The Pack's Luna 2
Disclaimer: I don't own any rights pertaining to Harry Potter or Naruto. Just the right to enjoy them.
This is another chapter. I'm busy writing on Still Waters at the moment.
Have a great evening!
-2-
Life kind of went along the same way as before, only now that Kakashi had found her in the hospital for the first time in years, he apparently needed to constantly make sure she was fine when he was in the village. It became normal to find little notes in his usual baskets, sporting little scarecrow-caricatures instead of an actual signature.
Masahiro, Katsu and Takeo-sensei only calmed down after she explained that he had been looking after her ever since she could remember. And it was true, although Suzume wasn't quite sure if that summed up all the reasons for Kakashi's relatively affectionate care of her person.
Three months after they reconnected, the ravenette was beginning her training to transfer into the Hunter-nin Corps, a subdivision of the ANBU Corps. She would be taking the place of an Aburame Takeo-sensei looked up to. Her old persona would probably have insisted that those kind of missions were against everything they stood for, immoral and killing people for a living! What a shame!
But Suzume chose to see it as defending the pack or nest against predators, sticking to the analogy with summons. She wanted to protect her loved ones the best way she knew how so ANBU it was.
It took over half a year until her predecessor deemed her ready for the world in the shadows, seeing her sixteenth birthday and New Years.
It neared Spring when she inherited his position as, ironically, Sparrow. The mask fit well enough, if one completely disregarded her name and summoning contract. Compared to the other kunoichi in her age bracket Suzume was tiny, almost child-like in appearance (still, despite puberty finally hitting her too) and on top of all that also wind-natured. For her disadvantages in the height department, she had had to learn all sorts of tricks to survive not only a war; learning to indulge her Slytherin side, as her magical counterpart would have put it.
In the slow days between missions, Suzume had looked through her other memories, trying to find something useful for her shinobi life. Unfortunately most did not translate well into the field, with a few exceptions.
She had redesigned a version of the Point-Me spell until it did not require a single seal beyond the initial Ram, to mold chakra. As long as she had some basic information on her target, the ravenette could find them. The Disillusionment charm had been turned into a chameleon jutsu, quite like one of the favored techniques of Jiraiya-sama, the Toad Sage.
But her best, most prized discovery had been the Occlumency training her counterpart had received. Suzume used it to keep herself sane, especially after the war; working through the bad, ugly and hellish days, forcing herself to finish all five stages of grief. She trained herself to accept and move on, so she would not be broken as easily as most traumatized veterans with their very own set of triggers. (It earned her a great reputation with the shrinks, mainly because she didn't run away or had to be dragged kicking and screaming to her mandatory sessions.) Occlumency was also perfect to help with her jutsu creation, storing the important information in easily accessible spots.
For her, at least.
Consequently, Suzume managed to seal her first (second?) life safely away, so that none of the Yamanaka who were scheduled to go through her mind suspected anything. She always made sure to hide the strength of her defenses from them, playing her abilities down to avoid becoming a big(ger) target.
Either way, she was an official member of the ANBU now, proud of her position in life. Her mother had always encouraged her to go as far as her ambitions carried her. They were after all the clan known for summoning birds.
Her genin-team tried to meet up at least once a month, if possible, to catch up with everyone. Their bonds were still strong, strong enough to meet in her home. Masahiro always critiqued her mother's bonsai, the state of the overall compound and the food, in this exact order, but that was the Hyuuga's way to show he cared. Katsu and his furry partner Daisuke sniffed around for a while before settling down, they always insisted on a group hug too, to memorize the scents of their team. Takeo-sensei usually took care of the snails in her vegetable garden, unasked. In turn Suzume cooked for them.
Nowadays Katsu would always comment how Kakashi had been around some days ago, 'sniffing around again', and that Daisuke didn't like the mixing scents. It felt like an interloper was interfering in their pack, apparently.
(She could still read just fine between the lines, thank you very much.)
Suzume was teamed up with another Hyuuga, at least five years her senior, an Aburame who was even older than the aforementioned Hyuuga and a captain which topped her age by ten years. All three were male, quite set in their ways and awfully condescending in the beginning. Although she sort of had expected the chauvinistic treatment from her sempais, the ravenette came close to tears a few times before reinforcing her mind shields, followed by returning the quips with her own.
If the death of her parents, the discovery of her magical counterpart's life, a bloody, awfully long war and the Kyuubi-attack could not bring her to break under the pressure, she sure as hell would not allow them to force her into depression now.
No, she might look like some fragile little thing, but if Suzume had learned anything from her former life was to take nothing for granted and fight for her beliefs, her self-esteem and those she considered family.
So she held her head high, ignored the almost mandatory hazing and always retaliated covertly. (Pranks turned out to be fun. If only she had known that before dying, the first time.)
Therefore the tiny little Jōnin earned her teammates' respect bit by bit.
After a year together, the hazing let up completely.
Consequently, Suzume did not even so much as twitch anymore when her boys changed in front of her, ignored her own body issues in front of them and spent her energy on the really important things, like keeping her team safe.
Alive.
Her half-assed medical training kept Tiger alive, on a mission from hell, long enough for them to hand him over to the professionals. Donkey-taicho nearly lost a leg once, but they somehow managed to stem the blood flow, complete the mission and contain the traitor they had been sent out to track. Grasshopper had to carry her back more than once for chakra exhaustion, too.
A few months in, Suzume regularly broke into their ANBU-assigned rooms, cooked and mothered them a bit, like she had done for her genin-team, for her best friends in a different life.
Maybe she was channeling Molly Weasley too much or just missed having someone around to baby.
Thankfully their captain always avoided honey-trap missions, as long as they required a kunoichi. In all honesty, Suzume preferred tracking missions, even assassinations, over those. (Katsu, Masahiro and Takeo-sensei approved. Wholeheartedly.)
By the time the last Hane-clan member had turned eighteen, she had finally physically matured enough to actually resemble a female more than a male. It also became clear that her ANBU cell had also joined the overprotective big brother brigade, unfortunately for her non-existent love life.
The world moved on, life ran its course, and Suzume was content to let it.
Until everything went up into flames.
Donkey-taicho had chosen a relatively easy A-rank for them, on paper. It was a tracking mission, hunting a spy, supposedly from Iwa, before he could reach his contacts outside Konoha and Hi no Kuni. If possible, they were to eliminate those too, but it was not a priority. Lately the team had been run ragged, mainly due to the sudden decease of the complete Police Force, so everyone was eager to stretch their legs outside of the village once more.
They had half an hour to move out, it was time-sensitive after all. Suzume penned a quick note for Kakashi who had been supposed to come over for dinner that night. Then she quickly grabbed her pack, suppressed the odd, foreboding twinge in her gut and practically flew over the rooftops to the rendezvous point.
Donkey-taicho and Tiger-sempai had been waiting for them, but she arrived shortly before Grasshopper-sempai. They were armed to the teeth because Iwa-nin and set off at a fast pace. Tiger took point, guiding them with the Byakugan. Grasshopper had chosen the rear while Donkey-taicho bracketed her, protecting her (comparatively) vulnerable side. After all, Suzume was their medic, or the closest thing to one they had. It also helped that she could direct them in the right direction from the gates, cutting down on the required initial orientation.
So far, no one had evaded them when the ravenette activated her customized jutsu.
They cornered their target halfway to a small village on the border to Kusa, which actually was way ahead of schedule. Unfortunately for the team, the spy had had company. Company in form of three High Jōnin-level enemies.
From Iwa.
That's when it all went to hell.
A battle broke out between the two parties, quickly erasing any doubts from Suzume's mind that those Iwa-nins had been anything other than ANBU in disguise.
In the first round, Grasshopper was downed by a cheap shot from underground, not having evaded fast enough. Donkey-taicho battled the most experienced Iwa-nin while Tiger-sempai beheaded the spy. Suzume had her hands full with two ANBU that had deduced her position as team-medic somehow. Which meant they did not pull any punches, unfortunately for her.
Only the raven-haired woman's rapid Kawarimi saved her life several times, as well as her prowess with her father's katana. She evaded any kind of ninjutsu to the best of her abilities, retaliating with her modified Stunners.
It would not have been so bad if the Iwa-shinobi would not have been wearing some sort of rock-armor. Any kind of predictable physical attack was countered either by the nin in question or absorbed by the hellishly strong armor. Suzume had to resort to nearly suicidal acrobatics her counterpart would have loved to pull off on a broom in order to keep herself alive.
She could not afford to land on the ground for any length of time, keeping to the few trees and the air as long as possible.
One of her attackers went down after she reinforced her kunai with her elemental chakra, showering her in brain matter and blood as he did so. Naturally, this enraged the other guy after her head even more.
In the background, Tiger-sempai had been killed as well, not helping her morale any. On the other hand Donkey-taicho had finished with his own opponent, taking on the one who had cut their teammate's throat.
Slowly Suzume felt her stamina decrease, increasing the burn in her lungs and muscles. She was by no means a slouch in that department, but by the Kami, having to constantly keep moving at an incredibly fast pace, jumping from tree to tree, branch to branch, just to stay alive took its toll on her body. The Iwa-nin destroyed her heavily-reinforced mask, cutting up her face (this is going to leave a nasty scar) something awful. Blood ran into her left eye, blinding her side and Suzume became (more) desperate.
She molded enough chakra to take down an elephant on a rampage and concentrated on the pulsing vein above the male's collarbone.
In slow motion, the ravenette watched as her lightning-fast ninjutsu-attack hit right on target. Unfortunately the red shower concealed the last technique of her opponent, so she reacted too late.
Tears welled up in her eyes as spikes sprouted out of the ground fast enough to impale her on them.
Biting back the panic stubbornly fighting against her rational mind, Suzume slowly went through the usual seals to summon one of her messenger birds. When Akira showed up in a poof of smoke, none of her teammates were moving. Neither did the Iwa-nins, at least.
"Report to Headquarters or the closest team with a medic," Suzume ground out, ignoring the agonizing pain waiting to rip her apart. "Not sure who's still alive. I won't make it if nobody shows up in twenty minutes, max."
Akira bopped her colorful head obediently, winging off as fast as the currents would allow her.
Then everything went black.