Shifting Sands Chapter 13

Shikaku had a body count some of the most prolific ANBU members would pale in comparison to. The worst part was that it wasn't the enemies he laid claim to in battle, but his friends and countrymen that he killed. Shikaku woke up every day from a nightmare that had people he knew clawing at him, asking him why his plans failed, why they died. He didn't have the luxury of escaping those nightmares in the morning. It simply continued into his waking moment as this kind of nightmarish job.

He hated war. There was so much necessary yet unnecessary bloodshed at all times. He wondered why everyone couldn't just sit cozy in their little corner of the world and stop picking fights. The sky was so peaceful. More people would do well laying on a nice patch of grass and gazing up instead of down at a pair of knives. He wondered when people would stop their ceaseless cruelty, and more often than not he wondered why he was just as cruel.

But there was necessary bloodshed and then there was this.

Suzuki Hina was a fresh Genin, still a child even by Shinobi standards. It was almost unheard of to send a Genin on a mission this dangerous, let alone one who hadn't even completed a D-rank let alone a C-Rank. This spelt sabotage all over it and Shikaku couldn't figure out why.

"Hokage-sama, you can't expect me or my Clan to lay down and accept this," he ground out.

Hiruzen looked far too old for his age. Grey hairs were starting to form in the war. Normally Shikaku would have felt bad, even pitied the man who shared most of his same burden, but currently it had all gone out the window. No one messed with his Clansmen.

"Danzo's methods are cruel, but we cannot afford to interfere," Hiruzen said, shaking his head sadly.

"If we send an eight-year-old fresh out of the Academy Genin straight into an A-Rank, we aren't any better than the Bloody Mist! This goes against the will of our founders, of your sensei. Tobirama would spit on him for even suggesting this," Shikaku ground out.

Hiruzen's eyes went hard. "Sensei wished to create a utopia where children would not have to die in war. But we live in a harsh world and must face the reality of it."

"She hasn't even done a C-Rank yet! Please Hokage-sama, this is cruelty, not a necessity."

"ROOT is a necessity. Do you think we can continue fighting with honour against honourless opponents? Danzo's forces were integral to this plan, might I remind you, one you proposed yourself. We do not have a large enough team not already deployed skilled enough to conduct a mission like this without using ROOT agents," Hiruzen challenged.

Shikaku grit his teeth as he watched the old man take another drag of his pipe. His shoulders normally relaxed from the motion, but right now it stayed stiff in his white garb. Shikaku had to physically stop himself from taking his hitaite and throwing it at the man's feet. If this was Konoha, he wasn't sure if he wanted to serve it any longer. Hot anger and shame at his own incompetence nearly made him cry.

He felt like a pressure cannister left to simmer and boil. The report in his hand of another failed mission made him want to vomit. 10 killed. He personally knew three of those Shinobi. There was a 15-year-old girl in the team, an upcoming Jounin prospect which for a 15-year-old was impressive. Another life snuffed before it even had the potential to flourish. He thought of Hina out there, barely the height of his knee, surrounded by frost and danger at every corner, admits the coldest of Shinobi, doing an A-Rank mission before she even made her first kill.

"Hold it together Shikaku," Hiruzen ordered.

His tone was militaristic. It made Shikaku stand straighter, his shoulders practically locked in place. A reflex, nothing more.

Then with a softer touch, the 40-year-old man put a hand on his shoulder, brown eyes softening sympathetically. "Sometimes I forget you're young. Only 23 and carrying all this responsibility on your shoulders."

Shikaku thought it was disrespectful to call him young and mull over his burdens, when Hiruzen felt it okay in the same breath to not consider an 8-year-old with the same sympathy.

"I'm not the one fighting and dying," he grit out.

"But it feels all the same, doesn't it? This is my third war, and it's bad, if not worse, sitting here planning than it is being out there fighting," Hiruzen admitted.

Shikaku blinked. It was sometimes so easy to forget how much Sarutobi Hiruzen had gone through, how much he had seen. Only 40, and he had witnessed the lives of the first and second Hokages, then the three wars after that would ravage it. It hit Shikaku that Hiruzen would have only been around his age when he became Hokage. One of the youngest to start. Hashirama and Tobirama had burned brightly and quickly like fireworks at a festival, leaving the decades of ruling after to Hiruzen. Decades that would find the man in tumultuous times.

Then he remembered Hina, and all that sympathy was stained with something dark.

"How do you handle it? All this death?" he asked.

Hiruzen looked tired as he sat back down at his desk. "Time has a way of making one numb to things. Do you know why we have students hunt to kill during survival training at such a young age?"

Shikaku shook his head knowing what he said wouldn't be the answer Hiruzen was looking for. He had always thought of it as a necessity. Learning to hunt was simply a way to ensure independence during a mission. The last thing they needed was a team starving out there because they ate their rations too quickly.

"It's sensitivity training as much as it is survival training. We start off with animals, then criminals, then shinobi, and finally civilians. Once a Shinobi can kill all that was mentioned easily then their hand will be tested… on children, pregnant women, the elderly. At the end of the day there are very few mission requests that are denied, and no one is exempt from greedy eyes, even the vulnerable," he said, putting his hat on the table.

Shikaku frowned.

"Humans are adaptable creatures. Witness something long enough, drench ourselves in blood deep enough, and it seeps into the very marrow of our bones. Children are the most adaptable of us all. Orochimaru had always said the early years of development were the most crucial to building moral character…"

As Hiruzen talked, Shikaku's stomach flipped uneasily. The Hokage had always been soft towards children. He had even seen the man play catch with some he met on the streets on a whim. He handled them with care and kindness. With his own son there was a well manufactured emotional distance, but there was still warmth there. Now… it was almost like his eyes were blank of all empathy, nothing but a shell. Shikaku knew in this moment it would be almost impossible to convince the man to call off this mission, or to pull Hina from the group. But if there was even a small chance…

"I practically raised her. She's like a daughter. If not as the Hokage, then listen to me as a father. Don't put her on the team. Take Orochimaru off, assign her a C-Rank and build her up to this."

"If I question Danzo for his methods on a matter this small, then we will have no leg on issues of actual importance," he said.

"Hina is not a small matter, she is important," Shikaku ground out.

Hiruzen let out a sad chuckle. "In the grand scheme of things, she is not."

Shikaku had always prided himself on his composure, but in this moment he crumpled. He bit his own palms as tears of anger threatened to overtake him. Jinshou, Tanami, Chizoru, Kento, Hanta… and a dozen other names came to mind. He grew up with Tanami and Chizoru. They had graduated in the same year, ran races together, sparred, went to the Winter Matsuri. He had even kissed Chizoru once as a child when they thought they were in love, and then they'd broken up the next week because he forgot their 7th day anniversary. The memories were all innocent, but now it felt corrupted. Like he wasn't allowed to imagine them with any kind of warmth because he had planned their missions and sent them to their deaths.

He remembered taking Hina out to the park, teaching her a Nara kata, watching with pride as she performed her first jutsu. He'd only been a teen then, but he felt like a father or an older brother. He and Hanami had raised Hina together. He wondered if she'd die and all the memories he held fondly would leave him with a bitter taste on his tongue forever. He wondered if eventually he'd find another child only to watch them die, and it would happen again and again and like Hiruzen had prophesied he would send the next one to die without even a guilty glance.

"What's the point of fighting if we all just become monsters? If we're fine with sending a little girl to her death for no reason?!" he asked.

"You're dismissed Shikaku."

He jolted up in shock. Hiruzen looked at him hard again, all sympathy gone.

"You're in no mental state to continue your work for today. Take a day to clear your head. Do whatever you need to do and come back tomorrow with no regrets. If you can't do that, I'll have to find another Jounin Commander."

"Hai, Hokage-sama," he said numbly.

He got up and left without a word, holding back the urge to scream and break something. He remembered his father's words. The words of a man who died when he was too young to even take on Clan Head duties.

Don't ever dwell on your mistakes or you'll end up living a life of regrets. Instead learn and change. Be better.

Don't dwell on mistakes. Learn, change, be better. That was his Nindo, but right now he didn't know how to be better, not when mistakes were inevitable in war, not when sacrifices were necessary. He was lost, confused. It was a rare day when his mind couldn't come up with an answer to a problem. His feet eventually found its way back to the park he and Hina had frequented often. A little girl swung across the monkey bars giggling, and he caught a brief vision of Hina's incredible dexterity on the bars. She had always slithered across surfaces effortlessly.

He sat and watched the kids play for a bit, then rubbed tiredly at his eyes. He'd spent countless hours planning the mission that would send the child he raised to her death. It wasn't a guarantee, of course. She very well could survive. Children in Kiri didn't have D-Ranks to start off with. They too were simply thrown in deep water and expected to swim to the surface. But Konoha was not Kiri, and if Danzo had his way, this was how it would be going forward.

He was regretful when Hiruzen had given Orochimaru approval to take Hina on as a personal student. Not that he doubted the Sannin's ability to teach, but because the three-man team had been so important to him growing up in the Second Shinobi War. If he didn't have both Choza and Inoichi by his side, he would have died many times through even despite the best efforts of his Sensei. While he had forged a bond with his Sensei, it was nothing like the transcendent connection of oneness he had with his Genin team. They had become family, working together like a well-oiled machine. The title of Ino-Shika-Cho maybe didn't sound as impressive as Sannin, but the fact that their names had been hyphenated, combined, just proved how important they were to each other.

Hina would have none of that.

She was isolated from her family already, and with missions being as long and as frequent as it was, she would be isolated from her friends too. Orochimaru wasn't the type to show affection or emotional availability for the kind of horrors he knew she would face, so she'd be alone out there too. He had some relief that she was protected by a Sannin at first, but now the outright A-Rank mission she was being sent to on her first go… well it had shattered whatever reassurances he had told himself. He was Clan Head. How could he have failed a child he had adopted into his Clan this badly?

"Are you okay? Nara Shikaku, right? You used to come here with the green haired child?" a woman asked.

Shikaku blinked slowly, not entirely present, and then nodded. The thirty something woman was holding a baby in her hands, looking at him with worry.

"You're not here with her?"

"No… I came here to think."

"Problems with your daughter?"

"She's not my…" he hesitated to completely deny her. "She's a Shinobi, going on her first mission."

The woman nodded knowingly. "It's hard to let them go isn't it, especially when you've spent years fretting over the smallest of scrapes and bruises. I had to let my oldest boy go to be a Shinobi too. I'm more worried he'll choke on his food and die, than dying in battle. He's clumsy like that."

Shikaku chuckled softly and she gave him a winning smile. He had no idea who she was, but it was a nice gesture regardless.

"How do you let them go?" he asked.

"You just have to trust that they'll take your teachings out into the world. Prepare them with what you can and let them fly from the nest. It's a leap of faith."

He pondered it for a moment, looking at the kids playing freely in the park again. He had failed to prevent her from going on the mission for now. He would keep trying, even if it got him fired from his position. He could even make a claim that Orochimaru was unfit to train a Genin and try to reassign her elsewhere. It would have been easier to do if she weren't already assigned to a mission, but at least that would ensure she wasn't sent to another one like this. For now, he needed to make sure he prepared her.

"Thank you. It's good to be reminded that I'm not the smartest person in the village," he said, smiling.

She chuckled. "You're as haughty as your daughter."

He shook his head fondly before thanking the woman more sincerely this time and leaving. There was 4 days left until the mission would take place. Too little time to do any form of physical training, but more than enough time to prepare her for mission specifics. He would have normally left that to Orochimaru, but the Sannin was working directly with ROOT. Right now Shikaku didn't trust Danzo as much as he did the goddamn Raikage. Even if it was a slight to the sensei's teaching ability to interfere without their request, he would forgo all propriety to make sure his kid was safe.

Hina thought going shopping with Orochimaru had to be the most surreal experience of her life so far. Despite herself, she was finding it hard to adjust to his presence. She was reassured he didn't want her dead for now. That wasn't exactly a promise of her safety. There were several fates worse than death. Being one of his permanent test subjects for one. That worry had been buried in the background of the more imminent threat of an A-Rank for a first mission. She was pretty sure even Kakashi didn't have to suffer this kind of bullshit.

Orochimaru at least didn't have to be so flippant about it. He was probably of the belief that if she died, she wouldn't have been worth it anyway. He'd discard her without a moment's hesitation if she did die. She sighed as he picked out another water-resistant coat for her before shaking his head when she wore it.

"That won't do. Too big," he said.

The store owner's eye twitched. "That's the 34th jacket she wore. It's the last one in our range."

"Your apparel is lacking in many ways. This would disrupt her mobility, and the hem is not cross-stitched."

Hina sighed, holding back a complaint because that would be unprofessional. This was for her job after all.

"Sensei, how about the one I said I wanted. I know it doesn't have enough pockets for your liking, but you could just get me a sealing scroll," she said, trying to keep her voice even.

"Sealing scrolls are good for camping equipment. If you want to pull it out during battle at your level, expect a kunai lodged in-between your eyes before you can unfurl the scroll," he said dryly.

Hina held her heart and huffed dramatically at his cutting words. Unhappy with everything, and having wasted the salesperson's time, Orochimaru dragged her out the store. Hina sent the man an apologetic look as she was dragged to the next store. And like that they went through several more clothes before he settled on a dark blue jacket for her, double lined with wool, and not too 'big' for his standards. She then bought a pair of simple waterproof white wool lined jeans, and water-resistant enclosed toe shoes. She was surprised when Orochimaru paid for her items.

"Sensei, I can do it," she insisted.

He raised a brow looking very pointedly at her current clothes. She flushed as she realised it was a bit more on the cheaper side, and right now she had tried on some rather good quality material and stitching. She had been reluctant to buy something this nice, especially since she was still growing. She wasn't sure if it would fit properly after the mission was done either.

"I will take care of all your mission needs," he said dismissively before turning to the cashier, "and make another pair of these in a size above."

"Huh?"

"You will grow."

She pinched herself to see if she was dreaming. Nope. This was real. How, she had no idea. She didn't think Orochimaru of all people could be so considerate. She was reevaluating everything about him as they made their way back to his lab.

"Since you will be working with the new team, I will have to update you on their hand signs. It's different from Konoha standard. There are similarly some more protocol changes when it comes to them."

"How different?" Hina asked.

"Quite."

The short answer was enough to make her stop her next line of questions. She knew that Orochimaru didn't talk openly about ROOT matters. He liked to do it privately, which made sense. No need to have to kill a curious civilian because they found out too much about something they shouldn't know. It made her queasy. The outright brutality of what she had inadvertently signed up to was beyond normal warfare.

She wasn't happy to be stuck in her own silent thoughts the rest of the trip. As they neared the mountain entrance, she was surprised to see Shikaku waiting by the door. She turned to Orochimaru who looked mildly murderous. She was going to get caught in-between their squabbling, and normally that would have annoyed her, but right now seeing Shikaku was a relief. It meant he knew. And judging by the unhappy expression on his face, he didn't like what he found out. This was beyond a relief. At least any illicit things ROOT would try to do to her wouldn't be overtly possible with Shikaku backing her. She had no idea if Danzo's more secretly run ROOT teams would try anything, but that wasn't exactly something she could counter so early in her career. There was no point stressing about things beyond her control.

"What a surprise to see you here Shikaku-san. Wouldn't the Jounin Commander be busy with meetings on a day like this?" Orochimaru asked pleasantly.

"I took some time off, after all one of my youngest Clansmen is off on her first mission," he said, giving off an equally sharp smile.

Hina looked between the two men and took a bite of her sweet bread. Then she decided to ignore the both of them and walk inside. Behind her Orochimaru and Shikaku made thinly veiled threats at each other hidden behind sweet words. She was quickly tiring of their bickering. For the life of her she could never do this kind of verbal sparring. She was book smart, not people smart. Anything she said would probably make this entire situation worse.

"Let me check the quality of the equipment you purchased, after all I have a keen eye for gear," Shikaku said.

"Why, do you have no faith in my abilities? After all I am a Sannin. I've been using this kind of equipment for twice as long as you've lived."

"It couldn't hurt to have a second opinion, would it?"

Hina went to take another bite of her bun and realised it was over. She sighed as she sat down and watched them smile murderously at each other. This was going to be a while.

Shikaku had sat down with her, giving both her and Orochimaru a very thorough run-down of the entire situation happening with the war, especially anything pertaining to their mission. Things were not going their way. Konoha was located in a rather ideal place, with lots of trees and farmable land on every end. Not to mention the founders of Konoha had been the two most powerful clans during the warring states era. That meant a lot of other central clans joined Konoha for their protection. There were also downsides to their current position. The Land of Fire was smack bang in the middle of the continent, Iwa to the Northwest, Kumo to the Northeast, Kiri to the Southeast, and Suna to the Southwest. Suna was currently too stuck in a famine to really participate in the war, but Iwa, Suna and Kiri were in an all-out brawl with Konoha. Kumo and Kiri had also formed a shaky alliance with each other, bolstering Kumo's already powerful forces. Iwa had been reluctant to do the same to Konoha, and while they had skirmishes with Kumo, geographically they were too far away to get caught up in battles often with each other. This left Konoha both extremely accessible and with no allies in the conflict.

Hina thought if Konoha didn't have their medic corps system and the number of talented Shinobi in their arsenal that they did, they would have lost ages ago. She paled to consider what a home invasion would look like. She couldn't imagine it'd be anything but brutal and bloody. All in all, they were in a shitty position with way too many enemies. The only thing keeping them going was their semi-control of the Land of Rice, and their successful shadow annexations of the other smaller regions surrounding them. Hina knew what Shikaku described as trade agreements were more akin to threats of invasion should those smaller nations refuse to cooperate.

The current mission to The Land of Frost was essential. It was wedged between Rice and Lightning. Frost was a neutral party, but they often helped Lightning considering they were neighbours, and it would have been suicide on Frost's part to anger Kumo. But Shimogakure was only a small Shinobi force, and right now during wartime they were a hinderance, a point of entry between Rice and Fire. There were rumours that Rice was providing grain and other food to Kumo via Frost. A strategic breakdown of their supply chains to Kumo would set back their hidden village for the rest of the war, allowing Konoha to focus simply on Iwa with a secondary eye on Kiri.

The magnitude of the mission was not lost on her. It was vital, almost historical. She was pretty sure this mission would be written down brief as it was in future history books. It struck her that she was participating in one of the longest and bloodiest battles of Shinobi history. Somehow, she had the twisting gut feeling that she couldn't imagine the horrors she would witness. She knew logically what was out there, but she'd hardly fought anyone to the death in her previous, rather peaceful life. She hadn't even fired a gun.

Her thoughts weighed heavy on her the night before she was to leave. She kept glancing at the clock, and her stomach turned. She picked up a pickled radish with her chopstick and ate it gingerly. Her brother gave her a concerned glance, scrunching up his nose. She didn't notice until he broke the chatter of her parents with his question.

"You never eat your raddish. What's going on?" he asked.

She hadn't told them about the mission. It was more for her own peace of mind than theirs. If she'd told them a couple of days ago when the missive came, she knew her mother would throw a fit, or ignore her even more than usual. This could be the last few days she had a meal with them. She had no delusions about her mortality. Somehow, she didn't want those last few days to be bitter memories.

"I'm going on my first mission tomorrow," she said.

Her father nodded with a smile. "I had a few Genin come over to fix up our signpost before. Do you know what you've been tasked with?"

She swallowed the sour radish and her lips thinned. "It's a long-term infiltration and sabotage mission."

The table went utterly silent until Taichi cocked his head in confusion. "How long, a couple of weeks?"

"6 months more or less," she said.

His brown eyes widened marginally. She caught his cup before he nearly spilt it over.

"6 months! That's so long!"

"I can't give any details but it's an important one. I won't sugar coat it either. It's very dangerous, I might not make it back," she said.

Her father shook his head in disbelief, looking furious. She stared at her mother instead who'd gone stone faced, holding Tsukiya closer to her chest. Hina looked down, feeling out of her depth a little. When she signed up to be a Shinobi, she knew what it entailed. The killing and danger were no doubt just a part of the lifestyle. She did it for the power and choices being a Shinobi would give her. Some part of her knew she would have wilted away and died if she just took on with their peaceful family business. That life was not for her. But that didn't mean she liked how quickly her career was progressing. Her first mission and it was an A-Rank. This was the kind of shit Iwa and Kiri pulled, not what she thought Konoha would do. Hiruzen had known and he'd let it happen.

In the next election she'd throw graffiti all over his stupid billboard, not that they'd have one… this was a military dictatorship after all…

"Do you regret it?" Yua asked, breaking her from her trance.

Hina didn't know how to answer that properly. She frowned. "I think I regret how it turned out for me, but I don't regret becoming a Shinobi. I won't pretend to be an ignorant child though kaasan, tousan… my situation isn't… ideal. Wash your hands off me if it makes this easier for you."

In reality she just wanted to scream at them to cry for her, to mourn her if she died. She wanted them to hug her like a real family would, wipe the tears from her eyes and tell her she'd come back alive to them. They sat only a table-width from her, but it felt like the distance across the ocean. Instead of the warmth of familial comfort, she sensed a profound void—a sense that in their hearts, they had already buried her, mourned, and forgotten a loss that had not yet come to pass.

She couldn't blame them. Civilian children had incredibly bad mortality rates in the war. They died in the thousands. They thought she'd be just another statistic. Maybe she would be. She thought she'd have a chance if she had been allowed on missions more suitable to her skill-level.

She got up from the table, grimacing as she turned to her grim looking parents. What was there to say? She wanted to connect with them, but the time for that had long gone. Only Taichi looked at her like she actually existed anymore, but she wondered if maybe it was better she didn't. That way if she did die, then they could go on living without feeling the loss of a child and a sister. Tsukiya at least wouldn't have any recollection of her.

But for now she made a silent promise to fight until the bitter end. To never give up no matter the odds. Then maybe… when she survived, she'd claw herself out of this early grave and kick Danzo's ass for messing with her.

A/N

It frankly baffles me that any Hokage would allow a Shadow Hokage to exist after what Madara did to Hashirama. But we live in a world where Hiruzen just lets Danzo repeat history. Not that I hate it mind you. Danzo is hands down my most favourite Naruto villain, and in my opinion one of the best characters in general. I hate him, in a good way. Not in the way you hate a character because of bad writing like Sakura, but in the way the author makes you hate someone because they're actually despicable. Having Danzo pretty much strong arming Hiruzen, caused the majority of conflict within Naruto, and you can't have a good story without conflict.

Anyway I promise the mission starts in the next chapter. And thanks for all your amazing comments. It fuels the flames of my writing passion to know people are invested enough to leave their thoughts.