The Two Fawns:
Chapter 8: A Demon of the Hidden Mist
Being surrounded by mist was not fun, being surrounded by chakra infused mist was plain irritating with a clear capital I. Not only was Yoshiko straining her eyes to make sense of what was five meters in front of her hands, she had to concentrate twice as hard to sense out her opponent. Meeting Zabuza Momochi was supposed to be extremely scary with her trembling in fear like the other three Genin in front of her while he happily announced that there were eight ways to kill them. She was only scared when the Killing Intent came, her breaths coming out short and her palms were beginning to sweat as she thought about how screwed they were with only Kakashi to save them. If Kakashi got himself captured or died, they would be easily slaughtered by Zabuza Momochi. When she thought about the ways she would die, she wanted to simply run away. Yoshiko Nara was no Naruto, she was not brave or noble like him, she would rather save her own skin. After all, she had a sense of self-preservation...
Bad thoughts! She cursed herself for it. Don't be a coward! But who wouldn't be one in front of a Legendary Swordsman? She's not an idiot. She was a master at running away but she could not abandon her fellow comrades! Tazuna could die in a hole for all she cared but she was not going to let people who hadn't done anything to her die. Clawing her palms till they bled, she struggled to maintain rational thought. Think positive! Come on, take control, Nara Yoshiko! Umm... Could she just drop this whole mission like a hot potato? Think, what would she have done if Shikamaru was the one in danger? The answer came quickly - analyze the situation and buy time.
The Killing Intent in the air was a lot more intense than what she was used to, but being exposed to it frequently during her training made her slightly more resistant than the three Genin who were obviously still unable to function due to fear. Raido-sensei had used it in his Genjutsu-training for her. To fight off the Killing Intent required two simple steps: a clear, logical head and a calm mind. Killing Intent was meant to intimidate, it would not kill her... Yoshiko repeated the mantra several times in her head.
Zabuza Momochi was not a man with low intelligence. He was afterall a member of the Seven Swordsmen of Kirigakure. Legendary swordsman or not, any sane ninja would take advantage of the element of surprise, plus that was how his iconic Silent Killing worked anyway. Note the word Silent in the mentioned technique. Rather than being silent, he was talking way too much. Strange. Which brought her to her next point and question, what was Zabuza's main motive? She needed background information to make a hypothesis. However, to form a hypothesis meant that she needed Zabuza to continue giving information or Kakashi if he knew about the exploits of the missing ninja.
Strange as it sounds, Yoshiko felt that Zabuza was not seriously trying to fight them at all. More like the man wanted some entertainment and intellectual conversation with fellow ninjas, she mused bitterly. Surely Gato would have told Zabuza to kill them all quickly, but Zabuza appeared to be more interested in holding a conversation than killing the lot of them right now. That led her to conclude that the businessman was most likely had a brain the size of a bird's egg and was stupid enough to cause Zabuza to seek intelligent conversations with his supposed opponents. And perhaps Zabuza didn't like his employer that much.
Might as well take advantage of it. Yoshiko was not a front line attacker, but she would attack if given an opportunity to. The cloudy weather of the Wave Country gave rise to long shadows and shadows are friends of the Nara Clan. Zabuza's excessive rambling and not moving from his position had allowed her to sniff him out and currently, her shadow was weaving around the trees that he was hiding in. Damn, her chakra itself was a struggle for her to control with her fear always trying to crawl back in. Take control, she repeated in her mind.
Yoshiko resisted the temptation to fist pump the air in triumphant when her shadow connected with Zabuza's. Zabuza was stunned, hence losing his concentration on the mist technique that he was maintaining via chakra. The mist started to grow thin, revealing the swordsman who was caught by her shadow.
"Shadow Possession Technique success," She said almost smugly when she felt the Killing Intent become replaced with surprise. She was not idealistic enough to think that her jutsu would be able to hold Zabuza in place for long. She had thirty seconds max for Kakashi to get his team in order before he would have to save her from getting her head cut off by Zabuza. Might as well get the giant sword as far as possible from him.
Furrowing her brow in concentration, she forced the mist ninja to toss it to the other side of the large clearing, well she was not aiming for the other side, but Zabuza was quite strong apparently. Now he would have to get pass Kakashi to reunite with his weapon. Sure Zabuza Momochi would be able to fight without his famed blade but surely not at full capacity right? Yoshiko knew she was simply able to buy time for Kakashi to launch his attack; Zabuza was, at least, an A-rank ninja, there was no way she was going to hope to be able to defeat him. Disarm him, yes, but she needed him to not be focussed on her. In a way, she needed a strong bait and Kakashi happened to be the bait she needed. One might wonder why she didn't take the opportunity to kill Zabuza with his own sword, she would only say that trying to move Zabuza's body was difficult, tossing the sword consisted of one movement with all that resistance that almost made her lose control of her jutsu. Stabbing himself required three movements: Firstly, Zabuza had to grab the sword. Secondly, he had to lift the sword. Thirdly, he had to push the sword into himself. Zabuza would fight tooth and nail against her if she tried that and Yoshiko wasn't sure she would be able to hold out. Her father might but he was a powerful Jonin while she was only a Genin with five years worth of experience with the Shadow Possession technique.
True to her calculations, her shadow retreated back to herself once she fell to her knees gasping at the amount of chakra the jutsu had siphoned off her rather limited reserves. Kakashi jumped into the fray, now engaging Zabuza in a Taijutsu fight while the rest of Team Seven gathered around Tazuna in a protective circle. She could bid her time for Kakashi to wear out Zabuza before she poisons him.
Grabbing three of her poisons: the paralysis poison, the sleep poison, and the laxative poison, she quickly dipped her senbon with them. They would last for at least a month without an antidote, that she was sure of. The main ingredient of the antidote can only be found in Konoha's forests. (More accurately the Yamanaka-Nara-Akimichi Forest.) Hopefully, she could nick Zabuza with one of the poisons. They were not fatal enough to kill but it was enough to bring enough hassle to prevent the man from coming back for Round 2 if he should survive Kakashi. Having a bad case of excessive bowel movement was not something that could be taken lightly.
~Page Break~
"So we've got a Nara brat with us. Lazy and cowardly bastards. Hard to control. Kakashi are you sure she won't flee on you?" Zabuza sneered at Kakashi while the silver haired man deflected another one of his blows with a kunai.
Kakashi could see the young Nara child visibly stiffen at that accusation. He had restored the faith in his own team but had forgotten about the young addition in the form of a Nara girl who seemed content on being in the background while his team bickered back and forth each other on the way to the Wave Country.
"Yoshiko, I have faith in your abilities and loyalty to my team and I will protect you with my life," Kakashi said evenly to the child. Nara Yoshiko, being one of the few ninjas with a brain who know their limits very well would have wanted to do the logical thing. Kakashi knew the logical thing to do when outclassed in abilities was to flee and he would not blame Yoshiko if she chose that option. Being conned into a mission that was far beyond their own abilities meant that the Konoha Shinobi could choose to abandon it with the Shinobi Code of Conduct designed by the Second Hokage to prevent unnecessary deaths in young and inexperienced ninjas.
Kakashi knew he was being selfish by wording his assurance to the young medic that would bind her to his team during this mission. Other than Naruto, no one in this team could heal themselves. He required a medic to support the mission and help heal the injured.
Kakashi shifted his body so as to ensure that he stood in front of the young medic. Knowing Zabuza, he would take out Yoshiko first to prevent her from healing anyone else in the team. Most assassination teams aim for the healers first, Kakashi knew that from experience where he would kill enemy medical ninjas quickly with his signature technique. Zabuza would know that Yoshiko was the medic by her not-so-subtle medical bag she carried around her obi.
"Sharingan no Kakashi, I would advise you to concentrate on your fight against me!" Zabuza's water clone swung his heavy sword towards Kakashi, barely giving the man enough time to dodge and pull Yoshiko out of the way when the real Zabuza reached out to stab her when she evaded the clones' initial attacks.
They landed onto a puddle of water. Water? The water felt denser than normal. It was impossible to move in it. Yoshiko wiggled against his weight crushing on top of her, her eyes showed wide panic like she knew this technique from one of her mother's jutsu scrolls. Could it be...
"Water prison jutsu." Zabuza appeared before them, forming the much-dreaded hand signs and encasing both Yoshiko and himself in the water prison. Kakashi knew that they were screwed from the moment both he and Yoshiko were caught. Zabuza killed two birds with one stone: he took out the strongest in the team and he took the healer who could heal the wounds of his Genin team out of commission. The water prison was as strong as steel, Kakashi could see his reluctant companion searching for a shadow in the water prison to no avail. The heavy water had become the steel-like walls keeping them trapped, hence, Kakashi shifted himself away from the little girl to avoid accidentally breaking her bones with his weight.
"Run and get out of here! You don't stand a chance against him once Yoshiko and I are captured!" Kakashi yelled out from inside the water prison, praying fervently that his stubborn team would listen to him for once.
Unfortunately, the two boys of his team refused to listen to logic and insisted on fighting. Sakura being the only one left on the team with a brain, moved Tazuna out of Zabuza's reach, never leaving his side for one second. Smart girl. Kakashi could see a potential Chunin team leader in her; cool headed and not getting lost in the heat of a battle, she would ensure her squad mates' survival, only if Kakashi could get her to lose the infatuation with the Uchiha in the team.
~Page Break~
Yoshiko was frightened to be in the water prison. It was almost like she was trapped in a ticking time bomb. The water that was previously up to her knees were currently up to her neck. She didn't like to feel like she was drowning or trapped. It felt too much like her final months as Jean, trapped and helpless in the death hospital room with her machines for company. An oxygen mask was what she needed to even breathe. Control, she needed control. Desperately, she tried to create the Air Bubble Technique that was taught to Academy students. When she formed an air bubble the size of a goldfish bowl, she breathed in the fresh air made out of her chakra and felt a lot better. At least, she could breathe by herself. Still quivering slightly, she looked around for a distraction to take her mind off that memory.
Glancing at the water around Kakashi, she noticed that it was a horrifying shade of red. He got it when he shielded her from Zabuza's attack. Guilt quickly bubbled up in her, replacing the terror at being trapped and helpless. He was bleeding out very quickly, a burst blood vessel for the blood to gush out like a broken pipe. Hands glowing green, she motioned to Kakashi on showing her his wound. He obliged quickly, knowing that with his arm half torn out and the rate he was bleeding at, he would be light-headed from blood loss in a few minutes.
Yoshiko promptly started to heal the Jonin's wound. Taking another look at the wound, she could see why the blood was gushing out that quickly. Not only were the blood vessels completely severed, there was a piece of metal shard stuck in his arm. To continue the healing process meant that she had to pull it out. When she reached around for her syringe of anesthetic, his hand around her wrist stopped her.
No anesthetic? That would mean he will feel her pulling through his muscles to get the shard out of him. The shard would not give him a clean cut when she was done and she would have to heal him using Mystical Palm. Still she went through with it.
Concentrating her chakra to her fingertips, she formed a thin thread of chakra. Once she attached it to the shard of metal, she pulled it out, ripping apart his muscle tissue and a few more capillaries. Kakashi didn't even flinch when she did that. Now the worst part was over. She simply had to close up his wounds and perhaps give him a blood replenishing pill and he would be good to go.
Healing Kakashi's wounds were a piece of cake for Yoshiko, but she still place her 100% to the task as she knows that her patient wanted her to be done as quickly as possible. (She could heal an injury but if she did not concentrate, she might screw up and then she had to redo the whole thing.) Time was of the essence here hence, she could not afford to redo anything. Placing another steady steam of chakra, she managed to heal the damaged tissues and close the wound in a record time of one minute. Grabbing a pill, she tossed it at him. 'Blood replenishment', she signed to him.
Contrary to popular belief that the Blood Replenishment Pill would recover ones' blood to full capacity upon consumption; the pill actually induced the production of red blood cells in the bone marrow causing blood cells production to twice its regular speed till the regular red blood cell count was reached. This would then send a form of a negative feedback to stop blood cell production. The process itself would often take a few hours to be fully completed. Hence, most ninjas often mistook that for immediate recovery.
Well, she was not going to complain. The pill did its magic. Kakashi who was ash pale just moments ago had reverted back to his regular porcelain skin tone. It was quite difficult to see through the water prison and the newly made mist, hence, Yoshiko had no choice but to sense out her teammates' locations. Kakashi definitely had the senses of a dog with him being able to smell and see in the thick mist and the water prison obstructing their vision. Strangely knowing that Kakashi was with her and she was not alone made her slightly relieved.
Suddenly she sensed Naruto being flung over by Sasuke and him spinning like a shuriken before leaping at Zabuza. Something made Zabuza release the water prison, allowing both her and Kakashi to quickly flee the Swordsman. Naruto grabbed her and placed her next to Sakura.
"Yoshiko, you alright? Hey, answer me!" Naruto barked at the currently stunned brunette who stared back at him blankly. Naruto sensing that she must be in shock quickly shook her a few times before giving her a comforting pat on her shoulder. Being trapped in a small area with the weird Kakashi-sensei without getting used to him first must have been scary for his brunette friend.
According to Shikamaru, Yoshiko was scared of small enclosed corners where she could not get out of easily. Naruto had witnessed that fear first-hand when she had cried out for her father when she had accidentally locked herself up in the large wardrobe while playing hide-and-seek. Kiba had quickly found her with the help of Akamaru while Shikamaru had gone to get his dad. Naruto hadn't forgotten the pale and shaking six-year-old Yoshiko who struggled to get a hold of herself. Yoshiko never played with them after that incident, often preferring to help prepare snacks for the boys with her mother.
"I'm fine Naruto. Thank you." She said once she regained her bearings. She was less pale now, Naruto noted. In each of her hands, she held on three needles. Strangely the Killing Intent from Kakashi comforted her, it gave her the knowledge that he was going to go all out to protect them and that the four of them were not helpless little bunnies that would soon be slaughtered by Zabuza.
"Naruto, do not touch it. They contain poison. Unless you wish to suffer for an entire month that is." Yoshiko said calmly. The two Jonins were currently engaged in an intense fight with various showy ninjutsu that Yoshiko could only hope to muster in her dreams. Two giant water dragons the height of a giant Hashirama tree and the width of the thickest pillar in the Hokage's building attacked each other, destroying each other and creating a large tidal wave as a result. They were on a whole new level, moving too fast for an average Genin, no, Chunin to even keep up! Still, Yoshiko observed the duo carefully, slowly gathering her chakra to prepare herself to catch Zabuza at an opportune moment and releasing him once he became poisoned. With the rate the fight was going, she had to catch Zabuza when he was a short distance from Kakashi. Her poisoning had to be subtle without anyone noticing. It had to be introduced quickly, mixed into Zabuza's blood before she removed the needles via the threads she had looped around her wrist. The thread could act as a medium to transport the needles back to herself.
She could sense another chakra presence waiting somewhere in the trees. Unfortunately, he or she was not in her shadow's range. Her shadow had a limited range dependent on the shadows already available on the ground. That must be Zabuza's ally. It made no sense for a Hunter-ninja to wait in the sidelines for that long. Hunter-ninjas of the Mist would often step into a fight and kill their prey themselves rather than allow a foreign ninja defeat their prey as a ninja's body was a rich treasure chest of information on the village and its techniques. The foreign ninja might learn all those secrets by defeating their ninja.
Another point of view would be that the Hunter-ninja was waiting for Kakashi and Zabuza to weaken themselves before he or she stepped into the fight. That enabled the Hunter-ninja to get both Zabuza and Kakashi of the Sharingan. Kakashi was on the bounty list of many nations with a worth of millions of ryo. This meant that she had to protect Kakashi and step in before he completely collapsed. She had to make sure that he did not collapse from Chaka exhaustion and that he can be easily revived. The question right at that point was how.
Poison him. Her mind immediately said back to her. A light dose of sleep poison would be ideal and she would always have the antidote at hand lest the Hunter-ninja tried attacking them. Currently, the two Jonin ninjas were engaged in a fight with primarily Taijutsu. Zabuza was ranting about how Kakashi was merely copying him like a monkey. Perfect opportunity. Her aim was trained to be perfect with her senbon with the hours spent in perfecting her aim with them.
She threw the six containing three types of poison onto Zabuza before concentrating her chakra to hold him in place for two seconds to allow the poison to sink in. (She wouldn't have to do that if she wasn't trying to leave evidence of her doing) They connected with his arms, the Shadow Possession Technique holding him in place via the threads. (Ahem, credits to Shikamaru on the strategy, he taught her that once when they were sparring with each other. Well he gave the inspiration for it.)
"Shadow Possession Technique success," She muttered to herself softly. Once that was said, she released Zabuza immediately. Kakashi seemed to have caught on her ploy and helped her hold the man in place to not make it appear suspicious. She concluded it must have been the Sharingan on Kakashi that saw her chakra flowing in the threads. After that, Kakashi knocked Zabuza out with a particularly vicious punch on his head and a few stabs with his kunai knife.
What Kakashi was not prepared for was the familiar hold of the Shadow Possession on himself when he was about to go for the kill. A single needle hit him on the arm before it was pulled back by the owner's thread. He wouldn't have seen those needles of hers if not for the Sharingan ability to see chakra due to the thick mist hindering their vision and the fact that the needles were a lot smaller than regular senbon. They almost looked like surgical needles used in syringes. What was the little Nara thinking?
He could feel himself become slightly light-headed, like how Chakra Exhaustion for him was like. Zabuza was no doubt poisoned by the young medic but why would she poison him as well?
'Hunter ninja, less than ten meters away', she tapped at him when she caught him with her sleeves hiding both their hands. Now that Kakashi was not concentrating on the fight, he could distinctively sense the Hunter ninja. 'We need you to be able to fight if the Hunter Ninja wants to kill you. Conserve your chakra.' She tapped into his palm before he felt the Chakra Transfer Technique being performed. It was slow, like filling up a bathtub with a teaspoon, but it was slowly working.
Without Yoshiko's chakra transfer, Kakashi knew that he could only pull off another A-rank jutsu before he collapsed from Chakra Exhaustion. Using the Sharingan repeatedly had its consequences. Currently, he was at a quarter capacity of his reserves with the little girl's chakra flowing into him. Most medics would perform the Chakra Transfer Technique with at least four more members to make it effectively, but Kakashi knew he had only one medic and a young one without high chakra reserves. Beggars can't be choosers. He made sure to not take too much out of her. He took just enough for him to be able to fight off another ninja before he shrugged off the chakra being fed to him.
Sure enough, he felt a lot better. But the poison was still acting on him. Discreetly, Yoshiko passed him the antidote. Quickly he finished the whole vial of colorless liquid that reminded him a lot of overly sugar water. The antidote took time to work, he concluded when the light-headed feeling faded away slowly. When he moved in the kill again, the Hunter Ninja chose to make his presence known via a senbon needle being embedded into Zabuza's neck. Meanwhile, Yoshiko was busy tending to the injuries sustained by Sasuke. He checked Zabuza's pulse: nothing. He was dead.
"Thank you. I have been tracking this man for a long time." The Hunter Ninja carried Zabuza's still body before disappearing with a whirl of mist. Kakashi could see signs of Chakra Exhaustion in his little medic where she leaned onto Sasuke for support. The raven haired boy strangely didn't push her away except calling her 'dead-weight' jokingly. That joke did not go unnoticed.
Very quickly, the group headed off towards Tazuna's house. A nagging feeling was bugging him, something about that Hunter Ninja didn't sit right with him. His instincts told him something was very wrong about the situation but he was unsure what. Perhaps talking to mini-Shikaku or Sakura might give him some more information or ideas. Naras were supposed to be very smart and excellent at deduction. Sakura was also the smartest Kunoichi he had seen in her class. Three brains working together were better than one anyway.
~Page Break~
Yoshiko felt extremely dizzy after healing Sasuke. Currently, she was using the said boy as a clutch. How embarrassing. Back in Academy, she would be the one supporting his weight when they were doing their vertical see-saw on the tree during lunchtime. Currently, he was the one supporting her weight.
"Heh. Whose the dead weight now?" He teased her with a knowing smirk on his face.
"Hn." Great, now their roles were reversed. He was the one poking fun at her! That stupid bastard was enjoying it way too much with that smirk on his face.
"By the way, did you know that you gained a lot of weight?" Sasuke teased her again.
"Please, I'm so much lighter than you!" She hissed back at him, quickly taking offense at the jab towards her weight.
Yoshiko could distinctly hear Kakashi laughing at the two of them. Well, more like laughing at her. When she tried to support herself, note the tried, she had fallen down and landed unceremoniously on her bottom (creating a small crater on the dirt ground), further proving the Uchiha's point.
"Oi Uchiha! If you are as light as you say, you should be as fast too. Let's race to Tazuna's! If you win, I'm letting you call me Dead-weight for this whole mission. If I win, I'm going to call you Duck's Ass!" With that, she practically fell off in her bid to gain a head start. She ate a food pill for better measure. It was not supposed to be a fair race anyway, it was a free for all race.
"That's cheating!" Sasuke shouted back at the brunette girl to hear only the wind. She's fast! Sasuke started to run too. She always won all the races they had when they were younger but in terms of stamina and long runs, he would do much better than her.
Naruto too wanted to join in. Hence, he took off in the direction where Yoshiko had ran from when Sasuke started running. "Hey Dead-last, you're going to come in last!" The raven haired boy yelled at the blonde while they ran. Clearly Sasuke had an advantage due to longer hours spent training up his strength, stamina, and speed.
Sasuke could see the brunette in front of him. True enough she was making use of the ninja trick of leaping on tree branches to up her speed. "Sasuke?" She looked slightly surprised, looking down from her tree.
"Hn. I did speed training over the years as well, dead weight." He sounded extremely smug. Of course, he had trained, perhaps the Most-Trained-Ninja-of-the-Year Award should go to him.
Yoshiko simply upped her speed with a burst of chakra into her legs before waving at him goodbye and laughing all the way. She wasn't using a lot of chakra?! Sasuke thought in alarm. Sasuke added more chakra to his leg muscles and ran forward. Naruto was already at the same pace as him. He could not lose to Dead-last!
Yoshiko stopped at the front o the house and soon enough the two boys arrived both as red as each other and panting. She watched amused as the boys argued who was first. She was totally forgotten by the two boys. That was for the best. She had better things to do than to be the babysitter for them or to become entangled in their stupid rivalry.
She had narrowly escaped one of Gai's contests with Kakashi; Gai had wanted her to be the judge and see which one of them could finish the most number of mochi in a minute. She was unlucky enough to be in the house when Gai and Kakashi came over with her mother's weekly shopping. Her mother had thought it was a good idea to pick up some more fresh fish at the opposite side of the market. Yoshiko shuddered slightly when the duo had all but cleaned up her one week supply of mochi. Personally, she had two sticks of mochi per day. That was a lot considering the fact that she had to prepare mochi for Kotetsu and Izumo as well. (Both men ate, at least, five sticks of mochi each daily. She kind of sympathized with their boring job as gate guards. Hence, she made the effort to pass them a whole box of mochi to pass the week with.)
Yoshiko could see the budding of a Gai-Kakashi rivalry between Naruto and Sasuke, even if the two flat out refused to admit it. They were like an old married couple at times. Sorry Sakura, she thought with sympathy to the pink haired girl, Sasuke might be more interested in Naruto than her.
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For those that could see the reason why Shikaku had opposed to Yoshiko working in T&I, give yourselves a chocolate chip cookie! :)
Well about Yoshiko's weight... I would say Kakashi found her extremely light is due to the fact of him being an adult. She's actually a bit lighter than pre-Shippuden Sasuke. This is quite reasonable as she doesn't do dieting (too lazy) and she likes to eat sweet things mochi if you guys haven't noticed. It's kind of fattening even with all that training she does as a ninja. Nope, she won't be like Chouji, but she will have quite a bit more meat as compared to Ino and Sakura, maybe around Tenten's size.