Venatori
Summary: Kankuro was a few minutes too late, and Kiba died. Now, Shino and Hinata work to ensure that no more traitors get away alive. Divergence from chapter 212.
The Laughing Phoenix does not own Naruto and makes no profit from this work, other than her sense of accomplishment.
WARNING: Massive spoilers in future chapters. Character death. Blood, gore, and questionable use of medical knowledge and techniques. Some OOC-ness.
Invisible Identities
"Well, I'm afraid I've only got a place for Hana-san. It's still the slow season and until it picks up then I simply don't have a need for another worker."
Shino nodded as Hinata gently squeezed his hand. "I understand, Fukui-san."
Hinata leaned forward a bit. "Fukui-san, do you know if there's a place nearby that's hiring? If Aki can find a job here, then-"
"Hana-chan, don't base your taking the job on me." Shino interrupted, smiling at her. "I'll find something."
Fukui Shizuka, the owner and matron of the ryokan, considered the pair a moment. Hana and Aki had shown up the day before, requesting work. They'd carried a letter of introduction from an acquaintance of hers, and had told her that there weren't any jobs in their village. She had a suspicion that there was something else there, but for now she wouldn't pry into the cousin's business. "There's a shop down the road run by a friend of mine, Ito Ren. Just the other day he mentioned something about finding an extra pair of hands. I can send you to him, Aki-san, if you would like a job close by."
Shino bowed slightly. "That would be wonderful, Fukui-san."
Ito Ren did indeed have a job for Aki, and by the end of the day the two were settling down in their new spaces – Hana in the small dormitory shared by the girls at the ryokan, Aki in the back room of Ito Ren's small store.
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"Hana-chan!" one of the girls called, ducking her head into the larger linen cupboard. "Your cousin's outside."
Hinata looked up from the towels she was folding and putting on the shelves. "Thank you Naoko-chan." She put the last of the stack on the shelf, then hurried out to the front door, slipping on a pair of geta as she stepped outside. "Aki?"
Shino was indeed waiting outside. "Hey, Hana-chan. I've got a free minute and thought I'd come by and check on you."
Hinata gave him Hana's shy smile. "I'm doing fine. How's your work?"
Shino shrugged, moving to lean against the porch. "It's okay. Lots of fetching and carrying, but Ito-san's a pretty nice boss and I've met a couple of guys my age who work on the same street."
"That's good," Hinata smiled.
"Hey, Aki!" A boy shouted, trotting up the road. "D'you think you could come give me a hand with something for a minute? Norio wandered off somewhere and Ito said he'd given you an hour's break so…" He trailed to a halt as he jogged to a stop next to Shino, staring at Hinata. "Dang man, you move fast!" He said, slapping the other boy on the shoulder. "You've been here less than a week and you've already got a girlfriend!"
Hinata giggled as Shino gave an exasperated groan. "Hana-chan, this is one of the guys I was telling you about, Kazuhiro. Kazuhiro, this is my cousin Hana. We grew up together."
"Nice to meet you, Kazuhiro-kun." Hinata said around her giggles.
"Pleasure's all mine, pretty Hana." Kazuhiro said, bowing exaggeratedly. "Ow, Aki, what the hell!" Shino had bopped him on the head.
"I guess I'll see you later, Hana," Shino told her, giving her a one-armed hug before he turned away. "Come on Kazuhiro, you said you wanted me to help with something?"
"You never told me you had a pretty cousin!" she could hear Kazuhiro berating Shino as they walked away.
"And have you pestering her? No way!"
Hinata slipped the piece of paper into out of her collar as she turned to go inside. Quickly memorizing the time and location, she balled it up and dropped it into the firewood laid out under the big laundry tub, waiting for the next batch of soiled sheets and towels, as she passed.
Late that night, Shino slipped quietly out of the little store Aki worked at and made his way to the edge of the ryokan. Hinata joined him minutes later. "Any word?" Shino whispered, keeping an eye on the surrounding woods.
Hinata shook her head. "Whispers, nothing substantial. I know there's a large party due to arrive in two weeks, but I didn't catch a name."
"That should be them," Shino muttered to himself. Hinata nodded. "I've not heard anything myself, but Ito-san doesn't talk much."
"I'll keep watching," Hinata murmured. "You might want to keep coming by though. If it's an emergency I'll come find you but Fukui-san's not terribly fond of the girls going wandering."
Shino nodded. "I'll see you later then." He slipped away into the bushes, Hinata taking another moment to survey the area before returning to the ryokan dorms.
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Kazuhiro dropped onto the fence near Shino, wiping his arm across his face. "It's waaay too hot today." He glanced over at Shino. "Damn, Aki, aren't you boiling in that shirt? Go ahead and take it off, man."
Shino looked up, Aki's nervous smile on his face. "I'm fine, Kazuhiro, really."
Norio snorted. "At least roll up your sleeves or something. I'm getting hot just watching you wander around in long sleeves."
"It's okay guys, honest."
"Aw, c'mon!" Kazuhiro reached out to tug Shino's sleeve up. The chuunin had to remind himself for a minute that he was Aki, a fifteen-year-old civilian, but then the other part of his persona had come into play, and Kazuhiro was staring at his arm, stunned.
Shino needed an excuse to keep himself covered. The access points for his hive were too unusual-looking to be explained away as a normal scar, and there was always the chance that someone would recognize them for what they were, much like the unique color of Hinata's eyes. So, after some discussion, he and Hinata had decided to hide them in plain sight.
"Shit, Aki…" Norio muttered, walking closer to get a better look.
"What happened?" Kazuhiro demanded.
Shino gently pulled his arm out of Kazuhiro's grasp and pulled the sleeve back down over the plethora of fake scars that crisscrossed his arm. Hinata had done them the day before they arrived in town, using body paints and the occasional three-dimensional scar and applying an oil-based adhesive to keep them from washing off. Made of a combination of wax and rendered animal bones, they looked incredibly real. Hinata's disguise had been easier – Anko had gotten her hands on some brown contact lenses.
"My father died when I was really little. Mom had died the year before, so I was sent to his brother. My uncle is…" he trailed off a little before continuing on. "Not a nice man."
"No kidding." Kazuhiro muttered. "Aki, do those…" He gestured vaguely with one hand, indicating the other arm and Shino's back.
Shino retrieved Aki's nervous smile. "Yeah." He let the awkward silence build for a minute before he broke it. "So what else do we have to do today?"
"Aki..." Kazuhiro asked softly as they walked back to the store, "Does Hana…?"
"No," Shino shook his head. "He wanted to marry her off to the richest man he could find, and," he let a harsh smile cross his face, "I'm good at getting in the way."
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A week and a half after Hana and Aki arrived in the village, the ryokan was plunged into an uproar. The girls were told to prepare for a large party of guests and were kept busy scrubbing, washing, polishing, and dusting. Hinata quietly passed the information on to Shino, and the pair settled in to wait.
On a particularly rainy day, a large group rode up to the ryokan. The girls were kept busy fetching, carrying, and serving, while Shino and some of the other boys from town had been recruited to help with the horses. Finally everyone – a minor nobleman whose family were merchants on the side, his young wife, and assorted servants and guards – was settled and the bustle died down to something approximating normality.
Hinata kept her eyes open and her head down as she moved through the ryokan, carrying food from the kitchens to the dining room the servants and guards shared. Their contact was somewhere in the party that had just come in. Now all they needed to do was find them.
This was Hinata's part of the operation. As Shino had not managed to get a job in the ryokan, it was her responsibility to make contact with the Konoha agent planted somewhere in the nobleman's household. The expected reports were late, and while their superior officers were pretty sure nothing had gone wrong, they wanted to take a closer look. Since the nobleman was considered a low risk, Tsunade and Ryouken had felt confident enough in the abilities of two hunter-nin trainees to send Shino and Hinata out.
Over the next twenty-four hours Hinata observed the group of guests. She cut out most of the guards fairly quickly – there were only five of them, and three appeared to be new. The nobleman himself was out, as was his lady: her family was known to be distantly connected to the daimyo, and there was no way Konoha would have managed to make her an agent. That left the noble's valet, his secretary, his wife's maid, and the two veteran guards.
In the end, Hinata made her identification almost by accident. She'd been carrying towels down the hall when she passed by the small room the lady's maid had been assigned to. The woman had her back to the door, which was slightly open, and Hinata just managed to make out small spirals embroidered along her obi in red, the same color as the spirals on the chuunin and jounin flack jackets.
Suspicions piqued, she kept an eye on the woman for another twelve hours, picking up more tells – stylized leaves on her sleeves, the way she kept glancing sideways at the girls in the ryokan, and the way her movements were sometimes a little too smooth. Slipping into an empty storage room for a few minutes, Hinata slipped a hand under her collar and retrieved an insect Shino had left with her. Releasing it with soft instructions to stay out of sight, she went back to work.
That evening at around twilight the two met up at the gate to the ryokan. Hinata quietly passed on her thoughts, Shino listening. "I think we should approach her tonight," Hinata finished quietly. "I can't imagine it's anyone else."
Shino considered that for a moment, then nodded. "I will remain close." Reaching out, he gently rested a hand on Hinata's shoulder, letting insects trail out of his sleeve and into her clothes. "Be careful."
Catching sight of someone approaching Shino from behind, Hinata instituted a change of conversation. "When do you think your aunt will get back to you, Aki?"
Raising an eyebrow slightly in question, Shino did his best to play along. "I sent her a letter just before we arrived, so her reply should show up in the next week or so. Though, if she's moved since then, it might take longer."
"You've got an aunt?" A boy a little older than Shino stopped beside them. "Good evening," he nodded at Hinata. "You must be the one Kazuhiro calls 'Pretty Hana'. I'm Norio, I work just down the road from your cousin here."
"Nice to meet you," Hinata said, pulling out Hana's smile.
Shino shrugged. "My mom's much younger sister. She lives out near Nami, and last I heard she was housekeeper for a merchant. I thought I should let her know I was no longer living with my uncle."
"Ah," Norio nodded, "that makes sense."
"Did you need me for something, Norio?"
The older boy shrugged. "My mom told me to bring somebody extra to dinner tonight because she'd made too much curry. You interested?"
"Sure." Giving Hinata another one-armed hug, Shino turned back down the road to the center of the village. "See you later, Hana."
Later that evening, Hinata tapped on the door of the lady's maid's room, carrying a towel over one arm. When the woman opened the door, she bowed slightly. "The towel you requested, miss."
One eyebrow raised, the woman took the towel. "Thank you. What's your name again?"
"Hana, miss. Was there anything else you needed?"
"No Hana, thank you. You can go."
"Good night miss." As she walked away, Hinata resisted the temptation to switch on her Byakugan. She already knew what the woman would find in the folds of the towel – a leaf from one of the outside trees, a small spiral sliced into it.
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Sorting through the stockroom behind Ito-san's store, Shino worried. It wasn't that he didn't trust Hinata to handle this on her own, because he had every faith in his teammate's skills, but he didn't like being so far away if something went wrong and she needed backup. It had been a little over nine months since they had lost Kiba, but to Shino the wound was still raw.
Shino felt the tension leave his shoulders as one of the insects he'd left with Hinata landed on his collar, transferring everything it had observed since he'd placed it with his teammate. Hinata had made the first move. All that remained was to see what happened next.
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The next afternoon, Hinata was stopped as she walked down the hall by someone calling for Hana. Turning, she found the lady's maid standing behind her. "Yes miss?"
"My lady's not well, Hana. I need you to fetch some green tea from the kitchens, and then I've got an errand for you to run."
Turning away, Hinata did as she was told, fingers absently smoothing over the fabric of her obi, checking on the senbon tucked inside. When she tapped at the door to the noblewoman's rooms, the maid opened the door and took the tray. "Wait here a moment." Ducking inside the rooms and out of sight, the older woman was shortly back with a loosely folded stack of towels. "I'll need replacements for these."
Taking the towels down to the laundry, Hinata carefully unfolded them before adding them to the hamper. Her patience was rewarded when a scrap of thin paper fluttered from the third towel. Catching it, Hinata read it quickly before slipping it up her sleeve.
Tonight. 23.00. Outside.
Later that afternoon, when she slipped back to her room in the dorms to change her clothes, Hinata rolled the scrap of paper up as tightly as she could and tucked the end under so that it would stay that way. Coaxing one of Shino's insects from the fold of her sleeve, she passed the pellet over to it and sent it on its way back to its master.
Carrying fresh towels back to the noblewoman's rooms, Hinata smiled softly to herself. This was looking promising.
That night, Shino and Hinata met up half an hour before the meeting to do some brief recon. Finding no indications of a trap, they quickly decided that Hinata would speak with their contact alone, leaving Shino in place for backup if something went wrong. Shino faded into the bushes as the lady's maid approached.
"Hana." The woman said, nodding slightly in greeting.
"You wished to see me, miss?" Hinata replied softly.
"Let's dispense with the pleasantries, shall we?" The woman said, folding her arms across her chest. "Fire burns where the leaves dance."
"Yet still remains among the coals." The shoulders of both women loosened fractionally at the exchange of sign and countersign. "Your letters were late," Hinata continued, "and Auntie got worried."
The woman grimaced. "My apologies. The captain of the guard is relatively new and awkwardly eager to prove his worth." Slipping her arm up her sleeve, she withdrew a thin packet of papers. "This should ease her worries."
Bending her head slightly forward, Hinata let her hair fall forward to hide the distended veins as she activated her Byakugan. Ignoring the slight ache of the lenses she wore to hide her eye color, she examined the papers for possible traps. Finding none, she reached out a hand to take them. "Thank you for your courtesy. Do you require assistance?"
Passing the papers over, the woman shook her head. "I will have dealt with the issue by the time my next letter is due," she told them, then backed up two paces. "I will return to my room now. If you have any plans, please wait until I'm out of range."
Bowing slightly, Hinata smiled. "Of course. It has been a pleasure."
Both Shino and Hinata waited in place until their contact had returned to the ryokan and was inside before moving. Shino appeared next to Hinata, and she wordlessly handed over the papers. He would hide them until they were ready to leave.
The next day, the lady's maid treated Hinata in the same manner she'd treat any other maid she'd decided was useful, and in turn Hinata treated her like the guest she was. That did not stop her from drawing a breath of relief when the nobleman's party finally left two days later.
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Hinata was washing the floor when Naoko trotted by, carrying a pile of towels. It had been three days since the nobleman's party had left, and they were still cleaning up the last traces of their presence. "Fukui-san wants to talk to you, Hana-chan!" She called over her shoulder. "Your cousin's here too."
"Thanks Naoko-chan!" Hinata called back, pushing herself up and collecting her materials. Stowing the bucket and cloths, she made her way to the office, straightening her yukata as she did so. Entering, she knelt next to Shino in front of the table. The ryokan's owner knelt on the other side, looking over a letter.
"You called for me, Fukui-san?"
"That's correct, Hana," the older woman said, looking up. "Your cousin has received an interesting letter." She passed it across the desk.
Hinata scanned it rapidly, taking in the information. The letter had been written by Aki's mythical aunt, saying that she was glad he was out from under his uncle's roof and wanting to know if he would come to live with her. She claimed she could arrange for a job in the warehouse of the merchant she worked for, adding that she could probably help Hana find a job as an afterthought.
"Do-do you want to go to live with your aunt, Aki?" she asked, turning to Shino.
"I'd thought about it, but I decided I should clear it with you first." Shino told her, shrugging.
"She's your mother's only family, Aki."
"And we're sticking together, remember? We had this discussion." He turned to face the ryokan's matron. "If we go, we'd need to make arrangements for Hana's quitting."
The woman smiled, slightly amused. "Why don't you take a half-hour or so to talk it over and get back to me then. If Hana wishes to leave, then I will make the necessary arrangements. Though we would miss her if she went."
"Thank you, Fukui-san," Hinata said, standing and leading Shino to the door. "We will get out of your way."
Hinata led her teammate out to one of the porches of the ryokan where they could talk unmolested. "I take it this is our way out?" she murmured softly, checking for potential eavesdroppers.
Shino nodded. "That is correct. It seemed like the best way to make an exit, as it leaves the personas of Aki and Hana alive in case we need them again."
"Then we will inform Fukui-san that Hana will be leaving her service."
By the end of the week, the two of them were packed up and ready to leave, the reports they'd come for buried in the bottom of Shino's pack. They bid a brief goodbye before they left, Hinata hugging some of the girls from the ryokan while Shino shook hands with Norio and Kazuhiro, before the boys insisted on hugs from 'pretty Hana'. Finally they were able to leave, moving at a civilian's walking pace for the first few miles before changing back into their shinobi gear and taking to the trees. That night they made camp a little bit early and devoted time to getting the fake scars off of Shino, Hinata having stowed her lenses when they first changed.
Two days later, they were checking in at the great gates of Konoha.
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"The agent did not request extraction and states that she will be finding a new way to make contact," Shino finished his verbal report, handing over the papers.
"Our alternate identities are still intact, and can be used again if necessary," Hinata added. "We used the excuse of a letter from an aunt to remove ourselves from the mission site. As far as anybody in the village knows, Hana and Aki are on their way to a village near Nami no Kuni."
Tsunade nodded, one hand propping up her chin. "Very good, you two. I'll want your written report in tomorrow, but until then you're dismissed."
Once the door to her office had closed behind the two chuunin, Tsunade spun in her chair, looking out the window behind her desk. "Well?" she asked, knowing full well that her shadows were listening.
"Honestly, Hokage-sama, we have no reason not to induct them at the end of their training period." Ryouken told her. "They have about three weeks until the six months are up, and are both as prepared as we could ask."
"Unless something major happens within the next couple of weeks to change our minds, there'll be two new hunter-nin within a month's time." Jakkaru added.
Tsunade stared out over the village, considering. "Fine. Do me a favor, though, and hold off for another two weeks after the training period ends. That'll give Shino enough time to turn fourteen. They'll both be old enough to live on their own without too many questions then."
Both hunter-nin bowed, and melted away into the shadows.
A/N: Hope this chapter wasn't too boring. I needed to throw another mission in there before Hinata and Shino got tossed to the wolves (metaphorically speaking, of course). That this one gave them the chance to play with personas was just a bonus.
Next Chapter: The Universal Question
