It's Time

When the clock's hands indicated one o'clock in the morning, Aiya took off her surgical gloves. Waving at her from afar, Nita had just been starting her shift for the rest of the night. The young girl walked up to her, smiling.

"You're the only one who's crazy enough to willingly pull a seventy-hour week."

The blond couldn't feel her feet anymore, but the extra pay made it all worth it. She'd need the money once they'd left the village, hitting the road. She patted her coworker's shoulder, smiling back.

"Good luck with tonight's patients. Some teams are back from their mission. The bars are going to be full."

Nita's lips stretched into a mischievous smile as she put on a pair of surgical gloves. "Oh, I'll deal with them. Don't worry."

A mother carrying a feverish child already requested Nita's attention, babbling out a detailed description of her son's symptoms since their apparition. Waving goodbye at the girl, Aiya left the emergency room. The hospital's corridor were mostly silent at night, except from the monitoring machines' slow beeping coming out of some rooms. Stretching her sore neck, Aiya suddenly realized that she wasn't making her way back to the employee's room, but to a certain former patient's door. Grumbling tiredly, she turned on her heels to take the staircase. The puppeteer had strangely made a cozy nest into her thoughts, and she'd better find a way to get rid of this unwanted tenant before she'd lose her mind. A part of her missed their childish quarrels, but she'd never admit it out loud.

The staff's room consisted of a series of old lockers, a long dining table with a dozen of chairs and three shower stalls. Taking off her scrubs, Aiya changed into her civil clothes. As she went to grab her jacket on the locker's top shelf, a small card fell from it. Frowning, she picked it up and read the words written onto it. At the sight of the familiar handwriting, her blood turned cold. It couldn't be.

It's time for us to be reunited, babe.

With trembling hands, Aiya shoved the note into her pants pocket, grabbed her purse, and darted out of the room.

...

Back home, Daisuke wasn't hiding in his room as usual. Documents were scattered all across the living room's table. A cup of tea rested on the arm's couch, untouched. Paper cranes of dark colors were lying everywhere around the living room – the sofa, the rug and the coffee table, like a dead battalion. Aiya dropped her purse on the floor, the note clutched into her fist. Concerned by her silent state, her brother lifted his head.

He frowned. "What's wrong, sister?"

She handed him the note, her face expressionless. She barely heard her brother getting up, his light footsteps coming nearer. The paper dropped from her shaking hands, swaying in the air until it laid on the floor. She couldn't breathe. His long fingers picked up the paper on the rug while his eyes quickly read over the written message on it. In a second, his glance darkened.

"It's from him, isn't it?" she blurted out, hoping he'd tell her otherwise.

Sweet lies. Emotions twirled in her stomach, making her sick. Daisuke gave her a strong flick on the forehead, preventing the whirlwind of thoughts from swallowing her alive.

"Alright, calm down."

"I don't want to!" She couldn't. Fear overflowed every part of rationality in her mind. Like a broken record, she started to shake her head, eyes wide. "I can't. I can't. I-"

Daisuke harshly grabbed her face in his hands, bringing her to look at him straight in the eyes. His nails dug lightly into the thin skin behind her ears, grounding her. "Control yourself, sister. We can't allow our emotions to take control of us."

She gave him a shaky nod. Her trembling hand came up to her cheek. It was wet. She was crying like a pathetic little thing. She sat down on the couch, not trusting her legs to support her body anymore.

"We'll have to leave," she rasped out.

She wasn't ready. Her brother was already shuffling through the kitchen's drawers, pulling all of the weapons they'd carefully hidden away when they first installed.

"It's the moment we've been waiting for, sister. We'll finally get to see our mother again."

Then, it hit her. It's time. She'd have to come up with a credible excuse for Himari to buy. Her heart ached at the thought of leaving her friend that way – without a single explanation. The letter she'd written two years ago for that exact occasion suddenly felt cheap, and dirty. She'd known that inevitably the day would come where she'd be left with no choice but to flee. No one could know that they didn't belong here. That it was all a lie. Daisuke hadn't been happy about her friendship with Himari at first since she'd been particularly close to the sand siblings during her childhood. Before he ended up seeing it as an advantage, he'd been afraid they'd eventually discover the deception, the shameful lies written all over their application forms for residency. And if they didn't play their cards right, maybe it'd come to that. They'd be arrested. Or worse.

All emotions had left her body. She shoved the fear down into a dark corner of her mind, muzzling it. Her brother was right; they couldn't let the emotions control them. Not now. They had to be practical. They'd been trained for it, after all. It had all come to this moment. They knew it'd eventually come. Their situation had always been a temporary one, precarious. Her brother finally put his hand on a lighter, and started to heat up the piece of paper until the letters shifted to reveal other words.

When the moon's full, we'll proceed to the plan. The package will be dropped at your place, as agreed. Be ready.

"The full moon is tomorrow," stated her brother. "They'll infiltrate the archives at night."

She started to make a mental list of the things she needed to do. "When are we leaving?"

"At night, as soon as they drop our mother's scrolls."

After four years of gathering intel, they'd finally reached the end of their mission. They'd completed their end of the bargain. Her brother slipped a small blade into her travelling bag and a handful of military pills.

"I'll make sure that our tracks are covered before we're ready to leave."

"Aren't those pills illegal, brother?"

Judged too dangerous, they'd take such a toll on the body that they'd been banned after the First Shinobi World War. It'd replenish your chakra's reserves in the blink of an eye, but the side effects were just too unpredictable.

"Just in case something goes wrong."

Her fingers grasped a black paper crane with its pointy wings folded on its back. Their mother always loved to watch the magnificent birds with long legs and necks as they'd stop to rest in the wetland behind the house. The messenger of the gods, she used to say. A good omen.

"If one folds a thousand cranes, his truest wish may come true," Aiya whispered.

"One of mother's saying." Daisuke's lips stretched into a thin smile. "You remember? She fought like a madwoman so that they'd be allowed into the village's wetland. The villagers thought they'd bring bad fortune by stealing their crops."

"I remember."

It'd actually strained their family's relationship with the village. But her mother, a young widow at the time, hadn't back down to protect the cranes. They're just birds, mother, she'd once said to her, at only eleven years old. The villagers had started nasty rumors about their mother, saying that the lack of husband had worsened the madness. They are your brother's favorite, my little bird. I can't let them be chased away. Her mother wasn't one for rules. She didn't feel the need to fit. To belong. She'd never fully outgrown her outsider's status. But unlike her mother, she hadn't been strong enough to ignore the outsider's judgmental stare, needing to feel accepted. She'd been stupid. So stupid.

And she'd been paying for that stupidity ever since.

"Good luck, sister."

"You know that there's no such thing as luck, brother."

Not for us.