As soon as Tsunami saw Hitomi, in Kakashi's arms and covered in blood, she ran to the girl to examine her, frowning and cursing in a particularly creative way. She ordered the Jōnin-sensei to take his student to the living room, without a look at the two shinobi with a Kirijin forehead protector who followed the Konohajin team around like lost puppies. One problem at a time.

The girl was unconscious and the wound barring her torso provoked several shocked exclamations, from her adopted brothers and Tsunami herself. With the tip of her cold fingers, she assessed the injury to determine how deep and serious it was, then decided stitching was the best course of action. The kid was lucky she was already unconscious… "Dad, go fetch my first aid kit. Sensei, take everybody out, I don't want anyone to distract me."

She bossed everyone around like a head surgeon would, which made people obey as quickly as they possibly could, leaving her alone with the passed out young girl bleeding on her sofa – which she didn't care about one bit. Stitching was a long, repetitive and laborious process, especially when it wasn't done on a flat patch of skin. At least her patient wasn't moving around. She tied the last stitch, bandaged the wound and stood back up, her spine creaking in protest. The girl would have a scar, but maybe the medic nin she had heard about could erase it, or maybe the kid would wear it as a mark of pride, a trophy. You never knew with shinobi.

In her Library, Hitomi was hiding under a reading table, drowning in a fear beyond words. The pale, usually so clean ground of her dear sanctuary had disappeared under several centimetres of fresh blood. Even from where she was, she couldn't escape its metallic smell and sticky feeling against her curled-up shape. She couldn't help but sob, her shoulders agitated with spasms and her throat constricted. She didn't understand what was happening and that was enough to terrify her. Usually, a mere thought allowed her to adjust the appearance of the place, to control it down to the last detail, but it didn't seem to work this time.

She knew the reason behind such a mess, but she should have been able to control it. Killing wasn't supposed to be such an ordeal for shinobi, she should have been insensitive or close to it. Besides, it wasn't fair, she had done her job, she had behaved well, this man would have gutted Tazuna without breaking a sweat if Gatō had paid him to do it. Anyways, she had been paid, or would be paid, for that mission, for the life, lives, she had taken. It was the same, just the same, so why did the thin line between intentions and actions make her feel like she was slowly dying?

And she'd still have to kill in the future, she knew it, knew it couldn't be helped. Maybe she'd have to do it as soon as the Chūnin exam, or even earlier, if a mission required her to do it. Despite all the reproaches she could have towards her village, Hitomi was loyal to it, not out of patriotism but because so many of her loved ones would have given their lives without any hesitation for Konoha. She couldn't allow herself to be weak, not now, not in front of the very first threat to her mental stability.

Her throat constricted, she left her hiding spot slowly. Her hands and legs were covered in blood. The frown and incredibly hard look in her eyes were like a scar in the middle of her exhausted features. She breathed in deeply and raised her arms, mobilising chakra and pure power to bend the place to her will. Several meters away, like a spark in the shadows, a door appeared. It was such a pure white that looking at it hurt, locked with barbed wire ready to bite the skin of anyone trying to approach, or leave the room it was guarding.

A bitter crease on her lips, Hitomi grabbed the book that contained her memory of the first murder and what it had made her feel. She tore out the page that contained the act itself, cold and free of any emotional reality, and bound it to the book containing the previous memory. The rest of that damned book, she took it to the white door. The barbed wire retreated before her, but still scratched her arms as she pushed the panel made of light open. A simple emotional wound – nothing serious. It was just the first of a very long series. She had chosen this path, this life, she knew what it cost.

Behind the door was a small, dark room. On a bookshelf that seemed ready to collapse, dozens of used books piled up. The cover for one of them was a face in relief, silently screaming. Another was bleeding, the thick red liquid dripping along its pages to pool under its spine. After one last look at the book she had taken there, she tossed it on the table in the middle of the room, grabbed a length of chains and wrapped it around the book until it disappeared under the iron.

When she left the room several minutes later, the floor was clean once more. The white door closed silently behind her and disappeared into the shadows, where it could lay forgotten. Even if her mind didn't allow for forgiveness.

Hitomi woke up as the sun was setting, in the orange and red light flowing in the living room. She tried to sit up and hissed as pain bloomed where Zabuza had wounded her. Carefully, she relaxed her muscles and let her body go limp against the cushions. She felt tired, but relieved that this crisis was over, at least until Kakashi took her to his therapist. Her hesitations on that matter had thawed like snow under the sun. She needed that help, she knew it now. She just hoped that the woman his sensei was consulting would be as efficient and good for her as she had to be for him: the Copy Nin wasn't the kind to waste time with a useless doctor.

"Ah, you're awake," Kakashi said as he popped his head through the window. Don't move, I'm coming." At least he had the decency to go the long way, through the door – Tsunami probably wouldn't have liked it if shinobi had left scratches and footprints all over the frames of her windows by going through it carelessly. Anyway, if she had been a civilian, Hitomi was sure she would have been pissed about such a thing.

"Zabuza and Haku?" she asked when he entered the room.

"In the garden. Haku seems fond of Naruto and Sasuke, and Zabuza stands watch and glares at everyone. Don't tell anyone, but I saw him pet Sunaarashi."

"And she didn't claw his hand raw? Surprising!" Hitomi snickered weakly.

"I heard that, Lady Summoner," the she-cat remarked from outside.

Teacher and student shared a look then started to laugh. He approached and, carelessly leaning over the back of the sofa, gently messed with her hair. "You're in for one more week of bedrest, maybe one or two days less if you don't use too much chakra. Fortunately, this time you don't have to transfuse your poor old sensei, hm?"

"No, but I do have a good excuse to read the next Icha Icha. Can I please have it?"

He obeyed with a sigh and she soon enough got the red book between her hands. She had come to really like the characters she had discovered in the first book. Without any actual reason, she had always thought in the Previous World that Jiraiya's novels were a bit like the 50 Shades of that universe, but it wasn't the case at all. The Sannin knew his craft. He had a real talent for character development and the emotional scenes he had written had, more than once, made her eyes shine with unshed tears.

"What's gonna happen now, sensei?" she asked, resisting the urge to open the book and start reading immediately.

"This night, I'm going to the headquarter of Gatō Corp to dismantle the part overseeing the Land of Waves. It's an A-ranked mission of its own, so no way I'm taking any of you kids with me. They're gonna try to gather their assets and reinstall themselves in the area, but the Land of Fire will have more than enough time to place one of their men at the head of the company in the chaos that will ensue. The Land of Fire will still profit from marine activity, but its politic will be a lot softer on the people than Gatō's and they'll be allowed to live their lives in peace."

"What about Haku and Zabuza?"

"Part of the loot I'm gonna get tonight will go to them for their role in the battle against the mercenaries. They decided to stay with us until Tazuna finishes the bridge, then we'll go back to Konoha, and they… I guess they're gonna go back to Kirigakure to try and stir up a new rebellion, now that they have the funds to do it properly."

Hitomi needed time to digest all that. She didn't dare go back in her Library yet, not since it was still adjusting to the presence of one more book in the forbidden section, but she was wondering how the future would be affected by all those changes from the canon. A spark of euphoria brushed against her mind – so it was possible to make things better, nothing was carved in stone, she was finally sure of it. How many other tragedies could she prevent? For a second, she felt almighty.

The following days were peaceful, especially for the wounded who took a well-deserved rest, read with all her might and slept enough for four. The meds Tsunami had procured her, paid with Kakashi's money, made her sleepy and probably a bit loopy – Naruto and Sasuke had looked aghast when she had told her first smutty joke ever in front of them and she had been wheezing in laughter, almost falling of the couch in hilarity. She'd pay good money to see those faces again.

And then there were the other, darker moments, when Kakashi muffled her nightmares with a hand on her lips as she woke up jumping in fright, and listened to her retelling them in silence, not caring a bit about his own tiredness. In the morning, everything was brushed off by a cheerful sun pouring its light in the living-room that was temporarily her whole world; if forgetting wasn't a possibility for her, she could at least keep her mind busy with sealwork.

She had just finished the seal she had been working on with Kakashi when Tsunami cleared her for training. The first thing she did was to run along the beach, with her cats like ducklings behind her, for hours on end, without any chakra to support her muscles, until she couldn't even put a foot in front of the other. Then she had let the sea take her and floated until she felt ready to walk again, and then come back home, exhausted, happy and whole once more. People often forgot that physical exercise wasn't only a necessity for ninjas, but an outlet as well.

Her first confrontation with Zabuza happened that very night. The deserter was standing watch in front of Tazuna's house, titan-like and vaguely threatening – he probably couldn't tune that down no matter how hard he tried. She stopped in front of his tall silhouette hidden in shadow, reassured by the presence of her cats behind her. They had all spent quite some time with the deserter while she was healing, and none of them had been harmed in any way.

"I wanted to tell you, girl… Nice fight, on the bridge."

She froze, astonished, her eyes slightly wide. For a moment, she thought she hadn't heard him right, because the Demon of the Hidden Mist wasn't the kind to hand out compliments. He stared at her, almost challenging her to protest, his shadow wavering over her. She had to fight her instinctive desire to capture that shadow; she had learned her lesson with Kakashi, and Tsunami would gleefully behead her if she injured herself again. "Thank you, Zabuza-san," she said with a small smile. "It was an honour to get to fight against you, and with you as well."

He nodded, his eyes never leaving her, then extended a hand towards her. "Hand me your sword," he grunted.

It was an order and Hitomi had learned the importance of obedience, so she did as he said without question. Her fingers wrapped around Ishi to Senrigan's guard and she unsheathed the blade slowly, each inch of freed steel catching the weak light of the moon. She couldn't suppress a small twinge of reluctance as she handed the tantō to Zabuza, staring at him as he studied it closely.

"Very good blade. Forged by the masters from the Land of Iron?"

"I don't know. It's a gift Sasuke gave me. It used to belong to a member of his clan."

"Hm. And you can fill it with chakra. D'you know the trick?"

Hitomi shook her head, the few strands of hair escaped from her ponytail cheerfully following the movement.

"I'm gonna explain it to you, to thank you for the lesson you gave me on that bridge. I won't neglect the people who look weaker than I am anymore, and you'll be able to tear through your enemies with what you're gonna learn. However, you train on your own, I've no fucking wish to become like your old sensei, dotting over brats. Deal?"

"Deal!" she beamed with something looking like frenzy in her eyes.

He raised the tantō so she could see it up close. The sun had set long ago, so only the moon was throwing its light over the edge, as perfectly sharp as it had been the first day, beautiful and deadly. A spark of chakra tasting like ocean floated in the air, and suddenly water surrounded the blade, compressed to an incredibly thin flow and rotating like a chainsaw along the edge – even though such tools didn't exist in this world. It even had teeth, for fuck's sake. Hitomi's eyes went wide. Even without seeing it in an actual fight, she understood how much damage this could do to any target.

"See, girl, water is the hardest nature of chakra to infuse in a weapon. In Kiri, we even decided to go with creating legendary swords rather than teaching it to all our young, and yet many decided to learn, because it's worth it. If you do this correctly, a simple brush against an opponent's skin will tear away whole chunks of flesh." He looked absolutely over the moon as he was telling her that, and Hitomi had to admit that she was in turn fascinated, her red eyes never leaving the blade of her sword. Since the memory of her first kill was locked out of reach, she wasn't so appalled by violence anymore. If such barbarism was what it took to ensure peace and happiness for her loved ones… She wasn't sure she would refuse to join in.

"First, you have to call upon your water chakra, gather it in your arm, then compress it far beyond the pressure real water could bear. The coat you cover your blade with can't be any thicker than half a millimetre on each side, and even thinner than that along the edge. Basically, the thinner it is, the more it cuts, and the more damage you can cause. Mizukage the Second was able, according to the legend, to reduce the thickness of his bladecoat to a single molecule. For that, you have to compress the water chakra between two masses of pure chakra as hard as you can."

Hitomi didn't need to put his instructions into practice to know it would require a strength she didn't possess yet. But, like everything that was part of the shinobi arts, she could work on it, and she would. She was sure she could master this skill if she put enough effort into it. After all, she was really good with control, precisions. What she lacked yet was the raw strength, a bridge between muscle, power and will that she didn't know how to build and cross yet.

"Then," Zabuza continued, "you have to add the rotation. Once your chakra coat is in place and as compressed as possible between your two masses of pure chakra, you have to give the coat rotation, and maintain it indefinitely. You have to find a trigger in your mind to make this automatic or the technique will be useless in battle. That way, you won't even have to focus on it. Any question?"

After half a second of hesitation, Hitomi shook her head. Zabuza's explanations were rough, abrupt, but clear. They made sense when one knew how chakra worked, when it became an additional limb, and that was a feeling the Nara shinobi were very familiar with, thanks to their Kekkei Genkai.

"Good. My debt to you is paid, then. Take back your sword and train." He handed her her sword, dripping water on her hands by accident, then went inside the house, leaving her alone on the porch. At first, she simply tried to infuse water chakra in the sword. It was easy, no more complicated than activating a seal. A blob of water surrounded her blade, utterly useless. Before trying the next step, she practiced several kenjutsu katas to make sure the mass stayed in place without any additional effort. As long as she didn't interrupt the flow of chakra, it worked like a charm.

When she started to compress, though, things got far more complicated. Creating neutral and water chakra at the same time wasn't something that was done often by shinobi. In fact, she hadn't ever tried, not even once. All her techniques required either one or the other, and that was it. There, she had to cut her focus in at least half, something she would need time to get accustomed to. She would be able to reduce the part of her mind dedicated to that task in particular until it became second nature, just like Zabuza said, but she would need time for it. Time, time… Time was always the matter – and the unavoidable toll to pay for knowledge and mastery.

She went inside the house after two long hours of repeated failures and tentative progress. She had started to get the compression thing, but couldn't maintain it for more than two seconds before the water collapsed to her feet or returned to its original shape. She had persisted until she got pins and needles in her hand and decided not to push to pain. Harming herself wouldn't help her get where she wanted quicker, but it did risk upsetting Sasuke and Naruto who hated seeing her in pain.

In the kitchen, Haku was busy doing the dishes. Without a word, Hitomi stepped next to him, grabbed a towel and started drying what he was washing. They exchanged a look then went back to their own task, a kind of quiet camaraderie floating unsaid between them. Sasuke had explained to her how the situation between the young deserter and his mentor was very tense. Hitomi hadn't expected that problem to arise. How easy had it been to brush off that, in the canon, Zabuza's epiphany about how precious Haku was to him had only happened after his student had died to save him! She had to fix this shit.

During the following days, she spent a lot of time with the boy, one year older than she was. He was incredibly kind and sweet, starving for affection and knowledge. Hitomi had loads of both and gave them to him without holding back. They had started the habit of going to lay down on the roof at night to watch the stars. The sky was usually clear in the Land of Waves these days – the warm season was growing near. During those astronomy sessions, they often discussed things they didn't necessarily bring up with their respective teammates. Sometimes, Haku's quiet presence and his warmth against Hitomi's side made Hitomi think of halcyon days, when everything was simpler, easier.

The idea came to her one afternoon, while everyone was gathered on the beach. Tazuna and Tsunami had decided to throw a barbeque there, to Naruto's utmost joy. Hitomi was happy too, but she longed for different parties, with her friends in Konoha, in her garden, under Kurenai's supervision. After graduation, those gatherings had become rarer. They didn't have so much time on their hands now, and not all at the same time. She still had to learn how to find home in herself, in her team, rather than in places and in people who couldn't be with her most of the time. Ensui had assured her it would come. She believed him, of course. How could she not?

She watched Zabuza sparring with Kakashi, and wasn't the only one doing so: not too far away, Haku stared at his mentor, his eyes filled with such loneliness and reservation it made her heart ache. The teenager's dependence on his master wasn't healthy, but it would get better, without a doubt, if the man learned to treat him like a person, with his strengths, weaknesses, and his own mind. Her face empty, Hitomi interrupted the spar between Sasuke and Naruto and attracted the latter in a hug. There, her mouth against his ear, she whispered a few words that made him blink in surprise then frown.

As soon as she let go of him, he walked to the other spar, yelling. "Oi, Zabuza! It's more than time that you stop treating Haku like a weapon! He's a person, too, and he loves you enough to put up with you behaving like a asshole, and you, you're giving him nothin' in return!" As the others watched, dumbfounded, the young jinchūriki threw himself in the spar and grabbed the swordsman's shirt with his little fists, all but screaming his mind nose to nose with him.

A wily, maybe quite proud smile slowly stretched Hitomi's lips. Sasuke walked to her, as surprised as the others. "What did you tell him to get him to react this way?"

"This, my dear brother, is a secret I intend on keeping to myself. Just remember I can do this at will." The look he threw her was made of pure fright, making her throw her head back and burst in a wild laugh, as beautiful and tempestuous as the sea. She rarely laughed like that, with such abandon, such delight, and this touch of cruel joy that made shivers run down people's spine if they weren't sure to be safe by her side. In that laugh, there was a hint of the redoubtable opponent she would one day become, when there would be power and strength in her to back up her endless plotting.

"You're fucking terrifying."

"I know, Sasuke, thank you. I call that the Peace, Love and Ramen Bowl technique."

"A… fitting name. Thoroughly ridiculous, but fitting."

"I know, right?"

During the following days, Hitomi was able to see her plan bear its fruits. The tension between Zabuza and Haku started to ease as their bonds became gradually more natural. One night, after they had gone up on the roof, the teenage boy hugged Hitomi for the first time, whispering thanks in a choked voice against her ear. His eyes shone with tears in the dark, but his beaming smile could have lit up the whole sky. "Zabuza-sama asked me to stay with him after training, today."

The girl nodded: she had noticed the two deserters' absence during dinner. They had only come home when she was doing the dishes after the meal, so she had silently heated up two plates of food for them then cleaned those as well when they'd been done rather than going back to her book like she wanted to.

"We… We talked a lot. He said he loved me dearly, even if he didn't know how to show it, and he'd try better in the future. He even promised that, when things will get better in Kiri, he's gonna officially adopt me."

"That's awesome news!" she tried exclaiming while keeping her voice down.

"Yeah," the boy whispered in a trembling voice. His tears started running then. Hitomi couldn't see them, but she felt them dampening the fabric of her kimono. Without a word, she wrapped her arms around the teenager and started cradling him gently. She understood how happiness could make him cry, understood that a page of his story was done and how going to the next one frightened him. Yes, she understood.

"You know, Haku, we should do something a bit crazy to celebrate," she said after a few minutes.

He raised his head and met her eyes, surprised. "You have something in mind?"

"Actually, yes. Come with me!" As soon as the words left her mouth, she stood up and jumped off the roof, Haku just behind her. The boy in tow, she ran to one of the cliffs, not so far away, where she liked to go to write her letters since she was allowed to leave the house. The marine air eased the words she bore so close to her heart and helped her put them on paper. When they arrived, only the moon and stars watched them, their reflection dancing on the sea far below.

"I wanna jump," Hitomi announced without any hesitation, "and I think you should jump with me."

"Aren't you afraid of getting injured? It's quite the fall."

"Pff, we're ninjas, such a little dive won't hurt! And where will I find cliffs like those in Konoha, anyway?" She let out a little giggle, raising her chin to look him in the eyes. "Tempted?"

She saw Haku think about it, weigh the pros and cons carefully. She waited, tuning down her own eagerness, because she knew that, in his shoes, she would have done the same. Finally, he nodded and started undressing, peeling off layer after layer of clothing until a simple piece of fabric shielded his modesty. Hitomi mimicked him, leaving her grey kimono, legging and steel fishnet in a little bundle at her feet, only satisfied when she was only wearing a thin sports bra and a pair of panties. They exchanged a look and started running towards the edge in silent concert.

It was glorious, an exaltation beyond words. Hitomi screamed her joy and freedom as she fell, the body perfectly prepared for impact. Said impact happened in a tremendous splash but without any pain, just like she had predicted, her chakra rushing to reinforce her limbs and protect them against her spark of folly. She went down, down, far below the surface, her laugh muffled by the sea making her swallow big gulps of salted water, and suddenly Haku's firm, gentle hand grabbed her wrist.

With his free arm and legs, he made them go up again, and soon enough their heads broke through the surface. Raised in the Land of Water, he was probably a better swimmer than she could ever dream to be. Hitomi was still laughing when she started breathing air again; he laughed with her, his cheeks red and eyes gleaming with sheer pleasure. Then their laughs died out, their hold of each other turned into an embrace and they edged closer. Hitomi laid her head against his shoulders and took a deep breath, confident he would keep her above the surface.

For the first time since she had killed, a knot inside her eased.

They went home long after midnight, so soaked they had abandoned the idea of putting their clothes back on, even if they had indeed been back to the cliff to get their gear. Fortunately for the Yūhi girl, it was Zabuza on watch that night, not Kakashi; the swordsman only smirked when he saw them and sent them to bed with a firm nod towards the bedrooms. Not once had Haku let go of Hitomi's hand since they had found each other in the sea, but he had to when he left her at the door of her room – being the only girl, she slept with Tsunami now that she was back in shape. The two teenagers stared at each other for a long time. Hitomi had to raise her head for that – Haku wasn't so tall, but anyone except for children looked tall next to her.

"Thanks for tonight, Hitomi-chan. I'll miss you dearly when it's time for us to go our separate ways."

"Oh, Haku," she whispered with a smile. "I don't think your ways will be as separate as you think." With those words, she tiptoed to his level and kissed him, chaste and gentle, just a brush of her lips against his, before disappearing to the other side of the door. After a moment spent frozen in amazement, she went to lie down on her futon, her heart racing so loud it was a wonder Tsunami didn't hear it.