AN
Physically I'm here, emotionally I'm at the fun part of this fic where Itachi is introduced and the juicy AU stuff kicks in. Sadly, for now we're taking it at a snail's pace and slowly making our way to the fun stuff, hope y'all can appreciate the chapter regardless because this took me too long and even I'm not impressed. Drop any questions in reviews and they'll be answered next chapter.
A dozen or so Jounin (and a Root Anbu), dashed through the foliage of the mighty fire nation trees. Admittedly the trees became far less mighty the further the shinobi got away from Konoha.
The Jounin Commander raised his fist in the Leaf's hand sign for 'Halt'. Everyone slowed down and descended branch by branch, until everyone was on the ground, awaiting further instruction.
"Snack time." Shikaku Nara declared, pulling out a protein bar in his back pocket.
The tension in the Shinobi's shoulders dissipated, some even groaned and glared in exasperation at the man, taking out their own rations.
Soon, the Jounin all relaxed and took various relaxed positions, both with the strategic purpose of watching at all angles of approach, as well as simply forming their own bubbles of conversation.
That had the unfortunate side effect of leaving the Jounin Commander face to face with the unsettling shinobi from the Root.
"Are you going to eat anything? We won't be making many stops in the next few days." Shikaku warned.
The masked shinobi remained very still, passively staring at him. Shikaku knew they were a she, the voice alone gave her away. She also had shoulder-length hair, tied into a messy spiked bun, at first appearance Shikaku couldn't help but find mirth in that it looked like a pineapple.
"I didn't have a lot of time to prepare, I have two days worth of rations." The masked shinobi spoke, with a hint of embarrassment. She was certainly young, from her frame alone, he could tell that the masked ninja was a teen. He suppressed his feelings of sympathy and genuinely tried his best to not speak down to her.
Shikaku simply nodded and reached into the large pouch strapped to his lower back. He pulled out a storage scroll and after dispelling, the smoke revealed another protein bar. He extended his arm from where he sat beneath a tree.
"I couldn't-" The Anbu tried to say, but Shikaku was having none of it.
"-I overpacked just in case, it's a force of habit since I almost starved on a mission. I'd never been more proud to have an Akimichi for a teammate." Shikaku said, sighing in reminiscence.
The Anbu took the bar thankfully and raised her mask, just enough to eat the bar without revealing any of her face.
"Man, listen to me being nostalgic, I'm not even thirty yet." Shikaku chuckled, humourlessly. His mind wandered to more concerning thoughts.
'How many years of my life have been spent on this war?'
"Anyway, I've just been calling you Anbu-San, would you mind if I drop the formality? It'd be easier for me to call you by that mask." Shikaku said, pointing at her mask. "Would it be alright if I called you Mouse?"
The girl was making slow progress on her protein bar, but so were most of the Jounin with their rations. Between mouthfuls, she spoke.
"Rat. My codename's Rat." The Anbu/Rat said.
Shikaku nodded. "Rat it is then."
Shikaku couldn't help but talk, even if Rat wasn't a sociable kid, he didn't exactly expect much, considering that most Anbu were stonewalls for conversation, let alone Root Anbu. Whatever they went through was on a different level.
'That's the price of war.' Shikaku told himself.
The conversation helped him think on the task at hand, the mission was a crucial step to cracking their landlock and helping other teams of shinobi enter the Kusa Village. The end goal was destroying Kannabi Bridge. Of course it wasn't his job to destroy the Kannabi Bridge itself, but the team's effort here would certainly open a hole in the border to help that effort.
"Times up! Everyone, back in formation." Shikaku declared. Each Jounin proceeded to store their litter in their respective storage scrolls and hopped into their own positions within the formation.
Rat was beside him, in the middle of the formation, as the group sprinted towards their destination.
Shikaku considered himself a pretty damn capable shinobi, a child genius and a veritable master of his Clan's techniques. 'The very best the Nara clan had ever produced.' In his fathers own words. He turned to look at the kid running beside him for a moment, and Rat turned to face him too.
He turned away.
She couldn't beat me in a fight, could she?
Shikaku shook his head dismissively. It was wrong to weigh himself up against a comrade, let alone a child. She was an Anbu of the Root, he was smart enough to know she could be relied upon.
Days of travel went by, mainly under the veil of night, the deeper they got into the Land of Fire.
Passing by different scout stations took serious precision and effort, and on more than one occasion, the group had relied upon Rat to purposefully lead pursuers away from their formation and deal with them however she saw fit. The important part of Rat's role was that no scouts noticed the large group of Jounin, as to prevent anyone informing those on the border of Kusa to their approach.
Rat returned, emerging from the marshland's thin and ropey trees. She threw out some hand signs that signed the words 'Enemy Diverted', and Shikaku nodded, signing to the rest of the group to 'March Formation'.
Anxiety within the group had spiked a long time ago, they were all veterans to some degree or another, all experienced, but this was such a vital mission, it even brought the fear out of hardened shinobi. Real grit was needed, and every Jounin there showed their mettle.
Dawn had just started to break, and light started to seep through the wispy fog of the marsh. The Jounin group exited the forestry and stood on much firmer ground as the trees ceased to exist on the horizon. On the horizon however, stood a long, stone wall.
The group halted completely at the raise of Shikaku's hand.
One of the Jounin behind him spoke up. "Is that the stronghold?" He asked.
Soft murmuring broke out among the group as they all took as best they could from the distance they were.
"I don't see anyone on watch over there." A jounin with binoculars, looking at the front of the grey building.
Shikaku felt his chest tighten. No one at the front, on watch. It was too good to be true. Every part of his body screamed that something was wrong. Rat pulled at his sleeve, pulling his attention to her. Her hand subtly pointed back to the damp forest.
His eyes flicked to his left and right, had she not pointed it out, he wouldn't have noticed, had she not pointed them out.
There were shinobi crouched behind the foliage, almost sunken into the muddy floor.
Shikaku's eyes widened in horror but he kept himself relaxed.
"Pull into formation six, we'll be pushing forward slowly."
The whole group stiffened, formation six wasn't a formation, it was a codeword he uniquely applied for certain situations. Without Inoichi to telepathically warn teammates, Shikaku realised he had to prepare far in advance.
Formation six, wasn't a formation. It was a warning, a warning that the group was being ambushed.
Of course the enemy heard him say the order but of course, as every Jounin moved rigidly into a tight formation, the hiding shinobi simply lied in wait for whatever it was that would make them leap.
"Give me a second to get my bearings, I need to make sure we're striking the right place." Shikaku declared, speaking cryptically, as his hands formed the Rat hand signature.
Pumping minimal amounts of chakra into the jutsu, his shadow extended slowly, stretching from one Jounin to the other. The group didn't question it, taking into account the direction the shadow flowed once it extended back into the forest behind them. It split in two directions, slowly connecting to shade caused by the outline of the trees.
A minute passed as Shikaku searched and searched.
The Nara's kekkei genkai was a fickle thing. When their shadows connected with a living being, the user knew it instinctively, but in this circumstance, Shikaku was forced to blindly extend the shadow in two different directions. That wasn't an easy thing to do.
His eyes twitched as his shadow connected with someone else, but that was on one side. With the knowledge of how the first shinobi was positioned, Shikaku manipulated the other tendril to the somewhat similar position of the other side of the marsh opening.
"Bingo." Shikaku muttered. "Rat c'mere a sec." He ushered her over.
Rat complied walking over to him, giving her an excuse to turn around without blatantly staring at the trees.
"I've got two of them connected by my shadow, do you see anymore from where you're standing?" Shikaku whispered the question.
Rat didn't move her head, but the pause indicated she was looking around.
"I don't see anyone else." Rat confirmed.
Shikaku spat at the floor in irritation.
"They're bait. There's more of 'em around. I need you to spring whatever trap they got going on over there." Shikaku said, with a grimace, how could he demand that from someone half his age?
"Yes sir." Rat replied, without question.
Shikaku groaned. "Alright, approach them slowly, the one's attached to my shadow will be paralysed, so we'll take them as prisoners once we're done fighting. Knock them out asap." Shikaku ordered more firmly.
Rat nodded in confirmation.
"Jounin, a change of plan!" Shikaku shouted, getting the rest of the nervous adults' attention.
It was a bold move, but Shikaku had learnt from the best of the Akimichi, Chouza.
Always put your best foot forward.
Unsettling the enemy was a plus, too, as Inoichi would say.
"We're currently being ambushed, so assume a three man squad each and charge the enemy! Rat will lead the charge and I'll provide support from behind!" Shikaku ordered.
It would have been so easy for his comrades to be petty. To say that he was putting himself furthest away from the danger. Yet, they all nodded and laughed at his vagrant disregard for subtlety, following his orders without hesitation. They all turned to directly face the line of trees in solidarity with Rat and Shikaku.
The shaking of the foliage in front of them indicated that they'd missed a few hidden shinobi.
A lot of hidden shinobi.
"Let's show 'em what our teamwork can do!" Shikaku yelled, he couldn't pump his fist in the air due to his hands being in the form of a rat seal, but the gesture was appreciated.
The first into action was Rat, as Shikaku had expected, diving right into the marshland border. She leapt in midair, only to be met with a few kunai being tossed in her direction. Rat deftly twirled out of the way in a display of skilful acrobatics, twisting her entire body in order to avoid the kunai knives. During the spin, Rat threw her own volley of kunai, one of them must have met its mark, as there was a cry from somewhere behind the tree leaves and a body fell to the muddy floor.
Rat then ran to the left, hopping and flipping over the shinobi that sprung from their cover to attack her. She blatantly ignored all of them until she reached the end of Shikaku's shadow. It looks like the shinobi had attempted to stand from where they were crouched behind the tree, that was when Shikaku pumped his chakra to complete the jutsu.
"Shadow Paralysis Jutsu" Shikaku muttered under his breath.
There was a yelp as Rat smashed the butt of her kunai into the back of the shinobi's head. That pause in time was enough for two shinobi to drop from the trees nearest to her and swing the kunai in their hands in a downward arc into her back. Shikaku tried to call out to warn her, but Rat had already leaped from between the two men and pushed off of a tree, now sprinting to the right side of the clearing.
Once again, in preparation for her assault, Shikaku pumped chakra into his extended shadow to paralyse the target. Like clockwork, Rat spun, ducked and weaved out of the way of enemy shinobi trying to attack her. She made it to her defenceless target and struck him in the side of head with a heavy roundhouse kick.
At that point Shikaku felt confident in approaching, the group was certainly outnumbered three to one, more Iwa shinobi filtered in through the back of the woods. He inwardly cursed at not having checked more thoroughly, that was the cost of running such a high priority mission with such a tight time schedule.
With every ninja on the ground, Shikaku was able to pick them off with more focus. Again forming the Rat hand sign, his shadow stretched out, branching into multiple different directions pinning and holding different Iwa shinobi in place while his comrades struck them down.
Shikaku's focus was so fixed on supporting his colleagues, that the man rising from the puddle behind him was able to approach from behind. He heard footsteps a bit too late.
"Che, I thought you guys'd be smarter than this. Not that I'm complaining." The man said, the cloth across his mouth did little to muffle his deep, rumbly voice.
Shikaku yelled out, drawing a kunai to attack the man but a fist caught him in the temple as he tried to spring up from his crouched position. Again, Shikaku rose up, attempting to attack the man, but his kunai was sliced right though, by the man's wickedly sharp katana.
"Fuck-" Was Shikaku's only word before the hilt of the katana connected with his temple.
As far as ambushes went, this wasn't the worst one Kagome had ever fallen prey too. She hopped to the left, deftly avoiding her assailant's downward swing with a wakizashi.
This whole thing was a six out of ten.
Despite being heavily outnumbered, Kagome had yet to see a single one of her comrades fall or be taken out. Each of the Jounin took position within their respective groups of three and held their own. Some earth-style jutsus were being thrown around, an earth spike here and there, and a mud slap jutsu had almost buckled her legs, had Kagome not poured chakra into her feet to stay anchored to the floor.
Again the wakizashi wielding shinobi swung horizontally at her neck, Kagome ducked under the heavily telegraphed attack and thrust her palm into the man's solar plexus, winding him. Kagome placed her hands on his shoulders and somersaulted over his head snaking her hands underneath his chin, and just as she started to drop, she tugged her arms down snapping the man's neck as she descended.
Focusing ahead of her, nine Iwa shinobi stood, various weapons in hand. Kagome felt tension in the back of her mind.
"They said a good Anbu can kill a hundred shinobi…" Kagome mumbled, her whole body was wracked with exhaustion and agony.
Training wasn't going well for her.
"Kagomi… How, how am I supposed to beat a hundred shinobi?" Kagome whimpered, laying on the ground.
Kagome pushed off of the tree and leapt forward into the group.
Kagomi pushed off the wall she was leaning on.
"Well, it's tough but… Don't fight a hundred ninja, fight a hundred blind ninja." Kagomi answered, after a long pause.
Kagome looked up at her sister in confusion.
Kagomi dropped a blank paper tag over her wide eyes. Kagome squeaked in irritation, sliding the paper off her face.
Kagome reached into her back pocket pouch and pulled out a small sphere that fit into her palm.
"See? Blinding people is easy." Kagomi said, with a tired grin.
She tossed the smoke bomb at the floor in front of the first two Iwa nin.
Before the smoke had even begun to settle, Kagome had drawn her kunai knife from her side holster and slashed the throat of the ninja to her right. The Iwa shinobi on her left tossed shuriken in the direction of the noise she'd made, Kagome twirled around and used the slowly dying Iwa nin as a bodyshield.
The thunks of the shuriken hitting the man's chest and his subsequent collapse was the only confirmation the Iwa nin had that his throw was on target. Smoke engulfed the space where the group of ninja stood, none of them moved, as far as Kagome could tell from the lack of sound.
"Did you get 'em Iba?" One of the shinobi further back called.
Iba, the shinobi who had thrown the shuriken slowly shuffled forwards, getting nearer to her.
"I can't tell, do any of you know any wind-style-" Iba tried to ask his question but he'd gotten too close to her. Kagome stabbed her kunai knife directly into Iba's neck, tearing it across his throat to ensure he didn't scream.
"I-Iba!? Iba!" One of the shinobi's called out, Kagome dashed towards the voice and slashed at the silhouette she found.
Her arm impacted with something harder than flesh, the silhouette before her crumbling into a pile of rocks. It was a rock clone.
"You dumbass, we got you now!" The same voice shouted to the side of her.
Kagome dropped to the ground and rolled forward as the space she had just occupied was attacked by three of her enemies.
"You can't run anymore!" The shinobi yelled, sprinting towards her.
Kagome formed a seal with her hands. "Kai." Kagome muttered, as she sprinted as fast as she could away.
The explosive tag she'd placed on the floor mid-roll blew up, taking the shouting Iwa nin and his two comrades with him. This also had the secondary effect of dispersing the smoke and revealing that the remaining four enemies had backed completely out of the smoke perimeter.
She was however, already sprinting in the direction of the closest Iwa nin, so she threw another small orb at the shinobi. Kagome braced herself, covering her mask's eye holes with her forearms and closing her eyes. The Iwa nin had been flashing through hand seals in an attempt to form a jutsu, but the orb hit the floor before the man and burst with an incredible amount of white light.
A small wave of mud threatened to strike her with tremendous force but she leapt over it to stab the now blind, Iwa nin in the top of his skull.
Her eyes still hurt despite having closed and covered them. Which explained why the next Iwa nin was some distance away, was on his knees furiously rubbing his eyes.
Kagome didn't remove the kunai from the man's head, taking advantage of her next enemy's disorientation, she sprinted towards him and upon reaching the man, she tried to swing a roundhouse kick at the man.
What she hadn't accounted for, was the two other Iwa nin having followed her at such a high speed. The first Iwa nin stabbed at her exposed ribcage, the padding of her armour didn't protect her entirely and it pierced her skin. Kagome was knocked to the side as she was forced to recover from her failed roundhouse kick.
The three remaining Iwa nins stood in a rough, defensive formation, giving Kagome time to assess the situation around her. She could see that most of the Jounin from the squad were near enough finishing off their own fights, some had fallen but less than she'd have expected.
'This isn't worth my time.' Kagome inwardly groaned, placing a hand on the wound on her side.
She flashed through hand seals with incredible speed and all three Iwa nins pushed forward, splitting to left, right and directly straight to her. Kagome stopped going through the hand seals she had feinted, and pulled another explosive tag from her leg pouch, as the three enemies closed the distance, she leaped over the shinobi in front of her.
Kagome flung the tag onto the man's back, mid spin, and sprinted forward, heading out of the clearing. Once she was a safe distance away, she detonated the tag.
The three shinobi were no longer pursuing her.
The rest of the fighting ended swiftly as Kagome hopped in and out of each Jounin's fight catching the enemy either by surprise, or simply overwhelming them. Kagome's wound wasn't showing any signs that it'd stop bleeding soon but it was far less fatal than it appeared, and with the fighting over, she was able to leave the clearing with her comrades and apply basic first aid.
Everyone was gathered and recuperating at their own pace, soft murmurs were the only form of conversation and the exchanges seemed more personal than she had any right to be listening to; consolations to those who had just lost their friends, reminders that they have families and loved ones to fight for, things that Kagome felt she had no right to be eavesdropping on.
Finally however, the pin dropped and one of the Jounin in the squad shouted. "Where the hell is Shikaku!?"
Panic washed over the whole group and everyone started to look around desperately, to either find him or even possibly a corpse, but no one could find the head nor tail of him.
Kagome's mind raced, did anyone even know how to execute the mission without Shikaku's help? For some reason, she doubted the answer was yes.
Their worries were soon abated however as the moment the group fanned out across the open wetland, a shinobi approached from the forest clearing behind them, and he made his presence known.
"Oi oiii, over here!" The partially masked ninja spoke.
In an instant the Jounin jolted from their various positions, using the shunshin jutsu to flicker into various positions surrounding the man.
Despite being so heavily outnumbered, the shinobi didn't appear intimidated in the slightest, and Kagome could appreciate why. The man had in front of him their commander beaten and bruised, with a katana pushed up against his throat.
"Woah now, you wouldn't want me to slip and do something dumb now, would you?" The shinobi mockingly threatened. Contrary to his words, the man's arm was stiff and rigid, seemingly ready to follow through on his words with great certainty.
Kagome approached slowly, purposefully so, in order to make her intent clear.
"What is a shinobi from Kirigakure doing all the way out here?" Kagome asked.
"Certainly it couldn't be to help the Iwa's ambush." She gestured to the dead bodies nearest to the clearing. "Otherwise you wouldn't have waited until now to reveal yourself… Or keep Shikaku-Sama alive." Kagome added, with an apologetic nod to the aforementioned commander.
The man in the position of power chuckled, his voice was incredibly unsettling.
"Sharp kid, I have a trade in mind. It's the only reason anyone here is still alive." The deep voiced man confirmed.
Kagome sighed. There wasn't really any such thing as a successful trade in the shinobi world. That was one of the lessons she'd learnt during her time in the Root.
"What is it you want, Mist nin." Kagome asked.
The man groaned, cranking his neck and wincing. "None of you know who I am, do you?" The man asked in disappointment. When the Jounin around them all looked to each other awkwardly and shook their heads, shrugging.
"Call me Zabuza." The man with the pointed black hair said.
Kagome's eyes widened imperceptibly.
Murmurs of shock spread through the dozens of shinobi.
"The Bloody Demon of the Mist-"
"He killed a whole class of Genin-"
"Zabuza Momochi, he's killed a bunch of our Anbu-"
All the shinobi started sharing everything they'd heard about him. Shikaku had, for the most part, decided to remain respectfully silent. He exhaled through his nose and closed his eyes in frustration.
"-For fuck's sake! Stop gossipping like housewives at the groceries!" Shikaku ordered.
Kagome remained silent, she could appreciate his frustration.
Zabuza seemed a lot more satisfied with the recognition he was getting from the surrounding enemy shinobi. "I want a mission scroll from one of you, to take back home with me." He answered.
The group fell silent, everyone looked at each other in apprehension.
Kagome replied calmly. "We burn all mission scrolls before we embark on the-"
"-Cut the bullshit or I'll cut his throat, I know damn well someone here either forgot to or kept it handy. There's always one." Zabuza said, with the certainty of a shinobi with experience.
Shikaku sighed.
"The mission was preferably to remain secret, but it's not as if Iwagakure won't assume it was Konaha that attacked their base anyway." Shikaku reasoned.
"How can we trust that you won't try attacking us anyway?" Kagome asked, she didn't think there was really any answer that could change her mind. She could tell that Zabuza was grinning behind his facemask, his eyes wrinkled upwards into the familiar creases that implied a smile at least.
"You don't. But, I'm not one to go back on my word, it's the only thing I care about really." Zabuza answered, his eyes turned solemn as well as his voice. Seriousness could be faked, Kagome told herself, but she really wanted to believe him.
One of the Jounin stepped forward after a long beat of tense silence, outstretched in his hand was a scroll with the kanji for 'Mission' emboldened on the front. Zabuza took it from the man with his spare hand and after unfurling and taking a moment to read it, he chuckled.
Zabuza released Shikaku, removing the katana from his throat and pushed him gently forward, hopping back himself in order to create some distance from himself and the group.
"A deal's a deal, but damn you guys are lucky, really damn lucky." Zabuza laughed aloud. Once he stopped chuckling to himself, his eyes narrowed as he looked directly at Kagome. He raised his right arm and moved his left arm across his chest, forming the hand seals to form the Hidden Mist's signature jutsu.
The Jounin shouted to each other warnings of incoming attack and Shikaku, entirely ready to redeem himself, kneeled and immediately prepared to use the shadow paralysis jutsu.
Unnatural silence filled the air with a thickness that could be cut by a blade.
"Larynx, Spine, Lungs, Liver, Jugular, Subclavian Artery, Kidneys… Heart. There are eight points in which I could kill you all instantly." Zabuza's voice echoed with no point of origin that Kagome could find.
Something tickled the side of her neck.
"However… I'm a man of my word, kid." Zabuza said.
Kagome felt the edge of the katana bite into her neck, ever so slightly. She could appreciate why Kiri had so blatantly declared this man the head of their assination division. Even as he spoke of ending things peacefully, Kagome's hand held an explosive tag that she was ready to flick behind her the moment the man cut her jugular vein.
Zabuza withdrew the blade harmlessly and retreated, she couldn't tell how fast or in what direction, but soon the fog dissipated and the Jounin were all accounted for.
It didn't leave much in the way of reassurance considering that they'd been ambushed twice already, but the anger and focus in Shikaku's eyes informed Kagome that there wasn't a single chance that they would pull back without completing the mission.
No one was more threatening than a driven Nara. It was a common saying among the Leaf.
"We're pushing the base at the points we discussed before the mission." Shikaku said, pulling out a small sketch of the inside layout of the base, presumably it'd been made from previous Anbu's infiltration and recon.
The group huddled as the final briefing was given, and this time Shikaku wasn't going to be caught off-guard, if the fire in his eyes was anything to go by.
Executing the plan was easier than expected with Kagome's addition, she accompanied and scouted ahead of the Jounin and confirmed that each position ahead was unmonitored and safe to approach. A creeping suspicion filled the shinobi upon reaching the imposing grey structure.
Every post was empty.
There was no one standing at any of the stations and there was no resistance upon entering.
The inside of the fortress was what confirmed their suspicions completely however.
Fresh blood was sprayed across each and every wall and corpses littered the floor. At first the group had split off into threes or less depending on the points of entry they'd come from, seeing as how what seemed like the entirety of the base had been massacred, realisation had dawned on Kagome and Shikaku.
"Hey, Rat… Do you think maybe that ambush wasn't meant for us?" Shikaku asked rhetorically.
Kagome nodded. "I think perhaps, Zabuza Momochi's mission might've been related to our own, Shikaku-Sama."
Shikaku groaned. "That asshole had the time to massacre an entire base, wait for the reinforcements to arrive and then beat my ass too!?" He shouted.
Kagome patted the man on the back, the action seemed more awkward than reassuring.
"At least we can demolish the base with ease now." Kagome said, as consolation.
Shikaku really didn't seem so reassured but he got to work, setting the charges they had prepared for demolishing the building. They all grouped up outside the base at their agreed upon rendezvous point where everyone had a similar story, dead bodies and slash marks everywhere.
The base and it's impressive wall collapsed exactly as intended, and the group made their swift retreat. Everyone was all too aware that there would likely be more reinforcements sent their way.
Before that could happen, there was a matter of dealing with the Iwa nin's they had captured, who were still unconscious laying in the mud just inside the forest border.
Shikaku had delegated the supervision of the Iwa nin furthest to the right, to a brown haired Jounin.
Kagome felt a sense of dread run over her.
Lord Danzo's orders were absolute.
"Once the mission is complete, follow out the instructions here. Should the mission be a failure you may not need to do anything at all."
The scroll she had been given by Danzo had listed a particular Jounin, his name, appearance and on which mission he had given information to the enemy in order to escape an ambush alive.
Approaching the man slowly from behind, Kagome could see the man was crouched and fiddling with the knots tied around the incapacited shinobi. Blood was dripping from the side of his left wrist.
"Caught red handed, huh." Kagome muttered under her breath, jokes weren't her usual got-to when dealing with a grim task, but she liked how it seemed to work for Genba, that guy seemed to smile at everything.
The Jounin flinched, springing up and turning to face her.
"Ah, Anbu-San, you scared me! What did you say, getting ahead of myself?" The Jounin asked with a smile, the kunai knife in his hand dripped with blood.
"We were supposed to take that one prisoner." Kagome said, pointing at the recently deceased Iwa shinobi.
The Jounin acted bashful. "He uh, he woke up and tried to attack me, I had to defend myself, what'd you say sorry? I couldn't hear you behind that mask." The man explained, she knew he was lying.
"If I go over to the left side, will the other one be dead too?" She asked, with an almost clinical accusation.
The Jounin before her, a much taller man, faltered, stepping backwards.
"T-there were two?" The man asked, eyes flicking to the right.
"What's your name, Jounin-San?" Kagome asked, she already knew the answer though.
The man built his composure quickly, falling back into a professional attitude.
"Caribou, Caribou Gaisen." He said, stiffly.
Kagome raised her arm, a kunai in hand
"Well Caribou, you were caught, red-" Kagome swung her kunai across the man's throat with a clean slash. He hadn't expected her to react so quickly and violently, apparently. "-handed." Kagome finished.
The man's body fell backwards on top of the executed Iwa shinobi, blood spurting from his neck.
"Get it?" Kagome asked, wiping the blood that had sprayed near the eyehole of her mask.
She didn't feel any better, staring down at the traitor.
"He got it." Kagome reaffirmed to herself. It was the best she could do to distract herself from the man who was slowly choking on his own blood. She really hated this part of her job.
She unfastened the rope on the dead Iwa nin's wrists and ankles and properly, placing the bloody kunai in their hand.
Returning to the group Kagome lied to them and fed the same story Caribou had to her and they bought it without question. She hated that so much, no one ever wanted to believe their comrades were capable of betraying them, even Shikaku only seemed to feel grief at having been partially responsible for Caribou's death.
The other Iwa nin had been left unmanned, due to their original need for shinobi to infiltrate the base. There wasn't much information they were willing to share when they had been forced to wake up, but the context was more than enough.
Zabuza Momochi had infiltrated the base and wiped out the entirety of the shinobi stationed there, and so reinforcements were sent, coincidentally at the same time as when Shikaku's Jounin squad had been on route to destroy it.
With that explanation out of the way, loose ends like their prisoner weren't needed.
The group returned to the Leaf after a few days of hasty travel. Far less breaks were taken on the return trip but relief washed over the whole group when they saw the gates to the village.
Kagome really didn't want to go through a briefing with Danzo, but it was her duty. So with a parting farewell from Shikaku, Kagome slinked away into the depths of the village.
Every bone in her body cried out for rest, but there was so much more to do.
Entering the elder's office, Kagome knelt down and reported her mission as a success. The apathetic man commended her and handed the girl her next mission, it started in an hour's time.
She could sleep some other time, duty calls.