CHAPTER SIX

We moved out when the sky was the soft purple of early morning; the sun wasn't above the hills yet.

The house apparently had been a farm house, once, but the forest had taken over the fields a long time before. Places like that were quite common, actually. The constant struggles over the land meant that farmlands were one of the main targets for shinobi missions, in service of the squabbling nobles.

But because the trees were relatively young, there were many patches with less vegetation, and even if my kimono wasn't prime attire for long tracks through the woods, movement wasn't as difficult as it could have been if the forest was older.

The snowfall had stopped, and only a thin layer peppered the ground. It would probably melt during the day, and the mud was going to be more annoying than the cold.

I felt nervous and queasy, from the lack of proper food and rest, but also about the prospect of failing our escape. The plan for which I didn't know, yet… I hadn't had the time to ask Junko about our unexpected ally, and any attempt I made of catching her eyes was ignored.

Things just turned more complicated when Oishi suddenly appeared and, with a quick smile, tied my hands and feet with what seemed a surprisingly simple, but sturdy knot. I opened my mouth to ask how I was supposed to walk, but I wasn't really surprised when he just scooped me up with a single arm and secured me over his shoulder.

It was uncomfortable and demeaning, and the blood flowing to my head wasn't helping matters with my nausea.

I turned my head in Junko's direction, and Asagao was tying her wrists in the same way. Junko was frowning, and I had a feeling that we being tied up would make our improbable escape lean on the side of impossible.

I tried to breathe past the sensation of bile in my throat. I had to believe that everything was going to be alright. We had Asagao in our side, but I didn't think he would be much help against Hotaru's sheer size, or even Oishi's speed, for that matter. Out of the three of them, he was the closer thing to a true ninja, but unfortunately it meant he was at a disadvantage… Still, now we didn't have much choice besides trusting him.

"Okay, here's how this is going to be," Hotaru's voice washed over us, startling me. I couldn't see where he stood from my angle of vision. "Aoi, you're our scout, as always. We're going to be passing near a Clan territory, so look out for the traps. Oishi, you're going to be taking care of the ojou-chan, behind me; make sure that if the Uchihas catch up with us, they don't get too fast to me. Use her if you have to. Junko is with me, and remember, she's our priority. Any questions?"

"Hotaru, we know the plan," complained Oishi, moving his shoulder under me like he was trying to find a better position.

"So make sure not to screw up," deadpanned the other.

I saw him reach Junko, easily levering her up and over his shoulder. Her geta clanked together and then fell to the ground, but he didn't make a move to get them. It was the first time I had a proper look at her, and her white kimono was completely destroyed. I winced, thinking about the women squealing about the impractical thing, and ignored the hand squeezing my heart tight when I thought about what could have happened to them.

As soon as we had crossed into the woods proper, Asagao vanished. One moment he was there, slightly behind Oishi, and then a breeze moved a strand of my hair, and he wasn't. I looked up, but there was no sign of him.

Then, I was more worried with the sudden forward movement. It was incredibly disconcerting to be moving forward without seeing where. Oishi ran fast enough that I had to close my eyes and let my head fall, because the blurring trees passing by us were too much.

I don't know for how much time we ran, but despite the passing hours the day didn't become warmer. If Junko was right, and we were being reallocated to Mizu no Kuni, the weather wasn't going to get any better.

Suddenly, we jerked to a stop. The trees had started to become bigger and Hotaru and Oishi could share a single branch without having to balance much. The forest was more closed, and in some places its thick roots broke the dark soil as if they had tried to move from their birthplaces.

Contrary to what I had thought, the cold had diminished the further we entered those new patches of vegetation. They had large trunks, and some of the trees had kept small patches of foliage – those worked well in protecting some places more enclosed, so the little warmth we generated didn't dissipate immediately in the constant winds.

Asagao dropped down from a level above us like a ghost, directly behind Oishi so I had a clear view of him. There was something about him – something indefinable, that made me want to squint, like his face was slowly distorting. I blinked, and it stopped. I could feel my face red and my head was pounding in time with my heartbeat… I probably had too much blood overflowing in my head.

He must have made some sort of signal, because neither of his teammates was surprised by his appearance. Oishi turned slightly to the side, so I could still see him even from my position.

"Up ahead, there's some kind of trouble," he said.

"What kind of trouble?" Inquired Hotaru. I turned to him with some effort, balancing my weight on Oishi's back. I like to see who is talking, even if it isn't directed at me. There are a lot of things to be discovered about someone through their expressions and body language, if one knows what to look for.

"It's strange, but it seems there's a Senju force going out."

"What, why?" Asked Oishi, and I didn't need to see his face to know he was surprised by those news. I felt my chest compress with some kind of foreshadowing. There were too many unexplained things happening all at once, and I felt they weren't as isolated as they seemed at first glance. The only pattern I could discern was that all of it was somehow tied to my Clan. It was only a feeling, an intuition – the kind you heed or ignore at your own risk. And I have always had too many things to protect, to simply not pay attention to it.

"I don't know," and it was apparent that Asagao didn't like the feeling. "But if you want my opinion, we should lay low for a while and let them pass."

"I agree," was Hotaru's answer.

So we were towed along what seemed to me a random path through the woods, but that suddenly opened out into a small clearing. There was a lake there, the water rippling softly with the more gentle breeze in the heart of the forest. It was clear in a way I hadn't seen before, and I could see the bed of loose pebbles and natural debris.

I thought about the safety of such an open space, but I wasn't going to point it out to our captors. With some luck, the Senju would stumble upon us and attack them, especially as they were unmarked. As for Junko and I… Well, the first rule of a shinobi was to not give your last name to a stranger, if I remember correctly. More than something I have read a long time ago in a manga, it is the kind of lesson that is constantly repeated. It was considered common sense if you ever found yourself in unfamiliar territory, or communicating with an unknown person.

I fell gracelessly to the ground, too dizzy with the sudden change of position. My face was red and felt hot, and my nausea wasn't abating, so I crawled to few steps to the banks and wasted no time in cupping some water and washing my face. The cold was good and I breathed with more ease, absorbing the scenic landscape around us.

I had been a city kind of girl, so hiking and camping, or even general exercise hadn't been my thing. The closest thing to nature I had come in contact with had been a park or two. Besides, I was very focused on what I wanted, and I would work to get there – I didn't like vacations, and I didn't feel the need to travel to take a moment for myself. I lacked the funds and the desire, so maybe it explained my silent awe of so much green and life around me.

The branches moved and birds sang to each other in the distance, but the quiet overcame that. I could hear every shifting sound made by the others – the fabric of their clothes brushing together, the muffled sound as one of them sat on the ground, someone snuffling, a yawn… Everything was so out of place for me at that moment that it was magnified to my hearing.

Junko's footsteps pressed against the ground in stark contrast to the baffling silence of the shinobi, and as she sat by me to drink some water I was surprised by the amount of noise I could pick up. I wanted to shush all of them to just take in a little more of the ambient around me.

No cars, no voices, no music… Not even the noises I had began to associate with life at the compound. I closed my eyes and felt something loosen up inside me. I had been so tense and preoccupied for so long that I sighed in relief.

"Soon, sweetheart," she whispered while rising. Those two words crashed through any semblance of peace and balance, tipping me back in the spiraling feeling of helplessness and worry.

Soon… How soon? What exactly will happen soon?

I felt ever more annoyed by Junko's cryptic remarks. I felt worried about the whole situation, and the need to understand what was happening and what would happen. For the first time, I felt aggravation at my childlike estate, that rendered me powerless and without opinion. It was now a hindrance, an obstacle.

I let her go, plunging my – so small and tiny, and wrong – hand in the cold water. My skin protested, and a shiver ran down my back at the sudden drop in temperature, but I felt more level-headed. I hadn't liked the look in Junko's eyes, and I knew that I didn't have any kind of control over Asagao; if something happened, I would have to be smart enough to get out of the way.

After some time, Asagao was sent out again to make sure that the squad of Senju shinobi was far enough away from our chosen travel route that our groups wouldn't bother each other. As was the usual, he vanished through the foliage faster than my eyes could possibly track him.

Not a long time had passed – maybe ten or fifteen minutes –, and Oishi started to make his displeasure known. I wasn't one to talk, but based only on his restlessness and his overall brash behavior, I took it to mean that he was a mediocre ninja at best. Maybe because I was too high-strung, I found that his once cheerful demeanor was extremely irritating to me.

"You know, if we're going to be hiding here for too much longer, we should eat something," he grumbled from his place stretching on the grass, spinning a kunai on a finger. It was, fortunately, the last straw to Hotaru.

"So get your ass out of here and go search for something," he finally growled. He had been analyzing a scroll that I was close enough to identify as a map, but I couldn't discern any prominent names or marked locations.

Oishi huffed and sat up to glare at his teammate, but then gripped with an annoying grin, "Well, why not? Come on, Junko-chan, let's have some fun."

He had never given any indication of truly wanting to hurt us, except for that moment in the farmhouse. However, the way he turned his gaze to Junko with a roguish smile made my stomach roil with apprehension. My heart sunk and my throat dried with the weight of the bad feeling I had about it.

I turned to Junko, and she tried to hide a similar feeling, but her breath was coming too fast to lead credibility to the impassive mask she tried to maintain.

"Absolutely not," cut Hotaru in an emotionless voice. He appeared to know that if he opposed Oishi too emphatically, it would only drive him to do it more strongly. It was also apparent that he had a perfect idea of why Oishi wanted to take Junko with him. "She stays with me; that was the plan. I'm a better fighter than you, anyway, and I don't want her roaming around in the woods. If you want company so bad, take the girl."

My breath left me in a big gasp, and I couldn't avoid staring at him in betrayal. For an instant, I had thought he would somehow protect us from a person that was turning more dangerous than I had thought. But he was just throwing me in, instead. He just gave me a blank stare, and then returned to his map.

My head swiveled to Junko in desperation; my heart was beating so fast I could feel it against my ribs. I felt sick, and I waited for her intervention. I waited for her outrage, for her denial of how things were going. I knew that if she made a big enough fuss, there was a possibility that Oishi would insist.

But her expression was considering, the look in her eyes cold and calculating. She stared at me as if I was a stranger, not part of her family, of her Clan. She saw my terror; my immediate refusal of going alone into the woods with a man I didn't know, someone whose limits I couldn't discover. My horror was greater than that of an innocent child, because I wasn't one – I knew perfectly well what could be done to me. She absorbed all of it in impassive silence, and then turned away.

I was shaking and my hands were numb when Oishi turned with a toothy smile to me and then got up, striding in my direction. My muscles locked down, and something in my head kept screaming at me to run, to hide, to fight.

In the end, a bewildered sort of shock kept me in place long enough for him to seize my arm and pushing me in front of him, in the direction of the more enclosed trees. My feet dragged, but he had no problem at all, just keeping his hand between my shoulder blades and steering me the way he wanted.

I shivered, and his hand shifted to holding my shoulder as if he had read the movement for what it was – preparation to escape with all I had.

We passed the green threshold and he stopped for a moment. My head snapped to look up, and suddenly I thought he was too close. He was looking attentively at the ground, not at me, and for the first time I felt an inkling of hope. Maybe I was just too paranoid. Maybe Oishi wasn't going to…

He made a satisfied sound, and I jumped. He sniggered and pointed at something, and I followed his finger almost automatically. "See there? It's a trail. Let's go."

Indeed, there was a patch in between the close trees. It was narrow, and barely less crowded by shrubs and plants than the rest, but after a moment it was possible to notice the disparity with the rest of the more crowded forest floor.

We went that way, tracking through the uneven ground. I tripped every other moment, hampered by my kimono and my own pair of appropriate shoes, while he glided behind me. His utter silence made me uneasy again, and my neck began to hurt with all the tension in my back.

"Okay, stop," he snapped, and I whimpered.

I looked around, half hysteric, but somehow, even if we hadn't walked for much time, we appeared to be completely alone. I thought about doing something drastic. Adrenaline surged, and one hundred different scenarios ran through my mind – I would hurt him and escape; I would be killed; I would run and become lost; he would find me and it would be some much worse…

Oishi sunk down in front of me and I gave a start, but when I tried to jump back from his sudden proximity he took a hold of the dirty hem of my kimono, keeping me in place. He swiftly took hold of my small ankles and took the geta off, throwing them over his shoulder, and smiled at me, shaking my left feet a little.

His smile turned rueful after a moment, and he let go, balancing in the balls of his feet. I was still gasping and shaking, but it was the most serious I had seen Oishi when talking to me. "Well, that didn't go exactly as planned." He murmured, inclining forward as if he was sharing a secret.

I blinked. His voice was coming from a distant place. I wondered if I was going to faint and held my breath to try to control it a little, trying to hear him above the roaring in my ears.

"Hey, ojou-chan, I'm not going to do anything, alright?" He said, looking intently at me. Then he murmured, as if to himself, "Should've known she would act like an emotionless bitch." His glare burned the ground where it was directed, and I understood he was talking about Junko.

Relief flooded me so suddenly I staggered and fell to the ground before he could catch me. He had been talking about Junko. He had done it to get Junko to go with him, like I had expected her to go…

No, I didn't have any doubt that her fate would have been very different from mine, if she had followed him, but at that moment it didn't matter. I was almost dizzy with the conclusion, and now that I knew what Oishi was capable of, I just had to be careful to not push any of his buttons. I could do that. I was smart enough, it was going to be alright.

He had a surprised expression, wide eyes blinking slowly, but he didn't laugh. Actually, he looked almost upset and unsettled by the assumptions I had made. I didn't know, I didn't care. I just wanted to go home, burrow against Hahaue and never get out again.

"Okay," he said slowly, getting up with a groan and stretching slowly. He turned his head around, checking our surroundings. "We better get a move on if we want to get back before nightfall. Stay close, ojou-chan, you don't want to end up lost around here."

Thankfully, he didn't try to help me off the ground. I got up, still somewhat unsteady, but I wasn't close to a panic attack, anymore. I patted my kimono, trying to get it clean and knowing I was only succeeding in making it dirtier.

As we resumed our walk, I thought it would be very unlikely that Oishi would catch anything with me stumbling around, now behind him – but I was quieter, and I didn't stagger so much, with the shoes gone. Maybe he was just the kind of person that couldn't bear staying still for very long, or maybe he knew those woods well enough that his slight disadvantage – that being me – didn't matter.

Meanwhile, I gave my all to not think about Junko. I could feel something ugly beginning to sizzle inside of me and it scared me with its force. I have never been a violent person – on the contrary, I'm too slow to take action, too fast in giving justifications for someone else –, but I wanted to shout and cry and break something. Another part of me just shied away from the concept that an adult woman – my aunt – had let a child get taken away like that; that part was so full of outrage and disgust I just wanted to cry.

As I had predicted, even if we were following some kind of animal trail, we didn't find anything. Oishi didn't seem too upset about it, and I was just content to recognize the change of light some place ahead that indicated our clearing. Even if I didn't want to see Junko – my heart thudded, and I fisted my hands so tight I felt my nail biting the skin – it was preferable to continue sweating around the woods in what I thought were loose circles around our camp.

I asked myself if Junko had been worried about me at all, but I pushed the thought away when it made me too queasy. It was a shock, but as far as events were going, it was unimportant. And if I had to suppress my wish to yell at her the moment I laid eyes on that woman, then I was going to be mature about it and save it to when we were safe – maybe strategically positioned in front of my mother.

All those thoughts flew out of my head when a bloodcurdling scream cut through the forest, in the direction of the clearing. Instantly, all around us the trees fell in a tense silence, and for the first time I noticed the subtle, constant song of the many small animals around us, gone quiet.

I thought about how strange it was that we hadn't heard it earlier, but the next scream came too fast for me to finish that line of thinking.

Oishi took my arm in a vice grip, and in a swirl of movement that left me nauseous we were up in a tree towering the outskirts of our camping site. Even crushed against Oishi, with his hand over half of my face, it was easy to see what was going on at ground level.

My eyes widened in shock, trying to understand what was going on as the screams carried on one after the other.

Hotaru was down, rolling around the grass and madly scratching at his own face, like he was trying to rip his eyeballs off. His screams came as fast as he could draw air in, and blood flowed through the gouges he had inflicted on himself. It was shocking to see the composed shinobi in such a state, and his pain was so evident that my eyes blurred with tears. He was being tortured, and I wanted it to stop.

More horrifying was the sight of plain, calm Junko standing over him. Her head was turned in that habit of hers, as if she was curious to see what he would do next. I couldn't see her face, but it was clear that she wasn't moved by his obvious hurt. It was just as clear that it was she that was causing it.

Oishi tightened his arm around me so suddenly that I choked on a shriek of pain. He growled and let gravity take us down. My eyes widened with the rapidly approaching ground, but our landing was smooth.

Junko whipped around, and my shock was for once shared with my captor. The tomoe in her red eyes were lazily spinning, three on her right one, two on the left. I watched with detachment as they began to pick up speed. She let her head fall to the side, expressionless, waiting.

"Let him go, now," hissed Oishi, and his hand slowly moved from the lower half of my face to settle around my neck. My heartbeat picked up, and I swallowed against the weight of his fingers wrapped around my windpipe.

The worst was the not knowing. Would she care enough to comply? Why would she, when she had abandoned me to a comparatively worse fate?

But to my unending relief, the screaming stopped. Hotaru didn't get up, though, he just lay there. I glanced at her face, and the Sharingan was still active, utterly alien to me. My curiosity burned inside of me, but I wasn't going to ask anything.

"Close your eyes," ordered Oishi. "Now!" He shouted when she didn't move, shaking me and for a terrifying moment constricting my breathing. I had closed my own, so when I opened them I was startled by her very wide, blue eyes.

My heart sank. I felt bitterness and fury fill my mouth with a bad taste; of course she wouldn't care if he broke my neck. She would probably use that moment of distraction to her advantage, somehow.

I had a moment to detect the shifting muscles in Oishi's forearm, the sudden pressure in my neck. He squeezed, and panic took a hold of me. I began to trash and scratch at the unprotected skin of his arm, trying to pry his fingers open, kicking the open air in front of me in reflex.

Then we were falling forward, and I was more worried with being crushed by him. There was a disconcerting sensation of movement again, and once more I was in a completely different place in a baffling short amount of time.

Then I heard one of the dearest sounds on this universe to me.

"Kazumi!" Masaru's voice, worried, tired… Alive.

I turned in his direction as fast as I could, almost falling out of the grip of the person who was holding me in my haste.

But he was there. Black hair too long, tangled and matted, face covered by a disquieting amount of mud and blood, dark eyes too wide and shining with a fevered weariness. But still, there. I drank him in, obsessively cataloguing every tear in his cloth, every bandage, every bruise.

I was so engrossed by his appearance, that it took a few moments for the situation to sink in. There he was, Chichiue a cold shadow by his side, with at least three others of our Clan – their red eyes glowing –, perched as vultures in different branches of the tree. On the ground level, two Inuzuka were followed by their companions, growling in agitation.

They were on the other side of the clearing.

"So, this is what you had in mind when you attacked our territory, Senju." Tajima's voice was emotionless, his eyes narrowed on the person holding me. He crouched as a waiting predator, ready to pounce.

"I don't think you're in any position to accuse our Clan, Uchiha," replied a man's voice to my left. It was deep and level-headed, but still powerful enough to make me shiver with the hidden warning in it. I turned, and it was a big man, strong chin, high cheekbones, long dark brown hair held in a high ponytail. He wore a red shinobi light armor engraved with the Senju symbol on the breastplate.

"I have seen your crest on the vests of the shinobi who attacked our Clan, and I see my daughter and sister in your custody. I understand their usefulness. There's nothing you can say to convince me of your innocence." His tone was cutting and precise, and after his last sentence, he drew his sword with a sigh of metal on leather.

There was a ripple of movement on the Senju side of the clearing, but a sharp movement of the Senju spokesman froze them.

"You're in Senju territory, Uchiha Tajima, and you're outnumbered. Furthermore, we won't fight to protect our honor from lies. Our conscience is clean, and we don't have to justify ourselves to you. You're to take your charges and go, or continue in your delusions and die." He was very confident of that, too.

"This is not Senju territory," he snapped back, immediately, losing a little of his composure. From what I could see from the Senju man's profile, he was beginning to become impatient as well. But the Senju didn't answer, only maintaining a steady gaze in Tajima's direction.

I trembled. It was ironic that, when I was least wishing for it, I found my desires fulfilled. There I was, in the battlefield, where I had so wanted to be. The realization was bitter and filled with dread. Masaru was on the other side, and the Senju was right. I remembered very well that our Clan was outclassed by theirs, and the difference in numbers wasn't going to help.

My eyes narrowed in thought for a moment, before widening with my surprise. They had me with them, now. I didn't know about the attack on the compound, but I was certain that they weren't the ones behind my kidnapping. We had been avoiding them, anyway. But what baffled me was that they could use me – well, technically – to make my father surrender. After Junko's show of loyalty, though, my thoughts were doubtful and uncharitable; I wouldn't expect any kind of reaction if that were to happen. The point was, they weren't doing it. They rose in my esteem for not taking that course of action.

There was a moment of utter stillness as both sides evaluated one another. I noticed that Junko had discreetly moved out of the way, but she hadn't gone to Tajima's side, either. I asked myself where Asagao was, and I avoided looking too directly to Oishi's stretched body laying in a pool of his own blood in the no-man's land in the middle of the clearing. Things were going too fast and I just wanted to stop everything around me to absorb the changes.

I chanced a glance at my father's expression, but it was stony and unreadable. I could see a muscle ticking in his jaw, but that was the only indication of his temper. It was clear that he wasn't happy with the conditions, but I hoped that he had enough sense to get us – Masaru – home.

"Very well," he said through clenched teeth, sheathing the sword in a fluid motion. "Let her go, and then we leave."

The Senju shifted and tensed, and the man in charge opened his mouth with a frown. I felt tired and like I would start to cry at any moment, because there was no way that things could end that easily. They weren't stupid – they knew that a shinobi is resourceful; greater number doesn't equal obvious victory. They wouldn't let me go when there was the possibility of an attack.

I felt my eyes sting and I opened them very wide to avoid crying. Now, that would be ridiculous. My rescue was just there, everything was going to be okay. I hadn't cried yet, why the hell would I begin now when it was so close to the end? But then, it was so close and still… That clearing might as well be a whole country, for all I cared, because with that suspicious expression that Senju man had said it all. He wasn't just going to let me go.

A wisp of something blue flowed in my line of vision, and I stared at it with my mouth open. What…?

"It's alright, Kazumi-san."

There was a swirl of color and wind, that horrible sense of dislocation and I was staring at about seven men, all of them wearing somewhat closely resembling clothes and with the Senju Clan crest displayed. They seemed as surprised as the Uchiha, with various weapons suddenly at hand.

I swallowed the taste of bile and controlled my need to throw up, upturning my face to speak faintly with Asagao, "Let's not do this again, okay?" He nodded, but the look in his eyes was too far away for me to take it seriously.

The clearing was so tense and charged that I feared Asagao's method of transportation would be necessary earlier than I wanted, if they charged at each other. But after a moment of silence, Chichiue actually nodded in Asagao's direction and strengthened from his crouch.

"We're leaving."

I didn't know it at that time, but that day marked the beginning of Uchiha Tajima's fall.

A/N: Hello! Thank you very much for the reviews, follows and favorites! I hope you're all enjoying the story as much as I enjoy writing it :)

I will take a moment to answer a Guest's review, though, because I plan to touch the subject in the story, but I'm not sure if it will be possible. So, Guest asked why Kazumi didn't get the Sharingan after she remembered the traumatic way she died. My answer is: for the same reason Sasuke didn't get the Sharingan even after the Massacre; or Madara, even if he lived in a war-torn era. Both of them, though, develop their Sharingan at roughly the same time, when they are around 12/13 years old. So, in my head, the Sharingan can't develop before then. I don't know, it makes sense to me... And I know, believe me I know Itachi got his at 8 years old, but I still think it's more plausible to think he's the anomaly instead of, say, Madara, who appears to be more powerful. So, that's my theory, what do you think? ;)