Thirty Kisses Theme 21 – Violence:

By the time she had reached chuunin Yuugao knew that there was a specific art to killing. There was finesse in the final blow, the way you held your weapon and the way you dispatched your enemy. The artist made their mark on the masterpiece in the strokes of their weapons, the pen and paintbrush for the canvas of a shinobi. An artist of death is something every elite shinobi strives to be, and Yuugao is filled with the creativity required for the job.

She paints her details carefully, always making sure they are at least slightly different from her last piece. Maybe she brushed the subject with a kunai this time, and a shuriken the next. If her last work ran screaming, perhaps this one would lie dead. Being an ANBU captain meant that she knew her trade quite well, and all other artist's who dealt in death were not wise to underestimate her. Such is a shinobi's life's work.

But it's when she comes home for the night, when Hayate greets her by the door, that she leaves her artist's mantle outside before stepping in. Because even though she made herself into a death dealer for her village and her loved ones, she allowed herself to think, just when she was with him, that there was a much more nobler art in love than violence.