She took over the shop.
There was no one else to do it and no one who would have volunteered for it either. They saw what the soldiers had done to Aoi and no one was willing to put themselves at risk like that. The shop was shut for just shy of a week, simply for her to clean up the blood and to take the bodies around back, to bury them by the target posts. The few families which remained suddenly offered their condolences, their pity, their doors were magically open in contrast to when they had slammed shut in her face.
Hisa was no longer an outsider, it was a small victory in the grand scheme of things.
Small victories was what she had to work with though because Aoi had been killed for 'selling to their enemies'.
She might have promised Aoi to stay silent during his execution but Hisa had wanted to scream at the man who dropped the blade onto his exposed neck. Hisa had bitten her tongue, her lip and tasted her own blood as her mentors poured onto the ground outside his shop. She'd wanted to tear them to shreds with simply her words and the fury they were laced with.
How dare they call them 'their' enemies.
They weren't allies, they weren't on the same side.
In fact, they weren't even in the same equation.
The war between the two Clans had escalated to the point of arrogance- no, it had managed to go further than that. It was as if that war had become their way of life, that they thought the sun rose and set with the sole purpose of bringing them another day of combat. They thought that their war was the be all and end all, that their war was more important than the lives of common folk- that their war was the lives of common folk.
Hisa might have been coy smiles, nimble fingers and worn clothes.
She was also bone grinding, blood spilling and sweat pouring.
There had been anger laced in her flesh before she knew what anger truly was. She'd been abandoned on the cold steps of the shrine, left behind by her own flesh and blood and then shamed from her first home. Hisa had been accustomed to being wronged, the bitterness was a rot in her chest and it was slowly consuming her. It was lodged deep within her ribcage, unwilling to be removed.
"They think they can get away with this," a woman told her, the day which she reopened.
The forge was hot but there were no orders to complete, no one had any requests and she thought it was out of respect for Aoi. Regardless, Hisa had no intention of starting any sort of project that day; instead, she stood at the counter with a fierce glare that swept over all which crossed her path. The woman's face was worn with age and the same sort of rage which she felt deep within her bones, within their bones.
"They have gotten away with this," Hisa told her.
The mask might have muffled her words but it doesn't distort her disgust.
"Then you need to make them pay, boy," the woman demanded. Her wrinkled fist slamming into the countertop. "You make them pay for what they did to my brother."
Hisa didn't pause or hesitate, lips curling and fists clenching.
"Make them pay yourself, you've no right to demand anything of me," she sneered.
(No one does.)
.
.
She met Uchiha Toichi by accident.
She didn't learn his name until months later.
It was on one of the few days of rest which she took midweek, closing the shop and using the time to flee to the slow current river that was only minutes away from their settlement. A place which had apparently been lively and peaceful during the summer months. It was deserted most days, ever since the skirmishes had gotten closer and closer to their borders.
The battles didn't scare her like they should've done though.
Instead, she simply made sure she was armed to the teeth.
With no one there, it meant that Hisa was free to drop all pretences. Pulling down the mask was always satisfying, freeing, even if it was something she'd worn since Aoi had gifted it to her. She stripped down to her underwear and chest-bindings, not bothering to check the water temperature before diving in head first.
It was deep enough for her to swim around but shallow enough that she wouldn't risk drowning, not really.
The thing about war is that you never should leave yourself vulnerable. Hisa should've always been on guard, all it took was one mistake.
"What're you doing?"
His voice was like ice down her spine.
She'd shot over to the side of the river before realising what she was doing, her hand wrapping around one of her knives and throwing it blindly in the direction of the voice. The thud of blade meeting and his high-pitched yelp didn't settle the rapid pace of her heart.
"Hey!" he yelled.
Her fingers dug into the grass, pulling herself up to peek over the edge. Her hair was slicked back from the water and there was no hiding she was a woman now. The thrill of fear sitting in her sternum and Aoi's voice echoed in her head, reminding her the dangers of being a woman caught unaware in these times.
The Uchiha, it had to be an Uchiha.
The Senju were no better, not really but the Uchiha had this hubris to them, their posturing, their symbol painted on every fucking piece of clothing they owned. Their sneer and his glare, staring down his nose at her whilst he held her knife. He looked angry, as would anyone who had just had a knife thrown at them, looking like he intended to match the cut she'd made across his cheek with a cut of his own.
There was something inherently satisfying though to watch his haughty gait falter as he got closer.
It was like watching a light go on when he realised who had thrown the knife, that she wasn't a 'threat' in his eyes. Uchiha were somewhat traditional, women weren't common on a battlefield.
"Y-you're," he fumbled.
"Swimming," she helpfully supplied him. Knowing full well that wasn't what had him in such a state.
"Indecent," he hissed back.
She said nothing, instead continued to float in the murky waters.
(Use every advantage you have, she told herself.)
"Are you going to turn around whilst I get out… or are you just going to stand there and stare?" She asked.
The Uchiha sputtered indignantly, a red hue rising up his neck but she wasn't sure if that was out of anger or embarrassment. He almost dropped her knife, probably unused to someone outside of his Clan talking back to him.
(What? Was she supposed to drop to her knees subserviently?)
He turned though, rather than going in for the kill for her lack of respect, his back facing towards her.
All she could think was I could kill you so easily that it wasn't even funny.
It was cold and callous remark, something which had started since she'd heard the grotesque thud of Aoi's head meeting the pavement outside his house. She'd closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to see it but it had haunted Hisa's dreams, it probably would for the rest of her life. It simply knocked into her head the lessons which life was trying to teach her.
That life was fleeting, that it could so easily be taken away.
With a quiet sigh, she pulled herself out of the water and dried herself off before the chill seeped in too deep. Her clothes slightly damp and her mask hanging loose around her chin, there wasn't any point trying to hide behind it at that moment.
"You can look," Hisa said.
She wanted to smile when he peeked over his shoulder warily.
"Sorry for throwing the knife," she murmured, holding her hand out expectantly.
The steel was cold against her palm and his callouses brushed against hers. He tried to regain his bearings, tried to compose himself in the same way which all Uchiha tried to hold themselves. That he hadn't caught her at her most vulnerable.
"You're lucky I don't-" he started, turning around to face her. He stopped mid-sentence and his unspoken threat lingered in the air.
"I am sorry," was she sorry she threw the knife or was she simply sorry she missed?
He doesn't say a word but simply stares at her, scrutinises her, she feels like he's looking down his nose at her.
"What're you doing 'round these parts?" She eventually asked.
It's quiet and demure, peering up at him through her eyelashes. It served to make him uncomfortable again, it knocked him off balance. He was just a boy himself, barely older than her. Nervous around girls and fumbling for the right words, his face remains blank.
"Clan stuff," he shrugs off and the vague answer irked her.
"Really? Like what?" She leans in, her eyes now wide as if she's enraptured.
(Use every advantage you have, the voice of the old woman who took her in told her.)
There had been a five-year gap between leaving the shrine, the temple, her first home and finding Aoi. It had been filled with hungry nights and scavenging for means to survive. The old woman lived in the red light district of one of the more prominent cities, ran an upstanding brothel, Nanami had let her seek shelter in her home for small favours.
She had taught Hisa that men enjoyed thinking they were interesting. That nothing made a man's lips looser than a pretty woman who seemed to be hanging off their every word. Uchiha Toichi didn't seem to be any better than the average man, susceptible to a pretty face.
Hisa wasn't arrogant, she knew she was somewhat attractive.
"Basic stuff, replenishing stocks, surveying possible recruits," it was an offhand comment and he rolls his shoulders like it meant nothing.
It is nothing to him though.
He was simply doing what the Clan had told him, had instilled into him no doubt since he was a boy.
"Sounds difficult! Did you and your team get everything you needed?" She asked, leaning into his space without hesitation. She didn't know if it was her settlement he was coming back from, didn't know his purpose, didn't know how many of them there was.
"My partner went south because the small villages blacksmith was shut," he commented.
"Ah, I see."
"You didn't answer my question earlier," he murmured. It was his turn to lean into her space, so fucking arrogant. He towers over her by a good head and a half. "What're you doing out here?"
Hisa's smile is sweet.
Her grip tightened and she swung.
The knife was in his throat before he could blink.
She wasn't arrogant enough to think that she'd have been able to take him on in a proper fight, that the element of surprise was her only way out. If it had come to that. For all she knew, it might not have become a confrontation but was that a risk that she had been willing to take? Fuck no.
Hisa stared at him.
He choked and gasped around the blood in his throat.
He sank, lower and lower until he crumbled to the floor. At some point his hand had reached out, clawing at her pants leg. Some twisted part of her mind danced gleefully, it crooned and it gloated and it screamed where's your hubris now boy?
There's so much blood. She didn't think there'd be that much blood but then again, what did she expect?
All she knew was that he was going to die, it hadn't even been a conscious thought.
Toichi gargled, choked on his own blood and his other hand gripped the handle of the knife that was deeply embedded into his larynx.
There were so many reasons he was going to die: He knew that she was a woman? He was going to try and recruit the men of her settlement for war? He was seen as a threat at that moment? Take your pick.
Her smile wasn't pretty but it wasn't supposed to be.
She wrapped her hand around the handle of the knife, her hand laid over his, pulling the knife out of him. It made a wet squelch as it came loose, it was soaked, it was dripping in his blood but all she did was crouch down, wiping it onto the grass next to them.
Her eyes never leaving him, the eye contact was important.
It was something which she wanted to see.
She'd probably regret it later when it was night time and she was going to sleep. When her dreams would come out to play, to haunt her, it was something to watch whilst the tune of Aoi's head hitting the floor echoed in her skull.
At that moment though, there was something so sickeningly satisfying.
"It's nothing personal," was all she managed to tell him before he expired, his body just… crumbling, flopping, like a puppet cut from its strings. The tears are streaming down her cheeks and she didn't know who they were for. Instead, she tucked the knife into her belt and slid the Uchiha's glassy eyes shut, smearing his blood across his eyelids. "Such a shame."
.
.
Uchiha Toichi's body was found downstream of the river, closer to the small Uchiha settlement.
They blamed the Senju.
The war raged on.
AUTHOR NOTE: AH! I'm glad you guys are enjoying this! I hope this sort of makes sense because mainly I wanted to show how Hisa is slowly becoming more involved in the war, whether she wants it or not. Let me know what you guys think! Your reviews are everything to me, thank you so much!