Chapter 4: The Kunoichi's Burden
The height of summer in Konoha was brutal. Long hours of relentless sunlight sent villagers scurrying and clinging to whatever shade they could find when they got the energy to leave their homes, the humidity so pervasive that it felt as though one had a second layer of skin constantly suffocating their own. It was days like those that had Yugao marveling at the adaptability of the ANBU uniforms, which, while protective and heat-retaining in winter, were surprisingly lightweight and breathable in summer.
Today, however, was one of the rare summer days when the heat lessened its intensity, a few lazy clouds provided extra shade, and Yugao was lucky enough to have a day off. She chose to spend it at Konoha's wildflower fields, a place where, in her Academy days, Yugao and the other young kunoichi would learn flower arranging and other domestic pursuits. She never particularly liked those extra classes, yet she enjoyed the time she got to spend outdoors in what was, in her opinion, one of the village's more beautiful areas. Yugao would often come back here to gather ingredients to make her own medicines, antidotes, and food pills. The field was known for its wildflowers, but Yugao had also found it useful for gathering medicinal herbs and semi-wild vegetables. They were free for anyone to take as long as they left enough for the plants to reproduce.
Strolling through the fields in her long summer dress, basket in hand, the kunoichi was surprised to find that she was not alone. Leaning against a tree near the edge of the fields, nose buried in a book, sat a boy around the same age as her.
Not just any boy – the boy from the pastry shop. The one who was supposed to become her friend.
Yugao froze. It had been a little more than a year since she first met him – his face was leaner, his brown hair was longer and tied half-up in a ponytail, he was probably taller – but it was definitely him. She had seen him only a handful of times since their first meeting, always in passing and always she had made some excuse in her head as to why she couldn't stop and talk to him. He had given her a small smile and she had given him a small wave, but it had been months even since then and she had nearly forgotten about him. It was possible that he wouldn't even recognize her now.
As she contemplated going to the other side of the meadow in hopes that he wouldn't notice her there, or even just leaving altogether, he looked up – straight at her – and she realized that she had been staring.
She cursed herself for stopping directly in his line of vision.
After a few painful seconds of accidental eye contact, he waved her over to where he was sitting.
"It's nice to see you again," he called, and instantly all the nervousness and tension she had been holding melted away.
He remembered.
And if it hadn't been so foreign to her, Yugao would have smiled.
She walked over to his tree and stared down at him, forcing out a "Hi" when she realized she hadn't yet greeted him.
"What's the basket for?" He asked, nodding towards said object hanging on her arm.
"Just gathering some herbs and vegetables."
"For your mother?"
Yugao stood confused for a moment until she remembered that she had made up that unnecessary lie a year ago and now had to awkwardly just go with it. "Yeah, she likes her ingredients to be all natural." Yugao had no idea what that even meant seeing as the local markets usually all sold fresh produce, but thankfully he didn't question it. "What are you reading about?"
He looked down at the book in his hands, still open to the page he had been reading before he saw her. "Oh, this is a book I got from the library about horticulture. I was hoping to be able to identify some of the plants in this field, but, well...maybe you could help me." He got up from his perch, walked a few paces, and kneeled near a yellow-flowering plant. "This looks like this one, right?" He pointed at the plant then at a picture in the book as he held it out for her to see.
Yugao sat back on her ankles, knees drawn to her chest, to inspect the plant. It was, quite clearly to her at least, a very different plant. "This is wild parsnip. If its sap touches your skin you'll get a rash."
"Oh, I don't want that." The boy jerked his hand back quickly, his reflexes somewhat feline and surprisingly fast for a civilian. "This is the trouble I'm having, they all look so similar."
She looked back at the plant. "Not really. The leaves on the parsnip are more pointed and closer to the ground. The stalks are taller. Also, the flowers in that picture are wider."
She watched his eyes flit from the plant to the picture and back again. "Of course," he mumbled, though Yugao could tell he was still struggling to see the difference. "Parsnip though," he looked up at her with his big, curious, almond-shaped eyes and she nearly startled at how close they were, "I can eat that, right?"
She shook her head, resisting the urge to back away from him in what probably would be perceived as a rude gesture. "Not now that it's already flowering. The root will be dried out." He sighed, and her urge to retreat was suddenly replaced with an urge to help him. "That flower in your book though, you won't find that here. It prefers rockier soil, like around Iwa."
"Oh, I know about that! Things like soil quality, water quality, the amount of sunlight, all factors as to what can grow, right?"
"Right."
He flipped to another page in his book. "Then what about this one?..."
In no time he had her identifying and explaining all the different plants in the meadow, cross-referencing them with those in his book, and they peacefully set into a kind of routine. He had a surprisingly vast knowledge of edible wild plants, but his curiosity lay mostly in flowering plants. Pulling on her thick gloves, Yugao picked and dug for her own desired ingredients along the way, and he asked her about those too. Yugao easily obliged. There was something about the way his eyes lit up each time he learned something new that she couldn't resist. She had never imagined that the information she had learned from Kaya, and even from the kunoichi classes, would come in handy in this way. She was actually bonding(?) with another human being and it felt strange and awkward and wonderful. Each time his leg would accidentally brush against hers as they kneeled over a new plant she didn't flinch back as she normally would in any other situation. She allowed her killer instincts to dim around him yet didn't feel any cause for worry. There was something about the way the loose parts of his hair fell against his shoulder that felt somehow familiar, and the places where there bodies had made contact remained warm long after they had moved apart, and is this what hormones were? because no one had ever prepared her for being a teenager.
They had scoured nearly the entire meadow when, basket full and palms sweaty, the sun began its final descent. The boy looked up at the sky, library book long forgotten resting in his back pocket.
"It's getting late. Sorry I took up so much of your time," he said, and he looked at her apologetically with those big black eyes.
Yugao shifted the now near-overflowing basket onto her hip. "It's fine, I got everything I needed." The thick material on her long skirt was stained and smudged with dirt, but somehow the boy still looked spotless.
"Based on what you told me, it looks like you got a lot of medicinal herbs too."
"Yeah...my mom sometimes likes to experiment with remedies." A lie, of course, but a harmless lie. Right?
"Oh, sorry, again. You should probably get back before your mom starts to worry."
She knew he was just trying to be thoughtful, just saying what a regular, kind person would say in this situation, but she almost wanted to tell him that no one would be worrying for her, that no one had for a long time, because...because?
Because she wanted to stay.
But she had to maintain the lie.
"Yeah, and you should probably go return that library book."
His hands instinctively reached to his back pocket to check that the book was still there. "Oh right, thanks!"
He's going to leave. This is the part where people excuse themselves and leave.
Frantically, Yugao wracked her brain for something to say that would give her a few more seconds, just a few more seconds of feeling normal. Eyes landing on her basket she picked out a root vegetable and held it out to him. "Here. It's burdock. You can eat it raw but it's better boiled."
"Oh, thanks, but I can't. You already went through the trouble of picking it yourself."
She shook her head, and only held it out more insistently. "I already have enough. Besides, I figured you needed it more, to balance out your cake diet and all."
She mentally slapped herself for relying on the same 'you should eat more vegetables' parting line that she had left him with the time before, but he only smiled and thanked her, and as his fingers brushed against hers to take the root from her grasp, she silently thanked him too for leaving her with something she could remember.
The warm tingle on her fingertips followed her all the way home.
…
One leg….three…six…eight legs. Done.
The eight legs of the octopus squirmed delightfully as Yugao brought it back from the brink of death. With three hearts and nine brains, it was much more difficult to revive than the other aquatic animals she had been practicing with, but she was proud to note that this was the third octopus she had successfully operated in one day. Leaning gently over the large table, left arm folded diligently behind her back, Kaya inspected her student's work.
"Excellent…just perfect."
Yugao's eyebrows shot up behind her mask. She had never received a compliment like that before. Usually, the only confirmation Kaya would give that Yugao was doing something right was a nod of the head, an affirmative hum, or sometimes, sometimes, an apathetic "good."
Yugao resealed the octopus before it could slyly squirm away.
"Let's wrap this up," Kaya directed with a generic gesture. "Don't bother coming in tomorrow. Or ever again for that matter."
"What? Why not?"
Kaya simply shrugged. "You're all done."
Yugao knew that without any prompting, Kaya, a woman of few words, would leave the explanation at that. "All done…with what?"
"All done with learning medical ninjutsu. Most of the kunoichi I train only get past the basics, but you've done it all. Frankly, I have nothing else to teach you."
Despite herself, Yugao found herself feeling slightly sad at the prospect of not spending her mornings with Kaya anymore. Although they barely spoke, Yugao liked to think that they had formed some kind of bond, shared some kind of understanding at least. Kaya was the only person she interacted with regularly who she felt comfortable approaching with all her random questions. A lot of them were left unanswered, but Yugao never minded. At the very least, having some semblance of a steady routine was comforting in their unpredictable shinobi world.
But now, it was all about to be lost.
"Kaya-senpai, can I ask you a question?"
Kaya fixed her with a steady gaze as she rolled up some scrolls. "It doesn't have anything to do with the lesson, does it?"
Yugao found herself almost smiling. That wasn't too hard to figure out; her questions rarely ever did. "It doesn't," she admitted. In fact it was what Kaya had said about the kunoichi she trained, those who barely got past the basics, that made Yugao remember something else.
In the nearly three years she had been in ANBU, Yugao had seen nearly three quarters of the kunoichi be replaced. Even some of the new replacements hadn't lasted more than a year. She knew the turnover rate in their profession was high, and yet somehow it seemed to her to be unusually high for the kunoichi compared to the male shinobi. It reminded her of something Kaya had told her on her first day in the locker room.
"Why is it that more kunoichi seem to quit than men?"
For a while Kaya simply continued her business of tidying up, and Yugao thought her question would go unanswered just like so many before, but then, in an unusual gesture, her teacher took a seat on the table near the window and patted the spot next to her. Hesitantly, Yugao lifted herself onto the table as well, sitting, for the first time, side by side with her senior. Yugao had never noticed this, but they appeared now to be the same height.
"I'll tell you, but there's something you have to understand first." Kaya seemed to be picking her words carefully, her eyes looking straight ahead. Her tone had turned gravely serious, and Yugao wasn't actually sure if she was prepared for what was to come. "Quitting ANBU does not make any of the kunoichi weak. None of them are people who would give up easily."
She waited for Yugao to nod before continuing, slowly, each word weighing heavily on her tongue and staining the air with hurt.
"There are certain missions only a kunoichi can complete. Spying missions mostly, infiltration, sometimes assassination…missions that require you to get close to a man, gain his trust, by any means necessary. These missions require you to give up a part of yourself, one you can never get back, and if you're not careful, they can break you."
Suddenly Yugao felt sick. As indirect as Kaya was being, Yugao understood her perfectly. By any means necessary…a part of yourself…Had all the kunoichi gone through this? Did the other ANBU know? Then, with a turn of her stomach, she remembered the kunoichi classes of her youth, all those innocent little girls learning flower arranging and tea brewing and how to dress in a feminine fashion. Is this what those classes were for? She wanted to vomit.
"Yugao, how old are you now?" It came out as nearly a whisper.
Yugao recalled Kaya asking her once before. She hadn't answered then, and her throat was too choked up to answer now.
Kaya sighed. "You're still young, but once they start to see you as a woman, Yugao, you'll be sent on these missions too."
Yugao swallowed, hard. She looked down at her hands clenched in her lap. Her head hurt. Feeling a warm, heavy hand on her shoulder, she looked up and was met face to face with Kaya's strong gaze. She had shifted her head level with Yugao's such that, through the holes of her rabbit mask, for the first time, Yugao could see her eyes. They were green, and something about their intense stare was so painful yet reassuring, that if her tears hadn't dried up years ago, Yugao would have cried.
"Promise me you'll remember this. No one can take your power away from you. No one." Kaya's grip dug into her skin, her eyes bore into her head, yet Yugao couldn't look away. "For every sick, rotten, worthless bastard out there, there are a hundred more good people. And Yugao, you're better than all of them."
For a moment, Yugao sat transfixed in those green eyes. They were dry, too. They probably had been for a long time. She met their fierceness helplessly, then she felt the grip on her shoulder loosen, Kaya's rabbit mask turned away, and it was like a spell was broken. Yugao's breathing calmed, the pressure in the back of her throat subsided, and she sat side by side with her teacher, staring into empty space.
How could she be so sure? How could she be sure that Yugao was 'one of the good ones'? That she would ever be strong enough to withstand what seemed to be the dark, hidden fate of so many kunoichi?
"Senpai," her throat was dry; she swallowed, "you keep saying that no one's ever going to look out for me, so why is it that you keep on doing so?"
The words had escaped her without much thought. Even with the cool exterior Kaya usually kept on, it hadn't escaped Yugao's notice that throughout the past three years, Kaya had been the only person to regularly show her some kindness, impart on her some sort of cryptic advice, always seem to say exactly what she needed to hear.
"You noticed, huh?" came Kaya's unexpected answer. All the intensity, bitterness, and anger had drained from her voice. The only thing left was pain. "Well it is our last day. We'll never be on the same squad so it can't hurt."
Kaya shifted slightly, whether out of comfort or discomfort Yugao couldn't tell, but she knew what it meant when she said "it can't hurt." Kaya was about to tell her something – something that would break the unspoken rule of ANBU that you were not supposed to get too close to your comrades, not supposed to form "attachments", as the Hokage once put it.
Before Yugao could decide for herself whether or not she should hear this, Kaya began. "What do you know of the home front during the Third Shinobi War?"
She knew "the home front" referred to the village of Konoha itself. As if reciting from an Academy textbook, she answered, "The main aggressors in the war were Konohagakure and Iwagakure, making the primary battlegrounds small border countries and villages such as Kusogakure. Although the longest of the three great wars, Konohagakure itself did not sustain any substantial damage."
"That's right, that's the story they tell, isn't it?"
Yugao had never questioned whether or not that was the entire truth. Her memories of the war were scarce, whether it was because she had been a child or because she had subconsciously repressed them, she couldn't be sure. She had lost her parents in that war. She had seen many older Academy students graduate early and never return. She had learned to navigate the world as an orphan, like so many others, but other than that, the war as she remembered it hadn't touched her in Konoha.
"I was thirteen when I was sent to the reserves at the start of the war, fifteen when they sent me to the front lines. I remember thinking it was OK because I was assigned to the same squad as my father, he would protect me, and by being there we would protect my mother and sister who were waiting for us back in the village. It's true that the village was never attacked outright. Not by enemy shinobi at least."
Not by enemy shinobi? Then by who? Yugao wracked her brains to try to remember some sort of attack or invasion that had happened in her youth but she came up with nothing.
"In the third year of the war, before the tides were turned at the Kannabi Bridge, a bomb attack was threatened on Konoha. The villagers were given the instruction to evacuate."
The third year of the war – Yugao had been seven by then. She had been orphaned by then, but she couldn't remember anything. If there had been an evacuation – she had been all alone – had no one ever alerted her?
"The threat was fake of course, and the villagers soon knew this, but what they didn't know was that it was only meant as a diversion. In the chaos of the evacuation, a terrorist group not affiliated with any government used the distraction to kidnap twenty-five young girls between the ages of six and twelve. My sister…my little sister was one of them."
The story was getting heavy, was getting as difficult for Yugao to hear as she was sure it was to tell. All at once, the memory of some similar night came back to her, of people running outside in the streets, of women yelling. All that night Yugao had stayed hidden, huddled under blankets and pillows to block out all the terrible sounds. Alone she hid, not knowing what horrid fate could have awaited her if she had only stepped outside.
She shuddered, but Kaya wasn't finished.
"Being in the division closest to the village at the time, my father and I rushed back to apprehend the attackers as soon as we heard what had happened. We fought them not even knowing that my sister had been kidnapped. My father died that night saving nineteen of those little girls. My sister…was not one of them."
She paused, and took a deep breath. Yugao wondered if she had ever told this story before, how long it had been holed up deep inside of her.
"My mother passed away not long after the war ended. The doctor said it was her heart, but I knew it was from grief. We never found out who that group was, or what they wanted. I joined ANBU thinking I could track them down and save my sister, but…until now, all I can do is guess."
She turned her head then, as if suddenly recalling again that there was someone else in the room. She fixed Yugao with her green eyes, this time fully hidden from view by her rabbit mask but Yugao knew they were there. "She would have been about your age."
It took Yugao a few moments to realize that that had been the answer to her question. It was strange, it was wrong, being undoubtedly a poor stand in for someone who had been lost, but somehow, Yugao didn't mind. She wondered how many times Kaya had looked at her and seen someone else, how many words she had spoken to her that had really been meant for her sister. And it made sense why Kaya, for the past three years, had tried so hard, and ultimately failed, to keep her distance.
Yugao didn't like knowing that simply being forced to see her every day might have caused her teacher pain, and she suddenly found herself wanting to apologize for her existence, for having the dumb luck to have hidden when her mother and sister had run.
"I don't blame you," Kaya said, as if reading her mind, "I don't blame Konoha either. I'm even done blaming myself. All I can do now is try to make this world better. That's all I want for you, too."
Yugao knew that Kaya couldn't protect her from the world, that no one could, but that in her own small way, Kaya had been preparing her for it. Yugao was only fifteen, nearing sixteen, and for all the horrid things she had already experienced, there were still more to come.
But Kaya told her that she was strong, that she was good. And that was all she needed to hear.
…
Yugao had some time before she had to report to her regular duties – surveillance of the Uchiha compound was on the agenda today – and found herself standing outside the Hokage Mansion with nowhere to go. Normally at this time she would get something to eat for breakfast, but seeing as she had no appetite, she decided to take a walk to clear her head.
Everything Kaya had told her at the end of their lesson had her head spinning, and she was thankful for the cool morning breeze to straighten it out. Autumn had arrived, the days were getting shorter, and yet the villagers were already up and about, setting up their storefronts, getting their children ready for school, heading to the training grounds. Just because Yugao's world had been yanked apart and flipped around over the span of a single conversation didn't mean theirs were any different, and that idea calmed her. Villagers going about their business with nothing amiss meant that ANBU, and other lower-ranked shinobi, were doing their job.
It was among the hustle and bustle of daily village life that Yugao spotted one Hatake Kakashi wandering about. No, he wasn't wandering, he was going somewhere. Yugao mused for a moment over why she found this strange, until she realized that, because of his tendency to always be late, she had assumed that he was the type to sleep in. Yet here he was, in the bright early morning, on a laid back, but deliberate path to somewhere.
Curiosity having struck her and accepting any excuse to give her mind a distraction, she decided to follow him, making sure to mask her chakra and even her scent as best she could.
She followed him past food stalls and recently opened restaurants beckoning him in with offers of fresh tea and dumplings.
She followed him past an adult bookstore where he paused for a moment to ogle the display before moving on.
Ok, gross. Not unexpected, but gross.
She followed him past training grounds and supply shops where a shinobi would normally be found at this hour, but he didn't stop there. No, she followed him all the way to…
…the Memorial Stone, where he stopped. And stood.
And stood.
And stood.
Oh. Oh no. Part of her wanted to leave, but part of her also wanted to stay to see if he would do anything, if he would talk, or move, or remember that his team also had surveillance duty at the same time with hers. But the longer he stood the more her instinct to leave was winning out. She felt as though she had stumbled upon some secret, some intimate moment that she had no business intruding on.
"You don't have to stay hidden back there."
Her body stiffened. But she had been hiding her chakra entirely, even masking her scent since she knew how sensitive his nose was, so how?
She paused for a moment, and when no other secret stalker revealed themselves, she decided to step out of the tree line and join her senior by his side. She stared at the huge black stone, standing taller than she was, hundreds of names etched onto its smooth surface. She didn't know any of them.
"Is this why you're always late?"
Seeing as Kakashi was the one who had initiated contact, Yugao didn't mind when the words tumbled out of her mouth. She was used to withstanding tension, she was used to having to keep her mouth shut, but her head hadn't been at all in the right place today and she needed someone to say something before it wandered off on its own again.
After a few seconds, he nodded.
"For who?"
It seemed as though her words traveled in slow motion through a thick fog before they reached him. Slowly, he lifted his arm and pointed at a name.
Uchiha Obito.
She had never heard of him. A friend, most likely, seeing as they were from different clans. She stared at it for a moment, trying to imagine this name as a living, breathing person with goals and dreams and weaknesses. She couldn't. They were just names.
"You don't like this stone," he accused, eye never straying from his friend's name, his lazy drawl sounding emptier than she had ever heard it.
He was right. In fact, for much of her life she had detested the Memorial Stone, and she knew exactly why. But did he?
"Why do you say that?" she decided to test him.
"Because your family isn't on it."
Ouch. He was right on the mark, and it hurt. But she figured she deserved it after prompting him to share the name of his dead friend.
"How do you know?" she asked, her throat dry, because there was no way he had read and memorized every single name on that unforgiving stone.
"Your hair jutsu. You told Han it wasn't a hidden technique of the Leaf. That was only a confirmation. Jiraiya-sensei has something similar, says he picked it up while traveling. Immigrants?"
"Refugees." The word hung heavy on her tongue.
Foreigners, as a rule, were not allowed to be named on the Memorial Stone. Even foreigners who had died in the line of duty for Konoha, like her parents. They had loved this village that gave them refuge from a war-torn homeland, so much that they were willing to lay down their lives for it, so much that they were willing to leave their only daughter in it. They believed in this village. And for what? So that they couldn't even get their names etched onto some lousy stone? So that they could be forgotten?
Yes, Yugao had detested this stone the first time she learned of it, and for a long time afterwards. She hated it for leaving out her parents' names, their legacies, for trying to erase the memory of them from this world. After all, their bodies were never found. They didn't even have a grave. But over time, she had come to accept that, even if the village had forgotten all about them, she never would. And that was all she could do.
Kakashi didn't ask her any more questions after that. In fact, it seemed as though he had forgotten she was even there. He was far away in another world, and even if she tried, she was sure her words would never reach him.
Suddenly, a strong sense of discomfort washed over her. She had witnessed something she shouldn't have – a man in mourning. A man who lived with ghosts. She had seen their names.
The dark fog that accompanied him seemed to release her, and she desperately wanted to leave.
Noting the sun's position in the sky, she decided to leave him standing there as she departed for their surveillance duty. She knew he would be late, and she knew to never question him about it again.
…
A dark-haired middle-aged man stumbled out the front door of his home, struggling to tug on his shoes mid-step. A woman – his wife – shoved some breakfast in his hand and planted a quick kiss on his cheek before he could go running off down the street. He was late for work.
Yugao watched all this on the grey monitor in the surveillance room. The man was an Uchiha. His work was probably at the Police Force. With a quick search of his address, Yugao could find out his name, rank, known relations, and virtually any other information about him if she wanted to. But she didn't. He was simply a man, with a doting wife, who was late for work.
And Yugao was only half paying attention, if she were being honest. Once the morning rush was over, the children were at school, the adults were at work, and the Uchiha compound would remain quiet until lunchtime. Yugao, like many of her teammates, found these surveillance shifts to be rather pointless and much like grunt work. If the Uchiha really were even planning anything, it was definitely taking place during their meetings at Nakano Shrine, which the ANBU had no access to anyway.
Kakashi arrived an hour and a half late, with his usual bored, unaffected air. Any trace of the mournful cloud that had surrounded him at the Memorial Stone had completely vanished, and he greeted Yugao with the same nod he gave to all his other comrades, as though the strangely intimate conversation they had shared just hours ago had never taken place. He took his seat as the captain on duty in front of a large screen displaying all of the monitors simultaneously. He plopped down in his chair, propped up his feet on the control panel, and promptly buried his nose in a book. He rested his dog mask on his chest and used it to prop up his book so that he could keep reading if he ever wanted to stretch out his arms. Unless one of the ANBU watching their own individual monitors notified him about some suspicious activity, he'd likely spend his entire shift that way – or what was left of it.
Noting absolutely zero activity on her monitor, Yugao's eyes began to wander around the room. At the station to her left she spotted Tenzou, also ignoring his monitor, staring intently at his hands. Utterly confused, Yugao shifted to get a better look.
What seemed to consume his attention was the long twig he had produced from the index finger of his right hand.
"What are you doing?" She whispered at him. His head snapped in her direction, and the wide rounded eyes of his cat mask mimicked the expression Yugao imagined him to have underneath.
"Look at this," he held out his right hand towards her, "What do you see?"
"A twig?"
"No, here." He pointed to a small jutting bump on the twig that, if she looked closely, had a small hint of green coloring.
"A bump?"
"No. Well, yeah. But doesn't it look like it could be a bud?"
"A bud?"
"Like a flower bud."
She looked closely once again. "It kind of just looks like a leaf."
He pulled his hand back to take another look himself. "What? Really?"
"Tenzou."
Two heads spun at the sound of the captain's voice. Kakashi's head had popped out of his book and he was beckoning his subordinate to come towards him. With heavy feet, Tenzou stood to meet his fate.
Someone – undoubtedly a Team Ro member – let out a low "ooooooohhh" followed by, "teacher's pet is in trouble", which was met with more than a few quiet snickers.
Eyes halfheartedly back on her monitor, Yugao strained to hear the whispered conversation between Tenzou and Kakashi, for once grateful that she had been assigned the station closest to the control screen.
"It looks like a flower bud, right?"
Without missing a beat, Kakashi whispered back, "It's a leaf."
"What? No, that's what Yugao said."
"Yugao." Admittedly more than a little excited to be back in the conversation, the kunoichi answered the summons with haste.
"Look," Tenzou insisted, pointing at the bump once more, "It's round, and it's a little bit green."
"Leaves are green."
"Senpai's right."
"I know what a leaf looks like."
"Yugao, tell him he's being ridiculous. That's an order."
The resulting, whiny "senpaiiii" that emitted from Tenzou's mouth was so un-ANBU-like that Yugao had to fight back a tickle in her throat. He retracted the twig back into his hand. "Never mind. You're both unhelpful."
"All right, all right, back to work everyone," Kakashi called out to the room with a clap of his hands, and Yugao looked up to see several heads swing back to their monitors.
As she took a seat back at her station, Yugao found herself feeling lighter, as though a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. All the information that had been weighing on her all morning – the kunoichi's special missions, Kaya's past, Kakashi's ghosts – she silently thanked Tenzou, because in a moment, he had allowed her to forget all of it.
She would revisit them later, preferably one by one, for there was still a lot to process, still a lot of emotions she didn't quite understand. But for now, she would breathe easily. The world was an awful, terrible, frightening place. But it also had people like Tenzou in it, and that made it a little bit better.