Tenten "Maki" Itō is one of four children raised by Kimiko and Toshiaki Itō. She is the oldest sibling, bearing three younger brothers. Her parents are civilians; her mother a grocer at a food market and her father a cashier at a privately owned shop. Maki is the type of girl to tease her brothers over the most trivial of things. She is the type of girl to snicker at the boys during physicals because she by far reigns supreme against them. She is the type of girl to look at a piece of silver in her father's shop and think:
I can work with that.
Because Maki, when she sees her reflection for the first time, does not recognize herself.
Her developing mind cannot process this. Fat, small fingers prod her face, her arms, torso, and legs. She should be covered in burns, should look like she got chewed up and spit out of a woodchipper machine. She should have matted, sheared hair, slick with blood and grease because she never bothered with cleaning up after that day.
Personal hygiene had been inconsequential from then on.
There are no cursed beings in this realm, only the bloodthirst and casual greed of human society.
They live a humble life., but Maki want's more. She wants to feel leather flourish under her palms. She wants to feel the cold steel of a sword touching her skin. She wants to touch poison and inhale its fumes.
She wants Mai.
But this is her punishment, yes?
Her eternal hell for slaughtering her clan?
Or is she being punished because she was not blessed with the gift of seeing curses?
It matters not.
She plays with the senbon first, tongue pinched between her teeth as she tests their sharpness and consequently, their give. She could polish them with poison, (slow acting so she doesn't render herself inert or vulnerable). She then moves onto ninja-stars, cliché though they are. They are undeniably sharp and bury themselves in the floral wallpaper of her bedroom, almost five centimeters deep.
She is pleased no less, a smug smile tilting her lips.
She can break, shred, and ruin this hell.
It is physical.
It is soon that she learns of 'nin' and their apparent contributions to the village she inhabits. It is this same year that she learns they are the closest things to sorcerers. They jump from roof to roof and Maki is certain she catches the sight of only a few, the ones who are weaker and slower than the remaining.
Her hair is long, often done up in braids or pigtails by her adoring mother.
It is a challenge, she knows. To her enemies, to all who oppose her.
It is a tantalizing rope that just begs for it to be used against her. The buns are better, and privately she thinks they are relatively cute. She laces them with senbon, each slicked with poison and a single cap of antidote tucked in one of her back pockets.
Her younger siblings drift towards their mother and she, in turn, gravitates towards her father. While her mother is fond of her, her father nearly parades her around as if she were some prized trophy. She goes along with him on varying trips, building a boyish profile that became relatively well-known in circles near her. More often than not, her father is regaling her with myths and old tales, commemorating those who had seemingly been impervious once upon a time.
She tugs his haori one summer evening and says, "I want to become a nin."
Her father stumbles to a stop and looks at her, horrified.
He drops to his knees and says, "Ma-kun-"
It is all he says, fumbling for the right words.
"I know my odds, father. I want to try."
I am capable, she doesn't say.
She knows she is.
Besides, this is already hell, is it not? Her permanence is hardly valuable, the only downsides are the emotional ties she has saddled herself with in this realm. Her illusionary family is a weakness she cannot help but see as fellow sorcerers. She wishes to spare them of such grief, even if they are conjured spirits and nothing more. They stay her hand and keep her from getting into any undue trouble.
"Ma-kun, are you sure?"
Her parents have learned by now that once she states her intent, there is no convincing her otherwise.
"Yes."
"And you know-"
"I have reviewed the statistics, father," she states again.
School is curious, in of itself.
It is noteworthy, certainly.
There are clans, like the very ones from her realm.
At first, she truly believes hell has finally revealed itself, rusted gates screeching open in invitation.
But something is amiss. Her classmates may look fairly odd in color or disposition but they are children. The brunt of political warfare has not yet corroded their naivety. They are certainly different, but only some few seem to be waging grudges against one another. There are three pupilless children. One shies away at almost everything she encounters and the other hardly keeps from wrinkling his nose in distaste. The remaining is a lively blonde.
There is one child who yawns every other minute or so, one with faint red spherical marks on his cheeks, and a boy that Maki knows to be the lone survivor of the Uchiha clan, the brother of Uchiha Itachi.
Other than herself and the pupilless girl, there are only two other females. They are disgustingly sweet on the Uchiha boy however, and so Maki avoids them.
There is one boy in particular that she zeroes in on.
He is blond with three distinctive whiskers painting each cheek as if someone had purposely vandalized a 3-D rendering of him. The students shun him, intentional or not (well two of the girls, two boys, and one of their teachers who vividly reminds her of Gojō-senei if not for his sly attitude and obvious dislike of the boy). She learns that this is because he is the vessel of a dangerous demon who had once besieged the village she now lived in.
It is a painful reminder of Okkotsu and Itadori.
She does not intervene when he is heckled or jeered at.
She is in hell, after-all. It is only an illusion. It makes sense, ironically.
She avoids her classmates like the plague.
Until one afternoon, a few meters away from her secret training ground that she heavily doubts is so 'secret' now, she hears the microscopic drawing of a scabbard. She catches the blade easily, unmindful of the blood slicking her hand. She straightens, drawing the blade away from its victim (who is trembling and curled up like a fetus) and is unsurprised to see the intended target is Uzumaki.
He is crumpled and holding his head.
There are two boys and a girl, all looking at her in shock. She steals the blade, some blunt dagger. She tosses it to her left hand, examining the wound. It has yet to stop bleeding but it is sheer. She suffered worse in her first life. She wonders, idly, if this is only the beginning on a meandering passage to a specified repentance. She discards the thought as soon as it comes.
"What were you planning to do?"
The knife had been aimed at his genitalia.
"Neuter him?"
They sneer at her, one boy crossing his arms.
"Like anyone would care!" says one boy.
The girl stamps her feet. "Yeah! And what's it to you anyways?! He's, like, super-haunted, you know! Mama said so!"
"Does your mother also believe in equality?" asks Maki.
The three children's foreheads wrinkled.
"'Equality'?" says the girl.
"Yes. The act of believing both male and female humans deserve equal respect."
One of the boys breathes heavily out of his nose, as he was growing tired of her lecture. "He's not even human, he's just some mon-"
"Strip."
"W-What?" the girl backpedals, her friends following her lead.
Maki scrutinizes the blade, as if fascinated by it or judging it's edge. She flips it, casually plucking it from the air as if the feat were ingrained. She levels it at Boy #1, the one nearest her. She allows her eyes to dip just below his waistline, an eyebrow arching in question.
The boy sputters and turns red.
(Now Maki is no pedophile and really, she has always been the single good-looking woman who longed not for one's embrace, but rather the high of an adrenaline rush, much like her cohorts.)
(That is excusing Kugisaki-san, of course.)
Maki, inwardly, smiles fondly at the thought of the temperamental girl.
"Are you – you some kinda perv?"
"In a manner of speaking."
"What does that even mean?" says Boy #2.
"It means," Maki says. "'Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you'."
She remembers only some English before she had been shipped off to Tōkyō Toritsu Jujutsu Kōtō Senmon Gakkō but the quote was one of infamous motifs of the common language.
"So," her chin dips. "Strip. While I do not hold a PhD in medicine, I do have enough field experience to perform this surgery. The chances of you expiring are remote. Since Uzumaki must be neutered it is only logical that you, too, must be." She looks past the rapidly whitening features of the Boy #1 to the Boy #2 and then to the girl. "It will be a fast procedure, don't worry," she assures.
Before they can reply, a hand reaches from behind her, plying knife away, careful as if not to hurt her.
She watches as Uzumaki pries the poor-man's dagger from her steady hand.
"It's – It's okay. They – They were only – only joking, right guys?"
The children are quick to abandon a sinking ship when they see one. Maki knows their hatred of Uzumaki is unsatisfied, their thirst unquenched. She is again reminded of Itadori and his wide grin when the children scamper off, Uzumaki beaming up at her in silent thanks. She looks at the boy in question who is holding the dagger loosely between his fingers.
"Thank-you for that," he says. He looks at her, worry twisting his face. "You're not hurt are you?"
"No. I was just scratched."
"That's an awful lot of blood for just a-"
"Why are you still here?"
"Hey! I'm just being concerned, dattebayo!"
Maki looks at him, eyes him critically.
He is just slightly emaciated. There is a familiar fire in his eyes and Maki holds no doubt it extends to his heart and lungs. His clothes are ragged, as if torn or worn from years of use, and there are faint bruises freckling his chin. His cheeks are flushed, perhaps with damaged pride or anger or some concoction of the two.
She neither knows nor cares.
"Hey! Are you listening! Where are you goin?!"
Maki flings herself at her 'secret' training ground.
"AH! Where'd she go?!"
As she once more picks up her metal polearm, wiping the excess blood from her injured hand on her T-shirt, she claps her hands in some magnesium carbonate. She frowns minutely at the slight sting against one of her palms and looks at it with some distaste. Distantly, she can hear the Uzumaki boy fumbling through the heavy foliage crowding her 'secret' base. He yelps when he trips, she assumes. Perhaps on some gravel or weed or bush or tree trunk.
Eventually she sighs, tiring of listening to the boy flounder about in the woods.
She balances the polearm on a scarred tree, having been used for target practice many-a-time.
This illusion has distorted her. She is no longer broad, more waifish than anything. She is neither tall nor short, just petite.
It will surely allow for any enemy to come to the wrong conclusion. She will be perceived as a lesser threat due to her looks and she is pleased with the notion. It will be similar to seeing that same look of dawning horror she remembers placing upon her father's face. At the thought of the clan she murdered, that gratification waned into abject sobriety as she recalls Mai's ultimate sacrifice.
She breath's heavily through her nose.
"What do you want?"
Companionship, says Mai.
Maki wants to snarl. This isn't a fucking convention.
"Woah! How'd you just appear like that?"
This is hell, she knows. There is no time for silly playdates or horsing around.
At her stiff silence, Uzumaki chuckles awkwardly, reaching towards the back of his neck as if to exclaim his embarrassment.
Maki tracks the hand and can feel her shoulders loosening without conscious thought. The boy is smiling and she is heavily reminded of Itadori. Immediately she stiffens. She knows about the shadows that follow Uzumaki's every move, but two of them are keen on her. Yes, she had seized their immediate attention with the little stunt she had just pulled but knowing they would have likely stepped in and helped the boy now aggravated her to no end.
But now her cover was completely blown. For no other reason than their lack of action.
Yes, this is hell, but so far she has maintained a relatively low profile.
From the start she has kept to the shade.
Now, she is under scrutiny of more than one shadow.
Her lips firm in a straight line.
"What do you want?" she repeats.
"Um," says the boy. He looks sheepish. "Well, um. I wanted to thank you again and, um…"
Maki folds her arms over her chest.
"You're welcome."
She leaves, this time at a normal pace.
She knows she is being followed but she has neither the skill nor the will to escape them. They are the keen eyes on her. The ones she had caught when she had defended Uzumaki.
She can try and hide or outrun them but it would prove fruitless. They will only redouble their efforts or begin to invade her privacy.
She maintains her grades and stamina and speed, but that is all. It would be odd for her schoolwork to abruptly alter to something less than impressive. Unfortunately her shadows already know of her odd quirk for speed, and so she cannot lie about that. But everything else is up in the air, so to say. She maintains her strengths and weaknesses but does not shine nor improve as she had done so before.
Her peers do not notice and neither, it seems, do her teachers. Her parents remain blissfully ignorant as of present, but she knows it is only because they are not at school to witness her deliberately flunk almost every class.
Homeroom is a breeze. Combat is relatively easy, slowing down her reaction time tremendously. She must be careful, however, as muscle memory is simply not a matter that can be so readily faked. Other than strength testing, she is painfully average, a feat of which she is nigh proud of. She can find no pleasure in this fact, though, because she cannot help but to think that her sister would have scoffed at such a tactic and claim the spotlight as she was known to do.
A hapless smile tugs at her lips.
"Who are you?" says a boy, one dreary afternoon.
She doesn't bother glancing up from her notes, following the history lesson as one of their four teachers continued their lecture.
"Maki," she says.
Predictably the boy snorts, amused or frustrated, she hasn't a clue. The lead of her pencil breaks. While she clicking the eraser so as to collect another totem of the element, she peers at the boy who asked. Today, they had been partnered up, and unfortunately she had been stuck with the one sloth of the class. Although, she was thankful that she had received someone as impassive as him. If she had been paired with the pink or blond haired girls she thinks she might have throttled them within the first five minutes.
"No," says the boy. "Who are you really?"
Maki catches his eyes and they stare at one another for a good long while.
Eventually, Maki breaks the stare down, pencil clicking.
"Maki," she says again.
The boy laughs.
She learns of these clans.
Of their rules and traditions, horrid though some are.
She wonders, faintly, if this hell is made to replicate her previous one.
Not only are there more clans, but they're barbaric in more ways than one. She now understands the pupilless boy's rage. There is a history to the Hyūga clan, to all of them, really. And many of them, they are. There are four main clans allied with this village, although one clan has been largely decimated since then. There are dozens under them, like the Hatake clan, the Nara clan, the Inuzuka clan, and the Yamanaka clan just to name a few.
They are detestable but knowledge is power and she will not risk clipping her life or the lives of others short in a fit of ignorance. She is not nearly so selfish, unfortunately.
She learns of the dirty secrets of this hell, of its sewage and brothels and abuse.
From an outsider perspective, the village is quite quant. From her perspective, it is a cesspool of nauseating condescension and blind fealty that had once infested the Zen'in clan.
It feels all too much like that of being trapped in that clan, tied down by duty and unnecessary obligation.
Her 'secret' base (having lost its secrecy once she had defended the Uzumaki boy) allows her to air out her frustrations. She knows she is still being watched, it would be idiotic of her to assume otherwise. They know of her stamina, speed, and smarts only. So she can no longer train at that physical location, forcing her hand.
She visits it infrequently enough to keep the charade up but not waste her time.
Here, she practices the various forms she may one day take. She tests her flexibility and runs in circles until it's nearly impossible to inhale a morsel more of oxygen. She stretches her muscles, does various pushups, and practices swinging her polearm around. She accents it with some childish awkwardness, something she knows her stalkers will note.
At the end of the school day, most of the shadows race after the Uzumaki boy. There is a particularly adamant shadow that chases after her, however. Always, there are normally two and they wander off after her thirtieth or fortieth lap in her normal training ground. They had begun to lose interest in her, thank the heavens, as ironic as that phrase is now.
But one of them lingers, like gum to the heel of her boot.
After her training in the 'secret' training ground, she eventually loses the unwelcome guest on her way to where she actually practices. It's relatively flattened into a nice plateau but still very much muddied by overgrown vegetation. A place no one would rationally pick as a setting to practice or host their craft; be it cooking, spying, or lazing about.
She holds the metal polearm in the palm of one hand, balancing it.
They call it chakra in this realm.
She has grown up with the term Jujutsu, however, and thus names it so.
Mai's gift is still present, she can tell.
For one, she is able to utilize this energy.
And secondly, she knows that in the marrow in her bones, she is able to perform the Zen'in Ten'yo Jubaku, or lack thereof.
She can see the inorganic and grasp it freely. She can still punch through concrete and rebar. She can still see.
But what if hell is only playing with her. What if this illusionary realm is some phony act put on to dress the skeleton in fancy wear? What if none of this were?
Maki maintains her balance as she strides up a tree, channeling Jujutsu through her one palm and two feet. She finds it easier to connect to the ground or any surface when her skin lay bare. Perhaps it is not the most sanitary, but it certainly gets the job done. She practices with her other weapons here too, as every place else is highly monitored.
Throwing stars, kunai, senbon, katanas, wakizashis, Bo staffs, knives, and daggers are only some of the few in her arsenal.
Her aim is precise and true.
Her physical strength is nigh inhuman, like Itadori's first was.
She dresses somewhat loosely. Both for extra comfort and the increased surface area in order to stash more weaponry. She already readily carries around twelve blades (three serrated) and four smoke bombs on her. And that is only counting the obvious. It depends on the time and date, the setting shifting how she approaches confrontations.
Sometimes it can be an axe and some days it can be a piece of lead. She isn't picky.
Carefully, she lets down her hair, collecting the toxic pieces of silver that are tangled in her hair. Her hair is only slightly wavy due to the buns. She reapplies the poison, carefully coating each needle. Then she lays them out where she has specifically sheared the grass short enough. She twists her hair back up into her idiosyncratic buns, pushing the needles in, disguising them. She lightly prods her hair, searching for any faults.
There are none.
The capsule of antidote still burning a hole in her back pocket, Maki set off home.
End of the year exams creep ever closer.
The class she is a part of is a varied bunch. Certainly…colorful. However, she is well-used to having such characters in her every-day life. Their squabbles over teenage hormones (are they even teens yet?), their blatant truancy and obvious bias, their loud personalities… Maki is reminded vaguely of her own eccentric peers and the students under them. She is reminded of principal Yaga and infuriatingly enough, Gojō-sensei.
Often, people who have strength, are also the ones who have the oddest of quirks.
She knows this intimately.
Some students take to school religiously. They study, almost as if in a fervor. Some take to the notes and more psychological aspects, while others apply themselves to fanatically practicing what has been physically taught.
And some, well they just don't bother doing either.
The boy of the Nara clan is a prime example of this. If anything, the boy seems to tire ever-so-more, staring wistfully out of the windows often enough or snoozing quietly in class.
Maki notes this but does not interfere.
They are given two tests.
The cloning technique is easy enough to pull off with the jujutsu Mai had gifted her. The test is relatively easy, as well, but she has the niggling feeling of doubt when some questions fly far over her head, differing greatly to what they had been taught. They are studying to be 'nin' so she supposes their ability to mask their presence and steal is also being tested.
She is right, of course.
The Uzumaki boy fails the final, unsurprisingly.
Surprisingly, however, he does turn up the next day, in hand with a Konoha Hitai-ate.
Maki is curious but minds her own business. It is not like this illusion holds any real permanence. She has already learned that it is best to distance herself from these people. Unfortunately her family has already been linked to her by the string of fate but it would be idiotic to create further attachments.
They will only die, as is natural. As is expected, really.
"All right, when I call your names, you will quietly await your instructor."
Maki listens until her name is called.
"Itō, Tenten. Uchihara, Saske. Uzumaki, Naruto. You will be team seven."
The blond and pink haired girl groan and grumble.
Maki observes her new teammates. The Uchiha boy's ego needs to be tamped down but it is of no real consequence. She is dismayed, however, that she will be paired with the Uzumaki boy, not due to his status as a 'demon-child' or 'monster', but because her host of shadows will now go up in population. She wishes her privacy a fare-the-well.
Hell is certainly a sly meister, she thinks.
While the blonde cheers, the Uchiha boy redirects his eyes to the panes of glass installed into their left-most wall. He does not look the least bit amused.
After their names are called, there are others but Maki tunes them out.
The jōnin professors come and go, collecting their new students.
Team seven's professor is late, to the point where even Iruka-sensei has long since left.
It is easy to see why they are paired. The Uzumaki has piss-poor grades. She has excellent. She is quick and he is good with fūinjutsu. The Uchiha boy is virtually gifted with all their strengths along with his sharp interest in ninjutsu and his skill in taijutsu.
Besides most of the clans already being intertwined with one another, there is only one logical host they can have for their teacher.
Konoha has only one other spirit who inhabits it with the curse of the sharingan. She has read up on him and knows from the bingo books that he is not only a terribly strong and competent monster, but that he is as sympathetic as arid brick too. She props her chin on her fist as she waits, deafening herself to the two brats spouting insults at one another.
It is like another Gojō-sensei, if yet more pleasant. Hopefully.
Yes, both are cold, cruel, eccentric men with white hair, but they are also beasts, on and off the playing field.
They vary only in detail.
And maybe personality.
Finally, they are met with a sheepish looking (she does not buy it) white-haired man who has purposely set off the Uzumaki's poor trick.
While the Uzumaki boy laughs hysterically, the Uchiha boy look uncertain, almost incredulous.
It's easy to guess what he is thinking. That he is questioning how reliable this man could even be? How weak he must seem to have fallen for Naruto's school-grade trick. Maki does not tell them that this is a predator, that their teacher is feared by all five elemental countries, including his very own. Maki does not warn them, because illusionary or not, it is none of her business.
"My first impression is, hm… I don't like you guys."
The boys react normally enough.
Maki watches from afar.
"Follow me!"
They follow. The Uzumaki kid marches on ahead, closest to their new sensei. The Uchiha child pulls up the rear and Maki places herself between them. They end up on the roof of the academy, with the Gojō-look-alike creasing his one visible eye in a friendly crescent. He smells familiar, oddly enough.
She sits furthest from the Uzumaki boy and knows quite succinctly that this action has been penned down by the jōnin in front of her.
"Alright!" the jōnin claps his hands. "So let's begin with some introductions!"
The Uchiha boy looks wary.
"What do you want to know?"
The nin shrugs. "How about, hm, your likes and dislikes? Your dreams for the future, stuff like that."
The Uzumaki boy squints and make's a huffing noise, not unlike that of a disgruntled horse.
"Hey! Why don't you introduce yourself to us first!"
The Uchiha boy keeps his lips shut and so does Maki, studying the sky to the left of the man's ear, almost as if in a trance.
"Ohh… me? Hm," the man looks as though he is thinking critically. "My name is Hatake Kakashi. I have no desire to tell you guys about my likes and dislikes. As for my dreams for the future? Well, I do have lots of hobbies."
"So all we learned…" says Uzumaki.
"…is his name." finishes Uchiha unexpectedly.
Maki wants to grimace. The man is almost identical to Gojō-sensei in terms of emotional maturity.
He waves a fingerless glove. "Now it's your turn, from the right."
Uzumaki lit up, grinning brilliantly.
"ME! My name's Uzumaki Naruto and I love ramen! What I like even more is the restaurant Iruka-sensei sometimes takes me to! What I dislike is waiting the three minutes for the ramen to cook! My dream, um, is to become Hokage and make all the villagers acknowledge me!"
Maki isn't surprised. The boy has been shouting this from the rooftops (this time quite literally) for going on almost five years now.
"Hobbies, um, I guess pranks and stuff."
Hatake looks almost pleased, but it is gone only a sliver of second after.
He nods and then looks at the Uchiha boy.
"My name is Uchiha Sasuke. There are tons of things I dislike but I don't really like anything…"
Liar.
"And it's not so much as a dream as it is an ambition," he says lowly. "The resurrection of my clan and the death of a certain man."
Maki keeps from rolling her eyes. While yes, she understands the grief of losing a loved one, she doesn't understand how hung up he is on it. Yes he does have a rather tragic history but if anything, he resembles a rebelling teenager more than some brooding hitman.
"Okay, and lastly, you," says the jōnin, looking as if he had not just witnessed a death threat.
"My name is Itō Tenten. I go by Maki. I like katsuobushi and dislike those who think they're better based on image alone." She makes sure to level the jōnin with an even stare, knowing she is furthering her shadows interest even unintentionally. "I do not have a dream," she says.
The bell test is tedious, if dull.
She knows the game they are playing. She is intimately familiar with Gojō-sensei's brand of mind-games. She arrives on time the next day, exactly where she had been instructed to go. She accurately guesses that he will be significantly late, and begins her regular stamina training in the meantime. The Uchiha boy refuses to join, looking especially moody. The Uzumaki child, however, has joined her slowly, as if to not startle her.
The events play out as they do.
Maki does not fall for the genjutsu.
Hell waits for no love or kindness to be shown (although there are certain memories of her illusionary family that prove precious) and so she does not pursue the phony teammate, much to the dismay of one Hatake Kakashi.
Again, a familiar cologne wafts just under her nose, teasing.
He is fast, there is no doubt about that. Almost unbelievable so.
Without a doubt he by far surpasses those she spied a few times hopping on the roofs.
There is a carnal, almost predatory aura heavying his shoulders. Along with that is the faint aroma of mystery the man is awash in. He is smart and terribly strong, she will admit. It is not easy to pull one over him and dupe the jōnin. She almost has to use her previously tucked away weaponry, and with two actual children running amuck underfoot the test is not exactly simple.
When one hand goes for one of braided buns, she does not grin.
In the end, it is Uchiha and her eating lunch besides a roped and tethered Uzumaki.
Knowing she is being watched, Maki stands and dusts off her lap.
She cuts through Naruto's restraints, settling her bento in his lap. He looks up at her, partly confused and partly thankful. Uchiha looks at them and sniffs loudly, but Maki is not looking for his approval. If anything, she would love to further sour his mood.
She smiles.
"Sensei! If you don't come back within the next two hours, you will be dead!"
Both of the boy's looking bemused as they glance around themselves.
Hatake reappears, smiling eye looking slightly strained.
"You passed!"
Uzumaki cheers but Maki remains unbothered.
She offers her palm, in it a single capsule of white powder. Her smile, sickeningly sweet though it were, turns sharp as a blade.
"I am a very skilled chemist, sensei."
The work they perform as genin is menial at best and "builds character".
They receive and fulfill dozens of D-rank Missions. They are humbling and some even plain distasteful (like cleaning sewage from a restaurant's clogged basement) but Maki makes do, even if it's a bit unsavory. She is in hell, after all, so it stands to reason that she would be put to work. She is using the numbing tasks to criticize her past mistakes, the realm where she had had a twin sister once.
Normally, she tries not to think too hard on her past, knowing it will only torment her further, but as her muscle memory puppeteers her, and she reminisces away.
She knows she is in hell, and Mai is not there.
It is on one of these afternoons while painting twenty meters of fence, that Uzumaki throws his paintbrush into the dirt, visibly fuming.
"THAT'S IT!"
The Uchiha boy is quick to follow, though at a more sedate pace and far less rowdy.
Maki focuses on a specific bevel in the wood, twisting her brush just so.
"Oh?" Hatake says.
"I'm tired of this kid stuff! I wanna do cool nin stuff, dattebayo! I wanna-wanna-"
Hatake slowly extracts himself from the tree he has been lounging in thus far, closing his book. If anything, the man looks like a spider, all spindly limbs leading to an equally dark vest. The man looks daunting, as if daring them to challenge him. His single visible eyes appears entertained and yet aloof.
"Aa, we could take a C-rank mission, but you are still genin…"
It is obvious that the man is bating the boy, if for no other reason than to rile him up.
"I," Sasuke looks dismayed. "agree with dead-last."
"Well, Maki-chan? What's your take?"
As if it matters, she snidely thinks.
"It's nice and peaceful," she says.
Uzumaki and Uchiha stare at her, disgruntled. Hatake looks a bit taken aback. As she proceeds to finish painting her appointed slot, she moves onto the next one. She isn't lying when she says she enjoys the peace. Oh, she enjoyed the thrill of a fight, good and well, but she, unlike her peers and sensei, has the innate capacity to balance out the two.
She knows where and when, when Maki has to be used, and not Maki.
Hatake's eye creases in a smile.
"Well that's oh-for-two, so you're a little outnumbered here, Maki-chan!"
Uzumaki cheers, even as he and Sasuke are still tangled in a physical brawl.
Hatake hums. "Well, we'll finish up here and ask the Hokage-sama tomorrow, I'm sure we will be fine."
"Awesome!"
"What is this? Brats for hire?"
"And who are you?" Uchiha sniffs.
Uzumaki snarls and Hatake has to wrap a hand around the boy's collar to keep him from fighting the obviously inebriated man. His fists swing and he complains very loudly. The boy is also swearing up a storm, mumbling hostilities if only to himself.
"I am Tazuna, an expert bridge builder!" the man acts as though this is some accomplishment. "I expect you to be good bodyguards on the way to my home where I'll return to my newest build!"
They are given an hour to pack and prep for the mission, as is the standard. Maki departs from the team at the Hokage Tower and heads home. She feels her hair stiffen but does not pause in her stride. She has become long since used to being watched, what with two sets of eyes on her ritually since she turned five.
Her father, Toshiaki, grins when she visits him at the shop. He is one of the few apothecaries that display the white powder needed for her original antidote. She steals several, knowing he wouldn't mind even if she had asked after them. Her last capsule had been used on Hatake and so she must make more, especially considering the soon-to-be mission.
She will be gone for several weeks, she tells her father. He wraps his arms around her in good-bye.
Her mother, Kimiko, looks at her with soft fondness upon entering their humble home. Sometimes, when feeling particularly emotional, she wishes her first family had been like this, but then she remembers this is hell and she is repenting for the multiple sins she has committed. In this realm, she knows eventually this family, her two loving parents and her three younger brothers, will be cruelly yet justly taken from her, just as Mai had been.
Hell is playing the waiting game, but patience is a must for any jujutsu sorcerer.
She bids them a farewell and soon, she is meeting back with her remaining teammates at the door to Konohagakure. They tower over them, casting them in shadows as the sun had only just risen. Uzumaki is nowhere to be seen predictably, however so is the Uchiha boy. For once, their jōnin-sensei seems to have arrived early.
He smells like blood and pine.
He smiles, mask and headgear preventing her from seeing if it is at all genuine.
Maki can see the bone-deep weariness in his single eye and as if in commiseration, she offers the man a rare smile
Uchiha joins them shortly thereafter. Then Uzumaki.
They leave the village.
Their customer must mutter something because once again, Uzumaki has to be leashed to Hatake when he flies off the handle, shouting about Hokage this and Hokage that. It is not as though Maki disrespects the art of subterfuge and espionage (they're illusionary so it matters not) but it's hard to take the prospect seriously considering she, along with her peers, grew up with such a reality being false or overly-hyped.
Hatake walks to the left of Tazuno, dragging with him a flustered Uzumaki. Uchiha follows shortly behind and Maki takes the rear.
She is not like Gojō-sensei. She has no six eyes to detect any enemy within a few hundred meters but what she does have, is the skill to dodge. A rear attack would be the most logical reasoning (her being a child and a young girl no less) and it had seemed that Hatake knew this well. He glances at her every minute or so, obviously piqued by her abilities (since she has thus far revealed almost nothing about her academy days and the bell test) and interested in what she can perhaps do.
He is playing a dangerous game and Maki doesn't mind being the thimble under his thumb.
Distractedly, she wonders on the afterlives of her relatives.
Most assuredly, the majority had been cast down, like her. She wonders where Mai is; what she is doing.
A whisper of leaves has her halting in her step.
She turns to look over her shoulder, a shiver crawling up her spine.
She abruptly looks to her left and lunges.
"SENSEI!"
The chains catch Hatake, halting mid-step. Uzumaki stumbles at his side.
Curling and carding between her fingers are black strands of hair. She yanks, hard. The man tumbles back at the unexpected force, the sudden stop almost snapping his neck. An awful groan punches from his gaping mouth. She holds a kunai to his throat, just above his bobbing Adam's apple. A bead of blood swells in place, taunting the other.
She smiles childishly at the other nin, daring him to make a move.
In the ensuing stare-down, Hatake hums, wriggling free of his organic prison. He looks weary and a hint peeved.
"Aa, thank-you Maki-chan!"
Maki doesn't dignify that with a response, helping her teacher wind the provided chains around the Mist nins. When stilled, it is obvious what elementary country they belong to. He removes any visible or hidden weapons, wrinkling his nose when coming in contact with their rusted utilities.
While Maki had insulted Gojō-sensei's intelligence, the man had not been exactly dumb.
Hatake crouches in front of Tazuno, a kunai held lightly by one hand. "Now," he says, "I don't know about you, but these guys seem to have some beef with us. Or is it just you?"
"I-"
"This is now considered a Class-B mission, you understand that right?"
The man refuses to raise his eyes.
"Which is all good and well, except genin are not allowed to be on B-ranked missions. Do you know why that is?"
The man does not even pause.
"Because genin are not combat-proficient yet. Even if this is a monetary problem, you have dragged three children in the crosshairs of your own personal matter. While they are training to be nin, a position that will naturally endanger them enough, right now, as of present, they are the three innocent strangers you roped into a fight erring on the side of death."
The old man looks off to the side. "If you seem so confident in your own skills, why aren't you protecting me?"
The argument is weak and he seems to know it too.
"Because you did not pay for a jōnin, you paid for three genin."
Hatake is clearly unimpressed, watching the man balk evenly.
"If you quit the mission now… I'm dead. They'll kill me easily and my cute ten year-old grandson will cry for days! And my daughter – my daughter will lead a miserable life, all in part to Konoha!"
Maki dismisses the sob story, eyeing Hatake carefully. He is their de facto leader, whether or not they participate in this mission is up to him. Personally, Maki couldn't care less about some feudal spat between gangs but it seems as if she has been roped in yet again by some posturing clan taunting others. She wonders, idly, if this is Hell's way of paying retribution on her for her sins.
"Welp!" says Hatake, standing. "It looks like we're here for the long-haul!"
Maki sweeps a kunai over her cut skirt casually, wiping the blood from the blade in a tried and true manner. She clinically eyes their two hostages. They are dozing lightly, consciousness slowly easing them back into this makeshift hell.
"How did you… How did you read our movements?"
Hatake blatantly ignores them.
Uzumaki is glaring at the ground. The Uchiha child is looking at their sensei carefully, and sometimes even her herself.
Being under observation is something she has long since been versed in, so it is easy to pay it no mind.
Heedless, their sensei prattles on, unmindful of the two chūnin Mist nin. "Of course, we'll be confiscating anything of monetary value including your quote-unquote C-ranked mission expenses," the man sounds amused, jumping from one heel to the other. "AND! We'll be drawing up a contract specifically with your bloodline in mind!"
Tazuna rapidly pales.
Maki inwardly grins.
Hatake's eye folds into a pleased crescent.
After that, there isn't much conversation.
They walk some more, board a boat, dock at a rickety old deck, and almost get beheaded.
Maki is already springing ahead, and for once Hatake is not hot on her heels. Uchiha chases after her, following her closely. She positions her shoulder and squarely meets the solar plexus of the man hovering just outside the border of mist surrounding them. She is not famed for her jujutsu techniques, but hand-to-hand is painfully simple. If anything, she excels at it.
It is her main specialty.
No one knows this, of course. Not in this hell.
She hears a gasp as all the oxygen is punched out of an adult set of lungs. She lands on top of the man, almost straddling him. Uchiha cuts both of his Achilles' heels and his flexor tendons. She holds a kunai at his throat, like she had the chūnin, and arches an eyebrow.
"Woah," she hears from Uzamaki.
"Good job again, Maki-chan!"
"'Maki-chan'?" a voice rings out. "Is that your name? Maki?"
Maki looks up, eyes lidded. A masked Wave nin hovers just meters from them. Their head is canted in a curious manner.
"Yes?"
The nin gives a rueful laugh.
"I once had a sister who went by that name," says the nin.
Like a bonfire, Maki's belly lights up.
"Mai?"
