My only love sprung from my only hate...
Too early seen unknown, and known too late...
That I must love a loathed enemy.
"That was fabeelous!"
The excited little chatterbug wouldn't stop chirping about it, as she and Shino caught their breath at the river, finally losing the Shiso farmers somewhere back in the forest.
"Don't you mean reckless?" Shino interjected.
"But did you see me take on all 5 of those guys back there all by myself?" she bragged, as she dipped her hands in the river to wash her face clean of all the leftover honey from her bee bombs. "I mean, this was so much more fun than studying stones all day."
"Stones?" Shino found the idea greatly strange.
"It's a...a family quirk, you could say...and maybe just a tiny bit embarrassing," she chuckled awkwardly, twirling one of the white locks of hair around her finger to distract herself. "Me and my family are kind of 'kooky' compared to the rest of our village."
"Eccentric does seem to be your style," Shino agreed. "But who am I to judge? My family is treated the same way in this village. In a way, I think all families are their own kind of strange."
"You haven't met my dad," she countered. "He literally wants to take over the world. He's a little creepy sometimes, even for me...And I wonder why I never get invited to any birthday parties."
"No one remembers to invite me to parties either."
"Ugh, doesn't that just kick over your anthill!" she sighed. "Just because my family hangs out with a bunch of bees, it doesn't mean I'm not-"
"Human?"
"Right," she blushed. "I guess I can understand it though. I mean, who wants to come over and play when you practically live in a raging beehive?...Still, you hope someday that somebody will like being around you enough to at least try."
"I see your point."
"Honeysuckle!" she cried. "What a corny pun! I hate bee puns!"
"You're saying it...bugs you?"
"That's it! You're this close to becoming a mud pie, if you keep doing that!"
But wait...was that a hint of a smile cracking across his lips?
Thank goodness she wasn't just imagining it.
Because after all, she couldn't hold hers back either, even though she'd die before admitting how much she secretly adored a good bug joke.
And what a relief it was that she didn't have to hide from Shino exactly how much she loved them, as they both laughed together over an eccentric six-legged sense of humor that could only be appreciated by a pair of kooky bug users.
"Anyway," she sighed, looking up at the last of Shino's ladybugs fluttering away to their new home in the forest. "This definitely beats staring at rocks all day. It's about time I got to test my skills around here. Stealing that bug cage from you was like taking honey from a beeling."
"You wouldn't have gotten far from me anyway."
"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone about the bug cage, if you won't tell my Sensei you found me wandering around here instead of training," she winked at him. "Besides, even if you don't admit it, you're secretly thanking me for saving you from your boring Academy homework."
"Even so," Shino muttered his answer. "It was still reckless."
"Hm, sounds like you still got a little salt in your honey for missing my substitution jutsu back there," she teased him, as she continued scrubbing the sticky paste of ash and honey off her snowy white cheek. "I'm nobody in this village, or any village, for that matter. By the time they came looking for me, it'd be like trying to catch a yōkai. You, on the other hand, have way more to lose than I do. So, how else could I have taken that bug cage without you getting in trouble for it? Stealing it from you was my only choice."
"That's not exactly true," Shino shook his head. "Because how can you have a choice and have it be the only one at the same time?"
"You're clearly misunderstanding the point."
"Then no wonder we don't understand each other," Shino said. "Because the whole point of a misunderstanding is that it isn't clear."
"Oh, good grief!"
"Will you stop doing that?"
She giggled.
"I guess we're even now. Who knew that simple paradoxical word play was all it'd take against a big, bad Leaf ninja like you?"
"You couldn't beat me with just words."
"Maybe, maybe not...but I know other secrets I might be able to use against you," she warned him playfully. "Like maybe you aren't as standoffish as you seem. Maybe you feel a lot more than you want everyone else to think you do."
"So, that's all you got on me, huh? Feelings?" Shino stepped around her guess. "What makes you say I'd do anything like that?"
"For the love of gnats! Has anyone ever told you that you think way too much into things?" she said.
And then her soot-stained face melted into an easy smile, as she added, "But sometimes, it's kind of cute."
And watching as Shino's chest caved with his breath, his burning face sinking lower and lower under his collar, until his sunglasses were the only things still sticking out, the bee girl smugly rested her case.
"Anyway," she moved on. "If you really want to know the reason I did it, I'll tell you. I set free your insects because you're my friend. Because I wanted to thank you for being so nice to me and not making me feel like an outsider in this village. And because it made me happy too, watching all those ladybugs finally realize how high they could truly fly."
"Friend?" Shino awkwardly tried the word on. "You'd call me your friend?"
"Well, that's because I don't know any other name to call you by," she happily explained.
"It seems we keep getting sidetracked, every time we try to introduce ourselves," Shino said. "But if we're going to be friends, then you should know the first thing about me. My real name is-"
"Sshh," she quickly stopped him by putting a finger to his lips. "Don't tell me. I don't want to know. Not if knowing your real name would change anything about how I remember this adventure we had together. Knowing your name won't matter to me anyway when I leave this village. Because all I want to remember is how cool it was to just sit here with you and look at ladybugs all day. That's enough for me to remember you by."
And Shino Aburame had never underestimated anything so much as he'd underestimated the power...of being remembered.
So powerful was it, in fact, that Shino wanted something to remember her by too, even if knowing their names wouldn't matter much to her in the end.
"If knowing your name isn't possible," he said. "Then maybe we can give each other code names instead. Just like if we were in the Anbu."
"Rock-Paper-Scissors?" she offered. "Whoever wins, gets to name the other first. And no cheating!"
"Right. Ready?"
Shino dropped his palm into his fist, and she mirrored his.
"Rock-Paper-Scissors."
Scissors vs. Scissors. A tie.
"Again...Rock-Paper-Scissors."
Rock vs. Rock. Stalemate.
"Rock-Paper-Scissors."
She drew Paper. Shino picked Rock.
"Ladies first," he humbly accepted his defeat.
"Hmm, a code name, huh?" she mused, scanning Shino in deep thought, until her eyes finally rested on his wild black hair. "I will call you...Bamboo-Kun!...Because your hair sticks out just like bamboo's leaves."
"Alright," Shino nodded his acceptance. "Now it's my turn to name you."
He took his time looking into her face.
Memorizing every twirl of her feathery white hair falling around her shoulders. The fiery gold in her eyes that made him warmer than even the Asagao flower's sunlight. How much her skin glowed like the moonlight on the night of firefly...
Firefly...
Because there could be no other name for her that meant so much to him.
"You are Firefly-chan," he said to her at last. ".Why, you ask? Because I will forever remember this day, when you invited me to stand in your light. So, it doesn't matter to me who you really are in the end, or that I'll never see you in this village again. You will always be Firefly to me."
But Firefly knew that her light would never burn again so brightly as it did now, being near the only one who made her realize how powerfully that light could set fire to what was written about her destiny of darkness.
Had she never really needed stones, or Naobachi's approval of her skills, or even the First Tsuchikage's hidden scrolls to change the story about her forgotten name?
Could rewriting the history behind her disgracefully damned clan name, that she'd never been allowed to publicly honor as her own, already be within her own power?
But before she could wrap her head around this so-called "light" within her, she felt Shino's shoulders tense beside her, his sunglasses vigilantly scanning the darkening trees at a distance behind them.
Alerted at once by his scouting insects of a potential threat, as two intruders crossed over the protective barrier ninjutsu he'd set up around him and Firefly.
Had Farmer Fukushima caught up to them already?
"What is it?" she asked him.
"An enemy," Shino gathered from his bugs. "You should find a place to hide."
"Wait, what ene-"
She didn't even get a chance to ask before Shino wrapped his arms tightly around her, pulling her into his chest as he commanded his insects to surround them both in a bug whirlwind that cut them off quickly from sight.
And not a moment too soon, the enemy ninja marched in upon their cozy hideout by the river, pestered by only an aggravating swarm of gnats left behind on the log where Shino and Firefly had been sitting.
"I hate bugs," one of them grumbled, catching a gnat between his thumb and forefinger and crushing it into oblivion.
"You're in Aburame territory," his partner warned him. "If you don't want Shibi and the other beetle users to catch us and beat us into maggot meat...don't...smash...anything."
Wiggling to break herself free from under Shino's arresting arm over her back, the bee girl's eyes glared up at the Leaf boy, her mumbled protests smothered by his hand over her mouth. "Mmm, mmm, mmm, Mm!"
But Shino wouldn't let her go, pinning her to a bed of moss with him as he shielded her in hiding behind the bushes. His sunglasses steadily tracking the intruder shinobi scouting the river.
"There's no need to be scared," the beetle boy said to the bee girl in cool, confident chivalry. "No matter what happens, I'll keep you safe."
"Hmm?!" the bee girl squeaked, turning to him goggle-eyed as ever.
"What do you mean you lost her?" the ninja with the waist length dark ponytail demanded. "I told you not to let her out of your sight! Those were your only orders!"
Only then did Firefly stop wiggling so much against Shino's protective arm, silently catching her breath. Her big golden eyes and Shino's cool sunglasses side by side, as they peeked through the bushes at the shinobi strolling by.
"I didn't take this mission so I could sit out of all the action and babysit that bratty little larva-chit!" his partner with the three katana on his back objected. "If we're lucky, she took the hint and went back to the Hidden Stone. Can't say you weren't warned. She's been a dead sack of beeswax, ever since she joined this mission."
Then his teammate rounded on him suddenly, slamming him into the tree behind them, narrowly missing Shino and the bee girl crouching underneath.
"Don't you get it, Kenzoubachi?" his partner demanded, the unmistakable, branding mark of the Senjutsu seal bleeding from under his right eye. "She is the mission. And if anything happens to her in the Leaf, you better hope Dakubachi finds you before I do."
"My, my, aren't you strong?" Kenzou jeered at his teammate's excessive use of force. "I know all about how you threw yourself to that snake, Orochimaru, and the monster you became to get stronger. You don't gotta burn your own hive to get that point across, Naobachi."
Forcing Nao to remember that no matter how much a stinger in the ass his teammate was, it wasn't Kenzou's blood he was out for tonight.
And now that they were being hunted through the forest by Shibi, this wasn't a time to start making more enemies out of his allies.
Nao loosened his grip, and Kenzou popped his neck back into place.
"We've failed the mission," Nao informed him. "It seems we were lured into a trap. And now we're in the wasp's nest. Shibi outnumbers us 100 to 2. And between the two of us, we won't be able to fight off the entire Aburame Clan," Nao said. "But if we lose, she won't stand a chance on her own. She's just a kid."
"That means absolutely nothing, and it won't mean anything to the Aburame either. She's apart of this team now, as you never fail to remind me. And dying is part of being a shinobi, isn't it?" Kenzou argued raucously. "So, why should the head family be spared from sacrificing just as much as the rest of us have?"
"How could it come to this?" Nao murmured, his voice crushed under the weight of his failure. "She really is just a kid."
"'How?' is my exact question," Kenzou remarked. "How straightforward did this mission have to be for you to get it right! All you had to do was find our inside man in the Leaf and seal the deal. But I guess I missed the part of your plan that involved becoming an Aburame's bug snack!"
"If I had left Yakiniku Q only moments sooner, Shibi and I would've never crossed paths. But I recognized my enemy too late," Nao retraced his mistakes. "We said nothing to another. But an introduction wasn't needed to know that he is the soul of my hatred...and I, his. I might've killed Shibi then and there, but I am not an Aburame. No matter how hungry my contempt, I can not bring myself to wipe out an entire village to take out one man. And so, I kept my eyes low, and Shibi went his own way. Our silent agreement to postpone our battle being only a brief impasse."
"Then I say we leave the girl to distract him and make a run for it," Kenzou smirked. "Some good, old-fashioned character-building training wouldn't hurt her at all, haha."
"Kenzou," Nao quietly warned him. "You should probably stop talking."
"Well, well, isn't that the cake that smothered the sugar ant? I would've never guessed you cared so much about her," Kenzou teased him. "I wish you would pick a side already. If you want your revenge against Daku, then stop beating around the honeysuckle bush and kill her! What are you waiting for? Your failure to make up your mind about her this whole mission is about to get us killed."
Shino felt the bee girl beside him as she gasped. Her face horror-struck, as if her entire world had just crumbled under the weight of those words. The innocent twinkle of her golden eyes dimmed by the shadows around them.
Nao didn't answer his partner, and the longer he took to answer, the more it broke her heart.
Why wasn't Nao punishing Kenzou for such a treacherous suggestion to murder the daughter of the head family?
Why was he just standing there, conflicted and accepting his treason, while doing nothing to defend her?
Was it true then...did Nao really bring her on this mission, only to make it easier to separate her from her father?
Because didn't Nao always believe she was too weak to stop him from killing her?
"Let's just keep moving. And do find a way to squash those bat-fly emotions of yours," Kenzou suggested. "Even if she is his kid sister, she's not Kaiyobachi. And training her like she is will never bring him back."
"Shut up!" Nao ordered, firing off again at Kenzou's face.
But Kenzou was smart enough to duck this time, letting Nao's punch crack into the solid bark of the tree behind him.
Shino winced, clenching his fist tightly against the dirt.
His heart beating so fast in silent distress that the bee girl couldn't help but whisper, "Hey, are you ok?"
"He who lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious," Nao reminded Kenzou of the age-old wisdom, cracking his knuckles back into place and cocking his head toward the tree. "While you were too busy running your mouth, you missed it...Look."
And then the girl saw what had made Shino so upset.
The tiny black dot of his Kika bug smashed dead into the round imprint left behind by Nao's fist.
"It appears we have a fly on the wall," Nao remarked.
"An Aburame!" Kenzou immediately drew his three swords. "They're here. We'll need to exterminate the pests."
And then it hit her.
Aburame?
Firefly's eyes dragged slowly back to Shino, as the realization of what Nao had said made it all disturbingly clear to her.
He's from the...Aburame Clan?
"Shibi caught up to us," Kenzou growled, activating his chakra for a stinger-to-stinger fight. "I will hold him off. You find the girl and get out of this village. I'll catch up."
"No, Shibi wouldn't make such an amateur mistake," Nao said, as he studied the smashed Kika bug disdainfully. "This beetle looks too unevolved to belong to Shibi. Which means the one it belongs to is only a little mite...A long, long way from home."
"Is that so?" Kenzou growled. "The only thing I hate more than an Aburame is an itsy-bitsy one!"
"Then I take it our little grass spider won't be too much for you to squash," Nao said. "Dead or alive, he'll make a nice hostage to keep the Aburame Clan at bay."
Kenzou smirked, hoggishly grinding his swords together.
"One Aburame sashimi, coming right up."
Firefly's brow furrowed opposingly at his vile joke, as if she could tear Kenzou apart with her own hands if he laid a bee on her beetle friend.
But what could she actually do to protect Shino, if Kenzou found the Aburame boy hiding with her?
Kenzou was 100 times stronger than she was, and Nao would only hold her still and make her watch the Aburame boy die.
All for the sake of teaching her a cruel lesson on loyalty and choosing her side.
'If you're defeated without even fighting him yet,' Nao's voice in her ear would send chills down her neck, just before Kenzou slaughtered the boy. 'You'll never be the shinobi your brother was.'
Because after all, despite the kind person Shino showed her he was when they met in the forest, this boy was still an Aburame.
Her bitter enemy.
'But still...at least for now,' she decided. 'Even if he is an Aburame...he was still my Bamboo-kun first.'
"Aburame," she whispered aloud to Shino. "You're not safe here. Don't underestimate these shinobi. They're way stronger than they look. If they find you, they'll kill you. And it's three against one. That's why when you have the chance to run, do it."
"Wait, what do you mean by three?" Shino asked.
"I'm so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you."
And clasping her fingers together, she mumbled her attack against him.
"Beeswax Cocoon Jutsu!"