Hello beloved readers- this is a longer chapter, and I really struggled with writing some scenes in this- maybe the characters are tougher to write (?) I would really appreciate if you guys could leave me some critique to let me know if I'm pulling this off alright... (has been a tough couple of weeks ugh) Writing is such a reprieve for me though, so grateful to be able to do this! Anyway, I shall leave you to read this.

Enjoy!

The Fire Temple is quiet. Its serenity is unmatched, and yet, it has seen war and death through the times of the warring clans, and it stands as though untouched, apathetic to the pleas for peace.

The air barely stirs, and the monks have all sensed the incoming storm. It may rain for days. The stillness is mildly disturbing. Michiko nervously rests one hand on the hilt of her Wakizashi, glad for its presence.

Despite being skilled in ninjutsu, she is heavenly skilled with kenjutsu. At this point in time, she is grateful that her father picked up on her talent with the blades when she was very young, before she started at the academy. Now, the skill makes her feel closer to her father, who also preferred kenjutsu.

Kakashi notes her strange behaviour; she is fidgety and looks startled every time a monk appears in their periphery. Curious, he wonders if it has something to do with her bandages.

In truth, they are only here to keep the monks safe and to monitor who comes and goes into the temple. They have been assigned to make their presence known- which means no disguises or genjutsus.

Finding Michiko's nervousness unsettling, Kakashi decides to make conversation.

"You're really good with blades." He says, staring at the horizon, just beyond the elaborate entrance gate of the Fire Temple. A woman is approaching slowly, tugging at the hand of a child who keeps running away from her. His laughter is high-pitched and loud, it travels to their ears before they are even visible.

For once, Michiko feels flattered. "Thank you, taichou." Her cheeks flush gently- she is not used to him being kind with his words.

"Have you considered combining your kenjutsu with ninjutsu?"

She hums in affirmation to his second question, turning to partially face him and the temple. "I've been working on that."

"Your chakra-nature…it's wind, right?"

"Yes." Having never conversed this way, she feels awkward. Talking to her friends, or to Shisui, is easy. Talking to Kakashi feels like stepping on eggshells, although of late, the eggshells seem thicker and harder to crack (a good thing, Michiko thinks).

"Yours is lightning…right?"

Kakashi glances at her with his single eye, nodding wordlessly.

"How do you handle two swords?" His eye narrows with mirth, but Michiko doesn't see it until it's too late, "You're generally so…" he pauses mysteriously, "Clumsy."

Michiko turns a deathly glare towards him, "What did you say, Hatake?"

"I meant…you're good at monkeying around, but you're so…ungraceful."

He doesn't mean it. No, to the contrary, he finds Michiko very graceful on the battlefield. He has only seen a few shinobi take to the field with two blades, and Michiko is fun to watch. She fights as though she is dancing, parrying with her katana and on close encounters, gutting with her wakizashi- the smaller sword has the higher body-count.

Although he admires her fighting style, the sight of her wakizashi always leaves him with a disturbing reminder of his father, something Michiko doesn't know about in too much detail.

Michiko is red in the face. He enjoys this attempted silent treatment, knowing he can push all the right buttons to trigger her.

"Your wakizashi is very beautiful." In all honesty, it is a pretty blade. Kakashi feels a little guilty for making her angry, but his amusement is doubled.

Kakashi assumes Michiko will remain quiet and is pleasantly startled at the warm and cautious tone of her voice as she discloses something about it.

"It was my dad's." There's a moment of silence where he turns to observe her, and her voice is much quieter this time. "It was in his hands when he died."

An irrelevant detail that Michiko thinks she shouldn't have told him- it builds the first part of a bridge between the two.

The silence following her sentences carries a heavier burden than just inheriting a family heirloom, and Kakashi nearly says 'My dad died with a sword in his hands too.' But somehow, he knows their circumstances are very different, and he catches himself before he can say something he'll regret. However, in a moment of earnest, Kakashi loses his inhibitions.

"My dad died too." He struggles with what to say next, "He wasn't fighting any battles."

His bitter tone rouses Michiko to give her taichou a concerned look. In truth, Michiko knows about Hatake Sakumo, having attended his funeral with her father. The not-so-distant past feels like a dream; a time when she overheard her parents discussing his suicide one night, after dinner, when Michiko should have been in bed. When her parents were still around.

"I'm sorry to hear that." She hesitates, unsure if she should speak her next words, but they fall from her lips, trembling their way into the late afternoon air.

"He was fighting a different battle."

Of the 15 years Kakashi has been alive, and the few years after his father's death, Kakashi hasn't felt before what he feels from her words: Comfort.

The guilt of having a 'coward' for a father vanishes for a few moments. He thinks about Sakumo with the fragility of being human and he feels…easier.

The strange sensation vanishes just as quickly as it came. There is a snake coiled within his chest, that injects venom into his heart when it senses the warmth between the two.

"He lost his battle." Kakashi bites back.

"Sometimes, losing is just as good as winning, Kakashi." Michiko counters gently, eyeing the woman and child who have now arrived at the gate. The woman looks worried and apprehensive as she spots the Anbu.

"When did you get so wise, saru?"

Irked, Michiko visibly recoils, "EH?"

Steam fumes from her ears as she clenches her fists. Kakashi grins beneath his mask, all thoughts of Sakumo buried within. Now he thinks about how endearing the name sounds, 'little monkey' it suits her. 'Little violent monkey.'

He shuts off his internal voice before it goes any further.

Michiko has walked away from him angrily. Her strides are long and quick, towards the woman who has now arrived at the gate. He is content to watch her go, admiring her form. Despite spending most of his working-time around her and the team, he is always curious to watch her, with the endless fascination of being 'frenemies'.

He admits, secretly, that he can't wait to see their relationship remains once they are older. Abruptly, he questions how long either of them will live and his mind jumps to Obito and Rin. The snake in his chest unfurls, making him feel suffocated.

Attempting to be mindful, he takes a deep breath, counting as he exhales and repeating himself until his heart is hammering a little less.

"Hello ma'am." Michiko greets politely. The woman has picked her child up and returns the greeting, "H…Hello."

She has the soft accent of the countryside, and Michiko has a hunch that she lives not too far from the temple and is possibly a farmer.

"Can I know your purpose for visiting, please?" Michiko hates sounding so stiff and stern, but it has to be done.

"My husband is here, staying with the monks." She glances worriedly at the temple behind Michiko. "I come at this time to see him daily…is everything okay?"

Placing her husband to most likely be the pleasant 40-year-old man that has been under the care of the monks after a traumatic incident, Michiko nods, "Everything is okay, ma'am. Security is high these days, make sure to reach your home before it gets dark. Go on in."

Michiko steps out of her way and the woman nods silently, glancing down at Michiko once before hurrying to the temple. The woman feels strange being questioned by a little girl who isn't even tall enough to look her in the eyes. She has no doubt the young Anbu is a dangerous kunoichi. Unsettled, she feels less-safe and holds her son tighter.

As Michiko walks back, she decides she doesn't want to stand at conversational distance to Kakashi and turns around to lurk close to the gates.

Sensing an unsettling change in the air, she climbs the wall up to the temple's roof to explore the view.

That's when she sees, in the distance, the smoke from Konoha and the large, looming red form of the nine-tails.

"KAKASHI!" She begins to yell, slipping on her way down. The Hatake is already scouting out the source of the heavy chakra. Michiko appears beside him in a flash.

"What do we do, taichou?"

Both are staring out at the beast. Both are frightened.

"I have to go. You get the monks and civilians to the shelter, you know where the entrance is?"

"Hai."

"Ok. Go. I'll meet you in Konoha."

Kakashi is about to disappear, when Michiko grabs his wrist blindly. His head whips around, the wind whistling in his ears as the ground begins to tremble beneath them.

"If I…I'll see you when this is all over."

Holding her gaze firmly for a few seconds, he nods. As Michiko turns away to hurry to the growing group of monks who have come outside, Kakashi vanishes.

"Genji-senpai!" Michiko calls to the closest monk, "We must take everyone to the shelter, please ask the others to get the protection-seal in place. I will handle the rest."

What follows is a rush to the hidden shelter that Michiko has to unseal. She is grateful that there aren't so many people here. As soon as the monks get the protective barrier up, she can depart for Konoha.

She can feel her heart slamming itself against her ribcage as the last monk assembles. With the hand-seals formed, they initiate a protective barrier that glows orange. With it up, the monks nod at her to leave. They can handle the rest until the chaos is over.

The ground has been reverberating with each step of the nine-tails. Konoha is already partially in ruins.

Michiko dashes through the trees, clambering up a trunk to leap from one branch to the other, when she is knocked down by something that is fast and white.

Summersaulting so that she can land on her feet, she crouches on the ground, trying to detect the attacker. She feels nothing and then abruptly, a chakra force that feels old and burdensome flares into her sensory-vision.

She is thrown off her feet and forms a quick hand-seal to send a cutting blast of wind. Following it closely, she unsheathes her katana. Her attacker doesn't see her move, and she severs his arm, whipping her wakizashi in her other hand to stab him in the back.

A white human.

Michiko frowns beneath her mask, horrified as his severed arm regrows.

The man removes himself from her wakizashi, turning around to grin madly at her, yellow eyes set deep beneath his big forehead.

"Hello."

With a flash, he is gone, and Michiko is being rapidly attacked from every which side, until her mask is cracked and broken, and blood is dripping from a wound on her forehead. Rapidly blocking the punches isn't easy, and although she is able to cut him several times, he continues to heal.

Lunging away from him, blades sheathed, Michiko shakily mumbles something under her breath, biting the thumbs of both her hands and then pressing them to each shoulder.

'Kami please help me. I hope I can control it.'

The bandages tear away as she undoes the seal she has placed on herself, black lines appearing on her arms momentarily before they disappear.

"Shi, shi shi. How fasssscinating."

The voice sends quivers through her spine.

"Let's go, you bastard." She replies with a growl, and when he approaches her again, she matches his pace. Flipping so that she is balanced on her hands, she kicks him in the abdomen and then batters him with several kicks until she is back on her feet, wakizashi in hand.

"You ffffffight like a real swordsman."

He tries to grab her wrist and she cuts his hand off with the blade, lightning quick. It's useless, because his hand grows back.

His hand grabs her throat, and she hasn't seen it coming. Her wakizashi is thrown from her hand as well.

"FUCK!" She chokes out, bringing her elbow down on his arm. It has no effect on him, and he grins at her.

"Shi, shi, shi." He laughs. Michiko narrows her eyes dangerously, and before bringing her elbow down again, she feels the skin of her arm tear. With a scream, she brings it down forcefully, impaling his forearm with a sharpened bone. He howls in pain, pulling away from her, tearing his arm at the elbow to escape her.

"How can it be? Who are you?" He hisses at her as his arm grows back slowly.

Michiko doesn't reply, dashing towards him and vanishing just before she is head-to-head with him. Sensing her approach from behind, he whips around only to be impaled by several pieces of bone that pierce him like thick needles.

With half his body shredded, a few pieces of bone embedded in his face, he stares at her with a frown that grows into a grin.

"A Kaguya in this place? Did you betray Kirigakure?" He tilts his head, observing the confusion his words bring to her face.

"K…Kaguya?"

Only in this moment of faltering, the white man seizes his chance and lunges at her with speed she cannot possibly react to. His body seems to expand, as if he were free flowing matter, and encase her until she can't breathe. Michiko tries to tear him off her, only succeeding when she uses her kekkei genkai- much like previous times, the words surface to her memory.

"Shikotsumyaku!"

He observes apprehensively as bone pierces through her skin and clothes, pushing through her flak jacket until she resembles a porcupine.

Recoiling, he releases her and pushes himself until he is very far from her. His body is punctured and although he is still healing, the process is much slower.

"Formidable." He comments. Michiko flinches as the bones return and her skin begins to heal itself. She pushes herself onto her feet, and her eyes are rimmed with dark, red lines that weren't there before.

"I am Guruguru. What is your name?" The white man asks.

Panting, Michiko begins to edge towards Konoha, mustering her strength to run. She has picked up her wakizashi, and sheathes it slowly, never tearing her eyes off the white man that calls himself Guruguru.

'If he follows me to Konoha, it'll be dangerous.' She is torn between going to her village to fight or staying here. Her mind wracks itself for a solution.

"Michiko." She answers finally, resting her palms on her knees. Her entire body aches, her shirt and jacket are torn in many places, her skin is littered in bright red, thick lines of skin. She watches him carefully, a plan formulating itself in her mind. He heals much slower when pierced with bone.

"Kaguya Michiko." He purrs. Michiko frowns.

"No. Sarutobi Michiko." And in a flash, she disappears, reappearing behind the man with her katana in hand. He hasn't fully healed, so she pierces him through his chest and forces his body to his knees and the sword into the ground. She releases the hilt with shaky palms. With great effort, she makes the hand seals for her next move.

"One Hundred Needles." She whispers, directing her palms towards him as bone-needles emerge and embed themselves deep into his body and threading themselves into the ground.

'This better work.'

"This…This is uncomfortable. Releasssse me!" He demands, struggling to pull bits of himself free. The more he succeeds, the more he inevitably shreds himself.

"Not today, Guruguru." Staggering back, Michiko turns towards Konoha and begins to limp towards it, the ground trembling a little less than when she left the temple. She wonders how much time has passed in this encounter, and her heart begins to hammer erratically. Hot tears begin to well in her eyes from desperation and fear.

She thinks of her uncle, her aunt. Of Asuma and Kurenai, and Team Ro. And Kakashi.

'Please be alive. Please, please, please, please.'

A combination of fear, courage, apprehension begin to stir, and once her body feels less sore, she begins to sprint. The muscles of her legs burn but she continues. Her lip stings as she hisses, "Come on Michiko. Pull through."

Her vision blurs. The panic of passing out sends a flare of adrenaline that gives her the boost she needs. Throwing her weight from one leg to the other, she musters some chakra to travel faster and soon enough, Konoha looms into view.

'I need to reach Konoha, I need to find everyone. I need them. Please.'

She is pleading, in her heart, to every entity that controls reality. Although the nine-tails is gone, the village has been reduced to ruins and the air is thick with dust, smoke and blood.

There is only chaos where the gate should be. It is partially destroyed, and the street along has been reduced to rubble.

Slowing to a walk, she clambers through, her breath hitching and faltering when she sees the bodies of shinobi littered through the broken concrete.

"No…" Tears stream down her face as she walks faster, eventually breaking into a run as she desperately locates her family, there isn't even a faint trace of anyone. The village is empty- or it is dead.

She tries to seek out Team Ro, but senses nothing. Fearing the worst, she turns towards the Uchiha compound, to pick up on Itachi's chakra, followed by several other Uchihas. Shisui's chakra isn't amongst them either.

'Just the Uchiha? Did they…did they do this?' Hesitating again, Michiko feels terribly confused. She pauses at the entrance to the compound, peering into it fearfully. She takes a step back and turns to go to the Hokage's building. Her gaze meets that of a tall, dark-haired boy. His face is masked by a swirling white mask, and he is dressed in black.

'Fuck.'

"Who are you?" She shouts, wakizashi in hand again. She regrets leaving her katana behind. The man disappears slowly, as if he is being swallowed up by the air, and within milliseconds, he is standing right before her.

Through the white mask, a single eye swirls red and black. Her hands go limp by her side, the blade slips from her hands. Her mouth parts and her lids feel heavy. She is trapped.

It is as if she has blinked, and when she opens her eyes, she is in a world that is entirely red. She is laying on the ground and the masked man is driving a blade through her. The pain that courses through her entices a scream, but it doesn't end there- the swords never end. One after the other, he impales her until she looks like a needle-cushion. Her body, filled with swords, is reduced to nothing but disparate bits of flesh.

It continues.