Unmei was the first to arrive in Kirigakure. Kisame arrived a few seconds later and Itachi walked through the gate with a look of disinterest.
"Told you I would win!" Unmei grinned at Kisame, now being almost the same height with their identity masking genjutsu. Kisame blended in nicely as he traded in his blue skin for a slightly tanned cloak with light brown eyes and dark brown hair. He was average height for a man and wore plain brown and black clothes. They were supposed to look like nomads, and when Unmei saw herself and the others in their new looks, she had to admit that Itachi made them all fit in with crowds nicely.
Unmei looked slightly taller than she actually was with black hair and dark eyes. She also had a bit of a tan and she wore what looked to be a plain blue dress with sandals. She had to admit that her look didn't change much, her skin, eyes and hair only looked darker. Her chubby cheeks, which never quite fit in with her slender built, were a bit thinner. She looked like a respectable young lady and that made her frown. I look like the person my clan would have wanted me to be.
Itachi, like Kisame, looked nothing like himself. He had sandy brown hair and light blue eyes with a full face and an even fuller tummy. His attire was similar to Kisame's, only he wore a couple of extra layers on.
Unmei giggled to herself as she looked at her teammates. They both glared at her in their own ways with Kisame's glare being exaggerated and Itachi's looking deadly. Unmei was far too excited to care, though.
"Come on let's get ourselves to a bar so that we can gather some information on our victim." Itachi stated. Unmei gave him a deadpan look.
"What's his name and what does he look like?" Unmei asked professionally.
"His name is Zabuza Momochi, he is approximately thirty years old. A rogue ANBU known for various abductions of children and women. He is tall with pale skin, short spiky black hair, brown eyes and small eyebrows." Itachi replied mechanically, most likely due to memorising the guy's file.
"How much time do we have to complete this mission?" Unmei asked again since she was gathering all information she could. This was a mission to test her, after all.
"We have a week to eradicate him and return his body as well as any unclaimed people kidnapped by him." Itachi answered her.
"Give me two days to do this alone, if I fail I don't deserve to be called a tracker." Unmei said coldly. She was preparing herself to kill someone.
"Fine by me, less work!" Kisame answered, smiling to Itachi.
"Fine, but you'll be under constant watch." Itachi answered. Unmei smiled at both of them.
"Most people in this area are relatively innocent people. Some have been part of petty crimes, but that's it. The target is not here." Unmei said, looking past Itachi and Kisame to where Ghost stood, observing everything. Ghost smiled at Unmei.
"Glad to see you haven't forgotten any training these past few days." Ghost smirked. They were in business mode. Unmei didn't answer. Kisame and Itachi wouldn't believe her if she started talking to random air.
Unmei disappeared to where she knew the forest was. The very same place she had met Orochimaru for the first and hopefully final time.
She had been watching him for two hours, observing silently. She could feel her emotions creeping up on her and knew that Kisame was near her, but she didn't mind being watched. She knew what her victims felt like.
"He has a loved one." Unmei whispered to Ghost. The fact that her emotions were returning made being an assassin very much harder than she would have originally thought, so she tried making herself feel numb to the penetrating emotions slithering at the back of her mind.
"I know he has dear." Ghost smiled sadly.
"His loved one isn't too far from here, which must be where his base is." Unmei whispered again. She had gotten used to doing that over the years.
"You know what to do." Ghost said simply.
"Right." Unmei said as she sprang into action, releasing her string to become the chains she had become so familiar with. She moved as silently as she could from above her target, easily spotting an opening. She jumped behind him to start strangling him, only to find that he had become a pool of water.
Confused, Unmei jumped back into the tree. She had seen his string. She had latched on to it for two hours. How could he just disappear?
"Looking for me?" Zabuza asked from behind Unmei. She smiled and turned around.
"Why yes, I was, Zabuza Momochi. How's your pretty little lover?" Unmei started provoking him, she didn't like any bit of what she was doing, but she had to take him out and if provoking him brought down his focus, so be it. Zabuza's eyes widened when he heard Unmei talk about his lover, whether out of anger or surprise, Unmei didn't know.
"How do you know about her?" Zabuza practically yelled at Unmei.
"I know a lot about you. I also really don't want to do what I need to right now. I know what it's like to run from Kirikagure, but it's either your life or mine, and I'm no hero." Unmei told Zabuza. She was trying to distract him further, even if she did it by telling the truth.
"Don't worry, Zabuza, your wife is already dead. You don't have to gather money anymore. She's fine now." Unmei told him sincerely. While he processed the information, Unmei sent out her chains slowly. She engulfed him with her powers. He seemed to look sad, but suddenly he started laughing.
"Heh, should have known trying to save her was useless." Zabuza stopped laughing. It seemed to be a cruel joke.
"I'm sorry that your life has been what it is. At least you'll see her soon, right?" Unmei felt silly, trying to comfort her target. She wouldn't have cared if Kisame wasn't so damned close to her. Zabuza seemed to release stubborn tears.
"I won't beg, but you seem like a good person. Please, just take care of my son." Zabuza looked at Unmei with a sliver of hope.
"You were a good person too, Zabuza. You just had different circumstances. I was already planning on taking care of him. Don't worry. I won't let Kiri have him. Have a good rest, Zabuza." Unmei smiled at him as her chains blackened the already grey string hanging from his finger.
Unmei let him down from her chains and ran, following the soon to be disappearing string. She had to get to the base as soon as possible. When she arrived she didn't expect the place to look so... serene. She ran through the almost abandoned place and to retrieve the unclaimed children. She found them all in a common room, looking calm. They patiently waited for someone, and seemed surprised when she arrived.
"I'm here to take you all home." Unmei told the three children in the room. They smiled and started crying tears of joy. They all were from wealthy families, Unmei told herself, since they were kidnapped for money. They didn't seem to be in bad shape either, so Unmei figured that they weren't treated like hostages and cried because they were homesick. She sent the children outside and told them to look for two men. As they ran, Unmei went to a different room.
In this room sat one person beside a bed with his deceased mother holding his hand from her lying position on the bed. He had tear streaks along his young and chubby face, but he didn't seem to be crying anymore. He looked up at Unmei and she could see the pain and devastation in his eyes.
"Hello Haku, my name is Unmei. I'm here to take care of you, alright?" Unmei slowly walked closer to Haku and bent down to his level. Haku simply nodded at her.
"I'm going to take you to a wonderful place with lots of friends and people that will take good care of you, but I'll also check up on you regularly and send you letters to make sure you're alright. I promise you'll be safe and loved. If not by anyone else, then by me." Unmei told the young boy with long hair.
"Is my daddy gone too?" The little boy smiled sadly at Unmei and she had to fight herself not to start crying and just hold the boy.
"Yes, Haku. He's with your mommy now." Unmei gave up on fighting herself and held the little boy with tears in her eyes. The little boy started crying along with her and together they sat on the floor next to the bed safely containing his mother's corpse. Unmei didn't know for how long she held on to the boy, but eventually he fell asleep in her embrace. She silently picked him up and walked out of the abandoned building where Kisame and Itachi were waiting for her.
"Good job, you finished early. We returned all of the children as well as Zabuza's body." Itachi told Unmei. She composed herself, looking at the sleeping child in her arms before deciding to answer.
"I'll be taking him to Konoha. It's the safest place for him at the moment. He'll surely die if he stays in Kirikagure." Unmei stated, she knew that they were listening when she told Zabuza that she'd take care of his son, so they didn't question it. Kisame looked at Unmei thoughtfully for a second before asking Itachi if he could talk to her alone. Itachi nodded and told them to meet him at the Hotel they booked into when they were finished.
It was silent between them for a moment as Kisame tried to put his thoughts into words.
"You know, this reminds me of myself in some ways." Kisame stated suddenly. Unmei looked at him with her eyes contorted into a sad look.
"I know what you mean. He didn't run into some guy that would later adopt him though." Unmei stated bitterly. She hated it when kids weren't safe and secure. It made her think of the past a lot.
"Maybe not, but he seems to have someone care about him already." Kisame smiled sincerely. Unmei hadn't seen that smile since they were children playing ninja and it made her feel as if her heart had a hole in it.
"I'm sorry." Unmei told Kisame. He seemed confused for a while, but soon after decided to speak as well.
"I'm sorry too, I didn't think things through. I just thought you betrayed me at the time and I didn't.. I just didn't want to feel the way I did. I trusted you and the very thought of you not trusting me back felt like hell to me. I felt alone. You weren't the best friend I trusted anymore and the people I had thought of as my parents died. The Akatsuki promised me loyalty so I followed them. I'm just... I'm sorry alright? If I had known any better I never would have left, but I was an idiot." Kisame stopped talking, but it seemed as if he could have said more if he didn't choke on his words.
"I blamed you a lot, you know? For my pain, the numbness I later felt. I wanted to die for a long time. I was alone, but I grew out of it. I don't know if I forgive you yet, but I believe I learned that it wasn't completely your fault. I was the one that stayed bitter about it. I refused to forgive you and in turn that hurt me... I changed who I was because of what I did. I missed you a lot though, and I know it seems like I hate you... but, ah, I don't. Not really." Unmei smiled at Kisame. The moment took a lot of weight from her shoulders, not because she apologised to Kisame, but because she indirectly had apologised to herself, as well.
"Let's just... pick up where we left off?" Kisame asked hopefully. Haku shifted where he was asleep in Unmei's arms and Unmei made sure he was still asleep before answering.
"I think I'd like that." Unmei smiled at Kisame. She had wanted to be his friend for years and Unmei felt that she could finally allow herself to be just that.
"There's some things you don't know about me though. So I think we should get that out of the way." Unmei said seriously.
"Like?" Kisame asked her, he knew that they had both changed in terms of age and occupations, but he thought she would still be the Unmei he knew, just a little more bitter. Unmei smiled at him and took a deep breath.
"Well for starters, the reason my parents could never adopt you." Unmei smiled at Kisame's confused face.
"I thought it was because of the lineage being disrupted?" Kisame asked her.
"That's what they told me too, but just before you left I figured it out." Unmei almost laughed at Kisame's eagerness to know.
"Go on woman!" Kisame almost growled in anticipation, making Unmei laugh.
"It's because they didn't want my soul mate to be my brother." Unmei almost thought that Kisame had died by the vacant look on his face.
"We're... Soulmates?" Kisame asked slowly.
"Oh no, I lied just to see the look on your face! Of course, you weren't just a best friend to me, you know. I actually wanted to tell you the day after you left, but, you see, you left so." Unmei answered nonchalantly, even though she felt like her heart was racing.
"You know, I left because it hurt. It hurt so much more because you weren't just a best friend to me, either." Unmei smiled at his indirect confession. She felt as if her life was finally beginning to turn around.