Chapter 2: Kaya

…20...25...30. From where she stood in the back left corner of the room, Yugao counted thirty ANBU standing in close, orderly rows in the Hokage's office. Was this all of the Hokage's ANBU? Or only those who would fit in the room?

Probably the latter, Yugao concluded. Even without counting the Foundation's ANBU, who were under control of the dark and mysterious right hand of the Hokage, Shimura Danzo, Yugao figured the number must be higher. At the very least, there were ANBU currently out on missions who were not being counted. Still, an exact number would be impossible to calculate, Yugao knew. This was likely around five teams, considering her own team had six members, while others had seven and still others five. She had thought this inconsistency odd, at first, until she considered the ANBU's inverse mortality and recruitment rates. Their job didn't have the best "security", so to speak. There were kunoichi Yugao had seen on her first official day in the "locker room" whom she had never seen again in the year that had passed since then.

One year, and she had never seen so many ANBU gathered in one place.

Her hunch as to the reason behind this meeting was correct: the scandal they were beginning to call "the Hyuga Affair". The three-year-old heiress to the Hyuga clan had been kidnapped by a shinobi from Kumogakure, and the assailant had been killed. This Yugao already knew, and it had come at no surprise. From all their gathered intel and even just common rumors, Yugao knew that Kumogakure was constantly trying to get their hands on foreign kekkei genkai. What Yugao didn't know – what the Hokage had called them all in for on this day – was that the abductor had also been the head of a prestigious Kumogakure clan, and they were demanding reparation in the form of a body.

"The Hyuga have decided to deal with this internally so as to avert an international conflict," the Hokage revealed, his voice heavy and weary. His tone let the ANBU know that they would not get to hear the details of whatever solution the Hyuga had devised.

"Tomorrow, representatives of the Hyuga clan will travel to the Land of Frost, where an exchange will take place with representatives of Kumogakure. As you can imagine, both countries will be in a vulnerable position. Team Na will escort the Hyuga faction on the ground. Team Ro will be a secondary escort – remain hidden. If you notice any suspicious behavior, you have permission to go beyond the border of the Land of Frost. Team Go, you will reinforce the Border Team here in the village. Your other missions are postponed. Team San will have surveillance of the Hyuga compound. They have given their permission. All other teams are on standby. Any questions?"

The room was silent. The fact that the Hokage had gathered entire teams, not just captains, was enough for the ANBU to understand the gravity of the situation. The entire village would be on high alert the next day, and yet, Yugao thought, the majority of villagers will go about their daily lives having no reason to doubt that they are at peace. This didn't bother her. In fact, it only reinvigorated her decision to accept a position in ANBU. For the majority of villagers, an illusion of peace was just as good as actual peace, and that was exactly what ANBU provided.

"Now, before you go," something had changed in the Hokage's tone. The tension dropped, "I have another matter to discuss, or rather a favor. Combat trained medical ninja increase the success rate of a mission significantly. This is true even in ANBU. Currently, there is a shortage of medical ninja in the village, and within our own ranks. Kaya – " the Hokage called to one of the ANBU standing in the front of the room.

A kunoichi in a rabbit mask – Yugao recognized her as the woman who occupied the locker next to hers – went to stand next to the Hokage and faced the room.

"Kaya is our top medical-nin, as those who have worked with her must already know. I am asking for volunteers who will train under Kaya in medical ninjutsu. If you wish to test your compatibility, please remain here after the meeting. Any questions?"

This time, the room did not remain silent.

"With all due respect Hokage-sama, why not just ask the kunoichi? They make better medical-nin anyway."

To Yugao's surprise, there were many nods and grunts of approval from the men in the room. It was true that she had great chakra control, which was essential in medical ninjutsu, but Yugao had never even given a thought to being a medical-nin. Medical-nin usually had to hold back and avoid combat during missions, but she enjoyed being in the midst of the action, as she was sure many of the other ANBU gathered around her did as well. But did they really just expect all kunoichi to be medical-nin?

The Hokage responded evenly, "I would like to present this opportunity to everybody. Now, if there are no more questions, remember to report to your assignments tomorrow at 5 AM. You are dismissed."

The ANBU started to filter out one by one. Yugao was glad that she was standing near the back so that she could slip away unnoticed in case the Hokage had decided to take up the suggestion of 'just ask the kunoichi'. She was almost out the door when –

"Yugao."

She stopped and glanced back. The Hokage had called her after all.

"Please stay for a moment."

Longingly, she watched all the other ANBU leave the room until only she and one other shinobi were left to face Kaya and the Hokage. She looked to her left. The red and green-striped cat mask she recognized as Tenzou's.

The Hokage addressed them both. "Thank you for staying behind. First we will test your compatibility with medical ninjutsu. Who would like to go first?"

"I will, Hokage-sama," came the voice from Yugao's left.

Suck-up. Still, all Yugao could do was wait.

Kaya produced a scroll from her pouch and unrolled it onto the Hokage's desk. From it, she summoned a fish with a nearly severed fin. "Focus your chakra on reattaching the skin cells, like you're sewing closed a surface wound," Kaya instructed.

Tenzou held his hands over the fish, a slight green glow beginning to emanate from them. After a few seconds, he gasped and took a step back. The Hokage looked sympathetically at him, then down at the fish.

"I'm sorry," Tenzou spat out.

Is he…embarrassed? But Tenzou never does anything wrong…Yugao tried to subtly look around her young comrade to get a glimpse of the fish. From what she could see, it almost looked as though a small plant had begun to take root in its flesh.

"Do not worry, Tenzou. It would appear your healing abilities only apply to yourself. You are dismissed."

Tenzou bowed and walked quickly from the room. The Hokage's gaze slowly fell onto Yugao. She approached the desk. Kaya had summoned a new fish. "Same thing."

Yugao had two choices: she could give a pathetic attempt at healing and fail the test, thus ensuring she would be left alone, or she could actually take it seriously. She held out her hands. If she took the first option, there was a chance the Hokage would see right through her, and that would be downright embarrassing. If she took the second option, she could be forced into medical ninjutsu training, which she had absolutely no interest in doing.

She took a deep breath and began focusing her chakra. The size and precision she would need would be just like controlling a single strand of her hair. She began weaving her chakra, and before she knew it, the fish's fin was seamlessly reattached.

She was a shinobi after all, and a shinobi never did anything halfway.

She looked up from her work to find the Hokage smiling and Kaya giving a nod of approval. "We will meet after my night shift ends, 6AM to 7 AM, starting the day after tomorrow."

Yugao nodded.

"Good. You are both dismissed."

Whether she liked it or not, she would be a medical ninja.

…

Kaya was already in the Medical Records Room by the time Yugao arrived two mornings later. The hazy dawn light shone through the high windows, illuminating floating specks of dust that made Yugao think the room wasn't usually used much. It was, in a way, a cozy space, nestled nicely into the outer curve of the building, the other three windowless walls lined floor to ceiling with overflowing bookshelves. Some of the books and scrolls looked as though they hadn't been opened in years. Two large empty tables occupied the floor as well as a few worn armchairs. Kaya stood erect by the table closest to the windows, a few scrolls in her right arm. Her left arm she held folded against her back, in what looked to Yugao to be a quite uncomfortable position, but to Kaya must have just been a habitual quirk.

"Good morning...Kaya-senpai."

Yugao had never actually said her comrade-now-teacher's name out loud – in fact she hadn't even known her name until recently, despite the one year they had already spent as locker-mates – yet addressing her in this way only felt natural.

The feeling didn't appear to be mutual.

"Let's get started." Kaya placed the scrolls she was holding down on the table and rolled one open. She summoned a frog and formed a chakra blade to neatly slice open the skin of its belly.

Her voice was sharp, no words wasted. "You've already proven that you can heal surface wounds, but a lot of damage can also be done internally. When you're in the field, you'll need to be able to assess that damage and fix it without making any incisions."

First came an anatomy lesson – memorizing the frog's organs, their locations, their functions. Then came the practical – Kaya would cause some damage to one part of the frog, close up the wound on the surface, then have Yugao identify it and try to fix it. There was no time for small talk, for reading or studying from one of the many informational or theoretical books in the room. She would have to do that on her own. Just Kaya's instructions, brief notes on technique, and trial and error; Kaya intended on getting the most practice time out of the hour they were given each day. Only near the end of the hour did she finally ask, "Any questions?"

Yugao realized that she had barely spoken during the entire lesson, besides to give some affirmation that she had understood the instruction every once in a while. Not only that, but she had barely spoken to any kunoichi the entire time she had been in ANBU.

Now or never, I guess.

"Yes, but not about the lesson." She took Kaya's silence as a signal that she could continue. "Why is it that all the medical-nin are kunoichi?"

She was met with more silence. Kaya sealed away the frog they had been using for practice as well as a few other supplies in their scrolls. Perhaps Yugao had misread the situation, perhaps Kaya hadn't meant to accept any non-medical-related questions after all. Yugao was about to thank her teacher for the lesson and leave when Kaya's voice finally broke the silence with a kind of weariness she hadn't heard in it before.

"In the real world," the kunoichi began, the eyes of her rabbit mask turned thoughtfully towards the high windows, "that is, in the village and the Land of Fire, the majority of medics are women, but not all. In ANBU, yes, all the kunoichi have some level of medical ninjutsu, whether they knew it coming in or they learned it from me. As to why..."

She sighed and leaned her back against the desk. Yugao couldn't tell if she was tired from working a full night guard shift then having to teach for an hour, or if it was something else.

"As medical ninja, we have to, as best we can, avoid getting injured ourselves. That means sometimes relying on our teammates more than we want to. My guess is, the men don't volunteer to be medical-nin because they want to believe that they are protecting us, that their ability and willingness to rush headfirst into danger somehow proves their strength."

The bitterness was not lost on the young kunoichi. Kaya turned to face her then, and though Yugao couldn't see her eyes, she felt as though they were boring new holes through her rabbit mask.

"But remember this," Kaya's voice burned low, and for a brief moment all Yugao could think was, is this the Will of Fire? "From the moment they are conceived, men depend on us women for their lives."

Yugao didn't know how to respond, so she stayed silent. The intensity of Kaya's words was almost painful.

The older kunoichi turned to leave then, methodically putting away her scrolls in what must have been their rightful shelves, but when she reached the door, she stopped once more. With her back still turned to Yugao, she said, gentler this time, "I don't presume to know anything about your life, but if you want to survive in this job, I recommend you find someone to talk to, someone in the real world who isn't connected to any of this, who you can trust."

She paused – "Same time tomorrow." – and left.

Someone in the real world...Right, that's what it feels like.

There was the ANBU world, which moved behind closed doors, through dark passageways, under clouds and shadows.

And then there was the real world, where Yugao had black hair and wore pretty dresses and where – she took a deep breath in and let it out slowly – where she was completely alone.

…

The short weeks of spring were already being overtaken by the bursting summer sun by the time Yugao finally had an afternoon off. She had been training with Kaya every available morning for months, and yet on missions she was still only able to heal minor wounds, which the shinobi usually fought through anyway. She felt as though she was making great strides every lesson but her lack of usefulness in the field was frustrating.

Walking through the village in daylight was a distraction, one she didn't get often. She had gotten used to putting on her civilian disguise, concealing her chakra, wearing her dark hair pulled away from her face and secured snugly with her butterfly hairpin. She wasn't Yugao, ANBU Black Ops when she went out like this. She was…well, she wasn't quite sure. She was just a fourteen-year-old girl.

Before she knew it, she found herself at the pastry shop her parents used to take her to as a child. She wasn't usually one for eating sweets, but she decided to take some home.

After placing her order with the kind older woman behind the counter, she took a look around the shop. Despite its small size it was nearly empty. It made sense – around this time was probably when regular people were having dinner with their families. The lone patron she spotted was a boy, around her age, with long brown hair tied back at the nape of his neck and big almond-shaped eyes. He must have been a civilian because she didn't sense any chakra emanating from him and she didn't recognize him from the Academy.

And he was alone – just like her.

Yugao's breath caught in her throat. Kaya had told her to find a friend, someone to talk to…but how did one even go about doing that? What was she supposed to say? She would've been comfortable not saying anything at all, but something was drawing her towards him.

I might not ever get another chance like this…

"Eating your dessert before dinner?"

The boy looked up at her with his big black eyes and gave a sheepish grin. Pulling his hands up and away from his pastry on the table, he confessed, "Guilty. But…aren't you doing the same?"

"I'm taking mine to go." Then, for a reason she would never be able to explain, she added, "My mom would kill me if I didn't have room for her dinner because I was too full of sweets."

Of course, this wasn't true. It was so ridiculously false. She hadn't tasted her mother's cooking in nine years. It was just something she had heard other teenagers say around the village. Maybe it made her sound more…normal?

If friendships were based on honesty, then this wasn't a great start.

"Well, she'd have good reason to." The boy gestured to the seat across the table from him. "Do you want to sit while you wait?"

Yugao took the seat wordlessly, wondering what other fake details from her made-up life she may unwittingly share.

The boy's eyes lit up. "Do you want to see something?"

He looked so excited, Yugao couldn't resist. "Sure."

The pastry he was eating was a kind of moist frosted walnut cake originating in the Land of Water. He skillfully sliced the cake in half length-wise, then flipped the top half onto the bottom, so the icing was sandwiched between the two layers. "This way," he explained, "the cake to frosting ratio is more even in every bite." He seemed very proud of himself for figuring this out.

Yugao simply raised one black-tinted eyebrow. "You eat a lot of sweet things don't you?"

The boy shrugged, his goofy smile never leaving his face. "It's worth a try in my opinion."

"I'll think about it." Yugao didn't have a big sweet tooth normally, but she had to admit, she was a little curious about his concoction.

"Your order, dear!"

Yugao had nearly forgotten that she had been waiting for her own order until the old woman returned to the counter with a plastic bag. She went up to pay for it, grabbed her pastries, turned towards the exit, and stopped.

This was where she should say something to the boy. Should she ask if he wanted to be her friend? Did people ask that? She should get his name, at least, or tell him to have a nice day. But instead –

"You should eat more vegetables in order to have a balanced diet."

She glanced back at him; He was still smiling.

"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind."

She turned and left before he could see her face redden in embarrassment. She might not have known what normal teenagers talked to each other about, but it certainly was not that. Maybe making a friend her own age was not in the cards for her. She'd probably never see him again.

But then again, he did seem nice.

She wouldn't mind seeing him again.

But, she didn't even know his name.

…

Ever since their meeting, Yugao couldn't stop thinking about the boy in the pastry shop. She kept replaying their conversation in her head over and over. It was the longest conversation she had had with anyone outside of ANBU since she joined. Was that how normal friends talked to each other? Could she call him a friend? She hadn't seen him around since; what if she never saw him again?

Is this what normal fourteen-year-old girls thought about? But she wasn't a normal fourteen-year-old girl. She didn't have time to be thinking about these things.

Or so she told herself as she geared up for another medical ninjutsu lesson with Kaya. She was teaching her about poisons now, how to detect them, identify them, and prepare and administer the correct antidote. Yugao had gotten into the habit of carrying medical supply scrolls, and Kaya helped her assemble a list of poison treatment essentials she could pick up at the hospital later.

"Kaya-senpai, can I ask you a question?"

"Is it about the lesson?"

"No."

Kaya didn't answer. Yugao had long ago decided to take her silence as permission to continue.

"I met someone the other day, someone who could be a friend."

"I told you to make a friend so you could talk to them, not to me."

Yugao's mouth snapped shut behind her mask. Right. Kaya had made it clear on their first day that she took no interest in helping Yugao sort out her personal affairs. It occurred to the young kunoichi that she was being a bother. She was supposed to have found someone else to confide in so that she wouldn't have to bother Kaya or any of the other ANBU. But this wasn't exactly something she could talk to the boy about, if she ever even saw him again...

"It's fine," the older kunoichi huffed after brief silence. "What's your question?"

Taken aback, Yugao tried to gather her thoughts again before Kaya changed her mind.

"I met this boy, and we talked but...I wasn't entirely truthful with him." Yugao had to choose her words carefully so as not to reveal too much about herself or her specific situation, but that was as far as she could get. This was embarrassing. She said she had a question, but she hadn't thought about how to put it into words. Kaya would think she was just trying to waste her time.

"And you're wondering how you can form a relationship when its foundation must rely on lies."

"Yes."

Of course. Of course Kaya would understand. All ANBU led double lives to some extent.

Kaya placed her right hand on her hip and folded her left hand behind her back while she gathered her thoughts. It was an odd way of standing that Yugao had come to recognize as the default stance Kaya would take when she was inspecting Yugao's technique, taking a moment to think, or simply didn't have anything to do with her hands.

She began slowly, "What matters is not whether everything you say is factually true, but whether the feelings and meanings behind it are true. That's the kind of compromise we have to make when we wear these masks."

These masks. Right. Even as a civilian Yugao wore a sort of mask. She would just have to learn to communicate who she was in ways that didn't reveal what she did. It sounded so simple, the way Kaya put it, but she knew it was easier said than done. Furthermore, who she was and what she did were basically synonymous. She spent most of her time working. Her free time she spent training, studying, or taking care of general housekeeping. What more to her was there? What would she have to share with a friend? She would have to figure that out, too.

Kaya began telling her about natural antidotes and remedies she could find in different climates, and Yugao knew the conversation was over. Still, she was thankful nonetheless.

That night, she saw Kaya again, as she usually did, in the locker room. Yugao was finishing up for the day, while the older kunoichi was just getting started. Kaya always came in with big dark sunglasses and bright red lipstick. Beyond that, Yugao never caught a glimpse of her face; it was common courtesy not too look at anyone while they were changing in the locker room, even though they were all women. They never spoke, either.

Yugao focused on creating her own civilian look. She had been looking more closely at the village women whenever she could, trying to figure out how they made their make-up look so natural. She took her black pencil and filled in her eyebrows in lighter, shorter strokes, instead of just coloring them all black as she used to do. It made her look more like an adult and less like a doll. She fixed on her black wig and gathered it into her usual bun, then reached for her butterfly pin when she stopped. Suddenly, the thought of wearing it seemed too childish. Gazing at her reflection in the small mirror in her locker, she reminded herself that she was now fourteen. She cooked her own meals, she paid her own bills. She saved lives, and she took them away.

Instead, she reached for the tube of lipstick at the back of her locker that she had just recently bought. She applied it slowly, and smacked her lips together a few times, the way she had seen the women in the cosmetics store do. It was a popular shade of red, not as bright as Kaya's, but not childish like the pink lip balm she used to wear.

It reminded her of blood, and she wondered briefly if that was a normal thought to have.

But normal, she realized, may not be something she could ever have. Not while she wore these masks.