Konohagakure, Hatake Estate
Ice clung to the bannister of the boat's deck, freezing in long icicles along the water's edge. Frost penetrated even the wooden boards below the thwarts where they sat. All of their gear retained a blue tint, matching the pallor of the storm clouds above. Mina's teeth rattled as she pulled her white coat tighter around her body, fastening the buttons tighter. She gripped her oars again and continued to row silently through the pancake ice covering the sea's tide.
The man from the photo was behind her, maybe a year or two younger. Ice coated his white coily hair and tinkled against the frigid wind. His skin was pale from the cold, turning an ashen taupe instead of the glowing ochre. The end of his nose was a muted red, matching the tips of his ears. He shuddered, huddling further beneath a light blue blanket, and small crystals dripped off his hair to the deck below. Ozone and bergamot mixed with the salt of the frozen sea. He shouldn't be here. This mission was three years ago. She completed it with Shisui.
"Shouldn't be too much longer," the man whispered.
"Could go for some whisky right about now."
He huffed. "Same. And vegetable soup."
"Gods, don't tease me with soup."
His bright smile could have cracked through the clouds and brought forth the sun. "Hmm. Potatoes, carrots, and peas in that tomato broth you like."
She sighed, "You know the way to a girl's heart." When she turned back again, Shisui had replaced him. Brunette curls were iced over, and frost covered a blue Konoha hita-ate. She turned back around.
The ice had only continued to invade the tiny vessel. At the very top of the boat, the bow was completely overrun in the onslaught. Frozen fingers spread on the trim inside the gunwhale.
"I think I see the coastline," Shisui said.
"Same." She shivered again, unable to fully feel her fingers anymore. If she didn't know any better, it would have been an upgrade from the constant sting.
The boat rocked slightly, and the Kumo-nin surrounded her with a warm blanket.
"Darui, no. It's still your turn."
He shrugged. "I have more body mass than you. In theory, I have better heat retention.
"That's bull. As a medic, I insist, it's your turn."
He said nothing, continuing to row the boat. The cold assaulted her when she removed the blanket from her shoulders and threw it back on his lap.
"Mina—" he warned.
She raised an eyebrow in triumph and continued rowing, faster this time, no longer caring about sweat accumulation in sub freezing temperatures.
Shisui's arm snaked its way around her waist as he tugged her from her seat. Setting her on top of the collection of rucksacks, he held her against his chest. His warmth defended her from the cold as he tucked the blanket around both of them.
"How am I going to help row, laying on you like this?"
"You weren't rowing very well shivering like that," he pointed out.
A hot blush spread on her cheeks, contained by the nip of winter.
The stranger had replaced Shisui once more, his baritone timbre drowning out Shisui's smooth tenor. "We're almost there. You stayed up all night with L. Besides, I don't mind you against me in the least."
She snuggled closer against him, holding the blanket tightly. "L was stabbed with a poisoned kunai, it wasn't exactly easy to heal. And you're a real perv, you know that?"
"I'm cold, not horny."
"It's poking my back."
He kissed the back of her head, the ice beginning to thin as the waves picked up closer to shore. Her eyes were heavy amidst the gentle rocking and started to close.
"Ten minutes, baby. I promise," the soft baritone voice said quietly. "Close your eyes."
She yawned widely. "Okay." Despite being in the middle of a frozen bay in the search for their missing comrade, she felt safe. Down to her bones, she knew this man could never harm her.
Corpses littered the ground in rent uniforms. The red fabrics were encrusted with gore and dried blood as the buzzards picked the bodies clean. Flying off to join the circle overhead, they would swoop back down and find a new meal. Rot pervaded the dry air, seeping through the light frost that covered the ground. Sleeping bags were scattered across the high plain.
A genin, no older than eleven, stared sightlessly at their hiding place behind a massive boulder. Perched in an eternal sitting position, a spear shoved through his belly, his voiceless scream seemed to still echo, though his corpse was at least a week old. His face was already greying in the high winter desert, preserved by the dry frigid air.
"My god…" Mina muttered, crouching closer to Darui. "They're all kids."
"No. Not all of them," he pointed to three apparent senseis on the outermost ring of the carnage.
"I don't…What do we do? Should we search for survivors? I mean…they're kids."
"No. There aren't any survivors here. We should move on. Complete our mission."
"But there might be. Maybe I can help."
When she glanced back over her shoulder, Shisui was superimposed over Darui's face. "Sweetheart, they're gone. And they're Iwa-nin. We can't be seen here, we'll be blamed."
She shook her head, lurching from their hiding spot. "They're just kids!" She flit from body to body, carefully checking for any signs of life.
Darui sighed, slowly moving to the other side of the circle to help. One after the other, he shook his head.
"They're all just kids…" Mina repeated after the last victim was checked. Other than the three adults, none of them were older than twelve. Darui laid a heavy hand on her shoulder. "They're all just kids…"
"Come on. I don't sense any patrols in the area. We have time to wrap the corpses in those sleeping bags for their comrades."
She numbly gathered the sleeping bags. Each small body was gently zipped into their resting place before they laid them in careful rows on the ground.
A cold blade was poised against her neck, her hair cruelly jerked back in a man's iron grip. Mina held her hands up slowly so the giant could see them plainly.
Darui's face was devoid of emotion, relaxed into a lazy gait with his hand on the hilt of his sword. "Let her go."
"What's it to you, Kumo?"
She kept steady eye contact with Darui. Fear flashed through his eyes as the man's grip tightened in her hair. Shisui's image flickered over Darui's, the man in front of her changing in rapid sequence between the two.
"Let her go," Darui repeated dully, steel underlying his command.
'Don't do it,' Mina thought. 'Complete the mission. You'll only get caught.'
Darui didn't break eye contact with her. Dread filled her as she realized what he was about to do. She could read every minute motion of his eyes as he wordlessly told her to fuck the mission, she was more important to him. She argued back, tightening the corner of her eyes, telling him to stand down and leave her to her fate.
"Hand over the building plans."
Her eyes widened when Darui's hand tightened on the hilt of his sword, his veins becoming more prominent. Warm blood began to drip from the kunai at her neck. She closed her eyes, hiding her fear, unwilling to spur him to action.
"If you're going to kill me, you might as well get on with it," she goaded. "Otherwise, you just look like a coward."
In the space of an instant, there was a squelch. The man's body convulsed against hers. His hot breath disappeared from the back of her neck. She rolled from his grip and opened her eyes.
Darui wiped his sword against the Iwa-nin's pants while she healed the cut on her throat. He sheathed his sword and cupped her chin.
"I already healed it, don't worry about it."
He grunted in response, yanking a handkerchief from his pocket and wetting it from his canteen.
"We don't have time for all that," Mina warned, pushing his hand away.
"Stop. Please."
She dropped her hand to his chest, lifting her chin as he tenderly wiped away the blood from her throat.
"We need a new plan if that happens again. I don't like the gamble. I can't risk you." His chest rumbled with every word.
"Darui—"
"I can't risk you."
The Kumo prisoner they had traveled to rescue was already dead by the time they reached him. The chuunin's stiff arms were held by black iron manacles against a wet stone wall. His head had been shaved to a patchy bald. Water slowly dripped from the back of the dungeon.
"We're too late," Mina whispered in the dark cell. "He was only MIA for two weeks. And this decomposition…He's been dead for at least three."
"We have a mole then."
"Something isn't sitting right about this. We're one of two asset recovery squads from Kumo." She set her rucksack on the ground and pulled out a body scroll. "After that prison break in Kiri, we're not exactly unknown."
He put his hand on her shoulder and whispered against her ear, "You think this is a trap?"
"Don't you? Help me get him down."
"It was too easy." Darui held the corpse up while she picked the locks on the manacles.
"Either way, his family needs a body to bury. I'll keep the scroll in my kunai pouch in case we have to cut slack."
Darui laid the body on the storage scroll and sealed it. "Here, give me your explosive tags to make room."
The tags were already in her hand before he even asked for them. Mina pulled out a black ribbon from the bottom of her medic kit, tying the body scroll closed. No sooner was it in her kunai pouch than they heard a tap from down the hall.
Air burned through Mina's lungs as she pushed herself to breathe through her broken ribs. Darui was heavy on her back, and she adjusted her hold on his wrist. For a moment, she considered ditching the priceless cleaver sword, which weighed far too much, but they might need it if the enemy returned. The high desert air was dry, cracking the skin on her lips as the frigid winter air cut against them.
She savored the regularity of his soft breath against the back of her ear. Oil-based poisons were difficult to extract. They slipped against the blood cells in the body and locked onto any plaque. Precious time had been lost escaping the ambush that had been set up to capture them. She had been thankful for his size then, since it gave her more leeway to extract the poison at a safer location. A smaller person would have had less time to have the lung paralysis repaired.
Adjusting him again, she paused and carefully sniffed the air for enemies. A blister was forming on her shoulder from the hard ninja wire woven into the fabric of his vest. She carefully laid him down behind a rock.
"Any time now, you can wake up."
The third day came to pass, with Darui no closer to consciousness than the last. They were just north of the Hidden Waterfall Village now. Grass grew in sparse clumps, thicker along the bed of a muddy creek. A few birch trees were in the distance, naked and spindly against the orange of a rising sun.
The blister on her shoulder had long since popped, leaving a gaping wound in its wake that resisted any attempt to heal it. She quit trying long ago, wanting to save what little chakra she had left. He tried to stop breathing two days ago, and most of her chakra was spent on life support, pulsing electricity into his lungs to keep them moving. It was laborious. Sweat had dried on her body after she drank both of their canteens, unable to produce anymore.
She gently set him beside her and dipped the canteens into the muddy water. River silt slipped over her tongue with the first sip, and the next.
"Lovely vacation we're on, dearest mission partner," she tiredly joked. Her eyes almost closed, and she jerked upright. "What's not to love? We have a river. Oh, and look, some trees. You could see it if you woke up, you know. The…tea…tastes sooo amazing. You like your tea."
Her hand continued to convulse on his lungs with each burst of chakra.
"Darui…I think I love you…Only a crazy person would carry your heavy ass across two countries. People in love are crazy. Shit. Maybe I am crazy. Spewing nonsense. Dehydration and hunger will do that to a person, ya know."
Mina's blood curdling scream echoed in the sterile hospital room, drowning out the soft beeps of the machine. Her wrists were bound against the sides of the hospital bed. She thrashed against the covers, kicking out at the nursing staffs' attempts to keep her restrained. A young blond man ran into the room with a syringe and vial in his hand.
"Mina, you have to calm down. Hold her shoulders."
"C-sensei, we can't continue to restrain her. She's already broken two beds."
The man shook his head and the vial. "Mina! Darui is alive! He's fine. He's next door. Mina! Stop struggling. You're both alive."
She stopped moving, her eyes focused on the blond man.
"There you are, kouhai," he said. "There you are. Move Darui-sama to her room."
"Sir, only spouses are allowed to be in the same room."
"The director can deal with me. Move them into the same room. That's an order."
"Yes, sir," one of the nurses said, before leaving the room.
"This is the fourth time you've attacked the staff. You're gaining quite the reputation." He ran his fingers against her ribs and sighed. "You broke them again. You're such a menace." His warm chakra flowed into her body, repairing the damage. "I get why they say medical staff make for the worst patients."
"Darui?"
"He's alive. You kept him alive. You did good. I promise."
A bed was wheeled into the room on the other side of the curtain. The telemetry equipment beeped steadily. Relief flooded her at the sight of Darui beneath the blankets. Color had returned to his face, and his breathing was steady with nothing more than a small nose cannula for supplemental oxygen.
"Darui?" she whispered again through a broken voice.
"You're worse off than he is, you know. I don't know how you did it."
"Did what?"
"Escaped. As soon as Raikage-sama heard about the ambush from L, he went out himself to bring you both home. He was surprised to find you already in Rice. That's two and a half countries. You collapsed as soon as you saw us."
"Who ambushed us?"
C shrugged. "Criminal faction of some kind. They framed you both for that genin massacre. You'll be in Iwa's bingo book now. Or at least Darui will. They're trying to blame him. Raikage-sama is in discussions now."
"If that old fool of a Tsuchikage wants another war, he'll bring war."
C shrugged again. "I think they just want money, honestly."
"I couldn't figure the poison out fast enough. Oil-based."
"You are going to be in recovery a while, good time to do research."
The small couch had been broken in over years of use, accommodating families, roommates and single jounin in its service. Originally, the upholstery was made of a small floral print, but when it changed owners yet again, changed to a pale green chenille. Cheap faux silk pillows propped her up, and a holey octopus blanket covered her lap. A sweatshirt she stole from Darui's dresser was bunched beneath her breasts as she reclined back with her pants thrown over the back of the couch. Boxes of strawberry pocky sticks littered the coffee table. She was sure there was a trail of crumbs on the top of the pilfered sweater, but she didn't care.
Notes were carelessly scribbled on a pad of paper she kept tucked into one side of the textbook. There wasn't a single space free from her scribbled notes about oily substances and the circulatory system. More medical journals waited in her bedroom, stacked up by the carton, newly arrived from the capital's university. She scratched the back of her head and looked up to the ceiling.
Her hair was loose now. She could feel it trying to escape the half-assed ponytail. No doubt it was frizzy, being so near to their humidifier. Without any makeup on her face, she was sure she looked like some hideous creature of legend. She snorted at the thought of scaring the small children in the early learning center. Laughing slightly, she growled at the textbook, holding her hands up in the shapes of claws.
"Aah!" she screeched, the textbook and note paper flew up when she realized Darui was staring at her from the hall.
He leaned against the wall and smirked. "Very smooth."
"Rude roomie," she replied. She stood up and stretched, his sweatshirt hiked up on her thighs, revealing a pair of old cotton panties.
He swallowed hard, his eyes fixed on her bare legs.
"Stole your sweater, it's nice and loose."
"It looks better on you. But please don't touch my uniforms." He crossed the room and kissed the crown of her head. His hands roamed between her hips and waist.
"Done. Damn, you must be extra horny to be turned on by this spectacular ensemble right now."
He kissed her lips gently. "Do you want to?"
"Yes! I need the break."
There was a loud knock on the door. Followed by another.
Mina jack-knifed from the bed, sweat had long dried on her forehead, freezing curls to her face. There was an impatient knock on the door.
"If you don't answer, I'm coming in," Kakashi yelled from the other side.
"I'm up!" she breathlessly yelled back.
"Good. Don't forget, chuunin exams start today. So, I'm off to see my team. I'll probably be gone a few days."
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and threw her bathrobe on over the satin button-down pajamas.
"Wait up!" she hollered, throwing the door open. She flung herself into Kakashi's arms, hugging him tightly. "I love you, nii-san."
"I love you too," he said slowly. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing, just weird dreams. Oh, before I forget, I have a first aid kit for Sasuke and Sakura. For their exams."
He held up three wrapped boxes. "It was on the counter. What's the third?"
"For Naruto, so he doesn't feel left out. It's an emergency rations and camping pack."
"Mina," Kakashi started. "That feels like cheating. Part of these exams are a survival test."
She shrugged. "You mean you don't carry emergency rations and camping supplies in your kunai pouch? How unprepared of you."
"Hmm. Touche. Fine, I'll give it to them."
Reaching up on her tiptoes, she kissed his cheek. "You're the best! Tell them good luck for me!"
He waved his hand in the air, then disappeared.
AN: Thank you for reading! I'm posting a few of these tonight; starting with Ch. 25: Weeds
Beta'ed by: CherryBerry12