"Suiton Suiryūdan no Jutsu*," she gasped out, as a column of water materialised before her, taking the shape of a dragon,after which it launched itself at the nearby trees, obliterating them.

Reiko took a small break after the water dragon dissipated, analysing the damage done and the amount of chakra it took to perform. The twelve year old had been able to perform this techniques for a few weeks now, however, she was attempting to better familiarise herself with it, so as to memorise the way her chakra before the jutsu activated. In hopes of cutting down on the forty-four hand seals it needed.

'Forty-four bloody hand seals! Who the heck came up with this technique?'

Reiko managed to get it down to thirty-seven seals, though, it now used more chakra to activate and it wasn't as stable, making it lose some of its strength.

In other words, it was proving extremely frustrating for Reiko and she was not a happy bunny.

(Well she generally wasn't one but whatever)

Add to the fact that she had to constantly regenerate the destroyed forest, which on itself took a great deal of chakra, while keeping her sensing ability on high alert.

Why?

Simple. There had been an increased activity from ninjas, close enough to where she lived that it made her rather fidgety.

'Hm?' she frowned, honing on the chakra signal that entered her sensing range. Crouching she touched the ground with her index finger to focus better on the chakra.

'Ninja,' she though immediately, taking note of how developed the user's chakra was, 'male…injured?' she wondered, noticing the low chakra levels and fluctuating nature of it.

Frowning Reiko got up, ignored the damaged forest, —'I can always deal with that later'— and made her way towards her house.

Running, she reached the house in two short minutes, as she tended to train close to the hut. She jumped on the roof and laid belly down on the wooden shingles.

Concentrating, Reiko could definitely tell that all was not right with the ninja. However she chose to wait for him to approach. Once the figure entered her field of sight, Reiko made certain to note any, and all anomalies she saw.

'Definitely injured, he's leaking blood—tsk, that will make for an especially easy trail to follow in this snow,' she though slightly annoyed. He wasn't headed for her house at least. As far she could tell the ninja hadn't even noticed it, closed by thick, dense tress as it was.

'He seems…not all there,' she though, trying to come up with the right phrasing. The male was wobbling, leaning most of his weight on his left leg, and, on closer inspection, his gaze seemed unfocused.

'Was he ambushed?' she pondered, 'He better not have pursuers. I can't be bothered to deal with who knows how many ninja of unknown strength…should they notice me,' she though somewhat sarcastically, in an attempt to mask the dread she felt blossoming in her at that last thought.

Focusing on extending her sensing field towards the direction the ninja came from, Reiko came up empty handed. There were no other shinobi chakras that she could pick up for miles.

The girl was drawn out of her assessment when she heard the sound of something falling in the snow.

'…He collapsed,' she thought, slightly surprised. 'Then again taking in account his appearance…maybe his injuries were more severe than I though.'

And now, Reiko found herself facing a conundrum.

Should she check on the ninja, or leave him there? He wasn't in front of her house per se, but neither was he far enough away for her to feel comfortable about leaving him there. The smell would at least attract animals if nothing else.

The problem lay in the fact that she had no idea how he would react to her once he woke up. Or whether or not he had people looking for him. Reiko wasn't a medic either, thus couldn't do more than bandage and disinfect a wound, and would have no idea how long it would take for him to heal.

However, she wasn't cold hearted or apathetic enough to just stand there letting someone dye when they haven't done anything to her.

'Gah! I've already decided, haven't I?' she thought testily.

Sighing in exasperation —What the hell am I getting into?— she jumped off her roof and made her way to the fallen ninja.

He was collapsed face-forward,the snow around him was colouring red. 'He's still breathing,' Reiko noted, watching the slight rise and fall of his back.

Moving around him so she was crouched down by he's shoulders, Reiko gingerly placed her hands under his armpits, trying to raise the man and drag him to the house.

She might have bothered with a shadow clone, if it wasn't for the fact that most of her chakra was gone from training and Reiko wanted to preserve the remainder of it, incase things went south.

'So dragging you it is,' she though with little pity fro the man. He should be grateful that she was even bothering. 'Bleeding heart that I am.'

—.—.—.—

Inside the hut, Reiko deposited the man on her futon,—'my only futon'— and when to start a fire in the hearth, before adding some water to the kettle and hooking it up to the jizaikagi* to boil.

Once done Reiko went to her medic kit and took out some bandages and disinfectant. Supplies gathered, she made her way to the unknown man, taking a moment to look over him. More specifically to look for some form of identification,

He wasn't all that tall for a male, tanned, with short brown hair. His front bangs were plastered to his forehead, and as a result covering the very thing she was looking for.

A hitai-ate.

Letting out another annoyed sigh, Reiko went to work. She unzipped his flat jacket, cut off his shirt using a kunai, 'Bah, it was already ruined,' and gently pealed it off his skin, winching when she saw the extent of his injuries.

The man's flat jacket took far more damage than him, but even so, he was covered in cuts and bruises. Most of them superficial, —she hoped— but there were two deep lacerations. One on the right side of his waist, 'As if he dodged to the side as someone slashed at him,' and the other one, which started from below his left and went across his chest.

'I'll need more bandages,' she realised as she set out to clean and disinfecting his wounds. Bandaging the worst of them and leaving the other ones exposed to the elements. His right leg seemed to be in the worse shape, suffering from burns of unknown severity. And Reiko prayed to whichever kami watched over this guy that he did not have broken bones.

She didn't know what to do about broken bones.

—.—.—.—

Three days later her companion was still asleep and Reiko didn't know what to do about him. She even went to the village nearby to buy more bandages and disinfectant —and another futon. She refused to sleep on the wood. Because damn if it wasn't cold—

Reiko even went through the trouble of passing by the local clinic, pretending her brother was injured and asking for tips and signs of infection and how to combat them. And how to tell if a bone was broken when your patient was unconscious.

Because you know, that wasn't suspicious. At all. Kami she was a moron at times.

It took a good hour to convince the doctor that he did not need to come to her house, that she could deal with it herself and that no, she couldn't bring him to the clinic.

'Bloody good samaritans.'

But even after all of that, the man showed no signs of waking up. His chakra was replenished, he miraculously did not contact an infection, and he had no fever. Sure he might have lost a lot of blood but surely he should have woken up by now?

No, this sleeping beauty didn't seem in any rush.

And it was making Reiko angsty, wondering when he will wake up and how he will react. She never fought anyone before and was not about to place bets on herself against someone with more training and experience than her.

"Huh, you better not go crazy on me little leaf," she muttered, playing with the man's forehead protector.

A stylised leaf engraved into it.

—.—.—.—

"Well, don't you make a high maintenance sleeping beauty?" Reiko mocked when she heard her new room mate finally stir.

The sound of her voice caused the man to snap into gear and his hand snapped to his high, were there used to reside a kunai holster.

"Hey you're going to undo all my hard work!" she snapped, 'So he might turn out to be the violent kind after all,' she though annoyed, a shiver of fear passing through her that she refused to show on her face or in her voice.

The brunette looked up at her…staring. And staring, no words were exchanged between them.

"Great a mute," Reiko muttered irritably, four days without proper sleep due to fear of being strangled at night, finally caught up to her.

"I'll go heat up some water," she told him, "tea?"

"Wh-who, are you?" he rasped out, voice hoarse from lack of use.

"A good samaritan, now get better and hurry out of my house," she said, only half meaning to sound so harsh.

He tried to say something else but stopped when Reiko brought the cup of tea to his lips.

"Oh stop staring at it like that. If I wanted you dead I would have left you out in the snow and I would't have gone through this much trouble," she told him when he made no move to pick up the cup.

The ninja gingerly picked it up, and sipped some of the tea, finishing it up almost immediately after. Reiko only raise an eyebrow but didn't comment, only picking up the kettle and refiling the man's cup.

"So, you have a name or should I keep calling you sleeping beauty?" she said.

He looked up at Reiko again, light green eyes clashing with dark red.

"Tokuma," he said, going back to drinking his tea, eyes never leaving her though.

"Reiko," she replayed simply, "now, I'm no medic, but I bandaged and done what I could. I even went to the clinic to ask for tips," Tokuma froze at that, "tsk, don't look so frightened, it's not like I went blabbering that I have an injured ninja in my house. That's just asking for problems."

"Where exactly am I?" he asked finally taking a full look at his surroundings.

"My house, Shimo no Kuni, late December," she listed without missing a beat. He might be nice now but Reiko didn't want to antagonise him too much. You never knew what will set him off.

"I see, and you…took care of my injuries?" he hesitated, seemingly to be debating something internally, but moved on.

"Do you see anyone else? Oy, don't get up yet your leg still hasn't recovered," she admonished him, wincing when he grimaced.

"So, want to share with me why I found you collapsed near my home?"

"I was attacked," Reiko gave him a blank look, and Tokuma actually blushed.

"Haha…I guess I do owe you an explanation for saving my life," he then launched into a short story about how he and his team were being followed so he offered to stay back and slow down their enemy so that the rest of his teammates could complete the mission.

"Heroic idiot," she replayed, finished cooking the fish and plating it.

"Here, eat this," she ordered, thrusting the food and a pair of chopsticks at the man.

—.—.—.—

As it turned out, while Tokuma wanted go and find out what happened to his team, his still healing injuries made it pointless for him to try now.

"Because if you got ambushed right now, you would be able to put up a hell of a fight right?" she said sarcastically, the first time he tried to leave.

Two days later, and they were sitting, legs folded, at her table, eating.

"Mou~ Reiko-chan, you will make a great wife one day!" Tokuma said cheerily, waving his chopsticks around. A glare was his only replay.

"Hey now, it's a compliment I swear! You're really good at cooking, and not that bad at patching up wound either… hey how old are you anyway?"

Any and all pity Reiko felt for him initially disappeared over the past two days. Tokuma was a chatter box. And constantly, constantly, asked questions. Not a bad thing for a ninja, she knew, and she could tell when he worded his questions just so, in order to gather information. "No I didn't tell anyone about you," "No I haven't seen any other ninja nearby," "Yes, I took off your weapons— don't look at me like that. Did you really think anyone will allow an unknown, wounded ninja to have weapons nearby? I personally like my body as it is. With no holes." Those were just some off the things she told him. But up till now he stayed clear of asking personal questions.

It was a mutual understanding between them, you don't ask me and I don't ask you. Or so Reiko thought.

"I turned twelve this month," she told him, watching the way he paused for a bit, seeming to process the information. Giving her an inscrutable look during this procedure, before he returned to his far too cheery self.

"Awww, if only you were a couple of years older… I would totally marry you!" he exclaimed. She threw her empty bowl at him. He dodged.

"Like I would marry you,…tsk troublesome man. Get better and leave."

"Nah, you don't mean that Reiko-chan. You would miss my irresistible charm," he joked.

"What I do miss, is the quiet," she stressed out the word 'miss,' relishing the way he pouted.

Reiko wouldn't admit it out loud but she enjoyed the banter going on. If nobody could tell, she was quite lonely. Not that it would convince her to move to a village, that would just get in the way of her training and if someone noticed it then they would ask questions.

And questions were bad.

Especially during war time.

She was too immersed in her rumination to realise that Tokuma had been quiet for a while. Reiko didn't even noticed that he finished eating and was now watching her.

"Reiko-chan," he started off slowly, snapping her out off her thoughts.

"I didn't want to ask but—"

"Then don't ask," she interrupted, not liking his tone nor the sigh that followed.

"Where are your parents?"

She didn't answer, not for a while. Her body having gone completely rigid. The memory of that day making an appearance in her thoughts, and unconsciously it caused her fingers to tighten around her tea cup.

Reiko didn't notice all off this. But Tokuma did.

"Rei—" he tried again.

"They are dead," she snapped, gaze lowered, refusing to meet his.

'I should have kept my mouth closed,' he thought to himself angrily. They didn't speak for the rest of the day, and Reiko went to clean up the dishes in silence.

—.—.—.—

The next day, the bowl in which she put the rice in, cracked when she handed it to Tokuma.

"Huh? That's odd," he said looking at the bowl quizzically.

Reiko had a bad feeling about this.

—.—.—.—

'I knew that things were going too smoothly to be true,' she thought irritably. Dropping the wood she 'gathered,' Reiko made her way back home. Slamming the door open and scaring Tokuma enough for him to fling a kunai at her.

"Wha—" he tried to get out.

"What do you want to do?" she demanded, much to the ninja's confusion.

"What do you mean? Did something happened?" he fired quickly, eyes narrowed.

"Ninja, five of them heading towards this direction," she narrated almost mechanically.

Tokuma looked taken back for only a moment before his entire demeanour changed.

"How do you know?"

"Sensor," she replayed simply, watching as the man quickly collected his stuff and was ready to go.

"Distance and time left?"

"Less than nine kilometres, coming from the west…about, twenty minutes

"Are you certain that they are heading in this direction?"

"…No. However other than you I have never l encountered ninjas in this area."

Agreeing to hide his presence just incase, reiko went about her normal business, erasing any trances of a second person having living there. Just in case.

From what she could tell, the approaching chakras, they were in no hurry which did calm the girl somewhat. Till they entered her clearing.

Quickly doing a scan of her surroundings she could feel the muted chakra of Tokuma in the tress edging the clearing and she could only hope that he was not spotted.

When the knock sounded, she took a deep breath to calm herself before opening the door.

Five men were on the other side. They didn't look particularly threatening or menacing, but appearances could be deceiving.

Especially in the case on ninjas who lived off deception.

Reiko didn't have to fake her apprehension at seeing them. The man who was probably in charge asked if they could enter.

"We are part of the patrol force. I am really sorry to be bothering you miss but could we rest inside for a bit?" he asked pleasantly, though his eyes weren't as warm. Reiko narrowed her eyes at them and a quick glance revealed that they were all wearing forehead protectors with Shimogakure's symbol engraved into them.

'The local shinobi then,' she thought warily, but allowed them in nonetheless. She never before fought a ninja and she sure as hell didn't want to start an altercation with a group of them.

Once inside Reiko took more time to analyse them, 'break my ass,' she thought, seeing them look around. 'What kind of patrols would ask to take a break in a civilian's home when their duty is to patrol their given perimeter,' she though sourly.

If she was right it means that they were here for a different reason. 'Tokuma?' she wondered, 'But how did they find out, I never told anyone about him. For that matter how did they know where my house is? What did they just run around aimlessly?' she kept thinking as she offered the shinobi tea.

"My apologies, I hope you have something in which I can pour you tea. Unfortunately I never had a need to posses enough cups to serve so many people," she said kindly, trying her best to not show fear.

Because she was afraid. Sure Reiko could do ninjutsu, but for all she knew the things that she could do were baby things for seasoned ninja. Not to mention that she had no illusions that she could take on even one of them in hand to hand combat when they had formal training and she only had the little her mother could teach her.

'If this is about Tokuma…how? How, how, how? Was he followed and I never noticed because whoever was tracking him returned to report?…No, it couldn't have taken them that long to act. The village? Did I give something away?' she desperately wondered.

The ninja took a seat around her table and funnily one of them did have cups sealed in a scroll.

"Where are your parents girl?" one of them asked, eyes fixated upon her.

"Dead," she briskly replied, trying to look at everyone from the corner of her eyes. Many were till looking around but non seem to be making any moves to do anything.

'Am I just being paranoid?' she hoped, but like before all good things must come to an end. And the illusion she managed to build in her mind that these were indeed just ninjas who wanted a break shattered upon the next question.

"Has anyone else been here recently?" the man, the leader, questioned as he drank from his cup.

"No…As you can see I live quite far out. I rarely see people around these part," Reiko said hesitantly.

'How?'

"Yes, I can see that. Aren't you lonely all the way out here on your own?"

"I visit the nearby village quite often," she fired back.

"Ah, we passed by there recently, to restock on supplies you see. Funny thing one of the villagers said. About a girl, comes to the village everyone and then with fresh game food to sell. How do you do it little girl?"

'The village? What did I let out?'

She tried to stop the trembling of her hands by clenching her own cup tighter and made eye contact with the man.

"Not that hard. My mother taught me and my brother how to make traps to catch wild animals," she tried to say as evenly as she could. Praying that they would not see through her lie. 'It was my brother that I claimed to be injured right?' she wondered, not seeing the ninjas were relaxing. All except the one who was interrogating her.

"Where is your brother now?"

"In the forest, he went out recently to gather firewood."

"I see…well we have wasted enough time and should be returning to our duty. Thank you very much for the tea miss and have a good day. I hope your brother's injuries recovered well," he said as they all got up to leave.

It wasn't till they left and Reiko closed the door that she realised what the ma said.

She never mentioned that her 'brother' was injured.

'The doctor,' she realised wide eyed, 'something in my story must have tipped him off.'

Reiko finally breathed a sigh of relief when she sensed them having entered the forest, 'their leaving' she thought happily till she sensed to see if Tokuma was still around.

He was.

In the frost ninjas' path.

The resounding explosion was enough to tell her that they encounter each other. For one moment Reiko stood stock still thinking of how utterly ridiculous this entire situation was.

She wanted to ignore them. To pretend that the battle outside wasn't happening. There was no need for her to get involved. She wasn't even a ninja per se.

However Reiko remembered that Tokuma was still injured and that despite being an utter stranger, he was nice and a pain when he opened his mouth to talk, but that this fight was five to one and the shimogakure ninjas will kill him.

'Fuck,' she thought desperately, hands clenched so tightly that she could feel her blunt nails digging into her skin.

'Even if I ignore them, who is too say that they wont just come back? It won't take long for them to realise that my brother story was utter garbage. Especially if a bloody civilian doctor could tell I was lying.'

With a resigned attitude, Reiko sprinted towards the fight, hands blurring through the hand seals required for a suiton jutsu. The moment she reached them she activated the jutsu and sent the large water dragon spiralling toward the surprised frost ninjas. Three of them didn't dodge in time and were sent flying through the nearby trees.

"Reiko-chan!" Tokuma's voice shouted in surprise.

"Shut it idiot, I told you not to die near my house."

Dodging a flying kunai, she was grateful for the explosive tag Tokuma sent in retaliation, buying her enough time to finish her doton technique.

Slamming her hands to the ground, she concentrated a large amount of chakra and watched as a large fissure formed. But, for all the chakra she had used, only one of the shinobi was caught in the technique.

"I don't think that we will win," she told Tokuma as she jumped on his branch. The man was already tired and without the element of surprise on her side anymore Reiko didn't think that she will do more than waste chakra if this fight dragged on.

"You fast?" he asked in-between gasps.

"I think?" she asked, somewhat desperately as she barely jumped off the tree branch before it exploded.

"Well come on," he said before launching three kunais at the enemy, grabbing her arm and dragging her away before a large flash occurred behind them.

"Flash bombs," he explained as Reiko regained enough of her bearings to start running on her own, circulating chakra through her legs to increase her speed.

"It will buy us some time, where are-"

"Still where we left them, they haven't began pursuing us yet," she quickly told him.

It was a minor relief and the two pushed on running further and further away. It didn't take the sminogakure ninjas nearly long enough to recover before they began chasing them.

"They are behind us," she told Tokuma, looking at him for guidance because she was completely out of her league here.

'The last —and only— time I had to deal with ninjas was…' her thought were interrupted by Tokuma's swearing as he dodged the flying projectiles.

Thinking quickly, Reiko could only think of one thing, and that would force her to stop for too long. Reaching into the holster that she always kept hidden on her left leg, she brought out a scroll. Quickly unsealing it she used the resulting smoke from the technique to arrange herself.

'If I live I want to find a bloody teacher for this thing,' she thought, gripping tightly the staff of her weapon, swinging it with all her might, pouring chakra through it and re-shaping the structure of the air to create a powerful gust of wind, pushing back the incoming shinobi as they moved out of the way.

"Wind ninjutsu?" Tokuma asked in surprise

"An uncompleted form," Reiko grounded out, using the gunbai to shield herself from the incoming projectiles or to blow them away. She bought the giant fan on a wimp once, when she passed through Tetsu no kuni's capital (Land of Iron), thinking that if nothing else she could use it to defend herself from projectiles like in this case.

Reiko had read before, in one of the scrolls that detailed the use of wind natured chakra, —how many elements could her bloody grandfather use?— that the user could use it in conjunction with their weapon. However in comparison to water and earth nature, which came almost as easily as breathing to Reiko, wind was another matter completely and she was no where near satisfied with her use of it.

Having chosen to focus on perfecting her other two natures, "Better to be a master of few things than a jack of all trades and master of none," her mother once said.

That of course didn't stop her from trying to learn at least how to generate wind chakra and use in conjunction with her fan. 'I definitely need to work on it,' she though, panting.

It took far too much chakra out of her, using it as she did, when she didn't have a strong enough grip on this nature manipulation.

It was only when Tokuma managed to kill one of them and wound their leader that two were able to make a break for it once again.

This time the shinobi didn't pursue them.

—.—.—.—

A/N:*Water dragon bulet technique

*jizaikagi-had no better way of calling it without explaining it a bit. It is an adjustable pothook.

I know this is a bit far fetched, but I want to get her out of Shimo no Kuni.

I do like my stories to make sense, and, if I ever find a better way to write this I will rewrite this chapter then, but in order to move on with the story this had to be done and dusted with.

lovetolongago + unbakedmuffins +guest: Thank you so much for reviewing my story XD and thank you for pointing out my mistake lovely guest, I will definitely deal with it, forgive me for not having done so already.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and have lovely day!