"I'm – I'm – your face, I just couldn't - " She was laughing. The woman was actually having a laughing fit, and here Naruto was, worrying about her well-being.

"You scared me! With the tears and the looking sickly and gah! What's wrong with you?!" He huffed, but was more relieved than anything else. Soba pressed her hands on either side of her face to try and regain her composure.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me. I choked on my lollipop and then – yeah. We can keep going." She looked away, embarrassed, and took off to escape Naruto's touch on her back. He took off right after her, the image of her laughing face now burned into his memory. Soba was furious with herself for letting this happen again. She had worked too hard for years to be this put-together and this respected as a shinobi in her village to let Naruto, a scruffy-haired goofball, tear it all down after a whole 24 hours. Maybe it was just because Kusa nin were very stoic and diplomatic that she never got the opportunity to be around someone so vibrant and infectiously happy, but whatever it was, Soba was worried it was going to affect her performance. A very distracted nin is a very dead nin, and a very dead nin can't protect her teammates.

Naruto wanted to see more of the relaxed Soba, but the next few hours of travel were silent except for barked orders. The two took a brief break where they ate bento boxes in a treetop, but aside from monosyllabic exchanges, Soba didn't say much. Naruto noticed that her brow was more furrowed than before, her features settling into the sharp, unforgiving lines that he saw the first night they met. He was looking at her, trying to make eye contact, but she deliberately focused on her food. Soba could feel him burning a hole in the side of her head, but if she ignored him, he would eventually give up. Everyone did. When they had both finished eating, the kunoichi put away their containers and gestured to Naruto that they were leaving.

Moments before Naruto and Soba were about to arrive at their destination, Dai and Kiba checked in. They had found a large, heavily guarded warehouse that they were going to observe for the next few days to learn guard rotations, delivery patterns, and hopefully anything else that would help them track the path of the drug ring. Soba was relieved to hear Dai's voice; he always anchored her when she got overwhelmed or too tense. This was the first time they had ever split up on a mission, and she noted how much easier her brother was to partner with. Dai didn't ask infuriating questions or try to get her to talk or distract her; after 20 years, he knew better.

"Naruto." The blonde's head perked up when he heard his name.

"Yeah?"

"We need to start suppressing our chakra. I don't want to risk being discovered if Yoru has a sensor-type working for him. With these missing-nins, you can never be too careful. We should be nearing the base soon, and thankfully, the foliage in that area is thick enough that we can set up two vantage points easily. Keep an eye out for any shinobi patrolling. We might want to come back here to sleep tomorrow morning, though." Soba looked up to the sky, and noted the sun directly above their heads.

"Sounds good."

"Are you hungry?"

"I can always eat!" Naruto came over to see what goodies Soba had in her satchel. She handed him a little bag of kaki-peanuts and pulled an apple out of the seemingly bottomless pack. They had a quick snack before moving into enemy territory.

Yoru's base of operations was nearly invisible from far away as it was so deep in the thick of the forest. What they expected to be a large complex was a two-story home right next to a small, nondescript secondary building. She gestured for Naruto to head around to the opposite side and settle in for a long day. Right off the bat, they both noticed two shinobi attempting to look casual at the front gates, their respective forehead protectors showing a slash through the village symbol. Hidden Mist. What was it about that village that caused a disproportionate amount of shinobi to become missing-nins? Aside from the two Mist, there were a few armed guards patrolling the perimeter, dressed in civilian clothes. Soba wasn't entirely comfortable knowing there were automated weapons involved; she was proficient in hand-to-hand combat and the use of her katana, but what good would that do against bullets? Naruto caught sight of the guns, too, and his mind took a similar turn. This complicates things, he thought. Naruto was incredibly fast, ever the Yellow Flash's son, but he had never trained against bullets. Had Kiba? Dai? Probably not. Though both she and Naruto were well hidden in the foliage, she managed to make eye contact with him. His facial expression read the same as hers.

They sat in their respective trees all afternoon, observing the guard cycles changing. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, nor did they see Yoru at any point during their watch. The sun sank low into the horizon, turning the sky the colour of a cooling fire. The intensity of the red bathed the rooftop beneath them in fiery light, but it also greatly increased the glare. Soba couldn't see into the windows no matter how hard she tried. She hoped Naruto was having better luck from his angle, since he had his back turned southward.

"Have you seen him?" Soba whispered into her receiver.

"Nope, not yet." Naruto replied, his eyes focusing on a glint in a lower story window. The glint turned out to be one of Yoru's thugs opening a window to throw out a cigarette. "Damnit. Does this guy never go outside?" The blonde hissed, readjusting his position carefully. Soba scanned the area, thoughtfully snacking on some peanuts.

"I'm not sure he does. I doubt he knows we're here, but let's be prepared for the possibility."

The only things the two shinobi noticed over the next few hours were guard rotations. By this point, both were able to identify every member of the protective detail, but neither had caught a glimpse of the elusive kingpin. Soba was starting to get frustrated, but she wasn't sure whether that was a genuine emotion or just fueled by her exhaustion.

"Soba-chan?" Naruto whispered, but she had caught a glint of blue from the trees opposite her a moment before he spoke. She replied before he even finished.

"Are you ready to call it a night? It looks like they've all buckled down, and all the lights are off." Soba rubbed one bleary eye, suppressing a yawn.

"Yeah, let's go get some sleep. The last double guard left; I don't think we need to be here."

Naruto and Soba put distance in between them and the home to ensure they would remain undetected. The brunette kneeled on the damp ground by a tall tree and rummaged around in her seemingly bottomless pack.

"What're you looking for?" Naruto, hands in his pockets, bent over double next to her and peered in. Soba said nothing. The blonde looked put out by her stoic silence, but continued in his attempts. After several minutes of rummaging and grumbling, Soba pulled out a soft cylinder of fabric and unfurled it on a relatively flat patch of ground.

"What's that?" Naruto righted himself and poked at what appeared to be nylon.

"It's a tent. I mean, really."

"It doesn't look like a tent!"

"It's because I haven't pitched it yet."

"Hmph."

Soba was just about to suggest that she take the first watch shift when she heard snoring behind her. Naruto was half inside the tent, half out, his arms sprawled in the grass. The kunoichi chuckled. He looked so innocent when he was sleeping. Grabbing his shoulders, Soba gently pushed Naruto's torso into the tent. The shinobi just kept snoring, his face as relaxed as ever. Soba sat down outside of the tent flap, pulled out the newer of her two katanas out and placed it on her lap. The finely honed blade reflected the cool silver of the moonlight as she inspected every square inch. She repeated the long inspection process with her older katana, treating the blade with such a delicate and loving hand that you would think it was family. Naruto had woken up when he heard a second katana being unsheathed, and was watching, transfixed, as Soba tended to it. She paused, feeling his eyes on her, but for some reason unknown to her, pretended she didn't notice. Warmth spread from her belly to her cheeks, still feeling the burn of Naruto's gaze. He wasn't really being subtle, either; he was absolutely captivated by how she was just a mess of contradictions. The kunoichi sheathed her katana and stretched her lithe body. She took her sweet time in unwrapping her bun, letting her hair cascade over her shoulders. 'He's making a mess out of you,' she thought to herself, 'and here you are, loving it.' Would it really be so bad to get close to someone, for once?

Her thoughts wandered back a few years, right before the war…

The twins sat on their parents' back porch, two goofy 17 year olds without a care in the world. Despite the late summer heat, the shade was keeping them cool while they lazed about.

"Hey, Soba, why don't you ever say yes when people ask you out?" Dai asked, accidentally smacking her in the face with one awkwardly lanky arm as he reached for his juice. "Oops. Sorry."

"Ow, you twit!" She smacked him back, pulling the back of his shirt over his head.

"Worst. Sister. Ever. This is my favourite shirt and you've stretched it!"

"Boo. Hoo. Get over it."

"I know you're trying to change the subject. Why?"

"Why what?"

"Gahh, you make me crazy. If you can't be honest with the other half of your brain, who can you be honest with?" Dai turned to his sister, face suddenly echoing his concern.

"First, I have a full brain. You're the one missing the part that makes you normal. And smart. And functional. Anyway. Secondly, you know why." Soba avoided eye contact, opting to stare at the intersection of brush and trees far in the distance.

"Soba. Why don't you let yourself be happy?" She made an undignified noise at the question, spluttering out a response.

"I am not unhappy. I am just single."

"I am not living with you until we're 500. I intend on marrying and having little babies with full brains, unlike their daddy." The gangly Dai frowned at his sister.

"As long as it's not with that bimbo you're dating now."

"Soba." He admonished.

"What, nii-san? She doesn't have two brain cells to rub together, and she is a crap shinobi."

"She doesn't have to be a perfect jounin-at-16-sword-and-fire-jutsu-master-human to be worth dating."

"I'm not saying I'm perfect, but at least I could defend my family. She'd probably manage to stab herself with a kunai. Or a fork. Or a blade of grass. Or-"

"Soba."

"Stop saying my name, I know what it is. I just want her to deserve you. You're great, and she isn't good enough. Plain as day."

"You're still avoiding my question, but thank you for your flattery. You only think I'm great because you're my twin."

"Yeah, that's probably it."

"You are emotionally undeveloped. Let me help you be less useless at being human."

"None of those guys were worth dating."

"Really? None. What about Mr. Perfect from last year? The man walked out of a storybook. Hell, I would have dated him, he was so great."

"You should've. At least he's a better shinobi than The Bimbo."

"She has a name."

"I'll call her…August."

"We've been dating since May."

"…May, then."

"You're impossible." Dai crossed his arms and stared off into the distance, only noting the sunset in passing. Soba rose to her bare feet and padded towards the entrance. Her hand rested on the doorjamb for a brief moment, hesitating.

"I'm afraid anyone I get close to will die. Like Mom, Dad, Momo-sensei, our real parents…Dai, I can't go to another funeral for someone that I love. I just can't." The door shut behind her.

Thanks for reading! Constructive criticism is appreciated :)

EDIT: Several people have brought up guns being mentioned, and I just wanted to clarify: though I am mostly ignoring 700, I accept the fact that even Konoha was modernized by the time Naruto is a grown man. Working backwards, I assumed i wouldn't be unheard of for non-shinobi mercenaries to have firearms. Hope that clears it up!