"Our goal, Tsukisa, is to kill the bandits, is that clear?" Kushimaru asked as they sprinted toward the village.
"Yes, Sensei," she replied. Obviously, he didn't want her prioritizing the citizens' lives.
He produced a scroll and handed it to her. "Use this to seal up the bodies when you're done." She took it from him and put it in her pouch.
"Make sure you're not seen by the villagers." Kushimaru continued as he used his fringe to cover the Kiri insignia on his mask. "I'll put out the fires once we're done."
Tsukisa hummed in reply. Just before they reached the town, he turned around. "Remember your training." and then he darted away. She was left standing alone on the roof they landed on.
Ok, you can do this. Just don't think about it. Kill them now and think later―
She saw a woman running past her with a bloodied sword and a crossed-out Kiri hitai-ate. One of the bandits.
She drew out her own sword and held it in front of her. Don't think about it! You've practiced this before! Just do it!
With a breath, she stilled her trembling sword hand. She took off toward the offender and with trained skill aimed for the neck from behind. With a mighty swing, the head was sliced off. It flew in a little arc with trails of blood before hitting the wall of the nearby building with a splat. It fell to the floor with another. Surprisingly, it didn't roll.
Tsukisa thought heads would roll. Later though, she would be thankful it hadn't and sear whatever expression on it in her memories.
The sword clattered to the ground as the body fell to its knees. The rest of it went down with a meaty thud. She watched as the blood was slowly drained with a morbid fascination.
She couldn't move from her crouch. I killed someone. Her heart was raging within her ribcage. A human being. Her ears were ringing. Who even was she? She could hear nothing and everything at the same time. Why did she hafta die? Why did I kill her?
Her question was answered when she heard a scream from within the building. She stood up and ran over to find a mother and her two children being threatened by another bandit. His back was facing her and he was holding out a dagger.
Focus.
Her sword was too big inside. She dropped it. She grabbed a kunai and ran toward his back. She jumped on him, covered his mouth and slit his throat. The body fell; she didn't feel it.
But she saw their eyes. Gods, she saw their eyes. The mother's and the children's. They saw her and― no, focus. She had a job to do.
The kunai slipped from her hand. They were both too bloody. She needed a new one. Her hands reached for her pouch and felt a scroll―shit, the bodies.
She took it out and stood up. Shit, she should've wiped her hands first. The scroll was bloody now. Focus. She sealed away the bandit. And the other one, she remembered. Shit. She ran back out the door.
She placed the paper over the body and applied chakra. The body was gone with a puff. The scroll lay in a pool of blood. Shit. Will it still work? Don't I need ta apply blood ta unseal a storage scroll? Den how did it work jus' now? No, no wait, those're summoning scrolls. Ah shit, focus! And shit, da head! Where's da head?! She swivelled about. She found it. And it was sealed away too.
And before she could move, a heavy-set man rounded the corner. He held two katanas. Shit. Her hands automatically reached over her shoulder, only to grab at air. Shit! I dropped it!
The man charged at her and lifted an arm. Focus, she dived to the side just before it came down. But she wasn't fast enough, and the sword nicked her ear. The man snarled and turned to her―andshitshitshitimgonnadie―
A barrage of senbon pinpoint accuracy. They sank into his thick neck. The man fell backwards. She looked up to where it came. Kushimaru looked down at her from the roof. Was he disappoi'ned? He looks disappoi'ned. He's probably disapp―
"Sing."
He started for a moment longer and rushed away.
Oh.
Oh.
Right, of course! She was thinking too much. She forgot her training in the process. How could she? It was so simple that she even― no, focus now.
She stood up and looked at her hands. They were bloody and now the dirt had clung to them. She wiped her hands on her pants as best as she could and walked back into the building. The family startled and looked up at her in horror. She didn't think about them. She picked up her chokuto and walked out. As she swung it sharply, most of the blood on the blade slipped off.
"Can we go back? This is the moment,"
She started singing an upbeat song she used to listen to. She forgot some of the rapping but the tune was catchy enough to keep her distracted. She walked towards the man on the floor and raised it above his head. He wasn't dead, only paralyzed.
"Tonight is the night, we'll fight 'till it's over,"
She plunged her sword in between his eyes. She took it out and shook it off again.
"So we put our hands up like the ceiling can't hold us,"
Of course, the roofs! why hadn't she thought of it before? They're a better vantage point. She took off towards them.
"Like the ceiling can't hold us!"
She chuckled a little when she landed on one.
-:-
Kushimaru wasn't sure what he'd expected from Tsukisa when he ordered her to kill the bandits. But he was hoping that she'd learn the gravity of shinobi life, that she would no longer be too domestic at home and too empathetic at the hospital. He'd hoped to scare her feelings away and show her the cost of caring too much for perfect strangers. And he'd nearly accomplished it too.
He was watching her ever since they reached the town. He watched her behead a bandit, slit another's throat and fumble around with the sealing scroll. He watched her make grave mistakes and didn't dare to move.
But then the bandit with the katanas came. Tsukisa had dropped her chokuto like a dumbass and didn't even think to get a kunai or grab the dead woman's sword. She dodged once and just sat there in the man's killing intent. If she remembered her training, she would come out of this with an expensive lesson in being a shinobi, and an expansive scar to remind her of it.
However, when the moment came, Kushimaru felt the faintest of something he hadn't in a long time; he felt fear. And before he could process that, his hands grabbed senbon, and in the next moment, they were lodged in the man's neck. He wasn't quite sure why he felt that or did that, he certainly didn't intend to.
Kuriarare Kushimaru had nothing and no one to fear. He wasn't scared of death. He lived for the Battle, and if he died fighting it, then he deserved to. He wasn't scared of anyone either. Definitely not some sad excuse for an ex-shinobi in a rag-tag group of scoundrels. And he definitely didn't fall for his weak-ass killer intent.
So why was he even the slightest bit afraid?
When Tsukisa looked up at him with wide, frightened eyes, he got his answer. Though following that thought through to its end would be burdensome. He'd have time to contemplate such things later, if ever.
So he told her to do the one thing that somehow gave her the motivation to do things she didn't really want to.
She started singing in that unfamiliar language of hers and went to work. Maybe it was cruel of Kushimaru to just stand by and let his student deal with most of the bandits, and callous of him to only move when the light tower or harbour was threatened, but he wouldn't find it in himself to care.
When the fires were all put out and Tsukisa's witnesses were dealt with, Kushimaru went to look for her. After a sweep around the town, he found her in a pool of blood with the sealing scroll spread out nearby. She had a fair amount of cuts and bruises so he checked her once over to make sure the blood wasn't hers. He gathered the scroll and put it in his pouch before crouching beside her.
"Oi," he lightly tapped her on the cheek with the back of his hand. "What are you doing, you idiot?"
"Mhm," she started groggily. "S-sensssei," she was slurring and tried to grin, but her lips were quivering with the strain. "D-did a do gud?"
She was delirious. Kushimaru sighed and tucked his arms under her. "Just this once," he said and lifted her. After he made sure she was secure, he ran in the direction of their make-shift camp.
"Awwwe, my heero."
Kushimaru sighed.
Once he got close enough, he slightly flared his chakra so Ao knew it was him. Once they were in visible range, he could already see the sneer on the other's face.
"What is the meaning of this?" he asked when Kushimaru reached the clearing. He lowered Tsukisa to the ground and tried to keep her awake.
"Wha..."
"Hmph, one mission and she's already like this."
When she tried to sit up, she started gagging. Kushimaru quickly turned her away from him and she emptied her dinner on the other side.
"This is pathetic―"
"Omigosh fuck oooff Ao," Tsukisa started before Kushimaru could say the same, surprising both of them. "If ya think yer soO above a C-rank then why da fuck didcha take it? Huh!?"
Silence reigned for a few moments.
Kushimaru wasn't sure what to make of that, he'd never seen her like this before. Sure there were some inconsistencies in her behaviour here and there, but nothing so explosive. And nothing to warrant her village accent coming out again.
"...That's none of your damn business," Ao replied.
"Then our business ain't yours neither fuckwad, stay out of it and mind yer own!"
"...Watch your tongue girl, lest you lose it," he said, narrowing his eyes. "You've got a lot of nerve for an academy student."
"An' you don't got enough! You've been side-eyein' at me n' s-scoffin' dis whole time! If ya got somethin' ta say, den spit it out! Stop chokin' on it like a fuckin' virgin!"
A beat.
Ao was dumbstruck. One could see the blood rushing to his head. And before he could say anything, Kushimaru doubled over in laughter. He was already crouching, but now he was on his knees, guffawing. He could be heard from quite a distance, which didn't contribute to the mission at all. But in his defence, he hadn't ever expected his student to know such things, much less say them to one ranked higher than her.
Every time he tried to stop laughing, the conversation would replay and he'd go into another fit. He guessed, even after all these years she can still manage to surprise him. In a way, he was reassured of his decision to choose her as his student.
"You bitch! Is this any way to address your superiors?!" Ao shouted. It was about the only thing that could get Kushimaru's attention. "Just what the hell are you teaching her, Kuriarare?!"
"Superior!? Maybe you start actin'―" Before Tsukisa could say anymore and get in further trouble, her sensei sprayed her with a water jutsu. She started sputtering and defensively held her hands in front of her. It effectively shut her up and washed off most of the blood.
"Well, that should be enough, Tsukisa," he said once he stopped showering her. "I think he gets the point."
"You're gonna let this go, Kuriarare? Without even any consequences?"
"What she did or didn't do here is my responsibility. Lodge a complaint if you want. But since it was her first mission, I'll tolerate it. Once," he said the last bit turned to Tsukisa. And she had the grace to look embarrassed. He would have to specifically teach her the importance of following the chain of command.
"I won't," Ao scowled.
"Then it's a good thing you're not the mission leader," Kushimaru shot back, all but drained of the previous humour. "Get yourself together and rest," he turned back to Tsukisa. "Ao and I will continue the lookout."
She nodded in affirmation.
-:-
Tsukisa didn't want to think. Didn't know what to think.
So she didn't.
Instead, she turned away from them and gingerly peeled off her shirt. Just the action made her terribly exhausted. But she kept going or else her cuts would get infected if they haven't already.
The biggest one was the long gash from her left shoulder to the middle of her sternum. Thankfully, she was able to bend just enough away for it to be quite shallow. She grabbed a clean towel and applied pressure to it so the bleeding would stop.
She took out her comprehensive medical kit and immediately went for the hydrogen peroxide. She also grabbed a pair of chopsticks from her pack to bite down on. With a deep breath, she poured it on her cut. It bubbled with hellfire. To say the pain was appalling is an understatement.
It burned.
She bit on her chopsticks so hard, they broke and left splinters in her mouth. Fucking fantastic.
She quickly spat it out and replaced them with senbon. Another breath and she poured the antiseptic once more. It bubbled again as more bacteria died. She repeated the process until it finally stopped bubbling. After dressing the cut, she went to work on the minor ones.
She spent the next 23 minutes in agony as her body burned over and over again. She dented 4 senbon and used up more than half her medical supplies (another mistake she wouldn't be making again). And when she came to the cut on her ear she hesitated. Somehow it reminded her of her sensei. Of dropping her weapon and thinking too much in battle. And eyes that widened―no.
She's not going to think.
She left the split cartilage as it was and put on her clean shirt. She then moved on to the cuts on her legs. After dressing those with renewed pain, she was clean and clothed.
She was thankful that she hadn't passed out throughout the whole ordeal. But at least she learned something from it. And she vaguely remembered writing a paper in her last life about children feeling pain more vividly than adults. And all it took to prove her thesis was a second life. There's some kind of irony in―stop thinking.
She hastily ate whatever she could find in her scroll and with careful and calculated movements, she spread out her bedroll and promptly passed out.
-:-
"Can't Hold Us" by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis
-:-
A/N: That's chapter 5! Tsukisa's finally experiencing the shinobi life! I'd love to hear what you think about it!
For the readers who are also active on Wattpad, Pave With Good Intentions is entered in this year's Naruto Watty Awards! You can check it out there as well and maybe I can win the contest!
And a reminder for everyone to be kind to others on the internet. You never know what they're going through and what their reasons for writing are. Being nice doesn't hurt you or hurt them.
Kindness is the revolution.
Thanks for reading! Stay safe everyone!