Author's Note: Okay, to all of you concrit-lubbers out there, here's the deal. I enjoy positive reviews, but I am not EXPECTING them from every reader – I do understand that my story isn't a gold-piece to be liked by everyone without exception. Praise is pleasant, but by no means compulsory – I do accept constructive criticism as well, sting as it might. English isn't my first language: it is, in fact, my third; and I'm aware that my grammar/spelling/punctuation aren't perfect. Thus, if you see any mistakes in my story, feel free to point them out – just as long as you do it in a POLITE way, that is. (By this, I mean no swearing or name-calling.) I will do my best and take it as peacefully as possible, as long as I see that it's meant to help me improve, and not harass me. I come here to write for fun, and I do look forward to improving my writing skills and learning new things.
But before assuming things, blindly accusing me of anything or mindlessly plopping a pile of ripped-off rubbish onto my review-page, you should at least, oh I don't know, actually READ the damn STORY to check whether I actually made those mistakes or not!
Okay, enough of this.
Enjoy chapter 13, the rest of ya. X)
13. Mission
It was another busy morning in the Unseen Village of Twin Rivers.
The town was bustling with activity. All along the narrow streets, small shops were opening, food stalls were being set up, and a cheerfully-painted wooden cart informing random passers-by that its owner sold "Sausages-in-a-Bun, Only 1 Gold Piece Apiece, Now with Real Meat" was being rolled into a corner behind a rather gloomy-looking smithy. People were hurrying to and fro, completing errands, bargaining for cheaper vegetables and crossing numerous bridges as they headed for different parts of the village. And under their feet, Twin Rivers gurgled and rolled their rushing black currents, occasionally spattering cold, dirty water onto the cobblestone roads.
The hurrying crowds didn't pay any attention to a slim, scowling young man lurking in the shadows between two dusty warehouses at the further end of one of the riverbanks; who, in turn, didn't pay any attention to a pretty little girl in a pink kimono browsing through vegetable stalls not a long way away.
The scowling man was apparently waiting for something. He skulked in the darkness a while longer, carefully scanning the passing-by people. His eyes finally stopped on a short, plump woman standing in-between the stalls and picking out what were, in her opinion, the freshest apples in the crate. Her purse was hanging off her shoulder awkwardly on a thin strap of black leather. The scowling man smirked.
The pretty girl in the pink kimono had noticed the scowling man quite a while ago. She had her own suspicions about him, and was now watching him warily out of the corner of her eye. She saw him dart out of his shadowy corner and rush past the oblivious shoppers, unnoticed by most. His movements were somewhat cat-like: swift and unobtrusive at the same time. It was obvious that he was very, very skilled.
As he was running past the plump woman in front of the apple crate, he gave her a slight, seemingly accidental push; both of them looked stunned by the collision for a couple of seconds, then the man apologized and was back on his way. The girl narrowed her eyes. The black strap was still hanging off the woman's shoulder, but her purse… was, mysteriously, enough, nowhere to be seen. The girl breathed out. Just a thief, she thought. Unbelievably skilled; and yet still, only a thief.
And none of them would ever disguise themselves as thieves.
She bought some potatoes and cucumbers and left the market place under the accompaniment of a screeching plump woman, who by that time had already caught on to the fact that she had been robbed.
After visiting a few more random small shops and pointlessly prowling the village's streets for a while, the girl headed home with good news.
A couple of hours later, Zabuza had gone off on a very secret meeting with a trusted man who was supposed to give him the coordinates of his new employers.
In a few days' time, the eyebrowless assassin was already familiar with all the essentials of the mission he had to complete. After Haku, disguised as a girl, had made sure that the Village of Twin Rivers was Hunter-nin-free, Zabuza didn't waste any more time before getting in touch with his recruiters.
Along with the details of the task at hand, Zabuza had also received a map of his future victim's living quarters. It was laid out over a large tree stump now, held down by a couple of rocks to keep it from buckling or flying away in the wind. Haku, already out of his hated disguise, was studying it carefully. Loki, on the other side of the stump, was staring at the pictures blankly and wondering what the little labels said.
In the meantime, Zabuza briefly explained the principles of the forthcoming mission to his students. It was obvious that his employers knew the assassinatee, a man by the name of Nami Hidaka, very well; for they provided plenty of information that could prove very useful in the planning-out of the assassination itself. Like, for example, the fact that Hidaka was a very suspicious man, who kept a whole army of guards to maintain security, not to mention his hoard of specially-trained dogs. Or the fact that he stayed in touch with the Water Country's military corps; which meant that the ANBU and the Hunter ninja would be contacted right away in case of any disturbances. Or the fact that he slept on the second floor of his three-storey "fortress". Whether Hidaka's paranoia was caused by a previous, unsuccessful attempt upon his life (most probably by the very same people that had now hired Zabuza), or whether he simply had some unresolved issues with his head that accidentally coincided with his enemies' malevolent plans, remained unclear to Zabuza. He also didn't much care for the fact that his employers had once owned a business with Hidaka, and that his death would make certain people very, very rich. All Zabuza cared about was getting the job done as quickly as possible and receiving his paycheck. Which would be a very big paycheck, indeed.
"…and the problem is," the Jounin was saying while pacing back and forth in front of his subordinates, "that we can't start a bloody commotion. Understand? This needs to be done quietly; otherwise they'll alarm the military corps, and the bloody Hunters will be on our tails again. That means that we can't just come crashing through the main gate, slaughtering everyone in the way. Not only will this result in Hidaka's possible escaping and the whole mission failing, but we will also run the risk of getting caught by the Mizukage's Hunter bloodhounds. And that kind of kills the purpose of our whole enterprise. Thus, we're left with a little problem – how do we get into a heavily-guarded estate without causing a ruckus?"
"Can't we simply sneak in?" asked Haku. "We're ninja, after all. We're good at that quiet stuff."
"I will explain one more time," answered Zabuza in an exasperated tone. "Take another look at the map. There's your outer wall…" the older ninja dabbed the map with his finger, pointing at a thick line which enclosed the whole drawing into a neat rectangle. "It is guarded by eight people. Then there's the inner wall… (Zabuza indicated a smaller rectangle within the first one) …which is also, undoubtedly, guarded. Plus, there are those dogs. If there's something you can't get past unnoticed, it's a damn dog and its bloody nose." The man cast a sideways glance at Loki before continuing, "That Hidaka bloke's bloody clever. See here, he put two guards at the middle of each of the sides of the outer wall, back-to-back sort of thing, so that each of them only has half of the space to supervise. So there's no sneaking behind anyone's back – the other man's bound to see you. And even if I use my Hidden Mist Jutsu to get us to the other side quietly, the dogs will sense us anyway and alert everyone, so we're going to be starting a commotion either way."
Haku looked thoughtful. "If we could pinpoint all of the dogs' positions, then I could probably use my Ice Needle Jutsu to knock them all out…"
"And how are we supposed to do that?" Zabuza snapped. "They're animals! They're unpredictable. It's not like they sit in one spot and wait for you to conjure up your needles, they run all around the bloody place!"
"Perhaps Loki could smell them out and tell us where they are…?" Haku suggested rather timidly. Loki, who had long lost the thread of the conversation and was currently busying herself by staring blankly into space, flinched at the sound of her name.
"Erm… dogs…?" she asked. The girl had heard of them back at the Centre, but she had never seen one up close; thus, she had no idea what they smelled like. "I don't exactly…"
"Oh." Haku vaguely recalled Loki's life history, or at least that version of it that she had given him a couple of months ago. "You don't know what dogs are, right? Well, don't worry. I'll show you some stray ones in the vill--"
"Can we stay on the subject here?!" Zabuza barked, losing his patience completely. "We can't have Loki smell out the dogs, because what good will it do to us if they don't all come outside for you to have a proper aim at anyway? And hunting them down one by one's not gonna work either, because that would take too much time and there would be a much greater chance of us getting noticed! Remember our main objective? Don't. Start. A commotion!"
Haku cast down his eyes dismally, realizing that he hadn't been of much help.
"…Good try, though," Zabuza added in a slightly calmer tone, noticing his apprentice's dispirited face.
Haku's eyes lit up a little.
"In any case," Zabuza continued as though nothing had just happened, "there is no way to get in there quietly, unless…!" And here he raised a finger meaningfully to capture his audience's undivided attention, "Unless… somebody was to let us in from the inside."
"But… but wouldn't that require one of us to sneak into Hidaka's house in the first place?" Haku asked, somewhat perplexed. "And we can't do that, right?"
"Right," agreed the bandage-faced Jounin.
"Sir… are you implying that we bribe somebody from Hidaka's household, then?" Haku half-asked, half-suggested.
Zabuza considered the proposition, surprise flashing in his dark-brown eyes for a brief moment. Then he shook his head. That wasn't exactly what he had in mind.
"Bribe somebody? That's an interesting thought, but judging from what those people told me about the man, his servants are unbribable and his guards don't as much as let anyone unfamiliar near the estate. But… heh, I guess we'll just have to see about that," the man sneered. "'Unbribable', huh… I will keep this in mind, Haku."
Meanwhile, Loki looked as though she was watching the final play-offs at a tennis championship. She was gaping at Zabuza, then at Haku, and then back at Zabuza again as if they were the most curious and complicated things in the universe. There was only one thing that stood out bright and clear to her in this whole conversation, and that was the fact that they had to kill a human called Nami Hidaka to receive a lot of money. All the rest went into Loki's 'details of human life' category – a field which she was only vaguely familiar with. Therefore, as much as she would like to be of help, she had to leave all the thinking and planning to the experts.
"Good thinking, Haku," Zabuza was saying in the meantime. "I, however, had a different idea in mind. It's true that it may be very difficult for all of us to sneak into the mansion, but it could be a great deal easier if only one of us tried to get in. Heck, we might not even have to go through with the whole letting-in-the-other-two procedure then, because just one of us would be enough to do the job!" The man laughed, pleased with his own ingenuity. Today was definitely one of his good days.
Haku contemplated the idea suspiciously. An unpleasant nagging feeling at the back of the boy's mind was quietly telling him that a lot of make-up and cross-dressing might be involved in this one as well…
"Now then, since we already have a slight idea of what to do," the assassin continued, seeming to have decided that if he knew what was going on, then everybody else did as well, "our next task will involve looking for a… loophole… in Hidaka's defences. And I mean…" And here, a passing-by cloud up in the skies blocked the sun off for just a moment, briefly casting a menacing-looking shadow over Zabuza's leering face as he half-whispered, "…and I mean, any loophole."
The forest stream murmured and sloshed its clear, rapid waters past the muddy bank, showering Haku's kimono in a drizzle of icy spatters as he knelt over the torrent, putting on make-up. He could see his own face reflected in the slower-flowing part of the stream in which he was standing. His expression was that of a cat with a couple of tin-cans tied to its tail.
Loki was sitting on a rock nearby, splashing the water around with her bare feet. Ninjaing was very complicated, she mused. Haku had helped her catch up on his and Zabuza's earlier discussion, but had gotten back nothing more than a blank stare when he'd asked the girl for any suggestions on the matter. Of course, what else did he expect? She couldn't even read…
"I'm sorry I'm not of much use…" Loki muttered after a while, as if guessing his thoughts. She felt so… so unimportant, just sitting around aimlessly for the lack of good ideas to contribute, while Haku and Zabuza did all the thinking, spying, preparing and all those other intricate little things always essential in a mission. Well, Loki wasn't exactly doing nothing; but she strongly suspected that Zabuza only invented those drills for her to occupy her somehow andso that she didn't get in the way of the important preparations.
"That's okay," said Haku, making another desperate assault at his hair and trying to force it to lie straight. He knew what it felt like to be unneeded, and did his best to comfort the girl. "We're only just beginning. I'm sure that Zabuza-san will find something for you to do soon."
Loki sighed. If only she knew more about how humans lived, she could have tried to be of more help. But for now, all she remained good for was hand-to-hand combat and sniffing out the enemy. She watched Haku look himself over critically for the last time and pick up a basket of vegetables that he'd bought from the village market the other day.
"Good luck, Haku," Loki called after the boy as he turned to leave.
"Thank you. I'll try to be back soon," Haku answered over his shoulder, disappearing among the fluffy-looking spruce trees ahead.
Two guards were standing sentinel in front of the main gates of the Hidaka household, as was usually the case. Their job was a dull and boring one, but at least it was well-paid and didn't involve much elaborate thinking. All they had to do was watch their side of the wall and fend off any suspicious-looking strangers trying to get in. Or any strangers at all, for that matter.
The dogs were barking. The dogs were always barking, so it was difficult to tell whether they actually had a good reason to bark this time. But that made no difference, for there were men guarding the wall all the way along its perimeter; thus, any malevolent strangers would have a very hard time getting in unnoticed. And even then, barking wasn't all these dogs were good for. The Hidaka household was very well-protected, indeed.
Haku was peering out of the shadowy alleyway warily, watching the wide stretch of the road between himself and the distant mansion with some apprehension. The boy ran his short speech over in his head, hoping he wouldn't look too suspicious when saying it, and took a deep breath in to calm himself. Finally, he clutched the vegetable basket firmer in his hand and stepped out into the daylight, full of determination.
The sun, gazing down from out of a misty veil of grey, witnessed the pink-kimono-clad ninja approach the manor's main gate. It also heard the barking get a little more intense behind the looming red-brick wall, and noted the swift readiness with which the two stone-faced guards at the gate jerked into attention at the sight of the boy.
Or, er, girl. That was who the guards thought Haku to be, as was usually the case.
"Oy, you there! Where do you think you're going?" one of the sentries barked gruffly as soon as Haku got within earshot. "This is private property!"
The ninja-in-disguise appeared to be taken aback.
"P…private property? B-but…" he did his best to imitate a shy little girl's voice.
"Just stay where you are and state your business!" The man in the guard's uniform had obviously been the perfect choice for his job.
"Sir… I'm just… I was just looking for customers to buy vegetables from me and my Grandfather, see, here!" Haku held up the basket for the guards to examine. "I… I didn't mean to trespass, honest! But… I usually go all around the neighbourhood, and there had never been any trouble, so I thought… Anyway, how about a cucumber, these are very fresh!"
The security said nothing and glowered at the basket with a death-glare worthy of Zabuza Momochi himself. If glares could destroy, then by now the cucumbers would have certainly been a green, soggy mess sadly splattered all over the cobblestone road. The other guard raised his lance in the direction of the pink-kimonoed figure.
"No go, girl. Take your… cucumbers and… things… somewhere else. There's no need for a vegetable purveyor in this household, and you should know better than to come to this place without a legitimate reason."
"What?!? Oh… but…" Haku did his best to look dispirited, suppressing a sudden but powerful urge to put a senbon through the guard's throat at the word 'girl'. Well, that complimented his acting skills, at least. What got him annoyed, though, was knowing that he had been that good. "But… but I was told…"
"There is a special place for people like you, girl!" the first guard snapped, finally ceasing his fruitless attempts to set the vegetable basket aflame with sheer willpower. "It's called a marketplace! There are plenty of customers to sell your merchandise to there, and there's no reason whatsoever why you should go around instead, disturbing honest people from their work!"
"But… but…" Haku was gulping, at the same time trying to focus on condensing tiny droplets of water in the corners of his eyes to make them look teary. Helpless, crying young women always enjoyed a great deal of influence over men. This particular guard, however, angered by this strange girl's denseness, was on the roll; and wouldn't listen to reason.
"Which part of 'you've got no business here without a personal invitation from Mister Hidaka' don't you idiot commoners understand?" the man began to yell, spit flying in all directions. "How many times do we have to keep telling you that we've got our own people supplying us with provisions, and we don't need some dirty little--"
He was suddenly interrupted as the bony elbow of his less talkative comrade connected with his ribs.
"What my colleague was trying to tell you," the quieter guard uttered with a soft smile, "is that we have no need for your services. Very sorry, missy, but our policy is not to let any unfamiliar persons near the gate without a special invitation. And since we didn't get any notices about anyone visiting today, I will have to politely ask you to leave and not come back here again. Have a nice day, miss."
"I… I understand. And I'm sorry if I caused trouble," said Haku, who wasn't, and bowed respectfully. Well, it wasn't like he expected to be let in or anything."Thank you anyway," he added coolly as he turned to walk away.
According to the map, there was another entrance into the courtyard in the side of the wall fencing off the rear of the mansion. It only existed for emergency situations, and was supposed to be hidden to the eyes of the outsiders. And Haku might have also been fooled, had he just been a random passer-by, oblivious to the secrets of the household in question.
Unfortunately for Nami Hidaka, Haku wasn't just a random passer-by. However, even knowing where the secret entrance was hardly made the boy any more successful. There, too, he was turned away with an indifferent 'you've got to have an invitation to be here' line; and even the flirting (a very heroic contribution from Haku's part) met a cold wall. Yes, Zabuza had been right. These guards truly were unbribable.
The young spy had nevertheless found out a very important, as it seemed to him, little detail on this short mission; and now he couldn't wait to share it with his master.
"…And this would be yet more evidence that trying to bribe the guards is an utterly pointless idea," Zabuza was drawing the conclusion out loud in front of his usual audience: his loyal students and the rabbit, a half an hour after Haku had gotten back from his assignment. "We wouldn't be able to as much as approach them with such a request without setting off an alarm. Besides," (here Zabuza stopped to cough meaningfully, his inner speechmaker feeling that an interjection of some kind was needed for more dramatic effect) "Besides, if bribing Hidaka's men was this bloody easy, they wouldn't need us to do the job, now would they?"
"Perhaps… they were worried about possible blackmailers appearing later on…?" Haku suggested timidly (you had to consider all of the options before completely abandoning the idea). Loki just sat on the grass beside him quietly, feeling completely useless yet again.
"Then they could have hired us to assassinate the blackmailers," Zabuza's voice went down a few tones as he spoke the last three words. "Anyway," he continued, his intonation rising back to normal, "it would only be a waste of our budgets. I've agreed to do this because I was actually hoping to get some profits out of this whole deal, but I don't think that this entrance would cost us cheap, if you catch my drift. If we'd have to pay more just to get to the man than we'd receive for finishing him off, it wouldn't be a fair trade for us. Doesn't take a math genius to figure that one out, now."
Haku went silent. Beside him, Loki was staring up at the sky thoughtfully and wondering when they were going to eat, for the lack of better things to think about. It seemed that, despite what Haku had said, she really was going to sit out on this mission, after all. Well, she just hoped it would all be over soon, so that she could resume her training with Zabuza.
"…I was also considering the idea of setting Hidaka up with a… female companion," the Jounin was saying meaningfully in the meantime, "but, unfortunately for us, he doesn't seem to be very interested in little girls." He sighed exasperatedly. In the background, Haku exhaled briefly, unable to suppress his immense relief.
"…Though he is interested in little boys," Zabuza continued nonchalantly.
"What??" Haku just couldn't stop himself from exclaiming.
"Relax. It's a joke. Hur-hur-hur," said Zabuza, his face straight, ducking just in time to dodge a senbon flying his way. "Anyway, you have suggested a very interesting idea earlier on," he said.
"Pardon? I thought you decided not to go through with the bribing thing, sir," Haku asked, somewhat surprised.
"Not that idea. But you did mention an interesting little detail, something about Hidaka having his own food-suppliers, didn't you? Well, well… If we could only find out more…"
"So… what are you suggesting, Zabuza-san?" asked Haku suspiciously.
"We are going to watch that house. Every day. And then… well, we'll just have to see about that…"
…Loki was running down the silent, sleepy streets of the Village of Twin Rivers. She was ecstatic. Who wouldn't be, at the bright and shiny prospect of a long-awaited mission? Even though she only got a small part to play in the whole grand affair, Loki was still happy: doing something useful was much better than doing pointless drills. Besides, this was a good opportunity to get more attention and praise out of Zabuza.
Loki turned a shadowy corner, sniffing this way and that in search of Haku's weakening trail of scent. Aha, here it was. This scent was going to lead her to the Hidaka estate far better than any maps or directions would. She had been shown the way once before, of course; a couple of days ago, Haku had taken the girl out into the town to familiarize her with the area. It had been quite a long and detail-filled trip; so now, reinforced by these fresh memories, Loki's inner compass was faultlessly guiding her towards her destination.
Her mission was clear. Suggested by Haku, it was simple and ingenious. Every morning, Loki had to pay a short visit to the mansion's surroundings and search for any signs of provision supplies turning up in the area. By scent alone, she would figure out how, when and how often these goods were being brought; and this useful information could open a nice, wide window of opportunity in Hidaka's seemingly impassable defences. (The time of Loki's departure, needless to say, was chosen by Zabuza himself – early morning was most convenient, he explained, because "fewer bloody people would be out to see anything". Which was a very sensible precaution, no doubt. Loki running around in a girl's kimono would have been a sight to behold.)
In any case, the girl had been spying on the household for a couple of days now, discovering many important and interesting details about the matter at hand. She had sniffed out, quite literally, that the supplies were delivered to Hidaka's manor through the hidden entrance sometime before dawn; that this notable event occurred every couple of days; and that the food cart was driven by one man and guarded by two more. The only thing that still remained unclear to Loki, however, was the 'exactly how often' part of the problem. The scents of the food cart had a very unpleasant habit of dissipating annoyingly fast in the clouds of other smells that floated by during daytime, and Loki had to come back time and again to check for any new appearances of the provision suppliers.
It hadn't been going too badly – today, in fact, was her third morning on errands – except for the fact that she almost got caught spying the day before by one of the more sensitive guards. That was a detail that Loki decided to keep to herself rather than reporting it to Zabuza, because it wasn't too significant anyhow and the eyebrowless man would only start fretting over nothing. Loki didn't want to worry him over such a small thing. The man was too paranoid for his own good, anyway.
…The girl was running along a wider cobblestone road now, her bare feet making soft slapping noises as they hit the damp, chilly rock. Somewhere to her right, a window opened, making her flinch. An old man's face stuck out from behind the shutters, red and thick with sleep and countless hangovers. He cried out something loud but incomprehensible, staring after the girl, and then the window snapped shut once more. Loki just shrugged and ran on. Humans were, undoubtedly, very strange beings; but she was already getting used to that.
In the distance, a dog barked. Loki knew what dogs were now. They were aggressive, loud things that thought they owned the place. But in reality, most of them were just as cowardly as their human masters, preferring to protect their territory from behind the thickness of their property's walls. Their language was very harsh and frenzied, but nevertheless quite comprehensible to Loki. It sounded a lot like her own thoughts did when the girl was in her wolf-state.
Who... there? Go… away!
Hmph. Loki had no intention of invading the dog's private property, anyway. But she knew it wouldn't calm down until she was out of earshot. Dogs, just like humans, were very, very strange.
The coast seemed to be clear. Loki's eyesight wasn't its greatest in the gloom, but she could sense the two figures standing far away, close to the mansion's wall. And no night patrol. That was a good sign.
The dogs had felt her presence, though, and were now going ballistic over on the other side of the giant brick fence; but humans paid little attention to them. Of course, humans didn't understand what they were saying.
Loki took a sniff of the murky morning air. Her world filled with scents of dust, dampness, anxiety, and… She made a face. Didn't humans have special sand-boxes for doing this kind of business? She had, back at the Centre. Well, that didn't really matter now. The smell she was looking for wasn't there. Was she too early? Or maybe she should have tried coming closer…?
…Like the last time. Loki winced at the memory. Zabuza would be so angry if he knew. Well, at least she found out what she needed to for sure that morning. And the girl didn't want to come back with an uncertain answer today, either. Zabuza was depending on her. She couldn't let him down.
Besides, that guard couldn't possibly remember her, could he? There were all kinds of beggars prowling the morning village streets, weren't there? …Were there…?
In any case, she had to do something quickly before it was too late. Loki took a deep breath in and slowly sidled out of her hiding place, starting towards the wall. The dogs inside the courtyard were going crazy. She wondered if they realized what exactly she was…
Stranger!!... Stranger!!... Stranger!! Go… away! Go away!!!! Go! Go gogogo go! Go away!!
Their vocabulary seemed to be quite limited, but they were so loud! Even if humans didn't understand them, Loki was afraid that eventually they would realize someone else was there just because of the rising noise level. She had to act fast, or risk getting caught…
"…hello? Is somebody there?"
Oh damn. It seemed that the humans were beginning to catch on faster than the girl had figured. She stopped where she was, observing the vague, distant figures move in the mist. Something was happening at the far-off end of the street…
Not wanting to go back, but not wishing to attract too much unwanted attention as well, Loki crouched on the ground, motionless. Having thought of nothing better to do than this, she now hoped that through the gloom and fog of the morning she would look like nothing more than a lifeless huddle of junk on the road to the guards.
Tough luck. Hidaka's guards were all hired for a good reason.
"Hey!!! I think I saw someone…"
Sniff the air. I must get a good whiff of this air, Loki thought, breathing in as deeply as she could. Not that she didn't trust her nose at a distance, but she had to know for sure. She had to.
For a moment, her inner vision came alight with the web of all the bright, jolly colours of different scents… but before she could analyze them and find the right ones, something else stood out to her. The girl froze. The guard that was now slowly, uncertainly taking a few steps in her direction was the same one that had almost spotted her the day before. Loki could feel his scent. She recognized it. The girl bit her lip, fruitlessly trying to blend in with the cobblestones. Damn, damn, damn! She was such an idiot! How could she not think that something like this could happen again?
The guard was advancing, his lance outstretched. He couldn't see Loki very clearly yet, but that didn't matter. He must have seen something falling to the ground and now knew that someone was there. The girl suppressed her instinctive urge to pounce on him with quite some difficulty: the wolf-blood inside of her was already beginning to boil at the sight of the approaching man. But Loki knew it was pointless to obey it now. She would only be doing exactly what Zabuza would categorically not want her to do in any situation, and that was Causing Commotion. But… what other options did she have?
Well, Loki could have slipped away as quietly as a snake through the grass, leaving the guard to gawp dumbly at the place where she had just been crouching. She could have also lain where she was and pretended to be terribly sick. She could have given a million excuses for being where she was, and the guard would have probably bought them all, because in the obscurity Loki didn't much look like a malevolent intruder. But, overridden by panic at the thought of getting caught, the girl just couldn't think straight. So she did the only thing that, in her opinion, was sensible in the given situation. She sprang up from the ground and ran, ran as fast as possible in the opposite direction.
The werewolf-girl moved very quickly, but her uncertainty and the inexplicable fright caused her to stumble awkwardly and lose her balance a couple of times on her way back to her shadowy refuge. It was a slip-up that she normally wouldn't allow, but this wasn't a normal situation. And, having led a monotonous and routine-filled life for most of her long thirteen years, Loki wasn't that great at dealing with new situations as quickly as they presented themselves. The teachings of the Centre, seemingly forgotten, found the most inconvenient of all times to take over Loki's mind; and thus, unable to confront a human in any way, the girl fled.
She could hear the guard's surprised, and then angry yelling behind her; and even thought that she felt some sort of a small weapon whoosh past her temple; but even then, the wolf-girl didn't stop. As she ran, Loki was realizing that she was acting stupid, but for some reason she just wasn't able to help herself. It was too late now, in any case; and there was only one thing left to do. Back in the safety of the alleyway, the unsuccessful spy continued her shameful flight, only vaguely aware of the guard's departing scent.
It was all over. The guards would certainly note her strange behaviour and watch out for her tomorrow. And it wasn't just a small matter this time. It had to be reported to Zabuza. And considering that in all of the commotion she didn't have time to look for the scents of the food cart, Loki had nothing else to report, or at least report for sure. Yes, that was it. She failed her one and only important mission. She screwed up because of her own thoughtlessness and stupidity. Perhaps she should have stayed out of this whole thing after all, instead of dumbly insisting on trying to be helpful.
Weeping in powerless rage at herself, Loki dashed onwards through the foggy streets. And the dogs yapped and howled triumphantly as their foe ran past and away, secretly relieved that their territory was not her destination.
Back on the deserted street behind the Hidaka mansion, the sharp-eyed guard had just finished staring in confusion into the morning gloom and was now returning to reassume his position at the hidden rear gate. His comrade was already back on his own spot, giving the other man a dejected 'oh well' sort of look.
"…Bloody beggars, can't they just mind their own business…" the returning guard was muttering grumpily through gritted teeth, disappointed by his and his colleague's unsuccessful 'hunt'.
"Hey!! What's with all the commotion?!?"
A third security seemed to materialize out of thin air, and started towards the two men patrolling the back gate with a worried expression on his face. In the background, the dogs were still going crazy behind the impassable brick wall.
"Oh, nothin' serious! Just some homeless girl wandered into the neighbourhood again," the first guard's voice echoed dully through the heavy, misty air. "Those rudy beggars, disrupting honest people from their work," he added as an afterthought, watching the third man stop in his tracks, nod understandingly at the empty street at large and retreat back into the gloom.
"The next time I catch a beggar around here, I'm throwing him to the dogs," the man concluded, addressing the sentry beside him. He was obviously still fuming about letting that weird homeless girl get away. There went a fun-filled morning, all down the drain.
He kept grumbling about that, and the lack of sleep, and his small pay-check for a couple more minutes; and then, as his voice subsided along with the barking of the dogs, the sleepy, foggy silence descended onto the shadowy alleyways once more.
Loki was trudging sullenly along an abandoned village road. The Unseen Village of Twin Rivers was quite big, thus it could afford having an abandoned road or two. This particular abandoned road led out of the township and straight into a vast, dense forest, which covered the biggest part of the surrounding area. The once-wide path was now half-hidden in tall, yellowing grasses and dry undergrowth. Two fading parallel lines imprinted in the trail's soggy muck were indicating quite clearly that a cart rode by this place a while ago. Okay, maybe this road wasn't that abandoned.
Loki was pacing in large steps in order to cover as much distance as possible and step into as little dirt as possible. Damp grass brushed against her muddy ankles unpleasantly, adding to the girl's overall feeling of glumness. How, how could she mess up so bad? Why did she have to act so stupid?
Loki's panic was long gone by now, allowing her to think clearly and try to approach these questions logically. When the wolf-girl thought about it now, she realized that her first and foremost mistake was trying to get closer to the mansion. There hadn't been any need for that, and she knew this. Her nose would have told her the whole story anyway; it should have been obvious to her of all people. But… would it? You never knew. Not that Loki didn't have confidence in her own sense of smell, but… and here her eyes acquired a slightly maniacal glint… she had to know for sure.
And, well… Loki was just so… exhilarated, so eager to do a good job, to double-check all answers and come back with the right information. She wanted Zabuza to see that she was useful and trustworthy and deserving of his praise. The thought of him realizing that she was good enough made the girl so strangely proud…
And for that, she had needed to make sure that she was getting the correct information; which, of course, involved approaching the great brick fencing. And getting noticed. There was no way around it; not even for a werewolf. Here, Loki would have normally thought of herself as of an extremely skilled werewolf, but after the disaster at the gates, the girl could hardly call herself 'skilled'. She wasn't even sure about what exactly happened back there. It was all going to go smoothly, even with that guard noticing her. But then… when she saw that human advance at her with that weapon… a monitor in silver armour with a double-barrel machine gun… the Centre, Loki being led along a narrow corridor… an extremely long and narrow passageway lit by sterile-white lights… suffocating odours of concrete and steel and circulating electricity… the feel of the machine-gun pressed against her neck… It all came back to her. All those memories that had already begun covering up with the thin cobweb of time, all of them for some reason sprang back to the surface of her conscience at the sight of that man. And there was nothing, absolutely nothing Loki could do. She couldn't hide. She couldn't attack. She had to wait and obey. Those heavy, familiar words. Wait and obey, because the humans were the masters, because the humans ruled all. The mental barriers set by the Centre for eleven long years could not be erased by a mere couple of months in freedom. Obey and wait. Perhaps they would not vanish at all…
But that wasn't what worried the girl at the moment. It bugged her that these memories and barriers had to surface now of all times; not when she was training with Zabuza, not when she was taking the Haku tour into the village, but now, when she was doing something that actually mattered. In a desperate, useless attempt to flee her memories, Loki lost control and sabotaged her whole assignment.
You're a warrior, Loki. Warriors must never lose control.
That was what the Chief had said. The only truthful words she had ever heard from him her entire life.
…How was she going to face Zabuza now…?
…Suddenly, Loki felt that she was being watched by two cautious, beady eyes; and right away, the girl's nose informed her that her watcher was a dog. The wolf-girl looked up. And then, down again. She was being faced by a small ginger terrier, its shaggy ears twitching in anxiety as it gaped at the werewolf. Loki felt the dog's nervousness; but for some reason, she didn't feel like chasing it away with a horrifying scream, like she was always tempted to do when she saw the other dogs in the village. Instead, she crouched down in the grass, outstretching a hand for the terrier to sniff. It was supposed to be a friendly gesture; however, the terrier seemed to have decided otherwise. Its nose made the tiniest of movements as it took in Loki's scent; and then, apparently finding it a tad bit too savage for its liking, the terrier sneezed and disappeared into the tall grasses to the girl's left. She stared after it thoughtfully, and then took off her nose-filters again.
It was quite a surprise for Loki to discover that, rather ironically, the small ginger terrier belonged to the Hidaka household. She gazed at the spot from where it had vanished into the grasses for a while longer, pondering about the oddities of life; and then rounded in the opposite direction, heading deeper into the forest.
Returning to the glade where Momochi and his team were currently stationed turned out to be quite a difficult task for Loki to perform. It was as though her legs had suddenly acquired a mind of their own; and instead of taking the girl directly to the spot where she was supposed to meet her master with the information, they went around in circles, took unnecessary turns, and even tried to round back to the village a couple of times all of their own accord. And, to tell the truth, Loki wasn't trying too hard to regain control over her disobedient limbs. It wasn't that she was afraid (pshht – since when did a werewolf fear humans?); but somehow, the thought of coming back with nothing more to report except for her own disastrous failure sent unpleasant shivers down the girl's spine, and made her stomach lurch and twist uncomfortingly.
However, Loki realized that she had to return sometime; and it was better if she did so sooner rather than later. Zabuza tended to be a bit fanatical about being on time, and making him wait by wandering places would only anger the man more. A timid suggestion at the back of the girl's mind raised its skinny hand shyly and quietly proposed that this, perhaps, would be the best time (and excuse) imaginable for Loki to make a run for it and start a life on her own in the woods, but the wolf-girl dismissed that thought with a desperate wave. She… she just couldn't do it. And not only because Loki was still rather obsessed with her eyebrowless trainer, or felt that she still owed Haku one for saving her hide, but because… well, she was afraid… afraid of beginning to live all by herself in a place she knew so little about. And her fixation about being re-captured by the Centre had a lot to do with this as well. Loki didn't believe that she could make it on her own quite yet, while sticking around Zabuza and Haku made her feel much more… sure of herself. Much more protected.
After all, Zabuza's wrath couldn't possibly be much worse than her likely fate at the Centre, could it?
Couldn't it…?
…As Loki told her disrupted, interjection-filled story to her own nervously fidgeting fingers, Zabuza didn't say a word. He didn't explode and go on a crazy yelling rampage, and didn't chase the girl around the clearing with his giant, neck-slicing Cleaver. He listened to the whole of her monologue, patiently waiting for the end between countless 'um's, 'uh's and excuses; and when Loki finished, he didn't beat her up or make any other attempts upon her life. In fact, he seemed to be unnervingly understanding about the whole thing – he even smiled once or twice – and, seeing this kind of reaction, Loki, uncertainly at first, began to gain hope.
Zabuza sat on his rock motionlessly, giving the girl a hard, thoughtful stare. In the background, Haku was standing stock-still, his face remaining emotionless, but his scent doing quite the opposite. Loki waited hopefully.
"Can you swim?" the oldest ninja asked after a pause.
The question was so sudden and off-topic that Loki was taken aback.
"Can I… swim…? Err…"
At the Centre, Loki was never taught how to swim. She did have to take occasional baths (and she couldn't say she enjoyed them a great deal), but she had never been exposed to a lot of water before. Loki did know about lakes, though, since Zabuza and Haku made stops near them every so often, but it had never occurred to the girl to actually go into the actual water and--
"Answer my question!" Zabuza was losing his patience.
"No, sir. But… what--?"
"Come on, let's go."
Before Loki could interject, she felt herself being grabbed around the waist and tucked tightly under one of Zabuza's muscular arms. The sky, Haku and the nature around the girl soon became one big blur as the branches of pine-trees descended to meet her at a light-fast speed. As Loki desperately tried to comprehend what was going on and what did any of this have to do with her failed mission, Zabuza jumped swiftly from tree to tree, carrying his female trainee deeper into the forest. Finally he stopped; and just as Loki began to feel a growing smell of silty water from somewhere far, far beneath them, her world became a shapeless blend of colours once more.
Suddenly and without any explanation at all, everything turned and twisted in front of Loki's eyes. She felt her head spin and her arms wave about erratically as she was swung around deftly by her legs and thrown head-first into the nearby lake's unwelcoming embrace. Black waters sloshed and sent cold splatters around in annoyance, completely engulfing their disturber's body and then closing in smoothly above the girl's unfortunate backside.
High up on the pine-tree branch, Zabuza waited. Small carbon dioxide bubbles popped up for a while around the spot where Loki's belly met the lake; and after a couple more seconds trickled by, the girl herself resurfaced, apparently grasping the idea. She was having considerable trouble, though; the lake just didn't seem to want to let her go, and Loki's head bobbed in and out of sight awkwardly as she struggled for breath.
Zabuza watched her struggles with a rather calm half-smile on his partly-bandaged face.
"Not able to deal with new situations, now are we? Do you know what happens to a ninja who cannot handle new situations?" the man yelled from the height of his tree when Loki's milk-and-coffee-coloured head re-appeared above the lake's rippling surface. "That's right! Shit happens! Exactly the same thing that will happen to you if you don't learn how to deal with this particular situation! (He waited for Loki to pop out of the water and into the earshot once more) …And to become a shinobi of MY expectations, you will have to learn how to handle the bloody things just as fast as they bloody present themselves! Am I clear? Am I clear? And-- AND DON'T YOU DARE HELP HER, HAKU!!!" he yelled at the extremely distressed-looking boy who had just caught up with the two, and now made an uncertain start towards the lake. "She will have to learn by herself, or she will die trying!"
Haku made a reproachful interjection, but stopped dead in his tracks. He knew better than to argue with his master. The idea of leaving Loki to drown was painful, but, unfortunately, a categorical 'no' from Zabuza meant that she had to get out of this mess by herself, or suffer much more serious consequences.
"Oh, and did I mention, if you do get out…?" the Jounin turned back to shout just as he appeared about to leave, "…Don't expect us to leave you any dinner tonight!!!"
And off he went, disappearing into the depths of the forest, Haku following grudgingly. Momochi didn't know why he had added that last bit. But it seemed like such a nice finishing touch to his punishment.
In the middle of the lake, Loki was gurgling and flapping her arms around desperately. She could hear Zabuza's words, but missing dinner was the last thing bothering the girl at the moment. Her shocked mind was concentrated on one concept, and one concept only – and that concept was Surviving.
…A couple of hours flew by without anyone really noticing. Only the trees in the darkening forest shed several more leaves in a chilly passing-by breeze; and, somewhere far away, Nami Hidaka ordered another three locks to be installed into his bedroom door.
Loki was lying on her back in the grass, not a long way away from a happily-crackling little bonfire in front of which Zabuza and Haku were currently feasting on roasted fish. The girl was trying to catch her breath; and her limbs, teaming up with the stomach, weren't making things any easier by giving her hell for being such an idiot in the first place.
A while after Zabuza and Haku had abandoned the luckless wolf-girl at the lake, Loki's drowning organism had let her animal instincts kick in and finally taught Loki how to dog-paddle. She had barely muddled through the stubborn, clinging waters of the lake, almost wrenching her arms and legs out of their joints and ingesting a lot of the sludgy, bitter liquid along the way. Not long afterwards, the girl had crawled out onto the sandy shore, dripping cold water and shaking all over from shock and exhaustion. Black with silt and covered in slippery waterweeds, she resembled some grotesque mythical monster that had come out of its muddy refuge in search for virgins, disobedient little children or anybody else who wasn't allowed into the forest after nightfall.
The wolf-girl had no idea how she'd made it back to the campsite, or for how long she had rested afterwards. Neither Zabuza nor Haku had spoken to her, although Haku did send sympathetic glances in her direction every once in a while as he passed by the spot where she lay resting.
More time had passed by; and, feeling that she had gotten over her initial shock, Loki had decided to somewhat rehabilitate herself in the eyes of her mentor by hopping to her training straight away. Unfortunately, this turned out to be yet another terrible mistake. Barely recovered from near death and dripping greenish slime all over, Loki was in no condition to attempt chakra manipulation. However, the constantly-growing feeling of guilt that had been eating away at the girl's insides ever since early morning had stripped her of all common sense that was still left in her exhausted head. Taking a wobbly battle-stance in front of a nearby tree (and making sure that she was well in sight of her ruthless object of affection), Loki had formed a shaky hand-sign and concentrated…
…The results were disastrous. The werewolf's chakra, not very manageable even in ordinary situations, was now just as obedient as a wildcat with its tail set on fire. It burned Loki's hands, electrified her hair and even danced happily around in the atmosphere in the form of golden, mischievous little sparks, utterly ignoring the mental commands of its host. Despite all of the girl's most desperate efforts, her chakra only seemed to get more and more out of control; and instead of going to the soles of her feet as instructed, it flowed all around in turmoil, striking many other miscellaneous body-parts along the way. Once, the savage red stream even hit Loki's nose; and for a brief moment, her vision lit up as the scents of everything for miles and miles around burst out of proportion, merged into a single, overwhelming flurry of information and struck the werewolf's senses all at once, much like a tsunami collapses onto a helpless seaside village. It felt like a hammer descending onto a nail-head, or rather as if a bomb had gone off inside the girl's head.
Loki swayed a little, the back of her brain involuntarily registering that all of the world's molecules must have had different scents, and then her legs folded under her as she collapsed to the ground, face-down onto the sparse autumn vegetation. Evil green and purple sparkles dancing across her vision, Loki tried to get back to her feet; but instead of accomplishing this uneasy task, she doubled up and vomited, over and over, into the grass.
In front of the happily-crackling bonfire, Haku and Zabuza were finishing up their meal.
When the sounds of Loki retching were brought over to the assassins' side of the glade by a wandering breeze, Haku gave a barely-noticeable flinch the girl's way. Zabuza, who sat with his back to his female trainee's struggle spot, made a point of not noticing this mimicry and shook the crumbs off his hands by rubbing them together over the hungry orange flames. Haku took a sip out of his water canteen. His eyes glazed as he stared at the fire.
"I think she's practicing her chakra control, sir…" he mumbled, not looking up from the glowing red embers.
"Hmph." Zabuza pretended not to hear.
There was a silence.
"I think she's really trying, sir…" Haku decided to try as well.
"And is she succeeding?" Zabuza's reply was curt, gruff and reluctant. There was a pause.
"…I don't think so, sir." At the moment, honesty seemed like the best approach.
"That's the whole point." Zabuza reached for the water canteen himself. Another moment of awkward silence followed.
"She made it out of the lake, sir…" Haku said after a while, though rather uncertainly.
"Good. Then we will repeat this exercise again tomorrow." There was no hint of a grin on the Jounin's now un-bandaged face.
Haku opened his mouth to interject, and then shut it again. The boy understood that Zabuza was right and that the punishment had been just. Yet nevertheless, he felt that it was his responsibility to try and defend the one he had once worked so hard to nurse back to health. After all, nobody likes to know that so much of their time and efforts had all been a waste.
Zabuza picked up a stick and pushed a red-hot ember back into the fire. It engulfed the offering gratefully, flaring up for a brief moment and spitting out a tiny firework of blistering sparks.
"She has got to learn, Haku, and she has got to do it soon. I have no time for this. I was really considering killing her today. And I would, was it not for her Bloodline Limit, or whatever the heck her ability is." The man paused, scrutinizing his student with a frowning eye and making sure that the boy understood. "To be useful to me and the plans I have in mind, she has got to become as good as they get. As good as you. (Haku blushed. Loki would have given a lot to be in his shoes at that moment.) But if she doesn't learn fast enough, I will kill her, abilities and all."
Haku lowered his eyes and nodded gravely. Of course. It would be nice if Loki stayed, but Zabuza-san's priorities were the most important and had to come first, no questions asked.
"…Sorry, sir," he sighed. "It was my fault as well. After all, I was the one who came up with this whole idea. I just didn't think she--"
"Whatever. You've got nothing to apologize for." Another ember was prodded thoughtfully back into the flames. "Say, you don't think she did it on purpose, did she? Allowed herself to be seen to get the guards to alert the Hunter-nin?" By Zabuza's face, it was hard to judge whether he was joking or not. Most likely, he was being serious.
Haku gave him a Look. The bonfire merrily crackled away, sending capering shadows over the thoughtful faces of the renegades…
Loki was lying on her back, concealed by the withering grass on the other side of the glade. She wasn't practicing anymore. The girl's head was still spinning from her last unsuccessful attempt at controlling her chakra; and the multicoloured lights were currently playing tag with silver arrows, guards with spears and Hidaka's little ginger terriers chasing them round and round in front of her eyes.
Loki's mind was in turmoil. But amidst all that chaos, a small thought poked its head out of the psychological muddle and tugged timidly at the barely functioning end of Loki's messed-up thought-processing machinery…
I screwed up. I ruined everything and made them all angry. I am an idiot. But I have to redeem myself and prove that I'm worthy. I have to put everything right. I'm a werewolf, after all. I know that I can.
But no, that wasn't it.
In the darkness of confusion, a tiny light-bulb lit up, its minuscule filaments brightening up bit by little bit. Slowly and reluctantly at first, a vague hint of a scheme began to form itself out of the broken recollections of today's events…
In Loki's head, an idea was born.
End Chapter! …Whatever could Loki be planning…? O.o I wonder…
…Blah. Because of that stupid spammer, I wasted too much space at the top to answer your questions. Anyway, sorry for taking so long to update and starting off on such a negative note. Not having a very good semester, with everything getting to me lately, and random arseholes abusing my review page. Grr. I dunno when the next update will be posted since I have a lot less time to spare for writing this than before. I'll do the best I can to go through with it, though, just for those of you who care. X3 Peace, y'all.
What else? Oh yes, answers. Yes, I know Haku and Zabuza's real ages (you're right, they're 15 and 26), and I made them younger deliberately. Note that I kept the age difference. And yes, they are going to age. The reason why I did this, though, was because I wanted to give them some past (with Loki, as well as in general) before the whole Battle on the Bridge ordeal. As for whether or not they're going to die in the Battle, well… that's for me to know and for you to find out. x3 Mwaha.
That's all folks. xP Enjoy the crack… ers. v.v;