I long for the sound of your voice.

The face I see so clearly, doesn't say a word.

-Ink Dark Moon

'So. I wasn't just misreading things,' Shino thought, as he studied the face of his captive. 'Her eyes are the same as hers.'

But still...if she really was the girl he met in his village years ago, why didn't she seem to recognize him?

After risking her life to protect him when they were kids, why would Firefly now want to hurt him?

Had he mistakenly confused her for someone else from her clan?

"Have we met before, by any chance?" Shino asked her. "What reason do you have to kill me?"

The kunoichi said nothing, confirming nothing but what Shino already knew.

No matter her haunting resemblance to the girl he knew as Firefly, he couldn't let his guard down around this rogue ninja.

And he didn't like the hungry way she looked at him either.

Like every time she looked at him, she was seeing his corpse.

A look that would've given his title of "village creep" a run for its own ryō!

The Beekeeper had to have made a mistake.

How could a creepishly bloodthirsty little mosquito like her ever be an ally to him in helping him find a way out of this fog?

'She's so...bee-ish...in all the worst ways.'

And there was no way in a Bee's Nest she could ever be Firefly, which meant Shino had no use for her.

"It looks like the Beekeeper's antidote worked. You'll live. I've decided not to kill you," Shino told her. "Why, you ask? Because even if you don't deserve it, I wasn't ever doing this for you. We're finished here."

And having done what he promised the Beekeeper, Shino turned to walk away.

"Please. I beg you to reconsider."

And the silence suddenly broken by the soft plea in her voice made the Aburame stop again.

Her accent lightly Iwagakurian, much like the Earth shinobi from the Hidden Stone Village he'd fought alongside in the Fourth Shinobi World War.

"I beg you to take my life in battle instead. I wouldn't be able to live with myself otherwise. If we don't finish this fight, I can never return to the outside," she said to the Aburame. "And so, I ask for the honor of another match."

Shino's brow perked.

Hadn't the Beekeeper begged him for death too during their fight?

Who were these people, and how was life so meaningless to them that dying in battle was such a gloriously romanticized alternative?

"Why should I give you that honor?" Shino asked. "I'm not interested in another match with you. Neither of us will gain anything from you losing to me a second time."

"Which means you have nothing to lose by finishing this fight with me?" she refuted. "If you had nothing to gain from letting me live...why didn't you let me die?"

"Why?" he answered her quietly. "The reason is because you remind me of someone I knew many years ago, and I have been in debt to her ever since."

"A debt?" she repeated, surprised that a test so important as proving her true skills to an Aburame had been unceremoniously derailed for a reason so trivial. "You're forfeiting this battle...because of a debt?"

"A wise ninja is without debt, and owes nothing that anyone can ever use against him," Shino enlightened her on the age-old basic teachings of shinobi moral conduct. "And so, I must find out what really happened to my friend and repay my debt. That's because I can't find true peace until I settle my score with her."

"What makes you think I'd know anything about your friend?" she asked him. "Your guilty conscience has nothing to do with me."

"Maybe you're right," Shino said. "Maybe finding her is a lost cause. It's been years since we last met in my village. I should have stopped searching for her by now...But still...when I first saw you, a part of me..."

Shino stopped.

He knew it wasn't right to keep outstaying his welcome and tormenting them both like this. To keep wishing that the gut instinct he felt about her wasn't wrong.

To want so badly for this stranger to be Firefly.

The bee mistress's eyes dropped from his sunglasses down to her sandals. Distracting herself from the hidden yearning barely restrained in his face, as she watched his insects scout guardingly around her.

"Even if there was a chance you knew her, I could not tell you who she is. Why, you ask? I called her 'Firefly', because she could not tell me her real name," Shino said. "The reason is because she belonged to a rival clan no one talks about anymore. I did not understand what she meant back then. Not until I realized that shinobi we saw in the forest would've killed me, if she hadn't distracted him. Why she had to die for being so kind to me, I still don't understand. I have never asked my father to give me a reason for it."

The kunoichi's fist tightened against her knees, fighting back the hot tears stinging her eyes.

"And so, it's up to me to find that reason for myself. That's why it's so important that I find her," Shino said. "Because I finally understand what she gave up for our friendship. And I know by now I've lost my chance to tell her everything I've wanted to say. But I can't stop looking until I know what really happened to Firefly. If you can give me any information about my friend, I would be immensely grateful."

With slow and steady breaths, she lifted her head until her eyes found Shino's again.

Realizing now how powerful that soft honey gaze of hers was in keeping the Leaf shinobi locked in a checkmate.

'You mean to tell me...that he won't fight me because I remind him of some girl he had a crush on as a kid?' she smoldered. 'All because I'm pretty and not because of any of my ninjutsu?' Ahhggh! Just wait until I get my hands on this buggy bastard!'

"Isn't it obvious?" she spoke coolly to the Aburame. "The girl you knew as Firefly is dead. Your father made sure she was. Which means I won't give you any other choice now but to fight me. You all deserve to be punished."

"I see...Tell me," Shino went on. "If you know nothing about her, how did you know it was my father who killed her? I don't remember ever saying that."

"Of course, you just said..."

She caught herself.

He was right.

Even if he had mentioned Firefly being dead, he did not say exactly how she died in the end. Without explaining fully what he meant by never asking his father for a reason, Firefly could've died by any misfortune, for all she should know.

"I think then," Shino remarked, in a tone that almost dared her to call his bluff. "That you must be a fortune-teller."

The insolent little earwig, thinking he's so clever!

Did he really think he could trick her by playing these wordy mind-games?

"Perhaps I am," she gave him that. "But considering the reputation of you Aburame, is it any mystery how your friend died? You can hardly call it a lucky guess."

"Forgive my mistake," Shino pardoned himself politely with a slight bow of his head. "It's obvious a fortune-teller of your skill deserves a more serious challenge. The name she gave me...The one she said I had to have instead, so we could be friends. Can you give me that name?"

She knew he was watching.

Closely analyzing every nervous blink of her lashes, or slight twitch of recognition in her face that would make him believe she was the missing person he saw in her.

He was a Leaf intel ninja, after all. He was trained to watch people.

And he'd know she was lying.

One ant-sized misstep was all it'd take.

'Better you were dead than to give any information to the enemy,' she remembered Hachimitsu Sensei saying to her. 'If you fail this mission, you must not give him any reason that would lead him back to the Kamizuru Clan. He can never know who you are, where you came from, and why you were sent to kill him. The less the enemy knows about you, the less he can use against us.'

And so, the bee mistress retreated back into that lonely world of silence. Refusing to give him anything that would only endanger her clan more.

"I see," Shino said finally, taking her silence as his answer. "It appears I was mistaken then. You aren't the person I thought you were."

And watching Shino summon the last of his insects back from her body to his, the Kamizuru waited breathlessly for him to recall his interrogation of her as well.

"However," he continued. "Whatever your reasons were for attacking me, fighting me isn't your only option...That's why I can't honor you with another match. Not in your weakened condition. Therefore, there must be a way we can settle our differences without using our insects, and without either of us dying for it."

He wanted to compromise?

He was willing to let her go, without taking revenge?

What kind of trick was this?

Aburame do not compromise, and they certainly don't forgive.

'Besides,' she mused in the nimbus of her dilemma. 'if I let even one of you Aburame live...more of the people I love will die in the end. You're too dangerous to compromise with. If killing you is the only way to stop this cycle of endless violence, then it would be reckless to let you live...And so, even if you walk away from me now, I-'

"You won't ever stop hunting me," an observant Shino muttered quietly, as if he could read her very thoughts from the burning resolve in her eyes. "The reason is because you're still determined to see this through."

The Kamizuru didn't back down.

Leaving Shino with only one conclusion.

"This fight means a lot to you. Why?...I still can't find a reason why...Although, knowing what you're willing to risk by fighting me, it would be a great dishonor for me not to accept your challenge," Shino said. "However, I will only agree to this fight on one condition. Whoever claims victory in our battle, the other will honor the winner's name by publicly acknowledging their true strength. And so, allow me to formally introduce myself as your opponent. I am Aburame, Shino of the Hidden Leaf."

He bowed respectfully to her again.

"When I learn your true name as my rival, I will officially accept your challenge," he said. "Until then, I will never face you in battle."

'Is he serious? There's no way I can ever agree to that. That spineless little housefly! He damn well knows I won't give him my name. He's only using it as an excuse to avoid actually fighting me. Does he really think that's gonna stop me? There's no way I'd let him get out of it that easy."

"And so, when you're finally ready to talk, we'll decide the true winner of this fight," Shino told her, as he resigned.

Leaving her burning in the spark of his self-righteous Aburame arrogance.

'He is by far the most aggravating insect I've ever met!'

Damn her injuries.

Damn the consequences.

This Aburame guy was asking for it.

And she, mistress of bees, would not be cornered into ultimatums and left trapped here like one of his insects.

Because even a domesticated honeybee is never fully tamed.

"I won't let you turn down another fight like this," she muttered spitefully at the Aburame's turned back. "Not without giving me the chance to prove myself. This isn't over between us."

Shino stopped walking, his instincts warning him that her arrogance hadn't improved since the first time they fought.

Defiantly forming her hand sign against him, as she merged her fiery contempt for his Aburame guts with the last bit of chakra he gave her.

"Insect Summoning Jutsu," she murmured as she began her attack.

"You couldn't beat me even if you had all of your chakra," Shino warned her, one last time.

"Then shut up and prove it."