One
Hanae
The Land of Fire was her birthright. Bright skies stretched overhead, skeins of blue fabric pulled taunt above her head. Her robe scratched against her back; ignoring the urge to itch at the base of her neck, Hanae turned away from the window. She drew the shades and slipped into the bathroom.
The shell of her mother's face stared back at her. Long, honey-blonde hair that she let fall loosely. Those brown eyes that people called warm on good days, rigid on others. She lacked her mother's seal, but in all the ways that mattered, whenever someone glanced at her, they saw the Slug Princess. Hanae watched her reflection idly move to form the snake hand seal, before letting her hands fall to her sides. She was a Senju through and through.
Hanae bathed quickly, letting the inn's tawdry robe slip off her shoulders. She sighed with relief, lathering her scalp and scrubbing off the days of travel grime that'd accumulated on her skin.
The thing about her mother was that, when Hanae sent word to meet her, Tsunade would give an approximate location–always a small town with a modest shinobi presence. Just enough familiarity with the crowd not to bat an eye at a Sannin and her apprentice, but nothing too grand to cause problems. Tsunade used these towns to avoid her issues–to gamble, to drink herself into a stupor while Shizune sighed and sent apologetic glances Hanae's way while she dragged Tsunade off to bed–and would, without fail, skip town at the first hint of an issue.
So she dressed for the occasion: her forehead protector tied to her upper arm, loose sleeves of her pale green blouse covering it (but easy enough to brush out of the way when she needs to); black pants, white calf wrappings, and sandals. She tucked a kunai into her waistband and headed out into the open.
Showered, refreshed, and settled in, Hanae felt as if she could finally appreciate the town she'd stopped through. On the border of the Land of Fire and the Land of Rivers, the plant life here was especially vivid. Supplied by steady groundwater and persistent sun, the very earth beneath her feet seemed to thrum with potential, with natural energy. Each step echoed through her body. It would be easier to feel that thrumming sensation if she were barefoot, pads of her feet stalking the length of a forest. But, for now, this was enough.
Her great grandfather's kekkei genkai, previously unearthed in all the generations since his, thrummed to life within her. Hanae hadn't had the penchant for medicinal jutsu and technique quite like her mother–something that used to rub her the wrong way, back when she was a kid–until she realized that she'd have her hands full with the wood release jutsu.
The knack came on suddenly, violently, awakening in an explosion of howling bark and screeching branches. Always there was that memory, that shade, lurking in the back of her mind–
Hanae Senju bit down hard on the tender flesh of her thumb, penetrating the skin on her finger's side and watching with shaky focus as blood welled in the wake of her affront. "I swear," she spat, voice trembling as her body vibrated with rage, "that when I see that bastard again, I will kill him."
She paused, stopping in the middle of the street to breathe. She was a forest. Always–always–there would be shade.
Hanae ducked into the first gambling parlor she saw and immediately locked eyes with her mother. Well–mother was a funny word. What else was Tsunade, save for her mother? What was her mother, save for anything but? And yet, when her eyes drifted towards Shizune, she felt that familiar twinge of curdled jealousy stir in the pit of her stomach. She was something precious, as the niece of her mother's love. Of course, Hanae knew that. And Shizune was adept at all the things she wasn't: she was patient, and she was good at saving lives. She was what Tsunade needed. The surgeon for her scars. The hands to combat her hemophobia.
Meanwhile, Hanae was…well. Everything that pushed her mother to leave the Hidden Leaf Village (or so the Senju elders said) was everything that Hanae seemed to represent.
Tsunade's head tilted slightly, just a bare acknowledgment of her presence. Shizune smiled and waved. Hanae pressed her lips together and nodded before making a beeline to the bar. Time had taught her that the best way to glean information out of her mother was to wet her lips first.
Tsunade didn't glance up from her cards as Hanae drew near. "For me?"
"Mm." She slid into the booth, setting a fresh bottle of sake down and an extra cup. She refilled her mother's cup before sliding her own closer so that she could fill it. The rice wine burned in a way that was vaguely familiar; that slightly fruity undertone mixing with the sharpness of the aromatics. Idly, her hand slipped down to the table, finger stroking the grains in the wood to reassure her anxious, eager nerves. "You said you had news?"
Tsunade ignored her for a full minute–Hanae counted–as she made her next play. Shizune watched all her teacher's moves with wary exasperation, Tonton clutched fast in her arms. The round finished in Tsunade's favor: with a grunt she accepted the chips, glossed lips pursing into a frown. "Winning streak," she murmurs. "Gotta skip town soon."
Hanae glanced at Shizune, eyebrows raised. The other woman just shrugged and sighed.
Hanae's fingernail curled against the table, idly grounding herself. There was no pulse of life from the wood. It was dead, immobile. She could imbibe it with her chakra, beg it to move to support her whims. But to bend that which has already been broken…Hanae hated that the most. She'd rather make her own wood directly from her body, to pull roots from the column of her spine, than to spurn the dead to move.
She reached forward, straining, rain pouring down like sheets of pure grief. "I'm so sorry," Hanae choked out. "I should've–if only I'd–"
"They're moving again," Tsunade cut in, spilling the contents of her cup into her mouth. Memory vanished like a splinter yanked from beneath the flesh: quickly, sharply, without preamble. "Potential sightings of a two-man team crossing into the Land of Fire earlier this week."
That was good news, alright. Hanae felt her skin pull tight as goosebumps raced down the length of her arms. Her forehead protector warmed where she had it tied to her arm, metal heated as her body flushed. Finally.
How long had she been hunting? Four years of straining herself in every way possible, training her body and mind until they felt ready to break (and then some). Earning her jounin status. Three years of begging the Hokage to put her on a long term, specialty assignment. A year of hunting down every lead, every trace, of that man.
Her nail cleft the edge of the table. The wood splintered off; cleaving in two as if her finger silently commanded the table to break, and the grains obeyed. "From which border?"
"Hidden Rain."
Hanae's heart lurched up into her throat. That was–that was close. Her heart thumped against the walls of her esophagus in a frantic rhythm, sounding very much like the chips clunked against each other as Tsunade counted out her next bet. Ba-dump. Ca-chink. Ba-dump. Ca-chink. "Do you think…" Hanae trailed off as Tsunade sent her a sharp glance. One look to put her in her place; to say all that she couldn't with her words.
"That's all I know." Even still, she tapped one of her polished fingers against the rim of her now-empty cup. Hanae wordlessly poured the sake for her. "Shizune: shall I bet all in? Quarters? I do wonder." As quickly as the cup was refilled the slug summoner had tossed it back.
"Tsunade-sama…" Shizune frowned. "Are you trying to lose on purpose?"
"Hah! Hardly." The older blond pushed her stack of chips forward, eyeing the cards. "All in."
Hanae and Shizune exchanged tense glances while Tsunade's round match played out. Before she even realized she was doing it, Hanae found herself tapping out an impatient rhythm into the table. The patrons of the den were more or less precisely what she anticipated of the clientele. Her mother really was a star in a pitch-black sky: Tsunade lit up the room. If the other frequenters were anything but addicted to the game, perhaps more eyes would've flocked to their corner. Fortunately, at least, they were oblivious to the rest of the world beyond their cards and coins. A head of black hair–
No, no. Hanae forced herself to breathe. The man turned, rubbing his shoulder (old injury, perhaps?) and granting her a better view of his profile. A second ago she'd sworn that man was her target; now, she could see plainly that it was just another lean-faced shinobi, whose hair wasn't even black at all: just dark brown under the low lights. She nearly groaned with frustration.
"Well, shit." She turned back to the table just in time to see Tsunade rack in a pile of chips twice as large as the one she'd had just a second ago. She looked anything but delighted at her new prospects–even as Shizune was trying to set Tonton down to get Tsunade to cash out. "Let's get out of here, Shizune."
"Y-yes. I'll get everything packed."
As her apprentice stood and set off to clear their belongings from the inn, Tsunade grabbed the neck of the sake bottle and drained the rest of it. Hanae watched her bunch the fabric of her jacket into a makeshift bag so that she could sweep the chips off the table and into her arm in one go. The motion, brusque and curt, made her necklace shift to catch in the light. The crystal glimmered in all its jagged glory, distracting Hanae for the barest moment. Senju heirlooms were things rooted to place, to nature; save for that necklace, most of her great-grandfather's legacy could be found in the land he'd shaped, in the forests, in the valleys.
Tsunade caught her staring, and said nothing.
It wasn't until they were out of the den and in the sunlight, the low tenor of the evening turning the world soft with its humming glow, that her mother finally stopped and addressed her. "This could be another dead end, you know."
"I know."
"You should know when to quit. You're twenty now, aren't you?"
Quit like you did, you mean? "Twenty-one." Same as him.
Tsunade sighed. It's not an apology, but then again, Hanae stopped expecting those from her mother long ago. It seemed like mercy, at first, that she cleared her throat. Hanae had done this dance with her mother before: some pestering about why Hanae cares about tracking down that group so much–some chastising Tsunade about killing her liver–and then they'd part ways to do it all over again in half a year. By all rights she shouldn't be surprised when Tsunade frowned, heeled sandals clacking to a halt. By all rights she shouldn't be disappointed, either, and yet…
"Twenty-one, huh? The Second Shinobi War happened around the time when I was that age." Tsunade barks out a sharp laugh, the kind with no humor stuffed behind it. "Some professional advice, kid. Quit while you're ahead. If there's a fourth one of those wars around the corner–the last thing you want is to get caught up in it."
When she was younger, there was a time when she looked up to her mother. A time when she aspired to escape the confines of war, of bloodlust, just as Tsunade had. Hanae winced to think about how conceited and self-oriented she'd been: a proud Senju puffing her chest out and boldly criticizing the Academy, even as she enrolled in it, because it was important for her to show solidarity with the Lord Second's legacy.
If she'd had a mind for violence from the start, maybe, just maybe, she could have saved–
"This is my path," Hanae said, voice firm even as her mind began to waver. If Tsunade sensed the shift in her focus she said nothing. "I made my mind up long ago."
For a moment nothing was said. The pair stood–family, technically, yet strangers all the same–as Shizune reappeared with bags and Tonton in tow. And then the harsh line of Tsunade's brow softened, shoulders sinking as she adjusted her grip on her sack of coins. "I thought the same thing, once." The moment passed, a bare flicker of emotion. In a second she was back to being the Senju Princess, cheeks dusted from the sake, lips parted and an eager grin. "Ready to go, Shizune? The luck's too good here."
Shizune eyed the bulging pack of currency as if it were flammable, rearing back to explode in her teacher's hands. "I'll carry the coins–here, put them in this pouch…"
Hanae tuned the pair out as they fell into what she assumed was the comfortable banter of their traveling routine. She turned her eyes to the horizon, scanning for where the sun was setting in the west and dragging her eyes up to the north. Somewhere between her and that point was her target. Hanae had spent the better portion of the last eight years devoted to nothing but sharpening her skills, earning her place in the upper ranks of the Hidden Leaf Village's shinobi, all so that she could become the person to take point on the hunt for that rogue nin.
Her fist curled, flickers of cells stirring in the bottoms of her feet urging her to go, to surge forward, to waste no time. She had a murderer to track down…and a direction in which to start looking.
A/N:
Me rewatching Naruto while I write this and getting distracted because holy hell, the NOSTALGIA