[A/N: I love when I see that someone has consumed everything in a single day. It is a great compliment. If you've made it this far, I would love a comment even to just say hi. Just opening communication between writer and reader. Tell me what you like, guesses where it will go, tell me a joke.]
Hours passed and Nishira kept at the journals, trying to make sense of random squiggles and swerves. She felt as though her brain cells were now made of squiggles and swerves. The thieves code had been the right track, but it was a different dialect, figuring out the order had taken forever, but it seemed to be working as more and more words were becoming legible. Having cracked it finally, Nishira turned her attention to the other journal, the one with pages of code symbols blatantly there for anyone to look at. The thought that it might be a red herring was strong, but she was determined to make it work, prove they couldn't stump her, or at least uncover enough to pass. All she wanted to do at that moment was pass. Her patience wearing thin as the hands on the clock moved to taunt the slipping of time.
As the afternoon dragged along, Nishira rose and threw the notepad across the room, it hit the desk in the corner with its towering stack of books and scroll assigned from her classes at the ANBU building, creating a paper avalanche onto the floor. Nishira pressed two clenched fists to her forehead, tempering the urge to scream in rage, punch something, and maybe cry a little. After letting out a couple of deep, albeit tense, breaths, she knelt to the ground and began putting the materials upright, making sure nothing was damaged from her little temper tantrum.
Nishira righted a book on formations and strategies, when her eye drifted towards the map of the village. The strategies were for infiltration from outside sources, but what got her attention was the legend. It might not have been the same, but it held similar symbols to mark territories and landmarks. The first part of the letter came back:
Seek a man who walks among the Ancients
Nishira wondered with a shallow breath that hitched in her throat whether the symbols were from a map. But it would have to be a specific map, one only used in this village, as different lands had their own penmanship styles. Nishira kept sorting through her papers hoping the one she thought of would be there. Her eyes scanned for the familiar cover depicting a tree front and centre with happy children holding textbooks with the same cover like some sort of infinite loop of photography. Not seeing it, she groaned, wondering if she'd even shelled out the ryo for the book at all, or if she'd borrowed it from the library for the homework. After perusing the usual spots for textbooks: Under the kitchen table, beside the couch, the desk, under the bed, and the last one being a magazine holder in the bathroom, Nishira groaned again in an ever-increasing amount of frustration welling up and forming into a headache in her temples which her fingertips massaged with deep pressure.
Nishira grabbed her jacket to go head outside and was greeted with the late night air. Her head hung back as she gave a ragged groan to the world. Contemplating the likelihood of being successful, Nishira decided to head to the library anyways, praying one of the librarians had stayed late. As she approached the building, her stomach dropped to see the lights that usually shone by the windows were not visible from a block away, but the bulbs could be burnt out or the librarians could be in the back, she reasoned to herself.
Nishira banged on the door with a closed fist. The sound progressively becoming louder as her patience wore thin, desperate for any librarian or even the custodian to hear her.
"Do you know what time it is?"
She turned around to see Kakashi standing a little way back, both hands in his pockets as usual. She wondered bitterly if he ever tripped.
"I need to get in there, right now. It's urgent."
"So urgent you'd wake the whole village?"
When put like that, Nishira couldn't help but scowl.
"And what if it was? I just need a book, a very specific book."
"Which one?"
"Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds, or something equally as patronizing."
"I have that one back at my place. Let the librarian sleep, she gets enough trouble from the researchers."
Nishira nodded and stepped in stride with Kakashi.
"Did you just happened to be walking by or did I wake you?"
"Huh? No, I was just going for a stroll. I think best when I'm walking. My luck just brought me around here while you were appearing to have a breakdown at the door."
Nishira pouted.
"I wasn't having a breakdown; I just have a deadline and I needed some materials to make sure I get it right. I don't want Bear Lady to have a reason to punt me into next week. She scares the crap outta me."
Kakashi looked down at her with a twinkle in his eye, she didn't doubt he was smirking at her.
"Bear Lady? Let me guess, you're talking about Sakino. She's a tough broad. She wasn't the biggest fan of mine either."
"Asuma said he liked her."
"Asuma can be very charming when he wants to be. He just has that skill to slither out of things and then he smiles, and they go easy on him. It used to be so infuriating."
"Was Asuma in ANBU too?"
"No. I don't know all the details, but he left after a fight with his father, Lord Hokage." Nishira nodded. "He left the village for a while, did what he wanted instead, and then came back. But we went to the academy together. Sakino was an instructor there before they realized she was more suited to training special ops instead of children."
Nishira shuddered in agreement.
"Yeah, I feel sorry for those kids."
"Those kids? Those 'kids' were me, Gai, Kurenai, and many of our Jonin."
Nishira laughed a malicious laugh. "So that's why you are all demons to your students! Bear Lady is to blame for the genin's pain!"
They bantered easily as they continued to his place.
It wasn't long before they stopped in front of a white building with a deep blue roof, or it looked blue in the poor light of the streetlamp nearby. Without hesitation she followed Kakashi up the stairs. As he gestured her inside, Nishira noticed his place to being a fairly neat layout. Minimal possessions or furniture, everything was well worn but functional and well lived in. He guided her to his bedroom, she hesitated a moment but entered when he pointed to his tall narrow bookcase. She entered, eyes focused on the prize, scanning the books on his shelf. They were few but well worn just like everything else in the space. These possessions were obviously well loved.
"Do you want something to drink?"
He called from the other room and Nishira hadn't even heard him leave.
"Oh uh, sure. Whatever you have is fine!"
Her finger traced along the worn spines of the books, stopping on an orange one. She remembered him reading it around town and sometimes during training with team seven. The cover read "Icha Icha Paradise". The title seemed fairly cute, she thought maybe it was a romance, and flipped open a few pages. A word, a very dirty word, caught her attention and she flipped back to the page, cautiously reading it to confirm it was indeed the word she read. Laying eyes on it once again confirmed her suspicion, Nishira slammed it closed on her lap. No prude to be sure, but if Kakashi read something like this in front of his colleagues and neighbors, she wondered what depraved things he did behind closed doors. The shut closet in the corner suddenly appeared suspicious and Nishira felt tempted to snoop. The thought horrified her, but she would be lying if something didn't respond to it, something hungry and curious and willing to try just about anything her mind could think of. Maybe the book would provide some more clues to his preferences.
"Here, I hope you like beer! Uh- what is that?"
Stone faced, Nishira looked up, guiltily showing the cover to Kakashi, the tiniest dribble of blood coming from her nose. Blushing madly and eye widened in panic, he scrambled to grab the book from her hands desperate to hide it from her, and dropping the two bottles he had brought with him. The amber liquid doused Nishira who sat there, not fighting his grasping hands, with her own hands still open as though she were cradling the book still. Nishira looked down, as the cold beer permeated her shirt and hair.
"Oh, I'm wet."
She froze, eyes wide, registering the words that she had just spoken. Kakashi held his hand to his face a red liquid dripping from his hand, it matched the beet color of his face.
"Oh! Oh! I meant, you got me wet! Crap! I mean I'm covered in-in… sticky…. BEER! I mean I am covered in beer! I can go now. I'm sorry."
She rose to run out of the room, until his hand grabbed her wrist.
"No, please stay. You can use the bath to rinse off. I'm sorry."
"Why are you sorry? I was the one who pried. Please forgive me."
Instinctively, she bowed for forgiveness, pulling her hand in and Kakashi's chin made direct contact with the hard top of her head. His vision swam with stars as he fell to the wooden floor. Nishira's hand went to her head before her eyes befell on Kakashi's prone form, arms wide, dazed and babbling. His last clear vision was of Nishira frantically looking around, before grabbing the collar of his shirt and shaking him violently.
"KAKASHI! I'M SORRY! WAKE UP! ARE YOU OK? KAKASHI!"
When Kakashi woke, he found himself in his own bed, a damp cloth on his forehead replaced his headband, his flak jacket had been removed and a stiff new bandage on placed on his chin. He looked around to see Nishira half slumped out of a chair she'd taken from the other room, her head resting on the back of the chair, turned away, so he could only see the spilling of her dark hair down her shoulder. On her chest was the book she'd wanted and on the floor by the chair was the familiar worn leather notebook for the third assessment. He was equally pleased and impressed at her progress, as well as the dedication Nishira had exhibited the past few months, even if it may have been only an excuse to avoid talking. He groaned lightly as he sat up, and she startled from the chair with a half snore.
"You're awake." She sleepily rubbed her eyes and yawned almost swallowing the words. Stretching her arms into the air, she twisted her neck until it gave a satisfying click. Kakashi's eyes trailed down to see her body in one of his white t-shirts. It looked nice on her, he thought dumbly. Nishira followed his gaze and looked down at herself.
"I hope you don't mind, I needed to wash my clothes before I go back to report on my progress, but I wanted to make sure you were okay. I should have asked I'm sorry."
"No." he reigned in his wandering, inquisitive gaze. "It looks good on you."
Nishira chuckled. She leaned in and gave him a light kiss on the forehead, Kakashi meanwhile stayed paralyzed by the act of affection. She smiled at him, and something in his gut flopped, as his face flushed at the adorable gesture, barely able to contain the warm fluttering he felt. Nishira turned to look at the clock.
"Listen, I'm starving, and I might need some help deciphering this passage. So, I'm going to get up, and I'm going to change, and I'm going to venture for some breakfast as an apology for knocking you out last night. Any requests?"
"I'm afraid I have a mission with team seven today."
"Oh."
She tried to hide her disappointment, looking down at her hands, but Kakashi saw it, reaching out to touch her face.
"Let's go get something together."
Nishira smiled again before booking off to get her clothes from the hang line. Kakashi started as he caught a flash of bright colored panty as she ran, before smiling and rubbing his head.
Nishira parted from the little café, well fed and fueled with coffee. The journal in her hands weighed heavily, impressing its priority as she headed back to her own place, stuffed in her pockets were the napkins she'd stolen to jot down the cipher pulled from the map legends, each symbol having a few letters it could be, but it was a good start. There, she chewed on the end of her pen, mulling it over it, rearranging the letters. but before long the afternoon had arrived, and she needed to call it quits for the day. The letters bounced around her head as she absently wandered, grabbing a sandwich from the convenience store she settled in for a long day, and most likely night, of translating the pages.
A breakthrough rocked her in the early hour of three in the morning. The surge it gave propelled her through to the early morning, announced by little birds that were way too chipper for how early it was. Nishira frowned at them as though it were a personal offence. Taking a moment to read the pages, Nishira was struck by the contrasting levels of messages. The first one that used the map key gave out a funny little poem, a children's nursery rhyme.
An acorn rolled down and down,
He suddenly fell into a pond
Then came the loaches,
Hi boy! Come play with us
The acorn enjoyed playing with them.
But he soon began to cry,
I want to go back to the mountain.
The loaches didn't know what to do.
"Same, little acorn. I also feel like crying."
The amount of exhaustion that clouded the young shinobi's brain stirred a raucous laughter that bounced off the walls in her mind. Nishira cackled for a solid minute before a somber moment.
"Fuck, I'm too tired for this."
With a nod, she picked up the other translation. This one had been a long round of trial and error until the words started coming out. Nishira's eyes squinted as she willed her brain to understand her extraordinarily terrible scribbles. The name of a prominent family in the village caught her eye, and slowly the pieces fell into place, it was detailing a kidnapping attempt on one of the young genin in the village, Hyuga Hinata. Nishira frowned trying to recall the girl, failing to picture her. Nishira shrugged, but when her glance turned to the clock on the wall, she scrambled to grab her notepads and the journals. Time was running out.
Nishira ran around her apartment, excitement mixed with a sense of dread. She jumped from her second storey window to the ground and took off sprinting. Dodging villagers and obstacles Nishira raced through the streets. Up ahead team seven was setting out from the Hokage's office building to what she assumed was a mission. Sakura pointed towards her as she approached and waved. As Nishira neared, she waved back.
"Good Morning, team seven!" and as she stepped to leap away, Kakashi held his hand out in a stop motion.
"Slow down!"
"Sorry! Can't! I'm late!"
Pushing off her foot with a little extra oomph, accidentally raising dust, Nishira shouted back at them.
"Bear Lady will finish me if I don't make it in time."
Sakura looked up at Kakashi.
"Bear Lady?"
Kakashi's visible eye widened into horror as he looked down at his team.
"She is one of Konoha's best kept secrets; a monster that lives under the Hokage mountain that requires regular sacrifice or she'll destroy us all."
Sakura gasped and Naruto's eyes widened, mouth agape in curiosity. Kakashi simply chuckled.
"Just kidding. She's a Konoha instructor, Nishira is her new student. She is known to be very strict. You should know you are all very lucky to have a teacher like me. Come on, let's get going."
Nishira skidded to a stop in front of the building, wrenching the door open with careless abandon and jumping down the stairs, before booking it through the narrow halls to Sakino's office, or den as Nishira referred to it in her mind only. She took a breath outside the door and straightened her clothes, pushing back some stray hairs before giving the calmest knock she could muster. She frowned, the sound she created was much more erratic than she wanted.
"Come in!"
The door opened slowly, letting the ANBU trainee slip through and shut it behind her to face Sakino. The desk did not face the door but a side wall instead. The color of the walls was as cheery as its occupant, a dull grey, broken up only by a corkboard with pages pinned in a seemingly random order. File boxes were stacked haphazardly beside the chair, at arm's length for Sakino. Despite its unwelcoming air, it was very tidy, which was unexpected to Nishira as she looked for any personal affects. Not finding any, she turned to see Sakino looking over a file on her desk. Her brown hair tied back in a tight bun.
"You're late."
"I'm sorry, Senpai, I came here as soon as I was finished."
"Well, don't keep me waiting, Princess, what did you find?"
"I found and decoded two journals. Here are the translations."
Nishira plopped them on Sakino's desk, who simply frowned at the second journal.
"Two? There should only be one. You were instructed to find one man with one journal."
"Yes, ma'am. But I found a second one at the same time and place and decoded both. One was using a manuscript code which gave me the nursery rhyme. The second was using a type of thieves' code or masonic cipher, and it listed out a detailed plan to kidnap one of the Hyuga clan, crafty writing for sure. I definitely thought the first was a red herring, so I decoded both just in case."
Nishira saw Sakino's face darken, snatching up the notepad and second journal. Sensing something was amiss, she stood stock still in bated breath waiting for Sakino to share her thoughts. She had succeeded in her task surely, but there always seemed to be a catch around here.
"Come with me."
Sakino rose and all but sprinted out of the room, Nishira had to jog to keep up with Sakino's long stride. They traversed the building, heading towards the exit. Sakino looked back, pulling her bear mask over her face as they left. Nishira followed wordlessly as they approached the Hokage building, except instead of going to see Lord Hokage, Nishira curiously looked around as the looming figure of Sakino let her to a doorway that opened to show Danzo sitting looking over some files.
"My Lord."
She knelt to one knee before him, and Nishira mimicked behind her teacher.
"What is it?"
She presented the journal and Nishira's writings, and they waited in silence as the old man perused them with increasing interest.
"Where did you find this? Why wasn't I informed before we started decoding it."
"My apologies, my trainee found the journal during a training exercise and thought it was part of the task."
"Is this the trainee?"
"Yes, sir."
He waved for Nishira to raise her head and stand. If he recognized her, she couldn't tell as his gaze remained steady and sure.
"How long did it take you to decipher this?"
Nishira counted.
"I did both at the same time, so three and a half days total?"
He simply nodded and dismissed them both. Nishira followed at Sakino's heels as they left the building. The larger woman looked over her shoulder.
"Well, Princess? Are you waiting for a pat on the head."
"No, Ma'am, I'm not sure what my next mission is."
"Your next mission is to return after you've healed your ankle."
Nishira frowned, looking at it. It had been on the mend since the forest of death, her limp now barely noticeable.
"My ankle is fine."
"Is that so?" After a pointed look, Nishira didn't dare argue again. "Get out of here, Princess, and get some rest, or you won't survive the training I have planned for you. Dismissed!"
Nishira obeyed. Stepping out from the building, she wondered what the hell to do with herself for a few days. She smelled her clothes. Laundry, she was going to do laundry, and clean, and sleep, definitely sleep.
