Chapter 15 - Break
"Oi, Mizuki, it's your turn to get us dinner."
Mizuki pushed herself off the ground with an exaggerated sigh. "Fine, you lazy bum."
Her response was a kunai whizzing past her head. She chuckled to herself at her teammate's little temper. Mizuki jumped into the trees with the intent to hunt down a few rabbits or spear a few fishes from a nearby river.
After the incident in Kakashi's office, Mizuki was disappointed to admit that she fell into a depressive episode shortly after that. Since he wouldn't give her an answer, she constantly thought about what went wrong. It got so bad that she found herself distracted at work. It wasn't bad enough that she put any of her patients' lives at risk but enough that Tsunade noticed her change in behaviour.
When Tsunade pulled her into her office to talk about her change in behaviour, Mizuki let the dam burst. Tsunade was furious when she heard about Kakashi's actions, so much so that she was ready to pay him a visit. Mizuki frantically begged Tsunade to not do that. Her situation with Kakashi was already bad, she didn't want it to worsen.
It took some time but Tsunade finally relented after seeing how distressed Mizuki was. After some talking, they both agreed that Mizuki needed some time away from the village. Using her status Tsunade managed to have Mizuki assigned to a long-term mission, a job usually done by the current Hokage.
That is how Mizuki ended up here on another mission with Hideo and Kenzou. She had hung out with them on several occasions since their first mission together. She would say that they were good friends so it really helped her get her mind off of what happened back in Konoha. Over their 6 weeks long mission, they had several political figures to escort and guard. It was the last week of their mission and honestly...she felt a lot better.
Of course, there were nights where she would find her thoughts drifting back to Kakashi and his 180 degree change in attitude. After lots of thinking, she found that she wasn't as angry with him as she was in their initial interactions. She didn't know if it was a good idea or not but she gave him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe something had happened to him that he wasn't ready to talk about yet. Maybe he was just taking his frustrations out on her because he didn't know what else to do. Whatever the reason may be, she just hoped that when she was back he would be ready to talk to her and fix whatever issues caused this. With only a week left before returning to Konoha, she found that she wasn't anxious whatsoever about the confrontation that was to come. In fact, she was sort of laxed about the whole situation.
She soon returned to camp, her hands filled with a couple rabbits and fish. She walked past Hideo and tossed the bloody animals at his sleeping form. He instantly jumped up and scowled at her.
"What the fuck, Mizu?" He complained. Mizuki doubled over, laughing hysterically. Kenzou, who was tending to their camp fire couldn't help himself and chuckled.
"You put me on hunting duty so you get cooking duty."
"You couldn't have washed it first?"
"Nope." She laughed.
Hideo grumbled all throughout preparing dinner. Kenzou and Mizuki talked quietly among themselves while ignoring their friend. Every now and then they would throw a quip in his direction much to his chagrin. Eventually they were all huddled around the warm fire eating their dinner and enjoying the starry sky.
They chatted easily about what their next week would look like. They were en route to a temple between the capital and Konoha. Every year for a week the monks at the temple would host an event for several political figures from the Fire capital. With so many prominent figures, they hired several squads for protection. Three other teams would meet them at the front of the temple to be updated by the head monk. Hideo and Kenzou told her that nothing usually happens at events like these so hopefully it should be an easy end to their series of missions.
By early afternoon they had arrived at the temple and were given a run down of the event by the head monk; it was a pretty simple event. Two teams would be positioned outside of the temple and the other two would be situated throughout the inside.
Mizuki was crouched in one of the many trees surrounding the temple. Her and the other team were situated in a similar position around the outer perimeter of the temple, hidden from view. The celebration had started a little over 2 hours ago, nothing eventful happened but they remained vigilant. As shinobis and kunoichis, they knew how quickly things could turn in the blink of an eye. With so many important figures all gathered in one location, it was crucial that they didn't drop their guard.
Mizuki leaned against the sturdy trunk of the tree she was in. She gazed up at the beautiful night sky, admiring the hundreds of simmering stars that lit the dark sky. High above the trees, she could see several birds circling the area. One of her teammates had summoned several hawks to provide a wider view of the surrounding area.
Mizuki watched the majestic birds soaring in the sky. Her eyes squinted when she noticed one of the birds begin to fly erratically. A loud screeching soon came from its beak, echoed by it's companions. She reached into her weapons pouch and pulled out a kunai. She looked towards the teammate who those summons belonged to and their nod confirmed to everyone their suspicions.
She heard another teammate shout orders. "Be on guard! Eliminate them before they can get into the temple!" They yelled. Mizuki watched them dash into the temple, no doubt warning their teammates and the delegates on the inside.
Mizuki crouched low on the tree branch and calmed her senses. The only sound in the dark forest was the rustling of the leaves from the gentle breeze. She carefully scanned her eyes across the forest, looking for signs of the enemy. She quickly whipped her head around when she heard someone cry out.
Mizuki watched as one of her allies fell to the ground with a heavy thud and a kunai embedded in his shoulder. She channeled chakra into her feet and jumped out of the tree, watching as the branch she previously stood on catch on fire. Mizuki landed beside her fallen ally and quickly assessed his injuries. He was still breathing and conscious but a lot of blood was oozing from his shoulder.
Mizuki looked up to see one of the enemies charging at them. She flicked her kunai upwards and quickly dispatched him with one clean cut to the throat. Mizuki summoned a water clone to tend to her ally as she surveyed the surrounding area. There were approximately 7 enemies that she could see but she sensed more were coming through the forest. In the dark of the night she couldn't make out who they were. All she knew was that they posed a dire threat and they had to protect the delegates at all costs.
She jumped to her allies' sides killing one enemy after the other. Wave after wave of enemies poured from the forest. She didn't have a good feeling about this. Even with four teams there, they were being overwhelmed by the endless forces. Mizuki weaved some hand signs to summon a few rain clouds over the area, putting out the fires that were slowly consuming the forest.
Through the sounds of colliding metal, she heard the distinct cry of a child. Her pulse quickened when she saw one of the enemies carrying a little girl who she recognized as the daughter of one of the delegates. Mizuki wasted no time pursuing the kidnapper. Now it made sense to her, their goal wasn't any of the delegates, their target was the little girl that they somehow knew would be there too. They definitely had every intention to use her as political leverage to make demands. Whatever the reason may be, the girl was in trouble and she needed to save her.
Mizuki knew he was alerted to her presence when he turned and launched a fireball in her direction. She easily countered with a stream of water and continued to pursue him. The continuous cries from the little girl spurred her on faster. When she got close enough to him, she formed a water whip and latched it around his leg. She yanked him backwards and threw him off balance. The little girl's cries grew louder and more panicked when she was thrown into the air.
Mizuki safely caught the terrified girl in her arms. Without missing a beat she turned and ran away from the man but made sure she avoided running into his allies. Mizuki hugged the terrified girl close to her chest and whispered calming words into her ear. Mizuki's steps faltered and she almost missed the branch she was jumping towards when several senbon needles embedded themselves in the back of her leg. Adrenaline rushed through her veins at the life or death situation surrounding her and the girl. She ignored the pain in her leg and pushed forward, not slowly down one bit.
She ran for a long time, not daring to look back once. When she was certain they had lost him, she ran to a cliff side cave. Mizuki walked to the back of the cave only relying on her chakra to help her navigate the pitch black area. Over time her eyes adjusted so she made out the faint silhouettes of the inside. She limped towards the cave wall and sat down heavily on the cold damp floor. After the long battle, her exhaustion was quickly catching up to her.
Mizuki looked down at the girl in her arms and felt her shiver violently. The air outside was cold but the cave was even colder. Mizuki took her jacket off and wrapped it around the shivering child. She wrapped her arms tightly around her for the extra body heat.
"Are you okay?" She whispered.
"Yes." Came the girl's meek reply. Mizuki ran her hand soothingly over the girl's hair.
"My name's Mizuki. What's yours?"
"H-Hikari." Mizuki felt Hikari press her face into her chest. "A-Are we going to die?" Mizuki was stunned at hearing those words from a little kid who couldn't have been older than 6.
"No. No, we're not going to die." Mizuki answered. Although she sounded confident, on the inside she was actually very unsure. She had no idea what the situation was back at the temple, she didn't know who was alive and who was dead. It was also very unlikely that they would get reinforcements soon since Konoha was nearly half a day's journey away.
There wasn't much that she could do right now. It was too dangerous outside, especially knowing that there were a lot of enemies roaming these forests. The safest thing to do was to huddle out in the cave for as long as they could and then head back to the temple or Konoha after.
"We're going to stay here for the night okay, Hikari?" Mizuki said softly. Hikari nodded and snuggled deeper into Mizuki's warm embrace. Mizuki leaned back against the wall and closed her tired eyes.