Shifting Sands Chapter 15

They moved through the frost covered landscape silently, using the forests as cover. They were a good distance away from the dam before Orochimaru gave them the okay to rest. Hina watched nervously as their unwilling prisoner was tied to the tree, still gagged. His breathing was growing laboured, and Hina didn't notice the way his legs weren't moving properly. She wondered if it had been broken. She winced in pain for the teen. Orochimaru wasn't exactly gentle the entire time they moved.

"I'm going to scout the perimeter. Give the prisoner some water and see if you can find any useful intel," Orochimaru ordered.

Hina wondered why she wasn't doing his job in this scenario. She wasn't exactly trained in interrogation. But she nodded regardless because she figured the Sannin knew what he was doing. Maybe this would be good training. So she approached the teen who was now tied to the tree stump. He glared at her through what she could only assume was a growing fever and a lot of stress.

"Um… I'm going to take off your gag. If you scream, I'll knock you out… and please don't bite my hand," she said.

She drew closer, slowly holding out her hand so he wouldn't get spooked. Then she removed the cloth shoved deep into his throat. He coughed for a moment but didn't scream to his credit. She pulled out her water bottle and held it to his mouth, watching him drink it down greedily. She only pulled back when he started coughing. His cheeks were flushed, and he was sweating despite the cold. Hina hesitantly held out a palm to his forehead. He was burning up.

"You've got a fever," she noted.

"And why do you care kid?" he asked.

Why did she? She wasn't one to blindly hate the enemies of Konoha. She wasn't that indoctrinated yet. She knew how wars worked; how easy it was to hate the other side. Maybe she could bring herself to hate them as well, but right now all she saw was a teenager who'd gotten themselves into deep shit and was scared. At his age, all she'd had to worry about was passing exams and asking out the pretty girl in school to the spring dance.

"You're coming down with a really bad fever," she said instead of answering his question.

"I didn't know Konoha was stooping down to Kiri's level, sending babies to war," he said.

Hina ignored his antagonism. The teen had every right to be angry in his position and was probably brainwashed into hating Konohagakure citizens too. She decided it wasn't worth pursuing changing his mind as she pulled out her med-kit and took out a few pills.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Getting you medicine for your fever," Hina said, raising a brow.

"Why the fuck would you do that? Are you trying to poison me or something?" he asked, looking largely confused.

"Now that's a stupid question," Hina snorted, earning her a darker glare. "Look if we wanted you dead, you'd be dead a few hours ago. It's safe to say we need your continued existence for information and as a bargaining chip."

He gave her a disturbed look, and Hina got tired of waiting around for his approval. She took the pills and shoved it into his mouth making him choke it down. He coughed, and continued glaring at her, moving forward against the tree, and making his leg worse. He hissed in pain as he withdrew himself. Hina had noticed the wound of course.

"I'm going to take a look at your legs, don't move," she said.

"Kami does it look like I can move."

"Clearly you can, considering you're making it worse by fidgeting," she said dryly as she began rolling up his pants.

His legs were an ugly green and purple, which she knew would be darkening the next day. She wondered if Fan had been the one to break both of his legs. It looked like it was done with a bludgeoning weapon, but she didn't recall the ROOT members carrying that.

"They broke it with a nearby rock," he grunted.

"Damn," Hina whispered, horrified.

It just dawned on her that they'd done something this violent to a child. She pursed her lips as she pulled out her hand over the wound and began her mystical palm technique. She could feel how shattered his bones were, and if it wasn't set right now, he'd never be able to walk again. She considered breaking the news to him but decided against it. All she needed to do was heal it just enough that it would still be broken, but not permanently mutilate him. He remained silent and still to his credit as she began her work, though she was pretty aware of his gaze on her neck.

"I'm just numbing it, nothing more," she lied.

"You're healing it," he corrected her.

"Oh, you've had it done to you before?" she asked, grimacing as he caught her in her terrible lie.

The teen snorted. "I've been doing this for four years since I was 12. I've broken enough bones."

So he was 16. Hina felt her heart sink. She decided to also numb the pain a little.

"You're not very good at this, are you?" he chuckled.

She glared at him for that. "Excuse me? I graduated top of my class, and I'm the youngest field medic in Konoha's history. I'm very good."

He tilted his head tiredly, eyes softening a tad. "No, I mean you're not very good at being a Shinobi. I'm your enemy and you're healing my wounds when your Jounin told you to interrogate me…"

Hina flushed in embarrassment. He wasn't entirely wrong. She wasn't exactly interrogating him for information like Orochimaru had ordered. She'd gotten carried away treating him like one of her patients from the hospital. It was hard not to do when all she saw was a scared teenager with broken legs on the verge of a life-threatening fever.

"Don't tell Orochimaru-sensei about this please," she said rubbing the bridge of her nose in embarrassment.

"You're not so bad so I won't snitch," he sniffed.

The teen smiled for the first time and Hina returned it with a smile of her own. Then she shook her head. She shouldn't be smiling… she was on a job. She needed to interrogate him. She cleared her throat, trying to get back to business.

"Alright, I'm going to need your name and rank please," she said.

"Did you seriously say please when trying to interrogate me?" he laughed.

Hina frowned and put unneeded pressure on his legs. The teen hissed. "Ow! Okay geeze. Soma, no last name. I'm an orphan. Rank Chunin," he said.

"Alright Soma-san, what can you tell me about the patrol rounds at Kakuhi Village Dock?" Hina asked.

Soma rolled his eyes. "Sorry, but I'm not giving up information that could destroy my Village to a five-year-old Konoha Shinobi."

Hina had to bite back an 'I'm eight' retort, because she knew how ridiculous that sounded. Plus, now that she thought about it, she looked like the opposite of an intimidating figure. She was fun size now, barely a happy meal, and Orochimaru thought she could off the bat interrogate someone. She had to concede with Soma that she was in fact, not very good at this.

"Come on, just give me something. You don't have to tell me everything, but sensei will not want to keep you around if you aren't useful," she reminded him.

Soma grimaced. "I'd rather die than aid the enemy."

"Would you really?" Hina asked, as she watched his expression falter. "Look I don't want you dead either. You seem like a nice person."

"You barely know me," Soma interrupted.

Hina shrugged. "But you're just a kid. Don't you want to fall in love, marry someone? Heck are you still a virgin? You want to die a virgin?"

Soma spluttered, looking thoroughly embarrassed at her questioning. "W-why are we talking about this? Am I having a fever-dream?"

"No, you're not that delirious yet," Hina tutted. "And getting back on topic. I didn't join to be a Shinobi to kill people, I have a goal I need to complete. Really, it's to make sure everyone I care about survives what's to come. Maybe once it's all said and done, I will bump into you 20 years into the future and meet your wife and kids. That's not going to happen unless you work with me."

Hina shuffled a little uncomfortably at his staring, and the teen was staring at her like she'd grown two heads. She wondered if she'd come off as too mature or something. She had that effect on people. Sometimes Hina felt like an adult trapped in a child's body, but right now she felt like a child pretending to be an adult. She was suddenly very unsure about being a Shinobi. Was she soft?

"You're really just a kid… you still believe that one day we're just going to be buddies," he chuckled bitterly.

"Maybe not buddies, but maybe we can work things out with words instead of brutal never-ending war?" Hina ventured.

"Tell that to the Kage's. I'm just a mere Chunin," he scoffed.

"Come on Soma-kun, just a little bit of info. I'll dump you off to the nearest village once we complete our mission and then we can go back to hating each other or whatever it is we do," she said.

Soma sighed. "Fuck… can't believe I'm going to do this, so listen closely."

Hina relayed the information Soma had given her of the general Shimo Shinobis border guard system. It was vague enough that it was still useful, but Hina knew Soma had left out parts that could be integral to a smooth infiltration. Though they would be poor Shinobi if they relied solely on the word of a captured Shinobi.

"He seems unharmed for a man who just spilled village secrets," Orochimaru noted.

There had been no real way of skirting around that fact. Hina decided to just come out with the truth, even if maybe it wasn't the entire truth.

"I'm not intimidating so I charmed him with my disarming cuteness?" she said.

"Is that a question or a recount of what you did?" Orochimaru asked, eyebrow raised with a hint of amusement.

Hina tried not to look flustered. "There weren't any lessons in the Academy on interrogation. I just did what came naturally. And I think I can get him to say more later if we take him with us."

Orochimaru chuckled at that. "He's given us enough information. He'll be a burden to take on an infiltration mission."

"But… we can't just leave him here. His leg is broken," Hina said.

She was received with a very deadpan look. The nervousness in her gut rose to the surface as she realised what the silence meant. Orochimaru was going to kill him. Hina had overestimated Soma's importance.

Orochimaru was going to kill a tied-up teen with broken legs.

When she imagined killing in war, it had always been on the battlefield fighting against someone in a fit of panic or utter terror. It wasn't putting a knife to the throat of an already downed enemy, one who was just a scared kid. Orochimaru's eyes were like steel, uncaring, like he barely saw the boy as a human at all. Hina felt her hands tremble at the thought.

What had she been thinking?

She thought she was rational… that she could take the horrors of this job in stride. What did she know about violence? She'd studied some basic martial arts in her previous life, but fighting had always been so… infantile there. Even the sparring in this world had been more brutal. Then she'd trained here and found it almost overkill how hard she went in her spars, how many cuts and bruises she came out with to get stronger. She thought that marked her strong enough for this kind of life… for being a Shinobi.

But she was so, so wrong. No, not her.

This

This entire thing was wrong, she realised. Because Orochimaru strode past her, leaving her frozen in her place to kill a defenceless child. She turned around with wide eyes as he pulled out a kunai, walking steadily into the clearing where she had left Soma. She tried to call out, but no sound came, and instead of catching up to him she stumbled on her feet in a panic. He couldn't. He couldn't kill the kid. She found herself mindlessly dashing towards her sensei, but as he reached in front of Soma, holding the blade out Hina could only see a kid in fear, tied underneath a man about to kill him, not a prisoner and enemy of Konoha. Her feet found its way in front of her enemy… no, just a kid.

"Sensei," she said, pleading with her eyes.

"Step aside Hina and watch."

"But… he's just a kid," she said, eyes wide as she looked between Soma and Orochimaru.

The teen remained silent, limbs trembling as he came face to face with his executioner. Orochimaru's blade glinted cold and sharp in the frigid air. Hina refused to move from him. Her sensei's eyes which had been dull narrowed down at her, and Hina felt like death itself washed over her bones. Her limbs twitched for her to run while her lungs refused to take in air. Suddenly the weight of the entire world was on her shoulders, and she fell to her knees holding her neck.

She was going to die.

But the blade didn't come for her throat. It instead reached past her. Time seemed to slow in that moment, as she watched in horror as Orochimaru leant past her to reach to Soma. The boy closed his eyes, curling in on himself in terror.

Blood splattered across the pavement, blonde hair like gold drenched in crimson red.

Through the terror cut something much more powerful. Hina screamed, a desperate scream, as she drew out her hand and watched the kunai drive into her own flesh instead of in-between Soma's throat. Orochimaru stopped before he went deeper, and Soma opened his eyes slowly, blinking as if he expected death only to come short of it. The Kunai sent a sharp sting of pain into her arm and Orochimaru let go, drawing back silently and slowly.

"You can't kill him," she said with all the mustered courage in her voice.

"You… you foolish child. What else would you have me do?" Orochimaru asked, mouth upturning into a scowl.

Hina didn't know how she had found the courage to cut through what she could now recognise as killing intent. But despite how her body still shivered in instinctual fear, her mind retained a surprising amount of clarity.

"We hide him in a safe location close to the mission grounds, gagged, but safe. Then once we complete our objective, we untie him and he's free to crawl back to safety," she said.

Orochimaru didn't look pleased, but he didn't go for the kill again either. There was a level of disdain in his eyes now, and Hina knew she'd lost some of his respect. She couldn't find it in her to care though. Not when he was about to murder a tied-up child.

"If you want to keep him alive so badly, I'll let it play out. Some children learn better through experience than punishment," he said, not unkindly.

She bit back a retort as he knelt down in front of her, holding the hilt of the kunai stuck in her arm.

"Now I'd recommend keeping it in here to staunch your blood, but you are more than capable of closing a cut this size. I'm going to pull it out now."

Hina nodded through gritted teeth as she prepared herself for the pain. She bit back a scream as he tugged the blade out from her bone. Orochimaru didn't wait to see if she was okay, but instead wiped away the blood as Hina stumbled to use the mystical palm technique on herself.

"I'm going to make us camp here. Don't let him escape or I'll hunt him down and kill him myself. Are we clear?" Orochimaru asked.

"Yes sensei," she said bitingly.

Orochimaru left in a blur and Hina sagged forward, watching as her own perspiration and blood fell onto the soft dewy snow beneath her. The white stained red so quickly, and she could finally let herself take in the breath she had been holding out for so long.

"Kid… hey are you okay?"

"It's Hina," she said, hating how shaky she sounded.

"Hina," Soma said, voice uncharacteristically soft, almost pulling her to look at him. She did, realising she looked horrible, like a brittle twig in shuddering winds.

"You saved my life… why?"

Hina looked away. She hated that they lived in a world where a child as young as sixteen would ask her why she stopped someone from killing them, like that wasn't just the default right thing to do in any circumstance. She was human after all, so it was only right that even if she was afraid, she stuck by what she believed in. She bit her lip and willed her hands to stop shaking. She wasn't really a child. She was in her thirties when she died. Soma was the real kid here, the one who had nearly died. Hina had to be strong for him, so she got up and put her good hand on his dusty brown hair. She let the weight of it settle on his head. She remembered her first mother's soft palm on her head, a pat to reassure her. It was such a childish comfort and yet the feeling lingered even into another life.

"Because you're a person too. You're a child who deserves to grow up," she said.

Soma blinked a few times and then lowered his head against her hand and then cried. He cried like someone who hadn't cried in a very long time.

Hina realised she was coming to loathe this world that brought someone so young to such tears.

The next day found Hina having to carry Soma herself. While she could carry a large amount of weight, way more than what Soma weighed, he was still awkwardly much bigger than her. She was eight, so she had to create a makeshift gurney and drag him through the snow as Orochimaru made a very pointed comment about how this would simply slow them down. She retorted with an equally pointed comment about how they wouldn't be slowed down if Orochimaru simply carried the teen. Then they both settled into a tense silence as Soma tried desperately not to crack out into nervous conversation and get himself killed by an increasingly irritated Sannin.

He didn't speak out and ruin Hina's never ending attempts at keeping him alive. Thankfully even a teenager knew how to keep silent when faced with imminent murder. Though in the quiet moments of night when Hina set up camp and she was left alone with him, Soma did talk, his voice scratchy from his recovering fever. Then Hina would tend to his sickness meticulously, never quite healing his legs well enough for him to run, though she did intend for him to be able to at least crawl away if he needed to.

They made camp half days walk from Kakuhi Village, and in the distant mountain Hina could see the speckle of warm yellow lights from the colony in the cold night. She rubbed her hands together and helped Soma into her sleeping bag, wrapping a foiled blanket around herself as she leant against a tree to rest.

"You should use this," Soma said, gesturing with his face at the sleeping-bag.

"I'm not the one running a potentially dangerous fever. Listen to your doctor and get some sleep. You'll be needing it," Hina said.

"You really worked at a hospital?" Soma asked instead of shutting up.

Hina sighed, resigned to keeping conversation. At least the talking took her mind off the bone deep cold.

"I did, and you know what I tell me patients? Shut up and go to sleep. If you don't listen to the medic you'll die," she said.

Soma just laughed, turning his head to face her, looking entirely like a worm in a cocoon. "You're a really cute kid you know?"

"Do you want to die? I'll let sensei kill you," she said, although there was no real bite to the threat.

"You wouldn't… you're unusually nice to be a Shinobi. Maybe you should defect to Shimo. We wouldn't let a kid go to war," he said.

Hina held back a snort. She should find his ironic sentiment amusing, but it simply left her bitter. All she could think about was Kakashi, who she knew had already stacked up a kill count. He was five when he became a Genin, six when he was promoted to Chunin. Hina closed her eyes and despaired. Because if Soma was still a kid, then Kakashi was doubly so.

"They're all the same in the end," Hina sighed.

Soma huffed like he didn't believe her. "They're not the same. Shimogakure is built on honour. Our Shinobi fight respectably and within the Shinobi tenants, unlike Iwa and Konoha. But you don't strike me as someone who joined out of love for their village… so why? If not to kill, or if not to die for your Village, why fight?"

Now that was the question, wasn't it? Hina had felt compelled, the moment she was picked up by a Nara. She knew there would be no other path in life, no matter how much she hated it. She convinced herself it would be worth it by researching the different departments she could join, how she could apply her knowledge for more power, but at the end of the day she was afraid. She was afraid everyone she'd loved would be taken away from her one by one like they had before. She knew the fear was so ingrained in her heart, that without even knowing the details of her past life, she was well aware that it was one tragedy after the other.

Back then she was simply a woman with no real power. She wasn't a billionaire, or a politician, or a man with any kind of physical strength. Her only strength had been in her intellect, and all that had gotten her was a soul sucking desk job, twisting her desire to help people into another cash-grab for a large pharmaceutical. But she'd always thought it was okay if she did it for the money to provide for her family, and yet every single one of them had passed away. She couldn't remember their faces or their names, but her heart still grieved nonetheless.

And now she had the power to change that. She had a chance to grab real power, the power of giant chakra monsters, of maybe even the moon itself. Hina didn't know if she could reach the level where she could face an army on her own, to enforce her will. But at the end of the day that power would be hers. She wouldn't have to wait for a saviour because she could be that for herself. And She considered Soma's question, and she knew her answer. It was a simple one.

"Because the gods are useless," she said.

"That's not what I expected to hear," Soma muttered, blinking owlishly.

Hina smiled bitterly.

"They'll watch us suffer and stay idle in their silence and inaction. One day I'll become my own god, Soma. Then no one I care about will be taken from me."

"That would be nice," he said tiredly.

She was glad he agreed.

"Now sleep, or you'll be seeing god by morning."

"Hmm," he said, muttering tiredly as he closed his eyes and let his fever pull him into sleep.

Hina followed soon after.

The Kakuhi Village Dock was situated at the end of the village. It was the only port with a suitable shipping dock for larger trade ships. It also happened to be the only point of trade between Kumo and Kiri. Now that Hina thought about it, Konoha was dismal at creating any sort of ally, and solely relying on their own power. Even Iwa made nice with its neighbours. Kumo though, they had made an art of making as many friends as they did enemies. As was demonstrated by their alliance with Shimogakure and Kirigakure, while they incited violence everywhere else, they tread. Hina wondered if it was Danzo that was keeping them from not just annexing Rice, but from building a stable relationship with them and Rain. If it were up to her, Konoha would share their contracts with Suna as well, to help build up the sandy nation as an ally.

But it looked like this world knew nothing about creating lasting friendly relations with other Nations. She supposed all things considered the Elemental Nations, and the Shinobi Villages that inhabited the lands were rather new in this worlds history as well.

"Eyes on the mission," Orochimaru reminded her.

Hina stopped thinking about politics for a minute as she remembered what she was meant to do. She'd tried to find a place to stash Soma but decided to bring him along just a short distance from the village. It would be easier to cut his bindings after they finished with what they needed to do, than risk having him free before they went onto the riskiest part of their mission. Hina didn't want to kill the kid, but she wasn't naïve enough to believe he wouldn't give away their positions if it came down to it.

"Sorry sensei, I've finished scouting the perimeter. There weren't any tails," she said.

Orochimaru nodded. Hina didn't really do much to be fair. Just made sure to keep an eye out to see if anyone was following them, and even then she was fairly certain the Sannin could do that with his eyes closed. He was just trying to keep her busy, which she wasn't going to complain about. She still felt useless, but at least he was trying. He gestured for her to follow, and she trailed behind him like a silent shadow.

"Do you know the best way to destroy a shipping dock Hina?" Orochimaru asked.

Hina mulled the question over. "Destroy the docks infrastructure?"

"That would certainly set them back quite a while. But the best way to ensure it stays destroyed is through a process called siltation. Do you see that wall over there?"

Hina turned to look at the stone wall past the dock that stretched into the sea. The waves crashed against it, slowing, and diverting. She nodded, thoroughly out of her depth when it came to engineering and infrastructure. She had always been more inclined to chemistry and biology.

"Siltation? Does it have something to do with the soil?" she asked.

Orochimaru gave her a nod with a look that said he was pleased with her paying attention. She leant in a little more, hoping to gleam something else from context clues. Unfortunately she had very little background when it came to the way shipping docks and harbours were built.

"The stone wall doesn't reach very far, but there should be a series of angled ledges on the seabed, stopping the waves from pushing through more rock and sediment into the harbour. The more build up there is, the harder it will be for bigger ships to port."

Hina cocked her head. That was well and good, but she was pretty sure things like soil build up would be a slow reaching effect. They needed to cripple Kumo's supply lines before they left, not have their mission take a year to progress.

"It seems unnecessary. We should just destroy the dock itself," she said.

"That's where you're wrong," Orochimaru said, "By the time they fix the destruction we do to the dock, they'll have realised their work needs to extend to more pressing issues. Take note of this. When you complete a mission, don't leave things half done. Strike hard and without mercy."

Hina swallowed roughly and nodded. Orochimaru smiled down at her with a serpentine grin. She realised suddenly why he received the title of Sannin. He wasn't just physically strong, but when it came to his missions, he did them outstandingly. Hina grimaced as she looked around to see the civilians milling about unaware of their presence. She would be destroying a major source of their livelihoods. At the end of the day it was better than destroying their lives. They could always rebuild, even if Orochimaru was also going to make that harder for them too.

"How are we going to destroy it?" she asked.

"You don't know a Doton jutsu strong enough to affect the seafloor like that. Your job is going to be much simpler. Keep a low profile and place these explosion tags around the main docks. Once you're done meet me back here and take a summon with you."

A snake slid out of Orochimaru's sleave. Hina held her hand out and shuddered as it transferred into her sleeve, slithering up her arm and curling there.

"If you're in trouble, Ryusei will dismiss himself and alert me," Orochimaru said.

"Thanks," Hina whispered, feeling her nerves get to her.

Orochimaru hesitated for a moment, then he put a finger on her forehead. "Shinobi rule 12; A shinobi must never show any weakness. I'm not saying you won't be afraid, but as Shinobi we overcome."

Hina held her forehead as Orochimaru withdrew his hands. She nodded her agreement with him before tracking back into the shadows and disappearing out of his view. She was unsure what to do with that moment of sentimentality. It seemed very unlike Orochimaru to offer up advice outside of helping fix her form or give her pointers on how to better complete a technique. But a Shinobi rule… well even she hadn't really taken them to heart before. She hadn't thought he would either, but Orochimaru was more a product of this world than she would ever be.

So Hina transformed into a civilian persona, retaining the youth of her appearance since henging into wildly different heights from your own came with its own risks. She stepped past a few men and women who didn't pay her much mind and noticed that the inhabitants of this little town were quite varied, with merchants and natives mingling. If it had been an insular town her disguise wouldn't have worked. Counting her blessings, Hina ventured to her first target, kicking stones idly down the footpath, trying to look like she was taking a casual stroll. As she walked past the wooden pillars at the dock, she dropped down to pick up a stone and discreetly left a tag behind a wicker basket.

She went around to the other docks after that, circling back to the markets before coming back again so not to raise suspicion. The sun was going to set in a few hours, and once the last rays of light would hit they could finally explode the tags and Hina could be on her way back home. She felt relieved as she came through to the final dock without any altercations except for a few merchants who asked if she wanted to buy small trinkets like bracelets. She dropped the final explosion tag at its location and made her way back when she turned to see a man pointing at her. Hina felt her heart sink as she saw Kumo Shinobi talking to a local merchant.

Hina knew well enough that having a little chat with them and pretending to be the little merchant girl was not going to work at all. She wasn't a trained infiltrator. She was barely a trained Genin. So she decided to do the next best thing.

"Ryusei, alert Orochimaru-sensei," she told the summon in her sleeve.

The snake dismissed itself, and a weight left her chest. Hina broke into a run with haste as she pushed past several civilians deciding not to take the roof and make herself more of an open target. She threw a man in the way behind her stopping the Shinobi from targeting her with a kunai. Suddenly all of Orochimaru's lessons on being aware of her surroundings was coming through, because as she'd made her rounds through the market and the docks she'd kept a mental map of the village. Hina took a turn into a small alley with a pipe that led a bit further downtown. It would probably throw off her pursuers enough for Orochimaru to come get her.

She flung herself into the pipe quick enough to escape a kunai that lodged where she was not a second ago. Once she slid in, she turned to see her pursuers curse at their inability to fit into such a small space. Hina let out a small snort of amusement at their expense before crawling deep into the filthy hole. It stung her nose with the scent, and she pretended it wasn't shit and grime she was crawling through. Once she came out of the other end, Hina grimaced as she looked down at her once crisp white and blue winter clothes now turned brown and grimy. She hoped to the gods that an A-Rank pay-check was worth this literal shit.

Hearing a nearby river, Hina walked off the dirt path and towards the water to clean herself off. She was relieved at the sight of the clear flow through the river, cupping the cold water and wiping it off her coat. To her relief the coat, which was waterproof, seemed to not have soaked up the grime and she was able to get it off.

"Disgusting," she grunted as she wiped off her hands too.

She was sufficiently clean when she heard the faintest crack of a twig. Hina whipped around to see a bunny hop on by. She let out a sigh of relief.

It was short lived. A wall of force knocked her back and Hina instinctually kicked out to no avail as something sharp latched onto her arm. She hissed in pain as she looked up to see a wolf biting her arm. She pulled out a kunai to kill it, only for her weapon to be hit out of her hand by a shuriken. Then a boot fell down on her face, and a man wearing a Frost Headband looked down at her unkindly.

"It's a leaf brat," the man said, snarling.

"Fuck," she cursed.

Then he pulled his boot off her face and bought it back down on her. Hina barely had the time to register the pain as she felt her world shake from the impact. She let out a cry as her nose cracked and the dog pulled its teeth from her arms. Too disoriented from her sudden head trauma, she barely fought back as she was picked up from the scruff.

"Now time to weed out her team and make them pay."

Hina closed her eyes and whimpered. This was really bad. She didn't need to think straight to feel the gut-wrenching terror of being caught by an enemy. She wondered why she never considered it would happen to her.

Maybe it was because the reality of it was too terrifying to truly understand.

A/N

Welp, when things go right inevitably expect things to not continue that way for long.