, and thought it just wasn't fair that she had been forced to memorize all fifty rules.)

"Because Uchiha did this to you." Grandmother tapped Tsume's forehead. "You sniffed something out in the forest, it found you, and it destroyed you. It made you weak, and brought undue attention to our clan of predators. There are very few left alive who'd remember Uchiha Madara. And since I couldn't hunt down the threat, I turned on you – weak, pitiful, worthless."

"You said I pushed the limit!"

"I never said which limit. Or whose."

Lies and deceit, all wrapped up in pretty layers of truth. Tsume rubbed at her eyes, smearing tears across her bruised face. I was a puppy. No pup should ever be unwanted. "If you're trying to make me feel better before you get rid of me, you're doing a really lousy job." Then she scrubbed at her dripping nose.

"I'm not trying to make you feel better." Grandmother stood and turned to face the town. "I'm trying to give you a purpose to help you push forward through the dark times you'll be facing alone."

("I have seen the void, child, and it has seen me – it is inside of me.") Tsume wondered if Grandmother also had a void, and whether it haunted her in the same way that Orochimaru's void haunted him.

Tsume vowed then, as Grandmother dragged her down the rocky incline to the town below, stinking of fires and filth, where she would soon be sold to Madame Haori's Privileged Palace of Pleasure for a thousand ryou, that she would fill her own void with light and love and fluffy puppies. So that way, when she looked into her void, she would eagerly throw herself at it with arms open wide, instead of cringing backwards.