Hi there! Thank you so much for reading this story. If you got a notification yesterday, that's normal. Either way, if you haven't yesterday, you should read chapter 62 (The Kusajin Genin) before coming back to this one. I don't know how, but I had forgotten to publish it even though it was uploaded to the website. You need to read it to continue to understand this story since it features the apparition of Karin, who will become a regular character from now on. I'm sorry for the mishap, it shouldn't happen again.

Hitomi walked through the hall, her steps strong and steady. As far as her hearing went, the ground floor was totally silent, but this was only the administrative part of the hospital: it didn't hold any interest for Orochimaru and his troops. She walked past the body of a nurse with her neck so deeply cut she could see the white of bone. Further, she noticed one of Ino's kunai – they all had a red handle – two insects that looked like Shino's and a bit of sand, probably from Gaara's gourd. She pushed the worry down, so only hope remained. Her friends were strong, every one of them.

As she ran up the stairs, she heard people fighting. She only needed a moment to find the origin of it by listening to her meridians rather than her ears, and one more to arrive there. She threw two kunai with her free hand as soon as she noticed an Otojin uniform, without pause. One hit a man in the shoulder, the other his thigh. His cry of pain attracted the dozen of enemies' focus on her – as well as her friends', from where they were standing, barring the Otojin from advancing further into the corridor.

They all looked okay, even though Chōji was very pale. Shino had a cut on his cheek; his insects crawled on his skin as if they tried to mend it. Hitomi greeted them with a fierce smile and helped them finish their opponents with six water clones to cut their retreat. When they recognised the scent and chakra of their summoner, her cats united their voices in a warrior cry, exalted to have her back. A few minutes later, the only ninja left alive surrendered. Kankurō tied him up and locked him in an empty cupboard.

"What's the situation?" Hitomi asked Shikamaru.

"We had to fight our way in. We got rid of an Otojin team downstairs and captured a Sunajin team that surrendered when they saw Gaara."

The girl nodded. She had expected as much. Gaara was a prince for Sunagakure. A seemingly terrible, dangerous, fearsome prince, but a prince nonetheless.

"Then, we helped two people from ANBU who were evacuating the east wing, with success. We have to do the same with the west wing now, but without the ANBU. As you can see, it's harder. There are other teams in the upper floors, but only General Forces." The Nara heir couldn't quite conceal the twinge of condescendence in his voice as he evoked the eternal Genin of the village, but Hitomi didn't berate him for it. She had to admit it herself: the difference in skills and strength between those Genin with Jōnin-sensei and without was ridiculous. A lot of the General Forces were going to die today. They couldn't do anything against Chūnin and Jōnin, or even against trained Genin.

"Very well. We finish with this floor then we go to the next then, and all the way up to the roof. When we're done with the hospital, if the invasion hasn't been repressed yet, we're going to the Torture and Intelligence department. The prisoners are probably trying to escape, or someone will have attempted to help them out."

"Yes, taichō," Shikamaru said with a slight nod. With those words, that gesture, he gave her the lead back. They found two teams, one Sunajin and one Otojin, trying to force their way inside a bedroom. Behind the door, Hitomi heard frightened whispers. Most patients in the hospital were civilians, but even they knew what to do in case of emergency, so they wouldn't be in the way of the ninjas tasked with defending them.

Hitomi opened the hostilities by capturing the shadow of a Sunajin ninja who was going to throw himself at the door once more. When he froze, all the enemies turned to face her group. "What about harassing people who can actually fight back, you pieces of shit?" As if she was one to talk. There was no Jōnin in that group, and mere Chūnin against Gaara… She didn't even have to break a sweat, the Otojin team was already drowning in sand while a Sunajin man pleaded with her friend.

"Gaara-sama, your father's orders…"

"My father wouldn't be stupid enough to put his alliance with Konoha at risk," the jinchūriki drawled. "Did you at least check if it was him?"

As the Sunajin men froze, dumbfounded, Hitomi hid an affectionate smile. Gaara… Gaara had no proof of what he was saying. He didn't know his father, not really, and he wasn't yet interested in his village's politics – that was more of Temari's field. The only thing he supported his claim with was her words. This was just another way he trusted her – she would have hugged him if they didn't have an invasion going on around them.

"On Baki-sensei's order, spread the word amongst our ranks. The man who presented himself as our Kazekage-sama is an impostor. He may have been impersonating my father for months now. You'll attack any Otojin team you find on sight. The ones you can capture, you'll temporarily lock them in Konohajin cells. The ones who die… Leave them where they fell. Show no mercy."

"Y-yes, Gaara-sama!"

And just like that, the Sunajin team left, invested with a mission they could actually support with all their heart. Would it really be that simple? By flipping Sunagakure to Konoha's side again, they had eliminated any chance Otogakure had in this invasion. Hitomi snickered internally when she imagined Orochimaru's face. It would teach him to be a disgusting asshole. Her thoughts wandered to the Hokage. Had he survived? Killed Orochimaru, maybe? She couldn't help but hope he had, on both accounts, despite her lack of respect for the man – she was her master's apprentice, after all. But if he had survived, she had to plan. Tsunade had to become Hokage. The village needed her.

Hitomi knocked on the door and gave the emergency code all Konohajin learned in their childhood. The wooden panel opened, and Hitomi was surprised to see Karin in a defensive position, her chakra vigorous and ready to strike. She was still weak, which explained why the Yūhi hadn't sensed her. She had decided to protect the patients, when it wasn't her duty or anything? Now that would help her become a ward of the village. Konoha liked bravery and abnegation.

"We're going to evacuate you," Hitomi said as she stepped out of the room to give them space. "Squeeze together as much as possible so the front and backline can coordinate. Gaara, Kiba, Shino, you come with me in front. Naruto and Hoshihi too. The others, to the back. My ninja cats will bring up the rear and warn us if enemies come from behind."

She waited a few minutes for everyone to get organised, then took the lead again in a tense silence. They could hear fighting coming from the upper floors, but their own seemed deserted: Akamaru didn't smell anything except from their group, apparently. Hitomi's heart thundered in her chest, and yet she was more at peace than she had ever been, her thoughts clearer than ever.

Nothing stopped them as they got back to the ground floor. As the civilians rushed to the secret passage that would lead them to one of the emergency hideouts, the shinobi stood watch, but no enemy came. As she breathed in deeply, Hitomi opened up to her meridians and tried to evaluate the situation. People were still fighting outside. In the hospital too, but the Konohajin ninjas seemed to handle it. Still, they went to help, one floor after the other.

"Are you sure you don't need us anymore here?" she asked ANBU Boar as she wiped her blade clean on her last opponent's pants. She had found him on the fifth floor. He was alone to defend a whole troop of civilians and his hands were shaking with exhaustion when Hitomi had stepped in, slamming against the three enemy units like a fury. She hadn't shown any mercy, protected as she was by Gaara's sand. She was, once more, filled to the brim with chakra to the point of wanting to scream, but she feared she'd need all that energy soon enough.

"I'm sure, Yūhi-san. Take your comrades to the prison to reinforce their defence and stop the prisoners from escaping, if no new order is given on site. In any case, this is an A-ranked mission. Treat it as such and don't die, kids."

"Don't worry about us, Boar-san, this is not my first A-ranked mission. May the Will of Fire protect you."

"May She protect you all," he answered, his voice almost soft. A moment later, he was already turning away and leading his group to the ground floor. Hitomi inspected Chōji's wounds. He had been caught in an enemy jutsu and his right arm was torn, bloody. She tried to patch him up with the Mystical Palm, but she was so saturated in chakra that the result was mediocre at best.

"Go with Boar in the refuge," she sighed after inspecting her work. "There, try to find Uzumaki Karin, tell her I sent you and you need this looked at. Stay there afterwards and protect them. You did good here, Chōji."

"O-okay," her friend stammered, his voice weak and distant.

Suddenly, Hitomi realised most of her friends had killed for the first time today. She didn't really care anymore about the act itself and executed her opponents one after the other without the slightest hesitation. She knew her mind would struggle, but only later. In the Forest of Death, she hadn't felt anything either before some time had passed and she was relatively safe. She had learned to temporise, to lock the doubts, fear and disgust away, where her conscious thoughts couldn't go, but that faint blessing wouldn't last long.

"Ino, your dad works at the prison, right?"

The blonde girl toyed with the grip of a kunai. "Yeah. I hope he's okay…"

"I'm sure he is. Do you know about their security protocols in cases like this?"

"Only some of them. I know there's a confinement seal that has to be activated by the staff in case of an attack or escape attempt, but it's not the only protocol in place, and it can be broken."

"Alright, we're gonna assess the situation once we get there, then. Let's get moving! Hoshihi, Kurokumo, to the front with Kiba and Akamaru. Gaara, Naruto and I then. Shino, Ino, Shikamaru, with Lee, Temari, Kankurō and the other cats to bring up the rear. Are you okay with that?"

"Yeah!"

"Then let's go."

Several times, they had to go around fights. This time, they couldn't stop, even to help fellow Konohajin in difficult situations. They all knew what kind of prisoners the cells in the Torture and Intelligence department held. If they were freed or ended up in enemies' hands… It would be a disaster. Sometimes, the welfare of the whole village required one to look the other way. Naruto had a hard time doing it, but he was surrounded by Gaara and Hitomi, who didn't allow him to slow down or go off course.

An explosion shook the ground when they walked past the last corner before the prison and Intelligence department, the two buildings standing together, apart from the rest of the street. A house that was already half-destroyed collapsed completely. Hitomi took the time to hope no one was inside then looked to the explosion site. The west wall of the prison had blown up and five ANBU had been thrown out, their bodies as limp as chiffon dolls. Dead, or almost dead.

The Genin didn't wait for Hitomi's orders to spread in an arc and dive to the wall. Hoshihi stopped a prisoner by hurling himself at him, his fangs to his throat. The man collapsed, gurgling and bleeding out, but Hitomi already had to focus on her own fights. She parried a hit, dodged another, and projected a wave of killing intent to buy some space around herself. She was tired, hurt from head to toe thanks to the chakra running through her body, her muscles, her organs. She had to burn it before it burned her, quick.

"Ninpō: Shadow Clone!"

Naruto's yell made her smile fiercely. She imitated him, creating six copies of herself, and already she felt better. Her movements turned fluid again, her brain cleared up. There was a terrible, anguished scream behind her: Hai, perched on her mentor's shoulders, had gotten to work. If she judged by the furious gleam in her pale blue eyes, this time she wasn't showing her targets dreams of halcyon days. Cats were extremely territorial, after all.

"Ino, what are you doing here?"

"Dad! We were ordered to come and help you!" The Yamanaka girl looked ready to cry with relief. Hitomi would have probably felt the same in her place. Fortunately, she knew where her mother, her mentor, her teacher, and her brothers were. They weren't alone, weren't isolated, and could count on one another. She wrapped her water whip around the leg of a prisoner and yanked before she stabbed him in the chest. No mercy.

"We can't stop them from pouring out the cells with that destroyed wall, and none of us has a strong enough earth affinity to close it," the clan leader said.

The teenagers stared at the gaping hole in the wall. Even Gaara didn't have enough sand to seal it shut.

"What do we do, then?" Kankurō asked.

Next to Hitomi, Ino paled. She knew the answer to this question, but it was her father who put it into words. "We kill them all. The prisoners locked up in this prison had value alive, but we can't let them escape. Don't hold back, because they certainly won't."

"Understood," Hitomi replied for all of them. She dodged a blade that would have cut her belly open and engaged in a fight of pure kenjutsu against one of the prisoners. She made sure not to think about the legitimate owner of the katana he was wielding in his hands; that person was probably somewhere inside, cold and still. She didn't have time to spare thoughts for the dead if she wanted to live to see another day. The man she was fighting was stronger, faster, but he was no match for Ensui and Yoshino, the sparring partner who had turned dodging into second nature for her. Soon, her shadow came alive and mingled with her opponent's, forcing him to open his arms wide. Kurokumo took the opportunity and tore his throat open as his summoner found herself a new prey.

It took them almost twenty minutes to get the situation under control: the prisoners had been kept, until then, in a carefully controlled state of weakness through various deprivations, but there was a desperate, feral gleam in their eyes. They would get out or die trying. Staying meant more torture, isolation, and even with a devastated mind, they could still make a choice – choose death.

The Whisper exulted in Hitomi's head, filling her ears with a deep buzzing. The invasion had started more than two hours ago and, since then, it hadn't stopped singing for even a moment. The girl would have prostrated herself at Kibaki's feet for forcing her to work on the control she had over her Kekkei Genkai. Even now, she had stolen her enemies' chakra as a reflex, far beyond what her body could hold without pain. Her fighting style was affected, despite her focus and efforts into spending as much chakra as she could without damaging her meridians.

Behind her, Shikamaru and Kankurō were fighting together. They hadn't gotten along so well before the exam but, now, some sense of camaraderie seemed to have bloomed between the two, reinforced by the countless times they saved each other's lives. The Sunajin didn't have much chakra left to manipulate his puppets after his fight with Shino in the tournament, but he was very good at taijutsu and had several D-ranked Wind Release techniques under his belt. Combined with his sister's, they became deadly.

"We're done here," Inoichi said as he finished an agonising prisoner in a nonchalant gesture. "Kiba-kun, what is the situation in the rest of the village?"

The boy closed his eyes and breathed in deep and slow, his mouth open so as to capture a maximum of scents. Next to him, Akamaru, still giant and red from an Inuzuka military pill, did the same. He was temporarily as big as Hoshihi, busy licking a wound on his shoulder, but seemed far bigger with all his scarlet fur.

"Hum… Looks like the last fights are ending. It's hard to say, but I'd assess that most forces from Otogakure and Sunagakure have either been killed or pushed back. There's still a bit of a commotion near the school, but the students didn't have class today."

No, they had all been in the stadium to watch the tournament, imagining themselves down there in a few years. Hitomi couldn't help but think about Shino's baby brother, so innocent and pure, who had yelled in support and approval when his elder had won his fight. Had he found refuge in time? Was he injured? She shook her head and forced herself to think about something else. She would have time to cry over the dead later, no matter their names or numbers.

"Very well," Inoichi said, seemingly relaxing. "You fought very well, children. I'm going to escort you to the closest refuge. Get patched up, help around as you can, start writing your reports if you can. There's going to be a lot of chaos in the days to come. Your recounts of the situation will be precious."

The teenagers obeyed in silence, squeezing together behind the adult, who stood in front of them like a shield despite his own very perceptible exhaustion. Hitomi's cats gathered around her. Hoshihi and Sunaarashi were both wounded; the injuries weren't serious, but she wanted to have them see Inuzuka Hana later, if possible. The young sand-pelted she-cat was limping heavily against her brother Hokori, who looked shaken by everything he had seen. Hitomi petted his head and scratched him behind the ear, his favourite spot. "You fought well, all six of you. I'm very proud of you."

"Did you see how I slammed against the woman with the spear?" Haīro piped up. "She stood no chance against me."

The laugh that escaped Hitomi's lips quivered ever-so-slightly. None of these prisoners had stood a chance, but it was because their chakra had been bound and their bodies weakened by hunger, thirst, and inaction. In other circumstances… She had recognised an Iwajin Chūnin amongst the bodies, a man renowned for his usage of a Wind Release technique that could cut through bones. If he had been in any shape to fight, none of her friends, nor herself, would have survived the encounter.

They stopped for a moment at an intersection, looking at the devastation around them. A giant snake had turned a bakery and the building next to it to rubble, its big glossy eyes seeing nothing anymore. She couldn't even see what had managed to kill it – and how many had died in that fight. As they walked around it to follow Inoichi, she saw what looked like a body torn in half between some boulders. She had to pinch her lips together to push down the acrid bile rising in her chest.

Adrenalin was starting to leave her body, allowing her wounds and abused muscles to burn and ache. As she looked around, she realised that, except for Gaara and Naruto, the others were in the same situation. Her adopted brother was pale, furious, broken-hearted, but he didn't have a scratch on him or the Kyūbi had already healed them for him. Shikamaru was supporting Temari who limped on a bleeding leg, one of her blonde ponytails untied. Despite the circumstances, the two girls exchanged a smile.

They arrived at the hideout and found it overcrowded. The ANBU on watch groaned when they saw their group arrive but let them in, and became far more amicable when they heard about Hitomi's and Ino's medical skills. They didn't have any medic in their group, only a civilian neurosurgeon who couldn't use chakra and hadn't mended cuts and broken bones in years. In silence, the two girls got to work as Gaara decided to stand watch with the members of ANBU.

"Lady Summoner, do you want us to go? Doesn't look like you need us anymore here."

She didn't answer Kurokumo's question right away, focused as she was on the mean-looking cut on a little girl's arm. She had to work slowly so her chakra would follow her instructions, so tense she felt cold sweat trickle down her back, but each wound she healed made it easier, either because she was growing accustomed to the pressure in her Gates or because it slowly went away.

"The ones who aren't wounded can go, yes," she said after wiping away the child's tears and giving her a hug and a kiss on the forehead. "Hoshihi, Sunaarashi, I can take you to Inuzuka Hana later to see if she's available."

The two cats nodded and laid at her feet, ready to pounce despite their apparent nonchalance. Even if the attack seemed to be mostly over, they probably wouldn't relax before they were sure. With the sweetest of her smiles, Hitomi promised the little girl that she was as good as new and bowed when the mother thanked her before gesturing for her next patient to approach.

There were many wounds she couldn't treat: perforated lungs, wounds to the head that made the skull apparent, broken bones. Those, she sent to Ino, who had much better skills in that field. The Yamanaka girl was able to beam at her patients and hide her exhaustion, where Hitomi felt her temper turn shorter as time passed and she was less able to ignore her own aches. The only people she could still treat easily were the children.

A team came to announce that the village was clear an hour and a half later. Hitomi's chakra reserves were back to a comfortable level and the burning sensation had started to disappear. Without a word, she joined Lee and took his hand. She hadn't had time to focus on him during the whole attack; she knew he could handle his own. However, seeing him almost unscathed now felt good.

"How are you?" he asked gently.

"I'm not sure yet. I-I want to see Mom and Ensui-shishou, and Sasuke, and Kakashi-sensei. I know they are strong and they're probably alright but… I'd like to see it."

"That's normal. My mom and baby sister are in one of the hideouts below the stadium. I saw them get in before I left. I don't think anyone forced their way there, but…"

"Yeah. We can never be a hundred percent sure."

Hand in hand, the two teenagers left the hideout. Outside, the sun was starting to set. Hitomi felt like she had started fighting centuries ago. She had been careful to keep track of the time so she wouldn't feel lost in time. Her mind wanted to make her believe that she had killed her last opponent just a second ago and broken the fūinjutsu barrier an eternity earlier. That distortion would have frightened her if she hadn't had facts to support her mind.

"Your clan has protocols in place for emergencies, right?"

"Hm… there's a registry I'll have to sign as I enter the lands, so our administrators know who's missing. Some will be in the hospital. Some won't."

Silence weighed on them for a few seconds. Hitomi looked up into Lee's eyes. The heavy meaning of her last sentence made her feel vulnerable; she wanted to flee, to deny, to hide somewhere to forget and be forgotten.

Some would come home. Some wouldn't.