WhIP

by footfungus

nederlands verhalen over mijn otp

210. Chapter 210

Rise

Sai, inexplicably, felt the most comfortable he had been since the mission's start.

There was a tiger sitting in the Doushaburi market square. Sai blinked. And then blinked again. He didn't quite dare disrupt his chakra to check for genjutsu, but a woman turned the corner next to him, flinched and said, "oh, fuck," before continuing on her way, so he was at least reassured that he was not the only one seeing the creature.

It was huge and thick-furred, orange-amber and streaked with inky stripes, and its underside was a snowy white. Unlike the city's common alley cats, its ears were rounded and a shaggy ruff framed its face.

An androgynous shinobi sat between its massive paws with one arm propped casually on a bent knee, their dark hair just brushing the underside of the tiger's chin. Their eyes were a gleaming gold to match the tiger's, alert and keen despite the shinobi's relaxed pose. They looked perhaps seventeen or eighteen - younger than Shisui-sensei, but older than Itachi-sensei. They wore a fur-collared haori over a dark tank and no flak jacket, setting them firmly out of the lower caste and likely in the upper caste, and a Kiri hitai-ate with ends that trailed down their back.Purpose: intimidation, monitoring of the city, identification of suspicious persons or behaviors.

Sai glanced around the square. The other villagers gave the tiger and the shinobi a wide berth, but the square was small and the two difficult to avoid entirely. He turned back towards the shinobi and discovered with a start that they were staring back at him, those strange eyes glimmering in the morning sun. They smiled, flashing a hint of a pointed canine. "Would you like to pet her?" they asked in a smooth voice halfway between a man and a woman's typical vocal register.

Sai hesitated, glancing over his shoulder. There was nobody there but him. He glanced back at the shinobi, who raised their eyebrow, reaching up to bury one hand in their tiger's ruff. "Don't be shy," they said, beckoning with a jerk of their chin. "I won't let her hurt you."

What would a civilian do? His time spent among civilian street children taught him that they were curious and often too bold for their own good. Sensei had told him to stay away from shinobi, but approaching this shinobi might help his cover and give him mission-relevant information. However, if the beast did indeed attempt to attack him, his cover would be well and truly blown, and he would risk exposing his team as well.

Course of action: maximize civilian persona, decrease reflexes. Approach the shinobi.

He took a step closer, then another. The tiger turned its head towards Sai - its first movement, and Sai froze.

The shinobi's hand drifted up to the tiger's muzzle. "Don't worry," they said, smiling encouragingly. "She's friendly, I promise. What's your name?"

Sai stopped just short of arm's reach. "I'm Itaru," he said, adding a thread of tentativeness to his voice.

The shinobi's smile widened, and Sai could see both of their upper canines were longer and pointed, like a cat's. "Nice to meet you, Itaru-kun. I am Ren, and she is called Koharu." The tiger, Koharu, blinked once, languidly, and flicked her tail. Sai hesitated, skittering backwards a step.

"No, no," Ren said reassuringly, patting at Koharu's face. The tiger heaved a gentle sigh, and shifted until she was lying down, half-curled around the shinobi. "Look," they said. "She's fine. She's not going to hurt you." They patted the tiger's ruff. "Give her a good rub, right here. She likes it."

Sai inched forward again. Tentatively, he sidled up next to Ren and crouched. Close up, Koharu dwarfed him.Estimated weight: 320-360kg; estimated height at the shoulder: 125-130cm.With a long-suffering sigh, the tiger dropped her head so she sprawled completely on the ground, her head resting against the stone pavers.

Sai reached out. His hand sank into Koharu's fur. "It's soft," he said, surprised.

Ren laughed. "Yeah, she is," they said, rubbing the tiger's shoulder affectionately. "Koharu's a sweetheart."

"Smells like charcoal and ink," rumbled Koharu, and Sai almost jumped out of his skin.

As it was, he suppressed his reflexes forcibly and turned his flinch into a backwards stumble, tripping over his own feet and landing on his back. He blinked up at the sky in feigned stupor. Summons and familiars often did talk, but civilians generally found it unnerving.

"Koharu!" Ren admonished, laugher in their voice. "I'm sorry, Itaru-kun. That wasn't very nice of her."

"You, uh, talk," Sai stammered, sitting upright.

Two pairs of golden eyes watched him with amusement. "She does," said Ren, and winked once, languidly. "It's a secret," they said, putting their finger to their lips.

Sai widened his eyes and nodded. "Wow," he said. He inched forward again and stroked a hand along Koharu's thick neck. His hand sank in her plush coat, and the tiger blew out a staggered huff. Sai jerked his hand back, then realized the noise was pleased.

"Charcoal and ink," Ren noted, watching him with sharp eyes that belied their relaxed recline.

"I like drawing," Sai explained, sitting back on his heels and rummaging through his pockets. He produced a handful of folded papers, smeared with charcoal dust. "Ink is expensive so I don't get to use it as much."

Koharu sneezed as Ren took the papers delicately, examining them carefully one by one. "These are nice," they said. "Who are they?"

Sai had drawn villagers on his way to the square. "I don't know," he said. "People I saw today."

"They're good," Ren said, smiling up at Sai. Sai took his drawings back with a ducked head and a smile that felt strange on his face. "So, who did that to you?" they asked conversationally.

Saiexpected response: fear, suspicion, defensivenesspaused. "Did - did what?" he said.

"Hit you," Ren said bluntly. "Tell me," they insisted, as Koharu swung her head around to observe Sai more closely.

"Nobody," Sai said. "I fell."

"Itaru-kun," the shinobi said, their voice warm with just a hint of steel. "You move carefully, like someone kicked you in the ribs, and unless you bashed your own head against the ground four or five times, you didn't get those injuries from falling. So who did that to you?"

"Shinobi-san - " Sai said.

"Ren," the shinobi corrected patiently.

"R-Ren-san," Sai amended hesitantly. "It makes no difference. I'm an orphan, I live on the streets. Nobody will do anything whether I fall or whether someone hits me."

Ren clicked their tongue, disappointed. "They won't, if you don't say anything about it." Koharu growled a note of agreement deep in her chest.

Sai avoided their matching golden stares, concentrating on folding his drawings back into his pocket. "I have to go," he said. "I have to - I don't have lunch yet. I need to - "

"Stay," said Ren. "We won't ask, then."

Sai hesitated. Koharu shuffled back upright, leaning down to rest her head on Ren's shoulder and blink mournful eyes at Sai. "It - it won't look good, if the - if they see me spending so much time with a shinobi," Sai said apologetically.

Ren watched him, a slight downturn to their mouth. "I hoped it would be the opposite," they admitted. "Take care, Itaru-kun. Maybe we will see you around again. You're a good kid."

Sai smiled, but again it felt odd and stretched. You don't know that.

The encounter with the strange shinobi and their tiger told him very little, except that1) Kirigakure had shinobi to spare to post in its streets, perhaps due to recall of overseas forces; 2) Kirigakure did not trust its lower city; 3) not all of its shinobi were comfortable with the status quothe absolute control the Kirigakure loyalist regime desired - as well as their war effort - was more precarious than Sai previously believed.

Hinata greeted him at the door of their room with, "I don't know if that was safe, Itaru."

Sai crossed the room to her, a plastic bag of broth and another of fishcakes dangling from his hand. "You were watching," he noted, passing her the soup when she reached up.

"Aa," Hinata agreed cheerfully. "Rakushi and I agreed that one of us should watch you all the time." She smiled at Sai even as she poured the broth into their pot.

"Our resources can be better spent," Sai argued, but accepted that the arrangement might be necessary for maintenance of his teammates' mental and emotional wellbeing. Hinata's silence was politely disbelieving. "The tiger familiar was nonaggressive, and the shinobi as well." He paused. "I could not tell if the shinobi was male or female or neither. Could you?"

Hinata fumbled the empty broth bag. "J-just b-because I c-can s-see d-does not m-mean that I-I-I l-look," she said with dignity and a blush flaming red across her cheeks. "P-p-pass me the f-fishcakes."

"You must have noticed," Sai pressed. "A penis or breasts. Or neither. Or both."

Sai watched with a detached fascination as Hinata's face turned increasingly crimson. "T-t-t-that's - "

"I suppose they may identify as something other than their biological sex," he allowed, suddenly concerned that his teammate might faint. "It does not matter, then."

Gaara chose that moment to walk in. His eyes tracked slowly from Sai to Hinata and back to Sai before visibly dismissing their behavior.Sai, stay, after, meal,he signed.

"I took a guard shift here yesterday," Sai pointed out, but recognized that this may be yet another attempt at protecting him.

Inevitably, Sai thought bleakly two hours later, that attempt led to this:

Three hours past noon, when Sai was in their room alone, organizing the drawings crumpled and scattered and torn by the Osore's last visit, he heard the thump of unfamiliar footsteps down their stairs once again. He closed his eyes, set his half-sorted stack of paper aside, and stood resignedly.

Today, it wasidentification: Tousuzhi; alias: Tousu; age: 15; affiliation: street rat gang Osore; rank: grunt; status: civiliansomeone expected andidentification: Kotai; estimated age: 12-14; affiliation: street rat gang Osore; rank: runner; status: civiliansomeone unexpected.

Sai watched from under his eyelashes as the former swaggered into their room. "Good afternoon," Sai said politely, biting down on the unfamiliar tasteanger resentment hate?that burned at the back of his mouth. "Can I help you?"

Tousuzhi smiled, but those bared teeth struck Sai as particularly unfriendly. "Yeah, you can," the teen drawled, and Sai resigned himself to another afternoon of unpleasant interaction as the other moved forward to block the door.

Sai felt a familiar tug at his chakra and froze.

In the split second that he had, he weighed the missiontop priorityagainst his coverhigh priority, said, "Excuse me," and dove for his butcher paper.

Both civilians jerked back with loud cries as Sai's sumi rat hurtled through the air, impacting against the proffered paper. There was a beat of absolute silence as the ink snaked unnaturally across its untouched surface.

Sai dropped the paper.

"Witch!" spat the younger one, Kotai, stumbling backwards

"Shinobi," said Tousuzhi, sudden wariness in his eyes.

"This was not supposed to happen," Sai informed them regretfully, straightening to his full height rather than the half hunch that he adopted with Itaru's persona. They stared at him, their incredulity now tinged with fear, and Sai wondered if that cold grip at his chest was satisfaction or dread or an impending illness. He paused. "You realize I cannot allow you to leave here alive," he warned.

Tousuzhi's hand dropped to his side where his knife was strapped to his belt - a thin shiv of a fisherman's knife, not a kunai. Kouti whipped around to run.

Sai was faster. He sprang past Tousuzhi and caught Kotai by the shoulder, hurling him away from the doorway and against the far wall. Tousuzhi snarled and lunged, and Sai leaned back as the blade swiped past his face.

He seized the teen's wrist above the knife in one hand, and with the other rapped sharply on the elbow of the outstretched arm. A loud crack split the air as the joint dislocated and the teen cried out, dropping the knife. Sai snagged it from midair, giving Tousuzhi a shove as the teen stumbled away, clutching at his dangling arm. "I wish you were able to take this as a lesson," Sai lamented conversationally. "Unfortunately, this must remain between us today."

"Freak!" Tousuzhi spat, glaring at Sai from the far end of the room, pressed against the wall as though it may offer an escape.

"You were correct the first time," Sai clarified. "Shinobi." He spun the knife into a backhanded grip, easy and comfortable despite the unfamiliar weapon, and started forward.

But this felt...wrong. Sai could not understand why. The mission demanded he protect his identity at all costs, save endangering the mission.

Tousuzhi lunged, desperation and anger in the hard set of his eyes, and Sai felt his body respond instinctively, pivot on the ball of his foot and bring the blade up in a wide arch, felt the tug of resistance as the brittle knife tore through skin and flesh alike. He did not watch the body fall, only turned his face away as the blood sprayed through the air.

Movement flickered in the corner of his eye as Kotai tried to bolt once again. It was an easy matter for Sai to lash out in a low kick and send him sprawling on the ground. He landed hard, his foot slipping in the puddle slowly spreading from around Tousuzhi's still form. Sai straddled the older boy easily, pinning his arms with his knees.

There were tears in Kotai's eyes, which Sai noted clinically. Kotai's breath came in short, hard pants, too fast for optimal respiration. He must be lightheaded. "Please," gasped Kotai, the word half-sobbed as he jerked his entire body away from Sai.

Sai was shorter than Kotai and slighter as well, but even without chakra this civilian would not overpower him. "Please," Sai echoed blankly. "You understand why I must take this course of action, don't you?"

The other boy shook his head frantically, and tears tracked from the corners of his eyes. "Don't kill me, please don't kill me! I'm sorry, I won't tell anyone, I swear!" he babbled, mindless in his fear.

The uncomfortable constriction in Sai's chest increased. He must have acquired a viral infection in the preceding days. "But you would," he countered, heedless of Kotai's continued pleas. "I would, if I were in your shoes. I would find the first shinobi I could and tell them there was a rogue shinobi here."

The throat was the easiest way to kill a man - or a boy, or an animal. It boasted no bony protection, and there the blood ran close to the surface. Sai raised the blade to Kotai's throat, and the other boy stilled as its edge pressed against the point where his pulse fluttered. Sai's hands were sure and steady. Kotai's trembled and clenched.

Again the strange hesitation stilled his hand. Sai stared down curiously at the blade, as if it were the one offering him resistance.

Just as involuntarily, his hand jerked, carving open that untouched throat from ear to chin. Sai watched dispassionately as Kotai gurgled and choked. Failure could not be tolerated. Weakness must be extinguished. There was only the mission.

He turned away.

The billow of familiar sakki rammed into him as he was rescuing the last ink-rat-map that had provoked the incident to begin with from the floor. Gaara flew down the stairs and skidded into the doorway, and his killing intent vanished, quashed by shock. Belatedly, Sai looked down and realized how the room looked: Sai, a bloodied shiv in one hand and red streaked down his jacket; at his feet, two corpses sprawled carelessly, their throats weeping onto the floor; the ever-widening pool of blood threatening to soak their blankets.

Sai raised his head and met Gaara's wide eyes with his own. Both of them stared at the other with the closest either of them had come to panic.

"Help me hide the bodies before Tatsuko gets back," Sai said.

Gaara blinked dubiously. She, see, all,he signed.

"Not if she wasn't looking," Sai said grimly. "Her range does not exceed two kilometers."

Gaara paused, tilting his head as he considered the macabre scene more intently. His mouth twisted into a pout.Not, I, kill,he signed, accusatory.

"This was not planned," Sai said wearily. "You are still not allowed to kill anyone." He rolled his paper tightly and nudged the blankets out of the way of the blood with his foot. "Take care of the blood. It's spreading too fast."

From Sai's understanding, it took thought but not much chakra for Gaara to manipulate small amounts of sand small distances. Generally, this ability was useful for situations in which they needed to track something or for Gaara to change his appearance.

Now, it proved helpful for the jinchuuriki to unearth the little pockets of sand he had squirreled away around the factory during the nights when he stood guard by himself, in order to use that sand to soak up the blood like a particularly gritty sponge.

Sai folded their blankets up, stacking them in the furthest corner and watching out of the corner of his eye as Gaara crouched at the edge of the pool of blood, its spread curtailed by a little bank of sand. After a moment, he reached out and dipped his finger in it, then streaked the blood across his face. It glistened, wet and crimson, then slowly sank into his sand armor. Sai had thought it a strange quality when first he encountered it - but Zabuza-sensei's sword behaved much the same, and he could not deny its practical application.

But though Gaara's sand could take care of the blood, there was yet the two corpses to dispose of.

Gaara could - and quite eagerly would - simply pulverize them with his sand and absorb their remains; he had done so with a Suna Anbu just a month after they met for the first time. However, that would send up a flare large enough for even the most chakra-blind shinobi to feel from the harbor, rendering useless the pains they had taken to use their chakra sparingly throughout their mission.

They would have to take care not to leave tracks; a murder was a flashier thing than a random spike of chakra in the city, though not by much. Bodies dropped every day, but these had people who cared if they went missing.

Option: dispose of the corpses in one of the canals. Advantage: no blood trail; disadvantage: high probability of immediate discovery by Kiri shinobi.

Option: dispose of the corpses in one of the dumpsters. Advantage: unlikely to be discovered by a shinobi; disadvantage: high probability of discovery by a street orphan.

Option: contact Shisui-sensei for assistance. Advantage: Shisui-sensei's experience would likely contribute a more viable solution; disadvantage: endangerment to their covers.This option felt remarkably similar to admitting defeat.

Sai glanced back down at his hands. Available resources: himself, Gaara, Gaara's sand, one 12cm fishing knife. Insufficient to break down corpses.

He paused contemplatively. They did not need to prevent discovery - only prevent the deaths from being traced back to them. "Dumpster," he said out loud. "We need a tarp."

Gaara wrinkled his nose - not at the prospect of rotting things, but at the process of moving the bodies there. He stalked out the door.

Sai turned back to the problem of the bodies. Elbows and knees and necks were easy to sever - between the bones was only a little cartilage, and the fishing knife could manage so much. He had already begun the process in each with the killing strike.

He stepped carefully on the sand, his feet sinking in slightly as it gave under his weight. Kotai lay as Sai had left him, sprawled on his back with both legs outstretched and one bloodstained hand reaching in vain for his throat. Blood splattered his mouth and lower face, dark and nearly congealed now, and his eyes stared emptily at nothing.

Sai reached down to grip Kotai's hair, baring the red slit bisecting his throat. He looked, and he cut.

They made a strange pair, skulking through the lower city's loneliest back alleys with a bulging blanket - not theirs, but one Gaara had returned with once Sai had finished his grisly task. Sai's heart beat steadily in his throat, a warning and a reassurance in one. He did not dare cross into another district. Shinobi might overlook a lone street rat loitering near the boundary fences, but one with two torsos and corresponding heads and limbs in tow would prove too suspicious and too dangerous to ignore.

Perhaps the shinobi did not notice them, but the carrion crows did, drawn to the stench of death emanating from their burden that Sai could not shake and which Gaara did not bother trying. They perched on the eaves and watched with judgemental eyes as Sai heaved the entire thing into the dumpster and climbed in after it to cover it with refuse as best he could. "Get them away," he told Gaara over his shoulder. "They draw too much attention."

Gaara stared blankly at him for a moment before reaching down to pick up a pebble.

Hinata walked into their room that evening with her tin of money in the crook of her arm and a bag of something fried dangling from her hand. She hesitated just briefly midstep, a slight frown creasing her forehead. "It smells like blood," she said slowly.

Sai resisted the urge to look around. There was no more blood on the ground - Gaara's sand had seen to that - and what had splattered on his jacket had washed right off the water-resistant cloth; it now hung drip-drying from a rusty nail in the corner.

"My construct returned while you were gone," he said instead, laying down the final piece of the map over the inked path with deliberately careful hands, as if this were all he had done this afternoon. Some of the drawings were crumpled and torn from yesterday's ordeal, the rice paper too delicate to withstand the abuse, but the picture they formed was clear enough. He had known what the trail would show before he even began building the map over it.

His following silence alerted her to a change, and her frown deepened. "What does it show?"

"Number Four," Sai said aloud, a strange satisfaction curling in his chest. "Passway confirmed. Mission success."

Hinata smiled then - not Tatsuko's light, vapid thing or Kyuu's cold, satisfied bared teeth - but a Hinata smile, tentative and small and radiant. "Good," she said simply, and then Tatsuko's exuberance overtook her. "Good thing I have takoyaki!" she chirped. "We can celebrate."

Celebration had not occurred to Sai, but across the room where he was swaddled in blankets with his eyes half-lidded with irritation at the cold, Gaara straightened, interest sparking in the glint of his eyes. Eight-leg-fish,he signed at Sai.

Another of Gaara's strange fixations. Sai suspected he liked the texture. "Yes, octopus," he said aloud. "Where did you get it?"

Hinata beamed. "Jitsuko-baachan bought it for me," she said, reminding Sai why of the three, Hinata spent the most time gathering resources on the streets. "She said I looked cold."

Sai made the requisite responses and reached for the ricebenefits: filling, provides necessary nutrients, source of energy, to bolster the takoyaki. Hinata made no further remark as to the scent of blood, but Sai wondered if the metallic tang he still smelled rose from Gaara's sand or his own memory.

Sai awoke when someone loomed over him. He tensed and opened his eyes, but relaxed when he recognized Gaara, crouched in front of him with a particularly intent stare. Sai raised an eyebrow in question, not willing to speak aloud with Hinata asleep at his back, the quiet rhythm of her breathing uninterrupted.

Out, come, now,Gaara signed. He paused, then repeated,nowwith impatient insistence. Sai frowned, but Gaara did not seem unusually alarmed or agitated.

He rose, gathering his jacket around him, and followed Gaara outside. They emerged into the ruined warehouse, its wide open crumbling floors gaping into the darkness below, and more shadows still draping from the support beams stretching to the rafters. At the far wall, where the grimy cracked glass threw refracted moonlight over them, Gaara stopped and turned, expectantly. Sai halted as well and stiffened, too late.

"Hi," said Shisui-sensei. "A little bird told me you dumped two corpses in the middle of the city yesterday."

Gaara vanished abruptly back into the shadows, but Shisui-sensei's eye pinned Sai in place. He remembered, with the icy clarity of hindsight, that his sensei had called crows to be his eyes, that day when he and the other sensei tore a warship apart and pulled Team Byakko from its depths.

Shisui-sensei felt sharper today, colder, his eye trained steadily on Sai and his posture the shinobi's coiled readiness. The lighter, more eye-catching clothes of his disguise had been eschewed in favor of simple, dark clothes, more like the standard chuunin-jounin Konoha blues or Kiri greys. Sai understood: he was here as the mission commander, and had elected to endanger his cover to do so.

Something he could not identify paralyzed Sai's throat. Shisui-sensei watched him impassively.When a commanding officer gives you an order, you obey. When a commanding officer asks you a question, you answer. When a commanding officer speaks to you, you respond.Sai wrestled down the foreign resistance and said, with great effort, "Hai."

Sai expected the snapping anger from when Sasuke and Naruto had started a fight in Kitakyushu and brought Konoha shinobi to investigate or even the previous day, when Sai showed up to their rendezvous battered and bruised, or the cold authority he wielded when challenged by other shinobi. Instead, Shisui-sensei did not react but to say, calmly, "You should have told me."

Sai had received no orders to do so explicitly, but his pulse jumped nonetheless at the implication of orders disobeyed. "I did not want to endanger your cover," he explained. And, when Shisui-sensei did not respond, dared to venture, "Would you have directed me to do something else?"

"I assume you had a good reason for killing them," Shisui-sensei said instead, tipping his head slightly to eye Sai more keenly.

"A Passway," Sai said, relieved to finally have a correct answer. "One of my scouts returned at an unfortunate moment, and I was forced to reveal myself or risk its self-destruction." He chanced a glance sideways at Shisui-sensei, but his face was still blank.

And then, perhaps the most jarring part of their encounter, Shisui-sensei said, "Okay."

It was a neutral response, when Sai expected either positive for preserving the mission or negative for endangering their covers. "Okay?" he parroted, before he could stop himself.

"You made the best decision you could given the information and resources you had," Shisui-sensei agreed.

It occurred to Sai that Shisui-sensei had perhaps not come to reprimand him. He stood in silence, confused, and not quite sure what to do with that information.

Shisui-sensei lifted his chin a little, no longer looking directly at Sai. "To take a life is no small thing; killing a person outside the battlefield, someone is not your enemy - that will weigh on you. On your soul."

A soul? Surely shinobi did not have the luxury to think of such abstract things. "Weren't they our enemies?" he asked instead.

"They were civilians," Shisui-sensei said, not precisely answering him. "Children. They had no quarrel in shinobi matters."

Sai had, in fact, registered these two facts, but Shisui-sensei's tone prompted him toclassify 'civilian children' as: do not killredefine his value of 'enemy.'

"Sai," Shisui-sensei said, and he jolted at hearing his name instead of his cover's. "I just wanted to make sure you're okay."

"Yes," Sai said automatically, confused. "I am well."

Shisui-sensei frowned then, and Sai suspected that this had not been the answer his sensei had been looking for. "Avoid killing in the future," Shisui-sensei added, the shadows beneath his brows deepening a little, "especially on undercover reconnaissance. It complicates things." He fell silent again, but Sai sensed that this particular conversation would continue at a later date. "The scout," Shisui-sensei said after a moment. "Did it find anything?"

"Yes," said Sai, the pinch in his back lessening at the return to more familiar territory, then paused, unsure if describing the smuggling Passway's route was the most efficient method of delivery. "I can show you," he offered. "The map is in our room."

Shisui-sensei hummed approvingly. "Good work," he said warmly. "Lead the way."

Gaara lurked at the top of the stairs, watching silently with luminous eyes as Shisui-sensei followed Sai towards their room. Sai tilted his head questioningly but Gaara ignored him, so he moved on to the steps. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shisui-sensei reach out to ruffle Gaara's hair affectionately, and the jinchuuriki leaned into his hand, eyes half closing at the touch.

Hinata's form, barely visible in the moonlight streaming past their torn curtain, was still and quiet. Sai padded across the floor to the crate with his drawings. Shisui-sensei ghosted in after him, watching still and patient with a red-whirling eye as Sai fit the drawings over the ink trail.

A dull boom shook the walls; the papers jerked from his hands involuntarily as the ground rumbled. The slow wail of a siren split the air, and Hinata bolted upright even as Sai flinched, jerking into a defensive crouch. "What was that?" she demanded, and then snapped her head around to stare at Shisui-sensei. Her Byakugan must have activated spontaneously in her alarm. "Captain?"

Kyuu was the only persona - and only one of the pack - who called Shisui-sensei by his rank.

A higher, faster siren joined the first, followed by the rumble of distant explosions. "The siege," Shisui-sensei said, faintly bemused, striding back towards the stairs. "They've started the invasion."

Even so far from the port, the sounds of distant battle carried faintly on the wind. Gaara was already back at the window, perched precariously on the narrow sill as he peered through the fractured glass. As they watched, in a tight cluster before the window, a crackle of lightning illuminated the rooftops, and the ground trembled beneath their feet.

Sai's life could be divided into several different distinct periods, always with a clear turning point: the Fall, leaving San's forest, leaving Kitakyushu, and so on. This, he sensed, as the light of a katon dispelled the night for just a moment, was the beginning of the end of one such period.

Shisui-sensei blew out a short breath, a nearly soundless huff drowned out by the distant clash outside. "Your mission is different now," he said, swivelling to fix each member of Sai's team with a keen stare. "From now on, your assignment is to stay hidden, retrieve intel from your scouts and wait for extraction."

"Our mission is over?" Hinata clarified, the blindfold twitching a little as she narrowed her eyes. "And we are just waiting for the Hanran and Hana-ha to reach us."

"Aa. It's going to take some time for our forces to push through the streets. Don't be seen," Shisui-sensei instructed, his voice grim. "Osore knows to come here to find you; don't be here. You don't play that game anymore. And don't do anything that will attract attention from any shinobi, our side or theirs."

No one could see what Hinata was looking at, since with her doujutsu active she could see all, but Sai was fairly confident that she was staring at him. Gaara's eyes drifted gradually to Sai's face, rested there for a split second, then moved slowly back out the window. Sai, for his part, had not taken his eyes off Shisui-sensei's face.

Shisui-sensei paused. "I guess one of you had to be the troublemaker," he said wryly. "What did you do?"

The back of Sai's neck prickled uncomfortably. Troublemaker. Rebellious. Disobedient. Unacceptable."I did speak to a shinobi yesterday," he admitted, "in the interest of gathering information. I learned nothing new."

"Hm," Shisui-sensei said. "Well, from here on out, just stay out of sight." A particularly loud explosion rattled the glass panes, and Gaara hopped off the sill awkwardly, landing in a low crouch. "I need to get back before someone sees me so far out," Shisui-sensei said, casting a fleeting glance out the window. "Stay safe. I mean it."

And then he was gone.

Navigating the lower city post-invasion required a significantly higher level of discretion. Morning dawned. The battle at the port had settled, but the city hovered in a watchful state.

"Most civilians are staying indoors," Hinata reported, otherwise preternaturally still. "Kiri is sending teams through the city in the sewers." She paused, her mouth twisting into an annoyed scowl. "They are putting up seals in the walls that I can't see through."

Sai recalled the entry in Etsuji's bingo book for Byakugangoroshi Ao; no doubt these efforts were for him. However, the shinobi forces were not his team's main obstacle. "And Osore?" Sai prompted.

Hinata's lips curled even as she remained quiet, searching. "Cockroaches are not concerned with the wars of men," she said at last.

Well, no, Sai assumed they would not be. "What about Osore?" he asked again.

Hinata tilted her head a little. "Its members seem to be resuming normal activities, more or less," she said evenly.

"Pack the room," Sai directed grimly. "If the pattern continues, Osore will send more here today."

Hinata paused, and Sai was suddenly cognizant of his mistake. Speaking would not help his situation, so he said nothing as Hinata swivelled slowly to face him. "They sent members yesterday," she stated more than asked.

"Yes," Sai conceded, accepting where this line of questioning would lead with some regret.

Hinata looked him up and down, comparing his condition to that of the previous day and no doubt mentally tallying the coins in their possession. "What did you do to them?"

Sai glanced at Gaara. The jinchuuriki stared back blankly, with the air of one watching a particularly engrossing sparring match. "I killed them," Sai answered. "We dumped their bodies in the middle of the city. It is the reason Sensei came to check on us in person."

Hinata absorbed the information silently. "Were you planning on telling me?" she asked, the slight edge of menace she always exuded with the Kyuu persona spiking.

"No," Sai admitted.

"I see," said Hinata, and turned away.

Sai exchanged a glance with Gaara and went to collect his drawings.

Hinata must have deactivated her doujutsu, because Sai was alerted to the forewarned visit by syndicate representatives not by her, but by Gaara's head, jerked up as one of his proximity alarmsburied sandwas triggered.Two,Gaara signed, and then something rude that he probably meant to mean Osore.

"Osore is here," Sai said, for Hinata's benefit. "We need to leave. Immediately." He grabbed the bundle of drawings, bundled it all in his jacket, and bolted for the stairs.

There wasn't time to run. The warehouse was large and open, and once someone entered they could see more or less everything from front to back. Sai risked the chakra to lend him the strength to leap straight up, into the rafters. Twin pulses behind him alerted him to Hinata and Gaara alighting behind him, balanced on the narrow wooden beam.

As soon as Gaara's feet touched the beam, the familiar silhouette of Shijima stepped through the bare doorframe at the far end of the warehouse, shadowed by another unfamiliar teen.

Sai should have expected him, Shijima who harassed him most frequently of all Osore, Shijima who had assaulted him with all the cold efficiency of a shinobi. Sai could not help butclassify Shijima as: enemythink of him as a threat despite his civilian status.

Perhaps Gaara registered the tension in the way Sai tracked the teen's progress along the open floor. Perhaps Gaara recognized that Shijima had been the one to visit most often, even when Gaara himself was not around. In either case, Gaara quickly concluded that Shijima was responsible for Sai's suboptimal condition and his eyes narrowed murderously; though his sakki did not spike at all, his intent was quite clear. He closed his eyes, and below Sai could see the wisps of sand coalescing behind the Osore members.

Gaara did not need to close his eyes to concentrate. He closed his eyes so that he could not see Sai when he signed sharply at the jinchuuriki tostop.

Hinata, crouched between them, did not move to either help or hinder, even as Sai's gestures sharpened insistently. Sai did not know if she was still displeased with him for concealing his elimination of the two Osore the day before, if she, like Gaara, wanted revenge on his behalf, or even if she had her doujutsu deactivated and simply could not see him. Mission. Stop.None of his signing helped if Gaara was not looking.

He glanced down. Shijima and his companion did not look up, as many civilians did not, nor were they aware of the danger rising behind them. Sai coiled and leapt, flipping neatly over both Hinata and Gaara and landing precisely on Gaara's far side on soundless feet. Gaara jerked, eyes opening instinctively, and Sai signedsand, stop,right in front of his face so he could not avoid it.

Gaara's face twisted into a snarl, and far below his sand fell back to the ground with a muted hiss. This caught the civilians' attention, and both whirled. Sai's team remained frozen in the shadows overhead. The teen with Shijima took a few wary steps forward, but there was nothing to see.

"Come on. It was just the wind," said Shijima after a few tense seconds, turning again to lead the way down to their recently vacated room.

Sai took the opportunity to lean forward and whisper,"No killing."

Gaara scowled back at him unrepentantly. Hinata, who had swivelled so she was facing in Gaara and Sai's general direction, made no indication that she had heard.

Sai paused and added, "No maiming. No injuring. Do not make - "contactwas cut off by a loud crash and reemergence of Shijima, his face unruffled as ever but with a line of fury in his shoulders that one without training could not hope to conceal.

"They might come back," his companion said, hurrying after Shijima as he stormed up the stairs.

Shijima turned on him. "The boy's drawings are gone. They took their cooking supplies and at least one blanket," he snapped. "They're not coming back." The other boy, though broader in shoulder and taller than Shijima, was cowed into silence. "Have some of the runners keep checking anyways," Shijima said dismissively, striding towards the door, his voice fading as he went. "We'll find them in the streets. There's nowhere they can hide in Osore territory."

That was a challenge Sai was willing to meet.

Kill,Gaara signed grumpily.

"Sensei said no," Sai reminded. This team had no greater deterrent thanSensei said no.

Living in hiding proved far less stressful than attempting to maintain a civilian persona. The three of them all moved in one group, passing like ghosts through the back alleys even as the ground beneath their feet rumbled from the echoes of the battle at the port.

It also did not last very long.

"Hi!" saididentification: Uzumaki Naruto; designation: Allied Target 4, designation: AT4; status: Kyuubi jinchuuriki; affiliation: Hanabi-ha; affiliation: Yorozoku "pack" Team Byakko; codename: Hana-Shi-006; rank: genin; alias: RokuNaruto brightly, the greeting muffled slightly by his mask.

"Should you be here?" Sai asked. Sasukeidentification: Uchiha Sasuke; designation: Allied Target 3, designation: AT3; affiliation: Hanabi-ha; affiliation: Yorozoku "pack" Team Byakko; codename: Hana-Shi-004; rank: genin; alias: Shislunk out of the shadows next to his teammate, his posture tense and shifty.

"We're your expression," the blond informed him, glancing around inquisitively. "What happened to your face? This place is kind of a dump, isn't it?"

"Extraction," Sakuraidentification: Haruno Sakura; designation: Allied Noncombatant Haruno Sakura, designation: ANHS; affiliation: Hanabi-ha; affiliation: Yorozoku "pack" Team Byakko; codename: Hana-Shi-005; rank: genin; alias: Go; alias: Go-gocorrected, crouching in front of the crawlspace and peering in, blocking their light. "It's not that bad." She paused, eyeing Sai critically. "Your eye doesn't look too good though."

"Give us space," said Sai, and Sakura moved back to let him slither his way out. The sun was setting, sending orange rays spinning across the lower city.

"Sensei's keeping like three teams under a genjutsu so we gotta hurry," Naruto piped up as Sai leaned back to give Hinata a supporting hand. "We gotta get back before the sun sets."

"W-what about J-Juu-sensei?" Hinata asked, moving to the side. Gaara squirmed out behind her, his sand armor flaking off the excess sand until the shape of his face returned to normal.

Naruto, predictably, was thrilled by the display. "That issocool," he enthused, poking at Gaara's face. Gaara allowed the intrusion, blinking owlishly at Naruto with only a slight narrowing of his eyes.

"Give them the stuff, idiot," Sasuke prompted, nudging his teammate with his shoulder. "Aniki sent him a crow, he'll know to get out."

'The stuff' was their Yorozoku masks. "The cloaks were too big," Naruto said apologetically, shifting so his own sat more comfortably on his shoulders, and passing around kunai holsters. He had Hinata's hiogi fans and Sai's tanto as well. Sai took his tanto with relief, eager to have his blade close at hand one more, and shrugged the sheath over his head.

"Someone's coming," Sakura warned, jerking her head back from the corner of the alley and taking quick steps back towards the clustered group.

Hinata's smile edged into Kyuu's cool smirk as she unwrapped the bandages around her eyes, the doujutsu bulging the veins at their corners. "This one is fine," she said. "Civilian. Harmless. There's no need to hide our identities from him." She slid her mask down just over her eyes.

Sai paused suspiciously. Gaara exuded an air of smugness as he tucked the mask over his face. "Kyuu," Sai began warningly as he strapped on his holster.

A sharp intake of breath from the alley mouth. Sai and Naruto glanced over reflexively. The rest did not. Sai met Shijima's eyes with resignation and no small amount of satisfaction at the teen's obvious confusion and alarm at the sight of Sai standing unafraid with five masked figures. His gaze dropped to Sai's kunai holster before looking back up. Without breaking eye contact, Sai folded his hands into the dog-boar-ram signs and threw up a henge, hiding his injuries from sight, and Shijima's eyes went wide.

Gaara gestured out of the corner of his eyes. "No killing civilians," Sai repeated, for perhaps the sixth or seventh time in the past two days, and Shijima's fear spiked the pulse fluttering in his neck.

"You didn't hold back three days ago," Hinata pointed out in a carrying murmur, and spun one of her hiogi through her fingers purely to observe Shijima's reaction.

"Oh, damn," Naruto muttered, watching the blood drain from the teen's face with interest and a tilted head. "What'd he do to you?"

Sai was not feuding with a civilian. Sai was a shinobi completing a mission. He hooked his mask over his face and dropped the henge, the smooth porcelain familiar despite the way it pressed uncomfortably against the swelling around his eye and mouth. "Move out," he ordered, and sprang up the building wall.

Gaara followed with a menacing rattle of sand, and the others darted up after. Even Naruto seemed to understand that there was something bigger at play, because he too followed without even a token protest though Sai technically could not be in charge of his own extraction.

At the top of the building, Sasuke took the lead, shouldering past Naruto to hurl himself off the roof's edge to the next sloping roof. They crossed two more roofs, then dropped down to street level.

"Wait," Hinata warned, as Sasuke slid towards the main street, and Sai pressed himself against the wall as Sakura crowded in next to him. Footsteps, shinobi-light, darted past their alley and vanished. "Go," said Hinata. They went.

"What's the status on the invasion?" Sai asked Sakura in an undertone as they crossed into the adjacent alley and hopped the chain link at the far end, one by one.

"We have a good number of our forces on the shore," Sakura answered. "Two more of their ships are in the harbor, neutralized. They're not sure where the other four are. We don't think Kiri will fight too hard to keep the lower city. Zabuza-sensei says they don't have enough shinobi for that, now that we've made it this far."

At the next corner, Sasuke stopped above a covered sewer and crouched, heaving the metal grate off and to the side. Sai had spent the greater part of the month avoiding running water where at all possible and did not move but to glance into the street warily. "Come on," Sasuke said with a scowl when none of them moved.

Hinata hesitated. "I can't see down there," she said, her mouth a grim slash across her face.

"The secrecy seals," Sasuke said, unsurprised. "We know. Ni said."

"Karasu-sensei's holding it clear for us," Sakura said reassuringly. "It'll be fine."

Sai was not reassured, but nodded anyways when Hinata glanced at him. He drew his tanto, holding it flat against his forearm and dropped into the darkness.

He landed knee deep in water before he caught himself and buoyed back to the surface, having misjudged the distance in the dim lighting. He moved out of the way so the others could join him, glancing up and down the tunnel curiously. The walls were slick and lined with moss. Every ten meters, an electric lamp bolted to the wall spilled a tiny pool of yellow light across the water. The overwhelming stench of feces and damp immediately assaulted him, and he took shallow breaths beneath the mask.

Sakura landed soundlessly behind him, followed by Hinata, then Naruto with a splash that echoed down the tunnel. Sakura winced and turned, accusatory, on Naruto; Naruto rubbed his hair sheepishly in apology. Gaara dropped down behind them with a discontented snort at the smell, and then Sasuke after replacing the grate cover with a dull clunk.

"Can you see anything now?" Sasuke directed at Hinata, angling back to squint into the gloom.

Hinata made a displeased noise. "Only as far as the next seal."

"Hn. It's whatever," Sasuke said, shrugging a shoulder indifferently.

"This way," Sakura prompted, and darted down the tunnel in the direction of the current.

Another tunnel converged on theirs after a few minutes, and then another, and then it diverged. Sakura chose the left side tunnel without hesitation, but Hinata's step faltered as she flinched.

"What?" Sasuke demanded, as Sai raised his blade warily.

Hinata shook her head. "Seals overlapping," she said, nodding at the ink spiderwebbing the walls. "They were brighter than I expected. This is a double blind box."

Sakura looked up and shivered. "The sooner we get out of here, the better."

They moved on.

The next fork brought a more welcome sight. "Hey, kids," Shisui-sensei said breezily from behind his leopard-spotted mask. "So far so good?"

"Juu-sensei!" Sakura said in surprise. Naruto shot forward to tackle him into a hug.

Shisui-sensei sidestepped neatly and plucked Naruto out of the air by the back of his collar. "Not to scare you guys too much, but there's a team coming down this tunnel," he said, depositing Naruto gently back on his feet. "Let's go."

The knowledge of pursuit quickened their steps and the pulse in Sai's throat, but Shisui-sensei was a reassuring presence in their midst. The lights blurred past. The tunnel widened and curved sharply.

Shisui-sensei rounded the corner and swerved, hooking Sakura safely to the side with one arm, and Naruto, who kept sprinting, crashed straight into a Kiri shinobi. "Shit, these seals, am I right?" Shisui panted, throwing out his free arm to keep the others from following suit. "Can't sense worth a damn in here."

"Another double blind box," Hinata murmured under her breath, stopping short behind Sai.

Naruto skittered backwards from the shinobi he'd bowled over, who'd swiped at him halfheartedly with a kunai.

"What the fuck," said one of the shinobi. Eight of them - two teams - clustered at the fork, staring at them with a mixture of irritation and suspicion.

"We're just on our way out. Don't mind us," said Shisui-sensei, waving a hand backwards at Sai's team. Sai took the hint and sidled along the wall, Gaara on his heels.

"Hold it," snapped a kunoichi, unsheathing the katana slung over her back. "Who the hell are you?" Her team adjusted slightly, angling themselves behind her, and after half a moment's hesitation, the other team mirrored them.

Had Shisui-sensei not been wearing a distinctly Konohan Anbu mask, and the rest of the pack members not been wearing distinctly non-Anbu bone masks, they might have gotten away without attracting further notice. As it was, their masks were designed to hide their faces, but not their affiliations.

"Naohiro," Shisui answered anyways, his posture still loose and relaxed despite his suddenly steely voice. "Jounin. As you were." Sakura slipped behind him discreetly.

"Hey, traitor," growled another shinobi, the apparent leader of the second team, taking a threatening step forward and unsheathing his own sword. "She said, 'hold it.'"

"Oh, shit," said Shisui-sensei. "We surrender!"

The eight Kiri shinobi all paused to stare. The kunoichi leader's katana dipped slightly.

Naruto swiveled his head to glare at him reproachfully.

"I mean," said Shisui-sensei, "you do have a surrender policy, right?"

Considering Kiri's particularly brutal warrior culture and fixation on honor, Sai would not be surprised if they did not. Two of the shinobi exchanged uncertain glances. The lead kunoichi continued to watch Shisui-sensei with narrowed eyes.

"Sorry, sorry." Shisui-sensei held up both hands placatingly. "That's probably not fair to you. Can we, uh, can we un-surrender?"

The remaining shinobi drew their swords as one and froze.

Sai paused warily. Gaara's head tilted. Sasuke's hand hovered uncertainly over the hilt of his katana.

"That's your cue, kids," said Shisui-sensei, his voice strained. "Go, go, go."

Sai took the lead, breaking into a sprint down the sewer, and was quickly overtaken by Naruto, who saw everything - even running from the enemy - as a competition. Behind them, metal clashed on metal in echoing screeches as the shinobi tore their way free of Shisui-sensei's genjutsu. Sai eyed Naruto to make sure he wouldn't attempt to run back to assist.

Naruto, in a rare moment of awareness, said, "Juu-sensei's got this! He's totally badass." He gave Sai a thumbs up.

"Shut up and run, usuratonkachi," Sasuke muttered out of the side of his mouth as he sped past them both.

Predictably, Naruto made a noise similar to a boiling kettle and shot forward.

"Almost there," panted Sakura, whose stamina still lagged noticeably behind that of her teammates.

"I see Karasu-sensei ahead," Hinata said, her voice steady despite their breakneck pace. "And twenty enemy shinobi."

Sakura huffed in surprise, and Naruto blurted, "Twenty?"

"They are -" Hinata hesitated, an odd break in Kyuu's persona, and Gaara's mask tilted slightly towards her from the group's flank. "They are not an active threat to us," she finished at last, still with a strange inflection in her voice.

Sai pondered her reaction even as the lights blurred together at the speed of his passing. He did not distrust her words; she of all the pack was most likely to overestimate rather than underestimate an enemy's abilities.

His yet unformed question was abruptly answered when they rounded a bend in the tunnel and promptly encountered the backs of a team of Kiri shinobi.

They werenumber: 20; affiliation: loyalist Kirigakure; in possession of an unsheathed blade: 12; in possession of a sheathed blade: 3; in motion: 0completely still, frozen in various stages of lunging at the lone figure in their epicenteridentification: Uchiha Itachi; affiliation: Hanabi-ha; codename: Hana-An-141; rank: captain; alias: Karasu-sensei; status: presumed extraction mission leader. Itachi-sensei stood placidly with his hands at his side, but his projected ease was marred by the crimson glow of his doujutsu through the eyeholes of his mask, the tomoe in his eyes blurring into rings of black.

As he watched, a shinobi at the edge shook off the presumed genjutsu with a snarl, drawing his sword back and taking a step forward. Itachi-sensei transferred his gaze to the errant shinobi and the other nin froze once again. The formation of the shinobi - staggered in a layered circle converging on Itachi-sensei - became startlingly clear. The closest to him was a kunoichi with a pair of wakizashi in her hands, half-lunged barely a meter away, the furthest just abreast of Sai with his hand hovering over his kunai holster.

"Whoa," said Naruto, audibly impressed. "How many genjutsu do you got going?"

Itachi's brow furrowed, and a full three seconds passed before he managed to say, "Not the time, Roku," in an even voice. A shinobi at his back shifted, and he swivelled abruptly to forestall the man's movements.

"We can help," said Sasuke, his tone just a little shrill to betray his anxiety. Sai agreed; a killing blow to a motionless shinobi would require little effort on their part.

The amount of concentration necessary to keep twenty enemy shinobi subdued in what must have been uniquely tailored genjutsu - yet leave their chakra control untouched enough that they remain balanced on the water's surface - should have been staggering. "No," said Itachi-sensei nonetheless, and the kunoichi closest to him made another half-step before he switched his stare back to her. "Go," he ordered.

"Go," Sai prompted, nudging Naruto in the back when the jinchuuriki didn't move. "We are distracting him," he added, when he and Sasuke both hesitated.

They went.

The sewer emerged to a grate facing the sea not a hundred meters past where they left Itachi-sensei. The massive grate had been shoved aside, but from the gouges and scorch marks in the tunnel at the entrance, it had not gone easily. Sunset spilled golden hues across the tops of the waves, twinkling as it bounced off the water and also the ice mirrors, one at the ocean level a dozen meters from the sewer, another hanging ten meters midair.

"Finally," growled Zabuza-sensei, giving them an unimpressed once-over with his arms crossed over his chest. "Those morons keep taking potshots at Haku." As he spoke, something small and metallic whistled overhead and collided with the higher ice mirror with a loud explosion and accompanying fireball. Zabuza-sensei snorted dismissively.

Gaara made a beeline for Temari, who leaned against her folded tessen next to Zabuza-sensei. She lifted her arm to let him tuck himself against her side and ruffled his hair affectionately despite whatever crawlspace- or sewer-refuse clung there. "Hey," she said. "Welcome back." The second part she directed at Sai and Hinata.

"Karasu-sensei's fighting like twenty shinobi, d'you think he needs help?" Naruto piped up as Sai took deep breaths of the fresh air.

"Nah." Zabuza-sensei jerked his head at Neji, half-hidden behind his much larger bulk. "Punk here says he's good. The other one's fine too. They're on their way." He whistled sharply, and Haku stepped out of the bottom mirror just as another kunai with an exploding tag trailing from its hilt crashed into the crumbling upper one, sending shards of ice sprinkling down on their heads.

"They are quite persistent," Haku said. Slivers of ice sparkled in his hair. "It's good to see you three again," he added warmly.

"You're back, who cares, save that shit for when we get back to base," Zabuza-sensei growled. "Let's move." He turned, and without checking to see if they followed, stalked back towards the looming ships docked further out in the harbor. "Hey!" he barked, and Sai lurched reflexively before he realized Zabuza-sensei wasn't talking to them. "Get your teams back in there."

Seven figures blurred past them in shunshins. The eighth paused in front of Zabuza-sensei long enough to say "We'll take it from here, sir."

"Once those two get out of there, seal it and trap it again, all the bells and shit," Zabuza-sensei ordered, and the team leader nodded sharply before rejoining his teammates.

"Where are we going?" Hinata asked.

Small clusters of shinobi littered the shoreline; makeshift camps with fires and tents had sprung up every dozen meters or so. A larger camp appeared to have been pitched around the lighthouse, but Zabuza-sensei had angled them towards the harbor mouth instead.

Zabuza-sensei grunted. "The Hoteimaru," he said, clear distaste in his tone. "Got a mobile command center there that won't run up on the lava harpy's. Trying to keep you brats out of sight."

Zabuza-sensei was still not wearing his distinctive Kubikiribocho, just the standard Anbu katana slung over his nondescript hunter-nin uniform. Sai weighed the costs and benefits and elected not to ask if Zabuza-sensei himself was attempting to keep out of sight as best he could.

As they approached, Sai realized - though he had only seen the Jurojinmaru from a distance and for no more than twenty minutes before it met its inglorious end at the hands of the sensei and Team Suzaku, plus Gaara - that the Hoteimaru dwarfed even that hulking warship by a significant margin. He exchanged a glanced with Hinata, who had evidently drawn the same conclusion. "How were you able to capture the ship intact?" Sai asked.

Zabuza grinned, baring sharp teeth. "Not so hard when the guys on the bottom deck decide they're not down for the Mizukage's shit anymore. Command crew was sandwiched between them and us. Fuckin' over before a real battle could start."

"Karasu-sensei helped!" Naruto chirped. "I think he did his genjutsu thing cuz the other shinobi froze like they did in the tunnel but not with ice even though somedidfreeze with ice cuz Ichi - "

"Cool story, no one cares," Zabuza interrupted. "Shut your trap, we're here."

Naruto vibrated impotently with indignation. Sasuke leapt unhesitatingly for the ship's side after Zabuza-sensei, but Sakura drew in a sharp, shaky breath.

Sai eyed her discreetly at the odd reaction, and at the other end of the group, Neji's head turned like one of the captain's dogs on a scent, but in the next heartbeat she was chasing after her teammate. Neji's eyes found his instead and for a moment they both stood still, trading unspoken questions as their teammates departed without them. Neji twitched his shoulder in a silent shrug and Sai turned away.

The Hoteimaru's deck was packed. Shinobi lay supine in small clusters with arms thrown over their heads to ward away the light or curled in tightly on themselves to shield from the cold. Some were tangled in the rigging, watchful, and others sat among their slumbering brethren with keen eyes and blades in easy reach. These shinobi wore no hitai-ate - Hanabi-ha, not Kiri Hanran, who still wore theirs with the Mist symbol unscored, as Zabuza-sensei used to.

Zabuza-sensei strode his way in the midst of all this carelessly but for a shinobi's soundless prowl, the pack trailing at his heels singly or in twos. Their immature statures and unconventional bone masks drew wary and assessing eyes. At the back of the line, Sai watched the reactions of those who watched: some blank faces, some furrowed brows, some with tensed necks and tensed arms, some with a deliberate languidness. Sai filed the faces away for later review. Zabuza-sensei shoved his way into the front cabin after a cursory knock and flaring of his chakra.

The inside of the cabin was brightly lit, electric lights strung from the walls and lanterns dangling from the low rafters. A second glance revealed the cabin had not gone unscathed from ship takeover - the scorched floor, the bucket of broken glass in the corner, the splintered chairs at the side of the room, the gouges in the floor and walls.

The captain was standing behind the table at the far end of the room, his mask shoved up on the top of his head. He looked up at their entrance. Shizune-sensei was at his side, arms crossed over her bulky grey flak jacket.

Sai hesitated, because at Shizune's other side, a man Sai did not recognize leaned against the table, scrubbing a hand over his face. Like Shizune, he wore a jounin flak jacket and no hitai-ate, but like the captain, had a dark red band wrapped around his right bicep.

Sai did not have sufficient information on the command structure of Hanabi-ha and had assumed, from the sheer scarcity, that the captain was the only commander, yet here must be a second.

"Team Genbu, welcome back," said the captain, as Hinata stalled by the door and Gaara jerked backwards into Temari's chest. "Come in and close the door."

"He knows who you are, it's fine, he probably has a bigger price on his head than you do," Zabuza-sensei drawled impatiently, so Hinata let Neji shut the doors behind them with a soft click.

"This is Commander Nara Shikaku," the captain said, jerking his head at the man on the far side of the table. "Shikaku, meet Gaara, Hinata, and Sai."

The commander dragged his hand down his face one last time and tilted his face up to assess them with surprisingly sharp eyes. "Team Genbu, a pleasure," he said dryly. "You've been in the field a while." His gaze drifted past them, to Zabuza-sensei standing solidly next to the door with arms crossed carelessly. "Where's your sensei?"

"On his way," Zabuza-sensei answered for them. "You know the assassin twins. Always picking fights."

There was not any part of that assessment that Sai agreed with. "Hmph," said the commander, unimpressed.

The captain glanced over, a flash of amusement in his normally grim eye. "It's been a long mission. Temari, take them down. Get them food and bunks."

"Hai," said Temari, and jerked her head back towards the door.

Sai hesitated. "Our report?" he asked.

"Give it to Shisui," the captain said. "He'll collate it into his. It's going to need review by both us and the Hanran. There's no need for your team to get involved in that." The commander grunted agreement beside him.

"Hai," said Sai, and joined the general shuffle of pack out the door.

"Man, that blows," Naruto said, bumping his shoulder deliberately into Sai as he trailed him through the doorway.

"What does?" Sai asked blankly.

"You did all that work and they're just going to get Shi - Juu-sensei to give them the info?" Naruto craned around to peer at him incredulously. "That don't bother you at all?"

"No." The captain had given an instruction that would increase the efficiency of intelligence collection, and Shisui-sensei had received all their reports already.

Naruto squinted at him. "You really don't mind," he said, something like awe in his voice.

"No?" The answer came out slightly more tentative than he expected. Sai did not understand what there was to mind.

Naruto puffed up in apparent righteous indignation on Sai's behalf. Sakura hooked the back of his collar expertly as he squawked. "It's thecaptain,he knows what Hachi and his team did, he'sgonnagive them credit," she said, and even with her mask Sai could tell she was rolling her eyes. "Stop making a fuss and calm down, you're supposed to be a ninja. This way, Hachi," she said over her shoulder.

She turned back around and nearly crashed into Shisui-sensei, who looked none the worse for his skirmishes in the sewers. "Hi," he said. "Fancy meeting you here."

"Oh!" said Sakura. "Uh, S -uh, sensei. We were just, uh - "

"We're showing Hachi where the food is!" Naruto interjected helpfully. "Wanna come? Ouch, Go-go-chan," he complained when she released his shirt and stepped on his foot instead.

"A tempting offer," Shisui-sensei said, amused. "I did work up a bit of an appetite just now."

At his side, Itachi loomed disapprovingly. "The commander requires your report," he said.

Shisui snapped off a crisp salute that made Itachi radiate exasperation and Sakura stifle a giggle. "I've been summoned. Operative Go," he intoned. "Operative Roku, Operative Hachi."

Naruto managed to hold his tongue until the three had caught up with the rest of the pack. "Karasu-sensei issuper cool,"he enthused.

"Yeah, so?" Sasuke could not quite hide his smugness.

"I think all the sensei are pretty cool," Temari said absently as she rummaged through the cabinets of the cramped kitchenette.

"Yeah, but you shoulda seen it earlier. I mean, it's super cool that Karasu-sensei can take on twenty shinobi and not have to even touch them," Naruto said, oblivious. "Ha! They must be super embarrassed."

Sai had caught a glimpse of Itachi-sensei's light grey fingerless gloves - the end of the left one, near the elbow, had been splattered in red. It was most likely not Itachi-sensei's blood; the enemy nin were likely too busy being dead to be embarrassed. He opened his mouth.

Hinata was looking at him. She shook her head minutely.

Sai said instead, "Yes, I imagine they are."

Temari came up triumphantly with a battered copper pot. "What do you think about miso, you guys? There's some salted dry meat and rice we can put in it."

"Yes. Thank you," said Sai for his team.

"Salted dried meat?" Sasuke knocked his mask to the top of his head and wrinkled his nose. He was the last, aside from Sai, who tugged his mask off as well.

"Not for you, you already ate," Temari dismissed. "Haku?"

Haku reached over and hovered his hand over the pot. When he took it away, the pot was half-full of water. "How did you find the city?" he asked, as Temari took back the pot and commenced cursing at the stove under her breath. "I realize some of it is not very pleasant, but Zabuza-san took me to some of the food stalls, when we lived there."

"Y-you lived in t-the L-Lower C-City?" Hinata asked, surprised.

"I did," Haku said, his voice turning wistful. "Zabuza-san was prestigious enough to afford to move out of the barracks in the Village, but he did not like the thought of living so close to some of the other shinobi. He and I - " he hesitated, a wry tilt to his mouth. "Neither of us were particularly well-liked, and Kiri shinobi will take any opening to remove a competitor from the board, even if it's another Kiri nin. And I rather think he enjoyed making the messengers the Mizukage sent lose their way. There used to be a sukiyaki restaurant near the central port square," he added after a thoughtful pause. "Did you by chance see if it was still there?"

The central port square, where they strung up a man they say harbored a traitor. Sai sifted through the memory. "Yes, it is still there," he said, and Haku smiled, soft and pleased.

"Well, this is no sukiyaki," Temari said, "but give me twenty minutes and it'll be dinner."

Sai's stomach felt hollow, and his limbs weak after the month of insufficient nutrition and past hour of intensive exertion, but here in the creaking wooden bowels of a warship only recently the enemy's the back of his neck did not prickle with warnings of observers unseen. "Thank you," he said, and meant it.

In the room the pack shared below the cabin the captain called command room and which he shared with the sensei when it came time to sleep, Sai lay awake in his gently swinging hammock and stared up at Hinata's. There were nine of them in a room meant to hold a snug four, but after a month in the lower city the emptiness at his side wore at the edges of his mind. Above him and next to Hinata, Naruto's breathing had already deepened into something he insisted was not snoring, but if so was very close to it. Below, Sasuke lay still, curled into the folds of his cloak and hammock with his chest rising and falling evenly. Sai slid his eyes to the side, where Sakura lay, and was startled to see luminous green eyes staring back at him. He did not know what to say, if anything, if he could even speak without waking the rest of the pack. After a moment, Sakura let out a nearly noiseless, shuddering sigh and turned to the other side.

This was a puzzle Sai had yet to figure out, a puzzle of which he did not yet know the nature.

He turned his attention back to the observation of the rest of the pack. Temari, her berth level with Naruto's but on Sai's other side, slept with one arm draped over the side of the canvas and the other wrapped around her tessen, keeping it close even in unconsciousness. Beside him, Haku curled loosely, cocooned by his cloak and an extra blanket.

Sai closed his eyes again but did not sleep, his mind wandering aimlessly through tanto katas and memories and speculation of the impending siege.

No. He needed sleep for optimal functionality. He cleared his mind deliberately. The thoughts crept back in.

He brushed a hand over his face and flinched instinctively. Shizune-sensei had taken him aside after dinner to heal the remainder of the damage to his face and ribs, her iryo chakra strong and steady to Shisui-sensei's flickering candle, but Sai still felt their phantom ache. He opened his eyes, resigned to lost sleep and slipped sideways out of his hammock.

Gaara eyed him without judgement or accusation from his bottom hammock, where he sat rolling a ball of compressed sand in one hand. Interacting with Gaara did not require speaking to Gaara. Sometimes, interacting with Gaara did not require interacting with Gaara at all. Sai sat on the floor beside his teammate and stared sightlessly at the far wall and let the shuffling of the pack and the creaking of damp timbers fill his mind.

Sai managed a scant few hours of sleep before Temari - always an early riser - tossed a balled up towel at Naruto, in an attempt to wake him to help her with breakfast without disturbing the rest of the pack. As trying to wake Naruto without disturbing anyone else was always an exercise in futility, Naruto woke flailing, fell out of his hammock, and subsequently the entire pack trooped into the hallway towards the kitchen for an early breakfast.

"Hey. Dollface." At the tail end of the pack, Sai turned to find Zabuza-sensei looming at the far end of the hallway. The Swordsman crossed his arms and waited until the rest had filed into the kitchen, watching Sai with unfathomable eyes. Sai resisted the urge to watch the others go. "Heard you killed a couple kids out there."

"Yes," Sai said.

Zabuza-sensei eyed him. "You all right?"

"Yes," Sai said.

Zabuza-sensei stared at him long enough that Sai felt prickles of uneasiness crawling up his spine and a visceral urge to flee. Then he shrugged and muttered, "Whatever, fuck it. Let's get you to the front lines."

Sai blinked. "Now?"

Zabuza-sensei snorted. "And deal with One Eye the Younger moping around because I'm ruining your childhood? No. Eat your breakfast first."

Sai did not understand the correlation. "Breakfast - will equate an intact childhood?" he asked, just to clarify.

"Mhmm." Zabuza-sensei flapped a hand at him impatiently, already turning to go. "Nutrition. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and all that shit. Big day ahead." With that, he sauntered back down the hallway and vanished.

Sai frowned. Two inquiries as to his general well-being in as many days by two different sensei? Once could be categorized as an isolated incident, but twice implied a pattern.

He paused to reevaluate his condition. Nutrition: suboptimal. Caloric intake: suboptimal. Mental status: optimal. Suboptimal?In truth, Sai did not know how an optimal or suboptimal mental status entailed. Functional?He was functional.

No further evaluation needed. For lack of other options, Sai went into the kitchen to retrieve his childhood.

"How frequently have you joined the battle?" Sai asked Temari over the imperfectly mixed, slightly overcooked steamed egg that Naruto presented to him proudly.

"Hm?" said Temari, distracted in the midst of sorting out the rice and salted fish. "Uh, my team pretty often. Most days. Zabuza-sensei usually takes us out with him unless we're all together and they're planning a big offensive, then he just goes with Shisui-sensei and Itachi-sensei and the captain." Sai recalled the last battle that required all four to fight at the same time, though it had mostly been a one sided assault, and understood why even Team Suzaku would sit that out.

"We never get to fight!" Naruto chimed in, thumping his head down on the table to sulk. Neji subtly moved his bowl away further away. He had grown too accustomed to Naruto's mannerisms to make a biting comment.

"Yeah, we do," Sakura corrected, rolling her eyes.

"From far away," Sasuke muttered.

"We just chuck kunai at people from behind trees or rocks or buildings or something," Naruto complained. "That's not fighting. They barely even throw things back at us!"

Team Suzaku could probably battle a jounin if they worked together. Team Genbu could stave off an attack from a tokubetsu-led squad. Short of a Kyuubi-induced berserker-state Naruto, a single chuunin could quash Team Byakko. Given either outcome of the latter, Sai was not surprised Naruto's team had been kept from the fighting.

Based on Hinata's earlier reaction, Sai expected Naruto would have a negative reaction should he point this out, so instead, he offered, "My team has not seen combat in five weeks."

"Oh, man, that sucks," Naruto commiserated, oblivious to the slow smirk curling across Gaara's face on his other side. Sakura, across the table from them, was not. She shot first Gaara, then Sai, an alarmed glance.

Zabuza-sensei opened the door without warning, and half the pack lunged belatedly for the masks hanging around their necks or perched on top of their heads before realizing who the intruder was. "You all fucking suck at stealth," Zabuza-sensei said, unimpressed. "Teams Genbu and Suzaku, we're going for a spin."

"Hey!" Naruto complained, outraged, even as Sai put his chopsticks back in his bowl and stood. Temari shoveled one last spoonful into her mouth and mirrored him, nodding at Gaara. "What about us?"

Zabuza-sensei was unmoved. "I don't know, ask someone who cares. I haven't slept in fifty hours. Genbu and Suzaku, come the fuck on."

"All right. You three know what to do. Go wild." Zabuza-sensei waved his hand dismissively at Team Suzaku.

"There's nothing to go wild on," Temari said, unimpressed. "We're just clearing streets."

"No shit, princess," said Zabuza-sensei, rolling his eyes. "Every single street from here to the mountain passes need to be cleared, unless you want to get fucked by a team you let get past you. This is an invasion, it's not supposed to be fun."

Temari sighed with an air of polite disgruntlement. "You and I will take point, Ni," she directed. "Ichi can leapfrog."

Neji nodded shortly, unsheathing his tanto. "Relief is coming at 1500 hours?"

"Yeah," said Zabuza-sensei. "Get going."

Temari glared before following Neji down the street, one hand on her tessen slung over her back. The streets were eerily quiet though it was the middle of the day, the houses quiet with shutters drawn so as not to betray their occupants within. They slipped along the edges of the buildings, and Temari's head turned at every alley and side yard, but Neji faced forward unwaveringly. At the next intersection, they paused, Temari with her front to the wall to give her room to swing if she so needed it, and Neji with his back to the wall so his blade pointed towards the corner. After a moment, Neji nodded, and Temari flicked a sign back to their group.Go.

Haku straightened, hands still tucked in his sleeves, and stepped forwards.

"Hey, kid," Zabuza-sensei drawled in a low voice that nonetheless carried in the unnatural silence, and Haku paused. "Don't disappoint me."

"I won't," Haku said serenely, and glided briskly towards the rest of his team.

"All right, runt patrol," said Zabuza-sensei, turning without watching his apprentice go. "This way."

Zabuza-sensei took them to what their team had spent over a month avoiding even more stridently than running water: a shinobi checkpoint. Hinata balked, stopping short in the street when she realized where they were going, and Gaara uttered a muted snarl of protest when he nearly walked into her back. Sai unsheathed his tanto as discreetly as possibly, tucking the flat of the blade against the soft underside of his forearm. None of them were sufficiently subtle, because Zabuza-sensei turned around, took in their defensive stances, and growled, "Relax. This one's ours, as of seven hours ago."

"W-why don't we go through the fence?" Hinata asked, her trepidation wavering in her voice.

"Or over," Gaara contributed in a voice still rusty from disuse, glaring at the checkpoint with deep suspicion.

Zabuza-sensei huffed an impatient sigh. "And feed your neuroses? Nah. You're supposed to be shinobi. Suck it the fuck up and follow me."

A direct order. Sai shifted his grip on his tanto and followed.

There was a shinobi standing guard outside the door. "Captain," he greeted Zabuza-sensei, once he had rattled off the passcode. He paused, eyeing Sai and his teammates with their carved masks and furred cloaks curiously. "They're different today."

Zabuza-sensei glared him into silence. "We're here to relieve Team 133," he growled. "Where are they?"

"Uh, all of you?" the shinobi blurted, and then cringed. "I mean, they're holding position two blocks east, sir."

"Hn. Direct the teams this shift to keep pushing," he ordered. "Eight hour shift, move the line two kilometers. No gaps."

"Hai," said the shinobi, and leaned back slightly as Zabuza-sensei pushed past him without another word. His sudden presence startled the teams in the checkpoint break room; he left a crash and loud clatter in his wake as he stalked past, and as Sai glanced through the doorway he caught a glimpse of one shinobi on the floor, having tripped backwards out of his chair, another with food spilled down his front, and an upended food tray on the floor.

Gaara brushed in front of Sai on his way out the far door, fleeing back out into the gloom of overcast skies.

On this side of the fence, in one of the lower city's several market districts, business had stagnated in the face of the impending violence. The stores they passed had doors padlocked shut, windows boarded over. This would not save them if a battle between elite ninja erupted, but was sufficient defense against a stray blade.

A man in a tattered coat and shoulders drawn up around his ears rounded the corner at a half-run and flinched back hard when he saw the four of them coming up the street towards him. Sai glanced at Hinata, who paused and shook her head, signing with hands half-hidden under her cloak.Weapons, no, shinobi, no.

"Get back inside," Zabuza-sensei growled at the man as he passed without a second glance. "Get in the way and there won't be enough of you left to burn."

The man watched them leave, frozen, his eyes fixed on Zabuza-sensei's still sheathed katana. Sai turned his head as they reached the end of the street to see the man still staring. Then he turned the corner, and the man was out of sight.

Zabuza-sensei relieved Team 133 with a perfunctory, "Get lost, bring all your shit, don't lose your shit," and watched with a glower as they vanished back towards the checkpoint with exhausted slumps in their shoulders. He then turned his glare on Team Genbu. "This is how it's going to work," he said, and pointed down the street. "Hotshot here's going to go down the block with midget. When they hit the corner, dollface leapfrogs to the street on the right, then clears the left. Then you start over." He levered a stare at Gaara, who was staring past him somewhere next to his shoulder - perhaps at the blanket and bedding store. "You don't leave her, understand? You get attacked, you cover her first."

After a long pause, Gaara nodded, still staring at the boarded-up store.

Like the rest of the sensei, Zabuza-sensei was not bothered by the seeming inattention. "I'm going to be here, doing some godsdamned paperwork," he said. "Don't fucking rush. I'll catch up with you every couple of streets in case you get jumped."

Paperwork in enemy territory?Sai glanced at his teammates to make sure he had not developed an ear infection or other malady that might inhibit his ability to hear accurately. Hinata's mask was tilted very slightly, but Gaara was still staring at the store, so the answer was inconclusive. Zabuza-sensei inadvertently answered his question by pulling out a roll of papers from the pouch at his waist and proceeding to disregard Sai's team.

"Kyuu, Shichi," Sai prompted, and nodded down the street. Hinata reached up her sleeves for her hiogi fans, snapping them open with a flick of her wrists, and advanced. Gaara followed a few paces behind, padding on silent feet with a slightly vacant stare. Sai watched as Hinata stopped at the next corner. She did not turn her head to look because she did not need to, but murmured something under her breath to Gaara. Gaara, angled so he was facing the building wall and Sai in equal measures, signedgo.

Sai glanced back one last time at Zabuza-sensei, who ignored him in favor of flipping a page and scribbling on a with a pencil he had acquired when Sai was not looking. Sai adjusted his grip on his tanto and jogged towards his teammates. "Clear?" he asked coming to a stop at their backs.

"I'm checking the buildings on this block," Hinata murmured, distracted. "Give me three minutes." Sai waited. "Go," said Hinata.

Sai rounded the corner and stepped on a wire.

The blast gouged a massive hole in the street, took a chunk out of the building they had been standing next to, and would have ripped all three of them apart had Gaara not thrown a sand dome over them with lightning reflexes. Sai blinked in the sudden darkness, his ears ringing, disoriented.

"Status," he got out, the words sounding muffled and very far away.

"Fine," Gaara muttered, which Sai felt more than heard, his back pressed against the jinchuuriki.

"Fine," Hinata echoed grimly, then, "I should have seen that."

"We were all careless, " Sai corrected, remembering how cautious Team Suzaku had been.

Gaara let the sand crumble away to reveal the street once again, the air choked with dust and smoke, and Zabuza-sensei with his sheaf of reports still in hand. "Hope you learned a valuable lesson there," he said, still without looking at them."Don't let your fucking guard down."

Lesson learned. "Yes, Sensei," Sai said soberly.

Zabuza-sensei grunted. "Go on, then. Lots of ground to cover."

The building that had taken the brunt of the blast had housed a restaurant. Sai caught sight of splintered tables and chairs thrown against the far wall as he glanced down the remainder of the streetvisibility: 40%; doors leading into the street: 26; people on the street: 0; obvious seals or exploding tags: 0; ideal locations for traps: 6."Kyuu," he said. "Do you see anything?"

"No," she answered. "But be careful."

Sai did not think it wise to rely solely on his blade. He pulled out his scroll and painted in bold lines a great tiger that peeled free of the paper when he sank his chakra into the ink. The beast bore more than a passing resemblance to Koharu, the tiger who with her shinobi Sai had encountered just a few days earlier. Sai sent the tiger padding down the street first, then followed in its wake cautiously.

He reached the end without incident, an alley that terminated in a familiar chain link fence, but even so could not help the prickle of adrenaline sharpening his mind. His tiger swung its head around, and they returned a little quicker to the ruined intersection.

The ground rattled beneath their feet. Sai paused warily, and Gaara glanced up, but he did not observe any tell-tale plumes of smoke or flame. He hurried back to the rest of his team nonetheless.

Hinata's head was tilted down as she examined the next street closely. At Sai's approach, she tipped her head at Gaara, and the pair started down the opposite side.

The sticky salt-breeze plastered grit to his exposed skin and irritated his eyes. Sweat dampened the back of his neck despite the chill that burrowed under his cloak. In the distance, he could hear isolated explosions, some closer than others. Perhaps a dozen blocks to the north, a plume of smoke rose over the buildings.

"Care on this one," Hinata said. "There's a seal underneath the awning of the ninth store on the left."

Sai frowned. "Exploding tag?"

"I don't recognize the design," Hinata said, her words distorted in the way that told Sai she was biting her lip.

"We should trigger it from a distance, in any case," Sai said, and sheathed his tanto in favor of a kunai. Hinata and Gaara retreated around the corner as Sai drew the kunai back and hurled it.

It bounced off.

It landed on the street with a clatter. Sai experienced a mild jolt of what was either horror or a static shock. He turned back to Hinata. "Did I miss?"

"No," she said. Gaara's head canted to the side, some of his sand settling closer to his shoulders as he peeked around the corner. "You struck the seal but did not penetrate it."

Sai joined his teammate in scrutinizing the overhang with the seal once again. "That looks like cloth," he observed.

"As far as I can tell, it is," Hinata said. "But it repelled the blade anyways."

"Seal," Gaara said.

"He is correct," realized Sai. "Juu-sensei needed to channel chakra with a specific method to break the seals on the Juroujinmaru. A blade by itself must not be enough."

"It must have a sensor component," Hinata mused. "Like the wire."

Sai looked back at Zabuza-sensei, three blocks back and by all appearances ignoring their predicament. He glanced sideways at his ink tiger. "If it senses chakra or weight, my tiger has less than a person of each," he offered. "But it may be enough. I will send it first; alert me if anything changes."

Gaara held out a hand, and a ball of sand formed in it. Sai watched curiously, and when he didn't move to take it, Gaara jabbed it at him.

"Is that for chakra?" Sai asked, picking it up gingerly. Gaara's sand tended to have additives in it, such as blood. It was heavy, staying solid and unnervingly warm in his hand. Gaara did not answer. It must have been for chakra and weight both, since his tiger did not weigh much more than the paper and ink it was formed from. He held the sand out, and his tiger plucked it from his hand with long fangs and padded around the corner. It passed the seal; nothing happened. Sai frowned, held his hand up to bring the tiger loping back to the covered awning.

"What if it's just a sensor seal?" Hinata said suddenly. "Maybe it doesn't trigger a trap."

"We should consult Zabuza-sensei," said Sai, as his tiger leaned up to nip at the seal.

Zabuza-sensei, once he had ambled over in response to their urgent handsigns, shrugged. "I dunno," he said. "Send a message back to base camp for someone who knows seals and avoid the thing."

Sai sent an ink hawk. They moved on.

This was a slow war, taking back the streets one by one. Sai kept his footsteps light as the hours trickled past. Hinata paused at the end of the street that opened into the central port square. Someone had taken down the man that had swung from the flagpole - whether to heal him or bury him, Sai could not know - but the top of the pole and the flagstones still showed the rusty brown stains from the time he spent there.

"Hey, catch that -!" Zabuza-sensei shouted from down the block.

Sai jerked his head up, already flicking open his scroll as a kunai whistled overhead. A dark streakcolor: black; speed: 100 km/h; identification: bird; wingspan: 35-45cmtwisted easily out of the way of the blade but was forced to bank back sharply when Gaara threw up a wave of sand in its path.

A falcon took shape under Sai's brush, and it tore its way free of the scroll and shot straight up in the air, rocketing up past the other bird's much smaller shape, which wove in and out of Gaara's grasping sand with startling speed. Sai raised his right hand, forming the Seal of Confrontation around his brush, and his falcon - so high he could no longer see it against the sky - plummeted.

No matter how fast the bird was, Sai's ink falcon in a dive was faster. It caught the bird in its claws as it tried to swerve out of the way and barreled them both straight into Zabuza-sensei's hands.

Zabuza-sensei was immeasurably and irrationally smug. "'My birds are the fastest thing on wings,' my ass," he gloated, adjusting his grip to encircle the bird's wings and neck as Sai's falcon fluttered free. "'They can't be caught,' yeah fucking right, Hayaibi, you stupid fucking bastard."

Sai glanced at his teammates to make sure that 'Hayaibi' was not something or someone he should already know. Given the lack of response or general air of understanding from either Hinata or Gaara, he assumed it was so.

Zabuza-sensei pried the tiny roll of paper from the bird's claws, glanced up, and realized that he still had an audience. "Okay, show's over," he grunted, sliding a coil of wire out of his back pouch one handed. "Go, hotshot, the invasion ain't waiting for you."

Sai watched as Zabuza-sensei dangled the trussed-up bird from his belt like a macabre lantern. It squirmed and struggled, the brush of its feathers the only sound he could hear besides the city's perpetual wind. Zabuza-sensei, who deigned to wait with him as Gaara and Hinata progressed down the next block, made a satisfied noise as he squinted at the tiny print on the paper in his hand. "What a stupid fucker," he added affectionately. "Always uses the same shitty frameshift code."

Sai eyed the paper warily.

Zabuza-sensei rolled his eyes. "No, it's not a trap," he growled. "Too much pride was always Hayaibi's biggest weakness. And his birds." He flicked his eyes up long enough to catch Hinata and Gaara's tentative but yet unchallenged advance down the street before turning back to the intercepted message. He scribbled on the paper and waved it in Sai's direction. "Get this back to HQ," he ordered. Sai sent it off with his falcon obediently.

Sai - at least somewhat influenced by Naruto - had envisioned that when the time came, the war would be something like the sinking of the Jurojinmaru, but on a much larger scale - destruction, confusion, the shattering of wood and bone, the crash of blade on blade, the fireworks of chakra-intensive jutsu. Creeping through empty streets felt more like stumbling across a ghost town. "This is a quiet invasion," he noted aloud.

Zabuza-sensei snorted. "The battle ain't up here, dollface," he drawled, and stamped his foot on one of the metal sewer covers. "It's down there. Did you think everyone else was just kicking it at the ship?"

Sai supposed not. "Then the front lines are below," he said. "And ahead?"

"Yep," said Zabuza-sensei, shifting to lean against the wall of the nearest building.

Sai frowned. "The loyalists do not seem to be fighting very hard to defend the streets."

"Whoever keeps the water below wins the streets," Zabuza-sensei drawled, squinting off into the distance. His eyes appeared bloodshot, but his gaze was sharp as ever. "Neither side is willing to risk losing an all-out battle in the streets yet - it'd be much more destructive than what's going on in the sewers. But aboveground teams still have to follow the battlefront or risk the front lines below getting cut off. Overreach and they'll be the ones surrounded."

"It seems a lot of effort for ground they do not intend to keep."

Zabuza-sensei shrugged. "Mizukage knows he's gonna lose the lower city. Don't mean he'll make it easy for us. They'll keep picking off whoever's careless."

War, as ever, required further study. Sai filed away the information away for later consideration and went when Gaara beckoned him.

They stopped onceexploding seals encountered: 7; unknown seals: 1; enemy shinobi: 0; enemy familiars: 1; allies: 0; lapsed time: 5 hours, 13 minutesto gnaw their ration bars as the sun finally broke through the clouds. Zabuza-sensei paced instead of sitting down, stalking back and forth under the overhangs. Sai, Hinata, and Gaara huddled between the windows of the sukiyaki restaurant Haku had liked. Like the other shops and restaurants they had passed, a patchwork of wood covered the glass - shorter planks from supply crates, even the board on which the menu had been posted.

Zabuza-sensei glanced up as a dark shape winged its way towards them. Sai thought at first it was his falcon, but he had created it for a short burst of energy for combat; like the tiger, it would have dispelled itself hours ago. "About time," Zabuza-sensei muttered as it drew near, and Sai recognized it as a crow summons.

It pulled up short in front of Zabuza-sensei and fluttered back and forth until he gave an annoyed grunt and raised his arm obligingly for it to perch upon. "Caw," it said.

"What?" grumbled Zabuza-sensei. "No, shit, I don't know your name. Komezu? Yonezu? Kurozu?" the crow eyed him balefully. "Are you from the other one, then?" Zabuza-sensei demanded.

"Caw," said the crow.

Zabuza-sensei rolled his eyes. "How the fuck am I supposed to know?"

"Caw," the crow said, and beat its wings impatiently.

"Needy bastard," Zabuza-sensei muttered, and untied the trussed-up bird from his belt. The crow eyed it with interest as it put up a token struggle, too exhausted and disoriented for more after an afternoon dangling at Zabuza-sensei's waist. "You sure you want this? Tell him they should just eat the damn thing."

"Caw," responded the crow. It flapped, sending loose feathers fluttering in Zabuza-sensei's face and Zabuza-sensei batted in its direction irritably as it plucked the other bird up in its claws.

"You did that on purpose!" Zabuza-sensei spat as it retreated laboriously.

Having watched the curious exchange with interest, Hinata closed her eyes and rested her head against the wall. Her doujutsu had been activated constantly for the first two hours, tapering off as the day drew on. Sai could tell both her energy and her chakra had waned. Even with the mask obscuring most of her face, he could see her eyes pinched at the corners, but her hands were steady still around her hiogi.

Gaara had no such problem. He had chakra to spare, and manipulating his sand cost him very little chakra or concentration. He toyed with it idly even now, forming a kunai from the sand only to mould it into something like San's single-edged bone daggers, then a set of claws that fit over his own fingers. Why, Sai did not know, since Gaara abhorred close-range battle. When their break ended and they continued through the lower city, he kept the claws.

Familiarity warred with the unknown; the streets Sai had haunted for four weeks had been bustling, its citizens wary and worn but undeterred from their lives. Now, these same streets echoed eerily, abandoned, though the real war had yet to truly reach the surface.

The ground rumbled again. Hinata stumbled.

"Hold up," Zabuza-sensei said abruptly, his posture still and tensed. "Something's not right."

Sai glanced up and down the street: empty. His hands itched for his tanto, but he settled for running his hands along the edges of his scroll.

"Hotshot, sweep for chakra signatures," Zabuza-sensei ordered. "Dollface, get eyes in the sky."

Sai painted another falcon, concentrating on his knowledge of its ocular system. His ink gave it body, his chakra ability, and it peeled off his paper in a flutter of ebony wings.

Hinata was frowning, twisting her neck ever so slightly as she searched. "Nothing yet," she reported as Zabuza-sensei shifted on his feet impatiently. "The chakra signatures I see are underdeveloped and indoors; it will take some time to filter through them."

"Fine, whatever, just do it," was Zabuza-sensei's response.

Sai's falcon banked sharply overhead, curling in a tight spiral twice before continuing its slow canvas. "Kyuu - twenty-four degrees northwest," he directed.

"Hai," said Hinata, tilting her head slightly. "There's a team there," she said, her voice colored lightly with disbelief. "Ah - Kiri, estimate one jounin, three chuunin from their chakra coils. Three katanas. Estimate - "

"That's enough," said Zabuza-sensei. "Where'd they come from?"

Hinata hesitated. "There's a sewer opening three meters away with the cover off. They're currently stationary," she added.

Zabuza-sensei knocked the mask up on top of his head so he could scrub his hand over his face. "They don't fucking stop," he muttered. "One thing after the fucking other. Which hack couldn't hold the godsdamned line down there?"

"And another team three blocks south of them," added Hinata, as Sai's falcon wheeled once again.

"Dispel your bird, dollface," Zabuza-sensei ordered. "They're hunting us. It'll give us away."

Gaara rumbled deep in his throat, discontented, as Sai let the falcon splatter against a nearby roof. "Not prey." He twisted his hand into a fist so the curved sand claws pointed out threateningly before letting it drop again.

"Wait," said Sai, even as Zabuza-sensei scoffed.

"You think you aren't prey?" He growled. "Hotshot, to the east. Sweep the streets. Tell me what you see."

Hinata obeyed and flinched. "There are at least three teams, spread out along the streets three-quarters of a kilometer to the east and closing." She flicked her hiogi open, then shut almost reflexively. "All armed. Estimate chuunin and jounin."

"They cannot all be after us," Sai said, frowning. It seemed excessive, to dedicate so many shinobi to kill just one team, when both sides were already stretched thin.

"They can," Zabuza-sensei reassured. "They have us on the wrong side of the lines. They'll get us in a kill box and massacre us."

Hinata glanced nervously at Sai. Zabuza-sensei rolled his eyes. "They're not gonna kill us," he said with exaggerated patience. "They don't know where we are yet. They don't know what we can do. We're going to get behind them and fuck them over."

This was more easily said than done. Sai exchanged a look with Hinata over Gaara's stony glare.

Zabuza-sensei folded his arms. "Normally I'd make you figure this out yourselves but I'm fucking exhausted and I don't have the fucking patience for this. It's not that complicated. We need a decoy, we need to sneak behind them, and we need to fucking demolish them. Questions?"

Sai had several, but he also had training forbidding him from interrupting a commanding officer, and Zabuza-sensei, contrary to his words, did not appear to be pausing for questions.

"No? Dollface, make your little cats or whatever for the ambush, then you're the decoy. Break for the south fence, make them think you're going for help. We'll get around behind them when they pursue and pick that closer team off first."

"Hai," acknowledged Sai, spreading his scroll out and kneeling in the street to draw. Like the first, he gave his tigers sharp fangs and claws that curved wickedly from massive paws. His hands steadied as he progressed with sure strokes, the familiar motions easing the adrenaline coursing through him with fits and jolts.

"You two are with me," Zabuza-sensei continued as he painted. "Hotshot, you're going to tell me exactly where those teams are at all times. We're gonna go north a bit." He eyed the line of tigers on Sai's scroll. "They're gonna sense that much chakra. That's the cue," he said. "They come this way, they're gonna find dollface booking it south and go after him. When they leave position, the rest of us slide in between those two teams and swing down south to ambush."

Sai had played the decoy many times in the last month, the one who drew the attention and ire so others could act unnoticed. The role was familiar, the circumstances less so. "Ready," he said, sitting back on his heels.

"Two minutes," said Zabuza-sensei. "Then activate it and run. Dollface, midget, let's go."

As the rest of the team slipped off through the streets, leaving Sai kneeling before his paintings, he tucked the brush and ink away carefully. He took a deep breath and counted down the seconds. The street was empty still, the sun bright above him, and the wind plucked at the edges of his scroll. He leaned down and bracketed the row of tigers between his hands, concentrated, and pushed his chakra into the ink. The ink beasts rose one by one, clawing their way free of the scroll, and when the last had pulled its tail from the paper, Sai snapped the scroll shut, tucked it back into his cloak, and bolted.

He felt, at first, as if he might be wasting his energy, running down an empty street with no pursuers, but he turned the corner and discovered the Kiri team, several streets away, coming in his direction. "Shit, catch him!" he heard, as one of the figures broke into a dead run right at him. Sai ducked a kunaiorigin: 350 meters; easy to avoidand swerved into the nearest alley.

He leapt and rebounded off the wall, easily clearing the chain link bisecting the alley, and hit the ground running. He turned the corner only to find that another of the teamheight: 175-185cm; weight: 68-70kg; weaponry: spearhad mirrored his detour and was once again closing in on him. Sai veered back east - the wrong way - and hopped the low wall into the mazelike grounds of the Hidoi housing complex.

The shinobi with the spear swore vehemently. The shinobi might be Kiri, but Sai had lived these streets, and Sai knew this complex like the back of his hand.

He took the stairs five at a time, bounding up the tight spiral until he had cleared three flights, then flitted out of the stairwell and down the narrow hallway on the right, crouching so the low wall would cover him from any looking up. He took a hard hairpin right again, then vaulted over the wall down to the roof of the adjacent building, a long, narrow thing with a half-rusted tin roof. It was too exposed, of course, but Sai's objective was not to escape, but to distract.

Instinct jerked him sideways as a kunai sailed past his ear. He took the last two steps to the edge of the roof and jumped. He landed in a neat roll on the walkway of the next building, chancing a glance backwards to see a kunoichiheight: 160-170 cm; weight: 50-55kg; weaponry: standard kunai holster, sheathed katanaleap down to the roof he had recently vacated and hurl another kunai in his direction. He ducked out of the way, into the relative safety of the next hallway, and ran.

He flipped through hand seals as he ran, and with a spark of chakra a clone appeared to run in stride with him. Sai ducked right, his clone went left.

He did not hear footsteps as he paused, tucked in a narrow alcove alongside a trio of overflowing trash cans, because shinobi were far too well trained to make noise over something so careless as a footfall, but he did hear the kunoichi's low, furious voice as she darted past without a pause, "You better catch that little bastard!"

When she had gone, Sai left the cover of the alcove and slunk to the nearest rail, dropping fifteen meters to the ground and landing in a light crouch on the cracked pavement. He straightened, trotted to the next intersection, and chose the third of the seven pathways that lay before him, heading down the winding road as the precarious cement apartments transitioned into clusters of red mud houses and rickety wooden fences, a miniature village in the complex itself.

He slowed as he wove between the buildings, jumping the fences without touching the wood. He rounded the corner, sidestepping a stack of woven baskets, and whisked his tanto from its sheath just in time to block the katana that came crashing down towards his head.

The Kiri shinobi smiled down at him smugly, cuelly, as he bore down with his longer blade and superior weight. "Gotcha," he purred as Sai staggered backwards.

"Hm," said Sai.

The shinobi's eyes widened, and he leapt sideways, whirling on his heel as Hinata descended from the roofs in a flurry of cloak and battle fans. Sai lunged, interrupting the shinobi's strike, and the man snarled impotently, rearing back as Hinata darted inside his guard.

Hinata's hiogi slashed through the air one after the other, startlingly elegant, and even faster she snapped the second shut and backhanded it brutally across the shinobi's face. Sai took the moment he faltered to draw his tanto back and stab it up and into the man's back.

Hinata hissed between her teeth, skittering backwards away from the spray of blood.

"My apologies," said Sai, disengaging his blade with a sharp yank and letting the shinobi's body drop to the ground beside him with a muted thud.

Hinata jerked her chin dismissively. "You're still too far east," she informed him. "Your remaining pursuers are scattered, and our team has returned behind the presumed front line. We've been advised that we want to eliminate the remainder of this team as well as the second team approaching before the shift change."

Wemeant Zabuza-sensei had decided. "Understood," said Sai. "I will draw them back. To the western courtyard?"

"Aa," Hinata agreed, then added dryly, "You didn't think you'd be doing this again so soon, did you?"

"No," Sai admitted.

"You were always good at it," Hinata said. "Etsuji certainly thought so."

"He was a civilian," Sai pointed out, wiping his blade carefully on the downed man's flak jacket. "They are easily impressed."

Hinata tilted her head a little. "Kunoichi closing," she said. "We weren't very quiet. I'll head back; don't get yourself captured."

"I have no intention of it," Sai assured her. She left; after a few seconds, he did as well.

The kunoichi encountered Sai before her fallen teammate, so Sai was forced into a dead sprint to put some distance between them, long enough to reach the catacombs of the brick apartments where she could follow him easily but without a clear line of sight with which to hurl her impressively accurate projectiles.

The kunoichi called out behind him; a teammate answered. Like the baying of the captain's hounds, Sai knew he was well and truly hunted now. He swerved as the road did, curving up and around, and below caught sight of his hunters - the kunoichi and a shinobi chased after him on different roads, nearly parallel, twenty meters apart.

His inattention cost him. Sai turned another corner and jerked just enough that the third shinobi's fist and sword hilt caught him instead of his blade, sending him crashing to the ground against the far wall. He threw himself into a desperate short-range shunshin as the katana slammed down once again, stumbling on his feet as the shinobi whirled after him.

Chakra boosted his jump as he scrambled desperately for the roofs, sprinting headlong across uneven tiles. The shinobi followed, the loud crunch of breaking tiles heralding his pursuit. Controlling his breathing was growing difficult. Sai's heart hammered in his throat as he slipped sideways off the roof, directly into the long covered hallway of the next apartment over.

The end of the walkway opened into a wide open space, ringed unevenly by nine buildings, all of different sizes and styles, and twice as many escape routes. Sai took a flying leap off the end and hit the ground running, darting into the alleyway furthest west.

The alley curved sharply beneath his feet, and when it curved again to its end, he stopped abruptly.

The kunoichi grinned at him sharply, her eyes cold. "Surprise," she said.

Sai drew his tanto, sidling sideways around the building corner, and she let him. Just behind her was the path that diverged to the western and southern walls of the Hidoi housing complex. She must have deduced where he would attempt to run.

He raised his blade in one hand as her teammates padded from the surrounding pathways, raised his other hand in the Seal of Concentration.

"Surrender," ordered one of the shinobi. "You're just a kid. You can be reconditioned."

The kunoichi made a disgusted noise in her throat. "If he wants to surrender, Kiri doesn't need someone like him," she spat.

"I do not," Sai reassured her, motionless but for his eyes flitting between the three shinobi.

The shinobi with the spear eyed Sai's raised tanto and snorted. "Think you're a hero, little minnow?"

"No," said Sai, as around him his ink tigers prowled from the shadows. Zabuza-sensei's mist rolled in, thick and cold and suffocating, and Gaara's sand rose up to envelope him defensively. "I'm the white rabbit."

Notes:

[05/15/2019] Greetings. My exam: I bombed, I may have cried, I 100% forgot to update the story. This here was another experimental type chapter to test the waters and also see what you all are able to tolerate, and the alternate title is "Sai Is Still Learning How To Be A Monster." It took about 2.5 months to draft. I loathe it. Fun fact about Team Genbu's civilian covers: The first syllable of the fake name is the last syllable of their real name (Sai/Itaru; Hinata/Tatsuko; Gaara/Rakushi).

Also I finally finished drafting chapter 15 and have started 16 so *Dr. Strange voice* we're in the endgame now. I am sure there was more I meant to say but I am tired.
Thanks again for all your amazing comments and leaving kudos :)

Chapter 15: If You Think About It, Zabuza Is Just An Enthusiastic Social Justice Warrior (Emphasis on Warrior)

Summary:

Whoever thought it was a good idea to have Zabuza around children thought wrong.

Notes:

All right friends, we have a 42k word chapter here. You've been warned.

(See the end of the chapter formore notes.)

Chapter Text

MISSION REPORT D-210

Contact with enemy combatants: none.

Enemy combatants from origin: Konohagakure observed on five (5) occasions.

Status of AT2: approximate age-appropriate growth achieved.

AT2 acquiring survival and self-sustaining skills, including: toileting, basic arithmetic, basic verbalsentence construction, identification and collection of fresh water, identification of enemycombatants, self-concealment in urban and uninhabited environments.

Skills acquisition rated as ahead of average age group performance in both speed and retention.

Returned to [REDACTED] base of operations, location of targets and allies TAP73I (Targets and Allies of Protocol 73I).

Conducted long range observation of TAP73I.

Resources acquired: uncooked rice, dry millet, miso, acorns, pine needles, wild rabbits, squirrels,dandelions, wild onions, chicken eggs, shoes.

Method of acquisition: no change.

Health status: adequate; slight malnutrition, improved from sign of illness.

Notable activities: no change.

Enemy combatants in vicinity: none.

With AT2, made contact with TAP73I.

Provided provisions: dried fish, salted meat, dried vegetables.

Collective mental status: insecurity, defensive behavior, heightened attachment to Operative Cat-15,separation and generalized anxiety, some internal hostility.

Conclusion: TAP73I is largely self-sustaining and in no immediate danger.

Plan of action: Remain with TAP731 for 15 days, contingent on continued absence of enemy combatants, to provide additional support and training.

Operative Cat-15 to depart [REDACTED] with AT2 following fifteen day interval and continue to maintain minimal contact with TAP73I.

END REPORT

-Operative Cat-15

Somewhere around six months to a year ago, when the little Leaf rebellion reorganized ranks in anticipation for the coming war, Hatake asked him to be a captain in Hanabi-ha. Zabuza laughed in his face and told him to fuck off. Hatake responded by informing Zabuza that he was now a captain, here were the reports he needed to read, and since Zabuza had made the unfortunate life decision of having been rescued from a slow death via medical dissection and human experimentation by the skinny bastard, he found himself the reluctant captain of Unit 15.

Which was not to say that the erstwhile Unit 15 had even known who the fuck their captain was. Zabuza hadn't seen them much before the siege; he sent orders and received reports by way of Shisui or Itachi's summons, a messenger genin or chuunin, or whoever else happened to be close at hand. Zabuza remembered being a new genin, wondering which fucking higher up kept shunting him from watchtower to outpost to warship while they sat in the village casting judgment on all the low caste grunts, and surprise! Now Zabuza was one of those fucking pricks. He wasn't especially thrilled about this development, but again: skinny bastard, rescued, slow death.

Zabuza knew his unit, kind of, since he'd assigned himself or been assigned to them as extra firepower on a couple of raids, and they weren't a complete embarrassment. They were still alive, mostly.

Or, you know, at least half of them. Whatever. At least they weren't the Gull Hill crew.

Zabuza had not slept in nearly three full days and had spent the last eight hours herding Shisui's prized baby infiltrators through clearing the trapped streets. Seriously, who looked at the jinchuuriki with a quarter of his marbles at best and went,hey, this kid would be great undercover?Not Zabuza.

But since Shisui had been hustled into a lengthy debrief because he and his kids actually had managed to crack Kiri's notorious civilian smuggling routes, and since at the time Itachi had gone ten hours longer than Zabuza without sleeping, Itachi got to take a nap and Zabuza got to tramp through the lower city some more.

The little sand princess was right. It was boring as all fuck.

The plus: a couple of teams had popped up behind them and gotten it into their heads that they could cut them off and off them. They were wrong. Zabuza took great delight in correcting them.

"You can come out now," he said, letting the mist dissipate into the sunlight. He crouched to wipe his blade off on one of the fallen shinobi's pants. His three borrowed brats turned as one, which was slightly creepy with their identical little wolf masks, their weapons at their sides but not raised.

Zabuza recognized the tokujo who stepped out - Saeko, one of those rare genjutsu specialists, who wore a gossamer dress of her namesake under her flak jacket which should have looked absurd but somehow didn't. The edges of her dress fluttered as she stopped, heedless of the partially dismembered body at her feet. Zabuza appreciated her unflappable nature. "Captain," she said, and Zabuza acknowledged her with a jerk of his head.. "We're your relief team. I've been asked by the previous shift leader to inform you that there were no casualties in the unit, but seven minor injuries, one major injury, and eighteen incidents of contact with the enemy." The three genin that followed her warily were regular General Forces grunts - Guntai, not Shirei-bu. Zabuza glanced at them once and dismissed them.

Zabuza was not impressed by the report. "Jounin Yobirin," he said. "He's shift leader, yeah?"

"Yes, sir," Saeko confirmed. She slid a rolled paper out of her flak jacket and offered it to him. "This is his report and an updated map with the positions of our teams."

Zabuza grunted as he took then, skimming their contents perfunctorily. "Where's Yobirin?" The shift leader should have handed in his report in person.

"I believe he handed over command to Jounin Kitajima and returned to camp," Saeko said, her face passive despite the nervous shifting of the chuunin at her back.

Jounin Yobirin had a nasty surprise waiting for him. Once Zabuza had gotten at least three hours of sleep.

"There's three teams east of here, watch out for them," Zabuza ordered. "Stay put and keep your heads down until I figure out what the fuck is going on in the sewers."

"Hai," said Saeko, giving the three borrowed brats a curious look. Zabuza mentally deducted points from her for that, because everyone did it and it was getting annoying.

"Genbu, on me," he growled, and stumped back to the checkpoint with the three of them on his heels.

Zabuza's actual team was waiting there, or his actual stolen team, because technically his actual assigned team was the loudmouth blond jinchuuriki's team but if Zabuza was going to drag a genin team after him into actual battle, it was going to be a halfway competent one with his actual apprentice on it.

Haku was slumped over a table in the break room, but straightened as soon as he saw their arrival. He pushed back from the table, stood, and opened his mouth, but Zabuza beat him to it.

"Anything to report?" he demanded, as the smallest midget beelined for his sister and tucked himself under her arm. White-eyes the elder glowered at white-eyes the younger, who shrank back, and silently dared her to attempt the same.

"No," said Haku, who wilted just a little - not enough that Zabuza felt bad, since this was war and Haku could do to toughen up a little. "Our shift was more or less uneventful."

"More or less," Zabuza repeated, because his bullshit meter for his apprentice was finely tuned.

Haku flushed a little despite the mask. "We did encounter an enemy team, but we were able to fight them off without injury."

"Good," said Zabuza nonplussed, and eyed his apprentice up and down to make sure he wasn't lying. He rarely did, but pride was a funny thing that popped back up no matter how many attempts were made to beat it down. "All right, all you hellions. Back to base."

The sand princess sighed in relief. "Thank Kami," she muttered, rocking back on her heels, one hand still tangled absently in her brother's hair. "My feet are killing me."

If she had been his apprentice during peacetime - and she wouldn't have, since he had Haku - he would have made her train until she collapsed for a comment like that. And maybe she knew it, because she sent him a sharp-edged, quicksilver little smile, and he had to hide his own, because if he couldn't have Haku, he wouldn't have minded her, insolent whelp that she might be.

Plus, she wasn't wrong. Zabuza had just tuned out the low-level ache that came with the territory of staying awake for sixty hours and fighting for most of it.

The warship Hoteimaru was an unwelcome sight and poor reward for the end of his shift, but like many things about this hellish war, Zabuza bore it with only a flicker of irritation. "Get some rest," he ordered without looking back as he stalked towards the captain's cabin. As ever, the teams unlucky enough to have been assigned berths abovedeck watched with naked curiosity that prickled at the back of his neck. "You're back on tomorrow."

"Hai," said Haku, crisp and clear for all the rest, and they peeled off to their bunks belowdeck with grateful slumps in their shoulders. Zabuza envied them.

He flared his chakra and knocked on the door.

"Yeah," Nara's voice carried, so Zabuza pushed his way through.

"Who the fuck isn't holding their line in the sewer?" were the first words out of his mouth as he ripped the mask off his face. "My unit can't move until whoever it is gets their shit together."

Only Hatake and Nara were there, staring glumly at the map and Zabuza respectively. Hatake looked about as well as Zabuza felt, with an unhealthy parlor and a dark ring around his uncovered eye.

"Shit, Hatake, you look like hell," he informed the man helpfully. "Get some sleep."

"Anything to report?" said Hatake, ignoring him efficiently in favor of doing the fish-eye at the battle maps.

Zabuza rolled his eyes. "My team got fucking boxed in," he said. "Whoever was responsible for holding Pipeline 83-W through 86-N fucked up and let a couple of teams up behind us."

"We'll redirect Itachi to clear it up," said Nara, tapping his fingers against his arm absently. "He's out on damage control. Anything else?"

"No. Mostly minor injuries, one major. I don't have a detailed report yet; I'll get it later from the shift leader." When he beat it out of him. "My teams in that quadrant need to know when it's safe to advance," Zabuza added grudgingly, remembering Saeko and her team probably skulking in the complex where he'd slaughtered two teams.

"Nara's coordinating the front lines," Hatake said. "He'll deal with it, you're off. And Momochi - full Hana-ha Command meeting in six hours; it's mandatory."

"Good fucking grief, can't we both just get some godsdamned sleep, Hatake?" Zabuza spat, and stalked off to get some of his own.

If possible, Zabuza's mood had worsened when he awoke, because this was the first time Zabuza hadn't been able to weasel out of a Command meeting since sinking the Jurojinmaru.

"You couldn't hide forever," Shisui pointed out in what would have been a very reasonable tone if the little tree hugger hadn't planned to do exactly that himself.

"I'm not fucking hiding," Zabuza growled, prodding at a loose piece of wrapping on his spare katana's hilt. "Hatake took all the credit for the big one, didn't he?"

The more jarring part of the story was how easily everybody else bought it - that Raijuu had more or less singlehandedly sunk one of the more fearsome war machines in all the Elemental Nations. Zabuza had lived with the shifty bastard long enough to realize that Hatake wasn't especially strong on the battlefield per say, not when compared to the likes of Senju or Uchiha or maybe even Shisui himself - but he was damn slippery and exceptionally canny.

"Yeah," said Shisui, eyeing him with amusement, and a judgmental eyebrow he itched to cut off, when he mentioned it aloud. "That's why he was a captain at thirteen. Everyone assumes his mask and callsign was Wolf, but that wasn't him. Hatake-taichou wasKitsune -the Fox."

Zabuza chewed on this information. "He bluffs," he concluded.

Shisui's mouth twitched in a sly smile. "Yeah, but by the time you realize that, he's already got you where he wants you. And he's strong enough."

"That fucker," Zabuza muttered incredulously. "You have a cute codename too, Konoha? Hamster, maybe?"

Shisui scoffed. "I was only in for a two-year enlistment, didn't make captain or specialist or anything since I was underage. Got a regular old grunt callsign - Cat-17."

"Thatisboring," Zabuza noted, unimpressed.

"Excuse you," Shisui mock-scowled. "I was the star of my recruit class. Two team leaders fought over me."

"Amazing," Zabuza droned. Shisui threw a towel at him that he leaned out of the way of to avoid.

"We're going to be late if we don't leave now," he noted, reaching up to tip his leopard-spotted mask back over his face.

"Hn," said Zabuza unenthusiastically, and stood.

"Z," said Shisui, making him pause before reaching the door. "You sure about this?"

Zabuza scowled down at his own mask hanging on his belt. "Whatever," he growled. "Let's get this over with."

Though he had still wrapped his lower face in its customary bandages, Kubikiribocho slung over his back gave no room for doubt as to who he was. A shocked silence fell over the deck as he climbed up from belowdeck, stalking his way to the captain's cabin with Shisui shadowing him silently. Shisui radiated amusement. Zabuza wanted to punt him off the ship.

He shoved the door open, and an identical hush fell over the occupants. He stepped inside and folded his arms across his chest. Shisui clicked the door shut behind them.

At the head of the room, Senju barely looked up from her perusal of the contents of the table. "Captains Hana-An-010 and Hana-An-031, nice of you to join us," she said distractedly.

The other captains ringing the room stared at him silently with shock, suspicion, or absolutely no emotion at all. Zabuza ignored them, glaring stonily towards the front of the room.

"Tsunade-sama," said one particularly bold captain. Tenru or Tenrai - no, Tenrei. Tenrei Natsugo, some sort of sensor-nin. "I was under the impression that the joint Command meeting was at 0300 hours."

"Yes," Senju said shortly.

The weighing stares returned. Nara took mercy on him and said, "Momochi Zabuza is the Hanabi-ha captain of Unit 15."

This time, after the initial shock and suspicion, the stares drifted to the youngest woman in the room, who rested in an easy stance with her bracer-armored arms crossed over the chest of her armor. "What?" she said. "I've been with Unit 17 for like a year."

"What?" demanded another captain, similar in eyes and bone structure. Zabuza, by way of having spent too much time in close quarters with Shisui, whose official title was something pretentious like 'Captain of Covert Intelligence' and thus knew the identities and deep, dark histories of everyone in the room, recognized these two as members of a very, very rare breed: sisters who had both made both jounin rank and Anbu captain. The rest of the elder's former genin team was in the room as well, captains of Units 11 and 16 respectively, as well as their jounin sensei, so therecouldbe some sort of nepotism at play here, if Nara Shikaku didn't have a reputation for ruthless pragmatism and being an ice-cold son of a bitch. The younger's genin teammates were all dead.

The younger shrugged, and probably would have sounded a helluva lot more smug if they hadn't all been in an official briefing when she said, "I didn't think it was important."

"Captains Yanagi and Yanagi, if you're finished," said Senju, without glancing up from the table.

Yanagi the elder - Komorebi, Zabuza remembered she and her sister both had ridiculously sentimental names - coughed and said, "Yes, Tsunade-sama, our apologies."

Yanagi the younger, Tsukimi, ducked her head in an abbreviated bow, and said, "Well, we got 031. Is 010 there keeping his mask on?"

Ah, the insolence of youth. Zabuza remembered when he had been young and entitled, though granted it had been beaten out of him a lot younger than she was now.

"He's covert intelligence," Nara said patiently. "It's better for him to keep it on."

Tsukimi sniffed. "We knew Houki," she pointed out.

"Houki is currently retired on the mainland because he can't eat or shit anything solid." Nara was remarkably tolerant of this whelp who wasn't even one of his, only the sister of one, which told Zabuza he was willing to entertain these questions because Tsukimi spoke the opinions of the rest of the group. If only Shisui didn't have to keep the mask on. Tsukimi was probably only a couple years older than Shisui, and for whatever reason Shisui liked socializing with his peers, of which there were few he didn't wildly outrank.

"If you're finished, Yanagi," Senju said again meaningfully, finally raising her head and Tsukimi subsided with another apologetic jerk of her chin. "Nara?"

"Right," said Nara, straightening out of his slump. He glanced over the assembled captains, looking for - something, Zabuza didn't know what, and apparently satisfied, said, "As you all know, Yukihyou here was undercover with a team for four weeks in the lower city, and they were able to find additional passageways through the mountains to Kirigakure that bypass the main Karikachi mountain pass, sewer lines, and supply tunnels that run through the Hakkouda Mountains."

"We'recalling you 'Yukihyou' now too?" Zabuza muttered out of the side of his mouth at Shisui. Nobody glared at him, because Zabuzahad learned how to shoot the shit without getting caught during even more unforgiving environments.

Shisui, unfortunately, didn't respond, so Zabuza resigned himself to actually listening to the briefing because there was no point in not paying attention unless there was another person to not pay attention with.

"The joint Command meeting with the Kiri Hanran leadership is in less than three hours," Senju cut in. "You have the routes; you have the maps. What I need from you now are strategies."

An older kunoichi that Zabuza could have sworn he last saw as a jounin-in-charge on one of the Northern bases said, "What are the defensive capabilities at the Karikachi pass?"

"Nothing you'll get through with a straightforward assault," Zabuza drawled. That got him more thinly veiled stares.

"We could make a giant wooden horse, hide our shinobi in it, and tempt the loyalists into opening the pass to check it out," suggested one of the younger captains, the abnormally brave and stupid Tenrei.

"Idiot," Tsukimi muttered under her breath, as her sister said, "What kind of fool are you to think that would work on so much as an Academy student?"

Senju, having picked up a tiny wooden marker from the table denoting a genin team, hurled the thing and fucking brained the hapless Tenrei. "If you're going to treat this like a joke, hand me your resignation right now," she snapped, and the room went deathly silent.

The Mizukage commanded similar reactions during his fits of temper - even in a room full of shinobi trained to hide their reactions, Zabuza could taste the tension in the air, see the dance of suddenly blank eyes watching each other carefully but turning away milliseconds before meeting another's eyes.

Tenrei peeled himself off the ground without a flinch but kept his eyes down when he bowed his apology and deposited the genin team marker back on the table, which Zabuza eyed with reluctant caution. The little disc could have gone clean through his skull if Senju had wanted - another reason to steer clear of the ornery old cow.

"There are currently only feasible two ways to move enough shinobi quickly enough to circumvent a siege," Hatake said, as if nothing had happened. Senju's sharp amber stare flicked to him and locked on. "Either through the underground sewer and tunnel system, or through the pass itself; both are heavily guarded."

The vaguely familiar formerly-Guntai more-recently-Shirei-bu Haraguni suggested finding an alternate path through the mountains. Zabuza shot that idea down, less gleefully than he would have if it had been one of those small yappy upstarts who were there to talk back and say what everyone else was too much of a soldier to say, because their slopes were trapped to hell and back, and were probably activated the second the first explosive tag hit the Kirigakure main island shore.

The smallest, yappiest upstart - appropriately named 'Kasasagi,' orMagpie,or maybe nicknamed, Zabuza didn't know and didn't care - had been promoted to Captain of Communications because after the death of his predecessor, he was now the foremost breeder, raiser, and trainer of messenger hawks and halfway decent at a handful of jutsu that made them and himself especially slippery; he proved his youthful optimism by saying, "Senju-sama, between you and Hatake-taichou, we can go straightthroughthe mountains."

Ah, ignorance; thy name is magpie. Hatake probably couldn't do more than crack a small hill without help from a convenient thunderstorm, let alone carve a new canyon through an entire mountain range.

Senju simmered; Nara demonstrated his strategic competence by saying, "Thank you, next," before she could take down another captain with a wood chip.

It was a grueling two hours that Zabuza - and Shisui, to a less frequent, less caustic extent - spent picking holes in his fellow captains' proposals, except Itachi, because he quietly suggested a multi-distraction operation that might work as long as one considered luck a skill and not a whim of fate. Senju finally leaned back and snapped, "We're done here."

Zabuza huffed silently. Two hours, and they had established only what they wouldnotbe doing. Hatake didn't look upset or concerned, just mildly contemplative; across from him, Nara stared hard at the elaborate battle-map spread over the tabletop with the air of someone intensely ignoring everyone and everything else in the room. The other captains shifted almost imperceptibly on their feet.

"Hatake, Nara, and - " Senju paused for just a second, narrowing her eyes at the assembled captains. "Momochi and Yukihyou. Stay back. Everyone else, out."

Ah, fuck.

Yanagi the elder moved first, snagging Yanagi the younger by the sleeve and towing her out. The rest padded out in their wake in twos and threes except Itachi, who lingered at the door until Shizune leaned in and murmured something that prompted him to follow.

Senju stalked around the side of the table as the room cleared, and when the door shut behind Shiranui, she leaned against the table and crossed her arms. "So," she said. "I'm bringing you four to meet with Terumi before the joint Command briefing."

Oh, hell no.He opened his mouth and Hatake shot him a narrow-eyed warning stare, so he gritted his teeth and amendedwhat the fuck, you batty old hagto, "With all due respect, why are you bringing me instead of Katai or Uchiha the shrimp?" which didn't exactly come out respectful but Hatake should take his fucking wins where he could get them.

"Watch your tongue," Senju snapped, reminding Zabuza why his battle plan in regards to the witch was to glare at her silently until he could distance himself from her godsdamned flicks and foul temper. "Katai is in charge while we're gone, Itachi needs to run the battlefield, andyouknow the terrain and exactly what Terumi doesn't want us to know. Wear your mask if you want."

Zabuza wasn't going to wear his mask because the cat was already out of the godsdamned bag - or it would be, the second Ao caught sight of his chakra with that fucking eye.

"He's not going to wear the mask," said Shisui, shoving his on up onto his forehead and pushing back his unruly hair. "They already know he was on the Jurojinmaru."

"This is your big reveal, then." Senju looked him up and down critically, then said in a tone meant to provoke, "Dramatic little brat, aren't you?"

Zabuza had years of experience gritting his teeth and shutting up, but he was out of practice. Nosy old witch. He hadn't missed her.

Senju was not impressed with his efforts. "Mute now too?" she demanded. Shisui raised an eyebrow meaningfully at him from behind her back.

"No, sir," Zabuza ground out.

"Your tongue still works, then," was her dismissive response, and Zabuza rolled his eyes hard as she turned. "Do that with your eyes again and I'll rip them out and feed them to you," she threatened, without looking back.

"That's a waste of good eyeballs, Tsunade-sama," said Shisui cheerfully, safe in his knowledge that, of the two of them, he was her favorite.

"Fine, you can have one," said Senju grudgingly.

Zabuza glared at Shisui, since he was the one safe to glare at whendiscussing what to do with Zabuza's forcibly removed eyes. Shisui smirked.

Mei, unsurprisingly, had established her camp in the old lighthouse, where the windows granted an unobscured view of both the lower city and the ocean. She didn't quite lounge in front of the massive round table where her Command had set up a battle map much more permanent and elaborate than Hana-ha's, probably because she had been raised on stories of the Konoha Sannins' prowess in battle and at least somewhat respected Senju.

Old man Ao stood at her right shoulder, giving Zabuza a squinty-eyed glare; planted solidly on Mei's other side was Fukaya Maiko, hands tucked neatly behind her back as she assessed the Hanabi-ha contingent critically. Zabuza recognized the two additional captains Mei had chosen for the joint meeting - Higata Beniko, whose cunning had always been criminally underutilized due to her birth status, and Michishio Yuusei, who was a massive dick.

He stalked into the room after Shisui and valiantly resisted the urge to cross his arms, glower, or otherwise give Senju a reason to try flicking him through a window. None of the Hanran shinobi looked surprised to see him; Zabuza blamed Ao.

"Mei," Senju greeted curtly.

"Tsunade-sama," Mei purred.

Senju jerked her head back. "I have Nara and Hatake; this is Hana-An-010 - codename Yukihyou - captain of the Covert Intelligence Unit, and you know Momochi."

"Oh, we do," said Mei, dragging a languid gaze up and down Zabuza's form as he narrowed his eyes at her. "You remember Fukaya and Senzaki. These are Higata Beniko and Michishio Yuusei, captains of Units 7 and 9." The two captains nodded in unison, the former with a little too much eagerness, and the latter with much too much arrogance. "We don't have a lot of time," Mei continued, "So shall we get to it?"

Mei's Command had clearly considered this part of the invasion extensively, but Shisui's intel brought the conclusion about more quickly. Zabuza watched, mostly, Mei's smouldering aggression and Senju's sharp rejoiners, Nara's considering drawls and Ao's clipped replies. Beniko jumped in and out of the conversation, betraying her enthusiasm; Michishio needled Hatake and Shisui repeatedly despite never getting a response until Mei said, sweetly, "Yuusei, you'reembarrassing me,"and Michishio - and Ao, like some kind of ingrained reflex - went bone-white and stopped talking abruptly.

"Hmph," said Senju. "I need to confer with my shinobi."

"Of course," Mei agreed instantly. "Twenty minutes?"

"Acceptable," said Senju, and signalled them to the east side with a jerk if her chin.

"Zabuza," said Mei before he could follow. "A word?"

Zabuza glowered at Ao over Mei's shoulder. "Privately? Yeah."

Mei flicked a hand at her captains dismissively, then turned back to Zabuza as they reluctantly drifted around to the far side of the table. "Zabuza," she said quietly, her eyes sparkling playfully. "You're looking good."

"Am I?" said Zabuza, doing this best to keep his face unimpressed despite the reluctant fondness rising at the back of his throat. "What do you want, Mei?"

Mei, like any predator, knew how to get her teeth in a vulnerable target. "You were on the Jurojinmaru for its sinking too, weren't you?" she prodded curiously. "We expected to see you soon after that." To join up, she meant. In another life, Zabuza might have been one of her commanders - certainly, one of her captains.

"I'm not here to fly your colors, Mei," Zabuza growled.

Mei raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Are you here to make this a three-way war alliance with you and your one-man army?"

"No," he snapped, stalling the inevitable.

She stared at him, comprehension slowly dawning in her eyes. Her gaze flitted over at the Hana-ha contingent, assessing one by one. Zabuza glanced away and gritted his teeth, because she knew him too well. "Oh, you poor bastard," she breathed, almost compassionately. "You stupid fucking bastard. It's not Senju. It's Hatake, isn't it? Hatake holds your life debt."

Zabuza bit back a snarl. "Don't forget who saved your fucking neck during your Academy graduation," he warned.

"And don't forget who smuggled you out of Kiri when the hunter-nin were out for your blood," Mei shot back. "My life debt was paid. But Hatake? You will never pay yours off, not even with a war."

"I know," Zabuza snapped, glaring.

Mei sighed, suddenly tired, and Zabuza knew her well enough to see the disappointment she hid. "Must you be so honorable?" she asked wryly. "You belong with us; youareone of us."

"You know what they say about things like us," Zabuza reminded her gruffly. "'If not honor, what do we have?'"

Mei's lip curled derisively. "Said by the man who damned us all when he bent his neck to save his enslaver."

"That miserable fucking bastard," Zabuza agreed. "We're still pickin' up his mess."

"Mei, my captain, if you don't mind," Senju called impatiently from across the room.

Mei's sultry smile reappeared as if it had never gone. "But of course, Tsunade-sama," she purred, and turned in a swish of her flame-colored hair. "I couldn't keep him to myself if I tried."

The words weighed on him with finality; this was Mei, declaring to her captains that Zabuza was not one of them. It left a bitter taste in his mouth as he watched her sashay away.

The first words out of his mouth when he rejoined the cluster of Hanabi-ha were, "Mei'll try to get you to capture the southern dam. Don't. You're guaranteed to lose most of the shinobi who try."

"Someone's going to have to take it," Shisui pointed out. "Distraction or no, there's no way we can take the pass with that at our backs if it's controlled by the enemy."

"Don't agree," Zabuza insisted. "The land there is rougher than Mei will admit; the only effective way to launch an assault is over top of the reservoir. Konoha-nin don't water-walk as well as Kiri-born, especially not up running water, and better water on water than fire on water. The Hanran'll take losses, but not as many as we would. Offer one or two A-rank specialists to smooth it over, someone long-range."

"Fine," said Senju. "We'll pitch taking over the rest of the overland battles. Mei can have the tunnels and the dams."

Mei did not want the tunnels and the dams, but unfortunately for her, Zabuza was willing to call her out on her bullshit. This tunnel was mostly dry, she said, surely Hanabi-ha could take it?Only during low tide, Mei, keep your suiton users on it.Well, then could they take an exploratory team up the Mikuni pass on the side of the western dam? It wasn't much bigger than a footpath, but they could get a good view of one of the feeder routes to the blockade at the Karikachi pass. Oh, Mei, wasn't that the pass that was prone to avalanches?

By the time the meeting wrapped up, Ao had his jaw clenched hard enough to creak, and Michishio had tried one slur about atraitor rotbloodand damned himself to Mei's promise of afriendly correctionif Zabuza didn't get there first. Mei gave Zabuza an almost-glare nevertheless, and Zabuza felt a pang of what could have been either remorse or hunger. He hadn't eaten in probably at least 24 hours.

"Let's wrap this up," said Senju. "There's a lot to get done."

"Why don't we meet on the shore tomorrow?" Mei suggested, leaning forward probably a little too much when Hatake glanced her way. "Just a check in, hmm? I'll bring Ao and Beniko."

"Momochi and Hatake will come," decided Senju, straightening with a sweep of her robes.

And that was that. Zabuza left the lighthouse beside Shisui without so much as a backwards glance for his former comrades. It was 0500 hours, after all; time to round up the kids for another slog through the city.

Zabuza, given the choice at any other point in time, would have kept the ridiculously impressionable and breakable children away from his old sensei, but he could admit he had an ulterior motive. They couldn't hide the brats from Ao's eye anyways. "Punk, hotshot, on me," he ordered, shoving open the door to the kitchen-mess hall thing the next day and making five out of nine jump. Wind sprints on the tab for everyone except Haku, Temari, Sai, and Gaara.

"Why them?" Temari demanded warily even as Hinata scrambled up and Neji collected his bowl and chopsticks.

"You know what," Zabuza said. "Everyone, up. We're taking a field trip for you all to gawk at one of the strongest shinobi in the Kiri Hanran."

Sakura jerked, Sasuke watched with suddenly sharp eyes, and Naruto shot bolt upright and screeched, "Really?" in a pitch that fucking pierced his eardrums. Everyone else reacted much more shinobi-like, but retracting the invitation to the Terror Trio would get him an even louder backlash and Zabuza was not about that right now.

"Is this a mission?" Sai asked.

Zabuza shrugged. "Nah. Just a learning opportunity or whatever. Watch and learn and all that."

"Which shinobi?" Temari asked. "What are we watching?"

Zabuza crossed his arms. "Terumi Mei, Hanran leader, is one. Do any of you - not you, Haku - know anything about Senzaki Ao?" Haku, having been appropriately trained, got that look on his face like he knew Zabuza was about to do something he wouldn't approve of but would never call him out on.

"Yeah, he was a jounin in the last big war," Temari said, half-raising her hand. "Sensor-nin. He's in the old bingo books."

"Sure," said Zabuza. "Anyone else?" He was met by a sea of blank faces, because the rest of the children had grown up feral. It was a miracle any of them could read or even count. "Senzaki Ao is one of the Hanran commanders, famous for being a hunter-nin and a sensor," he explained, "and even more so after he killed a Main House Hyuuga during battle and stole their eye."

Hinata went alarmingly pale. Neji's eyes narrowed furiously. Faces ranged from appalled - Sakura - to deeply suspicious - Haku - to vaguely distant - Gaara.

"Any questions?" Zabuza asked cheerfully.

"Um - !" started Naruto, as Temari said, "What - " and Neji demanded, "Why - "

"Good, everybody grab your shit and get kitted out," Zabuza said loudly over the turmoil. "Meet me topside in ten."

Hatake, when he encountered Zabuza in their shared room picking up the last of his equipment, was not amused. "This is a formal meeting," he said. "Don't bring the genin into this."

Zabuza glanced over, slinging Kubikiribocho up and over his shoulder. "Come on, Hatake," he drawled. "They just wanna watch. We'll stash 'em in one of the old guardhouses where no one can break 'em."

Hatake eyed him dubiously. "What are you up to?" he said, uncharacteristically blunt. "You hate bringing the genin places."

"I wouldn't if they knew when to shut up, like Haku, or if they were actually competent, like Haku," Zabuza retorted. "Plus, you gotta air them out and water 'em and stuff, right? Cheers, they can get some godsdamned sun so they'll stop bitching about being cooped up all the time."

Hatake paused. "That's a good point," he said slowly.

"They'll stay out of trouble if they know what's good for them," Zabuza added, risking laying it on a little thick. Hey, he was useful; Hatake mostly trusted him, probably. Time to spend a little of that trust.

Hatake hesitated. "Fine," he said. "They can watch from a distance."

Zabuza swallowed the thrill of victory and said in as disinterested a voice he could manage, "Great," and stumped off to share the good news with the brats.

The meeting went fine.

Zabuza had very clearly told all the assorted small hellions to stay inside the old guardhouse until he came to get them. He didn't go get them when Senju called for a halt and she and Hatake made for the Hoteimaru and Mei and Fukaya lingered around the edges of the city; he just wandered down the beach a little ways and dropped down to sit on the docks as Ao paused alone on the beach to scan the city. He waited until there was a tiny commotion in the old guardhouse, and then Hinata marched out the front door trembling head to toe like a yellowing leaf in the wind with Neji close on her heels. Haku had the good fucking sense to ice over the door before the blond jinchuuriki flung his body against it.

Ao watched, more curious than cautious, as the pair tottered down the beach towards him. Strike one.With that eye, he knew exactly who these two were.

Hinata's posture had tensed into aggression by the time she stopped in front of the man, glaring up at him through the eyeholes of her mask. "Are you Senzaki Ao?" she demanded. "Do you know who we are?"

"Yes," Ao said slowly, glancing between the two of them. "And yes."Strike two.

The girl paused, visibly gathering her composure. Neji had gone preternaturally quiet. "D-did you steal a Byakugan from one of our clansmen?"

"Yes," said Ao plainly. Strike fucking three.

Ohohohoho. Old man Ao was in for it now.

Was Zabuza a petty, dramatic bastard? Maybe a little.

"I see," said the tiny heiress said mildly, and though her hands began to tremble again, she drew her head up so she was standing tall. "F-for the i-insult to my c-clan's honor," she began, staring the incredulous Ao in the eye, "for the c-crime of s-stealing our b-bloodline from the d-dead, for the r-right to b-bear the heirloom of my f-family, I - "

"I, Hyuuga Neji, challenge you," interrupted a clear, steady voice, and her cousin stepped in front of her, both blocking her from view and drowning out her challenge. These idiot fucking children. Zabuza quashed his glee and reminded himself that suicidal tendencies were to be beaten out of small children, not encouraged.

"N-nii-san," the younger Hyuuga stuttered, startled. She nudged at his back insistently, but he didn't budge.

"I challenge you to death or dishonor."

Ao snorted. "I don't fight kids." Good on you, Ao, you might just get out of this yet.

"Take the challenge," the idiot boy snapped. "Or so help me I will carve the eye out of your head."

The even more idiot Kiri nin glared. "As if you could even get close, boy. Fine, I accept. Terms?"

"To death."

"Neji!" the girl whispered, appalled. Her cousin twitched at her displeasure but ignored her.

Ao rolled his eye. "Your funeral, kid," he said, and stepped forward. The Hyuuga boy strode forward as well to meet him.

With a whistle and a thud, Kubikiribocho split the earth between them and quivered, standing straight up from the ground. The Hyuuga boy and Ao each leapt backwards, startled, as Zabuza stalked forward.

"This boy is my student," he growled, glowering at the jounin and making no attempt to hide his smugness. "Ao, your opponent is me."

"Sensei - "

Zabuza whipped around with a glare, and the boy snapped his mouth shut. "Don't you fucking start. What the fuck were you thinking?" he demanded, but missedangryby a wide margin and landed firmly inglee.

Ao swallowed nervously, white, and eyed the blade sticking up from the ground. "Zabuza, this is a Clan dispute," he began.

Zabuza had not been his inferior in many years. "The boy," he repeated, menacingly, "is my student. Your. Opponent. Is. Me."

"Hold on, now," Mei interjected as she prowled down the beach, her eyes hard. Fukaya stood sentry from the roof of the old guardhouse, watching motionless with a tilted head. "Should I not step in? Ao is my commander, after all." She sauntered up behind Ao and leaned forward, tilting her head challengingly at Zabuza. "Careful, old friend," she purred, licking a bead of molten lava from the corner of her mouth. "I surpassed you long ago."

Zabuza sneered, but Mei could be a stone cold bitch, and unfortunately, she was right. He jerked his chin up aggressively. The kunai - sword, in this case - was thrown, and he couldn't take it back, even if that meant he'd be a charred, smoking smear by the end of the day.

"Maa," Hatake drawled, and Zabuza hadn't even noticed his approach. Maybe one of the kids ran and got him, when they saw the Hyuuga girl - and then her cousin, and then Zabuza himself - pick a fight with the second in command of the Kiri Hanran. "I suppose nobody would mind if I joined in? As you would say, Momochi is one of mine."

Zabuza could have kissed the man.

Mei was wary now, because Hatake's reputation as a killer had started when he and Mei both were not yet genin. Her own reports of the Jurojinmaru's sinking had been second- or third-hand, with his and Shisui's contributions minimized as much as possible, and she had never actually seen Hatake in battle. She had only heard the stories of the man who wielded jutsu that cut lightning and split a warship in two, who copied every technique he saw and threw it back stronger, who killed his own teammate to foil a plot Kiri had spent years planning. Holy shit, this man was going to bluff a kunoichi with two kekkei-genkai, who could kill everyone in a five hundred meter radius bybreathingon them, with his borrowed doujutsu and overblown battle stories.Granted, Hatake still had a good eight hundred jutsu up his sleeve that Zabuza had never even seen, but Mei, after she had come into her own, was breathtakingly deadly.

"Is Tsunade-sama going to come out here too?" Mei asked caustically, sliding next to Ao, who glared straight ahead at Zabuza with his jaw clenched.

"No," Hatake said lightly. "This is all a bit beneath her, don't you think?"

Mei's eyes flashed in anger, but then sharpened in...interest?

Good fucking grief.

"Hmm," said Mei, and leaned back. "Perhaps there is nothing here you and I need interfere in," she said, and Ao's eye slid over, alarmed.

Hatake shoved both hands in his pockets disinterestedly. "Perhaps not," he agreed.

"You and I have other, more pressing things to discuss," Mei pressed, tipping her head down so locks of her hair fell in front of her face as she glanced up through them at Hatake.

Kami, what was she doing?

But never mind that, Zabuza could taste victory. He smirked at Ao, baring his pointed teeth, as Hatake said, very neutrally, "That we do."

"Mei - " Aoi protested, eye darting nervously between Zabuza and Mei.

"Shut up, Ao," Mei said coldly. "What were you thinking, taking a challenge from someone else's ten-year-old genin? You dug your own grave. Now, you lie in it. Hatake? I would appreciate my second in one piece when this is over."

"Maa," Hatake deflected as Zabuza glared. "That sounds like something to take up with Momochi, here."

"No promises, Mei," said Zabuza with a shark's grin. "You know my old sensei and I have some history to work through."

"Zabuza!" Mei snapped.

Zabuza bared his teeth. "I don't answer to you," he reminded her, but this was for show, and not for her benefit.

She studied him silently. "Do what you will, then," she said coldly, and stepped back.

"Mm. Don't play too hard, Momochi," said Hatake, patted him on the shoulder almost distractedly, and followed Mei. "Kids," he said over his shoulder. "You've caused enough turmoil today. If you're going to watch, do it from a distance."

The Hyuuga cousins were a fucking wreck who fed each other's worst traits; having narrowly avoided disaster this time, they slunk back to the guardhouse with tails tucked. The adam's apple bobbed in Ao's throat as Zabuza reached out and yanked Kubikiribocho from the ground easily. "You'll get the boy killed," Ao said harshly, ever fighting for his higher ground. "He was lucky today. You should have taught him better than to challenge a full jounin in an honor battle to the death."

Zabuza let the slow, smug grin spread across his face. "I should have," he agreed. "But there's only one man he would have challenged like this. He'll learn, after this."

Ao's eye widened, then narrowed furiously. "You planned this," he realized, outrage darkening his face.

Zabuza shrugged one shoulder indolently. "You, after all, did teach your student not to pick a fight in the wrong. Getting sloppy, old man." Neji had erred, by issuing the challenge in circumstances like these where the alliance was tenuous, but Ao had taken the responsibility when he accepted a challenge from another's student.

Ao, as his old sensei was quickly learning, was fucked.

A few handseals summoned a shroud of mist. It wouldn't hide him from Ao, but it probably would be bad for morale if their troops watched their infighting. Zabuza didn't intend to take long, in any case, and Fukaya would deter anyone who tried to interfere.

"Remember this?" he said conversationally, bouncing his voice through the air with the ease of practice. "First fucking thing you taught me, fighting without eyes. How reliant are you on yours now, my old sensei?" He had four standard issue flashbang tags that the small angry quartermaster would be very upset at him for using outside of battle. He set half of them off without a second thought, closing his eyes as the air exploded into light and ghosting through the mist with ease.

Ao was no amateur; a shinobi didn't survive thirty years of active duty with an obvious weakness. But Zabuza had never had the advantage of sight in the fog, and Ao hadn't had to fight without sight in a long time. A pair of kunai hissed through the mist; Zabuza paused to let them sail past harmlessly.

Zabuza had learned patience from Ao, and how to stalk an unwary prey, but Ao was as much a predator as Zabuza, and whatever slight advantage he'd won from the flash tags wouldn't last long. He reached up for Kubikiribocho's familiar hilt and swung. His blade was not so sharp that it could cut through the thick blanket of mist, and Ao grunted in surprise even as he twisted out of the way, catching the tip of the broadsword on the curved hook of his kunai when he couldn't completely dodge.

"Still so arrogant, Zabuza," Ao said, only a hint of strain in his voice as Zabuza bore down. "Pure aggression will win you no battles."

"You know, I've been spending a lot of time with Uchiha, and no Byakugan - " said Zabuza, shoving him back and disengaging Kubikiribocho, " - means you can't see through genjutsu."

Ao's eyes widened, and his Byakugan reactivated with a pulse of chakra. Zabuza immediately took the opportunity to set off another flashbang tag right in his face.

"Yeah, I lied," Zabuza said dryly, even as he lashed out with his sword once again, and this time caught Ao full in the ribs with the flat of the blade. "Did you really fucking think I used a genjutsu on you?" Ao went down from the force of the blow; instead of gloating, Zabuza pounced, catching his old sensei's wrist in one hand before he could strike with his kunai, and bringing Kubikiribocho to bear with the other. Then, he gloated. "Getting slow, old man."

Ao glared. And wheezed, which Zabuza was immensely smug about.

"Here's how this is going to work," Zabuza drawled, leaning casually on the blade and pressing it just a little closer to Ao's bared throat. "I'm going to graciously spare your life, and you get to choose between a life debt to me or an honor debt to the Hyuuga. It's what you were planning to offer my student, yeah?" he prodded, when Ao just glowered. He leaned in, and the older man choked at the pressure on his throat. "I asked you a question," he growled. "Be a good sport and play along, or I cut out your other eye. I know someone who could use a spare eye."

Shisui wouldn't take it, of course; nonconsensually removed organs from enemy combatants were too much for his delicate sensibilities, and yeah, after Orochimaru, Zabuza could kind of see why, but Ao didn't need to know that or any other of the particularities.

"Tell you what," Zabuza said magnanimously, because he was in a good mood. "No hard feelings after this. I'll even forget all the shit - " he paused and reconsidered. " -halfthe shit you put me through when I made genin."

"Clearly, I wasn't strict enough with you," Ao snapped, and Zabuza recalled abruptly just how easily the man got under his skin.

He rolled his eyes and pressed down a little harder. "Look, the life debt or the honor debt?" he growled.

"You won't kill me," Ao sneered. "It would jeopardize the alliance and the entire war. You're too much Senju's dog now to do that."

Zabuza didn't feel the need to correct him. "Yeah, I wouldn't get away with murder," he admitted. "But Mei won't break the alliance over a stolen - sorry, recovered - Byakugan."

The older man snorted derisively. "Are you forgetting something? You can't unlock the talisman; you were never hunter-nin."

"Do you know who joined the hunter-nin at age ten?" Zabuza drawled "Haku."

Ao paled and tried to jerk away, but Zabuza's weight and Kubikiribocho's edge kept him from moving very far. "That whelp never learned how to deactivate the talisman."

"No one taught him," Zabuza corrected. "But he learned anyways. So," he said smugly. "My bitch or the Hyuugas'?"

Zabuza expected to get a shitstorm for his not necessarily wise but extremely satisfying stunt, especially since Hatake'd stuck his neck out for him. Were he still a Kirigakure shinobi, he would have been shunted off to a public corporal punishment, a stint as a practice target for T trainees, and an assignment to one of the warships as a locomotion grunt. Zabuza, before he had learned when to shut up and keep his head down, had had a lot of experience with the fallout of unwise but satisfying stunts.

He opened the door to the cabin he shared with Hatake and was unpleasantly resigned but not surprised to find Senju there, leaning against the rickety table on the far wall with her arms crossed and Shizune hovering at her shoulder. "Close the door," she ordered, and Zabuza did despite the animal hindbrain that screamed at him for cutting off his only avenue of escape. "Care to explain?"

Zabuza had two options: he could grovel and probably get his ass kicked, or he could pretend ignorance and maybe get away with it but probably get fucking obliterated.

"The Hyuuga boy challenged Senzaki Ao in a duel by the laws of the old clans," he said, which was entirely true. "Ao accepted, so I stepped in."

Senju's eyebrow twitched down. Zabuza's sense of impending doom rose. "How did Neji know who Senzaki was or where he was going to be?"

Yep, Zabuza was fucked. He had a feeling that denying his part in it all would only dig the pit deeper, so he admitted, "I told the kids and brought them out to watch the joint meeting. Figured they could use the air."

Senju's expression smoothed. "Bullshit," she said lightly, and cracked her knuckles absently one by one. "Don't lie to me again."

Kami fuck the woman was terrifying. Zabuza's heart skipped a panicked beat, the ache in his ribs remembering the time she had punched him straight through three meters of rock the first time he talked back too much, thinking that medic-nindid no harm."I," he said slowly, "may have expected that this would happen."

"You wanted this to happen," Senju corrected mercilessly.

Zabuza glowered at the wall just past her ear. "Yes. Sir."

Zabuza has been the subject of enough torture and interrogation classes that he knew what Senju was doing when she let the silence stretch.

"You risked a diplomatic incident and the outcome of the war for a petty grudge," Senju said at last.

It did sound pretty serious when she put it like that. "We never actually planned to off each other," he tried.

Senju narrowed her eyes at him. "That's the only reason you're not a smear on the floor."

"Tsunade-sama," Shizune murmured reproachfully.

"I should kick you back down to genin," Senju snapped.

But she wouldn't. Zabuza was, for some godforsaken reason, a captain, and the shinobi with the most knowledge on Kirigakure and its defenses in Hanabi-ha. He did his best to look contrite or at least not too self-satisfied.

He was apparently unsuccessful, because Senju cuffed him around the head like an errant genin, throwing him into the cabin wall where his head left a round dent in the wood. He tasted blood in his mouth. He staggered upright with as much dignity as he could muster and clamped down hard on the blind fury that surged in the back of his throat.

Senju snarled, "Pull a stunt like that again and you'll wish Orochimaru still had you."

Low fucking blow. Zabuza's scars itched, but the needling was on purpose; as ever, since that first day Hatake dragged him and Shisui to her to heal like mice a cat'd tormented and mauled, she pushed to see if he'd crack.

"Suna was founded for survival," Zabuza managed to grate out, despite the black spots swimming in his vision. "Konoha founders wanted peace. Kiri was born from subjugation, and her shinobi value strength most over everything else. Ao accepted a genin's challenge, and I kicked his ass. You have the advantage on Mei now."

She considered him for a long pause as he blinked his vision back in. "That's true," Senju said very grudgingly. "You're on thin ice, you hear me, Momochi?"

Most jounin unleashed their killing intent abruptly, an ambush to catch an unwary prey off guard. Zabuza only recognized the gradual rise of Senju's when she stepped forward to seize him by the collar of his flak jacket and he realized he couldn't move. "You," said Senju, dragging him down to her level, "will never involve the children in your schemes again. You will notschemewhen other lives are on the line. Am I clear?"

Frankly, Zabuza didn't understand what the fuck was so different about this and shoving the kids into battle, which all of them regularly did. Shinobi, right? "None of them were in any actual danger," he said, and then hastily, "Yeah, fine. Clear, sir, no endangerment," when her eyes narrowed dangerously, because that was the only acceptable answer.

She let him go with one last shove. "That's three times now Hatake's stuck his neck out for you," she noted, studying him with sharp amber eyes. "I thought you were the one who owed him a debt."

Nosy old witch,Zabuza didn't say, but the words bit deeply anyways. He was sick of people rubbing his life debt in his face. He moved Senju to the top of the list of people he would off if he ever paid the damn thing off.

Senju brushed off her flak jacket facetiously and jerked her chin at Shizune. "Next time you won't get off so lucky," she warned. "One toe out of line and you'll piss blood for a month."

The thing about crossing iryo-nin was that they knew exactly how much internal damage they could get away with without killing their victim.

Haku rarely bunked with him anymore, since space was limited and Zabuza's roommate was usually Hatake now. He spent his free time with the rest of the children, at first because Zabuza had said,guard them, they're the mission,and later because Haku, despite his best efforts, was lonely, and the pack of children that called themselves Yorozoku folded him in easily as one of their own.

He didn't particularly like it; that ugly thing that lived inside of him reared its head and growledmine,because Haku was supposed to be his and only his. He liked it even less when that ugly thing compensated for the change in status quo by latching onto the eight other hellspawn and declaring thosemineas well. The fuck did Zabuza have use for that many baby shinobi, anyways?

At least Haku was useful and could take care of himself. Zabuza found him in the empty kitchen-thing, meticulously stitching a long rip in Zabuza's spare Anbu blacks. "Hey, kid," he greeted gruffly, still a little high with getting away with almost-murder with a literal slap to the side of the head. Konoha shinobi had such a distaste for violence outside of battle - even after years of working with them, it still managed to surprise him.

Haku glanced up, greeting, "Zabuza-san," automatically, but the crinkle at the corner of his eye was a little strained.

Zabuza rolled his eyes, but Haku had been the one to patch him up after he got on the wrong side of the Mizukage's fury, those last few years, and he was familiar with the wrath of a commanding officer. "Leaf-born are soft. She barely touched me."

"Hai," Haku agreed while disagreeing.

Zabuza was familiar with his apprentice's moods. "You don't think I should have done it."

Haku's eyes widened. "No!" he said quickly, but wouldn't meet Zabuza's eyes. "No, I - "

"Spit it out, Haku," Zabuza ordered, before his apprentice could spiral into a guilty silence.

Still, Haku hesitated. "Perhaps it wasn't the best timing to confront Ao-san."

"Hm," said Zabuza, because he wasn't wrong. "And?"

"It is harder," Haku admitted at last, his gaze darting to Zabuza's and away again. "Going against her will. It's harder than defying the Mizukage's."

Ah, Haku. Konoha really did kill with kindness. "She's a shinobi," Zabuza countered. "We answer to her now, but not forever." Haku watched him apprehensively from under his eyelashes. Zabuza sighed and capitulated. "I don't plan on pickin' any more fights I shouldn't, all right? Plenty of battles coming up."

"As you wish," Haku demurred, and tied off his stitch. The snick of his kunai cutting the thread was loud in the air between them.

It was too quiet, by far.

"Where are the brats?" Zabuza asked suspiciously. He didn't think they'd try anything after the Hyuuga cousins had landed themselves in deep shit with Shisui, probably, and himself later, but he had learned over the past year that where there was trouble to get into, the brats would find it.

"They are in the sleeping quarters, trading stories they've heard so far," Haku answered easily, tucking away his needle and spool of thread. He folded the shirt into a neat rectangle.

"Yeah? Why aren't you there?"

Haku didn't meet his eyes. "This afternoon," he said. "I don't think they know you intended to orchestrate the confrontation, but they did not understand my actions."

Gods damn it all. Guilt. This was why Zabuza didn't want Haku hanging around so many Konoha lily-livers. He'd caught their fucking sentiments. "You let the Hyuuga brats out because I needed them out; you kept the rest in because I needed them in," Zabuza reminded. He hadn't even needed to tell Haku what he wanted him to do.

"I know, Zabuza-san," Haku said quietly. "I would do it again without hesitation. I just - I felt a little crowded, today."

Ah. Crowded, Zabuza could fix. "Hatake's gone for the next eight hours," he said. "Come on."

With Haku, Zabuza let his tension ease as he sat crosslegged on his bunk with Kubikiribocho balanced across his knees, smoothing blood into the metal. Haku had started cataloguing his poison stores but had fallen asleep, the little glass vials scattered across the sheets as he curled next to them. Zabuza picked them up, carefully, sliding them back into their carrying case. Haku would have to sort through them again for his carelessness. He was still wrapped in his thick fur cloak, as he had the entire summer until the air grew chill, but when Zabuza brushed against Haku's bare hand as he reached for the spare blanket, his skin was cold to the touch. He tossed the blanket over his apprentice. Ice ran through Haku's veins; he had never truly known warmth, and never would. But as the weather drifted to winter, Haku's power only grew.

Haku was literally the best fucking thing that had happened to him in his shitty life. Haku could be the best shinobi Mizu no Kuni had ever seen. Zabuza would be a fool to lose him.

"Hey, Z," said Shisui, opening the door without so much as a knock. "Can I ask you something? What the fuck?"

Zabuza wished he had one of the other threes' ability to cause massive damage just by glaring. "No," he snapped - quietly, because Haku was still bundled up in his bed and a sleep-deprived tool was a suboptimal tool.

"We're literally shipping everyone out in a day," Shisui hissed. And then repeated, "What the fuck."

"We got one over on Mei, now she'll stop trying to shove all the shit jobs on us," Zabuza grumbled. "Everything worked out. Senju's not even that mad."

Shisui was not mollified. "I had to yell at the kids," he said, and glared at Zabuza. "Hinata-chan cried."

Zabuza made an effort not to roll his eyes, because then Shisui would really give it to him. "Maybe she shouldn't have tried to challenge a Kiri hunter-nin and Hanran commander to a death match, then."

"Don't pull that bullshit on me. You set them up for that," Shisui snapped. "Did you have to picknowfor your little grudge match?"

"The Hanran wouldn't take me seriously unless I did," Zabuza said, unmoved. "I had to show 'em I still have teeth or the entire lot would be up our asses the entire time we try to coordinate."

"Don't drag the kids into this again. They're not ready for your political games," said Shisui, and wriggled into the narrow space between Haku and Zabuza despite his snarled protests. "You Mist savages. Doesn't it get tiring, always having to guard your back against your own comrades?"

Zabuza shrugged; that was just life. "Keeps us on our toes, don't it? So we don't get soft and fat like you you Konoha squirrels."

"Squirrels," Shisui parroted in a low grumble, incredulous. He shifted around to a more comfortable position, jabbing his elbow into Zabuza's ribs as he did.

Zabuza scowled at him, carefully propping Kubikiribocho against the wall on the floor next to the bed. "Don't you have your own room?" he demanded, squishing himself in the corner to get away from Shisui's bony joints. This was his bunk, damnit, why the hell was he crowded out of his own goddamn bunk?

"Yeah," said Shisui, "well. Itachi asked if he could have some time with Sasuke-kun."

"Fold the brats into his unit and he'll have plenty of time with him," Zabuza drawled. "They've had enough experience at this point not to get killed."

"Did you forget about the Jurojinmaru?" Shisui asked dryly. "The first time they were in the field by themselves?"

"We found out the blond brat can burn a hole through a ship," Zabuza pointed out. "Small pink child can take torture. Mini angry Itachi-clone knows how to not bleed out. They're not complete wastes of space."

"Naruto-kun can't control the Kyuubi or draw on its chakra naturally," Shisui countered. "Sakura-chan has nightmares every night. Sasuke's gotten way too aggressive and reckless."

"The battlefield'll shape them up," Zabuza retorted. "War's touched them already. They'll learn fast."

Shisui sighed. "I know they would," he said glumly. "But we can't let them out in the field just yet. Naruto's already lost control twice." He blinked mournfully at the ceiling.

Good grief. Did Shisui have to come all the way to Zabuza's room just toemoteall over him? "The fuck is your problem," he muttered. "If you're gonna sleep, just sleep."

"Youloveme, Z," Shisui said nonsensically even as his eye drifted closed.

Zabuza, pretty sure a nap would be the hard reset Shisui needed to stuff all his messy emotions back where they belonged, tolerated it. Teenagers.

Zabuza had never actually needed to rally his troops or whatever and get them hyped to charge to their deaths. In Kirigakure, fear was a sufficient motivator, and where it wasn't, hatred was. Since his unwitting initiation into Hanabi-ha, his unit had been scattered across different bases, hundreds of kilometers apart. Now, however, Unit 15 was all camped in the middle of the Eastern market district, their fires flickering in the cobbled streets.

"All right," Zabuza said gruffly, glaring down at the assembled teams. "You're about to march on one of the most heavily fortified Hidden Villages in the land. It's been a shitty war and it's about to get even shittier."

The teams shifted, disgruntled. Zabuza shot them a particularly venomous glower. Who the fuck put him up to a motivational speech, anyways? "The point," he snapped, his voice carrying over the shuffling of his unit, "Is that you made it this far. You beat some tough-ass motherfuckers to get here, and now we're at the end of the road. I feel like shit, you feel like shit, guess what? Kiri doesn't care. Are you going to let that stop you?" he demanded.

"No," Special jounin Saeko said serenely from the front of the crowd, but her voice carried. Thank fuck for special jounin Saeko.

"No!" someone yelled from the back, and his team picked it up, then the team next to them as the shouts spread like wildfire until the entire unit was shouting "No!" like some sort of deranged toddler protest.

"You have your orders!" Zabuza called over the noise. "Show these ugly fuckers what Fire is made of!" The chant degenerated into a wordless roar, and Zabuza stepped back, satisfied at a job well done. Motivational speech? Nothing to it.

"Sensei," Temari said, falling into step behind him as he strode away from the organized chaos of his unit mustering out. "You're really bad at that."

Zabuza rolled his eyes as Haku moved up to his other side. "They cheered, they're going to fight, end of story," he growled. "Let's just get to our position."

"Hai," Haku agreed smoothly.

"Why aren't we with your unit, though?" asked Temari. "You're their captain. Shouldn't you be leading?"

Zabuza grunted. "Senju sold me off to Mei as a distraction. Konoha's taking over with the turtle team. If he gets called away, jounin-in-charge Nishigawa's got it." The man might be a stuttering wreck but he could hold his nerve in battle.

"Are we to be part of the distraction as well?" Neji spoke up. Compared to his cousin, he'd bounced back quickly after whatever reprimand Shisui'd dished out.

"Yeah," said Zabuza, coming to a stop at the edge of the market district. Residential quarters sprawled in front of them, and past those, industrial. The dull roar of the reservoir and the dam beyond echoed faintly between the buildings. "We're staying long range for this one," he added. "So you're strictly recon unless you can throw a kunai that far, punk. And keep your cover, damnit."

"Hai," said the Hyuuga brat a little sullenly.

Zabuza turned around to glare him into submission for good measure, then turned briefly towards Haku and Temari. "Haku, do whatever, just don't get caught. Princess, if you decide to go high, try not to make yourself too easy a target."

"Easy?"Temari muttered. "Never."

Because Mei hated him, Michishio and his Unit 9 were in charge of capturing the southern dam. The man was about as thrilled to see Zabuza as he was to see him.

"I was promised a long range specialist," he said flatly, crossing bracered arms across the front of his armor.

"Congrats," said Zabuza, and jerked his head back at the trio lined up behind him in their little wolf masks and wolf cloaks. "You got two. Plus two bonus."

"This is ridiculous," Michishio snapped. "Those aren't tokujo, let alone jounin."

Zabuza gave him a lazy grin. "I'm a jounin," he said. "And you've met Haku, haven't you?"

Haku waved politely and slid a trio of metal senbon out into his hand.

Michishio's lip curled. "Your little pet still follows you around, I see."

"Congratulations on properly using your eyes," Zabuza growled. "Maybe next you can use them to find the stick up your ass."

Michishio took a menacing step forward, but Zabuza was fortunately taller than him and sneered at the effort. "Watch yourself, rotblood," Michishio hissed. "You ran away - "

"You," interrupted Haku icily, as the air temperature plummeted abruptly, "will not speak to Zabuza-san in such a way again."

"Shut your mouth, you mangy cur," Michishio snapped, turning on Haku.

In a flash, Temari had her tessen brandished threateningly, and Neji's feet slid apart slightly into an opening stance, his hand hovering over the hilt of his tanto. Zabuza stepped in front of them, deliberately, and drawled, "Please tell me you're about to make the same mistake Ao did. Make my fucking day."

Haku watched, his face emotionless and very, very cold, as Michishio seethed, lowering the hand he'd raised in Haku's direction.

"Careful, Yuusei," Zabuza said with a sharp-edged grin. "This ain't the Yondaime's military anymore. Better mind your tongue and heel like a good dog before youembarrassMei."

"You're Senju's bitch, don't even start with me," Michishio spat, but that was a weak comeback and they both knew it. "Just get your little mutts to the south shore teams until I -"

"You don't give me orders," Zabuza interrupted. "You don't give my team orders. What kind of stupid fucker puts a long range team with the point teams? We're going to be on the northern bluff. Try not to get in our way."

Michishio shot him a poisonous glare, snapped, "Fine," and whirled.

"What's his problem?" Temari muttered as the other captain stormed away.

"He was born high caste," Zabuza said, the corner of his mouth curling into an involuntary sneer. "Thinks kekkei-genkai are freaks and that everyone should treat his ass like it's made of gold."

"Isn't he on the wrong side?" Temari said dubiously. "I thought Hanran was the low caste uprising."

Zabuza shrugged. "Lots of people got beef with the Mizukage. Doubt Mei's being picky with who she recruits or why they want to join up."

"He just attempted to have us killed," Neji said. "Would that not be a breach of the alliance?"

"Nah, he's not that dumb," said Zabuza, rolling his eyes. "We're not on the same side anymore. He's basically honor-bound to at least pretend he wants me dead. He hates my guts, but if he were really trying to kill us he wouldn't be so obvious about it. That was basically an olive branch." He glanced back at the three. Haku's face was one of resigned acceptance, but Temari and Neji both had the blank looks of the desperately confused but trying not to show it. Zabuza was beginning to see why Shisui had said they were not ready for politics.

The jounin in charge at the northern bluff glanced up at their approach, gave Zabuza a solemn once over, and said, "Oh. It's you."

"Hn," Zabuza agreed. "The hell happened to your hair?"

Massao reached up with his free hand absently, running his hand through the short purple spikes shorn much closer to his scalp than his typical unruly mane. "I ran into Kaibun during the battle at Yonaguni," he sighed. "She almost took my head off with my hair."

"Damn," Zabuza muttered. "She still fighting with the loyalists?"

"They've got her brother," Massao pointed out. He turned back to squinting at the top of the dam in the distance. "Heard you were dead," he said after a thoughtful pause. "Believed it, til reports said some maniac with Kubikiribocho showed up on the Jurojinmaru."

Zabuza grunted. "Always wanted to sink a warship."

"You and me both," said Massao, those miserable months during their first deployment aboard the Daikokumaru haunting his voice. The first time they'd dragged Zabuza aboard a ship and chained him to the benches at the bottommost hold, it had been Massao who tempered his yet untamed fury, who weathered the punishments Zabuza earned them both, who taught him to bite his tongue and tamp down his rage until it simmered and smoldered instead of bubbling over. Zabuza pretty damn sure he'd have gone insane down in that darkness if not for Massao. "You sure it's sunk?"

"Bottom of the ocean," Zabuza confirmed. "Hey, you remember Haku, right?"

"Who?" Massao said blankly, then, when Zabuza waved at Haku to take off the mask, "oh. Your kid."

Haku dipped his head politely, if a little warily. He had only ever met Massao in passing and didn't trust many people; Zabuza both approved of and encouraged this mindset.

"We're long range support for the assault today," Zabuza said. "Gods know your squids could use someone who can actually do some damage."

The jounin eyed him dubiously. "Long range? You?"

Zabuza rolled his eyes.

"Well, okay," said Massao, sounding unconvinced. "We're supposed to be getting some mercenary long range specialist here too."

Zabuza rolled his eyes again. "Massao,I'mthe mercenary long range specialist."

He frowned. "You're not Hanran?"

"Nah," Zabuza said carelessly. "Shank the Mizukage and I'm done." It'd be off to the land of emoting tree huggers for him and Haku, unfortunately.

"Hm," was all Massao said to that. "Are these yours too?" he flapped his hand at Neji and Temari, who had watched their interaction curiously but quietly.

"I guess," Zabuza said unenthusiastically, and caught the sand princess rolling her eyes discreetly. "Rei's the one with the fan. Long range ninjutsu. Ni's a sensor."

"Okay," said Massao almost disinterestedly after a pause. Massao was one of those types that would forget to respond in a conversation because he didn't think it was important, but he was a good enough strategist to claw his way up Kiri's cutthroat command chain despite his blood - almost as rare as a low caste brute making it into the ranks of the Kiri no Shinobigatana Shichinin Shuu, its elite Seven Swordsmen. "We've a couple mid and close range specialists, but there's six teams here who are mostly long range."

Massao's teams showed the wear of war in their battered flak jackets, ripped clothes, and jittery eyes. Zabuza was not impressed. "That's it? Six teams?"

"Well," said Massao. "Yeah. Half the unit is still coming up from the Rishiri Islands. They're supposed to get here by sunset, but - " he shrugged a shoulder. " - will they actually?"

Zabuza snorted. "I take it Michishio won't be waiting for them past golden hour," he said dryly.

"Nope." Massao squinted at his ragtag teams. "We'll make do," he said with very little conviction.

"What's golden hour?" asked Temari from behind him.

Massao made no inclination that he would answer. Past experience told Zabuza that if he ignored the question, the next iteration would be louder and slower, as if the questioner were interviewing some doddery old sack of bones, so he said, "Hour before sunset. Light's at our back and in their eyes - best time to launch an assault, as long as you can get it done by dawn."

"If everyone knows it's the best time for an attack, won't they be expecting it?" Temari pressed.

"They already know we're coming," Zabuza said, eyeing the distant flow of water over the edge of the dam. "May as well do it when the sun's in our favor."

The battle broke almost hesitantly, half a day later, when Massao meandered his way through a series of hand seals, muttered, "Suiton: Mizu Kamikiri," and borrowed nearly half the water in the reservoir to send a wave scything towards the dam. It was countered, of course, smoothed into a gentle tide by the time it reached the wall, but not before the close-range assault troops at either side inched forward. The ground rumbled under their feet as someone on the northern flank set off a tag. On the south side, light winked off metal as shinobi hurled shuriken at the guard towers.

There was another lull as each side regarded the other warily. "That's it?" asked Temari suspiciously, hands propped on her hips.

The reservoir abruptly exploded, pellets of water breaking from the surface and shooting up towards the advancing shinobi. Three of Massao's shinobi reacted just as quickly, slamming their hands into the ground as they muttered under their breaths in unison, and dirt walls reared up on either side to shield the teams.

"Hey, punk, where are their offensive ninjutsu users?" Zabuza asked as Massao trotted off to coordinate the defense of the short-range teams.

"Towers," Neji answered. "Second, fifth, sixth, and seventh."

"Hn," said Zabuza. "All right, kid, you're up."

"Hai," Haku said, and twisted one hand into a seal as he drew a brace of senbon with the other. An ice mirror formed in the air before him, and then another some twenty meters out and forty up. He stepped through the closest mirror daintily and vanished.

The suiton jutsu from the dam paused as their wielders considered Haku's mirror, floating high above the water. A blur of light hissed towards the second guard tower as Haku hurled his senbon. Zabuza squinted at the figures buzzing around the tower.

"Ducked," Neji reported. "Barely."

Haku re-emerged from the bottom mirror as a kunai clattered harmlessly off the other side and said, unruffled, "Zabuza-san, do you mind if I borrow Ni-kun?"

"Keep him, for all I care," Zabuza said indifferently. Less of a chance of him running off if he was stranded in Haku's weird mirror dimension or whatever it was.

Neji, prissy clan baby that he was, was undoubtedly offended at his implied lack of importance, but took Haku's hand anyways to be pulled into the mirror.

The ground rattled again; the north shore lit in a fiery blast, and shinobi spilled down the sides of the banks, skidding and sliding down their uneven surfaces onto the water's surface. Jutsu and kunai hurled by the shinobi manning the dam defenses followed the teams down as they scattered. The water cascading down from the lip of the dam seethed and writhed as shinobi fought to wrest control of it from each other.

Zabuza was not actually a long-range specialist - which everyone involved knew and politely chose to ignore - he was a Swordsman, and could maybe considered mid-range with a stretch. He itched for Kubikiribocho's familiar heft in his grip, but dismissed it with a jerk of his head. Time enough for that later, when all the grunts had finished throwing themselves at the dam's defenses.

"What're you waiting for, princess, a personal invitation?" Zabuza growled at Temari, whose neck craned upwards as she watched Haku build a third and fourth mirror.

She tilted her head just enough to give him a sly smile and said, "Yes, Sensei."

Little shit. "Go, then," Zabuza snapped. "You let them hit you and you'll be running laps until you cough your lungs up."

"Hai," said Temari with relish, and swung her fan off her back, snapping it open and leaping up in one smooth movement. She landed on its open face in a crouch, and as it began to tumble down, blurred through hand seals to unleash a fuuton that swept her and her battle fan up in air to join the rest of her team. When Zabuza had stolen the tessen to begin with, he'd been thinking that she could use it and her enthusiastic ferocity to bludgeon her enemy. All the more power to her if she wanted to use it to make like a butterfly.

The water frothed between the ragged line the Hanran held halfway across the reservoir and the waterfall down the front of the dam. Choppy waves and miniature tidepools betrayed the chakra that surged beneath the surface, the deceptively unnoticeable battles for dominance. Zabuza shook out his chakra, letting it ripple free from his core and sink into his muscles. He had the blood of berserkers, the same thirst for battle but with absolute control. Zabuza was designed to wield water and bred for combat, and Kiri was about to regret that.

Zabuza wasn't particularly dramatic, but he was a godsdamned monster and this fucking village was long overdue for its reckoning.

He strode languidly off the edge of the bluff, dropping abruptly and landing solidly on the water. His arrival sent a wave rippling over the surface, disrupting the scuffle in no-man's land. The mice had fought to a standstill; time for the cats to come out to play.

A kunai shot towards him, and he tipped his head lazily to avoid it. His hands formed seals and he moulded his chakra, sinking it into the water and wresting it from the petty struggles of the genin and chuunin as it answered his command. It rose as a great dragon, its head rearing up from the surface as it ripped its way free from the depths next to Zabuza, and he hollered, "Whichever one of you sad fucks thinks he can take me on, show your ugly mug!"

A shinobi jumped out of the fifth guard tower seconds before his dragon lunged. The suiton crashed straight through one of the cutouts in the wall, shearing itself off at the sides where its body was too thick to pass through. Dulled by the seals of the guard tower and the defensive jutsu of its shinobi, the tower did not fall, but a spray of water and rubble from the sides told him it had not gone unscathed.

Lightning crackled from the damaged tower, and only a hasty douton from one of Massao's men kept the front line from being fried alive. Douton, unfortunately, was weak against raiton; the one hit, and it crumbled like a sand castle.

"Oi, Haku," said Zabuza, not bothering to raise his voice. "Between you and the punk, get me the name of whoever's running that defense." Zabuza could pull off a damn good fuuton, if he said so himself, and so he sent a flurry of crescent wind blades scything towards the ominous crackle of electricity. The lightning dissipated as the fuuton carved deep furrows into the stone walls. An enterprising Hanran team took the opportunity to launch first exploding tags, then themselves, towards the crippled tower. They didn't make it far; closer to the tower, the loyalists controlled the falling water, and a brutal suiton sent them tumbling back to the rest of the teams. Too hasty - this would be a long battle unless he could draw out the big players.

Haku dropped down onto the mirror that formed beside Zabuza as he squinted towards the towers. "Based on physical description and the elemental jutsu used, I believe the jounin in charge is Soseku Fuhen," he said. "Ni-kun reported the man has a pair of sai in his belt."

Soseku Fuhen - elite jounin and major asshat who believed wholeheartedly that low caste shinobi were the dregs of humanity. Zabuza, obviously, loathed the pompous fucker. Soseku had graduated in the class after Zabuza's massacre. He had also been passed over both as Kushimaru's successor to the Nuibari blade and as Raiga's successor to the Kiba despite his prowess with kenjutsu and raiton jutsu, over which Zabuza was still infinitely smug.

Zabuza could needle him. Man was prouder than a monarch stag, which, admittedly, was a common trait in elite shinobi. "All right," he said, waving a hand dismissively at Haku. "Back to it. Leave Soseku to me."

"Hai," Haku agreed, and let himself drop into the mirror.

"Hey, Fuhen!" Zabuza bellowed, his voice carrying over the incessant clash of metal on metal. "Anyone give you a real sword yet, or are you still waving around those pigstickers?" He didn't think twice about unslinging Kubikiribocho from his back. Massao had the long-rangers covered, and if he could lure Soseku out of his little princess tower, Zabuza would be better at close range.

Kunai and jutsu flew fast and thick between the base of the dam and the towers, because a vertical charge was difficult at best and nigh impossible at worst without incapacitating those who guarded the top. Haku could make it up, certainly, with the protection his ice granted, but Haku was one shinobi, and Zabuza wasn't quite ready to risk him in a kamikaze blitz.

Temari's fan dipped sharply, and she spiralled down under a hail of suiton and shuriken. She landed in the far side of the reservoir and fired back a gale force fuuton with a savage swipe of the tessen that sent the weaponry hurtling back towards their owners. Even grounded, she was fine. There were far more tempting targets, like the teams currently snaking their way up the reservoir wall beneath the unrelenting deluge.

No sign of Soseku yet, though. Zabuza cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, "You know why Raiga wouldn't take you, Fuhen? Said you can't fight your way out of a goat farm. He called you a soggy noodle with less potential than a halfwit minnow!"

That was a lie. Raiga had said jack shit about Soseku because he'd barely known he existed. But if Zabuza kept spilling stories and lies, at some point, Soseku'd have to choose between losing face and defending his honor, and Zabuza was pretty sure he'd choose the latter. High caste shinobi were funny like that.

"Does your footwork still make you look like a lame duck? Do you still fail missions because you can't tell fresh fish from rotton? How many superiors did you have to kill to make captain?" Zabuza bellowed. "Yashahiro and Wataru, anybody else?"

There was a noticeable lull in the melee - incredulity and shock painted across the faces of both Hanran and loyalists. Murdering one's comrades on the way to the top wasn't uncommon - still illegal, if caught - but killing someone above one's station? Cardinal sin number one, after being born low caste. Zabuza suppressed a smirk as a tiny figure shoved his way to the edge of the center tower battlements.

"What do you think you're doing?" Michishio grated from behind him.

"Drawing the bastard out," Zabuza replied, waggling his fingers in a cheeky wave up at Soseku. "He comes out, towers are more vulnerable."

"He's not that big of a fool," Michishio said derisively, shadowing Zabuza as he strode forwards. "You should be with the long-distance teams."

Zabuza rolled his eyes, and hollered, "Hey, Fuhen, remember that mission with the whorehouse in Awaji - "

And that, apparently, was all the abuse Soseku could take, because he leapt straight off the edge of the tower, skidding down the waterfall as water blades distorted the spray around him. Zabuza bared his teeth in a vicious grin and flipped through the hand signs, burying his chakra into the reservoir around him so it reared up to meet the charging jounin. "Fool for his pride," he said smugly.

Michishio grunted. He drew his katana, letting the tip drop to an easy stance. "Disgrace," was all he said, soft and venomous.

Soseku hit the surface in a massive plume of water - the remnants of his and Zabuza's jutsu both. He drew his two sai theatrically as he stalked forwards, waves cresting at his feet.

"Watch for his raiton," warned Zabuza, shooting the approaching shinobi a lazy grin. He flipped Kubikiribocho easily in his hand, and his smile widened as Soseku's eyes slitted in rage. "Come in after me. I'll hold his sai if I can."

"Don't give me orders, rotblood," Michishio retorted. "You'll hold his sai if you're not a complete waste of space."

As good as a godsdamned treaty. Look at them, playing well together. Zabuza would generously wait to cut his head off for that slur later.

"You're an ornery - " The back of his neck prickled. He paused, the chakra roiling under his skin, and turned abruptly back towards the coastline, and at that moment the lighthouse sirens began to wail.

He didn't need the sirens. Even from so far out, the hulking shapes of the missing warships were unmistakable. The pieces clicked; the godsdamned trap snapped closed. The loyalists too had waited for golden hour.

Shit.The only troops along the coast were those of Mei's camps, on the bluff with the lighthouse, and the Ebisumaru and Hoteimaru anchored in the harbor, none of which could stand up to four fully crewed warships all attacking at the same time.

Michishio cursed under his breath, low and vicious, without taking his eyes off the now gloating Soseku. The rest of his Unit 9, coming up from Rishiri, were probably dead.

"Those bastards can't make land, or we're all fucked," said Zabuza.

Michishio grunted agreement. "We don't have enough forces there," he said. "Our intel put the ships too far away to lend assistance so quickly."

Zabuza snorted. "Your intel fucking sucks," he spat. "Take care of this mess, I'll go deal with the bloody ships."

"Your orders were to remain here," the older man fired back immediately.

"I give my own orders," Zabuza sneered reflexively. "You can't tell me to do shit. I'm reassigning myself."

Michishio flicked a sideways glance. "We're at half-strength and you're leaving."

Zabuza jerked a thumb back at the advancing ships. "Rock," he said, then pointed at the dam and Soseku. "Hard place."

Michishio made a derisive noise in his throat. "Running and leaving everyone else to clean up your mess again," he growled without looking at Zabuza, bringing his sword up in a graceful loop to point unerringly at Soseku.

Zabuza scoffed. "Fuck you. You better not let him catch you, old man. You'll never live down the humiliation."

Michishio twitched. "Old," he repeated under his breath as Zabuza slung Kubikiribocho over his shoulder and stepped back. Shinobi over thirty all had the same trigger.

Zabuza eyed Soseku reluctantly even as he let his chakra settle from its threatening roil. He'd so been looking forward to knocking the arrogant prick down a couple dozen pegs, but the loud jinchuuriki brat and his team were still aboard the Hoteimaru. That was the battle Zabuza needed to be at. "Haku!" he barked, striding abruptly back towards the far shore of the reservoir.

"Don't turn your back on me!" Soseku's suiton ripped towards him, but he Michishio countered with his own, darting to meet the other jounin.

Haku fell neatly into step with him, the mirror forming and crumbling as soon as he pulled free of it. "Ni-kun reports four hostile ships and upwards of six hundred shinobi crewing them," he said without prompting. "All four are approaching the harbor mouth, two from the north and two from the south."

"Fuck!" Zabuza snarled under his breath. "What's the status on our forces?"

"We don't have sufficient manpower on site," Haku said. "The Hoteimaru and Ebisumaru both have skeleton crews, and the Hoteimaru also houses Team Byakko and a number of wounded. Mei-san's command base at the lighthouse has twenty teams currently stationed there, but as Mei-san is currently overseeing the battle under the main pass - "

"Get the others here," Zabuza cut him off. He didn't need to hear about the complete lack of a viable defense at what was supposed to be their back lines.

A small black shape zipped through the air towards him, and Zabuza nearly went for his sword before recognizing it as the freaky kid's ink construct. "Damnit," he muttered under his breath as he fumbled out a blank scroll. He snapped it open with barely a second to spare, and the bird splattered itself into writhing lines of ink. Four Unit 15 teams to harbor. Not Juu. Half Unit 13 to 87-13 sewers. Not Uchiha. Kasasagi to 87-13 sewers. Half Unit 7 to harbor. Not Higata. Unit 17 to harbor. With Yanagi T.Yanagi the younger was a kenjutsu specialist and melee fighter, and a budding strategist, but Zabuza hadn't known her to whip out any army-killer jutsu. Who the fuck decided she was the best one to lead the harbor defense?

Except that all the battles they fought right now were pretty fucking critical and Tsukimi's unit could buy enough time for the other units to dig in footholds before sending back reinforcements. Not much of Unit 17 would be standing afterwards, but hey, price of war and all that.

The harbor needed someone who could fuck shit upnow,before the assigned teams mobilized, because the Hoteimaru and Ebisumaru were sitting ducks.

On cue, Haku pulled Temari and Neji out of a mirror a little breathlessly as far above, the rest of his ice shattered under a barrage of kunai and one well-placed fuuton.

"Are we leaving?" Temari demanded immediately.

"Me and Haku, yes. You, no," Zabuza snapped. Temari scowled, and Zabuza jerked his chin back towards the dam. "Do they look like they can spare another long range specialist?" He did not need to look back to know that they did not. The roar of suiton temporarily deafened him, and below it, the din of metal on metal as Soseku duelled Michishio. A string of explosions rattled the very air, urgency spurring on the Hanran teams, and the three genin scrambled for balance as the water beneath their feet surged abruptly.

"You're clear for whatever combat you want, both of you, but get yourselves killed and I'll make you regret it. Hold this line, princess, you hear me?" Zabuza snapped over the noise, and Temari, her eyes wide in her face, nodded. "Whatever the fuck happens, you hold this godsdamned line."

"We will not fail," Neji added, and the veins spiderwebbing his face from his doujutsu lent him a ferocity he normally lacked.

"Get back to it, then," Zabuza growled. "Haku, get me to the harbor."

Haku's hand came up, and then he was tugging Zabuza into the mirror that appeared in their path. A flash of light and the dizzying sensation of moving at an incredible speed, and then they were lunging out of the second mirror at the base of the lighthouse.

The teams scattered on the bluff whirled at their sudden appearance, but no one tried attacking so Zabuza counted it as a win. "Who's in charge here?" he demanded immediately. "What's your defense strategy?"

Where Hanabi-ha had a high number of Command Corps shinobi, loyal to the Sandaime Hokage and his presumed successor, the Kiri Hanran was an uprising of the lower castes, of which there were precious few officers and even fewer trained in strategy. The jounin in charge at the lighthouse was actually a harried tokujo. There was no defense strategy besides 'wait for backup.'

Zabuza glared over the edge of the cliff at the warships approaching from the north, casting imposing shadows against the setting sun. "Haku," he growled. "Make it hail."

Haku's face could have been carved from ice. He raised one hand in a seal, and the temperature plummeted.

"Tell the crews of the Hoteimaru and Ebisumaru to barricade the harbor mouth," Zabuza ordered the tokujo. If all went to plan, their crews would only have to deal with the ships approaching from the south. "I'm going to buy time. If they get too close, bring down this entire cliff on them."

"W-with the lighthouse?" the tokujo asked.

"Everything," agreed Zabuza.

The skies darkened abruptly as Haku's chakra swelled. His face did not change from its blank mask, but with a deafening crash, ice poured from the heavens, sharp-edged and glinting like glass.

"Holy shit!" some chuunin yelped from behind him, but Zabuza ignored him.

He crouched, bunching his chakra in his legs. "Haku, on me," he growled, and leapt off the cliff.

He plummeted like a stone, and the hail curved around him obligingly as the wind roared in his ears. He landed solidly on the quarter deck of the Bishamonmaru, and scythed Kubikiribocho in a wide arc. Zabuza bared his teeth in a feral grin at the shinobi who caught the blade on his own katana. "Hey, captain," he said with probably too much manic glee. "Permission to come aboard?"

Every warship captain was a stone-cold, ruthless son of a bitch, except the former captain of the Ebisumaru, who was a straight up bitch, and Arihiro was no different. He had been an upper caste genin on this ship, once upon a time, and for that Zabuza automatically hated his guts. "Don't hold your breath," he said coolly, and sent Zabuza skidding backwards with a chakra-enhanced shove.

Zabuza let the momentum carry him into a backwards flip over the heads of the two chuunin who charged up from behind, and a rapid suiton sent them flying over the rail. Down on the main deck, Haku darted among the hailstones that rained down thick and fast and sent senbon hissing unerringly into their targets.

Arihiro spat a flurry of water bullets that Zabuza lurched to dodge, then charged in their wake as Zabuza brought Kubikiribocho to bear.

"Hey," said Zabuza conversationally, as he attempted an enthusiastic beheading that was unfortunately blocked. "You seen Yagura recently? How is he, stressed?"

"Yondaime-sama has dealt with traitors before," Arihiro said, spinning his sword in his hand to get a better grip. His skin glowed with the jutsu shielding him from the punishing hail, but Haku's bloodline was relentless and Zabuza could already see the bloom of bruises on the other shinobi's uncovered arms. "This is no different."

"He's lost over half his shinobi," Zabuza drawled, and spat a lightning-fast fuuton that nearly took off Arihiro's head and did send half the railing into the ocean. "You think it's occurred to him that he's doing something wrong?"

"The only ones doing something wrong are the ones betraying the oaths they swore," Arihiro retorted, and hurled a kunai thrown underhanded that bit deep into Zabuza's flak jacket.

Zabuza didn't pause his charge, barreling straight into the other jounin and pinning him against the mizzenmast. "From the time I could walk, I served Kiri," he snarled into Arihiro's face, the blood roaring in his ears even above the relentless pound of hail. "I bled, I endured, I killed for Yagura. What the fuck has the Mizukage done for Kiri?"

Arihiro stamped hard on his foot and kicked out, knocking Zabuza far enough back to bring his katana up once again. "Which of us hasn't? You're supposed to be a shinobi," he said contemptuously. "You owe everything to Kiri - you were one of her favored, despite your blood, and you threw it all away. The Mizukage is the foundation of the village, and you were sworn to him."

Zabuza bared his teeth. "Maybe I broke my oaths," he conceded. "But all you little sardines are sailing a sinking ship. Kiri's broken, and Yagura sure as hell won't gonna fix it."

Arihiro laughed abruptly. "Have you, of all people, gone soft?" he asked incredulously. "Kiri is built on strength. The strong survive, and the weak are culled."

Zabuza grunted, swinging his sword up onto his shoulder. "That why he jumps at rabbits and massacres entire clans in the night?" Chakra roiled in his chest as he sped through the seals, and a great dragon reared out of the water, dwarfing the warship.

Arihiro eyed the suiton with contempt. "Try all you want, this ship is unsinkable," he said.

"Funny, that's not what Raijuu said," mused Zabuza offhandedly. "And I'd like to see this thing float with a shitton of water in it and everyone belowdeck drowned."

The dragon pounced. Arihiro lunged.

With a muted hiss, a pair of senbon sank into Arihiro's throat, and he keeled over gently, mouth and eyes both parted in surprise. The dragon struck home, pouring relentlessly into the hatch leading belowdeck.

Haku slipped out of the hail and said with far more trepidation than any true warrior, "Zabuza-san, are you really going to drown everyone on board?"

Warrior, no, but Haku was Zabuza's weapon first. Zabuza squinted through the curtain of ice. "Go to the Daikokumaru," he ordered. "Keep them busy until I get there." True to form, Haku dipped his head and vanished into the ice without further protest.

The ship was not a bucket in which one could drown unwanted cats or tiresome children. It was a sieve, and even as Zabuza's suiton flooded its depths, shinobi spilled out of the hatches lining the sides of the ship. Zabuza gritted his teeth as they surfaced and flitted out over the water towards the coast, but there wasn't much he could do about it if he wanted to take the ship out of commission. Beneath his feet, the deck of the ship groaned, dipping a little closer to the water level.

The back of his neck prickled. Zabuza jerked sideways as Arihiro slashed his katana through the space where his head had been, and Haku's senbon clattered to the deck as the douton bunshin lost its shape. "Gods, just die!" Zabuza snarled, straining to keep his grip on his suiton as he feinted left and dodged right. The ship creaked and dropped again, the water from Zabuza's dragon sloshing from wall to wall.

Arihiro's face had gone completely still, his eyes narrow and intent as he pivoted gracefully on the ball of his foot and pounced once again.

"For fuck's sake," Zabuza gritted out, backpedaling. Fuck this fucking jutsu that needed two fucking hands and most of his fucking concentration making him give fucking ground to a subpar fucking kenjutsu wielder. Also, fuck this guy.

Arihiro executed a quick backslash, and the tip of his katana ripped through Zabuza's flak jacket and scored a line at his ribs. Zabuza's chakra wavered and he dropped the jutsu. The Bishamonmaru's deck was nearly level with the ocean around them; that was enough. "That's it, motherfucker," he snarled, ignoring the fire that burned a long line along his side as he grabbed for Kubikiribocho and swung in a single motion.

Arihiro deflected the blow with a frankly arrogant slash of his sword, and his hands blurred around the hilt; he spat a boiling blast of water, and Zabuza ducked behind the flat of Kubikiribocho.

A lithe figure leapt over the railing of the ship, and Yanagi the younger, her face hidden by a battered dog mask, sprang at Arihiro's exposed back with her katana leading her wakizashi. He twisted and caught both the blades on his, but the force of the blow sent him skidding back along the slick deck.

Zabuza seized Kubikiribocho's hilt and lunged. Arihiro's eyes darted to the side and narrowed as he jerked his katana up sharply, throwing off both of Tsukimi's swords and leaping away before Zabuza's blade cleaved the air where he had stood. Zabuza bared his teeth. "I don't need your help," he growled out of the side of his mouth at Tsukimi.

Yanagi the younger snorted. "You nearly let a hundred loyalists hit the coast. Also, you're bleeding."

This wasn't even Zabuza's post. Zabuza sneered, hefting his sword back up onto his shoulder. "I wasn't fighting then and it would've been two hundred plus if I left it to that tokujo. Your unit on them?" He squinted through the curtain of ice, but he didn't have the white-eyes and could see jack shit.

"Yeah," said Tsukimi, distracted, as Arihiro jabbed experimentally to test her guard. She parried indolently with her wakizashi, swinging her katana up with her other hand to level it unerringly at the other jounin. "He can't take both of us," she said confidently, slinking around to circle Arihiro with careful steps.

Zabuza grinned a sharp-edged smile. "He can't even take one of us," he corrected, and lunged.

Arihiro leapt straight up, corkscrewing through the air as Tsukimi's blades flashed after him. He twisted midair, and Zabuza's blade tore through only cloth as Arihiro's hands blurred through a set of seals.

"Oh, crap," Tsukimi muttered under her breath, and a coil of rope took Arihiro's douton for her. Zabuza bared his teeth and swung Kubikiribocho, batting the jutsu away from him. Tsukimi reappeared in a crouch beside him and sprang, following Arihiro up in the air as the other shinobi brandished his blade once more.

Arihiro vanished in a shunshin before Tsukimi's katana could touch his, and Zabuza, having sparred far too frequently with a squirrelly little Konoha bastard and anticipating where this sad imitation would show up, whirled, pouncing at Arihiro as he reappeared at the base of the mizzenmast. Arihiro's emotionless mask cracked as Kubikiribocho bit deeply into his side just under his ribs; for just a second, his face contorted in pain and rage.

Tsukimi spat a raiton, but scorched only the deck of the ship as Arihiro vanished in a hiss of water. Tsukimi spun incredulously when he didn't reappear, blades at the ready.

Zabuza jabbed Kubikiribocho into the deck within easy reach and stretched out his senses. "Blast," he muttered sourly. "He's gone."

"He left the ship and his men?" Tsukimi demanded breathlessly.

"He's a strategist. If he's injured and outclassed, he'd cut his losses," said Zabuza, already turning away. "There'll be hell to pay, but if he has valuable intel he won't lose his rank." Or, like a master tactician, he'd hole up on an island to lick his wounds and wait to see who came out on top. On their starboard side, the other ship - the Daikokumaru - loomed against the blazing remnants of the setting sun.

Ah, the Daikokumaru. The oldest of the seven Kiri warships, the biggest, the bulkiest. The great beast forged in the dark days of Kirigakure's founding, with which the not-yet upper caste clans of Mizu no Kuni would subjugate their little corner of their world. When they dragged Zabuza into her hold over a decade ago, he could smell the blood and sweat soaked into the wood from those they'd broken before him.

It did not dawn on Zabuza as to why he could suddenly see the Daikokumaru until his eyes fell on the limp figure impaled on the other ship's main mast and registered, almost simultaneously, the lack of hail.

Zabuza tasted iron in his mouth. He pulsed his chakra once, twice for a genjutsu, and when the sight did not change, strained his hearing across the gap for a heartbeat, his eyes for any trace of movement.

In an uncharacteristically hushed voice, Tsukimi said from behind him, "Isn't that your apprentice?"

Zabuza yanked Kubikiribocho out of the wooden deck, even as his attention narrowed on the hulking figure strolling across the Daikokumaru's deck towards Haku's body. "I'm going to kill that son of a bitch," he said plainly, even as the ugly little thing that curled around his ribcage lit up with incandescent rage.

Zabuza's sire had been a berserker, mad with bloodlust when he charged into battle. But even as Zabuza's chakra ramped up, coalescing into a shroud that burned through his veins and set his blood singing, he retained the ice-cold clarity of his dam.

He crossed the gap between the two ships in a chakra-aided bound, landing behind the Daikokumaru's captain, who turned indifferently towards Zabuza. Zabuza spared him barely a glance, because Haku -

Haku's mask had been knocked askew and his eyes were closed, hair hanging about his face. Frost dusted his eyelashes. A trickle of blood dripped from his mouth, vividly crimson against his pale skin, and except for the hands clutched limply around the jagged wood speared through his abdomen, he might have been leaning against the mizzenmast. He was still. His chest did not rise; no pulse beat in his throat.

Zabuza turned away. Haku was the best thing that had ever happened to Zabuza, and Zabuza had dragged him in and out of Kirigakure, halfway across the mainland Continent, and to his shitty fucking death.

Funkazan-taichou said disinterestedly, "This one yours? You did a shit job with him, boy. He shouldn't have tried close-range combat when he was already spending chakra on a ninjutsu like that hail, even if it was his kekkei-genkai."

"Shut up," growled Zabuza. "You don't get to talk about him."

When Zabuza had been a new genin, Funkazan-taichou had been the captain of the Daikokumaru for nearly a decade, and though Zabuza's kill count had already been in the triple digits, Funkazan-taichou had been the biggest, most terrifying thing in the world. At nine years old, he had hated and feared this man the most. Now, though, Zabuza's eyes caught the deepened lines in Funkazan-taichou's face and thoughtold. Slow. Lessened muscle mass. Vulnerable. About to fucking die.

Because Zabuza was going to kill the bastard or die trying.

Haku had left his mark on the man with ice and with senbon; Zabuza recognized the slight drag of Funkazan-taichou's left arm, from a senbon that had struck a nerve bundle in his shoulder, the wheeze in each breath he took from another that had slipped past his defenses into his chest. Zabuza categorized them clinically, and his focus narrowed to his heartbeat thumping rhythmically in his ears, the rasp of his breath in his throat, and the pulse throbbing faintly in Funkazan-taichou's throat. He settled his grip on Kubikiribocho, letting his hand slide into that familiar position on its hilt, shifted his weight on the balls of his feet, and lunged.

If Funkazan-taichou was taken aback by the speed or ferocity of his attack, the strength of his parry made no indication of it. Kubikiribocho skidded off the flat of his katana with an unearthly screech, and Zabuza caught the man's lightning-fast backslash on the metal plate of his glove as he brought his broadsword back around for a second strike that forced Funkazan-taichou to jump backwards or risk a beheading.

Zabuza's chakra licked hungrily against his skin, demandingbloodandfearand Zabuza thoughtyes, why not?Haku's had been an untarnished soul; for his memory, Zabuza would burn down an entire army, beginning withthis fucking bastard.

Funkazan-taichou's chakra surged, and Zabuza leapt up the main mast to the yardarm as water drills spiraled out of the ocean, crashing across the face of the deck. He dropped like a stone as they slammed back into the waves, letting gravity reassert itself as he fell. He gathered his chakra and moulded it with familiar signs. "Kirigakure no jutsu," he growled, and plummeted into the welcoming white blanket of his mist.

Funkazan-taichou might be a predator, but in this muffled world, Zabuza was the hunter. No one had ever been more adept at killing in the mist than Zabuza, and that wasn't arrogance, that was a fucking fact. Zabuza could hear Funkazan's heartbeat, steady even as he shifted into a more defensive position. Zabuza ghosted behind him on silent feet and struck. Almost too late - far too early - Funkazan-taichou spun, and his katana slammed against Kubikiribocho, but Zabuza had put a helluva lot of force behind that strike and Funkazan-taichou skidded backwards, only the tightening around his eyes betraying the concession.

Zabuza's chakra burned through him and his body responded. He took the ground Funkazan-taichou gave up, crowding inside the man's reach and slamming into him with a sudden burst of speed to pin him against the ship's railing with the flat of Kubikiribocho. "Getting slow, old man," he snarled.

"You always had such limited thinking, boy," Funkazan-taichou said, and an icy-hot line swept down Zabuza's back as Zabuza twisted, turning the fatal blow into a merely irritating one, one for which the pain faded fast under the roiling rage of his chakra. The Funkazan-taichou before him melted into water, swarming up Zabuza's arm and gluing him fast to the railing, and Zabuza swung around with a snarl to face Funkazan-taichou, who stood with a sword dripping blood - Zabuza's blood - and his face a mask of cold indifference.

Zabuza was pretty shit at genjutsu, but he pulled one off anyways as he growled, "Think again, fossil," and wormed a layer of water between his skin and the trap-jutsu and yanked himself free.

Funkazan-taichou jerked, just for a moment, as his katana came up to block the blow of a mizu bunshin that wasn't there. Zabuza was known for multi-clone combat, but genjutsu? Unheard of.

Zabuza lunged, Kubikiribocho forgotten at his side, and vicious satisfaction curled in his chest as Funkazan-taichou's eyes widened in alarm. His katana tore through Zabuza's flak jacket like it was tissue paper, but Zabuza sank every fucking one of his sharp fucking teeth into Funkazan-taichou's throat and jerked his head back sharply.

Flesh and cartilage rent with a wet rip. Funkazan-taichou's arterial blood sprayed Zabuza full in the face as he shoved his old captain back savagely.

Nobody could walk away from a throat torn out so thoroughly. Zabuza bared bloody teeth as Funkazan-taichou's body hit the deck with a dull thud and snarled, "Keep a seat warm for me in hell, fucker." The rage that blazed through him so intensely it hurt faded to a triumphant smoulder, and then, as he watched the blood bubble out of Funkazan-taichou's throat, to a strange hollowness as his battle-rage waned with his hold over the mist.

There was still a battle to be fought atop the waves, as Tsukimi's Unit 17 fended off the crews of the Bishamonmaru and the Daikokumaru and the captain herself dueled two jounin Zabuza recognized as the First Mates of each. Zabuza stalked out onto the prow of the Daikokumaru, anchoring his feet with chakra as it bucked against the waves.

In true shinobi form, the battlefield was a mess. Scattered across the deck of the Daikokumaru and the bay, clusters of shinobi hurled jutsu and kunai, their hair plastered against their faces as they bent the water into drills and swamps and dripping beasts. There were dark shapes bobbing in the water, because fighting on top of water was as unforgiving as Kiri and the ocean itself, and Haku was still fucking tacked against the fucking mizzenmast of this hell-ship because Zabuza told him tokeep them busy until he got thereand Zabuza was suddenly sick of it all, this petty struggle for the kage - no, fuck that, the entire godsdamned society - tearing the village apart.

Zabuza's chakra surged. He had enough fury left for this. He spit Funkazan-taichou's blood to the side and said, without raising his voice, "Yanagi, get your people clear. You have thirty seconds."

The middle of a pitched battle was a piss-poor place to invent a new jutsu, but Zabuza cannibalized half the seals from Haku's favorite - what had been Haku's favorite Sensatsu Suishou water senbon, and his own Suiton: Suiryuudan and a fucking Tiger seal or two for extra power. Distantly, out of the corner of his eyes, he could see the Hanabi-ha teams pulling out of their battles hard and fleeing back towards the shore, the loyalist teams scattering in their wake suspiciously, but too suspicious to follow. Yanagi the younger had a strange amount of confidence in Zabuza's ability to take on a fucking army but Zabuza was beyond caring, particularly when some of the bolder chuunin turned towards his lone silhouette on the prow of of the Daikokumaru.

Zabuza gorged the ocean with his chakra and dragged up from the deep a winged creature with great scything wings and called itSuiton: Fuyudori- the winter bird.

And Fuyudori was a fucking beast, wild and graceful as it drank hungrily at his chakra. It spiraled into the air, trailing feathers of ocean foam and then crashed down on the advancing teams.

Once, Zabuza had stood alone on the raging ocean in the middle of a typhoon - not for a mission, but returning from a solo assassination, one of his first. He had seen the gathering of the clouds, tasted the charge in the air, and, inexplicably, he stopped. The winds screamed as the waves swelled, throwing him about even as he fought to keep his footing on the roiling surface, and the rain whipped against his skin like tiny needles battering against his face and hands.

One particularly strong gust had ripped his feet clear off the surface of the water, like he hadn't been using chakra at all, and hurled him headlong into the water. He thought he'd drown, terror and fury thatthe fucking oceanwas doing to be his death as he thrashed for the surface, clawing through the currents that dragged him deeper into its depths.

Fuyudori held all of that desperation and rage, the untamed savagery of the ocean itself guided by the elegance Haku had so loved. It swallowed the attacking shinobi whole and dashed them into the unforgiving waves as the wind howled, and Zabuza watched with a dark satisfaction as the teams toppled or fled one after another in the face of his jutsu.

With one last swoop, Fuyudori dissipated in a shower of droplets, leaving in its wake a fine mist and scores of bodies littering the waves. The ocean was empty in its wake.

The battle was over. Whatever loyalist shinobi who were still alive had fled.

Zabuza looked up and recognized one of the figures now pouring down over the side of the cliff on which the lighthouse still stood - the captain of the Medical Unit herself, silhouetted against the bluff with a relatively fresh crop of medical teams at her back and the remnants of Unit 17.

Seeing her reminded Zabuza of the faint trails of fire burning along his torso, where his guard had let a hit slip past, or when he took a hit to land a greater one. He appeared to be leaking blood at a decent rate, but it probably wasn't fatal.

A thump on the deck behind him heralded the arrival of Yanagi the younger. "They've retreated," she reported. "The other two ships at the harbor mouth have turned back."

Zabuza turned. "Good," he said distantly, forcing himself to take one step towards the mizzenmast, then another. One more step towards Haku. He had his unit to check in with, the assault at the southern dam, the loud fucking brats at the Hoteimaru, but for just one moment, Zabuza stood two meters away from his apprentice and ignored it all.

His wounds throbbed, moreso now that his chakra was so spent, and Kubikiribocho rested heavily in its holster. Haku's face had frosted over, his lips a soft blue and the angles of his face even softer than they had been in life under the moonlight. He had been barely twelve.

Hana-ha teams gathered on the half-sunken Bishamonmaru's deck as the medical unit teams moved to assist, and Tsukimi withdrew to coordinate recovery efforts, but the top deck of the Daikokumaru remained eerily clear - empty, save him and Haku.

"They don't want to bother him," said Shizune, looking more alien than before in her mask as she slipped up behind him.

Zabuza closed the distance towards his apprentice with careful strides, one step at a time. What would Haku care if he were bothered? He was dead.

Shizune ducked past him briskly, her hand already lit with iryou chakra, and reached brusquely towards Haku's neck.

An irrational anger surged in Zabuza's chest. "He's dead," Zabuza said harshly. "Go fix someone who can be fixed."

"No," Shizune snapped absently, her eyebrows drawn together in a fierce scowl of concentration. "Quiet."

"What,woman?" Zabuza demanded anyways.

"He's cold," said Shizune, ghosting feather-light fingers over Haku's chin. Her hands glowed a slightly brighter green, hesitating longer at the point where Haku's jaw met his neck.

Zabuza gritted his teeth. "He's dead. Of course he's cold."

Shizune wiped the frost off Haku's cheek, but even as she lifted her hand away, frost formed on the surface of his skin once more. Zabuza glared and tried really hard to clamp down on his killing intent.

"I don't - " She hesitated, her frown deepening as she touched Haku's face once again. "He's not dead," Shizune realized slowly. "He's frozen."

Frozen? Frozen.

Son of a bitch.

"He's not dead?" Zabuza demanded, leaning over her shoulder urgently. A flicker of hope fluttered in his chest despite his best attempts to quash it, because if Shizune was wrong, Zabuza would be hard-pressed not to kill her on the spot.

"Not yet," Shizune muttered, and the chakra in her hand turned acidic for a split second as she neatly severed the stake from the mast, catching Haku's body as it slumped and lowering him carefully to the ground. "His blood is literally frozen, but it's like his arteries and capillaries flexed to accommodate the additional volume so there's no mass hemorrhage like you might expect, or even edema. His cells are in stasis - no pyroptosis or apoptosis or anything. Just - frozen, and - "

"So he's alive?" interrupted Zabuza, straining all his senses towards the very corpse-like Haku lying flat on the deck as Shizune ran questing hands around the rest of the wood still embedded in his abdomen.

Shizune huffed a breath. "He's not breathing but his heart is beating - extremely slowly - and if the temperature of his brain dropped quickly enough there might not even be damage - "

Zabuza didn't care about all that crap."Is he alive?"

Shizune grimaced. "Maybe not for long, but now? Yes. He's alive. I need to get him back to land." She let the chakra in her hands fade and hooked one arm beneath Haku's knees and the other under his neck.

Zabuza blew out a half-laugh. Thank fuck Haku was a fucking fighter. "I can take him," he said, and reached out automatically.

Shizune glared and pivoted, forcing him to stop short or risk running over her. "There's nothing you can do to help," she snapped. "Go do your job,captain,and let me do mine."

Zabuza bared his still-bloody teeth at her but the yuki-onna had seen Zabuza when he was missing half his internal organs and was definitely not impressed. "Fine,captain,"he growled, and stepped back to let her pass.

"Momochi," she said, her voice softening minutely, and met his eyes gravely. "I'll take care of him." And then she and Haku were gone.

The Bishamonmaru was to be salvaged and recommissioned. So was the Daikokumaru.

"No," growled Zabuza, taking a menacing step forwards. "I don't care about the other ships, but this one goes down."

Yanagi the younger considered him neutrally, unintimidated by the way he towered over her and said, "Why this one? Because your apprentice died on it?"

Haku wasn't dead - not yet - but correcting her would take more effort than he cared to expend. "The Daikokumaru is a symbol," Zabuza said, trying to pare everything it represented down in a way an outsider could understand. They might technically both be captains, but it was Tsukimi's unit here, so Tsukimi had to be convinced first or jack shit would happen. "This is the fucking ship the Mizukage uses to remind the lower castes who holds power, because it's the ship the old clans used to conquer the rest of Mizu no Kuni."

"All right," Yanagi the younger said after a pause. "I'll have a team bust all the seals. We can blow it up in the harbor. You want to oversee?" she offered magnanimously.

Tempting. The warships were all high on his personal shitlist, but he hated the Daikokumaru with particular fervor. More now, after Haku. "Nah, I got something to do," Zabuza deflected. "Just make sure they see that fireball from the mountain passes."

"Sure thing," Tsukimi said agreeably. "Nothing like a great explosion to boost morale."

Zabuza went to check on the loud hellion children.

The loud hellion children were fine.

"We totally kicked their asses!" shrieked the blond demon child at unholy decibels. "They tried to kill us and we went ha! And ha! Haaaaah!" He punctuated this with a series of punches and kicks at the air, which Zabuza watched blankly. The brat was wearing bandages over his mouth and nose; how was he still so damned loud?

"That's nice," he said without bothering to pretend at sincerity. "What's your status?" This he directed at the girl, because she was more likely to give him a reasonable answer.

She jumped a little, but she had just been caught in an ambush so he gave her a pass. "We're good, sensei," she reassured. "We got a little banged up - Sasuke-kun got his arm slashed open and I bruised a couple ribs, but the medic-nin patched us up. We didn't let the ship get taken. And some of the enemy crews turned?"

Not surprising. Low caste crew grunts were always hungry for a good mutiny, even if they rarely succeeded. Zabuza grunted and eyed the smallest Uchiha critically. "Next time, don't get hit," he advised, to which the boy scowled thunderously. "Get your things. I'm moving you brats up to the lighthouse, I don't care what the lava-harpy thinks."

"He cares about us!" the blond brat gasped. The other boy elbowed him hard and the girl hissed, "Shhhh!"

Zabuza elected to ignore it all. His chakra was dangerously low, his head spun from the blood loss, and some things were too ridiculous to refute.

He found a member of the communications crew and sent him off to get a report from the southern dam. Though the sun had well and truly set, the rumbles of distant explosion signalled that the other battles were still going strong. Four warships would have been a dangerous trap, had they succeeded. Fortunately, upper caste shinobi were always overestimating how far fear went to buying loyalty.

Members of Shizune's unit had set up shop in the lowest level of the lighthouse, which was technically trespassing on what Mei had claimed, but Zabuza had learned that medic-nin tended to do as they pleased. The pallets of the wounded lined the bluff up to the lighthouse itself, and Zabuza picked his way along carefully because Shizune'd probably kick him out if he stepped on one of her victims. The captain herself had green chakra lit up to her elbows and a pair of assistants hovering at her side as she held her hands over Haku's abdomen.

"Is -is that Ichi?" pink-hair asked in a hushed voice from behind him.

"Sit down, shut up, and stay put," Zabuza said in response, and gently shouldered his way closer.

A sudden commotion on the other side broke out. A patient thrashed on the mat, a tortured howl ripping from his throat. Zabuza saw a spray of dark red, and a medic-nin cried out, "Shizune-sensei!"

Shizune's head jerked up and instantly, she darted around the table Haku was resting on.

"Hey," Zabuza snapped, startled, "What about - "

"He's stable, get out of my way!" Shizune shot back, rushing past him.

"What happened to him?" the blond brat piped up from right on Zabuza's heels, and Zabuza should have remembered that this group of hellions in particular had a thing for blatantly disobeying orders.

"He wasn't fast enough," Zabuza grunted, and went back to his primary method of dealing with Team Byakko: ignoring them.

The two assistant medic-nin leaning over Haku didn't look up when he loomed over them, except for the younger one to bite out, "For gods' sake, give us some room to breathe."

Zabuza scowled and took a pointed step backwards.

Haku looked the same. A fine layer of frost still dusted his face and hair, and the trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth sparkled with ice crystals. The stake of wood was now on the table next to him, darker where it was stained with his blood. As he watched, one of the iryo-nin withdrew a long splinter from Haku's side with a pair of tweezers and dropped it in a metal bowl.

"Why's he still frozen?" Zabuza demanded.

"No idea. But it's keeping him from bleeding out while we repair the damage," the medic-nin said shortly. "If you're going to stand there, be quiet so we can concentrate."

Given that she had a hand in Haku's guts, Zabuza figured he could. The brats huddled at his back watched silently as piece by piece, the medics patched his apprentice back together.

"Girl, brat, go back outside," he ordered, and when the jinchuuriki opened his mouth to protest, growled, "Now. I need you to wait for any messages that come for me and run them to me." No way in hell would Shizune let any messenger birds or shinobi into her space without grievous injury, and Zabuza did, unfortunately, still have responsibilities. Which he would get back to. Very soon. Once his chakra recovered a bit.

"Hai," said the girl, and dragged the blond out with her to his complaints of, "But, Go-go-chan - !"

Shizune shouldered her way past him once again and otherwise ignored him and the mini-Uchiha hovering by the wall, her smock a bit more bloodied than when she'd left. "Status?" she murmured as she took her place at the table.

"Just waiting for final checks before we close him up," said the younger.

Shizune nodded absently, green chakra flooding her hands as she reached for the open wound. "It's good," she said after a minute of scrutiny. "No stitches for this one, just chakra."

The older one looked up sharply. "No stitches - hai," he said when Shizune met her eyes grimly.

"Let me know when you're ready," said Shizune, and darted off seconds before the next cry of, "Shizune-sensei!"

A tiny shuffle at his side reminded him that there was still one member of the loud hellion team with him - fortunately, the least loud. But there was the usual Uchiha brooding quiet, which Zabuza was intimately familiar with, and there was the ninja bratling hiding something quiet. This was definitely the latter. He had something he didn't want Zabuza knowing about, or not even that metal respirator of his would keep him silent. "What's with you?" Zabuza grunted.

The tiny Uchiha glanced up, surprised, and checked over his shoulder to see if there was another small child that Zabuza was nominally responsible for that he might be talking to. There was not. Zabuza waited. Sasuke visibly struggled for an answer before settling on a shrug.

Zabuza sighed impatiently, keeping one eye on the two medic-nin working on Haku. "You injured?" he prodded.

"No," Sasuke said defensively. Zabuza could see the bandage wrapped around his arm, but it was relatively small and Sasuke made no attempt to hide it.

Zabuza stared. Sasuke glared back defiantly until Zabuza reached for him, then jerked backwards. He wasn't fast enough - Zabuza snagged the bottom of his shirt and bared a second, much larger bandage plastered over the neat line of stitches curving up from his hip to just under his ribs. "Fucking shit, boy, can't you keep your skin in one piece?" Zabuza snarled.

Sasuke snatched his shirt back and scuttled backwards until he hit the wall, the tips of his ears flaming red. "S'not a big deal," he muttered. "Shinobi with a sword. Chuunin, maybe. Andyou're -"

"Winter with the wolves. The first drill with the wolf-girl as the client," Zabuza snapped. "What did I tell you?"

The boy sulked. "Pick your battles," he recited dutifully.

Zabuza crossed his arms over his chest. "Pick your godsdamned battles," he agreed. "And?"

The scowl increased in intensity. "Come out of them alive."

"Alive," Zabuza stressed. "So no more of this crap." He waved a hand to indicate all of whatever Sasuke did to himself. "You're supposed to be the best shinobi on your team. The fuck kinda example are you setting for the other two?"

The boy stared at him with something that looked like incredulity but had nothing to say to that, so they lapsed into silence.

The next time Shizune came back, she spent less than a minute inspecting the other twos' work before nodding her approval. "Momochi," she said, slinging a satchel over her shoulder as the other two melted back into the bustle of the makeshift hospital. "I need a tub. Or a large fish tank."

Zabuza squinted at her. "A tub," he repeated slowly. "Sure."

There was a massive clawfoot in the bathroom of the master quarters, just under the command room where Mei held her briefings. Zabuza hefted Haku carefully and led Shizune and Sasuke up the three hundred and thirty steps to the top of the lighthouse. "Okay," he said, kicking open the door. He nodded towards the second door further in that led to the bathroom. "Bathtub."

"Set him down on the couch and come with me," Shizune directed, and moved towards the bathroom.

"Stay with him, boy," Zabuza ordered Sasuke, who wheezed a little in response and sank down on the floor in front of the couch. Probably should have left him downstairs so he didn't pop his stitches, but eh. He had it coming.

Shizune was examining the tub critically. "This is fine," she said, as if she had other options. "What we need to do is fill this with hot water and submerge him completely. If we don't thaw him quickly enough, his cells will die and he'll never wake up. Got it?"

"He'll what?" Zabuza demanded.

"Hot water," repeated Shizune patiently. "We need to get his temperature from sub-zero to homeostatic, fast. I don't know how much longer his genkai kekkei will keep him alive." She gestured at the tub. "His cells are fine when they're frozen, but anything between that and normal body temperature they'll start dying by the millions."

Well, fuck. Zabuza knew jack shit about reviving a frozen person but filled the tub with water anyways, since that was easy enough given his chakra nature. Heating it, on the other hand, burned rapidly through his still-recovering chakra. When steam billowed up from the surface, he reined his chakra back in and took a moment to blink the spots out of his vision.

Shizune had strapped a mask around Haku's face, enclosing his mouth and nose, and a rubber tube ran from the mask to what looked like a flexible waterskin in her hand. "This is a manual respirator. We're going to have to help him breathe with it while he's underwater," she explained. "Too much external pressure on his lungs might inhibit his breathing unless we give him a little extra push."

"Sure, fine, whatever," said Zabuza. She could tell him Haku needed a full body cast and three dozen injections to make the process go smoothly and he wouldn't know otherwise unless he caught deception in her body language. "Let's get this over with."

"Put him in," said Shizune. "And no matter what happens, keep him completely underwater. You too, Sasuke."

"Shi," the Uchiha brat corrected automatically, but hauled himself to his feet and trailed them to the bathroom.

"Okay," said Shizune, and nodded firmly at Zabuza. "Go."

Zabuza lowered Haku into the tub. For a moment, all was still except Shizune, squeezing the manual respirator, and the slow rise and fall of Haku's chest in time with her efforts.

From the end of the bathtub, where he was holding down Haku's feet to keep them from floating to the surface, Sasuke said, "Nothing's happening."

"It is," Shizune said tersely. "Momochi, keep the water warm."

Two minutes passed. Haku's skin warmed beneath Zabuza's hands, but he remained limp and insensate, his hair spooled about his pale shoulders like a cloud.

"He has a pulse," Shizune reported, snaking a hand down to Haku's throat. "A little slow, but almost within normal range."

As she spoke, Haku's eyes flew open, but his pupils were unfocused as his entire body spasmed. Zabuza snarled silently and caught Haku's hand and shoved him back into the water as his apprentice grabbed for the edge of the tub. Sasuke's respirator was knocked askew, and he lunged as he lost his grip on Haku's ankles and ended up halfway in the water. Tiny chunks of ice sparked into the air above the water and exploded, peppering the three standing over the tub.

"He's not warm enough," Shizune snapped, catching the neck of the respirator in her teeth and using her freed hand to hold Haku's head still. "Keep him under. Haku, if you can hear me, you're fine! You can breathe!"

Haku did not hear her or did not care. He battered the walls of the tub and wrenched his head from side to side until Zabuza captured both his wrists in one hand and forced them down, folding his arms over Haku's chest.

Haku's eyes focused and sharpened abruptly, locking onto Zabuza's face. His struggles slowed, and his mouth moved under the mask of the respirator.

"Yeah, kid," said Zabuza. "It's me. Lie still and trust me. That's an order."

The ice sparklers stopped. The feral panic faded from Haku's eyes as they drifted closed.

Shizune let out a quiet breath, steadying the respirator. "He's going to be fine," she said.

Haku slept through Zabuza fishing him out of the tub and draping his clothes back on him. He slept through the three hundred and thirty steps down to the ground floor, and stayed asleep when Zabuza laid him on an empty pallet.

Shizune sorted through a table of clean instruments, her air of frenetic energy never abating. The battle may have ended, but the medic-nin duties - and on top of that, her captain's duties - always remained.

"Hey," Zabuza said gruffly. "Thanks. For - " he jerked his head at Haku's bed.

"He used to be a hunter-nin," Shizune responded without meeting his eyes. "His kekkei-genkai makes him valuable to Hanabi-ha, especially in this campaign." She tucked a handful of surgical tools back into her smock pocket. Zabuza could read between the lines: strategy and politics had judged Haku important enough to save his life, despite how triage might have placed him, and at least one life had been traded for him to survive.

Zabuza didn't particularly care. There were thousands of Hana-ha grunts, and Zabuza had only one apprentice.

"I can't stick around," Zabuza said. "The boy'll keep an eye on him, but I need to get back to the battlefield at the southern dam." Gods knew Michishio had probably fucked it up to high heavens, left to his own devices.

Shizune nodded absently, giving him a glance on her way past, then paused. She took a closer look, eyeing him up and down and noticing maybe for the first time the bloody gouges in his armor, and said with some disbelief but mostly resignation, "You're bleeding."

Zabuza looked down. "Yeah," he said. "A bit, I guess."

The Uchiha brat muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, "Hypocrite."

"Take it off," Shizune ordered. "Armor, shirt. Off."

Zabuza gritted his teeth. "It's fine," he growled.

"Off," Shizune enunciated.

Zabuza wasn't exactly self-conscious but his dissection scars courtesy of that fucking snake bastard were hard to miss - and showing weakness in front of a room with mostly subordinates? Not happening. He scowled at Shizune.

Shizune, as the one who had been primarily in charge of his treatment two years ago, picked up on his reticence. She pursed her lips, her eyes dipping to his chest and then back up. "Follow me," she relented, and turned on her heel.

Zabuza paused long enough to jab a finger at the Uchiha brat and order, "Stay with him. Nobody touches him except Shizune. Get me if something happens." Sasuke nodded, drifting closer to Haku's bed. Zabuza unslung Kubikiribocho from his back, leaned it against the wall, and stalked after Shizune.

Shizune shot him a half-annoyed, half-harried glance over her shoulder. "I don't appreciate you complicating things for my medics," she warned. "They're all trained to help."

"Yeah, could any of them have defrosted Haku without killing him?" Zabuza shot back.

Shizune opened the door to the men's restroom abruptly, without knocking, in lieu of answering. Fortunately for anyone who might have been traumatized, and unfortunately for Zabuza, who took great delight in witnessing trauma, it was empty. She knocked open each stall door brusquely while Zabuza locked the door behind him. "Clear," she said, and turned expectantly.

Zabuza leaned against a sink and shrugged off the remnants of his armor and his shirt. The movement pulled at his injuries, and he could feel one of the burgeoning scabs crack.

Shizune eyed him critically. "Not life threatening," she surmised. "But you said you were going back into battle?"

"Yeah," Zabuza grunted. "If there's still a battle to go back to."

Shizune scowled, but she was probably used to her patients bleeding all over, getting patched up, and running right back into battle. "Don't move," she said, and stepped closer to press a green-lit hand to the deepest of his injuries. "Your scars have faded," she noted.

Zabuza rolled his eyeballs downwards. Huh. They had. The thick, knotted scar tissue, once aggressively pale against his skin, had darkened to a shade closer to the rest of him, and the raised ridge had receded a little. "Great," he said, with probably less enthusiasm than he could have.

Shizune shot him an exasperated glance and said, "So, is your flexibility better? Can you move without restriction or discomfort?"

Zabuza valiantly - and in the interest of self-preservation - did not make the easy suggestion ofyou wanna help me find out?"S'fine," he said. "Doesn't really pull anymore."

"Good," said Shizune absently, her attention already diverted to the slash just under his ribcage. "If that changes, let me know and we'll schedule some follow-up treatments for scar tissue removal - " She cut herself off abruptly and, with an edge of annoyance, corrected, "We'll see if we can do something about it later."

Medic-nin were super anal about treatment regimens. The war, with its constant stream of half-healed and re-injured patients, must be driving them nuts. If they were anyone but medic-nin, Zabuza would probably just laugh at them, but medics could get pretty fucking testy, and he had a healthy wariness of anyone authorized to be around him when he was injured.

"Done," said Shizune, stepping back to give her handiwork one last scrutiny. "There were trace amounts of poison in the wounds, enough to be lethal, but it doesn't seem to be affecting you other than raising your temperature a little, so I didn't bother removing it."

"Probably jellyfish venom. Old man Funkazan liked to dip his sword in it," Zabuza said offhandedly, shrugging his battered shirt and armor back on. "I've got a tolerance. Basically immune."

Shizune propped her hands on her hips. "That couldn't have been fun."

Zabuza grimaced. "Wasn't. Can't complain, though."

Shizune unlocked the door and stepped out, only to duck out of the way as Naruto flung himself at the opening. "Sensei, there's a message for you!" he shrilled.

Zabuza plucked him out of the air by the collar and shook him roughly. "The hell do you think you're doing?" he snarled. He dropped the blond, who landed on his feet, unbothered.

"You gotta message!" Naruto repeated, and thrust a roll of paper at him.

Shizune rolled her eyes. "Excuse me," she said, and brushed past the two of them to the next row of patients. "Momochi, eat a couple of ration bars and maybe a chakra pill if you need it before you go, and don't undo all my hard work."

Zabuza skimmed the message as he made his way back to Haku's bed. Battles going fine, battles going less fine, troops redirected to the less-fine battles, and oh, one specifically for him asking where the fuck he was and why. Zabuza scribbled a quick reply: en route to battle at southern dam from lighthouse base hospital. Reason: fucked up a couple of attacking warships, saved the asses of everyone on the rearguard.

On cue, the ground rumbled as a massive shockwave ripped through the air. Zabuza glanced out of the nearest window automatically in time to see a huge fireball billow out on the harbor, lighting up the night, and couldn't quite suppress the satisfied smirk curling the corner of his mouth.

So long, Daikokumaru. It wasfun,but fuck you.

"Did you see that?" the blond brat breathed. "Oh man, they totally blew that thing up!"

"Yep," said Zabuza, and handed him the note. "Give that back to the messenger. And bring the girl back here afterwards."

Naruto paused, shooting an unsubtle glance at Haku. "Is Ichi okay?" he asked in a voice too loud for even a civilian to consider a whisper.

Zabuza rolled his eyes. "He's fine. Look, brat, give the message to the messenger," he said slowly, so Naruto's itty little brain could keep up. "Bring the girl - your teammate - back here. Got it?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah," said the jinchuuriki. "Be right back!"

Thank the gods.

Zabuza stalked back over to Haku's bed. Sasuke watched his approach warily, but when Zabuza didn't speak, turned his attention back to scanning the rest of the room with darting glances. Zabuza eyed him judgmentally because that was probably some sort of trauma, but he'd already given this kid one intervention that day. He retrieved Kubikiribocho and strapped it back into place.

"Sensei, we're here!" shouted the blond brat. Zabuza closed his eyes briefly and resisted the urge to punt him through the window and into the ocean.

"Shut up, idiot," Sasuke grumbled.

"This is a medical ward!" the pink-haired girl hissed, appalled. "Keep it down!"

"Oops," said Naruto, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. At a marginally quieter volume, he added, "So what's up, Sensei? We gotta mission or somethin'?"

"What?" said Zabuza blankly. "...yeah, sure, you have a mission." He jerked his chin at Haku. "This idiot got himself impaled."

"Don't call him an idiot!" Naruto shrilled. Zabuza cuffed him upside the head for being loud again. Gently. Because Shizune would have his head if he broke the brat's neck in her own field hospital.

"Thisfool,"Zabuza stressed instead, glaring at the blond brat, "got himself impaled. Your mission is to guard him until he wakes his dumbass up. No one touches him except Shizune. Stick together, but one of you stays with him at all times. Got it?"

Sakura nodded seriously.

"What happens when he wakes up?" Naruto piped up, because he didn't really learn, did he?

"Then he's in charge and you do what he says," Zabuza growled. "I have a date to fuck someone up, so any more stupid questions?" The trap was set for Naruto. Sasuke definitely knew what he was doing, but he was also too proud not to fall for it, and Sakura wouldn't confront him anyways. It worked; all three frowned at him silently. "Great," said Zabuza. "Don't do anything dumb."

Zabuza went to go find someone to fuck up. And do his captain things.

The air outside trembled. The base of the mountains north of him were shrouded in a faintly green mist that seemed to glow in the moonlight when he made his way out of the hospital, and the ground rumbled with distant explosions. He jogged through the streets back towards the southern dam, stuffing half a ration bar into his mouth at a time and choking them down as quickly as he could.

The reservoir was eerily quiet. There was no trace of either army on the banks or the surface of the water, and from the far edge of the reservoir the guard towers looked similarly abandoned. A second glance revealed the deitries of battle - waterlogged corpses bobbing along with the tide, furrows and gouges in the banks and walls of the reservoir, scattered kunai and discarded katanas red with drying blood. Water still spilled uninterrupted over the lip of the dam, its roar drowning out anything else he might have heard.

Zabuza bundled his chakra beneath his skin, took two steps out onto the surface of the water, and his foot bumped against something squishy. He glanced down absently and stopped short.

It was Massao, half of his face horrifically burned, his lungs and stomach bloated with water as the lower half of his body bobbed with the receding tide. His eyes were open, his mouth locked in a grimace, and even in death he clutched the hilt of his tanto. His hair was dark with water and his skin was waxy and white, the blood in his body already leeched out of the innocuously small wound in his side.

A familiar bitterness swelled in Zabuza, the kind that smouldered and stirred his chakra and made his hand twitch for Kubikiribocho. There would be no miracle recovery for Massao, genkai kekkei-less and left behind.

Zabuza reached down and dragged Massao fully out of the water and onto the gravel. Then he just stood there for a moment, studying the disfigured face. "You're a fucking loser, you know that?" he bit out. "Make it this far only to get taken down by one of Soseku's sorry bastards?"

Massao did not answer. Massao was dead.

He'd have gotten a kick out of Zabuza ripping out Funkazan-taichou's throat though. They didn't talk about it out loud, ever, since that was as good as asking for a beating, but he and Zabuza had traded many glances laden with rage and hatred and promises after a long or particularly punishing day. Suffering and promises of murder: nothing did more for low caste crew grunts' bonding.

"I got that old fucker," Zabuza said aloud, in case Massao hadn't been paying attention to that. "Him and the Daikokumaru both're at the bottom of the bay now, so rest easy."

He couldn't think of anything else to say. Massao was beyond the meaningless struggles of mortal men; what could Zabuza say that meant shit now? Zabuza had seen many comrades fall, but of those he would consider friend, he had precious few. The number had just dropped once again. He gave himself the luxury of one minute, then two, standing on the shore next to where Massao lay. "Wind in your sails, old friend," Zabuza said at last, then turned back towards the dam with finality.

No one challenged him as he took the most direct route, straight across the surface of the reservoir and up the waterfall. He didn't stop for any of the submerged bodies, either - he didn't have time to see whether he recognized the faces, and frankly, right now, he didn't want to know. He landed lightly on the battlements in a crouch, Kubikiribocho in one hand, but again, no one greeted him but corpses.

There was a seal to keep the guard tower strong, to reinforce the dam and keep it intact, and another that had been slashed through messily with chakra and a blade - probably a trap or alarm seal. Zabuza brushed past them and ducked into the interior of the tower.

Here, if he strained his hearing, he could hear what sounded like the clash of metal on metal, echoing distantly from the mazelike tunnels - or what could just be the drip of water from ancient pipes. Kubikiribocho was too large to swing effectively down here, so he slung it over his back, divested a nearby fallen shinobi of their tanto, and stalked down the stairs.

Likely the easiest way for Zabuza to find someone - anyone - would be to head straight for the wide-open space where the turbines were housed, but that could be a quick way to accidentally maroon himself behind enemy lines. He settled for moving through the guard towers and hallways against the face of the dam instead.

It was quiet. He shifted his grip on the borrowed tanto as he padded along the cement floors. Droplets of water trickled from the naked pipes running just under the ceiling. He passed splotches of blood, shuriken embedded in the wall, stepped over a couple of unfortunate bastards, and when he opened the door to the third guard tower, encountered his very first live shinobi.

Two kunai flew straight at his face; he slammed the door shut, and it rattled at their impact. "Hana-An-031, captain, identify!" he barked.

A pause.

Zabuza tightened his grip on his tanto. "Hana-An-031, captain, Unit 15," he repeated loudly. "Identify!"

"Hana-An-023," came the muffled reply.

Zabuza waited. "Rank? Unit?" he demanded.

"Chuunin, Unit 9," came the prompt reply.

Zabuza nodded to himself. "I'm coming in," he growled. "Don't fucking attack me."

He adjusted the grip on the tanto again. Little pigsticker. The balance on the thing was all wrong, but maybe he'd be able to swap it out with someone inside.

He opened the door and stabbed the first man full in the chest. From there, it was total fucking glorious chaos.

Zabuza vaulted out of the way of a katana and substituted with a barstool that was promptly demolished by a suiton. He hopped onto the wall and used the added height to pounce on a kunoichi who swung at him grimly with a katana. He met her blade with his own, bearing down on her with his greater weight. A shinobi lunged at him from either side, one with ninja wire strung along a shuriken, the other with a pair of oversized kunai.

Zabuza yanked the kunoichi up, straight into the path of the shuriken, and dropped like a rock to get under kunai-shinobi, ripping his tanto up and under the man's chest with a spray of blood.

Fourteen shinobi in the room, now two dead. Zabuza hurled his tanto at a shinobi about to wrench open the door to the northern halls and nailed him in the shoulder, pinning him to the door. He ducked a kunoichi's katana and grabbed her by the wrist. He slammed her into the wall, wrenching her sword around to stab her in the chest with her own sword.

And hey, the katana wasn't too bad, so he took it, yanking it back out and letting her collapse to the ground with a gurgle. Mm, yes, it felt weird, but there wasn't a single weapon Zabuza couldn't wield. Zabuza turned purposefully.

Metal flashed, blood sprayed, and Zabuza carved his merry way through the rest of the shinobi. He ended at the shinobi he'd pinned to the door, who had since pulled the blade out of his shoulder and positioned himself in a ready crouch as Zabuza advanced.

Zabuza, liberally splattered in the blood of the rest of the man's squad, rolled his eyes. "Idiot," he muttered, and didn't say,Unit 9 is on the opposite side of the island slogging through the sewers,orUnit 9 isn't even a Hana-ha Unit,ora chuunin would have identified themselves as either Guntai or Shirei-bu,even though he really wanted to gloat. "Make this easy on yourself," he said gruffly. "Do you really think you can kill me?" He gestured to the rest of the room, the floor of which was liberally covered in puddles of blood, and the corpses draped awkwardly over the roughly built furniture. He didn't feel very bad about it. These teams had signed up to be the suicide squad, anyways. They just hadn't taken out as many shinobi as they'd hoped: a grand total of zero.

"Shut up," snarled the other shinobi, crouching lower. His left arm dangled, the sleeve stained from the blood trickling down from where Zabuza'd stabbed him.

Zabuza shrugged, twirling his borrowed katana around languidly. "Fine. Better for me if you did the talking anyways," he drawled. "What's the situation here? Seems kind of dumb to have one little pocket of shinobi hanging out in this tower."

The other shinobi didn't respond, inching back towards the door Zabuza had come out of.

"Fine," Zabuza grumbled, rolling his eyes. "I can cut you up a bit if it'll make you feel better about spilling. The shinobi's eyes widened as Zabuza strode forward, batting aside his feeble attempt to block with the tanto.

The other shinobi ducked to the side, but Zabuza caught him by the scruff like he was one of the kids and tossed him to the floor. "Now," said Zabuza, dropping the katana and drawing a kunai. "Ow, shit," he muttered, as the shinobi swiped at him with the tanto. He caught the man's wrist and bent it backwards until he dropped the tanto with a muffled squeak.

"Now," Zabuza said again, straddling the man and pinning the man's arms with his knees. "Again. Actually, how about your name and rank? That much's protocol."

The man eyed him suspiciously. Zabuza rolled his eyes. "You really want to lose a hand over your fucking name?"

"Arinaga," the shinobi grated out. "Genin."

"Liar," said Zabuza, and reaching around for the man's hand.

"Chuunin!" Arinaga corrected, jerking away desperately. "I'm chuunin."

Zabuza paused to smile nastily at him. "Yeah, you are," he said cheerfully. "Which caste?" He twirled the kunai in his hand threateningly.

The adam's apple bobbed in Arinaga's throat. "M-middle," he answered.

"Hm," said Zabuza. "That's disappointing. All right. How dead is Fuhen? Soseku Fuhen, the captain."

Arinaga hesitated. "Not?"

Life was full of disappointments. Zabuza would have loved to stay and chat; unfortunately, one missing hand and a shattered kneecap revealed that Arinaga knew only that his squad had slipped around behind the Hanran as the main loyalist forces retreated. The good news: Zabuza would probably find the rest of the unit pretty soon. He cut Arinaga's throat, told him, "Thanks," and stepped over the scattered bodies to the far end of the tower.

The next set of hallways rang with the faint clang of metal, and the walls trembled threateningly. Bursts of chakra set the air around him vibrating. Zabuza picked up his pace, following the source down two wallways and a set of stairs into the antechamber for the turbine room.

"Sensei," greeted Neji, the tanto in his hand unsheathed.

"Hm," said Zabuza. "You see me coming? Where's the princess?"

"Here, Sensei," interjected Temari, taking a fast pivot around the corner. "Ni suggested we pull back to meet up with you." There was a thin slice along her shoulder, and dirt smeared her face, but she appeared otherwise intact.

Neji nodded once in agreement. "I thought it best to orient you to the battlefield."

He'd seen the mess in the guard tower, then. "All right," Zabuza grunted. "What's the situation?" he leaned to the side as an errant kunai flew past.

"Hanran forces have taken most of the northern half of the dam," reported Temari, "including the other half of the pincer trap you ran into. Most of the battle is in this big space." She gestured at the turbine room.

"Where is Ichi?" Neji asked, his head cocked ever so slightly. "I did not see him with you."

"He got stabbed," Zabuza grumbled. "Forget about him. This battle needs to wrap up." Temari and Neji exchanged a glance, but Zabuza didn't care to decipher it. He stalked closer to the main turbine room to get a better look at the battlefield.

On first glance, skirmishes ranged all over, with teams clashing one-on-one or two-on-one, pushing or falling back to create a very ragged front line. The housings for the turbines were cracked but more or less intact. The cement walkways, however, were pitted and scarred and slick with water. A team of four darted out from behind a turbine, half its members firing off a joint suiton as the rest beat a speedy retreat deeper into the building. A Hanran team, the leader waterlogged but energetic, vaulted after them, and the pair of kunoichi behind him followed suit more slowly.

Zabuza sighed. "The fuck is Michishio doing?" he grumbled under his breath. "Trying to lose more shinobi fighting guerilla style? Wait," he said abruptly. "Is he dead?"

"No," said Temari, giving him a strange glance.

Zabuza sighed again. Another disappointment. "Pity," he muttered. "Let's go find him. Point me at him, punk."

Zabuza found Michishio after only two ambushes and one close call for the remainder of Neji's hair. He muscled his way into the man's duel with a trio of chuunin and said, "Hey - "dipshit," - what - "the fuck" - are you doing with this battle?"

Michishio bisected a chuunin at the waist, only for him to bleed only water when a Mizu bunshin took the attack. He grunted, eyeing Zabuza with intense irritation. "Capturing the dam. The thing you were supposed to help with."

"I cleared out half of a trap in the third tower," Zabuza informed him, beheading a clone with particular ferocity.

"I know," Michishio said in that irritatingly condescending voice of his. "Your little sensor told me."

Zabuza glowered at Neji but mostly at Michishio. "Yeah? You know you can't afford to whittle down their forces like they can ours."

"We're making significant gains and have eliminated many of their shinobi," Michishio snapped back. "There's no other way to capture the dam intact."

"Look," said Zabuza impatiently, deflecting a barrage of shuriken one by one with his kunai. "Pull your men back, throw up a nice mist, and let the loyalists choose if they want to die like fish in a barrel or pull back without taking massive losses.

"How exactly do you expect me to pull my shinobi back without alerting the other side?" Michishio demanded scathingly, and darted forward with a burst of chakra to behead a loyalist shinobi before the other could finish a suiton. "Execute a silent killing now, and most of my unit will go down too."

Zabuza snarled and took the opportunity to pounce on a team that thought they were hiding in an adjoining hallway.

"If their side puts up a Kirigakure first, you can go in," Michishio offered grudgingly when Zabuza returned.

"Fuck you, I'll do what I want," said Zabuza on principle, tossing his professionalism to the gutter where it belonged. "Do you have any kind of plan here or what?"

"Yagura doesn't care if we take the dam," Michishio pointed out. "He's trying to wear down our forces before the siege."

"You, me, your top ten jounin, shock attack. All out," Zabuza suggested impatiently, eyeing the erratic front lines. "Start from the left and cut across. Everyone else falls back to the antechamber once we get to 'em. Let's get this over with."

Michishio squinted at the far end of the turbine room. He had been fighting nonstop for several hours, but Zabuza wouldn't have been able to tell from the man's iron composure. "Deal," he said at last.

Zabuza grinned.

"Did he go down fighting?"

Zabuza, incredibly low on chakra, energy, and bullshit tolerance, squinted up at the sand princess in the flickering light of the torches mounted on the interior walls of the tower. "What?"

They were camped in the far south tower of the dam, in the fifth floor shared with two of Michishio's teams. Zabuza didn't really trust them, but habitable space was limited after they'd absolutely trashed most of the dam, so they made do.

Temari couldn't hide her exhaustion despite her best efforts. A thin slice on her temple had scabbed over, and she moved stiffly, favoring her left knee. "Haku," she clarified.

"Yeah," said Zabuza. Then, "No? He was still on his feet when he got impaled. It pinned him upright. He didn't fall."

She and Neji did that thing again with their eyes where they looked at each other, even though Neji's eyes were completely hidden. He looked like a dick, wearing sunglasses indoors, but to be fair he could pass for a blind shinobi with other augmented senses, which was pretty much the point. Temari took a breath and asked, "Was he in a lot of pain?"

She could be asleep right now. Zabuza had a shitton of administrative crap to shovel through, but instead of sleeping, Temari was asking him asinine questions about his apprentice. "Like fuck, probably," he agreed. "What's with you?"

"She would like to know how you are so callous at Haku's death," said Neji coldly. "As do I."

Wait. What?

Zabuza felt a migraine encroaching at the corner of his forehead.

"First of all," said Zabuza, "Haku's a shinobi, and shinobi are weapons. They're tools. Do you think I'd cry if I broke Kubikiribocho?" Kubikiribocho would regenerate, but that was beside the point.

Temari's eyes narrowed furiously. Neji cocked his head and said, "Haku...is?"

"Second of all," Zabuza continued waspishly, glaring at the pair, "Haku's not dead. He's fine. Probably unconscious."

"He's not dead," Temari repeated slowly, the tension in her body slowly dissipating. Abruptly her glare returned, and she snapped, "What the hell, Sensei?"

"Hey!" Zabuza barked, glowering right back at her until her eyes flickered away. Yelling at him in public? Of all the kids, she should know better. Around the room, eyes drifted casually to their corner and away again when Zabuza snapped his head up to stare them down. "Watch it. It's your own damn fault for jumping to conclusions. Did you really think he was dead, all afternoon?"

"Yes," Neji said. "You told us he 'got stabbed' and to 'forget about him.'"

Fair.

"Well, he's fine," Zabuza growled. "Team Obnoxious is watching him til he gets his ass out of bed. They're fine too," he added cattily. "I'm sure they'll be glad you asked."

The two brats looked at each other again. "What about Genbu?" asked Temari.

"Do I look like a messenger to you?" Zabuza growled. "How should I know?" Zabuza belatedly realized that his chakra levels might have a negative correlation with his irritability. Tough. The kids would roll with it; they were good about that. "Hey," he said. "We're on standby, and gods know when we might have to move again. Get some sleep now or you'll get yourself killed during battle and embarrass me." He jerked his head towards the corner he had claimed by way of outranking everyone else in the room.

There was a table shoved up against the wall; its accompanying chairs were shattered in pieces on the floor. Temari filed over obediently, hopping up with a false ease that mostly hid aching muscles and stinging wounds. After a final chakra pulse, throwing out his sight a bit to make sure they were safe, Neji followed suit, lying down gingerly and bundling his kunai pouch under his head like a pointy makeshift pillow. Zabuza leaned against the table edge and got out his map.

Harbor: secure. Southern dam: secure.

A tiny figure pulsed a beat of chakra from the window. The heads of the team closest popped up, but Zabuza growled, "It's for me," and like gophers they ducked back down. The crow hopped through the window and fluttered its way over. Zabuza rescued an intact stool and perched on it, eyeing the two genin sleeping with their backs pressed against each other.

Sickening.

He held up his wrist for the crow to perch on. "What do you got?"

"Caw," answered the crow, and held out the scrap of rolled paper tied to its leg.

Zabuza eyed the bird as he untied the message. It was from Shisui. This crow wasn't Mirin, the flock leader and the only one Zabuza could identify by sight. "Shoyu?" he tried. "Dashi? Tamari?"

"Caw," said the crow.

Ah. Dashi.

Zabuza flapped the paper open with his free hand and forced his eyes to focus on the tiny script. As its temporary captain, Shisui had kept Zabuza's unit mostly intact. The four teams that had been redirected to the harbor had since returned to the battle at the narrow Usui-touge mountain pass, since that one was still ongoing.

No immediate assistance required,it concluded. Request your return when available, no later than 0600 hours tomorrow unless otherwise notified.

0600 hours - factoring in travel and genin mobilization time, Zabuza had enough time for a good three hours of sleep. Fuck yeah.

Acknowledged,Zabuza scribbled at the bottom of the paper. Southern dam secure: confirmed. Allied losses within expected parameters; defer to Hanran-Shi-097 for more accurate estimate of numbers.He rolled the sheet tightly and offered it to Dashi, who stuck out his leg obligingly.

"Hey," Zabuza grunted as he fumbled his way through a knot one-handedly. "If he wants to send a response, tell 'im I need an update on Genbu."

"Caw," Dashi croaked, fixing one beady eye on Zabuza with annoyance.

"Yeah, cry me a river," Zabuza growled. "Go on, get out of here."

The bird flapped deliberately in Zabuza's face before launching itself at the window.

Zabuza watched it go sourly. The stupid things were why Zabuza believed the people who claimed that summons picked summoners of similar personalities.

Temari had turned thirteen last month, becoming the first of the shinobi children to make it to her teenage years. Zabuza had congratulated her by bringing her with him to an outpost and letting her plan the blitz, and also giving her a brace of kunai - proper Kiri-style kunai, not the wimpy kind the other villages used - that he found in the supply tent. If they had been in a Hidden Village, he'd have signed her up for the chuunin exams if he hadn't already done so, in preparation for pawning her off to lead her own team and washing his hands of her. As it was, he was stuck with her.

Fortunately, she was about as reliable as Haku, even if she didn't have the handy kekkei-genkai. Unfortunately, she was nowhere near as deferential and had a tendency towards emotionality that, while giving her an aggressive edge in combat, also included useless things like affection and cheerfulness.

Zabuza glared at her. By all accounts, a teenager who had fought all night and gotten maybe five hours of sleep should have been surly and nonverbal, like the Hyuuga punk. Temari, when faced with sleep deprivation, became absolutely manic. She beamed back at him, twirling a kunai in one hand as the other drummed against the table with unrestrained energy.

It was too much for Zabuza to handle, having woken up exactly seven minutes ago. "Get your shit together," he ordered, packing away Kubikiribocho. "I'm going to tell Michishio we're leaving or he'll bitch about it to Command."

"Hai," said Temari cheerfully. Neji just nodded once, shortly, which was much more of how Zabuza felt.

"Oh, and princess," he said over his shoulder, remembering a beleaguered Dashi's second nighttime visit. "Genbu. They're fine."

Temari lit up like the fucking sun. Zabuza got the hell out as Neji's scowl deepened - better he deal with her than Zabuza.

Neji...rankled. He was basically everything Zabuza hated wrapped up in a small, bratty genin package: from a noble clan, arrogant to the point of condescension, and fatalistic, bordering on self-pitying or defeatist. He played at subservience to Hinata, but Zabuza had seen him legitimately try to kill the girl within a week of meeting him. Zabuza was all for rising against the oppressively powerful, but the tiny Hyuuga girl? A particularly angry squirrel could take her down. Hell would freeze over before she tried to impose anything on Neji, and he was too dumb to realize it. He was better about it now than he'd been a year ago, but Zabuza would have to beat the rest out of him later.

After the war.

Zabuza reached the top floor of the tower that Michishio had commandeered for himself and knocked brusquely before opening the door.

"Etiquette dictates you wait for a response after knocking," Michishio snapped without looking up. He looked disappointingly normal, without a hint of fatigue in the lines of his face. The only sign he'd been in battle was a tear through his flak jacket at the shoulder and a spotted bandage around his forearm.

"We're in a war," pointed out Zabuza, who thought it was pretty damn polite of him to bother knocking at all. "Etiquette means jack right now."

Michishio gritted out, "What do you want?"

"I'm leaving," said Zabuza. "Taking my two with me. Don't count us in your personnel tally."

"Good riddance," Michishio muttered. "I'm taking half the unit to back up the Rakoshi Pass assault. You need to send a message, send it there."

"Whatever," said Zabuza. "Don't die before I get the chance to kill you, old man."

"Old man,"Michishio hissed under his breath. Zabuza smirked as he breezed out. Too easy.

The Lower City had begun to stir. After half a week, the shinobi battle had not touched the civilians; as dawn brought sunlight spilling over the mountains, some of the bolder townspeople began venturing outdoors, or unlocking shop doors even if they did not set up wares outside.

Temari watched them warily as they passed, a hand hovering just over her kunai holster. Her chakra roiled uneasily, replenished by sleep and ration bars.

"Pick up the pace," Zabuza ordered gruffly. He had no desire to linger.

Neji's eyes were admittedly useful, which Zabuza recognized once again as they moved through the streets. They didn't need to inch along the streets cautiously in case a squad got behind them or lay in wait because short a good seal, nothing could hide from those eyes. So yeah, okay, maybe the punk's arrogance wasn't entirely unfounded.

Usui-touge was not a route of great significance at any time except wartime. It was a meandering trail through the mountains that would have been scenic if there was anything to be seen; as there was not, it was just a rocky and overly convoluted path from which sensei sometimes took their teams or apprentices out on to train or practice survival in the wilderness. Travellers, suppliers, and pretty much any other traffic to the inner village took the broader, more direct Karikachi-touge.

But where the Karikachi had a major chokehold which had been very effectively trapped and blockaded, the loyalists could not do the same for the Usui-touge, though defensive traps did scatter the slopes. Hence, Shisui had taken Zabuza's unit to slog along the Usui-touge in hopes of cutting around through the mountains behind the blockage and opening the Karikachi for Hana-ha and Hanran troops to march straight down to the Village.

Command didn't have high hopes, so they had lots of contingencies.

Zabuza - or more accurately, Neji - found Shisui standing at the crest of a ridge overlooking a shallow valley. Before him, teams of shinobi curled or sprawled on the ground, using equipment packs or extra jackets as blankets or pillows. Other groups sat oiling weapons or gnawing ration bars tersely, and at the edges of the group, teams stood guard with blades close at hand.

"Z," Shisui acknowledged absently, his mask angled towards the distant ridge on the far side of the valley. "Hey, Rei. Hey, Ni. Hope Ichi's feeling better."

Neji nodded; Temari said, "Hi, Sensei."

Zabuza eyed him up and down. There was a strained set in the way he held himself, simultaneously taut as a hunting cat about to lunge and slightly stiff, as if he were the one being hunted. "You haven't slept," he noticed.

"Nope," agreed Shisui glumly. "Every time we stop to rest, and half the time we're marching, their forces attack us with fast mobile teams and retreat before we can counterattack."

The irony. The tables had turned.

"They're wearing you down," Zabuza surmised. "Another day of this and your teams will go down like paper ships."

"They're actually your teams," Shisui pointed out very dryly. "It's your command now, since you're back."

"Yeah," agreed Zabuza. "It's my command. So get some fucking rest, Konoha, I swear to the gods if you go down from exhaustion in the middle of battle I'll laugh at your corpse and throw it off a cliff."

"Thanks," said Shisui. "Not much change from the last update, by the way. Tokubetsu jounin Saeko and Kenta are in charge of coordinating traps; they should just about have something figured out. They're at the south side right now. And remember to say hi to Genbu."

Team Genbu was at the very southmost end of the camp in a sandy hollow, avoided by the other teams because nobody liked getting the gritty little grains everywhere. The genin themselves were untouched by the sand.

"Captain," said Hinata, without turning. Good. Zabuza didn't have the energy to deal with her nerves today. The rest of her team greeted their arrival silently, which Zabuza appreciated. All three of them wore their Yorozoku masks - the only of the children to do so, besides Haku, who liked to switch between the Yorozoku mask and his old hunter-nin one.

"Get Rei and Ni caught up," Zabuza ordered. "I'll be back."

The second he turned, the sand jinchuuriki slunk over to his sister, who greeted him with a fond, "Hey, Shichi," and a hair ruffle.

The Hyuuga girl, who was marginally more playful in this persona, turned towards Neji, who warned icily but with some alarm, "Don't."

Tokujo Saeko was perched delicately on a large rock outcropping, one leg crossed over the other. Her partner, Kenta, was muttering under his breath as he scratched out a diagram in the dirt. Saeko lifted her eyes and without any surprise greeted, "Taichou. Good to see you back."

Kenta squinted up at him. "Oh," he said vaguely. "Taichou."

Zabuza grunted a greeting. "Give me good news."

Kenta hesitated. Saeko said, "Juu-taichou asked us to come up with a way to deter these guerilla attacks. Kenta specializes in douton and traps; he thinks we have a workable plan if we can predict when the next strike will happen. Operative Kyuu has been very helpful in sensing approaching attackers, and Operative Hachi with aerial recon," she added. "The only other sensor-nin we have left in our platoon is Senior Genin Katsurou, but he's only half Inuzuka."

Inuzuka. Dog-nin. Good nose? Hana-ha squad and platoon leaders were notoriously territorial about their sensors; only reluctantly would any jounin or tokujo relinquish one, even in a temporary loan.

Zabuza brushed his stray thoughts aside. "What's the plan?"

"Well," said Kenta. "We would have to feign an opening, to lure a targeted attack, possibly when we start packing up the camp to move. Or we can have a flank appear unguarded when we keep marching. We think we'll involve only our shinobi in active roles, but let the other platoons know what will happen. And the other companies, of course."

Zabuza frowned. "You have a Guntai platoon in a Guntai company," he pointed out. "You sure just your shinobi can pull it off?"

"With all due respect," said Kenta in the kind of voice that said that the amount wasnone,"our platoon - our entire company - has always fought well, no matter what orders were given. Our genin troops might not be leadership-oriented, and our chuunin team leaders might not have the flashiest jutsu, but - "

"That was a yes or no question," Zabuza snapped, "not an invitation to lecture."

"Yes, Taichou, we can handle it," Saeko said smoothly as Kenta snapped his jaw shut and glared murderously at the ground. "Forgive him. He's feeling defensive."

Ugh. Feeling. "Don't," Zabuza advised. The Shirei-bu company had under eighty members, but they all were considered exceptional in tactics and combat ability. The mixed Gun-Shi company was likewise eighty strong, and included chuunin and genin who were in the Command Corps or whose combat capabilities were considered above average. Comparatively, the Guntai company was generally given simpler maneuvers to execute and less opportunity for improvisation; Zabuza was damn well in the right to ask if the grunts could keep themselves together. "Get your trap ready, get Kyuu or Shichi, or whoever you need, and get me when you have an actual plan and not just a halfway decent idea."

"Hai," agreed Saeko, in unison with her partner.

Zabuza doubled back to pick up his dawdling children. "Princess, punk, on your feet," he said gruffly.

Neji turned immediately, but Temari stood with an almost imperceptible hesitation. Zabuza relented. "Ten more minutes," he said. "Then you get to learn how to play with others and the Silent Triad toddles over to help Saeko and Kenta with their traps."

"We have amazing teamwork," Temari objected, sinking back down between her brother and Hinata. Gaara blinked up at him once, silently, before returning his unnerving stare to his sister, eyes half lidded.

"Withothers,"Zabuza stressed.

"How is Ichi?" asked Hinata. None of the baby infiltration team looked surprised about Haku. Shisui had probably for some reason decided it was relevant to the small children.

"Don't know," said Zabuza, because he couldn't exactly send a messenger to a bunch of excitable genin and Shizune would rend someone's head off their shoulders if Zabuza sent one to her about Haku. "Fine. Probably."

Hinata and Sai glanced at each other but, as was typical for them, did not press further. Gaara parroted under his breath, "Probably."

Zabuza didn't dignify that with a response. "Ten minutes," he said. "Let's go, small minions."

Kitajima had been a tokubetsu jounin when he left Konoha, and over the course of the war, picked up a second elemental affinity, a promotion, and a helluva lot of battlefield leadership experience. This, of course, Zabuza had learned from the report compiled by Shisui's unfortunate predecessor, which had included the basic histories of all eight of his Unit 15 jounin. Zabuza found him near the western edge of the camp, having just finished a discussion with his tokujo squad leaders. He straightened at their approach. "Captain."

"Kitajima," Zabuza acknowledged. "Status?"

"The company's ready to go, sir, I'm just updating the other units' positions," the other jounin said, and briefly glanced up at Temari and Neji behind Zabuza's shoulder before returning his attention to the map he was scribbling on.

Zabuza crossed his arms across his chest. "You got open spots in your teams for two genin? Shirei-bu, temporary."

Kitajima looked up again, a little longer this time. "Always," he said wryly. "Yes, sir, I can put them in with Tokujo Mineko, two of her squad are out on injury after the last skirmish."

"Great," said Zabuza. "Take them. Heads up, the Guntai company's First Platoon is drafting a plan to deal with the guerilla attacks."

"Oh," said Kitajima bleakly. "Hai."

Wonderful. Zabuza had one - maybe two - fewer problems.

Saeko picked her way across the camp, angling unerringly towards Zabuza, so he stopped and let her come to him. "You done?"

"Yes," said Saeko. She smiled.

Moving the entire 500-some strong unit at a light jog proved a ponderous undertaking, even though his soldiers were all shinobi. They could only travel along the path three to five abreast, and the road wound up and down the mountains languidly. Zabuza lurked in the center of herd like a tigerfish in a school of salmon.

It was completely, suspiciously uneventful. Zabuza picked up his pace let himself drift between the teams to Saeko's side. "Not a nibble," he noted gruffly.

Saeko tipped her head gracefully, but her eyes were pinched at the corner. "This is the longest the loyalists have gone without an attack," she said, and her gaze flickered over to the opposite side of the column, where her partner was wound up tight and trying hard not to show it.

Zabuza snapped his fingers. "Kyuu," he said, and Hinata slipped up to his side. "Where are they?"

"We've extended our collective range by sending Hachi's birds to the edge of mine," said Hinata. "The past two days, they remained just out of range until directly before an attack, but this time, it appears the loyalist teams have withdrawn entirely."

"We thought it might be a feint to lull us into a false sense of security, but even when my scouts ventured further out, they could not spot the enemy," added Sai. From the corner of his eye, Zabuza saw Saeko nod silent approval.

"Standby," Zabuza grunted. He sped up to where Shisui melded in with the teams at the front, nudging his way between the shifting walls of shinobi flak jackets. As he approached, so did a dark streak, swooping down over all their heads. It alighted on Shisui's wrist, a scrap of paper in its claws. It was a small messenger falcon, not one of Shisui's crows, its speckled plumage shades of coffee and cream, and it had clearly flown hard and fast from the droop of its wings.

Zabuza shoved the rest of the way forward as Shisui flipped the paper open. "Kyuu said the loyalist teams are missing," Zabuza growled.

"Yeah," said Shisui, handing him the message. The falcon took the opportunity to flutter up to Shisui's shoulder. "This is where they went."

Fuck."The Karikachi Pass."

"Units 11, 14, and 16 are there," Shisui agreed grimly, and tapped the paper. "Kiri played defense until they committed, then called back a bunch of squads, and with all the other battles, no one's in a good position to assist."

"Except us," Zabuza surmised.

"If you ignore the pace, the way this path curves on itself ten times in ten kilometers, and the fact that the slopes are trapped to hell and back, yeah," Shisui said grimly.

"Kiri's pulled its teams because by the time we get to the battle, it'll be over and we'd run straight into a slaughter." He paused, and Shisui gave him a deliberate look. "Konoha," Zabuza said with a very fake surprise. "That's cold of you." He raised his voice. "Unit 15, fifteen minute break. Hold your positions!" and the shinobi around them ground to a halt.

"It's not what you think," said Shisui in a low voice, drawing him aside.

"Oh, yeah?" said Zabuza, amused. "So your plan isn't to go straight over the mountains to the pass, traps be damned, with the Guntai genin as cannon fodder?"

"Yes," Shisui drew out slowly. "But I'm fast enough to pull them before any trap they trigger can kill them."

Zabuza stared. "You're not serious. You've lost your godsdamned mind."

"Incoming," Neji said from behind them helpfully. "Ichi and Team Byakko are inbound. I thought it prudent to inform you."

Fucking who now?Zabuza whirled on him, but Neji had already turned deliberately to make his way back to his temporary team.

"Huh," said Shisui.

Zabuza graciously waited until his apprentice had dropped the three brats out of the mirror and hopped down himself before demanding, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"My place is at your side, Zabuza-san," Haku replied serenely.

"Hi!" added the blond brat brightly.

Zabuza breathed deeply through his nose.

Shisui took mercy on his blood pressure and said, "Shi, Go, and Roku, go ahead and join the squad with Rei and Ni, hmm? Tell Tokujo Mineko I sent you. Stay with the medical crews and protect them, okay?"

Medical crews always stayed at the back of the battlefield, as far away from enemy fire as one could get while still actually being on the battlefield. The small Itachi-clone narrowed his eyes, because he smelled the rotting fish but wasn't about to call him out when Zabuza was clearly two seconds away from flattening him for letting Haku travel however fucking far it was from the lighthouse.

"Hai," agreed the pink-haired child sensibly, as her jinchuuriki teammate said, "Okay! Bye, Haa - Ichi!"

Zabuza rounded back on his apprentice, who looked entirely unrepentant. Shisui beat him to the punch, saying severely, "Haku-kun, from what I heard, you had major surgery less than a day ago - when you were, for most intents and purposes, dead."

Haku's eyes widened a little, but he said politely, "And I am much recovered now, thank you."

"Haku!" Zabuza snapped, and Haku turned to him. Heads turned casually or deliberately did not turn around them. Zabuza lowered his voice and hissed, "Go back to the hospital. You're worse than useless to me now."

Haku actually flinched at that, recoiling as if Zabuza had wound up and slugged him in the face. "You need me," he rallied.

"Yeah?" Zabuza demanded. "How d'you figure? Ineeda dumbass genin who got himself killed against a warship captain?"

"Look, Haku," Shisui said. "We know you want to help. But most shinobi never walk away from an injury like that, let alone try to jump back in the fight less than twenty-four hours later. Give your body a chance to rest and recover."

"We don't have time for this shit," Zabuza growled impatiently. "Haku, go back to the lighthouse hospital. Konoha, Karikachi-touge. We need a plan."

"We have a plan," Shisui retorted. "Direct path to the battle. Sweeping teams trigger everything in our path, I pull out whoever sets one off before they get killed."

Zabuza snarled. "You're a fucking idiot, you know that?" Let the grunts die; if they weren't strong enough to survive, why bother staving off the inevitable? Konoha shinobi were the strangest creatures alive, and the fact that they still seemed to be alive was the strangest part of it all.

"Speed is the most important thing now," Shisui pointed out, "but so is making sure we still have a fighting force by the time we reach the Karikachi. I'm fresh enough for this."

Zabuza crossed his arms over his chest. "And when we get to the actual battle?" Shisui gave him a look. Zabuza snarled under his breath. "Fine," he snapped. "Kill yourself, see if I care."

"I won't," said Shisui, and then with a smirk in his voice and too quietly for anyone else to hear, "You will."

Zabuza should disembowel the fool on principle. Instead he turned abruptly on his heel and barked, "Unit 15 officers, sound off!"

"Shirei-bu Company, uh, present," called Nishigawa, the jounin-in-charge for the company.

"Gun-Shi Company present," rapped out jounin Kitajima.

"Guntai, First Platoon present." Saeko.

"Guntai Company Second Platoon present!"

"Guntai Company, Third Platoon present."

"Guntai Company, Fourth Platoon. Present."

"Guntai, Fifth Platoon, present."

"Guntai Company, Sixth Platoon, present!"

"Guntai Company, Seventh Platoon, present. All Guntai platoons present, taichou."

"Officers to me," Zabuza snapped. "There's a change of plans."

The rank and file were definitively not happy about the new plan for obvious reasons. The assorted jounin-in-charge and tokujo-in-charge of the companies and platoons were likewise displeased because they were Leaf and therefore soft.

"I will be extracting the scouts before they are caught in the traps but after they have been activated," Shisui snapped, again, urgency clipping his words.

"Respectfully, Taichou, you, ah, you probably won't be able to save them all," said Nishigawa.

"Or very many of them," added Kitajima. The doubter.

"The units at the Karikachi are Hana-ha," Zabuza pointed out gruffly. "They're going to lose men. We're going to lose men. This is not a discussion, this is a war. Do your jobs and Juu will do his."

One of the tokujo said, "Should he?" And her eyes stayed smooth and cold as glass even when most of the group turned disapproving looks in her. "I'm sure Juu-taichou would make a greater impact on the battle at Karikachi with his chakra preserved than depleted."

Zabuza had to admire the woman's nerve and ruthless pragmatism, which would be right at home in Kiri but was apparently frowned upon in Konoha.

"Worry about yourself, Tokujo," said Shisui. There was a thread of steel in his voice that warned against further argument, but he tipped his head ever so slightly at Zabuza.

Right. Zabuza's unit. Zabuza's command. Shisui wasbeing nice,trying not to muscle in. "Get your shinobi ready to march," he growled. "I gave you orders; follow them."

Shisui watched at Zabuza's side as the jounin and tokujo dispersed back to their platoons and companies. "This sucks," he said under his breath.

Zabuza snorted. "I'm sorry, did you think this was a tea ceremony?"

"That would suck too," muttered Shisui. He sighed and shifted, rolling his shoulders back.

Zabuza watched the shift of his muscles under his flack jacket. "You sure you wanna do this? You could just let them - " he waved a hand expensively, " - like Tokujo Yabuki said."

Shisui shot him a half exasperated look. "You're a cold-hearted bastard," he said without heat. "I got this."

The first wave of shinobi set out across the slopes at a decent run with a grim trepidation. It took two hundred meters for the first trap to go off - an explosive seal that blew rocks and shrubs sky high, and would have taken the unfortunate genin with it if not for Shisui. A blur, a burst of chakra, and Shisui deposited a dazed genin safely back with the second wave.

Zabuza, as long as no one asked him to say it aloud, would admit that it was pretty impressive; Shisui blazed in and out of the very front, and the genin grew bolder when they realized they that could step on exploding tag triggers and not die. He flashed to a kunoichi's side just as her foot touched the ground, sweeping her out of the blast radius and threw himself directly into another shunshin. Shisui moved like he knew where each trap would be before it was even set off.

Except, Shisui couldn't be everywhere, and even as the unit devoured the ground between themselves and the Karikachi, the cracks began to show: a shinobi scooped from a chasm that opened beneath him just a hairsbreadth before too late, the flak jacket on another singed, instead of a clean retrieval.

Two explosions rattled the ground simultaneously, then a third and fourth and fifth and sixth in quick succession. And that, even for Shisui, was too fast.

Zabuza gritted his teeth, but a familiar crackle made him freeze in his tracks even as his troops surged forward around him. Two bewildered and lightly charred genin stumbled out of the ice mirror that materialized next to him and were instantly lost in the press of shinobi. Zabuza snarled, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Juu-san cannot do this alone," Haku said fiercely, still - defiantly - in his ice mirror. "Zabuza-san, please. Let me do this."

Once he forced down the rage boiling in his stomach, and because he knew - fuck him to hell and back - that despite his speed, Shisui really couldn't save them all and especially not by himself and probably hated himself for that, Zabuza hissed, "You assist only when you are certain Konoha can't grab them all himself, and only if you are certain you yourself will not be injured. When we get to the battle, you stay the fuck away from it, do you understand me?"

"Hai," Haku agreed instantly. "Tha - "

"We'll deal with your disobedience later," Zabuza snapped. "Get."

"Hai," said Haku, and then he was gone.

But even between the two of them, they couldn't save everyone; Zabuza's unit left the scattered bodies mangled and scorched.

Hinata found his way to Zabuza's side to inform him, "Hachi's scouts report the battle at the Karikachi is ten kilometers away."

Zabuza grunted. "Halt," he barked, and gradually, the entire unit shuffled to a stop. "Ten minutes max, replenish your chakra. Officers, get ready to brief." He jerked his head at Hinata and shouldered his way to the front, where Shisui skidded to a stop and Haku all but tipped out of a mirror. "We're close," Zabuza told him without preamble.

"Ten kilometers," Hinata supplied.

"Just under a fifteen minute run." Shisui scrubbed a hand through his hair.

"Get me details on the battlefield," Zabuza ordered. "Numbers, positions, defenses, everything."

"Hai." Hinata darted back to her team.

"How do you want to play this?" Shisui asked. "You know. Generally."

Zabuza shrugged indolently. "Bit too hard for five hundred strong to launch a surprise attack."

Shisui grinned crookedly. "You're thinking head on. Hard and fast, everything we've got?"

"Think it's time you swatted the bees stinging your ass all the way through the mountains," drawled Zabuza.

Hinata brought Sai to make his report himself. Zabuza watched wolf-ravenous smirks spread on the faces of his shinobi. Shinobi were hunters, shinobi were killers, and the promise of battle set their feet skimming over the last kilometers with eager bloodlust.

At the ridge before the Karikachi, Zabuza turned to face the unit, swinging Kubikiribocho aloft, and bellowed, "Charge!"

Shisui blazed down the slope ahead of him shrouded in crackling white lightning; he didn't slow for the spikes shooting up at him from the barrier wall that rose in his path, crashing into them headlong and leaving them crumbled in his wake. Zabuza bared his teeth in a sharp grin, leaping high in the air to avoid the spikes and landing with his feet braced on top of the wall. Behind him, the Kyuubi brat whooped, wild and ravenous, and the rest of Zabuza's picked up the cry and the pace alike so that they charged and skidded down the slope with a roar in their throats.

Below, the battle at the gates seemed to pause as both sides looked up to see Zabuza's shinobi thundering down the mountainside. The Hanran-Hana-ha troops visibly rallied, falling on their opponents with renewed ferocity as the loyalists returned in kind: the most dangerous shinobi was a cornered shinobi.

The mad charge of Zabuza's shinobi abated at the wall, where those who couldn't make the jump scrambled up with chakra and determination. As he watched, one of his genin slipped off the surface of a large spike. His shinobi were not Kiri-born, who would as soon leave behind a comrade too weak to even make it to battle. The genin's teammate caught him by the arm in a strong grip and hauled him back up rather than let him fall on the waiting spikes or the shinobi following them.

Soft-hearted,he thought for the umpteenth time - but this time with a sharp indulgence rather than scorn. And then,Fuck, they're rubbing off on me.

Zabuza needed to spill some fucking blood.

The three units already engaged in the battle were those of the captains Zabuza internally called the Tree Trio - Gekkeiju, Kaba, and Yanagi the elder - the all-grown-up and sufficiently deadly genin team of Nara Shikaku, because logically, if three units had to work together, it may as be the ones whose captains already had fantastic teamwork.

Zabuza didn't think they'd be too picky about who joined the party considering he was there to save their collective asses, so he leapt down to join the fray.

His unit crashed into the side of the blockade, and Zabuza landed on the ramparts with Kubikiribocho already scything towards the first shinobi blocking his path. "Suiton: Suiryuudan," he growled, and his dragon swept anyone too slow or too unwary to get out of the way off the wall.

The battle blurred. Zabuza'd fought a shitton in the past couple days, and this one was a slaughter like all the rest.

He paused for a moment when he caught a glimpse of Team Genbu, a strange patch of utter stillness in the chaos. Sai stood with his ink beasts ranging in a great circle, snapping at the enemy when they ventured near, and Gaara had his eyes closed as Hinata, at his shoulder, said evenly, "Eleven o'clock, four meters straight."

Gaara's hand clenched; Zabuza heard a sickening crunch and scream echoing out of the tower beneath their feet. "Three targets eliminated," said Hinata. "Eight o'clock, sixteen meters ahead."

Zabuza barked a laugh and decapitated the shinobi lunging at his back. What bloodthirsty little monsters Shisui had raised.

He leapt up over the edge of the ramparts, crouching on the side of the wall, and swung himself through the open window. He slung Kubikiribocho back over his shoulder, muttered, "Kirigakure no jutsu," and let his chakra and his mist billow out and envelope the team charging down the hallway at him. He hooked a kunai from his holster and prowled forward, and saturated the mist with his killing intent.

The team had frozen in place, to keep their footsteps from giving away their position - but it was their heartbeats that betrayed them, fluttering like rabbits' in their ribcages. Zabuza ghosted behind them and with one vicious jerk, slashed open the throat of the first. His teammate cried out in shock as the man's blood splattered the back of his neck, but by the time he whirled, katana first, Zabuza had already slipped back into the mist. The blade met air; the body hit the ground with a dull thud.

Were this a mission, Zabuza would draw it out, savor the hunt, but this was war, so he slit their throats one by one and stalked down the hallway in the cover of his mist.

"Ah," someone said, as the third shinobi slumped to the ground. "I thought I recognized that chakra."

Two jounin on opposing sides could easily slaughter hordes of genin, if not for each other. Zabuza supposed he should probably entertain this joker's efforts at distracting him, since he was kind of obligated to keep his unit alive. Zabuza flicked the blood off his blade absently and spun it around in his hand.

"What, you don't recognize me?" the other jounin said. His voice bounced through the mist, in the way Zabuza did so his prey could not tell where he came from. Heartbeat, breathing - those, too, were muffled and originless.

Zabuza prowled along the wall. "Hanemaru," he drawled. "Still kicking, huh, you little bastard?"

"I could say the same for you," said Hanemaru.

Zabuza flipped his kunai up and spun to catch Hanemaru's blade on its hooked edge as it hissed out of the mist with devastating speed. "The kodachi today," he noted.

Hanemaru let a self-deprecating smile tug the corner of his mouth. "Not enough room to swing the chokuto, but you know that. I don't see you using Kubikiribocho or a katana."

Zabuza grunted and stomped at Hanemaru's foot. Hanemaru shoved back to free his blade, leaping backwards and melting back into the fog.

Zabuza chased the echo of his footsteps, lunging around to cut Hanemaru off before he could dodge down another hallway and jabbing down towards his face "Don't tell me you're bored of me already," he growled as Hanemaru's blade intercepted his kunai.

Hanemaru huffed a laugh even as the pointiest part of Zabuza's kunai edged dangerously closely to his face. "You weren't being a great host."

Zabuza bared his teeth and bore down on the kunai. Hanemaru's kodachi trembled. "Think you're supposed to be the host, these days."

"Hmm," said Hanemaru consideringly, twisting out from under Zabuza. "You may be right." His blade flashed, and Zabuza batted it out of the way.

"Come on, Hanemaru," said Zabuza, catching the kodachi's blade on his kunai and crowding in close to the other jounin. "You can't think you can beat me in hand to hand."

Hanemaru snorted, twisting his hands into a seal. "Always so arrogant." He blew a mouthful of poison gas into Zabuza's face.

Zabuza beat a swift retreat via shunshin, shrouding himself in his mist again. His face was already beginning to itch, even under the bandages wrapping his mouth and nose. He split off a trio of mizu bunshin, then stood still and let them stalk forward once again. "Sure I can't convince you to switch sides?" he offered casually. "We can pick this up some other time."

Silence.

Zabuza frowned and canted his head to the side, but even then he couldn't hear so much as a heartbeat. He collected chakra in the back of his throat with a few hand seals and blew the mist out of the hallways with a weak fuuton. They were empty. "Damn," he growled aloud. He flipped his kunai around in his hand restlessly and stalked down the hallway, the bunshin doubling back to join the hunt.

Zabuza closed his eyes as he walked. All around him, only slightly muffled by the stone walls, the screeching of metal, the thud of bodies against each other, and the deafening explosions of tags and katon jutsu battered at his ears. Closer, though - Zabuza snapped his head to the side at the whisper of cloth over stone and kicked in the nearest door. It exploded, because of course it was trapped; he substituted his furthest bunshin as the other two sprayed back into water and snapped his kunai up to parry as Hanemaru burst through the smoke.

"Not bad," Hanemaru commented, as his kodachi skidded off the length of Zabuza's kunai. "All this ambient noise - thought it'd give you more of a pause."

Zabuza grunted. "You don't know me as well as you think you do."

Hanemaru's eyes went from languid to blank in less than a heartbeat. "No," he said. "I suppose not." He lashed out towards Zabuza's left side, and Zabuza flicked his kunai out, but Hanemaru struck a flurry of blows that forced Zabuza to give ground grudgingly and draw a second kunai to deflect.

Zabuza hopped backwards, flinging one of his kunai straight at Hanemaru's eyes, and huffed a laugh as the other jounin spun to the side to avoid it. "You mad?"

"A little," Hanemaru admitted, twirling his kodachi in a considering circle. "You're the last person I expected to defect."

"I tried to assassinate the Mizukage," Zabuza pointed out, dry as dust.

"I know," said Hanemaru patiently. "Why, though?"

Zabuza snorted. "Because he's a dick?"

Hanemaru didn't roll his eyes, but it was clearly a close thing.

"The old Academy tests. The bloodline massacres. The fucking caste system," Zabuza snapped. "And that's just scratching the surface. "You really think that lunatic should be Kiri's kage?"

"He did end up abolishing those tests," Hanemaru pointed out. "Because of you, I might add. And yes, the caste system is brutal, but our shinobi are stronger for it." He jerked his head towards Zabuza, though his blade never wavered. "You're proof caste isn't the final determinant. You were one of the Seven - the highest honor any Kiri shinobi can get besides Kage - and you threw it all away, for what? A grudge your childhood handlers pressed on you?"

Zabuza bared his teeth grimly. "Last I checked, I still have Kubikiribocho. I'm still a Swordsman."

Hanemaru pressed his lips together. "Do you really think Terumi's going to change anything?" he challenged. "She doesn't want to abolish the caste system - she just wants a new order. One with her on top."

Zabuza rolled his eyes. "When does she ever not want to be on top?"

"Zabuza!" Hanemaru glared

"Hanemaru!" Zabuza mimicked. "What, you think you're gonna sweet-talk me into switching sides again? At least buy me dinner, you cheap bastard."

"I would," snapped Hanemaru. "I will. Just - stop. You're tearing Kirigakure apart. The rest of the world won't ignore us ripping ourselves to pieces. If we lose the seas, we have nothing."

Zabuza snorted. "The rest of the world is plenty busy, and literally nobody's interested in Kiri's oceans right now. Look, you can stand aside or run like fucking Arihiro, or we'll go through you."

Hanemaru watched him grimly for a moment, then sank into the beginning stance forDance of the Falling Swallow."You know I can't let you pass."

Zabuza flipped his kunai to a backhanded grip. "Sorry," he offered, perfunctory, and lunged.

Hanemaru leaped, as Zabuza knew he would - one could not fall without first rising, and Zabuza palmed a second kunai from his holster as he swung with the first. But Hanemaru sprang again as soon as his foot touched the ground, flipping clean over Zabuza's head.

Zabuza jerked out of the way of Hanemaru's kodachi as it flashed towards his face, turning in to get inside of Hanemaru's reach. He grabbed for Hanemaru's sword wrist with his own hand as the other jounin landed, barely managing to snag his sleeve, and yanked. Hanemaru, featherweight little bastard that he was, hurtled over Zabuza's shoulder with a grunt, but flexible little bastard that he was, twisted around to land on his feet instead of slamming head-first into the floor. He tore his sleeve free of Zabuza's grip, throwing himself backwards when Zabuza lunged once again.

"Suiton: Rekkuu Suigeki!" snapped Hanemaru, flashing through seals, and Zabuza jerked back.

"Suiton: Mizu Tatsumaki," he growled, and the water ripped itself out of the air to shield him in a whirling tornado just in time to absorb the jets of water Hanemaru spat at him rapid-fire.

Hanemaru's jutsu deflected into the walls with a series of resounding crashes, sending chips of stone flying as they hammered deep gashes into the stone. The ceiling rattled, and chunks thundered down around them both. Zabuza dipped deeper into his chakra and shoved his jutsu towards Hanemaru. It blasted a hole clean through the wall and a good amount of the ceiling and ramparts above, and sent a shock of sunlight through the makeshift window. Zabuza caught sight of Hanemaru's foot as he disappeared around the corner and pounced after him.

Hanemaru whirled, his chakra rising in preparation for another jutsu, but Zabuza was too close - he aborted the jutsu, swinging the kodachi backhanded towards the unprotected gap in the armor under Zabuza's arm. Zabuza substituted clear with a chunk of stone, but this time Hanemaru got his suiton off, flinging a line of watery knives that exploded when they hit the walls or floor or ceiling and sent shrapnel spraying all over the corridor. Zabuza ducked, and stone shards bit into his arms around and under his vambraces.

Zabuza spat a flurry of water bullets in reply, lunging after Hanemaru when he somersaulted out of the way. Hanemaru's kodachi flicked out, but Zabuza hooked it out of the way with the edge of one kunai and plunged the second straight down into Hanemaru's chest.

He fell, from the force of Zabuza's blow, his ribs caved in and his organs torn and his blood and chakra alike leaking as if from a cracked pipe, and Zabuza watched him go down, followed him down so he crouched next to where Hanemaru crumbled.

"Faster - faster than I remember," Hanemaru panted and when he coughed, he didn't stop choking. Blood bubbled from his mouth in a thin stream.

"Yeah," said Zabuza gruffly. "Picked up a couple tips from another guy. He's a speedy little fucker, had to keep up somehow."

Hanemaru's hand loosened and clenched around his kodachi's hilt. "Gods - gods damn it," he got out.

Zabuza snorted. "At least you don't have to worry about all this bullshit anymore."

Hanemaru tipped his head to spit out a mouthful of blood but couldn't muster the strength to turn his head back. "I - I wouldn't - have minded - worrying about - about it - a little - a little longer."

A jounin like Hanemaru was too loyal - too fucking good for a piece of shit like Yagura. Zabuza left his broken body in the rubble and stalked further down the corridor.

Zabuza had never been in the Karikachi checkpoint, only gone through it, and he didn't have one of the handy white-eyes with him so he was resigned to picking his path through the checkpoint in search of something like a command center. A base this strategic warranted at least a score and a half of jounin, to lead its bolstered defensive force of around three thousand shinobi. Hanemaru had been alone; he hadn't seemed like the captain or jounin-in-charge so maybe he'd find whoever was leading the defense at the command center, but then again Zabuza was wandering the depths of this thing all on his lonesome, cut off from the unit he was supposed to be leading.

He coiled his chakra and sakki in tightly, ghosting down a set of stairs and stretching out his senses. Three bright sources of chakra bobbed towards him down the corridor. Zabuza paused just behind the corner and flipped the kunai around in his hand. He wouldn't even need chakra for this.

A genin rounded the corner and Zabuza struck. One of the genin's teammates yelped, high pitched, and then Zabuza was on him too, burying the kunai in his chest and yanking it free savagely; the third barely had a chance to raise a kunai defensively before Zabuza slashed her throat.

He flicked the blood off the blade as the last of the bodies hit the ground with a muted thump and continued his hunt.

He ran into a full squad next, two chuunin and six genin, when he kicked down the door to the room in which they were taking potshots through the windows at the battles beyond the walls. The chuunin whirled first, exchanging a kunai for a katana with remarkable speed, and the other twisted and spat a suiton at Zabuza instead.

"Shit," said one of the genin under his breath as Zabuza lunged.

The suiton gouged a smattering of dents in the wall behind him as he ducked under the chuunin's jutsu, slamming the hilt of his kunai into the man's ribs and sending him flying. The chuunin with the katana sprang forward before Zabuza could finish him, in unison with a genin on his other flank.

"Dance of the Silent Woodpecker,"she snapped, and her blade blurred.

"Cute," grunted Zabuza, leaning back to avoid the blade's first pass and batting aside the second as he sidestepped the much less threatening genin when the man - teen - lunged. He twisted around the kunoichi's third strike and snagged the genin's weapon hand in the same movement. "I learned that form when I was eight." He hurled the genin over his shoulder, but unlike Hanemaru, the genin was neither fast nor flexible and slammed headfirst into the ground with a sound like a dropped watermelon.

"Richi!" cried another genin, dropping his half of what looked like an overly complicated wire trap - jutsu combination with his remaining teammate to lunge at Zabuza blindly with a kunai.

"Wait - " snapped the last genin, her eyes wide with panic. Zabuza flung his kunai at her and caught the idiot genin by the neck midair, plucked the kunai from his hand, yanked until he heard and felt the tell-tale snap, and dropped him.

The jutsu-chuunun pounced, two bubbles of water around his hand designed to capture what it touched; Zabuza leaned out of the way of his swipes, gave him a good yank on his arm, and sent him headfirst into the wall, the jutsu splashing apart as he crumpled. Zabuza whipped around in time to deflect the katana off his kunai, baring his teeth in a sharp grin.

The katana-chuunin sucked in a breath sharply, jerking back. Zabuza didn't allow her retreat. He stepped over the downed genin, caught the katana on the hook of his kunai when she swiped at him.

The other genin trio took the opportunity to attack. Zabuza shoved the chuunin away, sending her stumbling across the room as he turned to deal with the genin. One went low with a katana, a second high with a tanto, and the third blurred through seals for a ninjutsu behind them. Zabuza appreciated their teamwork and forward thinking in actually coordinating their attacks, so he bonked the kunoichi with the tanto on the head a lot less heavily than he could have and gently mule kicked the katana-wielder into the third teammate, where they both slammed into the wall before the jutsu could be finished. One, two, three - out cold.

The chuunin pounced back in, but this time her strikes reflected her desperation - fast and hard and aimed none too carefully.

Zabuza parried languidly, indulgently, three strikes, then pressed forward into the chuunin's space with an aggressive jab, and the chuunin jerked backwards, unbalanced. "Sloppy," he growled. "Your center of balance is all over the place." He gave her a good shove to emphasize, and she careened backwards. To her credit, she managed to turn it into a roll and landed in a low crouch; Zabuza slammed the hilt of his kunai into the side of her head and suggested, "Fix that," as she slumped to the ground.

They weren't half bad - could do with some polishing. Zabuza eyed the slumped bodies, considering. He probably should kill them. He'd killed half their number already, and the ones who were out cold would try to kill him if they woke up and saw him again, but it was kind of a waste to slit their throats now. It wasn't like they were much of a threat anyways.

Zabuza shrugged and wandered back into the hallway. He'd kill them next time.

The next chakra source he sensed was muted, clearly potent, and hovered behind a set of closed doors two hallways down. Zabuza gave stealth a metaphorical middle finger and shoved the doors open, strolling in with his kunai looped loosely around his finger.

There was one figure in the room, who had been reclined in a chair balanced on its two back legs with his sandals propped up on the edge of the table. At Zabuza's entrance, he let the chair drop back onto all four legs with a loud crack and stood, one hand dropping to the table on which a pair of sickles lay. Zabuza recognized those blades, just like he recognized that shock of sea green hair.

Today was chock fucking full of encounters with old friends, wasn't it?

Hidachi was a master of his blades, which he sharpened with wind to create a razor edge that not even he could see, and those fuckerhurt.Zabuza hated sparring with him as much as he hated sparring with Zabuza, because Zabuza had a blade that Hidachi couldn't cut through - or, at least, didn't stay cut through.

Hidachi looked at him. He looked at Hidachi.

"How about we don't," suggested Hidachi, "and say we did?"

Zabuza paused, considering. "You gonna run back out there and kill someone?"

Hidachi shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know."

"How about you don't," suggested Zabuza, "and say you did?"

Hidachi shrugged again. "Fine," he said. "I'm sure there's some urgent matter in the kitchens. Poison gas or whatever that needs investigating."

"Great," said Zabuza.

He eyed the far door. Hidachi glanced purposefully at the door behind Zabuza's back.

What followed was an awkward kind of circular shuffling, because neither of them was willing to give the other their back. Zabuza bared his teeth in a grin. "Just like old times, ain't it?"

"Quite," said Hidachi. "See you around."

Zabuza left through one door, Hidachi through the other. He paused, in case the other jounin'd thought to catch him off guard, but no attack followed. Hidachi was always looking out for his own skin. Minimal effort, that guy. He'd been more shocked than anyone else when he made jounin; he probably would have refused the promotion if he could have, but no one said 'no' to Yagura and walked away with his skin intact.

Especially not the members of the Kiri Hanran, but at least they'd made it out with their lives.

He turned down another hallway, went through a sparring room, three sets of stairs, and four teams ranging from tokujo to genin, and ended up against one of the walls, on the other side of which he could hear the rumbling of the battle outside.

An explosion knocked Zabuza off his feet, throwing him against the wall, and he substituted right before impact. Rubble crashed down from a brand new gaping hole in the wall. He considered the probability of finding the jounin-in-charge still inside the base - slim - and took it as an opportunity to rejoin the fight outside and launched himself through.

He surfaced far closer to the center of the checkpoint, on the side facing west of Kirigakure, and his hand found Kubikiribocho easily.

"Shit," muttered the probably-tokujo in front of him, eyeing him and the somewhat mauled Hana-ha chuunin on his other side. The chuunin was one of Zabuza's. The possibly-tokujo whipped a kunai trailing an exploding tag at Zabuza's face and bolted.

Zabuza flipped Kubikiribocho up to shield himself, and when the blast abated, the maybe-tokujo had fled. Zabuza leaned to the side to avoid a flurry of shuriken from some other teams' skirmish and told the mauled chuunin, "Get. Medical crew's in the back, you look like shit."

"My squad," protested the chuunin, twisting to look behind him as Zabuza loomed over him. "We got separated from the rest of the platoon, I was buying them time to get away - "

Attachment. Bah. "They look good and away," Zabuza assured him. "Are you going or am I dragging you?"

The chuunin turned pale, but that might have been the blood loss. Zabuza leaned over the side of the wall and barked, "Hey! Come get your chuunin, he's bleeding out."

Cue: the seven genin of the chuunin's squad, busting ass to run him to the back of the battlefield.

On the very far end of the ramparts, Temari's tessen flashed as she swung it, sending an entire team of loyalists stumbling backwards from the gale force. Shisui was a tiny speck on the ground, dueling a kunoichi who must have been Ketsugan from the pair of dark grey shoto she wielded. She was fast and vicious, but so was Shisui. No point interrupting his fun.

The wall rumbled beneath his feet, and Zabuza clung to the stone only with chakra as he chanced a glance down. Far below, the ground cracked, a plume of steam shooting into the air as it widened. Zabuza whirled without hesitation, charging back along the length of the wall. "Unit 15!" he roared. "On me! Fucking fall back, now, now, now!"

Shinobi hated few things more than to retreat, but Zabuza could see the cracks widening and spreading with increasing speed. "Fifteen, off the wall, get away from the wall! Right fucking now!" He slammed Kubikiribocho into a loyalist shinobi with a blade poised over one of his unit, batting him into the side of the rampart. He yanked the wounded kunoichi upright, gave her a good shove in the direction of the mountain slope, and shouted, "Go, go!"

The wall began to rattle in earnest, and the battle on the ground devolved into mass confusion as the shinobi closest, on both sides, tried to scramble away. Zabuza scooped another shinobi up from where he'd been pinned by a douton and tossed him bodily towards the others on the slope, battered back a pair of loyalist chuunin pursuing a team of his genin, and kicked a Kiri genin off the top of the ramparts.

Shisui appeared on top of the wall in the whirl of a shunshin, flashing back and forth pulling shinobi out of battles as the walls shook apart under his feet. A splash of black and white dove - one of Sai's birds, plucking another from the epicenter.

With a deafening roar, the ground beneath the gates of the Karikachi-touge checkpoint opened up beneath the wall and swallowed it whole, and the middlemost chunk of the entire thing crashed down into a lake of molten lava that hissed and spat boiling miasma at those unfortunate enough to be too close.

Mei's shinobi exploded up out of the ground, falling on the loyalists from behind, as Mei herself emerged from the depths of the burning, melting checkpoint in her signature battle dress as if she hadn't a care in the world, and certainly not as if she'd just singlehandedly wiped out a couple hundred shinobi and rendered moot a previously impenetrable stronghold.

"Attack!" Zabuza ordered, and his unit surged forward once again with renewed energy. "But stay away from the fucking lava!"

He strode forward across the half sunken ramparts and roared, "Mei!"

Mei shot him a coy smile and sauntered to meet him. "You remember those smuggling Passways, don't you?" she purred. "From your dear Juu? This one turned out rather useful, don't you think, once we extended it a little?"

"Good fucking gods, Mei, next time give us a heads up if you're going to pull that crap!" Zabuza snapped.

Mel waved a hand dismissively. "It'd have taken too long," she deflected. "Besides, it looks like your shinobi are fine."

"Only because I recognized the signs of your little hell jutsu," Zabuza growled. "If this were Yanagi's unit, you'd've boiled them alive."

"Relax," said Mei, trailing her fingers across his back from shoulder to shoulder. "I imagine it won't be much of a fight now. Let's go find someone able to negotiate terms of surrender, shall we?"

It was arrogant as shit for Mei to assume the loyalists would surrender the minute she arrived on the battlefield. Aggravatingly, she was right.

"She's really something," said Shisui, standing at ease next to Zabuza atop the highest surviving tower. Far below them, Mei stood flanked by Ao and Fukaya, conferring with the Tree Trio and a delegation from the loyalists. Shisui had delegated the nitty gritty negotiating to them so he and Zabuza could lurk high above and keep an eye out for a last ditch assault. Zabuza thought Shisui was just leveraging his secret identity and position asCaptain of Covert Intelligenceto get away from the politics, but he was generous enough to include Zabuza so who was he to complain?

"Mei has that effect," Zabuza agreed, watching the particular way she tossed her head to get her hair to ripple just so down her back. The captain in charge of the fallen base paused very briefly before continuing his determined if aimless negotiations. Dealing with the mad kage made sure Yagura's commanders had nerves of steel as well as formidable battle capabilities, but, well. Mei. Besides, she and everyone else knew what the captain would face if he went back to the Mizukage having failed.

He turned away, disinterested in the whole mess. Mei would sort it out in that way she had of gently bulldozing everyone around her, the Tree Trio would dig their heels in just enough for Hana-ha shinobi not to get stuck with the scut work since they did most of the heavy lifting, they'd all settle down for a respite and march on the village proper once everyone'd regrouped and reported in.

Of course, once he turned around, he was faced with a beaming blond brat, his grin visible even under the bandages swathed over the lower half of his face. Zabuza glared at him. If there was ever a temptation to quit bandaging his own face, this was it. The brat was as fresh as a fucking daisy, even though his pink-haired girl-child teammate was passed out against his shoulder and Shisui's littlest cousin leaned his head against the battlements with his eyes closed. Zabuza had the vague feeling that they were supposed to have stayed out of the battle, but the latter two had fresh bandages and horrifically mussed hair that told of actions otherwise. "Idiots," Zabuza hissed at them, even though it was completely wasted on the only one who was awake to hear him.

Beside him, Shisui sighed, long-suffering. "All of you should have stayed out of the thick of the fighting," he admonished mildly.

Zabuza transferred his glare to Haku, who flushed faintly. "I did, Zabuza-san," he protested. "A squad attempted to attack the medical crews, and other than Team Byakko, everyone else was occupied."

"We helped," interjected Temari before Zabuza could rip his apprentice a new one. "Ichi barely had to lift a finger."

Neji, sitting crosslegged next to Haku, muttered something under his breath that sounded a lot like, "Ichi doesn't need to lift a finger to use his kekkei-genkai." Temari nudged him subtly in the ribs with her knee but looked amused. Working on the systematic oppression of any sense of humor, that one.

The Silent Triad were twined around each other with airs of satisfied bloodlust, acknowledgement of a mission accomplished, and deep relief at the conclusion of the battle, respectively. Sai and Hinata had their shoulders pressed against each other unconsciously, and Gaara sprawled his head against Temari's leg and his ankles in the space under Hinata's knees. The Ichibi's container had eyes half lidded in satiation and Zabuza half expected him to start purring at any second. Bloodthirsty little creature. Zabuza wondered just how many shinobi he'd crushed alive.

"We stayed out of range of most of the battle as well," Sai volunteered. "Our team is suited for long distance attacks."

"Yes, I know," said Shisui patiently. "That was - well done of you three."

Zabuza recognized the uneasiness in Shisui's voice anyways. Gaara hadn't lost control of his bijuu in a good amount of time, but that was probably because he was feeding it a regular diet of gruesome deaths, even with that month-long lull spent undercover, that kept it satisfied. Or maybe it was about the childhood thing, since the Hyuuga heiress was kind of delicate. Gods knew the ink boy was coping just fine.

He lost patience to deal with insubordinate whelps and turned back around to see if Mei had wrapped things up yet. No dice. He sighed. "May as well start sorting arrangements for the night," he said to Shisui.

The blank leopard-mask swivelled to face him. "May as well," Shisui agreed. A dash of blood and chakra, and a crow winged out of the fucking ether or wherever it was that summons came from. "Hang on to Shoyu a sec, will you?" Shisui asked, distracted, so Zabuza raised his forearm for the summon to alight on while Shisui dug a pencil and paper out of his back pouch.

"I am not a bird perch," Zabuza growled. "Ow!" He snapped, as the blasted thing pecked at his arm just where his sleeve had been split by one of Hanemaru's water knives.

Shisui ignored him. "You want to borrow Ponzu, or are you going to talk to Nishigawa yourself?" he asked absently, scribbling at his missive.

"Ponzu," Zabuza conceded grumpily. The less Konohan nonsense he had to deal with today, the better. At least he could delegate the tedious tasks of headcounts and scouting out habitable bunking sites to his jounin, who would then delegate it to the tokujo or chuunin.

Also, food. Zabuza was starving.

In terms of off-the-rocker, homicidal jinchuuriki hell-children, Gaara was a useful one to have because he didn't sleep. At all. Zabuza wasn't sure if this feat was meant to be terrifying or impressive, but at least a guard rotation at night wasn't mandatory. Zabuza also didn't recall exactly when they got stuck with all nine of the pack brats, but a glance told him the non-Gaara ones'd all be next to useless until they got some sleep and recharged their chakra.

"Watch 'em. Nobody tries shit with them, got it?" he directed at Gaara.

Gaara, surrounded by the unconscious bodies of the rest of the brats circled up in their cloaks like a pack of fucking puppies, nodded solemnly.

"Great," said Zabuza, fighting down the sheer nausea that whatever this sight or his lack of food was causing. "I'll be back."

He stepped out and almost tripped over Shisui, sitting out in the hallway just beyond the door. He had an arm tucked around the Hyuuga girl, both their masks still on, but she had clearly fallen asleep. He raised an eyebrow.

"She saw a lot. She's fine," Shisui said lightly in a way that implied that nothing was fine but that Zabuza couldn't do anything about it anyways. Zabuza cast a suspicious glance down the hallway. "I don't think anyone will come down this way, but I'll hear them," Shisui added, to his unspoken comment.

Zabuza shrugged. "I'm going to head down and see what's going on," he said.

Shisui hummed acknowledgement. "Don't pick any fights."

Zabuza rolled his eyes. He was all fought through for the day, thanks.

Most of the shinobi had crammed themselves into every available room to sleep - the base had started out with three thousand loyalists; between Zabuza and the Tree Trio's units, that was another two thousand, plus Mei's two units added another fifteen hundred or so. Accounting for losses, that was still around double the capacity the base was designed to house, and a good chunk of it was now under cooling volcanic sludge. The mutual agreement that sleeping was not allowed in the halls was only the reason that Zabuza did not trip over a shinobi every other step, and why a large portion of their troops were roughing it outside in pitched tents.

Zabuza made it down to the lowest levels without incident, aside from some clearly suspicious glares from shinobi of Hana-ha and Hanran alike. Zabuza hadn't run into any loyalists, and suspected Mei made them decamp outdoors - victors' spoils: an actual roof. Her chakra signature was familiar and easy to find, even muted among thousands of others, once he reached the lowest basement floor. She was even easier to find when Zabuza spotted the guards - tokujo, probably - hovering outside the room she had commandeered. One of them stepped forward as Zabuza approached, hand on the hilt of his sword, and said, "Turn back, Momochi."

Zabuza eyed him up and down and didn't recognize him. "Mei in there?" he asked, as if he couldn't practically taste the bite-and-burn of her chakra.

"You can't go in," the tokujo said.

Zabuza considered the tokujo. The tokujo stared back at him calmly. "You can get out of my way," Zabuza offered, "or I'll make you move." And hey, no sakki or anything. Shisui would be proud of him for playing nice.

The tokujo didn't appreciate his efforts, angling himself slightly for a better draw.

Fortunately for all parties but mostly the tokujo, the door opened. "Zabuza, quit terrorizing my guards," said Mei, amused.

Zabuza raised an eyebrow. "They would know if I was trying to terrorize them," he pointed out, as he stalked past the guard. Mei smiled, letting the door close behind him. "He's not a bad one," Zabuza admitted after some consideration, following her in.

"He's rather promising, I think," Mei agreed, sitting at the lone table. The overhead lights flickered gently, and this far underground the scent of damp earth was impossible to escape.

Zabuza sprawled in the chair opposite her. "Where's Ao?"

Mei waved her hand carelessly. "In charge of dealing with the loyalists. He's relatively fresh; I had him stay out of the battle." She paused, tilting her head down to eye Zabuza mischievously. "How's the captain Juu?"

Zabuza thought about Shisui sitting up the hallway with a nine year old Hyuuga, despite the nonstop skirmishes from the start of the march until this last battle. But Mei wasn't his comrade even if she was his friend, so instead of 'tired' he said, "Pissed, because your little lava stunt interrupted his battle with Ketsugan."

Mel laughed, delighted. "He's a fiery one," she said approvingly. "I'd love to steal him over."

Zabuza snorted. "He won't go," he said. "He's got bones to pick with someone in Konoha."

"They all do," Mei complained, rolling her eyes dramatically, but she had the exact same kind of beef in Kiri so she had no room to judge.

Zabuza watched the flicker of lights as a momentary silence fell. "Ran into Hanemaru earlier," he said at last.

"Oh?" Mei raises an eyebrow. "And how is he?"

"Dead," answered Zabuza.

Mei nodded, her eyes going distant.

"He didn't think you were planning to change the Village once Yagura's gone," he added idly.

Mel raised an amused eyebrow. "I should think that Yagura being gone would change the Village."

"Remember when we were new genin?" he said abruptly. "Well," he amended, "I was seven and a new genin and you were an Academy bratling."

Mei let the jab pass with an amused glance.

"We said we'd make it so no one looked down on us," he continued. "We said we'd make it to the fucking top and tear it all down, every stone, make a new, stronger Kiri without the rot inside. No castes, no noble elite, no more warships. No fucking Academy kids' corpses in the streets because no one gives a shit if they live or die until they start to reek."

"We were fools," said Mei wistfully. "Young, idealistic children. Raze everything and there's nothing left to rebuild - take down the nobles and the entire society collapses. Kiri is old, Zabuza, she's set in her ways. Bring a shark to a freshwater lake and it'll die."

Zabuza snorted. "Then what are you trying to do, Mei? All those grunts who raised your flag - you think they're gonna be happy with the status quo when you've cozied up with the ones who trampled them into the mud?"

"I meant we need the nobles," Mei snapped, "not that everything is going back to the way it is under mad Yagura. But those clans are too powerful; even now, they're waiting to see who comes out on top, and I can't afford not to have their support when the dust settles."

"They'll call you a sellout," said Zabuza, leaning back. "They'll call you a hypocrite and a traitor."

"Let whoever wants to say so to my face," Mei said dismissively. "I'm sure I'll be able to change their mind.

Yeah, or melt it into sludge.

"Zabuza," said Mei, meeting his eyes. "No more Academy death matches. No more clan witch hunts. No more human experiments. That, I can promise."

Zabuza wasn't Kiri; he had no right to demand more. That would have to be enough. "Yeah," he said. "Okay."

Mei watched him curiously. "What does Senju expect to do in Konoha, then?" she asked. "It doesn't quite sound like the kind of situation where she wants to shake up the entire societal structure and toss it to the crows."

Zabuza shrugged. "She wants the truth about how the Sandaime Hokage kicked the bucket to get out, and Shimura ten meters under, probably," he said vaguely. "Probably smooth sailing compared to Kiri's stack of shit."

"Ah," said Mei. "The Successor. Did you know - I don't think she's been in a single skirmish the entire war."

"She's a medic-nin," Zabuza pointed out, dodging Mei's exploratory fishing. "The fuck would she join a skirmish for?"

Mei raised an eyebrow delicately but didn't press even though he knew that she knew what Senju could do on a battlefield. Instead, she withdrew a flask from gods knew where and unscrewed the cap to take a long pull. She offered it to Zabuza.

Zabuza, reasonably sure she wouldn't poison him just because she could by breathing into the thing, took it. It was sake, cold, and it burned down his throat. "Since when do you carry this shit around?" he demanded, passing it back.

Mel set it on the table before her with a wry smile. "Sometimes," she said, with more honesty and vulnerability than he'd seen from her since they were children and ready to fight the world, "I need a reminder that I can feel."

There were probably better ways to cope with the ability to annihilate comrades and enemies alike without receiving so much as a scratch, but Zabuza sure hadn't found any. "Eh," he said.

"Come back to Kirigakure," she said suddenly, watching him from beneath hooded eyes. "She needs you."

Zabuza grunted and wished he hadn't given the flask back. "I'm here, ain't I?"

Mei shook her head. "Not for a battle, not for a month. This is just the beginning."

Zabuza's mouth twisted into an involuntary snarl. "You forgettin' something?"

"Put aside your honor for one day," she fired back. "One day - and come back to Kiri."

Zabuza snorted and was promptly thrown clear out of his chair when the ground heaved.

Mei's flask went flying as she grabbed the table, anchoring herself with chakra. The room rattled violently, the sparse furniture toppling one by one with loud crashes. Zabuza landed in a crouch, sinking his chakra into the ground to anchor himself, and shouted above the dull roar of the earth convulsing, "The hell is that?"

The rumbling stopped. Mei stared about the room warily, then when the shaking did not resume, strode to the door and yanked it open. "Makoto," she said airily to the tokujo sprawled on the floor of the corridor, "Be a dear and find out what happened for me? And a status on any additional injuries." She closed the door firmly once again.

Zabuza rose gingerly and angled himself as best as he could towards Shisui's room and said, "If you see me, tell Hachi to get a bird in the air." If the Hyuuga brats didn't see him, no big loss - Mei or Shisui would pass along information.

The brats were faster than tokujo Makoto, about which Zabuza was very smug. A black mouse squirmed under the door, and scampered to Zabuza, who fished a battered scrap of paper for it to splatter against.

Mei, over the neck of her retrieved flask, eyed it curiously. "Cute trick," she said.

Zabuza read the cramped script and said, "Huh." He passed it over to Mei, who traded him the sake for it.

Her eyebrows rose as she read it once, then a second time. "Medic-nin, hm?" she said. "Got impatient, did she, to literally punch a hole through the Hakkouda Mountains?"

"Must've been," Zabuza agreed blankly, staring at the report that explained impersonally that the minor earthquake had resulted from one Senju Tsunade splitting a mountain apart after arriving at the battle in which loyalist forces had decimated most of Unit 12. "Or just really pissed." He took a slug of the sake because damnit, that meant the little magpie captain'd had a point about going 'through' the mountains.

"Hm," said Mei again, a new wariness in her eyes. She turned as a knock on the door rapped out sharply. "Yes, come in," she called, and the tokujo edged his way into the room.

"I have the report, sir," he offered, clasping his hands behind his back professionally.

Zabuza set Mei's flask back down on the table with a decisive tap. "I'll show myself out," he drawled, sweeping up his report. "Looks like there's gonna be a lot of cleanup."

Mei swallowed a grimace. "It does," she agreed. "Do try not to make a bigger mess of it."

"You been in the Inner Village before?" Zabuza asked. The trail before them would crest in a kilometer, and behind them, thousands of footsteps echoed, muffled by the dirt. Mei's troops had gone first, and the eldest Yanagi's trailed at the very rear.

"Nah," said Shisui, keeping pace at his side at the head of their column, some dozen meters ahead of Zabuza's unit. "Never made it this far. Had a mission that reached the port of the Lower City, once."

Zabuza grunted, eyeing him with amusement. "We have a coast guard that's supposed to stop that from happening."

"I know," said Shisui smugly. "That's what the coast guard said."

Zabuza barked a laugh as they reached the height of the trail. "Well, since you never made it this far," he said, and jerked his head. "Here's Kiri."

Shisui took in the view, mist blanketing the valley below them, the glimmer of rippling water among vividly green grass. The sun rose above the mountains opposite, lighting a soft glow in the mist. One section had caved in, a dark jagged crack in the rocky walls where Senju had apparently lost her temper. "It's beautiful," he said at last.

That was true enough. "They call it the City of a Thousand Lakes," Zabuza offered. "But it's more like a couple dozen lakes and a shitton of ponds."

"A thousand?" Naruto demanded. Zabuza wished he could have pretended he'd forgotten about the loud blond brat, but he was too loud, even if he wasn't currently blond. "Do they got fish in them? Or sharks?"

"Most of them have fish," Haku answered helpfully before Zabuza could try igniting the brat's hair spontaneously with his glare. "Some of the saltwater lakes have sharks, but most sharks can't survive in freshwater."

"Why not?" Sakura asked curiously. She had a bandage wrapped across her face diagonally, but it did not seem to bother her.

"They, ah," Haku hesitated. "They...swell up and...die," he finished delicately.

Naruto's eyes widened. "Do they explode?" he asked with all the enthusiasm of a baby shinobi who hadn't seen enough gory ways a living thing could expire.

"No," said Haku patiently. "They just bloat and rot." His nose wrinkled delicately. "It's a slow and dismal ending."

"Oh," said Naruto, subdued.

Zabuza rolled his eyes at Shisui. Shisui huffed a silent laugh. "Hey. Punk," Zabuza called. "What do the next couple kilometers look like?"

Neji's step hesitated, and the rest of the pack reacted instantly. Temari drifted backwards to stay in step with him, and Haku's chakra surged. Hinata's head snapped up, Gaara's eyes narrowed, and Sai reached surreptitiously for his tanto. Sasuke' s hand snapped back for the hilt of the katana that was still much too big for him, Naruto stopped bouncing quite so much, and Sakura near jumped out of her own skin. Zabuza rolled his eyes again, although he did stretch out his senses, just in case there was an ambush waiting in his periphery.

"There are several hundred loyalist shinobi lining the road as it enters the village," Neji reported in a voice tinged with incredulity. "However, they do not seem to be attacking. The Hanran units are approaching, but none of them have drawn weapons."

"Konoha, you wanna send a crow?" Zabuza suggested. "Ask Mei what's up. I have a hunch." He raised his voice. "Unit 15, halt!" he roared behind him. "Take a break, but be ready to move!" His shinobi raised a ragged cry of acknowledgement, and a couple hundred meters back, the column shuddered to a stop.

Shisui summoned Dashi, who complained loudly, "Caw," at the disturbance. He fixed Zabuza with a beady, black-eyed stare and tilted his head accusingly, like Zabuza was the one to blame for him getting summoned.

"Oh, hush," said Shisui fondly, running a finger over the crow's head. "It's just a short jaunt down there. You might even get to dodge a couple kunai."

"Caw," said Dashi, unimpressed, but stuck his leg for Shisui's scrap of paper.

"Hey. Brats," Zabuza barked, and seven heads swivelled to face him. The two white-eyes didn't bother. "Stand down. There's no immediate threat."

"You said you had a theory?" Shisui asked, raising his arm to give Dashi a lift. The crow took off smoothly, with none of the excessive flapping the feathered rats always did when Zabuza was the one they were perching on. Zabuza glared.

"They smell the blood in the water," Zabuza answered. "Karikachi and Rashiri both fell. Senju punched a fucking hole in the mountains. It's inevitable that Mei and Yagura'll throw down; not even the noble clans're willing to get in the middle of that. They'll wait it out, take whatever blowback as long as they survive."

"The 'wait and see' tactic again," Shisui noted dryly. "It's in vogue."

"Yeah, the mad Kage wasn't popular even before Kiri shinobi started dying in droves," Zabuza muttered. "Some will fight until the last breath. Others'll pretend the vows to serve both Kage and Village keep their honor intact if they don't pick up a katana."

Shisui tipped his head to the side. "Pretend? That's very cynical of you, Z. What's that make you?"

"A traitor and a piece of shit," Zabuza answered dryly. "I don't know. Is it better to live without honor or without a conscience?"

"That's very deep," said Shisui, very seriously. "Please, tell me more."

"Fuck off," Zabuza snarled. If they hadn't been between battles and several thousand kunai-happy shinobi, he'd have made a good attempt at eviscerating him.

Fortunately for Shisui and his continued survival, Dashi swooped out of the sky, practically on their heads, and told his summoner irritatedly, "Caw. Caw."

"She says we're clear," Shisui said, plucking the paper from his summons.

"Yeah, I heard," Zabuza muttered. "Let's go."

The full might, more or less, of the Hanabi-ha participating in Kiri's civil war assembled in the training grounds on the edges of the village. Because they were the squirrel shinobi, hundreds of them perched in the trees as well as on the ground and made the back of Zabuza's neck prickle when he stalked past.

"This is awesome. We're sleeping in a tree!" Naruto enthused, wobbling precariously as Zabuza glared up at the entire pack perched in the forks of a tree with only the shreds of browning leaves still clinging on to its branches. Sai grabbed Naruto by the back of his shirt before he could fall out of the tree.

"Stay," Zabuza ordered. "Princess, you're in charge. Girl, try to keep - those two - in line." He gestured at the offending members of Team Obnoxious.

Temari and Sakura exchanged glances and said, "Hai," in unison. Sasuke rolled his eyes, long-suffering. Naruto was oblivious.

The Ichibi jinchuuriki had for some reason sprawled out along a limb with his cheek pressed up against the rough bark and his eyes already half-lidded. Zabuza eyed him warily and said, "Keep an eye out, midget." Gaara blinked. Zabuza left them to it and went to go find the Command tent.

Senju's captains had all made it through the weeklong assault intact but battered, though Haraguni's right arm was strapped across her chest in a sling and Katai of Unit 19 was the chalky kind of pale that spoke of significant blood loss. The only one of them that showed no sign of injury was, annoyingly, Uchiha fucking Itachi. If Zabuza hadn't known that Itachi had led the assault on the southern Rashiri-touge blockade, he could have sworn the middlemost Uchiha had gone off to take a nap somewhere because he looked as fresh as a godsdamned daisy.

Senju, notably, was absent, as was the head of her Guard and Shizune. Instead, Nara stood at the head of their makeshift table with his arms crossed over his chest and Hatake a pace back from him, the rest of the captains ringing the tent loosely. "I know the past couple of days has been busy," said Nara. "But I need you all to submit your personnel status reports by tomorrow morning."

Kasasagi the magpie captain stifled a groan and Yanagi the elder raised her eyes to the roof of the tent. Zabuza, having foisted off his paperwork to Nishigawa at the first given opportunity, watched them smugly.

"Per agreement with Terumi," Nara continued, "Our shinobi will hold positions that have already been cleared. We will, however, be sending a small squad with the Hanran who will assist in the mission to capture or kill the Mizukage. Hana-An-010, Uchiha, Momochi, and Hatake, have you named a successor to your positions in the event that you do not return?"

Have you named a successorwas the shinobi wartime equivalent ofhave you updated your will?

"Is it wise to commit a commander and three captains?" demanded Kasasagi, shooting a narrow-eyed glare sideways at Zabuza.

"Mei wanted Tsunade-hime and half the captains to join in," said Hatake. "Tsunade-hime was able to argue her down."

Nara nodded at him before turning expectantly to Shisui. "A successor, Juu?"

"Hana-An-2022," answered Shisui, clasping his hands behind his back. "Unless Houki Usui recovers."

"I will nominate jounin Mayu Akiba to my position," said Itachi.

"If I bite it, Kitajima," drawled Zabuza.

"Not Nishigawa?" Yanagi the younger asked curiously.

"Nope," said Zabuza. Nishigawa'd probably worry himself into an early grave before a loyalist could kill him if he got any more responsibility. "Kitajima."

"My successor will be Uchiha," said Hatake unexpectedly. "If neither of us survive, then Katai will take my place."

The Tree Trio traded surreptitious glances. Katai frowned at the map on the table. Uchiha the middlemost looked as blank as an empty scroll. If Uchiha lived and Hatake didn't, the Hanabi-ha would have a fucking sixteen year old commander who could probably kick all of their asses, and that was both hilarious and somewhat terrifying.

"All right," said Nara. "From my understanding, the four of you will be infiltrating the Mizukage's tower alongside Terumi and her strike team."

"He'll be in the catacombs," said Zabuza.

"That was really dramatic," said Shisui, lounging in the much smaller tent the Hana-ha Mizukage-killing strike team had commandeered. His kunai lay in neat rows on the ground before him as he sharpened his tanto methodically. "'He'll be in the catacombs.' What is he, a zombie?"

"He's a jinchuuriki," Zabuza responded, squinting down the length of Kubikiribocho.

"Ha," said Shisui. "Good one."

"Karatachi Yagura is a jinchuuriki," Zabuza repeated slowly, giving Shisui an incredulous look over the edge of his blade. "The container of the Sanbi."

Itachi, leaning over a battered map, glanced up carefully.

Shisui paused, whetstone poised over his tanto. "What?"

Hatake swivelled from his seat at the tiny table in the center of the tent. "Karatachi Yagura iswhat?"

Hmm. It seemed that Zabuza had stepped in what they calleddeep shit. "Didn't Mei tell you that? When you entered whatever hell-contract you made with her?"

"No,"Shisui hissed.

"Well," echoed Hatake blankly as his eye sharpened. "I thought the Sanbi was...lost. After its previous host was killed."

"I at least expected the Sanbi jinchuuriki to be younger," Itachi said thoughtfully. "It would have explained his lack of participation in the war."

"Did she tell you anything about Yagura?" Zabuza demanded. "Battle tactics, abilities, weaknesses?"

"Close to mid-range fighter, big chakra reserves, water-natured but equally versed in wind, prefers bojutsu," Shisui reeled off. "Suggested tactics include containment in one area and suppression with douton or raiton until he runs out of chakra so Mei can bury him, basically. Nothing about battling a jinchuuriki unless you count the bit about his chakra reserves."

"She doesn't think she needs us to kill him," Hatake surmised. "Or she assumes we can be used as cannon fodder. Stay out of their way when they battle."

Itachi nodded, staring at the side of the tent thoughtfully. "Hai," said Shisui. "But, Z - wouldn't she know you'd tell us, even if she didn't?"

"She doesn't know," said Zabuza. "There's no way in hell she doesn't know he's a jinchuuriki, but she doesn't know that I know. Everyone involved in the sealing died within a year, and Yagura sure as hell never told his jounin what he was; I only found out what he was when I tried to kill him and he pulled out a freaking bijuu on me."

Hatake exchanged a long glance with Itachi. "Zabuza," said Shisui slowly. "What does that mean?"

Zabuza had no fucking clue, except…

Put aside your honor for one day and come back to Kiri.

Gods damn it, Mei. Zabuza grimaced. "It means that if you're still alive once Yagura's dead, Mei might try to kill you."

Notes:

(06/15/2019) In case you needed an extra hint about the unreliable narrator bit of this fic, I would like to point out that Zabuza said that he "wasn't particularly dramatic." Yeaaah. This chapter's got a lot of action in it because even though a lot of the war isn't just fighting for the kids, who were definitely not front-line fighters as a rule, but Zabuza is 110% a front liner and in the middle of a lot of the fighting.

So - obviously - writing longer chapters takes a longer time. Chapter 16 is currently 22k words and still has a ways to go, but I also got somewhat distracted by four or five WIP that I have haha oops (curse you Endgame). I'm pretty sure Chapter 16 will be out by next month, but Chapter 17 probably won't. We're coming up on the end, chapterwise, but there will probably be an epilogue because it's been pointed out to me that this fic doesn't have many moments where the kids are all just hanging out and the fluff-to-angst ratio could be better lol

Again, as always, thank you for leaving kudos and comments! Comments always make my day, especially if I have a hard day at work :) See you next month!

Chapter 16: Haku Gets Front Row Seats To A Lot Of Really Crazy Shit

Summary:

He's got a lot on his plate and not a lot of sleep. #LetHakuTakeANap

Notes:

Fair warning, this chapter is over 43k words.

(See the end of the chapter formore notes.)

Chapter Text

MISSION REPORT D-351

Contact with enemy combatants: seven (7) incidents.

Enemy combatants from origin: Konohagakure (2); Iwagakure (1); Kumogakure (2); Takigakure (1).

Status of Operative Cat-15:

Minor injuries sustained from previously reported contact with enemy combatants, self-treated.

One broken bone treated by civilian doctor.

Status of AT2:

Approximate age-appropriate growth continued. Social skills unable to be measured.

Self-sustaining skills acquisition rated as ahead of average age group performance in both speed and retention in all areas except social development, which remains unmeasured.

Beginning-level combat and infiltration training continued. Combat skills acquisition rated as ahead of average age group performance in both speed and retention.

AT2 determined capable to be left without supervision for short periods of time (1-48 hours) but long-term separation unadvised.

Long term observation of [REDACTED] conducted.

Conclusion: largely civilian town with low shinobi traffic. Several possible avenues for scavenging food. Several possible avenues for escape. Several possible locations for base camp establishment.

Last contact with TAP73I: 48 days. No emergency contact made.

Plan of action: return to [REDACTED] and shift TAP73I base camp to [REDACTED].

END REPORT

-Operative Cat-15

Haku wrapped his fur cloak around himself more securely and shivered. The genin from Konoha draped themselves across the branches with ease and fearlessness, and even Gaara and Temari looked comfortable enough, but Haku felt his attention snap back to full alertness every time the branch beneath him bent and swayed dangerously in the wind.

"D'you want mine?" Naruto asked sleepily when Haku shivered hard enough to set his branch trembling and subsequently jarred himself to full wakefulness once again. "I c'n share w'Shi."

Sasuke made a muffled noise of protest and burrowed down deeper into his cloak.

"No, thank you Roku-kun," said Haku quietly. He eyed Naruto's cloak, which had quite a bit of mud and even some twigs tangled in the fur.

When Haku had met Zabuza for the first time, Zabuza had wasted no time teaching him to mould chakra. He'd described chakra as 'warm,' like a fire that burned at the core of every living thing, and of course Haku had had no idea what he was talking about because his chakra chilled him to the core, coursing ice through his veins. Zabuza had stopped, looked at him strangely, and corrected himself, "No. You're different," and instead of with fear and disgust, it had been with an almost alien appreciation.

Haku had loved it then, and when he learned that it had been the very nature of his chakra that kept him alive when he should have died aboard the Daikokumaru, but those moments were very distant from times like this, when the constant ache of the cold kept him awake.

Temari, on the branch above him, made a grumbling noise in her throat and rolled off the side, dropping down on top of Haku. Haku caught her in a tangle of limbs, the air shoved forcefully out of his lungs. He clung to his branch with chakra as it bobbed dangerously, and Neji growled a little as the entire tree swayed, but the other boy was still mostly asleep and dropped back off quickly. Haku waited for Temari to move, but she only shuffled a little to sprawl on top of him more comfortably, her cloak settling to enshroud them both. "There. Go t'sleep," she ordered. She was warm and couldn't possibly be comfortable using him as a mattress, but Haku couldn't find the words to protest.

Haku blinked skyward. Gaara, a meter and a half above him, leaned over to give him a vaguely threatening but mostly blank stare.

Haku closed his eyes and drifted into an uneasy doze.

It felt as if he had not slept at all when he opened gritty eyes. The morning mist had never dissipated; now, in the evening, the impending night gave the training fields an eerie glow. To Haku, it was familiar and strange both, enough to send a warning thrill down his spine even as his mind settled into an easy confidence at finally returning home.

Temari eased herself up from her boneless sprawl, propelling herself backwards to lean against the trunk of their tree so Haku could sit up. "Sensei likes the mist, but being on the other side of it's a little unnerving," she observed. "I thought the fog usually clears when the sun goes up."

"Yes," Haku agreed cautiously. "But sometimes, especially in the winter, it'll stay all day." He glanced up automatically towards the sky, but was immediately distracted by the dark shapes of the rest of the Yorozoku children hanging in the branches like ripe persimmons.

Gaara lay half on his side, half on his stomach as his eyes flickered through the fog lazily. He had scarcely moved since Haku had fallen asleep, but rolled a small ball of sand in one hand absently. Wedged in the fork between his branch and the trunk of the tree, Hinata curled in on herself so tightly that she was completely engulfed by her cloak. Sai, heedless of the branches swaying gently under him with the wind, had one hand around the hilt of his tanto and his hood tucked low over his eyes.

"Let's figure out some food," decided Temari, drawing Haku's attention back to her "I'm sick to death of ration bars. There had to be something else - anything else. I could eat a shark."

Shark was actually quite good, but Haku refrained from commenting. "We can find the quartermaster for Zabuza-san's unit," he suggested. "If there is not a cooking rotation established yet, that would be our best bet for finding food."

"Okay," she said, then hesitated very briefly. "Otouto, keep watch," she said, to which Gaara's face twisted into a very slight scowl. "We'll be right back." She pushed off, landing on the ground far below in an easy crouch.

Haku let himself slip off the edge of his branch, dropping like a rock through the stagnant air before alighting at Temari's side.

All three teams of the refugee children had somehow become loosely attached to Zabuza's unit, but Haku had no idea how official their assignment was. Technically, they belonged to Shisui's Covert Intelligence Unit due to the necessity of concealing their identities, but like the Anbu attached to each unit, they were not supposed to identify themselves as such, even to other members of the same unit. The Yorozoku genin were a little too different to pass unnoticed - too young, too close to Zabuza and Shisui, too strange with their fur cloaks and Team Genbu's ever-present masks.

Haku and Temari, however, the eldest and most ordinary in appearance, managed to move among the clusters of Hana-ha camps with minimal interest roused in their passing, and the mist hanging over them all helped mask their chosen path. Haku sent his senses skimming out through the fog, guiding them away from the densest camps and towards the large tent in the back east corner of the Fifty-second Training Ground where Unit 15's quartermaster had set up shop.

"Is it weird, being back?" Temari asked, squinting through the mist as she padded over the grassy ground noiselessly. "Suna - I've been gone so long, I'm starting to forget bits of it."

"Surreal," Haku said honestly. "It feels strange to fight so hard against what I used to defend. But coming back to the inner village, at least, I feel like I never left."

"Hey! Kid!"

Haku turned to see Zabuza striding towards him. "Go ahead," he told Temari. "The quartermaster's tent is the one with the brown flag on top. I'll catch up with you."

"Don't take too long. The kids'll give us hell if they all wake up and we're gone," Temari said, and went with a swirl of her cloak.

Haku barely had a second to turn before Zabuza was upon him. His armour was still bloodstained high up on the pauldron, and almost neat slices bared off-white bandages beneath, but he still moved easily with a hunter's prowl.

"All right, kid," Zabuza said, eyeing him suspiciously. "This is the big one. No fuckups, got it?"

"Hai," said Haku reflexively. Zabuza grunted dismissively. Haku paused, in case Zabuza meant to go on, and when he didn't, ventured, "What are we doing?"

Zabuza glanced at him again, surprised. "Gonna go kill that bastard," he said, as if it should have been obvious. Perhaps it had been. "Yagura. Mei might try to kill Hatake and them afterwards," he added as an afterthought.

Haku blinked. "We will be preventing that from happening?" He had intended to say it as a statement, but his voice lilted up at the end of the sentence.

"Yeah," Zabuza said nonchalantly, and Haku relaxed a little. "You're on long range and lookout. Mostly lookout."

"Hai," Haku agreed. Mostly was just over half, plenty of leeway to inflict damage. "When do we leave?"

Zabuza squinted at the sky. "Sunup," he answered, a scowl darkening his face. "Gotta wait for a path to the Mizukage Tower to be cleared. Every other entrance to the catacombs is a one-way exit - you know that," he said, a hint of annoyance coloring his voice.

"Sorry," said Haku automatically. "I thought every exit was also a potential entrance, unless one is too lazy to try?"

Zabuza rolled his eyes. "Quit throwing my words back at me," he growled. "I told you that once, five years ago, so we could get into a buffet without paying."

"I always remember your lessons, Zabuza-san," said Haku seriously, blinking innocent eyes at him.

"I should trade you out for the princess," Zabuza threatened. "Gods know she wouldn't give me this much lip."

"She would probably give you more," Haku pointed out.

Zabuza glowered. "Fine, stay," he snapped. "See if I care when you get your ass blown up. Which is what will happen if you try to use one of those catacombs exits as an entrance."

"I will make note of that," said Haku, tucking his hands into his cloak. The damp of the mist added to the chill already lodged in his bones. He eyed Zabuza's armour critically, because he really needed to get that cleaned or preferably replaced.

"Hey, Z. Hey, Ichi-kun," said Shisui breezily, sauntering up with one hand in his pocket and the other holding a metal field ration bowl. His voice had a scratchy undertone, like he hadn't slept in days, but his back was straight. "Grab something to eat yet?" He raised the bowl to show them what appeared to be partially congealed stew.

"Ah," said Haku.

"The fuck is that?" Zabuza demanded. "Could be our last meal in this life and we gotta eat that crap?"

"Well," said Shisui, giving his bowl a regretful glance. "It was supposed to be some sort of pork thing. It's got a lot of fat and oil. It being cold kind of disguises that. I think it's actually better like this - you can pretend it's a fruit gelatin, but pork. And sludgey."

Zabuza gave him a deeply disgusted stare. "You know what?" he said. "I'm gonna requisition something from the quartermaster. There's no way I'm eating that shit."

"Rei-san is there right now," Haku volunteered. "We didn't know there was already food cooked."

"That's not food," Zabuza muttered.

"Great," Shisui said cheerfully. "Make enough for me 'n Itachi and the captain too, Z."

"Did I say I was cooking for you?" Zabuza snapped. "Eat grass, Konoha."

Shisui gave his food another mournful look. "You want to be the one to tell the captain he has to eat this?"

Haku winced delicately. Zabuza simmered. The captain would eat it without hesitation, like it was any other food he'd ever eaten, and sometimes it was physically painful to watch. He seemed to care less than Haku what he ate - and Haku had eaten out of dumpsters at several points in his life.

"Fine," growled Zabuza. "The brats can cook."

"Where're you going?" Shisui asked, as Zabuza turned abruptly on his heel and strode off. Haku trailed in his wake, and after a shrug Shisui followed them both.

"The quartermaster," Zabuza bit out.

Zabuza's Unit 15 quartermaster wore a scowl like a favorite shirt, pasted firmly on his face as Temari gestured impatiently at something Haku couldn't see. " - just need some - oh, here's the captain," said Temari, looking neither surprised nor impressed at their approach.

"Taichou," said the quartermaster grudgingly, straightening. His eyes lingered on Shisui's mask before he returned his attention to Zabuza.

Zabuza squinted at the man's face for a moment, an expression Haku had seen many times before. He was trying to remember the quartermaster's name. "Kawamoto," he said belatedly. "What's the problem?"

The quartermaster pointed at Temari. "This girl says she's part of our unit and is requesting rations, but I know I haven't seen her on the personnel roster. What was your code again?"

"Hana-Shi-000," said Temari in a tone that told Haku it wasn't the first or even fifth time she'd done so.

The quartermaster waved a demonstrative hand. "Zero-zero-zero?" he demanded. "There's no such code as Zero-zero-zero, sir, she's a spy."

"Did you check the roster sent out this morning?" Zabuza asked, deadpan. "She's on there."

Silence. Quartermaster Kawamoto had not.

"What'd she ask for?" Zabuza didn't wait for an answer. He turned to Temari. "What did you ask for?"

"Two kilos of rice, one and a half kilos of salted meat, and five portions of the spicy pickled radish," Temari recited.

Zabuza turned to the quartermaster. "Make that two and a half kilos of rice, two of salted meat, and eight portions of radish," he said in a voice that invited no argument.

Still, Kawamoto hesitated. "It's against protocol to give away food to unauthorized shinobi, sir," he said. "There's a cooking rotation for communal food - "

Zabuza leaned around to grab Shisui's yet unfinished bowl out of his hand. "This is what your authorized shinobi are doing to the rations," he said, thrusting it at Kawamoto, who physically recoiled after he got a glance at it. He took the bowl, very reluctantly, when Zabuza jabbed it at him more insistently. "That looknutritiousto you?"

"Oh," said the quartermaster under his breath.

"There's an assassination team going in after the Mizukage tomorrow," Zabuza growled. "Give the girl the rations."

"So," said Temari, trailing after Zabuza with the bag of rice in one hand and the pickled radish in the other. "Wasn't that kind of an abuse of authority?"

"Another is that Zabuza-san will have us cook for Juu-san, Itachi-san, and the captain as well, because Juu-san askedhimto do it," Haku offered, shifting the package of meat to get a better grip on it.

Temari rolled her eyes.

"Did I or did I not get your damn food?" Zabuza tossed over his shoulder. "You're welcome, princess. You better make something good with it."

"Sorry, Rei-chan," said Shisui cheerfully. "We're actually going to have to borrow Ichi too, for the planning session."

Temari's eyes narrowed. "'Going in after the Mizukage,'" she quoted. "Ichi's going?"

"Yes," Shisui answered. "I trust you to take care of the kids."

During and after went unsaid. Temari was not arrogant enough to suggest bringing all eight of the runaways. But she did frown and say, "Shichi and I - "

"Will protect the others," Shisui interrupted firmly. "If we don't make it back, you need to go to Shizune-sensei."

Temari's mouth tightened, but she said, "Hai. We'll see you in a bit for dinner, Sensei."

Haku waited until he had been shuffled into a smaller tent a little ways away from the Yorozoku tree to say, "Perhaps Shichi-kun would be an asset, given his defensive capabilities. His sand with my ice has a greater ability to counter Mei-san's lava and poison mist combination."

Shisui lit a seal with chakra, enveloping the tent in shroud of muffled silence, before saying, "We don't think it's a good idea to bring a jinchuuriki to fight a jinchuuriki when we don't want Terumi knowing that we have one, let alone two, who are both only ten years old."

"Ah," said Haku.

"We just need you to watch our backs," said Zabuza. "She won't try to kill 'em til Yagura's dead. Stay outta the fighting until then."

"Hai - " began Haku.

"Hang on, Z," interrupted Shisui. "Let's wait for Itachi and the captain and start from the top." He hooked his mask up on his forehead.

Zabuza shrugged. "Whatever," he said, and slouched over to the table. "C'mere, kid," he said. "You remember the layout of the catacombs? I can't draw for shit."

"Aa," said Haku, and followed him over. "But I'm afraid I don't recall the third or fourth floors entirely," he admitted. His first - and last - visit to the bottommost floors had ended prematurely when he bailed himself and Zabuza out rather quickly after Yagura had almost killed them.

"Couldn't just ask Terumi for a map?" Shisui asked.

"Doesn't exist," answered Zabuza. "You rank high enough to get in the catacombs, you're smart enough to remember how to get around without getting yourself killed. Mei'll not have bothered putting it down on paper."

"Convenient," Shisui muttered.

Zabuza smiled, unfriendly.

Haku wasn't as good an artist as Sai, but he traced the paths of the catacomb with surety. The first level held the Anbu headquarters, including those of the hunter-nin, with which he was very familiar. He labelled the chokepoints, the blast doors, the traps that could be activated in case of a siege.

The second level, under the first, had prisoner holding and the T Department. Zabuza had taken great pains to make sure Haku had never been sent there as a prisoner or test subject; he liked to tell stories of his own time there, but had not been sentenced there once since Haku's arrival. He'd protected Haku, though it should have been the other way around - the least of which was the careful distance he maintained. There was nothing more dangerous in Kiri than being someone else's weakness.

The third level consisted largely of buffer zones scattered with chokepoints, dead ends, and traps, as well as storage of highly restricted documents or objects. Haku had entered twice - once, to log a confidential report recovered from his target during his time as a hunter-nin, and the second to accompany Zabuza on his attempt on the Mizukage.

Each of the four levels was offset from the others by ninety degrees, like petals of a flower. The fourth protruded behind the Mizukage Tower, above which only held empty training grounds. Officially, it didn't exist; unofficially, it was the Mizukage's personal training space. Zabuza had deduced after their departure that it must be used to seal jinchuuriki - and, presumably, train them. On this fourth map, Haku hesitated.

"Well drawn," Itachi commented, looking over his shoulder.

Haku glanced up in time to see the captain follow him in. "Thank you."

The captain spared a moment to give Haku a nod in greeting. "Momochi, run us through this," he ordered without preamble. "Terumi sent word she expects to get the operation up and running in ten hours."

"This place is a shitshow of traps," said Zabuza, crossing his arms across his chest. "Even with a skeleton crew, it can hold off an invasion. Grab the first level map, Haku."

"Okay," said the captain, once Zabuza had finished detailing the many gory ways they could die before even making it to the Mizukage, and how to avoid said messy ends. "The success of this operation is critical for the Hanran - failure isn't an option, so Terumi won't be holding back her shinobi in reserve. Let her forces take on the higher levels and don't split up. This team is intended to assist with the assassination of the Mizukage only, so don't deviate from the target and keep your eyes on Terumi."

"She won't try anything until she's sure Yagura's dead," Zabuza offered.

"At that point, we'll be weakened, four levels underground, and boxed in by her shinobi," Shisui pointed out dryly.

"She'll be boxed in with us," the captain countered. "We can leverage her life for our freedom - and honoring the terms of the alliance."

Shisui snorted. "We shouldn't have to threaten her for that in the first place."

"I - " Itachi hesitated very briefly. "I may have a solution if it comes to battle between us. I need only meet her eyes."

Shisui and the captain exchanged glances. "Itachi," said Shisui. "You sure?"

Itachi tipped his head, his face blank. The captain rubbed at the mask along his jawline.

Zabuza said, "The fuck kind of crazy are you going to pull out of your doujutsu this time?"

"A genjutsu," said Itachi. "It is more powerful than any other in my arsenal, but I have not tested it in battle yet."

"Great," Zabuza muttered. "You got an ace in your back pocket but you don't know if it'll work."

"He subdued the Kyuubi's chakra," Shisui volunteered unexpectedly.

"What?" said Zabuza. "The fuck, when?"

"During the battle aboard the Jurojinmaru," Itachi said. "I used a higher form of the Sharingan when Naruto lost control of the Kyuubi."

"Itachi, Shisui - don't show your hands," the captain said sharply. "No Mangekyou genjutsu. Don't use anything that could tell Terumi you have any kind of control over a bijuu unless you're the last ones standing. Not unless you're sure there will be no witnesses."

Itachi and Shisui exchanged imperceptibly alarmed glances. "Taichou," Itachi said slowly. "What do you know of the Mangekyou?"

Mangekyou genjutsu. Mangekyou.Kaleidoscope. Haku rolled the word around his mouth carefully.

The captain paused. "That it's a curse," he answered grimly.

"Hey," Zabuza cut in impatiently. "Can we focus? You three can gossip about your mystical eye powers later."

"We'll talk later," the captain agreed, his eye on Itachi.

Shisui frowned, but let the subject drop. "So the plan is to fight," he said. "But to let Terumi do the lion's share without letting her know we're holding back. Z, any ideas for that?"

"She's never seen any of you fight, except Konoha, a bit," said Zabuza. "Thinks Hatake is some kind of hotshot, though. Sir," he added deliberately, just to watch the captain twitch. "Konoha, just pull your usual bullshit and tone down the shunshin barrage. Yagura's big on mid-range ninjutsu, and genjutsu's tough to get past him, so don't bother unless you gotta go all out anyways."

"That'll be the Sanbi's influence," the captain noted absently. "Anything else?"

"Yeah, I got a rundown of the jutsu he used on me," said Zabuza. "Haku?"

"His favored technique involves creating a mirror to make a clone of his assailants with equal strength that counters with the same attacks," Haku explained. "It's linked to his staff and doesn't require handseals."

"Sharingan knockoff," said Shisui dismissively.

"Fuck off your high horse," Zabuza snapped. "He makes a clone do it so he can two-time you."

"Will that work on a kekkei-genkai?" asked Itachi. "Terumi's youton mirrored would be devastating."

"It does," said Haku. "He was able to copy my Hissatsu Hyouso. No other opponent has been able to escape that attack." There had been no moment in that battle more unnerving than seeing his own certain-kill ice spears flying straight back at him.

"So no head-on attacks in view of the mirrors and no genjutsu," the captain summarized. "Anything else?"

"He favors suiton. Like Suiren Bakuhatsu no Jutsu," Haku said. "It's a wide-area attack where lilies made of water send petals flying into anyone in the area. I can block it," he offered.

"No," snapped Zabuza instantly. "Stay out of the battle unless Mei tries to backstab us."

"A good douton should do the job," the captain agreed.

"Other than that, it's just suiton, suiton, fuuton, and a douton thrown in for good measure," Zabuza drawled. "Oh, and afucking tailed beast cloak."

Haku bit his lip. The other members of the team paused thoughtfully.

"That one might be a problem," Shisui admitted.

"Terumi should be able to pin him down," said Zabuza. "Rest of us probably just need to slow him down long enough for that to happen."

Itachi tilted his head. "Water prison technique?"

Zabuza grunted. "I don't know if I want to get that close to him. If I can get the drop on him, and if he doesn't burn it off into steam, maybe. Hatake can hit it with lightning but he'd fry me too."

"I don't think it'll hold him very long anyways," said Shisui. "Close range combat, but avoid facing him head on? Keep him from using ninjutsu."

"That should not be a problem until he transforms," said Itachi. "And after?"

"Hatake has his giant lightning wolf. Raijuu," said Zabuza. "That should keep him distracted."

Shisui made a noise of agreement, but the captain was quiet. "I don't know if I can do that."

"Why?" demanded Zabuza. "The 'trying to keep a low profile' thing?"

"No," said the captain, and hesitated again. "A raiton that big needs a lot of ambient electricity."

"What, performance issues? So we throw around a bunch of suiton and katon first, big deal," Zabuza growled. "Blade on blade, throw some sparks up, whatever."

"Don't you have something useful to throw at him, Z?" Shisui asked.

Zabuza crossed his arms. "I guess," he admitted. "The main sealing room has an underground spring in the back. I could make something of it."

"To summarize," said Itachi. "Engage in close combat and occupy his staff so he is unable to use his mirrors and attempt to immobilize him. After his transformation, keep a safe distance and utilize long-range, hard-hitting ninjutsu. Prioritize katon and suiton ninjutsu to allow for more destructive raiton."

"Good plan," Zabuza drawled, only half sarcastically.

"There is the matter of what happens after the battle has concluded," said Itachi, his eyebrows drawing together in a slight frown. "Of her best outcomes, this fight ends with the Mizukage dead and the Sanbi temporarily so before it regenerates elsewhere, or else with a new jinchuuriki sealed at the conclusion of the battle."

"Terumi clearly doesn't expect us to participate," the captain pointed out. "Stay out of it. At most, we find out who the new jinchuuriki will be."

"Think Terumi's got sealing specialists on hand?" Shisui asked dubiously. "Seems unwise to go after a jinchuuriki without one."

"At least one," Zabuza muttered. "You met her. Fukaya Maiko, Mei's commander. She's not great, but she knows the basics - she was on the retrieval team for Utakata for a bit."

Shisui raised an eyebrow. "Just a bit?"

"They told her to kill him to extract the Rokubi," said Zabuza. "She agreed, murdered her team once she was clear of Kirigakure, and defected."

"Ah," said Shisui. "What happened to Utakata?"

Zabuza shrugged. "Still frolicking out there somewhere. Mei's probably tried to get him to come in, but he's skittish. Doesn't really want to fight anyone anymore."

Haku had hoped, when he and Zabuza first fled Kiri with the Mizukage's hunters on their heels, that they would be done too - that without Yagura's hand on the back of their necks, that they could stop fighting, stop killing. But months on the run took their toll, and perhaps neither of them were meant for peace. There was no work for nuke-nin but shinobi work - the darkest, the dirtiest, that which the Hidden Villages deemed too filthy to sully their hands with. Zabuza took those missions, and where Zabuza went, Haku followed.

It was on one of those missions that Haku failed catastrophically and damned Zabuza to weeks of torture and a life debt.

"Any other concerns before we end this?" the captain asked, tapping a finger on the map absently. "We have a path of entry, a strategy to cover our exit, and a couple general tactics for the main battle, since we're going to have to play that by ear."

"That's pretty good for the most vaguely planned assault I've ever participated in," said Shisui optimistically. "Sounds fun."

"We done?" asked Zabuza impatiently.

"We're done," confirmed the captain, his visible eye slightly pinched. "Go eat."

Like the rest of Hanabi-ha, the Yorozoku genin cooked a lot of soups and stews because in wartime, the energy expenditure to make, say, handmade noodles, couldn't be spared. That being said, Temari's culinary expertise far surpassed that of whoever in the general troops was assigned to the cooking rotation. There were teams circling their claimed campsite like sharks, drawn in by the smell wafting off the large pot sitting on the cooking fire.

Zabuza stormed through and scattered them like fallen leaves. "Move," he snapped. "Get back to wherever your little hidey-holes are and mind your own business."

"What an effect he has on people," said Shisui, amused, crinkling his eye at Haku.

"Aa," Haku agreed wryly, trailing through the confused milling of Fifteen's shinobi that Zabuza left in his wake as Shisui sauntered at his side. Years of practice had made him all too familiar with Zabuza's peculiarities.

Haku saw Gaara first of the genin. He crouched in front of the cooking fire, shoulders hunched and one hand braced against the ground as he glared menacingly into the mist and the shinobi just beyond the perimeter from behind his mask. His other hand clenched and relaxed and clenched again.

Shisui dropped down in front of him and said cheerfully, "Hi there, Shichi-kun. Keeping a weather eye out, I see." Gaara perked up slightly, because that was the kind of effect Shisui had on people.

Haku moved past them to Temari, who presided over the cooking pot with a slightly frazzled air as she stirred its contents carefully. "Rei," Haku greeted. He paused, eyeing the frothing liquid. "May I ask who helped you with this?"

Temari huffed a laugh. "You can relax, it wasn't Roku," she said. "Shi did."

"I wasn't concerned about that," Haku lied. "Do you require any more assistance?"

"Yeah, can you just - " Temari twisted around, and Sasuke brushed past to dump a veritable bucket of mushrooms into the pot. "Could you check on the potatoes? It's Go and Hachi so I'm not too concerned, but Roku is trying to help them."

"Sure," Haku agreed, frowning at the pot. "Where did you find mushrooms?"

"Don't wanna know, don't ask," Sasuke muttered. He hovered next to Temari, staring into the pot critically. "Needs more pepper."

"Meh," said Temari. "Wish we had some basil."

Haku slipped past them both, to the base of the tree where Sakura, Sai, and Naruto huddled over a rough slab of wood, each with a kunai held with a different grip. "Roku-kun," said Haku. "I don't think that holding the knife backwards is a good idea."

"I keep telling him!" Sakura seethed. Her potato chunks were roughly the same size but not quite the same shape. Comparatively, Sai's were neat, even, and almost entirely identical. The less said about Naruto's, the better. Haku was just glad that they weren't covered in his own blood.

"Rei-san is about ready to add the potatoes," said Haku. "When - "

"No!" Sakura yelped, grabbing for another potato. "Not ready!"

"Take your time," said Haku, alarmed despite himself. Shinobi children were both more and less likely to cut themselves open with knives, and Haku had about as many scars as the next twelve-year-old.

"Ne, Ichi," said Naruto, thankfully setting down his kunai. "Are you really going with the captain and all the sensei to kill the Mizukage?"

Sakura flinched, her knife skittering across the surface of her tuber. Sai, didn't react, but Haku saw the way his eyes sharpened.

"I am," said Haku carefully. This strange assortment of children may have folded him in as one of them, but they were still children, and Haku was still a weapon first, so he didn't say,I'm only a lookout,or,we have to go through four levels of catacombs,or,we think Mei-san will try to kill the captain and the other sensei once the Mizukage is dead.

Sakura bit her lip, eyes dropping down to Haku's midsection. He suppressed a flinch at the reminder and shook his head minutely.

Naruto, oblivious, burbled, "Are you gonna ambush him? Are you gonna hide and the shadows and then, boom! Surprise attack!"

"Perhaps," Haku said vaguely. "Your potatoes look done. Let me take those."

Sakura eyed him suspiciously but let Sai take the board and dump their chopped potatoes into a battered metal bowl that had followed them all the way from Tetsu no Kuni.

"Thank you," said Haku, taking the bowl from Sai.

Dinner was subdued. In perhaps the rarest occurrence of the entire time Haku had known the refugee children, the captain joined them for the meal, sitting crosslegged between Itachi and Zabuza. It had a strange finality - all of them, here, together, crammed into one tiny tent.

Team Byakko hadn't been anywhere near as exuberant as they had been before the Jurojinmaru, and tonight, even Naruto's forced cheer fell flat. Neji and Sai were all but silent, and Hinata's head ducked so low over her food that only the top of her head was visible. Gaara leaned into Temari, taking small bites of his food, but his silence was expected.

"You have a guard rotation set up?" asked Shisui, seemingly unaffected by the somber mood.

"Hai," Temari answered dutifully. "Shichi, of course, and four of us will do shifts per night."

"Good," said Shisui.

They lapsed back into silence.

"What will happen after?" Neji asked suddenly.

"If we don't come back," said Shisui, "find Shizune-sensei or Nara-taishou. They'll take care of arrangements for you."

Sakura and Sasuke exchanged blatantly suspicious looks. Temari and Sai traded likewise dubious glances.

"Of course you're gonna come back!" Naruto objected. "But, like, what do we do when the war's over?"

Shisui paused, tapping the ends of his chopsticks against his mouth. "We'll take a break," he said.

"We will need time to recover," Itachi agreed.

"Train?" Sasuke asked hopefully, and immediately ducked his head.

"Real training. Something fun," agreed Temari. "Not just - this."

Half a year of war had worn them all thin - Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura, who bore scars both visible and invisible, Gaara, Sai, and Hinata, who looked over their shoulders for enemies among allies, Temari and Neji, who dove into battle after battle at Zabuza's heels with fierce desperation because it was fight or be left behind. Haku's stomach ached constantly, the memory of that would-be mortal wound dogging his footsteps. The days dragged on him one by one by one, and he was tired.

Shisui squinted at them. "What you're saying is that you want to play," he said, the quirk at the corner of his mouth betraying his amusement. "Except with live weapons and jutsu."

Haku hid his own smile. "If that's what you must call it."

"You know what?" Zabuza said gruffly. "We make it out of this alive, you can have three days. Do whatever you want."

"Graffiti the Mizukage Tower!" Naruto chirped immediately.

"Set the Mizukage Tower on fire," Sasuke countered.

"Take the cool jutsu books out first," said Sakura, glaring at her teammates.

"Hm," said Shisui, somewhere on the border between unease and alarm.

"Knock yourselves out," said Zabuza with a shrug. "As long as you don't get caught."

"I want to see if I can blow away an entire lake," said Temari speculatively.

"I cannot see why I would spend the time doing anything other than training," Neji muttered, narrowing his eyes at Team Byakko's members. Sai nodded unconsciously in agreement.

"C-c-c-calligraphy?" Hinata suggested timidly. "A-and, um - "

"Kill people," Gaara supplied. Sakura fumbled her chopsticks.

"N-no!" Hinata whispered, her shoulders climbing up towards her ears as the rest of the genin turned to stare at them.

Temari glanced at Gaara askance, and he scowled.

"Killing anyone would be unwise, once the fighting has ended," said Itachi.

Gaara's glower darkened.

"Maybe one person," Zabuza bargained, a wicked glint in his eye. "He can have Michishio. Bastard has it coming."

"Michishio," Gaara repeated solemnly with a nod, appeased.

"No," said Shisui firmly.

"I, for one, will spend most of those three days asleep," Haku volunteered.

"You'll train," Zabuza threatened immediately.

"After those three days," Haku agreed.

"His lack of sleep will spontaneously catch up with him and erode his sense of control," Temari said very seriously. "He'll be forced to sleep or risk turning everyone else into ice block."

"Exactly," said Haku with a beatific smile.

Zabuza glared. "Who taught you two this bullshit? It's terrible. Stop."

"That's awesome," breathed Naruto. "I wanna be a snowman."

Zabuza rolled his eyes.

"Specialized training," the captain said suddenly. Hinata choked on her stew. Neji paused with his chopsticks halfway to his mouth and lowered them slowly. "We don't have time for that now. Afterwards, we'll teach you what you want to learn."

"And by 'we,' Taichou, you mean us minus you," Shisui said dryly.

"Yes," said the captain.

"Super cool super powerful jutsu!" Naruto said immediately.

Sasuke sighed deeply through his nose.

A chakra signature pulsed politely just outside. Haku twitched. Like meerkats, the other genin all straightened, their heads swivelling towards the tent flaps.

Shisui signed with one hand sharply as he rose. Sasuke hiked his rebreather back up, Naruto his bandages. Sai, Hinata, and Gaara each produced their masks from on top of his head, up her sleeve, and somewhere sandy respectively. Neji flicked his sunglasses down over his eyes.

Shisui slid his leopard-mask down and looked to the captain, who nodded. He strode to the entrance of the tent as the genin set their food down in a nearly soundless shuffle and Zabuza tossed his chopsticks down with an annoyed grunt.

Shisui swiped a chakra-laced finger through the silencing seal on the canvas wall, disrupting it, and drew back the tent flap. "Yes?" he said curtly to the shinobi waiting outside.

The shinobi straightened. "Sir," he said stiffly. "Message for Commander Hatake, sir."

Shisui's head tilted slightly. "You can give it to me."

"Sorry, sir," the shinobi hedged. "The message is for the commander, sir."

With no infliction, Shisui repeated, "Give it to me."

"Uh," said the shinobi. "Uh, no, sir."

Shisui leaned forward slightly to loom over the shinobi, though he was actually shorter than the other man. The messenger swallowed.

"That's fine," the captain said at last. "Stand down, Juu."

Shisui relaxed instantly. "Good nerve," he commented, and stepped back to let the shinobi in. "We really should let the captain Momochi try next time."

Zabuza huffed, but didn't speak.

The messenger edged into the tent, eyes skittering over the nine genin children huddled over their battered bowls of food, bouncing off the two teen captains watching him more closely than hawks did a mouse, plus Zabuza in all his aggressively threatening nonchalance, and landing on the captain. The captain looked at him. The messenger swallowed again. "Commander," he said. "Hana-Shi-3334, chuunin, sir."

The captain nodded. "Go ahead."

"Message from the other camp, sir," said the messenger. "From the leader, Terumi-san...sama."

"She ain't kage yet," Zabuza muttered.

"Terumi-san," the messenger corrected smoothly. He paused. "Suspense rubbish stripper bloody rain asylum sapphire kick paisley."

Silently, Naruto mouthed,what?

"Acknowledged," said the captain. "You can go."

Naruto, with the help of Sakura's hand over his mouth, waited until the messenger had departed and Shisui had reactivated the silence seal before demanding, "Suspense rubbishstripper? What was that?"

"It's a code, idiot," Sasuke sighed, the breath hissing noisily through his respirator.

"Waiting is over, all out now," Shisui said. "It means it's time."

Zabuza frequently did things like bully members of his unit out of one of the few tents, in this case so he and Haku could prepare for the operation while the refugee children put the captain's tent back in order. Haku had long ago decided that of the list of Zabuza's habits to disapprove of, this was relatively low.

"Get your gear," Zabuza ordered as soon as the tent flap dropped behind him. "Drop the wildling furs. Back to the classics, yeah?"

"Hai," Haku agreed, folding up his Yorozoku cloak. Back to the classics: striped hakama, striped turtleneck. Faded sea-green haori, brown sash, platoon sandals. Each piece layered on top of the other methodically, the movements familiar and well-practiced. The traditional, bulky hunter-nin armour he skipped - instead, between the turtleneck and the hakama, he strapped on a much slimmer padded vest, to less hinder his movements.

When Zabuza brought Haku into Kiri for the first time, dressing for battle had been as much a ritual as sharpening his weapons. There was a rhythm to the movements, a specific order, and it settled his mind and brought it to bear on the battle ahead. Senbon holsters went on his forearms and along the sides of his ribs. He slipped the mask over his face last of all, and when he looked up, Zabuza was watching him.

"Ready, kid?" he said.

Haku's heart beat steady pulses of frost through his veins. He slung his pack with his discarded clothes back over his shoulder. "Ready," he said.

Zabuza ceded the tent back to the tokujo and her chuunin team with a jerk of his head as they strode out, to which the tokujo said, "Good luck, Taichou."

Zabuza's only acknowledgement was to yank down his battered Anbu mask - not his original one; again, probably stolen off a corpse before it became a corpse. Haku shadowed him on his right flank, taking two steps for each of Zabuza's strides.

Ahead of them, the captain emerged from the mist, turned to glance at them, and them turned again purposefully towards the town proper. His mask was that of a Konohan cat design, and had had for as long as Haku could remember a black scorch mark over one eye hole. Itachi and Shisui followed, one on each side as they cut through the fog. Shinobi scattered before their path, Guntai and Shirei-bu alike falling back to let them pass.

Zabuza lengthened his stride until he fell in at Itachi's shoulder and Haku at Shisui's. The adrenaline was burning an icy trail through Haku's veins, and each of his steps fell with purpose. His breath left soft white puffs in the air, vanishing almost immediately into the mist still blanketing the valley

Temari and Neji, nondescript without their own fur cloaks and bone masks, hovered beyond a cluster of genin. Haku paused in front of them as the rest of the assassination team continued onward, and Temari stepped forward to take his bag.

"You better hurry back," she ordered, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "You left us hanging at the southern dam."

"I did return for the assault on the Karikachi-touge," Haku pointed out.

"Injured," Neji countered.

"Practically a walking corpse," Temari agreed.

"Aren't we all walking corpses?" Haku asked delicately, unconsciously pressing his arm against his abdomen.

Temari and Neji exchanged glances. "Damnit," Temari muttered. "I'll let you have that one."

"Perhaps you could endeavor to return in better condition than you did the last time you departed with Sensei," Neji suggested, perfectly serious.

"Yeah, we'd really appreciate it," Temari said with an only slightly playful gravitas in her voice.

"I would prefer that as well," said Haku, meeting her eyes. She searched him, then quirked a smile. "Take care of yourselves, and the others," he added, glancing over to Neji as well. Neji gave him a silent nod.

"Knock 'em dead," said Temari, nudging his shoulder, and stepped back.

"That is the plan," Haku said, his smile hidden behind his mask.

He had to hurry to catch up to the rest of the team - they were all much taller than Haku, even Itachi, with much longer strides, and Haku looked like he was playing dress-up in a hunter-nin's mask. The shinobi gathered to watch the team's departure didn't part for him, and barely noticed his passing.

The crowd shifted just as Haku squeezed his way through, back to Shisui's shoulder as the rest of the team drew to a halt. The shinobi ahead of them parted to give a respectful space to Senju Tsunade herself, draped in a thick green cloak in lieu of her usual haori with the hood pulled down just above her eyes. She stepped forward to meet the captain, flanked on either side by Shizune and Commander Nara. For a moment, the tableau froze. The watching shinobi fell silent, barely breathing.

The captain moved first, bowing properly as a shinobi to his Kage, the kind of propriety that had been discarded as unnecessary in the early days of Hanabi-ha. Senju nodded in return, studying the captain with unfathomable eyes. "Go and return alive, Commander," she said. "As Konoha shinobi and as Hanabi-ha, make us proud."

"Hai," said the captain into the resounding silence. He bowed again.

The exchange lent an air of finality to their departure, even if their words said otherwise. Haku took a steadying breath, then another, the back of his neck prickling from the weight of the stares. The Hanabi-ha shinobi waited, still and watchful, as the team moved out.

Where the Hana-ha troops had been at rest but uneasy, the Hanran camps seethed in organized chaos as teams prepared for the coming assault. Clusters of shinobi rewrapped their katana hilts, oiled kunai, or strapped their armour on more securely. Others extinguished fires, packing up camps neatly before moving in teams to their respective companies and units.

Beniko met them at the edge of the unmarked border between the Hana-ha and Hanran camps. "This way, Commander, Captains," she said crisply, poised in the midst of the frenzy as a hunting cat stalking its prey. She almost vibrated with unreleased energy. "Mei-sama waits for your arrival."

Haku had not been in the catacombs for three years. When he first moved to Kirigakure, he had feared them as the place where many disappeared and returned damaged or not at all, as the hive of the best killers in the Village. When he joined the hunter-nin as a trainee, the fear faded to trepidation and familiarity. Now, on the opposite side of the battlefield, Haku felt unease slither down his back.

"Steady, kid," said Zabuza, low under his breath. Haku glanced up, but he was staring straight ahead, watching the second wave of Mei's shinobi advance into the catacombs.

Haku took a breath and let it settle his nerves, bit back the adrenaline sending sharp shocks through his system until it faded to a frosty thrum. He tucked his arms into his sleeves and brushed his fingers against the smooth surface of his senbon holsters.

"Leave the whelp, Zabuza, this isn't a training mission," muttered Ao, pinning Haku with a stern glare.

"Worry about your own team, Senzaki," the captain said sharply without turning around. Zabuza, his mouth opened to snarl a rejoinder at Ao, closed it again smugly.

Mei fixed Ao with a poisonous glare and said to the captain, "My apologies, Commander." Ao wilted.

Silence fell over the two teams once again. Where the Hana-ha team had five members, Mei's was more than twice their number - captains and jounin alike marked by the colored cloth tied around their biceps, seasoned shinobi who carried experience along with their weapons. Zabuza was the oldest member of their team by a couple months at twenty-four; Mei's youngest was twenty-year-old Kabocha Fuminshou, who had joined the hunter-nin corps at the same time as Haku.

Neither Itachi nor Shisui seemed intimidated by this fact. Shisui crouched, the line of his body relaxed but alert, and Itachi paid no attention at all to the anticipatory sakki curling off the Hanran shinobi.

Haku could not be a scared child, nervous and looking for reassurance before battle. He was a weapon, one of the best to pass through Kiri, and personally honed by Zabuza.

The world crystallized abruptly. There was the mission, there was the target, and there was Zabuza's safety.

He settled his chakra as Itachi rose and Ao signalled them forward with a jerk of his hand. The entrance of the catacombs loomed before them as the combined squad prowled forward, and swallowed them into its darkness.

Haku kept pace at Shisui's side. Members of the Hanran team bracketed the Hanabi-ha, and with the knowledge of Mei's intentions, the back of Haku's neck prickled. He reached for his chakra and it came easily, roiling just under his skin in readiness.

Splashes of blood, stray kunai, shuriken embedded in the walls - the detritus of battle marked the way paved by the shinobi that had gone before them. The only light came from the dim lanterns spaced evenly on the floors, amidst the scattered glass shards of the electric lights that would had been smashed before the invaders had even arrived.

The hallway twisted back on itself and narrowed. The first corpses lay strewn in the midst of the first chokepoint. The great blast doors were scorched, hanging half off their hinges, and they gaped forlornly to bare the fork in the hallway: one, to the barracks, equipment storage, and sparring rooms; the other to the offices, conference rooms, and hunter-nin division. Ao took the latter without a second's pause. Haku's eyes stuttered on the unassuming hallway that led to the hunter-nin quarters, lingering just a little longer before forging ahead.

The body count ratcheted up dramatically after they descended to the second level. Cracks spiderwebbed walls charred black by katon or explosive tags, with blood smeared on the stone or pooled around the unloving bodies littered on the floor. Puddles of water dotted the ground and an oppressive damp hung in the stagnant air.

Haku glanced down a hallway as they passed the entrance; the cell doors of the detention block hung open, and those too were splattered crimson.

Ao held a hand up, and Haku stopped abruptly, Shisui stilling at his side. "The advance teams missed a spot," he noted, turning to face the next hallway. Beniko slipped up to his side and the former Anbu Kyuuri fanning out opposite, drawing his katana from its sheath slowly.

A trio of figures in plain chuunin uniforms stepped out of the cell at the far end of the hallway. "Don't blame them," said the shinobi in the lead lightly, the henge melting away to reveal a shock of ice-blue hair. He grinned, baring sharpened teeth. "We're easy to miss." The rest of his team dropped their henge - one revealed slick black hair and a dark-steel katana in hand, the other a porcelain mask and a water whip already half-formed.

Mei swiveled to consider them. "Surrender, Kyabetsu, I won't ask twice," she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Always so righteous, Mei," said Kyabetsu, the smile dropping off his face. "Did you ever think about what your stunts did to the rest of us?"

"Change was inevitable," said Mei. "We're at Yagura's door. Will you change with us or fall with him?"

"Selfish bitch," breathed the hunter-nin, and Mei's eyes narrowed.

"Do none of you remember your oaths, your honor?" demanded Kyabetsu. "You're nothing more than savages without them, biting the hand that feeds you like a mad dog."

Zabuza snickered. "Careful," he rumbled. "Raijuu here doesn't like those kinds of comparisons."

"Honor won't stop our children murdering each other under the eyes of a madman," snapped Mei, her lip curling.

"Old news," dismissed Kyabetsu. "That's in the past. Yagura-sama wasn't the one who pit our shinobi against their own comrades. That was you, Mei."

"Who killed entire clans for daring to be born with a kekkei-genkai?" Mei demanded, sickly-sweet. "This war started with them."

Kyabetsu shook his head and turned away from Mei, searching the ranks of the team. "You'll see, Ao-taichou. Beniko-chan, little Haku-chan - I see you." Haku resisted the urge to stiffen. Zabuza, unimpressed, didn't move. "When she has the hat in her claws, you'll see. She is no different than any other monster here."

"Enough." Mei's voice cracked out like a whip. "Kyuuri, Michishio, Deitan, take care of this. Everyone else, move out."

"You'll see," Kyabetsu's mocking voice drifted down the hall after them even as Haku turned to follow the rest of the team. "You followed the monster here; you'll see."

On either side of the team, now, the walls rumbled with the markings of battle. The dull thuds of douton meeting their targets shook the ground under their feet, and flashes of chakra bloomed, raw enough to illuminate their path.

Haku tucked his hands a little more tightly up his sleeves, the better with to draw his senbon when the moment arrived. But each detention block they passed was empty of all but corpses and the distant chaos of a battle that seemed ever around the next corner until that corner was rounded. Without knowledge of the labyrinth of these levels, one could wander the tunnels for days without surfacing.

The stone rumbled beneath his feet; the flash of an explosive tag lit up the far hallway in brilliant white. The shockwave hit less than a second later, knocking Haku clear off his feet. He caught himself in a crouch, one hand glued to the floor with chakra to keep his balance. Fuminshou staggered back a step, one hand reaching for his back pouch.

"Ao," Mei barked, and her chakra burned the air around her.

"Senkibi, Oomugi, suppress," Ao ordered. "Left advance clear: kenjutsu. Untriggered tags on right. Hostiles penetrated defenses in center. Go."

Senkibi darted forward, the other captain close on her heels. The rest of the team waited, tense. Shisui reached up to the hilt of his tanto, running absent fingers over its leather wrapping. Itachi's stillness reached statuesque proportions. Zabuza's mouth curled up into an anticipatory smirk.

The two captains heralded their entrance into the battle with an almighty crash and a chorus of startled shouts. Chakra blazed, and a scattering of kunai and shuriken clattered into the wall. A small wave of water gushed around the corner, and a sudden silence descended.

Senkibi leaned her masked face back around the corner and said, "Clear."

Ao nodded confirmation. "Well, then," purred Mei, drawing herself up. "Shall we?"

Grim-faced shinobi with flak jackets torn or darkened by blood dragged or carried their fallen or wounded teammates to the side, making way for Mei and the rest of the team in the center. The floor was saturated with water from past suiton jutsu and littered with kunai. Part of the walls had caved, the ground cratered, and the stone bore the scars of katana blades and the stains of blood.

"Kabocha, assist with the traps," Maiko directed quietly, and Fuminshou slipped off to where Oomugi was examining the seals painted on the wall in blood. Maiko drifted away from her place at Mei's shoulder to meet a shinobi with a fresh bandage wrapped over the right side of his face. The rest of the team did not stop, so as Haku shadowed Shisui to the stairwell leading to the third level, he heard her order only, "Report."

A couple more fallen shinobi sprawled on the stairs, bodies twisted and still bleeding. Mei's head turned slightly as she passed one, her mouth tightening before she swept onwards without a word.

The stairs spilled into a long, low room, ending abruptly in a set of massive doors set into the rock. Half a dozen teams clustered at its frame; several held electric lanterns and a kunoichi had her eyes closed and one hand pressed flat against the door. Sensor.

Haku turned as movement flickered in the corner of his eye, his hand jumping to his senbon, but it was only Maiko, flanked by both Fuminshou and Oomugi. Fuminshou gave Haku a grim nod, which he returned, and hovered at his flank even when Maiko moved back up to Mei's shoulder.

"Fall back," said Mei imperiously, stepping forward as her troops parted before her. "Hold this point once we have crossed." The kunoichi at the very front slithered out of the way as Mei approached, melting back into the shadows at the side of the tunnel to give the assassination team room to advance.

With a breath and a surge of chakra, Mei inhaled air and exhaled lava that glowed bright and hot as it hit the double doors with a sizzle. Solid steel groaned and melted away like a heated iron through ice, burning a hole to the opposite side.

Immediately, a flurry of kunai hissed through the gap. Maiko dropped, slamming her hands into the ground with a low growl, and a douton wall reared up in time to take the blast from the exploding tags, a brilliant flash that lit up the darkened tunnels and sent white spots flickering in Haku's vision.

Mei spat another glob of molten rock just as Maiko's wall crumbled, eliciting an anguished scream as it connected with a shinobi on the other side. Mei stepped forward as soon as her lava had eaten away a large enough opening for her to do so, careless of the way the heel of her sandal smoked as it drew over the still-glowing lip. Ao followed close behind her, then Maiko and Makoto. The captain ducked in next.

"Weapons up," Shisui murmured next to him, flipping his tanto up and out of its holster as Zabuza stalked through, sakki curling off him as he swung Kubikiribocho off his back. "Ready, Haku-kun?"

Haku clenched his fingers around two handfuls of senbon. "Hai," he said, and stepped forward into the third level.

It opened into an atrium, empty but for two unfortunate corpses. Haku eyed them clinically: both under twenty years old, relatively new flak jackets, positioned close to the doors: cannon fodder, likely low caste. "They ran," Zabuza muttered, a sneer curling the corner of his mouth. The rest of Mei's team filed in cautiously, lanterns commandeered from the advance troops held high to survey their surroundings.

Three hallways yawned into darkness; all three, eventually, could lead to the one that opened to the fourth level. All three, however, had been rigged with traps and ambush sites since the founding of Kirigakure as a last defense against a siege.

"I think it's obvious we have to clear the level before we can fight the boss," Beniko murmured. "We can't afford to miss teams that can box us in."

"Agreed," said the captain pleasantly. "My team will take the far right. Where should we rendezvous?"

Mei's eyes narrowed. "Actually, Commander, you and Momochi can go with Ao, and Uchiha - "

"Not a chance," interrupted the captain, his voice gone cold and hard.

Maiko tensed. Ao scowled. Fuminshou's hand dropped to his back pouch again, all trace of amiability evaporated. Mei, unconcerned, said, "Surely you understand why I rather your team not run around unsupervised here, hmm?"

"Our backup is three levels above ground. You have bigger problems than worrying about us treasure hunting or looting whatever you think passes as valuable down here," Shisui countered. "The Mizukage, for one."

"My team stays together," said the captain firmly, his one visible eye steely beneath his mask.

Mei hesitated only half a second longer before acquiescing. "Fine," she said. "There's an antechamber just before the stairs down to the fourth level. Meet up there when you've finished sweeping your branch. Fukaya, Makoto, Kabocha, with me in the center. Satoimo, Oomugi, Senkibi, and Higata, with Ao on the left. Watch your backs and don't miss any traps."

A chorus of, "Hai," met her instructions, and with a sharp nod, Mei ordered, "Move out."

"Momochi, point," the captain directed as they prowled into the tunnel. "You know this place best. Uchiha, rear. Keep your senses alert; don't trust the other teams to have done their work."

"Hai," agreed Itachi, his voice low.

Zabuza shouldered his way into the lead. The halls were wide enough for him to swing Kubikiribocho freely, so he stalked forward with the flat of the sword resting on his shoulder. The captain went next, giving him enough margin to wield the massive blade in case of an ambush.

Haku stayed at Shisui's side, his hearing hyperaware of the drip of water from some pipe he couldn't see. Here, too, the electric lights had been shattered, but there was no lantern to see by - just the unending darkness, growing stronger the further they drew from the residual light of the atrium.

Zabuza was a master of sightless combat and had made sure Haku could fight just as well without his eyes, but surely the Konohan shinobi had never the reason to learn the same. He snuck a glance in Shisui's direction as the older shinobi tipped his mask briefly on top of his head to swipe the sweat from his face, only to meet an eye glowing bloody in the darkness. He swallowed a yelp.

"My hearing isn't as good as Z's or Taichou's," Shisui said apologetically, tugging his mask back down. "This way I can at least see chakra." Itachi looked over his shoulder, and his doujutsu too blazed crimson, tomoe revolving slowly around his pupils.

"Losers," grunted Zabuza from the head of the column.

"It must be nice," said the captain, dry as dust, "to be able to use your doujutsu to see in the dark without it sucking you dry in ten minutes."

"Uh huh," said Shisui. "Better go yell at Ni-kun and Kyuu-chan for being born with built-in night vision."

Zabuza froze midstep, throwing his free arm out. "Middling Uchiha, conjure a flame or something," he said. "Something's up."

"No, I got it," said Shisui, moving forward in a whisper of cloth. He snapped his fingers, igniting a tiny flame in the palm of his hand with a spark of chakra. The shadows jumped away, and the flickering light glinted off the razor-thin filaments crisscrossing the hallway ahead of them.

The captain and Itachi regarded the sight in silence. Zabuza hissed between his teeth. "You recognize this?" he muttered.

"Shokki," Haku responded automatically as Shisui swung around to look at him. "Middle caste clan known for traps and spider summons."

"Yeah," said Zabuza. "Good thing you two've got fire. Water just makes 'em angry. Plus, the little fuckers can swim."

"I," said Shisui slowly, "do not like spiders."

"Most people don't," growled Zabuza. "Suck it up, Konoha."

Shisui shuddered. "Rather not, thanks."

Itachi leaned a little closer to the first thread. "We can either set off the trap or avoid it entirely. Taichou?"

The captain rubbed a hand over the chin of his mask. "Momochi, best guess - what does this trigger?"

Zabuza squinted at the walls. "Could be anything. Regular exploding tags. Exploding tags plus poison gas bombs. Probably not shuriken or kunai barrage 'cause I don't see seals on the walls and those're better short range. Cave-in, maybe, fourth level pit full of something nasty, maybe. They're a fan of the basics. And also of seal-triggered suiton and douton. That'd be at the far end, so we can't see it coming."

The captain considered the trigger threads. "Go through the trap," he said. "Two, one, two. We'll set it off from the other side once we're all through."

"Sure, Taichou, of course, I'll take point with you," Shisui chirped. "Hey, between the two of us, we even have a good pair of eyes."

The captain might have rolled his eye, but it was too dark for Haku to tell for sure since the captain didn't succumb to obvious displays of emotion. "No. You go with Momochi; I'll take Haku. It's better to have one member who can use katon on each team."

"I can manage a little fucking fire, thanks," growled Zabuza. "Take Konoha. I got us."

"Fine," said the captain, and jerked his head at Shisui. "Lead the way."

Shisui stepped forward without hesitation, examining the wall closely before leaning his free hand against it. With one quick movement, he hopped over the first wire, letting his weight pull him low to the ground to duck the second. He took a step forward and crouched, bringing forward his hand with the flame to light the tunnel ahead of him. He considered, then stepped high over the next wire.

"Hold," the captain called, moving forward. Shisui stopped immediately, gaze trained on the darkness ahead as the captain approached the first wires.

With a handseal and a muted bloom of chakra, Itachi called up his own katon cradled in his gloved hand, and he held it up to the edge of the thread-trap.

The captain leapt, landing precisely where Shisui had, and slithering under the second wire. He hopped the third neatly, alighting squarely at Shisui's side. He paused, and for a moment, both of them scrutinized the next stretch. They turned to look at each other.

"Hey, Z?" Shisui glanced back over his shoulder. "Think they'd put down a weight-trigger trap?"

"Shit," Zabuza muttered, dragging a hand down the lower half of his mask. "Yeah. Yeah, they would."

The captain and Shisui exchanged another look. Shisui leaned over precariously to peer at the wall. "That looks okay," he muttered.

The captain hummed agreement. "Watch the ceiling," he said. "Weighed thread hanging straight down."

Shisui huffed. "Really going for the spider aesthetic, aren't they? Okay, I'm going." He reached over and up to the wall, sticking fast. With one hand still cupped around his katon, he levered himself up, painstakingly drawing the rest of his body to the wall until he could brace his feet across the wall. With glacial care, he maneuvered into a sideways crawl across the wall, and after a careful examination of his chosen landing site, lowered himself back down to the ground. "Almost there," he announced, tucking his chin against his flak jacket so his breath wouldn't disturb the air.

The captain joined him, his movements faster and more graceful with his four free limbs to Shisui's three. The final stretch proved startlingly uneventful. Both the captain and Shisui prowled the edges in search of hidden components, venturing several meters beyond.

"It looks clear," the captain reported. "Itachi, advance."

"Hai," responded Itachi. His movements flowed smoothly as he sprang over the first wire and crouched to avoid the second, though he, like Shisui had only one hand to work with. The shadows bobbed and flickered as he reoriented himself. The tomoe in his eyes swirlled thoughtfully as he considered the trap threads.

Haku thought he imagined the scuffling at first, but both the captain and Shisui whipped around to look. Itachi, clinging to the side of the tunnel under the hanging thread, froze.

"Oh, fuck," said Zabuza under his breath.

"Oh, shit," Shisui breathed, pressing flat against the tunnel wall. "Oh my gods, oh my fucking gods, holy shit!"

"Steady," the captain snapped, his eye on the advancing tide. "Itachi, hold your position. You too - "

"I think it's pretty fucking obvious we're blown, sir!" Shisui fired back, his mask swivelling to follow the advance of the spiders. Hundreds of tiny dark specks swarmed the floor, scuttling forward inexorably towards the team. Two members of the team on either side, one in the midst of the traps - Shisui was right; someone was observing their progress.

"Politeness doesn't work by cancelling out," the captain muttered under his breath. "Momochi, Haku, you're going to have to get over here fast; let the traps activate. Once Itachi moves, the trigger goes off anyways; you'll all have to go at the same time."

"Copy that. All right, kid," said Zabuza. "Think you're faster than an exploding tag?"

Haku's eyes flicked between Zabuza and the captain. "I can do it," he said, and drew on his chakra as he flickered through the familiar seals. Hijutsu: Makyou Hyoushou. A mirror formed before him, its twin between Shisui and the captain. Haku stepped forward fearlessly, let the frigid chill of the ice swallow him whole.

The mirrors birthed their own world, angular and reflective and distorted. He spun, and it was as if he moved in slow motion, watching his face reflect and refract on millions of little surfaces. The touch of the ice's chill sank down to Haku's bones. It was alien and it was home.

He reached back, back for Zabuza and the world outside, and plunged his arm out into the dimension beyond the ice. Zabuza took his offered arm and let him pull him into Haku's world.

"On my mark," called the captain, tension straining his voice.

Haku breathed, keeping his grip on Zabuza's arm. The icy air rushed up his nose as he inhaled, but instead of a sharp burn that the refugee children had complained of over the winter in San's forest, it sank easily into his lungs. "Ready," he murmured, as much to himself as anyone else.

"Mark!" the captain barked. Itachi blurred into a shunshin.

At the same time, Haku yanked in the cold and his chakra until it bulged at the edges of his control and then shoved it as hard as he could, sending himself and Zabuza hurtling across space in a fraction of the time it took to blink. Haku felt the give of every single one of the tripwires as they blasted past, and he and Zabuza slammed into the far mirror as the tunnel lit up in a brilliant explosion behind them. The ceiling of the tunnel crashed down, huge chunks of rock burying the hallway.

"Get me out and stay here!" Zabuza ordered, his voice echoing in the ice. Haku gritted his teeth and obeyed, propelling Zabuza from the mirror in a whirl of icy wind.

"Captain," said Shisui, almost vibrating in place, as he eyed the spider swarm, "We really need to clear those spiders. I might be about to do something inadvisable - "

Itachi inhaled, the chakra gathering around his chest ominously. The blaze lit up the tunnel even as it vanished around the corner. It left white imprints on Haku's vision, a series of small puffs as the summons vanished, and a trail of tiny charred corpses of the spiders too slow to avoid the flames. Itachi closed his mouth. "Threat neutralized," he said placidly as the tunnel faded back into darkness.

"With prejudice," Zabuza added, reluctantly impressed. "And - " He cut himself off abruptly as a shape exploded from the wall next to him, spraying shards of rock. Another figure ripped themself free of the floor in front of the captain, and a third sprinted forward in the wake of the smoke from Itachi's katon.

Zabuza leapt backwards, but the other shinobi darted inside his guard before he could bring Kubikiribocho to bear. Heart pounding, Haku palmed a handful of icy steel and hurled his trio of senbon from his mirror as Zabuza backpedaled again, but the attacker twisted, knocking them out of the air with a kunai before whirling on Zabuza again. Shisui intercepted in a flash, his tanto battering the kunai aside as he slammed into the shinobi. His katon extinguished, the tunnel plunged into darkness and Haku, ensconced in his mirror, caught only snapshots of the fight by the light of jutsu, the movement of Sharingan glowing in the dark, or the sparks flying off metal striking metal.

Itachi wove his way around his opponent's rapid assault. He batted aside the flat of the other shinobi's katana with the loud slap of the blade against a gloved hand, flowing just out of reach every time the man struck. His doujutsu revolved rapidly in the eyeholes of his mask as he swerved in and out of the way of his assailant's sword.

"Kai!" his opponent spat, his chakra billowing outwards as he took down each genjutsu as quickly as Itachi threw them up. "Kai. Kai!"

Lightning shrieked in the background as the captain pursued the shinobi flitting through the flickering shadows, and its eerie blue-white light cast harsh shadows on Shisui's and Zabuza's masks and the deep-set glare of their opponent. Zabuza swung Kubikiribocho with an audible snarl just as Shisui shoved the other shinobi hard and flipped backwards up onto the ceiling.

"Sheep!" the captain snapped above the clash of Zabuza's blade against the other shinobi's. "Home pasture!"

Itachi reacted instantly, drawing his own katana in a flash and bringing it crashing down on his opponent's blade with a ringing screech. His defensive approach reversed abruptly, and he surged forward in a low pounce that forced his opponent to bound backwards several paces or risk losing his leg below the knee.

Shisui spiralled down from the ceiling in a graceful arc, snapping, "Katon: Homuranagase!" and spat a burst of fireballs at the shinobi locking blades with Zabuza. Given the choice between letting himself be flambeed and beating a quick retreat, the shinobi chose the latter with a snarl on his face.

The captain flitted backwards, and the two teams faced off as the hallway plunged back into black.

Shisui's voice echoed in the darkness. "Three on four. Doesn't seem too smart."

"Everyone smart already bailed," Zabuza drawled. "Yagura's only got the dumbasses left."

Haku eased himself from the mirror, dragged himself back into the real world. The heat pressed in on him after the frigid chill of his ice, and he landed in a soft crouch at Shisui's back. He drew a single senbon carefully.

"You 'n me, kid," Zabuza said, almost silently.

"A cornered rat will bite the cat," the captain warned. "Light."

Itachi cast a katon that illuminated the tunnel, and the captain charged in the same heartbeat. Shisui sprang up onto the ceiling in a bound, fingers blurring through seals at lightning speed.

But there were only two shinobi crouched at the far end of the tunnel, not three, and the taller reared up to meet the captain's assault while the shorter slammed two hands into the ground. Stalagmites bulged out of the ceiling, and Shisui flipped out of the way, spitting a blast of lightning at him.

The air shifted; Haku whipped around, his senbon flying true. The shinobi, a curved katana in hand, twisted midway through his lunge, and the senbon sank into his cheek instead of his eye. Up close, Haku could make out the jagged scar cutting diagonally down his right forehead to his left jawline and recognized that face in a flash of memory - Zabuza had given him that scar.

"Moyashi," Zabuza snarled, recognition hitting him at the same time. "Persistent little bugger, aren't you?" Kubikiribocho sang as it hissed through the air, and Moyashi's face twisted in a harsh grimace as he ripped the senbon out of his face and dodged out of the way with just a hairsbreadth to spare.

Haku drew senbon like claws in one hand as Zabuza brought Kubikiribocho crashing down a second time. Around them, he formed handseals, but Zabuza barked, "Save your chakra, kid," and bore down on Moyashi. Haku frowned but aborted the jutsu obediently in favor of another trio of senbon.

Itachi ghosted forward behind Shisui's rush, beelining for the last shinobi. A plume of smoke exploded beneath the shinobi, heralding the arrival of a massive summons.

Shisui and Itachi both pulled up short and froze, blades angled in front of them uneasily. "All yours, Karasu-taichou," said Shisui quickly.

"I defer this battle to you, Juu-taichou," Itachi deflected politely.

Shisui paused. "I'm older than you."

"Surely that means you should be protecting me from this threat?" Itachi reasoned. The summons clacked its mouth pincers threateningly. Itachi's eyes followed it with great reluctance.

"Nope," said Shisui. "This is barely a threat to you; you have to do as I say. Fight the spider, kohai."

"I outranked you in Anbu," argued Itachi. "Logic follows that I can order you to fight the spider."

"I did, eventually, make captain. Like eight months ago," Shisui fired back. "You never even made it to jounin!"

The massive spider scuttled forward. Shisui and Itachi both circled around it warily, one on either side of it and its summoner, who drew a kunai in a backhanded grip and waited.

"Zabuza-san," said Haku, one eye on Shisui and Itachi, the other on Moyashi. "Perhaps I could...?"

"No," Zabuza grunted, batting aside Moyashi's katana and planting a kick full in the other shinobi's chest. Moyashi wheezed, hurling an underhanded kunai that Haku deflected with a timely senbon. "They can grow up and sort it out themselves."

"Captain outranks jounin, and I have been a captain longer," Itachi pointed out. "In that, I am your senior."

"That is so disrespectful," Shisui hissed. "Who personally tutored you in genjutsu?"

"Hey," the captain cut in sharply, neatly sidestepping his opponent's douton. It hit the far wall with a vicious crash, rattling the entire hallway. "Juu, take care of the summons. Karasu, take out Shokki."

Shisui's shoulders slumped. "Yes, sir."

"Hai," said Itachi smugly. He abandoned Shisui to the summons and stalked towards Shokki.

The spider blasted a projectile of sticky web that Shisui ducked out of the way of, and it instead impacted the wall, where it clung. "Oh gods," said Shisui, nausea wavering his voice. "This is so gross." He bounded out of the way of another, and then a third as he formed seals for a hasty katon. The spider scuttled backwards, out of the way of the reaching flames, and glared at Shisui with all eight of its eyes.

The unearthly screech and blue-white light of a raiton filled the air. The captain, a single crimson eye blazing in the hole of his mask, stabbed a lightning-coated hand through the opposing shinobi's chest. The man fell, a choked yelp forcing its way out of his throat.

Moyashi hissed, head jerking involuntarily at his teammate's cry. Haku took advantage of his distraction and hurled both handfuls of senbon one after the other. With barely a hiss to mark their passing, five connected to vital tenketsu peppering Moyashi's right arm; the last sank harmlessly into back muscle. It was enough. The shinobi's arm dropped abruptly, his blade with it as he went to block, and Zabuza beheaded him in a spray of blood that painted the stone.

"Good work, kid," he said, pleased, and despite himself and the decapitated body between them, Haku smiled.

Sokki fled. He threw up a douton that exploded against the wall and bolted down the hallway, splitting into three as he went. Itachi blurred after him, darker than the shadows around him.

Shisui scrambled backwards as the spider rushed at him, hurling kunai after kunai that the spider took in stride, absorbing the blades in its bulk. "Z, your sword!" he yelped.

Zabuza crossed his arms over his chest and glowered. "Hell no. Use that little pigsticker you're so proud of."

Shisui's voice went up an octave as he dodged between the spider's legs. "Z!" He hissed as the pincers caught his sleeve, ripping it through.

Zabuza rolled his eyes. "Ugh," he grumbled, and tossed Kubikiribocho in an easy arc. It revolved slowly, end over end.

Shisui snatched the sword out of the air with one hand and a growl and swung. It bit deep into the spider's abdomen, arresting its forward momentum and pinning it to the ground. Shisui ripped the blade free, staggering backwards from its weight, and Zabuza, long-suffering, stalked forward to relieve him of it. The spider spasmed violently, its legs scrabbling uselessly against the floor. For good measure, Shisui spat an enormous fireball and set it alight.

"Yep, that's dead," said Zabuza, setting Kubikiribocho back onto his shoulder. Haku knelt at Moyashi's body, pressing down clinically with one hand and sliding his senbon free with the other. He wiped each on the downed shinobi's sleeve, replaced them in his holsters, and rose to where Zabuza and Shisui were watching the spider burn.

The captain joined them, staring at the licking flames. His forearm from elbow to fingers was coated in blood, and more still splattered on his mask and armour. "No intel on what's ahead," he said, eyeing his own arm wearily. Red dripped onto the stone, viscous and sticky.

"Yeah, these guys aren't big on talking on a good day," Zabuza drawled. "Pretty sure they're not gonna be more chatty when they're dead."

"They didn't seem especially strong," Shisui noted. "But the spider thing was." He paused, visibly struggling for words. "Really disgusting."

"Yeah, well," said Zabuza. "They're Anbu but they're not really front line fighters. Espionage, assassinations, traps. Like I said - Yagura's scraping the bottom of the barrel now."

"Get their clothes; they're Kiri-made, they'll burn." said the captain, the glint of his doujutsu once again covered. "We're going to need more light from here on out." He glanced backwards, but the hallway had been buried by the traps and douton - not impenetrable, but certainly blocked.

"You should come with a warning, Taichou," said Shisui. "The minute you whip that Sharingan out, you should tell your opponents something like - " he affected a deep voice, "'No one lives to see this eye twice.'"

Zabuza snickered. The captain gave them both a longsuffering glance and said, "Let's go."

Itachi met them coming back, with the spider-bonfire throwing shadows from behind and the light of their makeshift torches flickering on their masks. His katana had been wiped, but the faint stain of blood remained on the blade. He sheathed it back over his shoulder as he approached.

The captain looked him up and down. "Status?"

"Confirmed kill," Itachi reported, and tipped his head further down the hallway. "The corpse is further down."

"Good," said the captain. "According to the map, we're halfway to the first major fork."

The third level catacombs twisted and doubled back on themselves twice as much T did. Instead of growing colder the deeper they went, the air grew hot and humid. The chill of Haku's chakra rose to the surface of his skin and faded to a comfortable temperature, but sweat was beading on Shisui's neck.

"Here," said Zabuza, raising his torch to the seemingly innocuous door set in the side of the tunnel. "Leads to the first set of vaults then back up the other side. Trapped to hell and back, obviously."

"The three of you, clear that," the captain ordered. "Juu and I will continue down the main hallway and wait at the next convergence point. Send a summons if you get in over your heads."

"Hai," agreed Itachi as Zabuza grunted, "Sure."

"Watch your backs," Shisui warned.

"I should be telling you that," Zabuza growled. "Do you have any idea how smug Mei'll be if one of you bites it and we show up with less than the full team?"

"That's at the top of the list of things I'm worried about," said the captain with no change in the inflection of his voice. He jerked his head at the door.

Zabuza stepped forward to open the door, crowding Haku out of the way as he pressed his hand against the reinforced wood and fed his chakra in. It opened with a faint click. Zabuza gave it a good kick, ducking to the side of the doorway immediately. Nothing happened. He leaned around cautiously, holding the torch up. "Kid?"

Haku inched forward cautiously, his eyes combing the dark for tripwires or seals rigged to explode. "Clear," he reported.

Zabuza peered into the darkness beyond. "Hey, human torch," he said. "You want this one?"

"Aa. I will take point," agreed Itachi, and ghosted past them both into the doorway.

"Catch you on the other side," said Shisui. "Taichou?"

"Go," said the captain, and the pair slipped down the tunnel. The bobbing, flickering light of their torch faded rapidly until just Haku and Zabuza remained in the faint circle of light cast by their own.

"Well?" Zabuza drawled. "In you get."

Haku ran comforting fingers over his senbon and entered.

Itachi's eyes glowed in greeting in the gloom. "One hallway, a set of stairs, and a path that doubles back on itself six times and diverges four times," he recited. "I am not aware of how much importance Yagura has placed on the information and artifacts stored here, but I doubt he would waste these catacombs as a method of whittling his opponents down. Keep your senses sharp, but allow myself and Zabuza to neutralize any threats."

"Hai," said Haku, smoothing down the wild edges of his chakra as it pushed up eagerly against the heat pressing against him. The stone was slick here, moisture beading on the walls and dripping from the ceiling in a constant, offbeat tattoo. Haku took two steps forward and realized, as the drops landed on his hair, his mask, his haori, that stepping silently would not be enough to hide their presence.

Zabuza grunted, annoyed. "This was much easier when we didn't have to slither through all the little hiding holes looking for rats." He hiked Kubikiribocho back up into its harness; the hall was too narrow to swing it effectively. When he stalked forwards his entire body was coiled, seemingly as much against the water dripping from above as the danger they represented.

Though their torch warded away only a few meters of darkness at a time, Haku didn't strain his eyes searching the edges of visibility. He accepted the limitations of his sight, listening instead for the patterns of thedrip-drip dropof the water drops interrupted by heads or shoulders as they passed under them, the plink of drops landing in puddles or on the stone floors. He let his hands out of his sleeves, turned his palms outward to feel the air currents against them.

"Stop," Itachi announced, holding up his hand.

Zabuza held the torch up higher because though he hated doing things for other people, he hated even more doing things other people asked him to do that he had no reasonable way to refuse. "Alarm seals, trap seals, chakra-shielding seals, what're we looking at?"

Itachi's mask tilted consideringly at the carvings in the wall. "All of the above," he answered after a long moment of consideration. "The alarm and chakra-shielding seals are easily disrupted. There is a smaller margin of error for the trap seals." He flipped a kunai up into his hand from its holster, and the chakra glowed around the blade as he stabbed quickly, one-two, into the center of two of the seals. They cracked, a hint of chakra tracing the patterns before fading away.

The last one, both he and Zabuza, and Haku craning around Itachi's shoulder as best he could, regarded warily. "Damn," said Zabuza. "That little squiggle's the trigger mechanism, right? Connected to a paired trigger."

"Connected to a trigger seal, yes, but I believe that particular component is the stabilizing matrix," Itachi said after deliberating.

"Damn," Zabuza muttered under his breath again. "Where's Hatake and his weird fucking skillset when you need him?" He paused. "Guessing if we stab the 'baku' kanji it'll explode."

"Most likely," Itachi agreed. "Perhaps disrupting the connections through the innermost spokes…?"

"Can't get 'em all at once," disagreed Zabuza. "Tag'll go off. We need to cut it off at the ignition sequence."

Itachi nodded once, and they both returned an intense scrutiny on the seal.

"Ah - " Haku said delicately. "Do you know what the ignition sequence looks like?"

Itachi and Zabuza exchanged glances and didn't answer. Zabuza, under his mask, was scowling.

"I may be able to identify it if it is identical to one I have seen before," Itachi offered.

Zabuza sighed.

"Ah," said Itachi, and lightning-fast, sank his kunai into a tiny portion in the top right corner of the seal that, to Haku's eyes, looked just as indecipherable as the rest. Haku flinched at the abruptness.

"Fuck!" snapped Zabuza, jerking back in alarm, and only relaxed when after five seconds, nothing had exploded. "A bit of warning, next time?"

Itachi watched the cracks spread through the seal, chunks of the stone crumbling to the ground. "This I was certain of," he said. "If my next attempt is less so, I will be sure to alert you."

Zabuza snorted. "Whatever, shortstack. Let's roll."

Itachi, though himself dwarfed by Zabuza, still had almost a head on Haku. His movements were not as obviously predatory as Zabuza's prowl - at first glance at his stride alone, one might mistake him as a civilian. But his steps were too controlled for that, his every movement carefully calculated and executed. His center of balance stayed stable and his eyes steady. He seemed perfectly comfortable in the dark. Haku, padding at his shoulder, felt as clumsy as a newborn calf in comparison.

The last time Haku had been in this level, he had been nearly incoherent with fear, anticipation, and overwhelming confidence in Zabuza's crusade to kill the Mizukage and bring Kirigakure into a new era of prosperity, one where neither of them would be reviled for the circumstances of their birth or the blood that ran in their veins. That failure had brought them back here once again. It beat with his heart and tugged at the edge of his thoughts, but this time, Haku knew, would be different.

This time, it was not simply him and Zabuza against the Mizukage. There was the captain, fierce in battle; there was Itachi, silent and deadly; there was Shisui, quick with a blade and faster with his wits.

There was Mei who wielded poison mist in one hand and lava in the other, Ao who stared at Zabuza with disdain but the loyalists with anger, Maiko who had never looked down her nose at him once - not here, not when they were all Kiri shinobi proper. They, Haku did not trust so much, not when Zabuza had raised the cry of dissent the first time and they had not answered, but Zabuza had taught him to know that one would follow that which benefited their survival most. Until the Yondaime fell, the Hanran benefited most from Zabuza staying alive.

A second set of seals carved above the archway before the entrance to the first vaults flickered faintly under the light of Zabuza's torch, and the three of them came to a halt before it. Zabuza glanced at Haku. "Hey, kid," he said. "You remember which ones are safe to take out right away?"

Haku's heart sank. He turned reluctantly examine the seals, but he could hardly make heads or tails of the intricate designs. "No, Zabuza-san," he admitted.

Zabuza didn't even look at him. "Me neither," he muttered, squinting at the carvings, and Haku let out a quiet breath he hadn't known he was holding. "See a 'baku' anywhere?"

"No, Zabuza-san," Haku said again after a pause. "Here's a 'suki,' though."

"'Kan,'" Itachi noted, examining the other side.

"'Sukima.' Crevice," Zabuza finished. "Pressure detection seal drops intruders through the floor, I bet."

"We need not disable this, then," Itachi said, stepping back to give the arch. "I believe it will be safer to avoid touching the ground until we are clear of its range."

Zabuza shrugged. "All right. Sure."

Their footsteps echoed against the stone wall as they walked, and the further they went, Haku sensed the room seem to unfurl before their path, the ceiling stretch up and up without ending. After the narrow tunnels and low clearance serving as a constant reminder just how far under the face of the earth they ventured, Haku could almost believe they were aboveground once again.

Zabuza dropped back onto the ground and lifted the torch, and the rows and rows of shelves cast yawning shadows in the narrow aisles. Haku followed him down and squinted into the darkness but could not see where the shelves ended. A bizarre assortment of objects either crated or freestanding, all labelled with tiny placards, piled high on those shelves. On the closest, Haku spotted an open-top box full of plastic water canteens, the kind civilian athletes favored. Beside it sat a large rack of battle kama of different shapes and sizes, but all with a familiar wicked curved blade.

"This is what Kiri hides away as precious?" Itachi's voice was neutral as ever, but Haku thought he heard a hint of skepticism.

"Yeah, no idea," Zabuza grunted. "Let's go. Don't touch anything; pretty sure there's something rigged to take your hand off if you take something without the right procedure."

"Aa," Itachi said, eyeing something on the far end of the room. "I will resist the urge to steal...cans of paint."

"You do that," Zabuza agreed, taking the lead down the center aisle. "It's gonna be tough, but try not to fall for the handpainted hairbrushes over there. You too, Haku," he added. "No socket wrenches for you."

"I'm not sure I'll survive the deprivation," said Haku blankly, but his gaze drew to the collection of hairpins they passed - in particular, a single hairpin adorned with a tiny metal phoenix. But Zabuza had no use for a Haku who liked pretty things.

Just as gradually as it opened up, the vault tapered to a bottleneck until they passed once more into a hallway as identical as any other they had already traversed. Haku turned his hands out again, let the sticky-damp air sift past his palms and through his fingers.

The air shifted, the flow truncating as it hit his hands. Haku opened eyes he hadn't realized he'd closed and watched the dead end fade into view as they approached. On either side was a wooden door set into a stone doorway, each with an iron ring instead of a doorknob.

Itachi gave each door a searching look. "I will take the right and return once it is clear," he said.

"Cool," said Zabuza. "Left one should have the way out. Yell if there's something you can't handle."

"I will not," said Itachi with dignity, and pushed the door open. It clicked shut behind him, swallowing him into the darkness.

"What do you sense, kid?" Zabuza's voice echoed for all that it was barely louder than a mutter.

Haku inhaled, breathing in the damp. A second, deeper breath carried hints of oil, more still of salt. He crouched to examine the floor more closely and watched the way the water pooled around them, comparing it in his mind to the drip-drip of the water from the ceiling and down the walls.

He tilted his head, considering. "Three, maybe four shinobi passed through twenty to thirty minutes ago," he decided. "Enough time for the water flow to return to normal, but not enough to disperse the scent in stagnant air."

Zabuza grunted assent. "Where'd they come from and where'd they go?"

Haku glanced at the door Itachi had gone through and inched closer to the door opposite. "Zabuza-san, may I - ah, thank you," he said when Zabuza brought the torch closer to the iron ring set in the wood. "They came from the main hallway and entered this door."

Zabuza lifted the torch zway again, and Haku stood, apprehensive despite himself. "Good," Zabuza rumbled, and Haku quashed his surge of pride.

"Three went through that door," Zabuza said offhandedly. "The fourth went through the other door hours ago, but that's Uchiha's problem now."

Haku jerked, a frisson of fear spiking down his spine. "Should - would it not have been wise to tell him before he went?" Haku asked, alarmed.

Zabuza sniffed. "Probably," he said. "Pretty sure he'll be fine, though."

Haku took a steadying breath. There was nothing to do but wait.

Itachi's chakra was muted but not hidden. Haku straightened as it appeared faintly at the edge of his awareness, and the door opened at last. Itachi stepped out, his hands empty and his armour as clean as when he had entered.

Zabuza gave Itachi an up and down glance and said, "What's with you? Someone give you trouble?"

"No," Itachi answered, a fraction of a second too slow. He shut the door behind him with a decisive thunk.

"You've got your swirly eyes on," Zabuza observed sharply. "Thought Hatake told you to keep 'em locked down."

Itachi blinked, and slowly the scything blades of his eyes swirled apart, back into individual tomoe. "I handled it," he said. "This area is clear. Are you prepared to continue?"

Zabuza paused. "Yeah, he said. "We're good to go."

Itachi jerked his head at the opposite wall and said, "Proceed."

Haku expected Zabuza to glare, to give Itachi a suspicious stare, or at least to prod him a little further, but instead he turned without comment. "On me, kid, and keep your senses sharp. Three potential hostiles."

Three potential hostiles became three confirmed hostiles and a silent, desperate battle in the vaults that housed ninjutsu scrolls older than the Warring Clans Era. Haku walked away with five bloodied senbon, a gash across his left bicep, and Zabuza's ire.

"I told you to save your chakra," Zabuza snarled.

"I apologize," said Haku meekly. He didn't regret it. The trajectory of the enemy's shoto would have severed or at least nicked one of the major tendons in Zabuza's shoulder. Instead, it glanced off the mirror Haku threw up on pure instinct.

Zabuza glowered. "Wrap that up," he snapped. "We have a rendezvous to meet." He stormed off to the corner of the room to glare at the shadows, ignoring the corpses sprawled haphazardly on the floor. Zabuza had known all three of them; his temper was blacker and his tone sharper for it.

The cut on Haku's arm wasn't deep, but his very blood around the wound itched. It pulled when he reached for the roll of bandages in his back pouch and when he tugged his sleeve up gently to reach the cut. In the flickering of the flame, it looked normal enough, but when he sniffed it, he could just about make out a bitter tang.

Itachi, who had entered the fight with a cold and distant efficiency, glanced over clinically. "Poison?" Haku winced. The irritated cloud hanging over Zabuza's shoulders darkened.

"Yes," Haku admitted around the end of the bandage between his teeth. "Eel blood on the blade, if I'm not mistaken. The exposure was minimal. It should not affect my combat performance."

Itachi nodded, and turned his sharp stare back to the shadows. Zabuza glared a little harder at the wall. Haku tied off the bandage with a neat knot and pulled his sleeve back down.

The icy silence persisted down the twisting corridors. Zabuza's sakki rose and ebbed. Had there been other shinobi lying in wait, they would have been alerted to the team's advance, but Zabuza didn't care. It was a dare. Haku had seen this mood before - Zabuza craved a fight.

Itachi normally tolerated no factors that might jeopardize a mission, and as such had no compunctions against commenting or even ordering Zabuza to keep it suppressed. But he didn't. He walked ahead of them at the point position, perfectly controlled, and completely ignored Zabuza's fluctuating killing intent. Every subsequent seal array was avoided or dismantled in one-word communications.

The final door was nondescript, worn and weathered wood bound with iron. Shisui and the captain's chakra signatures, muted but steady, hovered just beyond. Haku breathed silent relief to see them.

"Took you quite a while," Shisui noted lightly as the door opened and Zabuza stormed out. "Sit down. You'll need a break before we move on."

Itachi moved to his cousin's side, sinking to the ground gracefully. Zabuza did not. "Fuck that," Zabuza snarled. "Let's just gank that little fucker so we can get out of this shithole." His irritation had festered during the hike, and Haku saw the bits of his temper boiling over.

"Sit," the captain ordered, his voice low but hard.

Haku heard nothing but the beat of his heart in the absolute silence that followed.

Zabuza's killing intent twitched. Very slowly, he sat.

The captain nodded slightly and handed him three ration bars. "This is the last break we'll get before meeting Terumi's teams," he said. "Eat. Drink. You need to sleep, you have twenty minutes. Haku?"

Haku jerked, automatically taking the ration bar the captain passed over. "Thank you," he said.

"Get some rest," the captain said.

"Run into anyone?" Shisui asked. "We ran into some weird jounin who straight up gave up the second they saw us. And another two squads that didn't."

Zabuza took a vicious chomp out of his ration bar.

"Four hostiles encountered," Itachi reported mechanically. "Threat neutralized."

"That's not what I asked," Shisui said, shoving his shoulder into Itachi's. "You're really on edge for someone who neutralized the threat. The bodies that drop are behind you, cousin."

"Codenames in the field," Itachi said, but his shoulders slumped just the slightest when Shisui turned to look at him sharply.

Shisui, as he was wont, let it slide without further comment. "Okay, hey," he said. "What's the weirdest thing you saw here under lock and key? Because we found literally a wall to wall shelving unit full of skulls. Not just human skulls, but even mouse or lizard or deer skulls."

"A crate of fake jewel dragonfly hairpins," Haku volunteered.

"Paint," said Itachi at last. "One thousand and eighty-seven two-liter cans of sage green paint."

"That's - " Shisui paused. " - oddly specific. Hey, Z, what's one thousand and eighty-seven two-liter cans of sage green paint doing in the third level catacomb vaults?"

"Probably poisoned," Zabuza grunted. "Sell some paint to some other village, slowly poison their shinobi and civilians."

"Wow," said Shisui. "That's devious. And oddly domestic. World domination by particularly tasteful interior design."

"Soothing color," the captain commented.

Zabuza shoved the rest of his ration bar in his mouth. "That's the idea."

Perhaps that was a curious or inane topic to discuss on the brink of the most dangerous battle of their lives, but Haku could see Itachi's distant, focused intensity lose its edge, Zabuza's tightly-wound tension and temper loosen into readiness and not just belligerence. The captain had one arm resting on his propped up knee, watching the rest of the team with one hooded eye beneath the porcelain mask. It felt comfortable. It felt right.

Kilometers underground, deep in once-home now-enemy territory, Haku leaned back against the slick stone of the cave wall and let his eyes drift closed.

The gentle pulse of chakra next to him woke Haku more effectively than the hand on his shoulder. "On your feet, Ichi-kun," Shisui prompted in a murmur, and Haku's consciousness came swimming back through the murkiness of sleep.

Haku struggled upright, distantly mourning the loss of coordination before it returned all at once and turned his ungainly flailing into a smooth rise. Zabuza already stood at the edge of their torchlight, the flames glinting off Kubikiribocho's blade, and Itachi was a barely-noticeable shadow at his side. Haku felt a momentary pang of panic and guilt - he was the last one up, probably the only one to sleep, and they were all waiting for him. "How long was I asleep?" he rasped.

"Two hours," said Shisui blithely. Haku jerked, adrenaline sluicing through his veins and jolting him the rest of the way to full wakefulness. "Don't worry," Shisui reassured. "We hunkered down here a couple extra hours. Terumi's B-team's running behind."

"Weapons checks," said the captain. "We're a go for the assault immediately after we regroup with Terumi; we won't have time to take another break."

Haku ran his fingers along the holsters strapped along his arms, hidden under his sleeves. He could feel the press of the weapons pouch at the small of his back, the weight of the senbon sewn into the hems of his haori, the comforting surface of the bone-knife from San bound to his ankle.

Shisui patted down his kunai holster absently, sheathing his tanto back into its sheath strapped across his back. "I'm good, Taichou."

Itachi weighed the katana in his hands for a thoughtful moment before he said, "Ready."

Zabuza grunted, Kubikiribocho dangling loosely from one hand. "Been ready. Kid?"

"Hai," said Haku. "I'm ready."

"Good," said the captain. "Let's go."

The final hallway sloped gently to the antechamber preceding the stairs down to the fourth and final level of the catacombs. Worn seals lined the wall, but someone had dragged a blade through them all, and cracks spiderwebbed the surface. But like the seal, the newest cracks' sharp edges had softened with time; these had been damaged long ago and never repaired. A metal ring high on the wall sat empty, and Zabuza reached up to set the torch there.

Zabuza swivelled to eye the rest of the room. "First ones here," he noted. "Think we got the easy one?"

"Maybe that's why Terumi didn't want us taking this route," suggested Shisui.

"She was more concerned that this team stayed together and unsupervised," Itachi pointed out.

The captain ignored them all, prowling on light feet around the edges of the room before circling back around to the rest of the group. "Clear, or as much as it can be," he said. "Standby."

Shisui sank down onto his haunches, letting his legs sprawl out in front of him and leaning back against the wall. "Hey, Z," he said. "We've been underground for eighteen hours. You came all the way down here to try and kill the Mizukage? Why didn't you just give it a go when he was in his office or something?"

"He's got guards up there," growled Zabuza, remaining planted firmly on his feet with his arms crossed over his chest. "Easy to call for backup, and an entire village to back him up. I knew he did private training sessions down here, and that he left his guards behind for that. Just didn't know it was 'cause he's a jinchuuriki."

"Ah," said Shisui. "That does tend to throw a wrench in one's assassination plans."

Haku crouched hesitantly next to Shisui, who nodded companionably in his direction. On the other side of the group, the captain and Itachi stared intently at each other and communicated entirely with their eyes and truncated hand signals.

"Haku," said the captain, turning to him abruptly, and Haku jolted. "How are you?"

Haku blinked, his mind momentarily stalling. "Well?" he tried.

The captain paused. "How are you feeling? How are your chakra levels?" he amended. "You slept a little earlier."

"Oh," said Haku, grateful for the mask hiding his blush. "Yes, I - my chakra is - " he hesitated just a split second, enough time for Zabuza to lever a warning glare in his direction. "It's not completely replenished," he admitted. "I am still not entirely recovered from my...last major injury. My mobility is impaired as well." The memory of the hot burn of steel through his abdomen flashed through his mind, but he fought to keep his breath from stuttering. Zabuza glowered a little harder.

The captain watched him with one dark eye glinting in the torchlight. "Your safety comes before this mission," he said quietly. "Stay out of the fight, and if anyone comes after you, get out - out of the level, out of the catacombs, whatever it takes."

"What about Mei-san, and after…?" Haku ventured.

"We don't know that will actually happen," said the captain.

"We can handle ourselves, kid," interjected Zabuza. "You're no use if you get yourself smashed into a pulp by Yagura."

"We'll be fine," Shisui added. "It'd make life easier if you were there, but you know, we'll live."

"Aa," agreed Haku, and resolved to be there at the end of the battle. "I understand."

"Haku!" Zabuza barked, because he knew Haku too well.

"Zabuza-san?" Haku answered politely.

"If you die," Zabuza threatened. "I'll fucking kill you. Someone comes after you, you run. Got it?"

"Hai," said Haku, and amended his resolution to retreating if necessary and then returning to fulfill his duty. Zabuza's glare darkened.

"Incoming," reported Itachi, forestalling any further efforts by Zabuza to corner Haku into a situation he couldn't maneuver his way out of.

Haku shot to his feet, and Shisui followed more slowly, stretching languidly to loosen his muscles.

The captain took a deep breath. "Terumi's team," he said. "One mild injury. Burn."

Zabuza sauntered back around, seemingly casual, and Itachi closed the gap so the five of them were arrayed in a loose formation, one from which it would be both easy to attack and easy to defend. They waited.

"Good nose, Commander," commented Maiko, stepping out of the darkness of the middlemost hallway.

"Good ear, Commander," responded the captain politely.

Mei swept around the corner, the cobalt hue of her battle-dress as pristine as when they had last seen her. Makoto and Fuminshou flanked her on either side, the former with a bandage wrapped from forearm to palm. "Good, you're here," she said briskly. "Your team's status?"

"No major injuries, weapons check complete," said the captain. "Ready to move."

"Glad to hear it," said Mei.

Zabuza crossed his arms. "Where the fuck's the old man?"

Mei cut a sharp glance over. "Ao's team ended up with the somewhat more difficult route. They ran into trouble, but they're on their way now."

Zabuza rolled his eyes. "Taking his time like - " A barrage of kunai hissed from the darkness, cutting him off.

The captain, closest to the door, took the brunt of the damage. He whirled, but wasn't fast enough to dodge the spray of kunai. One caught him in the throat and he collapsed to his knees, choking as the strength left his legs.

Itachi's reaction was immediate and brutal. He spat a fireball that blazed white in the darkness of the cavern, but Yagura twisted out of the way and planted his feet once again, a clone splitting off to stand at his side.

"You've caused a lot of trouble," they said in unison. Yagura's voice, as ever, was deceptively gentle. "Mei. Won't you stop this?"

Mei, chakra rising in waves as it coalesced around her hand, stepped forward. "No more talking," she purred, but venom dripped from her voice. "We've talked enough; it's nothing but the same hot air, over and over and over. There will be no end to the Bloody Mist until you are dead."

"I'm sorry you feel that way," Yagura said regretfully, his brow furrowed just the slightest between his eyes.

"He doesn't seem insane," noted Shisui as an aside, but his voice was icy rather than playful.

"That's why wecallhim the 'mad kage,'" Zabuza said grimly. "So we don't forget the messed up shit he's done."

Zabuza and Haku had both done some rather morally ambiguous things in the past, but at least neither of them had presided over the forced enlistment and deaths of over fifty percent of their Academy students or the annihilation of entire clans. Yagura had learned at the knee of the Sandaime Mizukage, for whom the crowning jewel of his career was the sack of Uzushio and massacre of its entire shinobi force.

"You keep interesting company these days. The prize is Kiri, yet I see we have some nuke-nin with us," Yagura mused, nudging the captain's body with his foot. With a soft puff, the captain's clone dissipated.

A hand exploded out of the ground and snapped around Yagura's ankle, dragging him down into the stone. The captain pounced out of the ground, lightning wreathing his hand as he slammed a kunai into Yagura's exposed head. That clone too popped with a cloud of white smoke, but hidden in that smoke a volley of kunai hissed out.

"When the fuck did you have time to make a kage bunshin?" Zabuza demanded, prowling around to get behind Yagura.

"Oh, you know," the captain said vaguely, leaning back to avoid a kunai that went hurtling centimeters from his face.

"This one's a clone too," said Mei, her words clipped. "Bastard sent them to size us up."

"It's good to see you all," said the Yagura-clone, swinging his staff up. "Surrender, please. There is no need for more waste." He turned slightly towards Itachi, tilting his head inquisitively. "A Hatake and an Uchiha? And Yukihyou, I don't believe you're one of mine either, are you?"

"None of us are yours," said Maiko coldly.

"Give it up, Yagura-sama," said Mei. "Your Kiri has fallen, your shinobi no longer stand with you. It's over."

"They will fall into line again once I have taken care of you," Yagura promised, and jerked his staff up to deflect the trio of senbon Fuminshou sent flying. "Their disloyalty will be punished, and Kirigakure will be stronger for it." He turned towards the Konohan shinobi. "You - if you are looking for a village, all I ask is that you turn back now. You will have a place with me once this battle is over."

"Trying to recruit Kage-Killer Kakashi?" Mei purred, but the chakra at her fist roiled turbulently. "Desperate, are you? Not afraid he'll add another to his tally?"

"I'm flattered, both of you," said the captain, shifting his crouch into a more comfortable pose. "But, Terumi-san - I wouldn't say that's a nickname I'm fond of, and Yagura-sama, you did just try to kill me."

"It was not a sincere effort. You need only stand aside," Yagura entreated, lowering his staff. "This isn't your fight, but it can still be your home."

Mei's temper and chakra both reached its boiling point. "Enough!" She spat a wave of lava, her battle-dress snapping around her heels.

Yagura flipped up onto the ceiling, out of the way, landing in an easy crouch. "Think about it," said Yagura softly. "Enough blood has been spilled already."

Maiko's sword bisected his head a second later as the commander blurred forward in a vicious attack, and the clone dissolved into smoke. "I've enough of your lies," she said, low and velvety. She landed firmly on both feet, her sword swept out at her side. "Let's end this."

"Let's," Mei agreed in a low growl, striding for the stairs.

"We're missing the final team, still," the captain said, rising to his feet, not quite in Mei's path but not following her either. "There is no element of surprise. Wait."

Mei tossed a sharp glance over her shoulder. "I know you're not telling me what to do," she said lightly, belying the steel in her voice.

"No," agreed the captain. "But my team will not move forward until every effort to succeed has been made, and now, that includes waiting for the third team." Mei's eyes narrowed into a glare, but the captain didn't so much as flinch. "Go, if you like," he said, "but it won't be with us."

A short pause. Mei's glare turned into a speculative up-and-down. "I suppose a break wouldn't hurt," she decided at last.

In the shadows behind the captain, Makoto relaxed out of a crouch, letting his hand drop from his blade. Shisui turned his hunter's stillness into an easy stance.

"Damn," muttered Zabuza under his breath wistfully. "Now that's a fight I wanna see."

In the temporary detente, Fuminshou padded over to where Haku stood at the corner of the room, settling next to him with his hands tucked around his bracers. "Good hunting?"

"Aa," Haku agreed, watching as Shisui ambled over to Maiko, gesturing to her katana and asking her something in a low murmur too soft for Haku to hear. Maiko held out the blade for his inspection, her guarded posture opening to his friendly overtures. "Yondaime-sama does not have many loyal shinobi left."

"No," said Fuminshou. "You haven't been in Kiri recently," he said, and though there was no accusation in his voice, Haku felt a fist twisting in his throat. "The more he lost, the more Mizukage-sama punished. There are very few now who don't have scars from his anger."

Haku clasped his arms in his sleeves, mirroring the other former hunter-nin. "What was it, for you?" he asked. "What finally made you leave? You said you'd never abandon the Village."

Fuminshou fell silent, staring blankly at the darkened stairwell. "Higanbana," he said quietly.

Haku's heart dropped. The third of the recruits who entered the hunter-nin corps with Fuminshou and Haku, the last of them who yet lived. "What happened to her?" he asked.

"Mizukage-sama hung her brother from the post in front of the Tower," said Fuminshou, the words dropping from his mouth like stones. "She protested, and he had her whipped there as her brother's blood dripped on her from above." He huffed a humorless laugh. "And still, she defended him. 'He's the Mizukage. I was out of line. I let my emotions get the best of me.'" He sighed, deep and regretful.

"A crime, a punishment," Haku replied, just as quietly. "You told me that, before."

Fuminshou didn't speak for a long moment. "I'm tired," he admitted. "You and I and Higanbana - none of us have a very good chance of living past twenty-two."

"You've never cared about that," said Haku.

"I didn't," agreed Fuminshou. "But I never had a choice in joining the Academy or becoming a shinobi, or swearing loyalty to Kiri and Mizukage-sama." He glanced down. "I'll never be anything but a shinobi, now. A shinobi's role is sacrifice, but I won't sacrifice so that another generation of children can be ground in the dirt for being born rotbloods, for all their loyalty." He slanted a glance sideways at Haku. "Look at you," he said, an odd inflection in his voice. "You're only twelve. You were drafted to the Corps when you were ten to prove a point."

Haku could not refute. "What happened to her?" he asked instead. "Higanbana. Is she all right?"

"I don't know," said Fuminshou. "I asked her to run away with me, she brought my own team down on my head."

"I'm sorry," said Haku, closing his eyes.

"Yeah," Fuminshou murmured. "Me too."

Movement caught Haku's attention as the captain turned towards the last hallway, closely mirrored by Zabuza. Zabuza snorted. "About time."

But of the five members of the team, only two trailed Ao out into the light of the atrium. The captains Oomugi and Senkibi did not. Ao met Mei's eyes with a grim look.

Mei's mouth pressed into a thin line. "Rest a moment," she ordered softly. "Then stand guard here with Makoto. Kabocha, Satoimo and Higata, you will come with me and Fukaya. This is the last battle."

Fuminshou gave Haku a last nod and retreated to the rest of his team. Shisui likewise closed ranks so that the Hanabi-ha shinobi clustered in a loose formation.

For a moment, they just watched each other. Then Zabuza crossed his arms and said, "Let's cut the touchy-feely Leaf shit. It's a fucking mission, we're going to kill the fucking Mizukage. End of story."

Shisui huffed in amusement. The captain said, "Watch each others' backs. Our priority is that everybody on this team walks out of there alive."

"Copy that," said Shisui, all trace of humor gone.

"Hai," Haku agreed, and Itachi nodded once, sharply.

"Good," said the captain with finality. "Let's go."

The final descent into the fourth level was unremarkable but for the heat ratcheting up another notch. Sweat glistened on Maiko's neck and soaked through the captain's hair, trailing down to soak into the cloth of his mask and underarmour.

Unlike the first three levels, the fourth didn't have a maze of winding corridors and hallways rigged with traps. Instead, the room at the bottom of the stairs opened to a larger room, and that one to the massive sealing chamber engraved from walls to ceiling with hundreds of seals, which the Mizukage used as a training room. Perhaps there was more beyond that, but Haku had never been past the sealing chamber.

Mei made no attempt to hide her footsteps, and they reverberated about the room like the beating of war drums long past. The carved seals yawned above their heads, torchlight flickering along a narrow trough in the walls.

Last time he and Zabuza had come down to the sealing chamber, the Mizukage had been by himself.

This time, Yagura was not alone.

A slight figure lounged on the steps of the center dias, leaning on the hilt of the Twinsword braced between his legs. He rose at their approach, slick white hair draping momentarily in front of his face. His gaze slid past Mei at the head of their procession, Maiko and Ao flanking her, past the captain in his one-eye-scorched cat-mask, Itachi in his borrowed hunter-nin mask, and Shisui in his Konohan leopard mask, and lit on Zabuza. He ducked his head in an entirely sincere bow and greeted, "Sempai."

"Hozuki," Zabuza answered. "You gonna keep standing there?"

"Afraid so," said Mangetsu with an apologetic, pointy-toothed smile.

"Hmph," said Zabuza, settling his weight back more evenly. "This one's gotta be mine, Hatake," he said, keeping his eyes on Mangetsu; the captain hummed low under his breath and nodded assent. "Kid, with me."

Haku sidled along the length of the wall, and Mangetsu gave him an easy grin. "Good to see you, Haku-kun," he said.

A second figure sauntered forwards from behind the dias, giving the assembled shinobi a careless glance. "Ah, Yukihyou," said Akagawa in a throaty purr, prowling along the steps to Mangetsu's side. "We meet again. It seems the gods' own will that we test each other in battle once more."

"I think it'll go just like the Rishiri Islands did, don't you?" Shisui said lightly, sliding his tanto free in an easy motion.

Movement blurred out of the shadows. Maiko darted in front of Mei and caught the descending katana on hers with a loud crash. The Yondaime's Anbu commander glared at the shorter woman with icy eyes as he bore down, and chakra blazed as Maiko anchored herself along the cavern floor. Fuminshou hurled a pair of senbon and the Anbu commander jerked away to evade. Mei continued forward, unbothered, stalking past the center dias to the rear of the room as her commander strained up against the blade of her former superior.

"Stay on me, Uchiha," said the captain. "Mei, we'll do it with five."

"Indeed," Mei said, honey-smooth and predatory, and raised her voice as she prowled forward. "Yondaime-sama! Your traitors are home. There is nowhere left to run."

Chakra roiled through the cavern in reply, malevolent and overwhelming, and Haku's breath stuttered in his throat. Zabuza flinched, one hand on Kubikiribocho's hilt, and Mangetsu faltered, the smile on his face hitching.

"Ah, now you've done it," said Mangetsu, flowing the rest of the way down the steps as if he had never stopped. "Mizukage-sama is well and truly pissed now." He passed Shisui, who advanced up the steps to Akagawa, but neither of them so much as glanced at the other.

Steel clashed on steel as Maiko and the Anbu commander drew apart and met again, but Haku had eyes only for Zabuza's slow prowl as he circled to meet Mangetsu. Zabuza brought Kubikiribocho to bear; Mangetsu raised Hiramekarei.

"He's always pissed," Zabuza growled, and lunged. Kubikiribocho's blade skidded against Hiramkarei and into its hooked curve. Mangetsu twisted and yanked, but Zabuza met strength with strength, bracing against the ground, and caught them in a deadlock once again. "Suiton: Suiryuu Sanrendan no Jutsu," he spat.

Mangetsu leapt backwards, disengaging Hiramkarei as a water dragon crashed into the space where he'd been standing. He narrowly avoided the second, and the third crashed straight into his head. Hiramkarei faltered as the rest of the ninjutsu spilled onto the floor.

Mangetsu's smirk reformed before the rest of his face, the eerie glint in his eyes reappearing last of all. "Ah. You got me," he said lightly. "But you'll need something a little stronger to keep me down, sempai.Hiramkarei Kaihou."

Zabuza formed and substituted a mizu bunshin in the same breath to take the brunt of the damage, and Haku darted up the wall as Hiramkarei sent a barrage of chakra-blue needles flying in every direction.

With the additional height and distance, the entire battleground stretched before him, lit in glowing shades of orange not only by the firelight on the walls, but the burn of magma beyond the dias and the bloom-and-fade of katon. The air was thick and hazy, and when Haku lifted his hand, soft curls of ash landed on his outstretched fingers.

The Sanbi's chakra hung hot and heavy in the enclosed space, battering against Haku's skin and warring with his own chakra. Haku had his ice running through his chakra system, but even his skin itched, on the verge of blistering.

Zabuza planted his feet, raising Kubikiribocho easily to his shoulder. Mangetsu, wisps of steam wafting off his bare skin, lowered Hiramkarei to his side and waited.

From the time they left the Academy, as they learned and gained experience, shinobi added more ninjutsu to their repertoire, and their clashes grew fiercer, more colorful, and more destructive. But at the highest level of battle, juxtaposed with Mei and the captain and the Mizukage throwing army-killer jutsu at each other on the far side of the dias like genin might throw kunai, were two of the Seven Swordsmen staring each other down - choosing as their primary weapons not much more than the basics.

Zabuza lunged first, Kubikiribocho hissing towards Mangetsu's neck. Mangetsu twisted, sliding under the massive blade with millimeters to spare, and scythed Hiramkarei in at Zabuza's unprotected side.

Zabuza slapped the flat of the blade down with a bare hand, hard enough to jar Mangetsu's entire arm, and in the intervening moment, Haku flicked a single senbon at the pair. It hissed into the space between Zabuza's arm and Hiramkarei as each flowed around the other and sank cleanly into the tenketsu in Magnetsu's shoulder.

Mangetsu's sword arm dropped abruptly just a hair even as he snatched Hiramkarei's second hilt with his other hand, but Zabuza took the split second opportunity to plant his elbow in Mangetsu's face. It splashed apart, and a blob of water detached itself from the rest of Mangetsu's body as he staggered backwards and launched itself at Zabuza's face. It latched onto Zabuza's mask and wormed its way underneath, covering his mouth and nose - a drowning on dry land.

Except Zabuza inhaled it forcefully through his open mouth and swallowed.

Mangetsu paused, eyes wide. "Did you justdrinkme?" he demanded, as mist coalesced to reform the top half of his head. His shoulder liquefied to drop Haku's senbon to the floor with a clatter.

"Fuck," said Zabuza empatherically, but sounded queasy. "Fuck, I'm not thinking about that shit."

"Nobody told you to do that, sempai," Mangetsu said reproachfully, prowling back and forth with slow, sure steps to keep Zabuza's bulk between him and Haku. His pounce came without a warning, Hiramkarei whistling through the air towards Zabuza in a two-handed blow. With just as much strength, Zabuza swung Kubikiribocho to meet it, but Mangetsu ripped the Twinsword's hilts apart, teeth bared in a grimace of concentration as the two blades converged on Zabuza from both above and below.

Zabuza twisted sharply midair, but he was too close; the first of Mangetsu's blades struck solidly against Kubikiribocho, the second glanced off the top and scored a gash along the length of Zabuza's collarbone. Mangetsu flicked a finger at Zabuza as the older Swordsman jerked backwards, and a tiny blur shot past Zabuza's chin and embedded itself a meter into the wall behind him.

The infamous Hozuki water bullet assassination technique. Haku reacted before the thought finished, darting sideways along the wall, and hurled a wave of senbon with enough force that the effort stole his breath. Mangetsu ducked, the second water bullet burying itself in the ground as Haku's senbon forced him backwards.

"You've trained your little weapon well, sempai," Mangetsu noted, the ghost of a smile on his face as he ducked and wove out if Haku's furious hail.

Zabuza rolled his shoulders, retrieving Kubikiribocho from where it'd planted itself tip first in the stone. "That's enough, Haku," he growled. "Save that shit for a bigger fish than Hozuki."

Haku, reluctantly, stayed his hand, but kept his fingers curled loosely around his senbon. His breath rasped in his throat as he settled in to watch, creeping steadily higher on the wall.

Mangetsu tilted his head, eerie violet eyes regarding Zabuza clinically. "There is nothing to save for. I'm afraid this is your last battle, sempai," he said apologetically. "Mizukage-sama has a kill on sight order for you."

Zabuza grinned toothily. "You think you'll be the one that'll off me? I've been doing this since you were in diapers."

"I will learn from you, as always," returned Mangetsu deferentially, and crouched, one blade swept behind him and the other cocked before him.

Zabuza swiped the dripping blood off his chest absently and smeared it into the steel of his broadsword. "Let's do this like Swordsmen," he growled. "Kirigakure no Jutsu."

Voluntarily entering a Kirigakure no Jutsu with Mangetsu, the Kijin no Sairai, was generally quite fatal; given the choice, Haku would have high-tailed it clear of the mist despite his own proficiency at silent killing. Mangetsu couldn't quite physically melt into the mist droplets, but he was untouched and Zabuza's blood betrayed him to the air even as his mist billowed out into the cavern. Zabuza, however, had built a name for himself with silent killing even before joining the Swordsmen, for stalking and assassination and slaughter out of sight of his prey, and even leaving such an obvious blood-trail, he was a formidable opponent.

The mist was saturated with Zabuza's chakra and blood, the scent cloying at the back of Haku's throat, and Mangetsu's chakra too rose up into the air to even the playing field. Rather than stay in the heart of the mist, where he was a clear liability, Haku opted to retreat, skittering back towards the entrance as it chased him.

On the hazy edges of the mist, Shisui clashed with Yuugure Akagawa, blade on blade, and sparks flew each time metal struck metal with a thunderous crash. Shisui slipped in and out of Akagawa's reach, but she was a mid-caste veteran of Kiri's jounin forces and her assault wasn't easily shaken.

A particularly strong blow of Akagawa's sword sent Shisui skidding backwards. In the second it took for him to regain his balance, her hands flashed through seals around her katana's hilt.

The ground rose up to snap at Shisui's feet, catching and tearing at his leg, and he threw himself into an instinctive shunshin sideways as Akagawa's blade flashed towards him from the front. He reappeared at Akagawa's flank, out of range of the douton, but the older kunoichi turned on her heel and caught Shisui's tanto close to her katana's hilt. Shisui shoved, and with a flare of his chakra a clone appeared at his side and sprang at Akagawa's unprotected back.

Akagawa dropped straight into the ground as it liquidized at her feet, and Shisui's clone lunged through open air and vanished. The real Shisui straightened calmly, the tanto slightly upraised at his side. He turned, the blank leopard-mask angled exactly towards where Haku perched on the wall. "I'm fine," said Shisui quietly but very clearly. "Watch the others."

Haku, chagrinned, jerked his attention away. His mission here wasn't even to back up Zabuza - a useless venture, in any case, with him and Mangetsu locked in their duel in the mist. Haku turned his attention past Fuminshou and Maiko tag-teaming the Anbu commander to the roiling chakra in the furthest depths of the room.

From the far side of the dias, the Sanbi's chakra pulsed again, foreboding and inexorable, and its miasma battered against Haku's skin even some hundred meters away. At the epicenter of its storm, a faint green mist shrouded Mei and Satoimo, keeping the bijuu's chakra at bay. Itachi's slight form lit up in a cloak of fire; it and the malicious chakra ate away at each other hungrily, each striving to devour the other.

Satoimo flitted forwards, water drills at her back, and the Mizukage whirled forebodingly to meet her with his hooked flower-staff twirling deftly in his hand. Satoimo reared back before she hit the water mirror, but her mirror image lunged out at her, blade in hand. Beniko flashed forward as Satoimo met the clone's blow, and a lightning-fast slash where the third and fourth cervical vertebrae would be dispatched the clone and sent its water drills splashing back to the ground.

The Mizukage stood in the center of the battlefield in a cloak of the Sanbi's chakra, his impassive expression at odds with the malice emanating from him in waves. Undeterred, he let the mirror dissolve and slammed both hands coated with the Sanbi's chakra into the ground, sending thousands of tiny specks exploding outwards.

Haku ducked as something rocketed towards his face, and his hands flashed through seals to raise an ice shield before him as the tiny projectiles peppered the wall around him, hitting his ice with quiet clinks where they stuck. Haku peered at them through the translucent ice - they were tiny corals, irregularly shaped and firmly glued to its surface.

On the ground, Mei's hand snapped out, and a wall of molten lava shot up in front of her and Beniko. The coral hissed as it impacted, shrivelling into black lumps. Satoimo, much closer to the Mizukage, cried out as the coral splattered against her face and arms. The captain, just behind Satoimo, covered his head with one vambrace, shielding his masked face from the brunt of the attack. Itachi flitted backwards and wove in and out of the coral, and not a single one so much as touched the ends of his hair.

The barrage stopped. For a split second, all the combatants stood frozen, eyeing the coral scattered on the walls, the floor, and each other.

The coral erupted all at once, multiplying in size and weight as it grew. Haku's ice shattered as the coral burrowed into its surface, and he hurriedly created another mirror to drop onto as more crowded the wall around him.

Satoimo had time for one panicked gasp before the coral enveloped her from head to toe. Blood and viscera sprayed as coral punctured muscle and bone alike. Her body dropped to the floor with a soft thud and was rapidly buried under the massive polyps.

The captain staggered under the sudden weight of the coral and his hands blurred through the seals to light himself up with bolts of lightning. They crackled over his form and the coral, and bits of the burnt creatures flaked off his form. Too little too late - the captain went down as the polyps smothered his mask. The blood that marked the spot where he had fallen, however, vanished into a nearly imperceptible white smoke as Haku watched.

Torchlight flashed off metal as without hesitation, Maiko's sword snapped out and took off Fuminshou's arm below the elbow, and the massive bloom of coral sprouting from his forearm with it. It crashed to the ground and Fuminshou stumbled backwards, clutching the stump of his arm even as Maiko moved to put herself between her maimed teammate and the impassive Anbu commander. "Retreat," she ordered Fuminshou, her voice tight.

The loss of a hand was a career-ending injury for a shinobi, and almost always fatal. Fuminshou, his face white and blood streaming from his arm to splatter on his clothing and the ground, backed away.

The coral stopped growing, but the battlefield now was uneven and treacherous. Silent and terrible, the Mizukage presided over the epicenter of the carnage with a blank face, power and pure chakra radiating off his figure. Haku shivered as the Sanbi's sakki washed over him.

Mei's mask cracked, as she turned first to the spot where her kunoichi had fallen, then to watch Fuminshou's wavering retreat, her fury twisting her face into an ugly scowl. "Monster," she snarled. "Youton: Youkai no Jutsu!" and Beniko darted out from behind her, katana sheathed in favor of a supporting douton.

"Goodbye. This is the end for you," the Mizukage said quietly, and his ire, amplified by the Sanbi's malevolence, swamped the combatants. At once the Bijuu exploded out of his small form with a ferocious cry and a bloom of corrosive chakra. The Sanbi loomed over the three shinobi at its feet, pale flames licking its shell and one golden eye squinted in hateful resentment as it opened its hooked mouth and spat a rolicking tidal wave that swamped Mei's lava and turned it back on her.

The Sanbi's chakra roared through the entire chamber, burning away Zabuza's mist and slamming both the Anbu commander and Maiko, locked swords and all, into the far wall. Haku dropped fully into his mirror, frantically bolstering it with his chakra a split second before the shockwave crashed over him. The edges of his ice burned, steam billowing up in opaque white clouds, but it held. When the chakra abated, Haku pulled himself out from the protective envelopment of his ice. He saw no sign of Shisui or Akagawa; whether both had escaped or had been burned to ash, he could not tell.

Zabuza, his armour liberally splattered in blood and a deep slash through the midriff, rose up from behind Kubikiribocho, planted firmly in the ground as a makeshift barricade, and prowled purposefully towards the Sanbi, heedless of the coral warping his path. He yanked the broadsword out of the ground as he passed it, and the side that had faced the jinchuuriki's assault bubbled, half the blade eaten away by the corrosive chakra. Behind him lay Mangetsu, the color of his skin and clothes washed out and his body half-formed in a pool of water. Hiramkarei, its twin blades joined together once more, lay where it had fallen just beyond its owner's outstretched hand.

The Sanbi crouched suddenly, and Mei shouted, "Run!" as she herself bolted. Beniko stumbled, her foot tangled in the coral, and the captain reappeared in time to tackle her out of the way of the beast'sKagenade.

The jinchuuriki blasted past in a whorl of chakra, burning furrows in the ground in his wake and narrowly missing Itachi as he dropped out of his shunshin. The Sanbi hit the wall with a thunderous crash that rattled the entire cavern and set the seals etched in the walls aglow as they resisted his power. He turned far too nimbly than his bulk suggested possible, and barrelled straight for Mei in a flash.

Not even Mei would try to stand against a transformed jinchuuriki head on. She whirled out of the way, the skirts of her battle-dress flying; having missed his target a second time, the Mizukage-Sanbi skidded to a stop in the center of the cavern. He swiped glowing claws at her and this time she stood her ground and spat an acid mist that burned the reaching claws. "You're not invincible," she purred, only slightly breathless as the sweat plastered her hair to her face.

The jinchuuriki only snarled in response and stamped a foot to summon coral bursting forth from the ground towards Mei. Beniko slammed chakra and both hands into the ground and an earthen pillar carried Mei up and out of reach. The demon turtle whirled on Itachi instead, snapping at the comparatively tiny figure too fast to dodge.

"Susano'o." Instead of flesh, the Sanbi's mouth closed around a great skeletal ribcage forged of chakra glowing a fiery red. At its epicenter, Itachi stared up calmly, arms loose at his side as the jinchuuriki drew back with a frustrated cry.

Zabuza's chakra coiled around him as he growled, "Suiton: Mizurappa!" The jutsu roared ahead of him, crashing down with enough force to dislodge the coral from the ground and send them swirling along the ground. It was a strong jutsu with all of Zabuza's ferocity and will behind it, and the Sanbi, eye still fixed on the spectral skeleton over Itachi, didn't even bother to glance at him as it broke against his chakra cloak.

But the suiton and the heat of the Sanbi's chakra worked just as effectively as the Stormbringer's tempest had aboard the Jurojinmaru, and the air around the captain crackled as he moulded lightning to his will. Even so far away, the captain's proclamation of,"Raijuu,"set the hairs on the back of Haku's neck standing on end. The raiton screamed out of the air, and in the closed space the wolf rivalled the Sanbi in size. It lunged at the bijuu fearlessly, snapping at its neck, and the Sanbi let out a piercing cry as blue-white lightning sparked over its shell.

Mei's chakra surged in time with the captain's. "Youton: Akkorokamui!" she breathed, and the tentacles of her lava-beast, large enough to match both the Sanbi and the captain's Raijuu, caught the hobbled Sanbi in its grasp and squeezed.

Zabuza's chakra surged again, and this time he growled, "Suiton: Fuyudori!" From the depths of the chamber, a great bird winged its way into existence, trailing seafoam from its feathers as it dove. It was graceful and wild and powerful, and even next to the captain's Raijuu, it was the most beautiful thing Haku had ever seen. It swooped low over the Sanbi and raked razor talons over the bulbous head, wheeling around for a second pass.

The Sanbi screeched deep in its throat and wrenched itself back and forth to no avail; the ninjutsu beasts held it fast. Its beaked mouth parted, and in that space gathered a ball of chakra, dense and a malignant purplish-black that pulsated a sakki so oppressive Haku's heart stuttered in his chest. Beniko barely flinched, flashing through the seals to turn the ground beneath the Mizukage into a sticky swamp.

Still, the Bijuudama grew.

Mei's chakra swirled about her form, dense and potent yet only a pale flame beside the Sanbi's. "We almost have him. Don't let him go!"

"If he gets that off, we all die," the captain shot back, but his Rajuu gripped the Sanbi's neck tighter and yanked its head to the side with still more savagery.

"Do not release him, Taichou," Itachi said, his voice soft but firm below the shriek of battle.

As Haku watched, the skeleton ribs around Itachi grew a skull, then four bony arms, until the bony frame of a massive humanoid of that fiery chakra bloomed around him. It held out one hand and in it a narrow sword formed even as muscle layered itself over its arm.

The Sanbi jerked to face the forming Susano'o, heedless of the lavaakkorokamuiconstricting around its shell or the lightning wolf worrying at its throat. Its eye narrowed, and the chakra at its mouth stilled, an oddly innocuous orb with only a dainty violet glow to betray the pure, potent power condensed within.

"Itachi," the captain warned, terse, as the Sanbi's chakra reached a fever pitch. Itachi's head dipped in acknowledgement, and instead of gaining bulk the Susano'o held out another skeletal hand and summoned to it a great fiery shield.

Two things happened at the same time. The first: the Bijudama rocketed free of the Sanbi's jaws with a shriek of rushing wind and fire. It tore through the air and obliterated Zabuza's Fuyudori, leaving only hot steam in its wake as it shot towards Itachi. The second: Itachi's eyes flicked up sharply.

"Yata no Kagami."

The Bijudama ricocheted off the Susano'o's shield. The Sanbi's eye had time only to widen before its own orb struck the jinchuuriki full in the chest.

Haku scrambled back into the protection of his ice desperately. The resulting explosion threw out a white light so complete Haku could see nothing but black, and the force of the shockwave shattered his mirror and hurled him from its shards. He hit the wall and cracked his head against the stone, then plummeted to the ground, his lungs paralyzed as his fingers scrabbled feebly for his senbon. He coughed, blood filling the back of his mouth and throat with its metallic tang, and he forced his head to the side to let it spill onto the ground.

Absolute silence rang harsh in his ears. Haku blinked away the darkness and reached for his chakra to haul himself to his hands and knees, and his head spun and throbbed in unison from the effort. All around the cavern, containment seals carved into the walls lit up, whole and potent with the absorbed chakra, but others had cracked, raining chunks of stone down onto the scorched battlefield.

The bijuu's chakra had burned away save a faint glow shrouding the Mizukage's form, the massive Raijuu and Akkorokamui jutsu annihilated in the same blast that hobbled the Sanbi. Only the skeletal ribcage of Susano'o remained, looming protectively over Itachi's slight form, but even he had been thrown against the wall like a ragdoll. His mask had been knocked askew, and he reached up to pull it free entirely and wiped the rivulets of blood trickling from his eyes.

Zabuza's crumpled form shifted from the bottom of the steps leading to the dias. His pale armor had been scorched black, his sleeves burned away and the skin beneath blistered red. The captain, one hand braced against the ground behind the remains of the low douton wall Zabuza had raised to shelter them both, shook his head like a dog, bright crimson splattered in his hair.

The Mizukage turned, battered but upright, and prowled forward with pale pink eyes locked on Mei as she peeled herself out of a crater in the wall behind the crumbling remnants of her hasty barrier. Blood trickled from her mouth and soaked into her battle-dress, and she swayed on her feet. Beniko lurched into his path desperately, sword drawn and teeth bared, but her hair was matted with blood and her leg twisted unnaturally. The Yondaime backhanded her without a second glance, sending her crashing back down as he continued his inexorable advance.

Lightning crackled, but rather than the captain, it came from Shisui's fists, colliding with the chakra that swirled to meet it. Shisui flashed out of the darkness to intercept the Mizukage, and though their clash was muffled by the ringing silence in Haku's ears, the Mizukage's retaliation sent sparks of Shisui's yellow-white lightning showering through the air and Shisui skidding backwards.

The moment of distraction was enough for the captain to rise to his feet, and he darted forward with kunai in hand. The Mizukage whirled, miasma bubbling over his skin and clawed hand outstretched, and the captain summoned lightning to shield his kunai and match him blow for blow. But the energy in his hand fizzled out between one strike and the next, and even as Shisui dove back into the fray, the Mizukage slammed a chakra-wreathed fist into the captain's shoulder, a blow lessened only by the captain twisting to the side at the last minute. The captain fell with a grunt, and only Kubikiribocho, scything in a low arc just above his head, saved him from a second straight through the chest.

The broadsword struck the Mizukage's arm, shrouded in chakra to block the blade, and the corroded metal shattered. Shards sprayed over the Mizukage as he whirled to deflect Shisui's tanto lit along the blade with fire-chakra. Zabuza didn't even spare the breath to curse, his eyes narrowed as he lunged once more, and the jagged remains of Kubikiribocho's blade sliced neatly under Shisui's next raiton.

The Sanbi's sakki pulsed, and a wave of pure chakra blasted out from the Mizukage to blow the Hanran and Hanabi-ha shinobi backwards. Yagura stood in the eye of the storm unmoved and untouched. But Haku had been trained as a predator even if he wasn't quite one yet, and even from so far out he could see the Mizukage's skin blistering and healing in the same breath, slightly pinkened patches erupting and subsiding as his chakra lost equilibrium with his bijuu. The Mizukage had burned away his own and the Sanbi's chakra first with the Bijudama, then to shield himself from the same attack. He was, if not vulnerable, then a little less invulnerable than before. He surveyed the battlefield, his eyes as cold and empty as before, but the sharks were circling now, and like Haku, they tasted blood in the water.

Beniko splinted her own leg brutally with strips of cloth and the sheath of her katana, silently and with teeth gritted as her face turned bone-white from the pain. Mei hovered over her protectively, feet braced and her hands folded in a seal, but she had eyes only for the Mizukage. Chakra rippled around her, unformed and ready to be released.

Shisui and Itachi rose as one, twin hunters stalking forward - one shrouded with the fiery chakra ofSusano'o,the other merely a slight shadow with a mask and armour covered in blood. With a ragged Kubikiribocho in hand, Zabuza towered over the captain, who crouched close to the ground; with a sleight of hand so quick Haku nearly missed it, the captain slipped a chakra pill under his mask. His mismatched eyes tracked the Mizukage unerringly.

Mei exhaled a sigh and blew a mist over the Mizukage acidic enough to gnaw hungrily at the edges of his chakra shroud. The Mizukage's eyes narrowed and with a sharp jerk of one hand, he brushed the mist aside even as it scalded his bare arm.

Shisui pressed the attack, flowing in just as the mist dissipated, with his tanto wreathed in fire. Itachi lurked at his back. The Mizukage spun neatly out of Shisui's path, ducking his strike, and coral exploded out of the ground and narrowly missed Shisui. In that moment Itachi closed in, flowing forward even as Shisui fell back. He no longer had Susano'o's sword or even its arms, but its ribs sheltered him still as he cast a plume of fire that brushed the ceiling as it licked against the Mizukage's retaliatory suiton.

Mei strode forward while Beniko regained her feet, and the floor turned to magma beneath the Mizukage. He collapsed in a haze of mist, and reappeared behind Itachi as Mei sprinted across the boiling ground through the remains of his clone. Itachi whirled, the crimson glow of his doujutsu bright against pale skin marred only by bloody tear tracks, and spat a volley of fireballs.

The Mizukage's own eyes glinted predatorily in the darkness, narrowed as he twirled the bo staff in one hand and raised the other before him, and a watery mirror formed at his outstretched palm. Itachi's eyes widened, and he jolted to the side, but the Mizukage hooked the mirror flat and the mirror clones of both Itachi and Mei - youton, Susano'o ribcage, and all - sprang with them. Itachi's clone charged to meet him as he darted through the remains of the two katons' collision. Mei swerved grimly away from the Mizukage and her own mirror clone spat a stream of lava just as she did the same.

Shisui pounced at the Yondaime's back in his distraction, too fast and too close for him to call up another mirror, but his tanto skittered off the curved hook of his staff. Shisui twisted midair like a cat and caught the Mizukage in the back of the head with his heel in a glancing blow that nevertheless sent him stumbling forwards. Zabuza was ready and waiting for him, and swung hard and fast for the Mizukage's head. When the Mizukage twisted and battered the sword aside with his staff, Shisui blitzed back in, blade first, and the Mizukage shoved Zabuza off to parry Shisui.

Zabuza charged. The captain gathered a fistful of lighting that shrieked loud enough to cut through to Haku's muffled hearing and shone bright enough to leave imprints of its image in the air behind it. Just as the Mizukage spat a flurry of water bullets at Shisui, Zabuza brought Kubikiribocho crashing down overhead and the Mizukage aborted the rest of the jutsu to block, his face darkening into a scowl as the blow jarred his upraised staff. As fast as the lightning he wielded, the captain blurred under their locked weapons and plunged his hand up into the Mizukage's chest.

Haku's breath froze in his throat.

Zabuza backed up, Kubikiribocho still raised warily. Shisui, crouched on the floor, let the fire lighting his blade smoulder out. Itachi and Mei, their mirror clones vanquished, watched with chakra coiled beneath their hands, and Beniko paused halfway through a sequence of seals.

The Mizukage smiled.

"You should have gone for the head," he said gently, and laid feather-light fingers on the captain's arm still impaled through his chest. Coral exploded from the place the Mizukage touched, ripping its way along the captain's arm through cloth, armour, and skin alike to his neck and down his chest. The captain choked, sagged, and exploded into blue-white lightning. The Mizukage cried out involuntarily as the lightning crackled up and down his entire body, and he dropped to one knee, bracing against his staff.

Zabuza, never one to waste an opening, wrestled a water vortex into existence and sent it hurtling towards the Mizukage. A dragon dripping molten lava reared over Mei's head, and another of pale stone tore itself from the ground before Beniko. The two struck in tandem.

With an uncharacteristic show of rage, the Mizukage blasted all three converging jutsu back with a wave of pure, malevolent chakra and a snarl on his face. Zabuza's vortex evaporated with a hiss of steam. Beniko's doujutsu fractured, spraying the kunoichi with the remains of her own dragon, while Mei's solidified in midair and crashed to the floor nearly on top of her.

"Kage-Killer Kakashi, the Raijuu. You have my respect. The stories of your prowess are not exaggerated," Yagura said, the frayed calm in his voice now only a thin veil for the bloodlust that lurked underneath. Blood soaked the cloth around the ragged tear in his shirt. The hole in his chest rapidly closed, filled in with the Sanbi's chakra until organs and bone and skin knit themselves back together. The bijuu's chakra crept back to cover his skin entirely. And then, impossibly, his shroud once again sprouted a second tail.

"Fuck!" Zabuza aborted his charge, veering back towards Itachi. "Where the hell is he getting that chakra?"

"We need to end this quickly, before the bijuu regains its strength," Mei said tersely, stepping out from the shadow of her hardened lava-dragon.

"I think we just tried to," Shisui pointed out.

The Mizukage rose to his feet, spinning his staff up behind him. His left eye had drifted closed, and his right glowed a malevolent gold. "The end is near," he promised with another, more malicious voice in discordant unison with his dispassionate tone. "Killing brings me no pleasure, but for all your crimes, you fought well. I will remember you."

"Pretentious asshole," muttered Zabuza.

"Now is not the time to hold anything back," Mei warned. "Hatake - your tricks are clever, but they're not enough to bring him down."

The captain, squatting on the lava-dragon's head, said, "Hm."

"Yet the commander is the only one of us to have landed a significant blow," Shisui said with an edge to his voice. Mei narrowed her eyes but did not respond.

Itachi said, "Commander." Blood still dripped steadily from his eyes. The last ghostly remnants of Susano'o flickered and faded away when he blinked.

The captain turned to meet his eyes. "I'll take point," he said after a pause. "You know what to do."

"I can't do much, but I'll cover you," Beniko said grimly. "I - "

Whatever else she might have said was interrupted by the geyser that erupted under Itachi's feet without warning. He flitted to the side, the scything blades in his eyes whirling rapidly and his hands flying through seals, but the boiling spray caught him in the shoulder with enough force to send him flying. Itachi had just enough time, in the split second before a ring of the geysers slammed him into the ceiling, to exhale a dozen tiny butterflies with wings made of red-gold flames. The captain leapt to catch him before he hit the ground, spiriting him to the relative safety of the dias. He did not get up.

Shisui snarled, a wild, alien sound of rage so different from the unconcerned demeanor Haku had always known him to wear. His tanto ignited once more, and with a slash he hurled a crescent blade of fire at the Mizukage. The Mizukage jerked his hand up and another geyser slammed up and through the fire, and Shisui was forced to zigzag towards the far wall as the Mizukage's suiton burst out of the ground at his heels.

A flurry of tornados, nearly invisible in the flickering firelight, reared up behind the Mizukage as Zabuza poured his chakra into the fuuton. He sent them flying forward with a jerk of his sword, and the captain spat a fireball taller than himself and Zabuza combined. The katon caught Zabuza's tornados with a bright flash and a muted roar and barreled towards the Mizukage as a blazing maelstrom. Beniko slammed both hands into the ground, and a wall of rock rumbled out of the ground at the Mizukage's back, penning him in.

The Mizukage crouched, and the fire broke over the coral shell that snaked into place above him. As the last of the flames licked the scorched coral, he rose from its crumbing remains and sent large chunks shooting out towards Zabuza. Almost simultaneously, Mei spat a wall of lava to intercept the projectiles as Zabuza jerked in one direction and the captain darted straight for the Mizukage. A clone split from the captain and ran alongside, and when the captain summoned lightning to his open hand, the clone did the same. The lava closed over their heads, and the Mizukage's coral sizzled harmlessly against it.

The captain threw his hand out to his clone. Abuzz-snappreceded the jutsu as lightning jumped from the captain to his clone so that each wielded one side of the crackling blue-white cord. It sliced through coral and Sanbi-chakra alike as the captain and his clone darted in a wide circle around the Mizukage from either side, and the Mizukage snarled as it lashed his arms to his sides. He yanked on the lightning restraints, but the captain dug his heels in, bracing himself against the floor to hold the Mizukage down. The Mizukage stamped a foot, and stone blades coated in the Sanbi's chakra hurtled towards the captain, only to be intercepted by Zabuza's suiton whipping through the air. Itachi's katon butterflies, since forgotten in the chaos, alighted delicately on the Mizukage's shoulders and detonated one after the other, rocking the very air and sending the Mizukage to his knees.

"Youton: Jigoku-mon," intoned Mei breathlessly, her eyes smouldering with a feverish light. Hell's Gate.

Lava cascaded from the ceiling and exploded from the floor, four columns framing a massive wall of superheated stone. It lit the cavern with its yellow-white glow and engulfed the Mizukage's hunched form from above and below. The captain leapt out of the way as the two halves of the youton collided. Sakki surged, thick and suffocating as the Sanbi's chakra warred with Mei's lava.

The Mizukage screamed.

It was raw pain and rage and desperation in the same breath and it sliced through Haku's mostly-recovered hearing. The Sanbi's chakra faded, burned away by the inexorable force that was Terumi Mei's kekkei-genkai.

A minute ticked past in plodding seconds. A second passed, slower than the first. The youton wall dimmed, turning black as it cooled.

Mei peeled back the lava with a wave of her hand until the Mizukage's head was exposed. The Sanbi's chakra had saved him from immediate death, but even a jinchuuriki must have limits. Patches of untouched skin on his face patchworked with scorched skin cracked to reveal raw flesh beneath. The acrid scent of burnt meat drifted through the air as Mei advanced slowly.

The Mizukage's rose-pink eyes were calm as he watched her approach. He did not struggle. Haku wondered how much of his body was still intact, if his nerves still worked, and if he could feel pain.

Mei stopped in front of him, and for a silent moment, their eyes met and held. Whatever Mei saw in his, her eyes softened. "I will take care of Kirigakure, Yondaime-sama," Mei said, wrapping her fingers around his throat lightly.

"I know," said the Mizukage wearily, and his eyes drifted shut as Mei squeezed.

Zabuza huffed a sigh. The captain let the lightning sparking weakly around his hands fade away.

Beniko slammed her hands into the ground and hurled a barrage of scale-shaped stone blades at the captain. The captain whirled, the tomoe of his doujutsu spinning madly as it calculated the path of least damage. The blades hissed audibly through the air as they shot towards him, blurs of pale grey too fast to distinguish.

Haku was faster.

He crossed the space as fast as light, bursting out of the mirror he threw up in front of the captain and deflecting each stone blade with a precise senbon. They rained down between them harmlessessly, and Beniko narrowed her eyes. Haku, his chakra curling about him in icy waves, let another set of senbon slip down between his fingers and waited.

"What the fuck, Mei?" Zabuza said, sounding neither surprised nor particularly concerned. Haku looked him up and down critically. Except for the skin covered by his vambraces, his arms were scorched and raw, and blood pulsed sluggishly out of a slash in his midriff. He held Kubikiribocho easily in one hand, nothing in his stance suggesting he was in pain.

Ao melted out of the shadows, sliding around the side of the dias, and in a blur of movement Shisui dropped out of a shunshin between him and Itachi in a hunting cat's crouch, tanto held before him warningly. Haku didn't turn to look, not with Beniko in front of him and the captain at his back, but he cast his senses out and picked out a heartbeat stalking along the far wall - Makoto, then. But then that heartbeat was joined by another, then another.

Haku created a mirror with a handsign and a twist of chakra, and between the jumping shadows cast by the firelight caught sight of the newcomers - members of the team that had stayed behind on the second level.

"We don't need to be your enemy," the captain said levelly, his mask angled slightly towards the fresh team. Shisui, poised protectively in front of Itachi's unmoving body, said nothing, but his sakki curled off his form threateningly.

"It's nothing personal," Mei assured him. She made no move to call off her shinobi. Instead, she tilted her head towards Zabuza. "One day," she said, and Zabuza twitched. "Just one day."

Zabuza considered her silently, Kubikiribocho loose at his side. For all that he resented the Village and all that had been done to him in its name, Kirigakure was still Zabuza's home; for all that he had spent over a year cutting them down, those shinobi were still his comrades. If Zabuza chose Kiri over Hanabi-ha, Haku would do his duty.

You said we wouldn't let her,Haku thought wildly but didn't say aloud. You brought me here to stop her.

The captain was spent; Haku had seen him taking the chakra pill earlier, and that was a short-term solution leading to an even worse crash. Shisui had fought Yuugure before joining the battle against he Mizukage. Itachi was unconscious.

If ever there was a time for Zabuza to switch sides, it would be now. He rolled his shoulders. He eyed Mei, regal and battlestained; Shisui, crouched low to the ground as he warded off Ao; the captain behind Haku, watching Zabuza back. He focused on Haku, then, and surely he couldn't see Haku's uneasiness under his mask, but his eyes sharpened decisively. "Sorry, Mei," growled Zabuza, stepping between her and Shisui. "You're gonna have to go through me."

Mei nodded, betraying her disappointment for a split second, before her eyes hardened. "That won't be a problem, old friend," she purred.

The captain cleared his throat politely. "I would reconsider," he suggested, and when Haku turned his head so the captain's face was at the edge of his field of view, the tomoe revolving in his eye morphed into hooked, scything blades dark against the bloody glow of his Sharingan.

Shisui hissed a startled breath between his teeth, his shock on full display for a split second before he wrestled it back down.

Mei's eyes flicked between the captain and Shisui warily. She didn't know what that change in doujutsu meant - Haku barely knew - but between Shisui's reaction and what she had witnessed of the captain's battle capabilities, it was enough to make her hesitate. Her eyes narrowed. On the ground, Itachi's eyes slit open. He made no move to rise, but Mei caught that movement as well, and her mouth firmed into a grim slash. "And here I thought we agreed to hold nothing back," she commented lightly.

"It was a one-sided agreement from my perspective," the captain deflected, loose and casual. "I never agreed to such a thing. And I don't believe you hold the moral high ground here."

A battle here, now, would grow very messy very fast. Mei knew that. She had underestimated the Mizukage as much as they had, and she was paying the cost in exhaustion. And if the Hana-ha shinobi hadn't been fighting all out before, they certainly would now.

Zabuza, as he did so well, radiated smugness. Haku allowed his frigid chakra to surge at his tenketsu, and frost crept across his hands.

"Fine," Mei said magnanimously, and signalled Ao with a jerk of her chin. "Stand down," she ordered her shinobi, and slowly, they eased from their predatory stances. Mei turned back to the captain, who had closed his Sharingan, relaxing his posture into a careless almost-slouch. "You can go," she said, brusque. "Return to the surface. Zabuza knows the way."

Itachi sat up and rose to his feet, brushing his clothes off facetiously, and in the far team, Deitan jumped like a startled cat. Shisui stretched languidly and sheathed his tanto.

"Maa," the captain said lightly. "I don't think we will. Someone will have to tell the others if you all die a horrible death resealing the Sanbi."

Haku's eyes snapped involuntarily to the spot where the Mizukage was suspended. The only part of him visible was his hair, dusky grey and streaked with blood and soot.

This time, Mei couldn't hide her irritation when she snapped, "Fine. Stay out of our way." She didn't have the manpower to make them leave, and they both knew it.

The captain hummed and patted Haku's hair absently. "Go," he directed.

Their team converged, Haku and the captain weaving around the debris to where Shisui and Itachi waited at the base of the dias, and Zabuza stalked towards them with a suspicious glare at the Hanran shinobi clustered at the far wall. Shisui stretched languidly, twisting around to watch Mei with blatant curiosity.

Zabuza stopped abruptly not far past the dias, glaring incredulously at a conspicuously empty patch of ground. "Son of a bitch," he grumbled. "Those Hozuki brats just never die." The half-puddle, half-man that had evidently not been Mangetsu's corpse had vanished, and Hiramekarei with its owner. Zabuza slanted a glance over at Shisui. "You sure yours stayed down?"

"No," Shisui admitted. "I got in a pretty good hit, but to be completely honest, I didn't think it'd be worth it to hunt her down after the Bijudama."

Zabuza shrugged. "Eh. Not our problem."

"Yet," the captain interjected, long-suffering. "It's fine."

A darker shape caught Haku's eye and he reached up his sleeves for his senbon, but it was just Maiko, limping towards Mei and the Mizukage grimly. Her shoulder was bound roughly with torn cloth, and her neck bled sluggishly from a thin slash along her jawline, but she held her head up proudly. Behind her lay the Anbu commander, impaled by his own sword, which stood straight up from his chest like a mast. She nodded at Zabuza as she passed, quirked a smile stained with blood at the edges. Zabuza huffed a silent laugh and flipped her an ironic salute.

"Here," said the captain, veering off to a corner. "This is about as good of a vantage point as we'll get." A better vantage point would have been up the wall, but Haku was pretty sure none of them wanted to expend the chakra for that.

"Hey, Z, give me your arms," said Shisui. "How the hell have you not gone into septic shock? How much blood have you lost? Do you feel cold?"

"I'm durable," Zabuza said blankly. "Quit babying me."

"Sit down," the captain ordered. "You're about to lose both of your arms unless you get medical attention right now." He did not offer his; Haku was quite certain that given his chakra levels, he could not.

Zabuza, glowering, sat. "Shoulda let Mei barbeque you," he muttered spitefully.

The captain loomed over him benevolently. "What was that?"

"I'm sitting," Zabuza snarled.

Haku slid down to sit with his back against the wall, and Itachi sank down to join him. Behind and above them, glowing lines of chakra still flickered along the stone, ebbing now that there was no bijuu damage to contain. The light danced over Itachi's face. He had deactivated his doujutsu a while ago, but rusty tear tracks still trailed from his eyes to his jaw.

Shisui crouched in front of Zabuza and snapped his fingers. Nothing happened. Zabuza eyed him dubiously. Shisui's mask tilted slightly in consternation, and he snapped his fingers again, to the same result.

"Can I get a new medic?" Zabuza drawled. "This one's broken."

"Shut up," Shisui grumbled, and snapped his fingers a third time with greater emphasis. Green chakra sparked at his fingers, flaring up before settling down towards his palm. He traced his hands down Zabuza's arm to the edge of his bracer, silent as he concentrated. "Take that off," he said absently. Zabuza tugged it off gingerly, baring a clear divide on his skin between burned and unburned. Shisui hissed between his teeth. "Shit," he muttered under his breath, and let the iryou chakra fade.

"Shit? What 'shit'? Hasn't anyone ever told you not to say that in front of the patient?" Zabuza demanded, but the line of his shoulders tensed uneasily. "Oh, wait,I definitely have,the last time you pulled that bullshit on me."

"I'm not an iryou-nin, I don't need to follow those rules," Shisui fired back, clearly distracted. "Taichou," he said, then hesitated.

The captain was already watching. He hiked his mask up to the top of his head, tugging down the bandana over his closed Sharingan as he leaned around for a better look. "Too deep," he said, dark eye crinkled in disapproval.

"Yeah," Shisui agreed, poking experimentally at the edges of a burn. "This - this tissue is all dead. It'll eat into the healthy stuff. Necrosis."

"Fancy medic-nin language," the captain noted dryly. "But yes. It's all going to have to be removed."

"You can't fucking skin my fucking arms!" Zabuza spat, jerking back.

"Calm down and stop moving," Shisui snapped. "Taichou and I can't do that - that's major trauma surgery. You have to be on Shizune-sensei's level to handle something like that."

Zabuza was not appeased by this. "So you're just going to let me walk around with dead fucking flesh that willeatthe not-burned flesh?" he demanded.

Shisui rolled his eye. "You'll be fine til we get back topside. It's not that fast. What's important is - "

"Dehydration," the captain finished. "You will die very soon unless you get more fluids in you. Also, infection. Septic shock."

Haku shifted uneasily. "Ha," said Zabuza.

The captain did not laugh. Shisui did not laugh. Itachi did not laugh. Zabuza eyed them warily. "You're serious," he realized.

"Haku-kun," said Shisui. "You got enough in you for a small suiton? He needs to drink and probably a blood transfusion." He glanced at the captain for confirmation, who nodded.

The only source of water down here was on the far side of the room, separated from them by the dias, Mei, and an unconscious jinchuuriki. Creating a cup out of ice and filling it with water took just a little chakra and even less effort. He reached out to give it to Zabuza, but Itachi intercepted him, plucking it neatly out of his hand.

"Rinse the burn with cool water," said Shisui, in the tone of someone reciting from a manual, and Itachi splashed its contents onto Zabuza's arm.

"Ow, motherfucker!" Zabuza snapped.

Shisui passed the cup back. "Could you refill that, Haku-kun? He does need to rehydrate. Itachi, help me? I have a couple punctures I need bandaged."

"Blood transfusion," said the captain. "What type are you, Momochi?"

"What, you gonna do it here?" Zabuza demanded. "The fuck, you carry IV shit around with you?"

A pause. "Yes?" said the captain, sounding more sheepish than Haku had ever heard him. From a pouch under his armor, he pulled out a compact med kit. Inside were three different kinds of bandages, two types of tubing, a roll of tape, another of needles of varying shapes and sizes, suture thread, and more that Haku couldn't see.

"Holy shit," said Shisui, vaguely stunned. "Taichou." Itachi, unaffected as ever, continued wrapping the stab wound just under Shisui's collarbone.

"You know how to start an IV, right?" the captain asked briskly. "Momochi, blood type."

"Of course," Shisui said.

"A," muttered Zabuza. "Positive."

"Hey, me too," said Shisui, "but I don't know how much I can give you and still be combat ready."

"I'm type O," said the captain. "I can give some."

"I'm O as well," Haku interjected quickly. That much he knew, but how it was relevant to the blood thing he didn't know.

Itachi lifted his head slightly. "I am AB."

"You are the least useful one here," Zabuza informed him helpfully.

"I'll start," said the captain, selecting two large needles and a wrapped alcohol patch. He uncoiled a length of tubing and did something to the ends involving small plastic bits and the needles that ended with a double-ended needle-tube. Then to Zabuza, "Lie down."

"You're fucking kidding me," growled Zabuza, having watched the captain with an increasingly incredulous squint. "You're not fucking serious." The captain glanced at him mildly. He waited.

Zabuza glowered for just a second more in protest of the inevitable and then eased himself down slowly. Haku stripped his cloak off hurriedly, passing it to Shisui, who bundled it roughly under Zabuza's head.

The captain tied a band around his bicep, yanking it tight with his teeth. He swabbed a patch of skin on his arm with practiced movements and inserted the needle in one smooth jab. The captain unclamped the tube and it filled with blood, spurting out the needle on the other end before he plugged it.

"I just have to say," said Zabuza, putting up one final, halfhearted defense. "What the fuck."

"Hold still," Shisui admonished, frowning now that he could see the wound tearing through Zabuza's stomach more clearly. Blood already saturated the cloth around the rip, darkening it to a reddish-black. "Give me the suturing stuff. I'm going to stitch him up or everything we put in leaks back out.

While Zabuza was distracted, the captain swiped the crook of his arm and jabbed the second needle in. "There," he said, as Zabuza sputtered. "Drink your water."

"Hey, Haku-kun," said Shisui, threading a curved needle. "You know what's going on over there?" He nodded over to the other side of the cavern.

"Not yet," Haku said. A single handseal was all he needed to create a pair of mirrors, angled to give him an unobstructed view of Mei's team.

"Take care not to spend too much chakra," Itachi warned.

Haku registered his voice only faintly. "They're drawing blood seals," he said, hushed, as he watched Maiko direct the others. "Mixing ink and blood, tracing the seals on the floor." The mirrors, thin, fragile things, flaked and crumbled away as he spoke.

"Speaking of blood," Shisui interjected pointedly. "Taichou, you lost blood too."

"Hm," said the captain. "I did. Only a few more minutes from me, then." He stiffened abruptly in the middle of adjusting the needle in his arm, turning towards the door. "Someone's coming," he said, as Itachi and Haku swivelled to look. Haku reached for his chakra.

Zabuza tried to sit up. Shisui thwarted his efforts with a firm hand on his shoulder. "I'm trying to keep your guts inside your body," he admonished.

"It's that fucking bastard. I can feel his chakra," Zabuza snarled. "Fucking Michishio."

"Z, if you pop these stitches before I'm even done with them, I'll knock you out," Shisui threatened.

Itachi's eyes swirled crimson, watching the entrance with a half-lidded stare. "He is not alone."

A boy the same age as Haku, with blue-black hair falling over his eyes and a metal cuff around one wrist, stumbled into the chamber, dragged by Michishio's iron grip on his upper arm. The Hanran captain's other hand rested on the nape of an even younger girl's neck, propelling her forward. Her hair was a burnished orange, falling past her shoulders, and she like the boy wore plain clothing and a shackle on her wrist. Haku watched them without comprehension.

"Shit," Shisui breathed, stunned. "The Rishiri kids. They're too young. No, they're tooold."

"No," said the captain grimly, tracking their progress. "They're not."

"Mei's taking a gamble so she'll have a fighting jinchuuriki quickly," Zabuza growled. "Worked on Yagura. Worked on that - "

"They will have spares waiting in the wings, in case these two are not compatible," Itachi noted, passing Haku a clean needle and a cloth to tie around his arm and nudging him to his feet. "The two younger ones we recovered."

"Shit," Shisui snarled, though his hands stayed steady.

"Someone else would have been chosen, if they were not," the captain said quietly - regretfully. A few quick movements and a sharp prick in the crook of Haku's elbow, and the captain was pressing a bandage against his own arm as blood flowed through the tube from Haku to Zabuza.

"Yeah," Zabuza grunted. "These guys just have a better chance of not dying. Boy's probably descended from the Rokubi's first jinchuuriki by the looks of him, and the girl's a half-blood from Uzushio."

"Yeah," echoed Shisui. But Haku could read his silence well enough, and it said,if these two die, that's on me. If one of them becomes the jinchuuriki, that's on me. Everyone else - Itachi and Zabuza and the captain - politely pretended not to see, because there was nothing that could be done about it.

"Let's get this over quick," Zabuza muttered, gesturing limply with his free arm. "I don't wanna be on my back when the Sanbi breaks out."

"You don't ever want to be on your back," Shisui said under his breath. "But here you are anyways."

Shisui was probably the only one who could say that and not immediately become the target of a spirited murder attempt, and only because Zabuza was uncomfortably close to death himself. "So help me gods, Konoha," Zabuza hissed. "I will disembowel you and feed your guts to the sharks."

"You always say the sweetest things," Shisui said, pausing with his sutures to pat Zabuza's head. Zabuza slapped his hand away.

"Behave," the captain said absently, dropping down next to Zabuza and letting his head fall back against the wall.

Shisui tied off the last of his stitches, slapping a bandage and some tape over top of it. Haku refilled his ice cup and passed it back to Zabuza, who took it with a grunt. Itachi's eyes, now dark, half-lidded, though they flicked back and forth watchfully.

Chakra flared up suddenly, a massivewhooshof yellow-gold on the far side of the dias. Haku's head snapped to the side to see a second and third plume, even both even bigger than the first, force back the darkness as two more seals activated simultaneously.

"Okay, that's enough out of you," the captain murmured, suddenly at Haku's side. He slid out the IV needle with a deft movement and pressed a piece of gauze against the crook of Haku's arm where it had come out. "Hold that." Haku obeyed automatically.

"Take it out of me," Zabuza growled with the barest edge of apprehension, struggling upright as the seal-chakra surged. Then, "Shutup,Konoha."

"Did you hear me say anything?" Shisui drawled, plucking the needle and tubing from Zabuza's arm and replacing it with a bandage.

"Quiet," the captain ordered, shoving loose pieces back into his med kit with movements Haku would have called frantic on anybody else. "Status check, all of you."

"Mild concussion," Itachi reported, "but functional. Multiple cracked ribs. Chakra levels...twelve percent." He looked to Zabuza expectantly.

"I'm fine," Zabuza said automatically.

"Momochi," said the captain.

Zabuza rolled his eyes. "Three major injuries, all life-threatening, all of them you patched up, plus bruised ribs, chakra levels fifteen-twenty percent."

Shisui patted himself up and down. "Two stab wounds with moderate bleeding, other than that, minor injuries only," he said. "Chakra is twenty-five percent."

"Minor injuries only," Haku echoed. "My chakra is at forty-five percent."

"Good," said the captain. "Get ready to move."

"And yourself, Taichou?" Itachi asked pointedly, if politely.

The captain paused, and for a moment Haku thought he wouldn't answer. "Fractured humerus, bruising, damaged knee, possibly internal bleeding. Minor head injury. Chakra at eight percent. Haku, if there's an attack, you're first defense." He nodded at Shisui. "You're second."

"Did you fucking bluff Mei witheight percent chakra?"Zabuza hissed.

"Shit, Taichou," said Shisui. "You need ten percent just to walk around. How are you still upright? And put a brace on that knee for gods' sake."

"Great effort," said the captain. "Chakra pills exist. If something does happen, we leave. Fast."

Haku pushed off from the wall, rocking onto the balls of his feet. Shisui shuffled from his seated position into a low crouch. The others, in deference to their varying levels of dangerously low chakra, stayed sitting. The captain grudgingly swathed his knee in bandages.

On the far side of the dias, Maiko's chakra burned brightest, vivid blue twining with all three seals. One by one, the chakra signatures of the other Hanran shinobi joined in at the edges of the seals, bolstering the boundaries.

With a ferocious rush, the Sanbi's chakra roared out, a red-black wave that dwarfed the tiny blips of the shinobi. The sakki hit seconds later, heady and heavy and overwhelming, and it shoved Haku's breath back down his throat as his legs went weak beneath him.

"Steady, kid," Zabuza growled, as Itachi caught Haku by the shoulder and propped him up.

"Sorry, Zabuza-san, Itachi-san," Haku said breathlessly, pushing himself upright against the wall with a trembling hand.

The Sanbi screeched its fury and defiance as the yellow-gold chakra net of the containment seal snaked up and around its shell, dragging it down when it reared up. But the beast's struggles were weak; even more than of the shinobi holding it back, it had spent itself in the previous battle already, and Maiko's seals were strong. Maiko shouted something, inaudible beneath the Sanbi's shrieks, and a high, agonized scream joined the chorus. The brilliant yellow-gold of the seal chakra melted into a deep orange. The chakra net flared bright and constricted, and the Sanbi's chakra bulged around the ropes of the net as it jerked its entire body back and forth.

Shisui's teeth ground together audibly as the scream continued, raw and tortured and terrified. His fist clenched and loosened again at his side.

Maiko's chakra blazed, the net burned white, and between one moment and the next, the Sanbi vanished mid-roar. The scream cut off abruptly, leaving behind a ringing silence.

The glow of the seals remained, but the sealing team's chakra each faded to a muted glimmer. Haku could still feel the Sanbi's chakra, but rather than a blazing inferno, just a suggestion of flame. He breathed, and he could feel the rise and fall of his chest once more.

Itachi frowned, tilting his head.

"The second one, start the second seal!" Ao shouted.

Haku flinched as the Sanbi's chakra exploded back into the stagnant air. It seethed against the nets that sprang up to snare it once more, and Haku caught a glimpse of a furious golden eye before the chakra cords wrenched its head to the side. It bellowed its hatred, and the force of its rage shook the air.

Maiko barked hoarse orders at the sealing team, even as her chakra rose to meet the Bijuu. She had to have taken chakra pills like sweets, but the net frayed despite her best efforts. The demon turtle's mouth snapped shut on a length of the net and ripped it wide open; it shrieked its triumph and forced its head through the gap in the seal. Mei's chakra blazed as tendrils of lava snaked up to encircle the Sanbi's shell and drag it back.

"Right, time to go," the captain decided, and Haku jumped at the abruptness of his voice in his ear. "This is officially not worth it. Either they seal it in a stable jinchuuriki or they keep it sealed long enough to kill it. Juu, take point. Haku, rearguard. Get us out of here."

"We waited all this time," Zabuza groused.

"Yeah, to keep you alive," muttered Shisui, whisking around the corner. "Clear."

Itachi inserted himself neatly under Zabuza's arm without a word when the taller man tilted dangerously, and the captain pushed upright, ambling after Shisui as if he had time and energy still for leisure.

Haku let his ice curl around his hands and watched his team's back.

Kirigakure was on fire. But as Sasuke liked to say when he inevitably lit something on fire, 'just a little.'

"What the fuck," said Zabuza, as the team surveyed the burning buildings. He sagged a little more on Itachi, who made no complaint, just shifted to accommodate Zabuza.

It was not the most reassuring first sight as they emerged from the underground. A whole squadron of Hanran shinobi sprinted past without recognition of the bedraggled assault team. Ten seconds later, a squad of Hana-ha shinobi did the same above them, darting from rooftop to rooftop.

"Juu," said the captain, his voice just a little strained.

"Hai." Shisui leapt up the Mizukage Tower, ricocheting off the side of the building to intercept the team. He grabbed the nearest man by the arm, batting aside the shinobi's wild kunai easily and pulling him into a loose headlock when he went for another. "Sitrep, chuunin," he ordered. "What's going on?"

The rest of the man's squadron wheeled to gather in a loose formation surrounding Shisui, who turned neatly to keep them getting behind him. "Good effort, but stand down. Sitrep," he repeated, giving the chuunin a little shake.

The chuunin glanced between Shisui - who was wearing a mask completely coated in drying blood and absolutely nothing to suggest he was in fact a Hana-ha captain - and the rest of his squadron a little wildly.

The captain showed mercy to the beleaguered shinobi by calling up, "Hey." The squadron all turned as one, even the chuunin Shisui was still holding, to see the captain in his distinctive one-eye-scorched cat-mask and commander's armband staring back up at them. "Answer the captain. Some time today, if you don't mind." Perhaps it would be a good idea to give all the captains armbands, or even the all the ranking shinobi, as Kiri did.

"Oh, shit," muttered the senior genin. "I, uh - we - sir, Captain? Commander!"

"Shut up, Makura," the chuunin snapped, looking like he wanted nothing more than to pinch the bridge of his nose. Shisui let him go with an absent pat on the shoulder, and the chuunin did exactly that. "Sorry, sir. The loyalists mounted an attack about an hour after the Mizukage Assassination Team went in, I'm guessing because most of the Hanran Command took part. Commander Nara coordinated the defense and counterattack, but some of the buildings ended up as collateral."

"Some," Shisui repeated. He deliberately did not look at the flames licking over a rather large percentage of the inner Village. "Where are you assigned? What's the threat level?"

"We've been rerouted to guard the teams putting out the fires," the chuunin explained. "Threat level low. We were told there aren't any known active enemy combatants."

"So it's not a battlefield, it's just on fire," said Shisui. "Right. On your way."

"Sir," said the chuunin, saluting both Shisui and the rest of the assassination team.

Shisui dropped back down off the building as the chuunin rounded up the rest of his squad. He stretched languidly. "Threat level's low, so I propose that we head straight to Medical."

"Go ahead," said the captain. "I need to check in with Nara and Command."

Shisui and Itachi exchanged glances. "Yeah, I got this," said Shisui. "You go on."

"Nah, we can wait," Zabuza said. "I wanna watch. Hey!" he sputtered, as Itachi dragged him away bodily.

"If you cannot stop me, you do not have a choice," said Itachi serenely.

"I can't stop you even if I'm not burned to shit, you psychedelic freak!" Zabuza growled.

"Yes," said Itachi.

Haku wavered. His place was at Zabuza's side, but Zabuza was in Itachi's hands and therefore as good as in the hospital tent already - and Shisui might need backup with the captain. He settled for turning so he could keep both Shisui and the captain, and Zabuza and Itachi, in his field of view.

"Hey, Taichou," Shisui said conversationally, his hand landing heavily on the captain's uninjured shoulder. "You're probably at about five percent of your chakra levels right now, which means that if I shove you, you'll fall, and if you fall, you'll pass out in the middle of this street, and if you pass out in the middle of this street, it'll be bad for morale." He brought his bloodied mask in close to the captain's. "If you don't agree to come to Medical right now, I'm going to shove you."

The captain glared. "That's treason."

"You're not my Kage."

"Insubordination."

"I'll take my chances with the disciplinary action."

"Rude."

Shisui shrugged. "So I'm an asshole. Not a crime."

Shisui waited. The captain tried to pretend he wasn't wobbling on his feet.

"Command - " the captain started.

" - can take my report after I get you to the medics," Shisui interrupted. "Last I checked, I was still a captain."

"I'm demoting you," said the captain.

"Uh huh," said Shisui. "Do you need to lean on Haku-kun?"

A pause. "Yes," the captain said begrudgingly.

Haku was short enough that the captain's hand on his shoulder could still look like the captain was guiding him, instead of Haku taking on a large portion of the captain's body weight. Fortunately, the captain weighed far less than Zabuza, who Haku had carried on more than one occasion.

Shisui pushed into the hospital tent first, and the frenzied activity stilled abruptly. The captain took his hand off Haku's shoulder, stalking the rest of the way inside under his own power. Haku pulled off his mask and his haori and bundled them together, waited six seconds, then slipped in after them.

His entrance was not noted. The medic-nin had recovered their composure after the initial surprise, but the other shinobi - the patients - watched Shisui and the captain unabashedly. Shisui's mask and armour were liberally doused in blood. That and his hunting cat's grace cleared a path for the captain, who followed more slowly in his wake. Shizune stormed out to meet them, an assistant on either flank and her white medic's haori flying about her. "Kurumi, help the commander. Kuri, get the captain. Everybody else, if you can move, get out of the way!"

The captain might have been the highest ranking shinobi in the room but this was Shizune's domain, and by Haku's generous estimate, the captain probably had about ten seconds before he collapsed, so he allowed the medic-nin to whisk him to a curtained room at the very back of the tent without a fuss. Carefully, Haku ducked his head, meandering through the rows of pallets as he worked his way back just fast enough to appear to have a purpose, but slow enough not to attract attention.

Footsteps approached, and Haku turned away smoothly, reaching down to snag an almost-spent roll of bandage from an iryou-nin's supply basket while the man was bent over his patient. His shoulders stayed loose as the footsteps neared, right up until the cloth dropped onto his head. He stiffened instinctively before forcing himself to relax.

"Keep that on and come with me," Shizune murmured as he peeked up. She had donned a white bandana over her hair and a thin cloth mask since he last saw her, and she turned to walk briskly away without waiting for a response.

Haku tugged the medic haori around himself properly and hurried after her.

The back of the tent was partitioned off into a hallway from which individual rooms afforded their occupants space and privacy. As Shizune whisked Haku into the second, a glance into the first as an iryou-nin darted out revealed Itachi, lying still on a pallet as another medic cupped green chakra at his ribs.

Zabuza lay on the cot in the center of the room with his eyes closed and his skin with a waxy pallor more noticeable now, aboveground, than it had been in the firelit chamber. Two IV tubes snaked fluid into his arms, one blood, and one clear. His armour and shirt had been stripped off and a cloth drawn up to his chest so that only the tops of the scar showed. The fabric at his midriff was slowly being stained crimson. The red-black burns mottling his arms crept up his shoulders to the sides of his neck, where the Sanbi's chakra had scorched under Zabuza's armour. Haku's step stuttered.

"We've put him under for surgery," Shizune said, pulling the curtain shut behind them. "Tie your hair back, put on a mask, and stay out of our way." She nodded at the other medic in the room, who didn't look up from her examination of Zabuza's arm. "Rakkasei, keep an eye on his body temperature."

"Aa, I know," Rakkasei said distractedly.

"Thank you, Shizune-sensei," said Haku, and tucked himself in the back corner as he scrambled to put his hair up.

"Better I know where you are than have you skulking around making my medics paranoid," she answered, but her mind was clearly elsewhere. "Doubt you'd sit back and wait with the others."

The others - Haku realized with some chagrin that he hadn't even thought about the refugee children. He bit down the urge to ask about them, because Shizune was already hovering over Zabuza. "Oxygen is on the low side but stable," she murmured. "Blood pressure low, pulse fast."

"How far are we going on him today?" Rakkasei said tersely. She flicked back the sheet for just a moment to check on the slash. "This is a patch job. The muscle here is torn to hell, and whatever blade did that caught the intestines."

"Fighting fit," Shizune said. "Work on that. I'll start on the burns. Everything else can wait." Her chakra, even next to the other medic-nin, glowed bright and strong as she concentrated it to a single finger. The color flicked from green to blue in the blink of an eye, and Haku stiffened, clutching his arms around himself. "Do you know what I'm doing?" she asked without looking up.

Rakkasei ignored her. Haku hesitated before saying, "Removing the dead tissue?"

"Correct," said Shizune, warm approval in her voice. "Why?"

The sum of Haku's knowledge of this subject was snatches of Shisui and Zabuza arguing in the sealing cavern. "The dead flesh will...eat...the healthy flesh." Haku's voice trailed off hesitantly.

"She's not exactly wrong," the other medic-nin said absently, dabbing away blood as she sliced through Shisui's field sutures with a metal scalpel.

Shizune's hands held steady as she cut into Zabuza's arm. Haku forced himself to watch. "Flesh is made of - well, different parts, like muscle, tendons, and skin, and those are made up of even smaller parts called cells. When those cells die, sometimes they send signals that cause nearby cells to die. It's not a lot normally, but when there are too many dead cells like in a burn this big, it can spread very rapidly."

"What do you do after you take out all the dead cells?" Haku asked tentatively, voice hushed to keep from disturbing her work.

"We bring in healthy cells from a different part of the body," said Shizune, "and grow them together where the dead tissue was so that it all heals in one piece."

That sounded very bizarre, but Haku couldn't find any fault in her logic. "Do you do this a lot?"

Rakkasei huffed a dry laugh. "Shinobi from the Land of Fire really like katon."

"It does tend to be one of the more common types of wounds we treat," Shizune agreed. "Usually not so deep or severe, but we've seen worse, and Zabuza is tougher than most. I was informed that he survived a field surgery in Tetsu by two of his team."

"Ah. Yes," said Haku, wincing delicately at the memory.

"What, were they chuunin-level iryou-nin or something?" Rakkasei ran a handful of dim green chakra over the wound as she set down her scalpel.

Shizune's eyes crinkled in a smile. "Ex-Anbu combat jounin, actually," she said. "One picked up basic healing from an iryou-nin teammate, and the other shadowed me for about four months during a long convalescence."

"I'm sorry, what?" Rakkasei asked, incredulity lilting her voice. "Field surgery takes seven years, minimum, to learn. Trauma surgery is nine. How did they not kill this man?"

"Zabuza-san is very durable," Haku offered.

"His teammates have unique skillsets," Shizune added. "They're very intuitive learners. It's a pity they don't have the chakra control or the intention of specializing in medicine."

"They don't have the chakra control?" demanded Rakkasei, aghast.

"The commander does, actually," Shizune said thoughtfully. "But I don't think he'd done anything bigger than closing up an external laceration before that. Juu could do precision work, but he burns off a lot of chakra."

"Do you mean to tell me thatCommander Hatakeandthe captain of the Covert Intelligence Unitdid that surgery?"

"As Haku-kun said." Shizune patted Zabuza's hair. "Zabuza is very durable."

Rakkasei shook her head in disbelief. The room lapsed back into quiet. Haku could hear the activity from the rooms on either side: the captain most immediately needed a chakra transfusion and surgery to repair his knee; Itachi needed his ribs knit back together and to stay awake because of his concussion; Shisui escaped against medical advice to deliver his report to the rest of Command, with the promise that he would return immediately after he finished. Shizune's hands drifted deftly from Zabuza's arm to a small metal bowl, into which she dropped chunks of scorched skin that looked uncomfortably like charred pork.

"Temperature dropping," Rakkasei interrupted the silence. "Still within normal parameters, gradual descent. I'm keeping an eye on it."

Shizune hummed acknowledgement, taking a moment to feel the pulse in Zabuza's throat. "For burns, especially deep ones or those covering a large area, it's important to watch for a sudden drop in body temperature or spike in heart rate," she explained. "Do you know why?"

Haku thought back to the bits and pieces he picked up with the hunter-nin or from watching Shisui. "Those are signs of the body going into shock, and that's another set of problems to worry about?"

"Right again," said Shizune. "Shock is extremely dangerous, especially after - "

"Shit!" snapped Rakkasei, slapping glowing hands down flat against Zabuza's side. "Body temperature just nosedived. Kid, run and fetch another blanket." Haku startled and checked over his shoulder reflexively. "Yes, you!" Rakkasei barked. "You see another kid in here?"

"Hai!" Haku said, pushing to his feet hurriedly.

"Make that two blankets," Shizune called after him.

Zabuza would be rather offended to know that Haku worried about him almost constantly. After all, Zabuza had survived a traditional Academy graduation as a five-year-old, eighteen years in Mizu's cutthroat shinobi ranks, experimentation by one of Konoha's Sannin, and two separate attempts to kill him by the Mizukage. That didn't stop Haku from hovering anxiously outside the entrance of the hospital tent once Shizune gently but firmly banished him from Zabuza's room with instructions to get himself a meal and some rest.

"Hey."

Haku jumped. Perhaps it was inexcusable, but Haku blamed his worry and exhaustion on his failure to hear Temari's approach. He turned, forcing his usual grace and mostly failing to make the movement smooth. Temari wasn't wearing her furred cloak, just a plain dark shirt and pants. There was soot in her hair and white bandage peeking through a tear in her sleeve. She tucked her hands in her pockets and gave him a tired smile. "Juu-sensei dropped by and told us what happened. How's Zabuza-sensei?"

"Ah," said Haku, spotting Neji skulking around the far corner of the nearest tent, his bandana tucked down flush against the top of his wraparounds. "He went into shock earlier but he's stable now. I'm afraid I lost track of Juu-san. Where is he now?"

The corner of Temari's mouth quirked. "Shizune-sensei sent one of the iryou-nin to track him down after he didn't show up at the hospital tent. He went back to Command after he made sure we were all in one piece, but my guess is he'll be here soon enough."

"And the others?"

"We had to abandon camp because our tree burned down," Temari explained. "Well. Sasuke burned it down. After we got attacked."

"Ah," said Haku somewhat weakly.

"Don't worry," Temari assured him. "We have a new camp, and I left Sai in charge. Everyone's fine. In one piece, at least." She eyed him keenly. "When's the last time you slept?"

Haku hesitated. "I napped for a couple hours in the tunnels before the assault on the Mizukage," he said. He wasn't sure how long ago that was. "How long were we gone?"

"Twenty-six hours," answered Temari briskly, but she was watching him closely.

Haku almost forgot to breathe. "Twenty six hours?" That couldn't be. Could it? That they had spent over a day in the catacombs, and in that last battle in the lowest cavern in Kirigakure. The darkness had eaten all sense of time, all sense of anything except the mission.

"You need to rest." Temari's tone softened. "Two hours isn't enough to keep you on your feet."

Haku was too tired to hide the way his eyes drifted back towards the hospital tent. Zabuza was at his most vulnerable now, unconscious and in an open, undefended location with high traffic. Were Haku an assassin, he would strike now.

"We will keep watch." That was Neji, slinking along the side of the tent.

It wasn't that Haku didn't trust Neji or Temari - it was just that they were children. He was well aware of the irony in that thought, but Haku had been guarding and killing for Zabuza for over five years. Still, Haku's strength was rapidly draining. "I don't want to go far," he said.

Temari's eyes flickered sideways to Neji, who turned his head slightly. "We won't," said Temari. "We'll stay in range - just out of sight."

That - and Neji's ability to see through walls - appeased Haku's lingering paranoia. Haku was not of a clan, but he did know the old traditions. "I entrust his safety to you," he said to Temari, but his words were for Neji. Temari frowned, because she too knew the words even if she did not understand their weight.

Neji's spine straightened, and his chin lifted. "On my honor, your trust is not misplaced," he said.

Haku awoke from his light doze with Temari's hand on his shoulder. His eyes flashed open, and though he didn't sit up, he drew his chakra to him as subtly as he could manage.

"No danger," Temari murmured. "Zabuza-sensei is fine, still asleep. You slept for six hours."

"It is the remainder of the Mizukage Assassination Team," Neji said, his voice just as low. "Terumi Mei has returned to the surface."

Haku let his grip on his chakra fade and accepted Temari's arm to haul himself upright. "Is there a child with them?"

"Two," Neji confirmed, kneeling at the edge of their roof. "One is unconscious. One is dead." His tone remained even and matter-of-fact from beginning to end.

Haku swallowed. His voice did not quaver when he asked, "Is it the girl who lives or the boy?"

Temari's head turned towards him, and on the other side, Neji did the same, a pointed gesture because he did not need to face Haku to see him. "The girl lives," Neji said.

Haku huffed a quiet breath out, grief and relief at the same time. "She is the new jinchuuriki of the Sanbi," he said.

Neji twitched. Temari leaned forward for a better look. "She looks nine or ten," she noted thoughtfully. "Do you know her?"

"No. I wasn't born in Kirigakure," Haku reminded them. "Zabuza-san brought me here. I didn't get the chance to meet a lot of the other children."

Temari picked up the careless statement the way most of the rest of the children wouldn't have. "Zabuza-sensei didn't let you near the other children," she stated, eyes shrewd. She made no attempt to hide her disapproval - mixed accusation and reproach.

"No," Haku agreed evenly, masking his own flare of temper. "You don't understand Kiri. It was a good thing that Zabuza-san kept me close, especially since I was all but defenceless when I first arrived. There are rules here and I didn't know them, and because of those rules, children grow up quickly. They learn to be cruel young."

This, too, was something Neji knew better than Temari. Temari grew up privileged in the upper echelons of Suna; her grievances with the constraints her Village's society pressed on her paled in comparison to those of they who were born as second- and third-class citizens.

"Who else is still in Medical?" Haku asked, a clumsy pivot in the conversation. He had no desire to linger on the current topic.

"Only the captain and Zabuza-sensei remain for treatment," Neji answered. "Itachi-sensei and Shisui-sensei have gone back to Command."

"We can go down to see if Shizune-sensei will let us visit," Temari offered. "But I thought you might want to find something to eat first."

Haku's stomach ached, abruptly reminded him that it had been a day and a half since he had eaten anything substantial. He wavered. Six hours asleep meant six hours away from Zabuza - already, that was too long. He stayed silent too long - Neji shifted on his feet impatiently.

"I'll bring you something. You and Ni go down, check on Zabuza-sensei and the captain," Temari suggested, and her smile was razor sharp when she added, "There're a lot of potential targets in that hospital tent for the guards to cover, especially in the middle of Kirigakure. Now that the war's over, we're the enemy, and the captain is the biggest threat on our side."

"I will see them coming," Neji said, once again.

"Aa," Haku agreed, both relieved and concerned. "Thank you."

They slipped in through the main entrance. The chuunin leaning inconspicuously against a nearby tree gave them a narrow-eyed stare but jerked his head to motion them in. Haku still wore the haori Shizune had given him, to mark him as one who belonged, and it was large enough to wrap about himself like a robe. There was another guard - visible guard, at least - just before the private wing, dressed as a medic-nin, taking inventory of supplies. Haku imagined he must have taken inventory over and over and over in the past hours.

Hand signals too fleeting for Haku to make out bounced around the room, and a man with scars raking down one side of his face melted out of the shadows and blocked their path when they approached the back hallway. "Think you kids got a little turned around in here," he said, and his smile stretched and distorted his scars. Around them, the bustle of the hospital tent continued uninterrupted.

"I don't believe we have," Haku said politely, inconspicuously leaning around him.

The shinobi stopped smiling, shifting slightly to cut off Haku's line of sight. "Look, kid," he said, his face smoothing over into a blank mask that was more frightening than if he had scowled. "This area is restricted. Turn around."

Neji tilted his head up at Haku, a silent question. Haku frowned, torn, and shuffled on his feet.

Fortunately, the captain poked his head out of the gap between the tent walls. "They're fine, Touitsu," he said, somewhat between an order and a drawl. He had one arm in a sling, a brace wrapped around his knee, and the air of one doing exactly what they wanted to be doing. The last part was clearly false, despite everything Haku sensed from him, because everyone who had been in the forests of Tetsu knew that the captain hated being at the mercy of the medics. "They're with the Communications Unit."

"Commander," a half-harried, half-exasperated voice carried from beyond the tent wall. The captain blinked once, slowly. "Hatake-taishou, please come back. If you will not lie down, at least sit."

"Genin, with me," the captain said, and retreated.

Touitsu gave them one last careful glance before stepping aside to let them pass.

The captain waited in the hallway as the tent flap dropped behind Haku and Neji. "I have been informed that I have damaged too many organs to be allowed to leave," he said without inflection.

"They work, but they're delicate," said Shizune, emerging from one room and striding purposefully towards the main room. "Which is why Kurumi told you to sit, Kakashi."

"I'm going," said the captain. "Kids, I assume you're here to see Zabuza."

"Hai," said Haku, a little embarrassed both at his transparency and the implicit admittance that they had not come to see the captain.

"Me too," the captain said unconcernedly. "This way."

Zabuza's intravenous tubes were still in place, the bags of fluids replaced, but he was awake and propped up on a stack of pillows with a glower on his face. "Kid," he growled. "That was sloppy. If they stop you, they've seen you. If they see you, they can recognize you. You didn't even have a godsdamned cover story."

Haku ducked his head sheepishly. "I apologize," he said. "I was careless."

The captain sank down onto the bench at the side of the room. "It's a good thing they didn't," he said, tilting his head to fix one dark eye on Haku and Neji. "If the guards could tell they were lying, the Anbu would have swept them straight to interrogation before I could intervene."

Neji stiffened, trading an alarmed glance with Haku. "Anbu," Haku echoed. "How many were there outside?"

"Four," the captain answered blithely. "Three for me and one for this invalid."

"Fuck off," Zabuza snarled, hand twitching automatically for the battered broadsword leaning against the tent wall.

Four Anbu guards. Four Anbu, and Haku had not spotted them - or had not taken the time to spot them. The weight of his negligence lurked at the edge of his mind..

But Zabuza's eyes - quite clouded from the drugs Shizune must have pumped into him while he was unable to protest - drifted past him and landed on Neji. "Punk," Zabuza muttered.

Neji ducked his head in an abbreviated bow, his expression caught somewhere between annoyance and relief. "It is good that you are recovering, Sensei," he said stiffly.

"Uh huh," said Zabuza, regarding him from his mess of pillows. "You keep an eye on that pack of hellions out there? Stay out of fights?"

Neji paused. He swallowed. "We became...involved...in several minor skirmishes, but we did not seek them out."

"Of course you did," Zabuza said under his breath, rolling his eyes.

"Message for Momochi-taichou from Juu-taichou." Temari's voice drifted through the canvas walls. "And Momochi-taichou asked for food to be delivered because he was 'fucking tired of bland medical sludge.'"

"See," said Zabuza pointedly. "That's a cover story."

On any other day, Haku could have stemmed the avalanche of resentment, but he was still burned out in both mind and body from the nonstop battles of the past days. Something dark twisted in Haku's chest, and the unwelcome tang of bitterness burned in the back of his mouth. Haku might have been Zabuza's apprentice, but he saw the way he looked at Temari. She was far more like Zabuza than Haku was - she wore her confidence for all to see, had a fondness for oversized weaponry and straightforward combat, and indulged in the same ruthlessness. Zabuza had put in far too much time and effort into honing Haku to discard him now before his purpose was served, but in another life, he would have taken Temari as his apprentice instead.

Haku was very good at hiding what he felt to all save Zabuza, though even if Temari knew, she wouldn't understand, or even care - the Konohans and Suna-born ascribed no importance to apprenticeship or caste, only rank. But Haku's apprenticeship to Zabuza was his purpose, his saving grace, and it made him desperate, and he loved it and hated it and needed it in the same breath.

Zabuza was not so far gone to miss Haku's reaction, but perhaps just enough for his cruelty to surface. His eyes sharpened and locked onto Haku's face. "There's no place for mistakes," he drawled.

Mistakes. Mistake. That was aimed to draw blood, an attack and a warning Zabuza knew would cut deep at Haku's vulnerabilities. It saiddon't forgetandwatch yourselfandno more failuresanddon't show your weaknessandyou can be replaced.

But Haku knew all this already. He lifted his chin just a little and held Zabuza's eyes steadily until the captain broke their eye contact by standing for no discernible purpose and sauntering forwards. "Rei-chan. Does Juu know that you are misusing his credentials?"

Had anyone except the captain addressed her as such, Temari would have answered with a coy smile, but even Temari had a reasonably healthy fear of the captain. "I thought that using Juu-sensei's name would be the safest way to get in here, sir," she said. "He would vouch for me if something went wrong."

The captain studied her carefully. He turned to sit back down. "Careful with Zabuza," he said offhandedly. "If he moves too abruptly he'll need a replacement spleen."

"Oh, fuck you, Hatake," Zabuza snapped. "You're just as fucked up as I am."

"You're the one in the bed," the captain pointed out. "I had some internal bleeding. You came here with your right kidney in two pieces."

Haku couldn't stop the squeak from escaping. Zabuza rolled his eyes. "The yuki-onna put it back together, didn't she?"

"You're lucky Shizune-sensei's busy and doesn't have time to dismember you, Sensei," Temari told him. "Here, Ichi." She passed him her tray, laden with two metal ration bowls. "But it's from the mess, so don't get your hopes up."

"Aa. Thank you," said Haku, taking the tray gratefully. One bowl held rice, the second some form of stew. Neji glanced over and immediately grimaced, but Haku was too hungry to care much beyond that it was food and edible.

Shisui's chakra flickered just outside the room, the slither of smoke and crackling sparks. He slid in through the flaps of the tent, and his spotted leopard-mask had been wiped clean of its coat of blood save the stubborn traces embedded in the porcelain grooves. Itachi padded in after him, the canvas not so much as touching the tips of his hair as it dropped back into place behind him.

"Meetings are terrible and whoever invented them should be beheaded," Shisui complained, slinking up onto the edge of Zabuza's bed. "Hey, kids."

"The hell do you think you're doing?" Zabuza growled.

"Shh," murmured Shisui absently.

Itachi remained standing, and his eyes whirled red for a moment as he checked back out into the hall. He touched a chakra-laden finger to the seal plastered on the ceiling, enveloping them into their own bubble of silence. "Preparations have been made for the Hanabi-ha troops for semi-permanent accommodations," he reported, his words directed towards the captain. "Some of our shinobi will still have to stay in tents until buildings are cleared and repaired, or other arrangements can be made. We have been given the old Academy to house the majority of our units, which was abandoned when new facilities were built."

Haku flinched, his chakra crackling icy fingers up his spine instinctively. Zabuza choked out, "They gave uswhat?"

"I know it's not ideal," said Shisui, observing their reactions curiously. "But it's the only building big enough to house that many of Hana-ha in one place."

"Yeah, do you know why it's not ideal?" Zabuza hissed. "They didn't close itbecausethey got new buildings. They closed it because I killed over a hundred kids down there and no matter how hard they scrubbed the floors, the blood wouldn't come out. Because Academy students and shinobi alike could taste the fucking, I don't know, despair and terror that still infects the place, and seven kids and two teachers committed suicide within the week. Mei gave you the fucking Old Academy because no Kiri shinobi would dare spend a night inside, let alone live there."

Temari's eyes were wide. Neji stood next to her, very still. Itachi and the captain communicated by staring at each other silently.

"At least we know they won't try to take it back," Shisui said, voice dry.

"Send a team to scout it out," the captain said. "It's been almost twenty years; whatever effects may have worn off."

"I'll go," volunteered Shisui immediately.

"I will as well," said Itachi. "You may need backup."

Shisui wrinkled his nose. "Two captains is overkill, even if there're a couple of loyalists hiding out in there - at worst, it's a bunch of ghosts. I'm not going to commit suicide, cousin."

"We'll go," Temari volunteered, her dark eyes bright but serious. Shisui frowned, but she added, "you'll need a guide, and Ichi knows the way around."

"I can take you there," Haku agreed, despite the chill lingering at the back of his neck. "I've been in the Academy before, briefly." In the daytime, and only for a few hours. The Old Academy was haunting, both in its size and its history, and the entire time he had been inside Haku either felt or imagined an invisible predator shadowing his footsteps.

Zabuza narrowed his eyes at them - at Haku. "Take 'em all," he said at last. "Blood-eyes here and the whelps. You'll need Haku. And the white-eyes, if he really can see everything."

"I can," said Neji, maybe a little too eagerly.

Another round of silent glances. The captain nodded once. "Do it," he said.

"Don't take any chances," Shisui said, turning to fix first Haku with a hard stare, then Neji and Temari in turn. "You have so much as a weird feeling, you let one of us know and get out of there fast. Do you understand?"

"Hai," said Haku, echoed by Neji. Temari nodded her acknowledgement.

"You can't all go there together," the captain warned. "Too conspicuous. Team Suzaku shouldn't be seen with you two."

"Shisui and I will skirt the edges of the training grounds," Itachi said. "Team Suzaku can - "

"They can go straight through the Village," Zabuza interrupted, and his smile had too many teeth. "They won't be stopped if Haku's with 'em."

"Straight through the Village," Haku agreed.

The fires in the Village had all been put out in the night while Haku slept. The last curls of smoke still trailed into the sky, dark against the blue of the sky. Haku inhaled crisp mountain air infused with ash and tried not to grimace. "Let me take the lead," he said. "Stay behind me and don't speak, even if anyone addresses you. I'll take care of it."

Temari studied his face, her eyes dark and searching. When it had been just the refugee children, Temari had been the undisputed leader of the pack, the oldest and most shinobi-like. Even now, when Zabuza or the captain or the Uchiha cousins were away on missions or otherwise, supervision and command fell to Temari. Haku was not usually around at those times because he accompanied Zabuza on nearly all his missions, but even when he was, he had not challenged Temari's authority. "What are we walking into?" she asked at last.

Haku felt his expression smooth. "Kiri is built on strength," he recited. "Age, rank, caste - everyone has a place in the hierarchy, and if you don't know the rules to how it works, the consequences can be - " he hesitated, images of whipping posts and bodies hung like flags echoing though his mind, " - brutal. The control of one higher than you is checked only by the power of one higher on the ladder. Without an umbrella of protection - from a clan, a sensei, a handler, a team leader who actually cares about you - you won't last very long."

Neji's revulsion painted itself across his face before he, too, wrestled his emotions under control. "Zabuza-sensei was one of the Seven Swordsmen. He is your shield."

"He is," Haku said. "And as his apprentice, I'll be yours."

Temari pursed her lips. "We'll follow your lead," she said, with a glance at Neji, who nodded shortly.

"Don't show any weakness," Haku warned. "No fear, no aggression, no emotions. Don't meet anyone's eyes and don't stare. That will make you a target and I imagine now more than ever, someone will be looking for an excuse to put someone else in their place." He took a deep breath, and the acrid wood-burn smoke burned his lungs. "Let's go."

Accessing the Old Academy meant passing through the main bulk of the Inner Village to the northeast side of the town. Haku smoothed down the front of his old, green-blue haori, rolled his shoulders to loosen and stretch his muscles, and strode forward with more confidence than he felt. The Inner Village had not seen much fighting compared to the Lower City, but here too the paving stones were cracked and broken, the roads treacherous with loose stones and debris. Soft ash like snow fluttered down from the sky, landing in his hair and eyelashes, and Haku tugged the neck of his turtleneck up to cover his mouth and nose.

Haku turned the corner and broken glass crunched under his sandal. On one side of the street was a bombed-out restaurant, scorched and ransacked until it was little more than a roof and four walls. A teen in worn standard Kiri greys and a senior genin's light blue armband lounged in the bare windowsill, turning a kunai over and over in his hand. He kept one eye on the outside, and in particular the loyalist teams lounging on the opposite side of the street, as the rest of his squad made camp within.

The loyalist sentry genin leered at Haku as Team Suzaku passed, arrogance and disdain dripping from the smirk that curled the corner of her mouth. She wore a long, loose coat over standard greys that were upper-caste quality and probably cost four times what the Hanran genin's monthly pay had been. She ran her fingers idly over the hilt of her katana, resting across her knees in its lacquered sheath. Haku glanced over once, instinctive threat assessment - low; hands wrapped, preferred close quarter combat - and the second he made eye contact with her, she winked at him and licked her lips.

Haku turned away as quickly as he could without showing his unease.

They passed the weapons depot that catered to the upper caste on the central thoroughfare. Its windows were shuttered with metal sheets, and though charred marks peppered its walls, it stood alone and intact between a collapsed market known for its brined jellyfish from the southern Kiri islands and a burned-out dessert stall popular among civilian children. It drew an ironic huff from Haku as they passed.

Residential housing, civilian clothing store, mid-range grocer, shinobi outfitter, secondhand weapons store - Haku matched the battered buildings with those of his memory. A fallen tree blocked their path, split off from its fellows from a douton that had uprooted it from its copse between one block and the next. Haku hopped up onto the trunk and down the other side, deliberately ignoring the squads - Hanran - camped in the second floor of the adjacent building.

Neji made a soft sound under his breath. Haku paused, and Temari hissed, "What do you see?" She tilted her head, giving herself room to reach her tessen more easily in preparation for an ambush. Neji's mouth and nose were masked by a dark bandana so nearly his entire face was covered, but Temari was using a subtle fuuton to keep from breathing in the ash.

"There is a kunoichi approaching from four o'clock, rapid walking pace, closing fast, one hundred and fifty meters," Neji responded, voice smooth despite his underlying tension. "She split off from a loyalist camp and appears to be following us. Black hakama, light blue kosode. Standard-sized katana. She is alone."

Black hakama, light blue kosode. Haku bit down a grimace and started walking again. "Light brown hair, dark grey eyes?"

"Yes," said Neji, the cloth wrinkling over his forehead as he frowned, and followed.

"You know her," Temari prompted.

"Keep walking," Haku said, smoothing his gait into a stately prowl. "She loves an audience. I would rather avoid that."

Thankfully, Temari and Neji trailed him wordlessly as he turned down an alley shrouded by bare, spiny branches. In the warmer months, the trees would be laden with drooping, lacy leaves, but the winter had stolen their color away.

"Hey, mongrel. Stop right there."

Haku stopped and turned smoothly to face the speaker, taking care to keep his posture loose and relaxed, and felt more than saw Neji and Temari melt backwards and angle to cover his back. The face was familiar, but the last time Haku had seen her, the flak jacket and the newly clotted slash running down her right temple had been absent.

Her stare was cold, the set of her mouth moreso, and her voice was as hard and sharp as the blade slung over her back. "Finally crawled out of whatever hole you fell down? You should have stayed there to rot."

Temari bristled but she didn't speak even when the other kunichi switched a challenging gaze to her. "Kiyoko-san," Haku greeted, his eyes lowered deferentially. "Congratulations on your promotion. What a pity that your time as a genin has passed without Yuukiko-san choosing you as an apprentice."

Kiyoko bared her teeth in a vicious smile. "Watch your tongue," she purred. "Your sensei isn't the shinobi he used to be, and your disrespect will not be tolerated. Better practice your grovelling or you'll be flotsam before spring arrives."

"I am, as ever, grateful for your advice," Haku said, smiling slightly. "Truly, it is an asset to my career. I appreciate that you felt the desire to go out of your way to enlighten me."

Kiyoko's eyes flashed and she stepped into Haku's space, snapping her hand up to grab Haku by the jaw, but he twisted, sliding away easily. "Ah. Perhaps I should remind you that Zabuza-san does not like others to touch that which belongs to him," Haku said mildly. "I wouldn't want you to end up with his ire. Or, perhaps, are you unafraid, because you believe Zabuza-san is 'not the shinobi he used to be?'"

The kunoichi let her hand drop, her face smoothing back over. "He must not be, if he picked up two more low caste vermin to tote around." She let her gaze skate over Temari and Neji dismissively. "Surely, as Momochi's apprentice, these two slow you down. What are they, cannon fodder? At least they know not to speak before their superiors."

"They are still Zabuza-san's," Haku said. The back of his neck prickled with his teammates' hostility, but their tempers held. "It would be wise to leave them be."

Kiyoko's smile returned, slow and smooth. "You must know that if one or both of them dies, there is still leverage against him. He has many weaknesses now."

Haku moved too fast for the other shinobi to react, laying a feather-light hand on her chest, just over her heart. "I am charged with their handling. Take care," he warned softly, as she sucked in an involuntary gasp. "Hearts cannot beat when they are frozen."

Kiyoko's eyes narrowed furiously. "You dare threaten your betters, you low-caste whore?" she hissed. "It will be your life."

Haku smiled but his eyes held no warmth. "Is that so?" he said lightly. "I would never dream of doing such a thing. But even if I did, I cannot imagine how they would catch me. Even you know that theAtarutainever leave evidence."

"You're twelve," Kiyoko sneered, but her shoulders were stiff and wary, her body held still under the threat of Haku's ice. "You're not of the Undertaker Squad."

"When I was ten or so," Haku said almost absently, "I was drafted into the hunter-nin because the Mizukage thought Zabuza-san stepped out of line. It was supposed to set me up for failure; it was supposed to be my death." He leaned in closer, and Kiyoko bared her teeth in a warning snarl. "It was a punishment for him, but it was training for me. It was very good training. And I was very good at it." Haku patted her gently and stepped back, leaving her silent and furious and wary. "Thank you for your time," he said, and bowed. "It was kind of you to honor us with your presence. You must have far more important things to do."

Kiyoko knew a corner when she was backed into it. "You think you are untouchable," she said, silky smooth and venomous. "You are not. It will be a pleasure to see you put in your place." She whirled, her sleeves billowing with the movement, and took off back down the way she had come.

Haku's pulse had not sped up once during the entire encounter. He let his grip on his chakra loosen and took a deliberately measured breath, then a second, and a third. Kiyoko's footsteps, barely audible even directly in front of him, faded beyond his hearing.

"Clear," said Neji. "She has gone."

Haku closed his eyes, let his shoulders slump, and turned around to face his team.

Temari huffed a laugh. "Wow," she said. "That bad, huh?"

Haku had been gone from the Village, from other Kiri shinobi, for too long. He wasn't used to the constant hostility after the buffer provided by Shisui, Itachi, the captain, and in general all of Hanabi-ha. The one short encounter with Kiyoko had drained his energy. "That," Haku said grimly, "is Kirigakure. I would consider an encounter like that a success."

Her eyebrows drew together in a slight frown. "Does that happen often?"

"Low caste shinobi are frequent targets of harassment, especially genin," Haku said evenly, a confirmation and admittance that burned with resentment he did not allow to surface. "Kiyoko in particular dislikes me because we became genin at the same time though I was much younger than her, and I was Zabuza-san's apprentice while her sensei did not choose to make her one."

Neji and Temari exchanged glances. "How old were you?" Neji asked.

"Seven," answered Haku. "Zabuza-san had been training me privately for four years before he had me registered."

"Handling? Apprentice?" Temari prompted. "That sounded like more than just a genin team thing."

"Later," said Haku. He had no desire to hash out that particular explanation here. "I don't want to keep Shisui-san and Itachi-san waiting."

Temari scrutinized him carefully but nodded. "Lead the way," she said.

"There are sixteen shinobi in the building across from the alley mouth," Neji reported. "It is a loyalist camp with one guard, all armed but weapons sheathed. It is not an active threat, but should a retreat become necessary, I would suggest an escape route down the road at our current ten o'clock."

"Thank you, noted," said Haku, tucking his hands into his sleeves. "Let's go."

Team Suzaku's route through the Village was far shorter that the circumspect path Shisui and Itachi had taken, but the two were waiting in the small park in front of the Old Academy grounds by the time Haku slipped through the bushes to their small clearing. Once upon a time, this park had been well kept and manicured. By the time Haku arrived in Kiri, the Old Academy had been closed for over ten years, and the park abandoned with it. Weeds choked the bushes and warred with the grass for fertile ground; tree branches dipped low and others lay half-buried in leaf litter.

Shisui, as bizarrely habitual in shinobi from Konoha, perched in the boughs of an entirely barren tree. His tanto was in his lap and he ran absent-minded fingers along its wrapped hilt. Itachi stood next to him, his eyes distant and his expression a smooth mask to rival Shisui's porcelain one. Ash dusted their hair and settled on their clothes, and for a moment Haku jolted back to the Yondaime's last stand. He blinked the memory away.

"Hey, kids," Shisui greeted cheerfully. "Run into any trouble?"

"Only an old acquaintance," Haku replied before either of his teammates could answer.

"We have not been followed," Neji added.

"Cool," said Shisui. "Come on, then." He hopped down, absorbing the impact from the five meter drop as though it was a fifth of that height, and Itachi alighted at his side with equal grace. "Five man teams aren't super common since they're not as maneuverable as a trio and too small to consider a multiple-team squad, but we don't think splitting up is the best idea. I don't want to have to go wandering around to find someone if there really is something wrong inside."

"Ichi and I will take point," said Itachi. "Rei and Ni will follow. Juu will serve as rearguard."

"We did a loop of the grounds," Shisui added, rocking back on his feet. "It doesn't look like anyone's inside or tried to claim it."

"Ichi." Itachi nodded once to Haku. "What is the ideal point of entry?"

Haku took less than a second to decide. "Side doorway leading to the south wing. It's relatively contained. It may be vulnerable to a trap due to its relatively narrow hallway, but it will make it difficult to surround us. A team our size should be able to clear each room while maintaining a guard in the hallway."

Shisui glanced at Itachi, who tilted his head to cede the decision to his cousin. "Side entrance to the south wing sounds good, but we won't need to clear the rooms," Shisui said. "We're only forward scouting. The plan is to do a lap through the facility and make sure it's inhabitable, then send in other teams to clear it out and do setup if it's fine."

Roots and the weather had upturned the stones of the cobbled pathway, weeds and overgrown grass and untrimmed shrubbery spilling into the entryway. Haku's chakra ran icy tendrils into his bloodstream, but whether from the memory of the place or a present threat, he couldn't tell. The solid steel doors loomed forebodingly behind the greenery. They had neither rusted nor discolored over the long years.

"Ni," Itachi prompted, one step to the front and one to the side of Haku. "Scan for traps - seals, tripwires, anything out of place."

"Nothing," Neji answered after a pause. "It's clean. The doors are not trapped and the hallway is empty."

"Kiri severed all ties with this Academy," Haku said, forcibly relaxing hands that had clenched unconsciously at his side. "No one will break in, and even if they did, no one would care. There is no reason to trap or seal this place."

"Be careful, anyways," Shisui called from further back.

Itachi didn't respond as he stepped forward. The handle turned easily under his hand, and he pulled the door open with a whisper of a creak from its hinges and slipped inside. With one more steadying breath, Haku followed.

Hairline fractures ran through the concrete floors beneath their feet, and though the walls kept out the wind, an icy chill still sank into Haku's bones the second he stepped inside. The walls, the floor, and the ceiling were all concrete, smooth and grey.

Itachi flicked the switch on the wall next to them, but the recessed lights didn't so much as flicker. "Power was cut," he murmured. "No electricity, no lights. Follow."

Haku's breath puffed out in front of him, visible in the sunlight spilling in from the door. "The door on the left is a closet, the one on the right is a classroom," he said, voice hushed. "There are a total of eight classrooms in this hallway. The training arena is ahead and spans from the second level down to the basement."

The light at their backs flickered as Neji and Temari advanced into the Old Academy after them. "This place is kind of creepy," Temari said, and her voice echoed in the empty hallway. "Don't see any ghosts, though."

The door closed behind Shisui, plunging them all into darkness. Haku glanced sideways to Itachi in time to see his eyes whirl red. The darkness at the far end of the hall remained uninterrupted, but Haku knew Shisui must have activated his doujutsu as well. "On second thought, perhaps I will prop the door open," Shisui said, his voice pitched to minimize the reverberation. "Itachi?"

The crimson winked out for just a moment when Itachi blinked. "Rei," he said. "Can you maneuver and fight effectively without light?"

"I'm not going to walk into walls," Temari answered, just a little dry. "But I'm not the best at fighting blind yet."

Itachi considered. "Keep the door closed," he said. "Minimize who knows we are here. Rei, in case of attack, defense only."

"Hai," Temari agreed.

"Ichi and Ni, protect her." He turned back around without waiting for a response. "Ichi, with me."

Oddly enough, Haku felt more at ease when he couldn't see. There was only the quiet pad of their sandals on the floor, the brush of stagnant air on his face and through his hair. Twenty meters forward, he could feel the change in the air as they approached the curved wall of the upper half of the arena. Abruptly, apprehension rose in his chest. "Upstairs," Haku said, breathing down the dread that prickled along his neck. "The training arena is large and best covered last."

Itachi's eyes flicked to him, calculating. "Very well," he said. "Which side?"

"Right," said Haku, more sure.

A glimmer of light illuminated the second level of the Old Academy, filtering in from the narrow window at the end of the hallway. Itachi nudged his way into the first classroom, pushing back the shouji door papered with cracked and yellowing sheets. The windows were boarded over, remnants of glass scattered along where the floor met the wall, and the blackboard still had the remnants of a chalked equation for calculating the trajectory of a shuriken.

"If you ignore all the concrete, this place is actually not too bad," Temari said, trailing her fingers through the dust coating the surface of the nearest desk. "Do all the classrooms look like this?"

"Yes," said Haku. He drifted to the front of the classroom. "They are more or less identical. There were around thirty students per class for the younger children and twenty for classes preparing to graduate, so there was no need for the classroom size to change."

"How many classes is that?" Temari asked curiously. "This is a pretty big place."

"The Academy was built to accommodate about thirteen hundred to fifteen hundred students," Haku said, cautiously poking open the cabinet in the corner. There was a broom, a mop, a dustpan, and a bucket inside, all far too filthy for their intended use. He closed the door again carefully. "Enrollment happened twice a year - and still does in the rest of Kiri's Academies - and filled five classes each time."

Neji had not taken more than a step into the classroom. "How many of those graduated?" he asked quietly.

Haku kept his eyes forward and his voice steady when he answered, "Less than fifty."

The first set of dormitories they encountered were as spartan as the shinobi barracks, with shelves inset in the walls, bunks stacked three up and end to end cushioned only by thin sleeping pads, and untouched bedding folded with military precision. Itachi pushed the door open but did not go inside, and after peering in from behind him, Haku had just as little desire to enter the cramped space. Itachi left the door ajar and continued down the hall wordlessly.

Shisui made a small sound in the back of his throat. "Not to be depressing," he said. "But the design of this place really reminds me of the detention block in the catacombs."

"That is depressing," Temari muttered. "They don't really care about the students' comfort here, do they?"

Haku quickened his step. "Not these students."

The rooms at the very back, in a long row perpendicular to all the other rows, were just a little smaller. At Neji's, "Clear," Itachi opened the door to a private room, sunlight streaming in from between the boards on the window. There was a bed and desk on either side of the room and a set of shelves under the window. Itachi and Haku stood looking in from the doorway in silence as the rest of the team bunched up behind them. Finally, Neji said, "These are not the teachers' quarters, are they?" His tone was even but undercut by a resentment that ran deep and stirred at the slightest reminder.

"No," answered Haku, his own voice distant and chilly. "They are not."

Itachi closed the door.

Haku's own bitterness distracted him from the last location not yet scouted until they were padding down the pitch-black stairway and the realization of where they were going froze his muscles and his breath midstep. "Ichi?" Itachi prompted sharply, his doujutsu's glow combing the darkness. "Ni, eyes."

"No sign of enemies," Neji reported, low and clear despite the undercurrent of wariness and confusion.

Haku swallowed. "It's nothing," he rasped. "Sorry. The main entrances are on the basement level."

"This is the last bit," Shisui said encouragingly. "And not a single ghost so far. How's everyone feeling?"

"A little creeped out, but I'm fine, Sensei," said Temari. "Could use a water break, though."

Haku suspected the last bit, tacked on almost like an afterthought, had been for his benefit. He appreciated the thought but resented its implications.

"Ten minute break," Itachi said quietly, before Haku could finish wrestling over whether or not to insist that they keep going.

Neji shed his silent stride, sandals scuffling against the concrete as he shuffled in closer. He pressed something hard and flat against Haku as he brushed past, and Haku realized with some chagrin as he took it that it was a water canteen. Haku was used to watching out for Neji - the youngest of Team Suzaku, the sensor, who couldn't run as fast as Haku or hit as hard as Temari and stayed out of the way in the back during fights. But this place unsettled Haku enough that he felt grateful rather than disgruntled that even Neji pitied him enough to attempt to comfort him.

Fearful, superstitious Haku, who lost his nerve like a cracked civilian raving aboutonryou.

And it was only him bothered by the Academy. Itachi's doujutsu whirled and faded, conserving chakra rather than seeking out threats. Cloth shifted as he crouched, one knee down on the concrete as he pulled out his own canteen.

Haku twisted open the water, raising to his lips automatically. These hallways were cold, colder than the brewing winter outside, and he shivered and drew his haori closer to his body. Had the temperature dropped? Was it a harbinger of the restless spirits of the children who had died within these walls?

"Ichi-kun," Shisui said quietly, urgently, and Haku's eyes snapped up, scanning for danger. His heart sped up and his breath puffed out in little white clouds -

"Haku."Shisui was in front of him, carefully projecting his movements as he reached out and gripped Haku's shoulder with one hand as the other cradled a tiny flame in his palm. The warmth from his hand sank through Haku's haori -

Oh. The cold was him, his chakra, billowing out and freezing the air around him. Get it together, Haku, and hope no one tells Zabuza about this. Zabuza had no use for a coward. Haku breathed in and clamped down on his chakra hard. The icy chill winked out abruptly, leaving only the concrete-chill behind. "I apologize," he said stiffly. "That won't happen again."

"Haku-kun," Shisui said, his frown audible, "before we started, we said that if any of us felt anything odd - "

"I'm fine," Haku insisted, as politely as he could while interrupting him. "I have been here before without lasting negative effects."

Itachi glanced at Shisui. Shisui studied Haku. At last, Shisui nodded.

Haku ignored Temari's concerned gaze and handed Neji back his canteen.

His resolve lasted through the descent to the basement level. The curved wall of the arena loomed above them as they reached the double doors set directly opposite the stairwell. Itachi tried the handles. They didn't turn.

"There's a seal," Haku said. "You will need to disrupt it to gain entrance."

"I thought no one cared if anyone broke in," Temari said.

Haku smiled humorlessly. "This seal is more to keep things in than out. I should warn you - this is where you would feel it the strongest."

"What isit? Killing intent?" asked Temari cautiously, as Neji said, "The seal is one meter directly above the center of the doors."

"Not sakki," Haku said. He hesitated, casting in his mind for the right word."Shinigawa -the last moments."

Itachi scaled the wall in a bound, sticking to the surface just above the seal. His doujutsu whirled as he examined it.

"If it's not sakki, it doesn't sound too bad," said Shisui, but his tone was wary rather than dismissive. "What is shinigawa, exactly?"

Haku struggled for the words.

Itachi warned, "Prepare yourselves." He pressed a hand to the seal and deactivated it.

The dread that had been snapping at Haku's heels unfolded and reared its head, but Haku was ready for it. The rest of the team was not.

"Oh,shit,"Shisui breathed empathetically, catching Temari with one arm as she staggered backwards, her face white.

Neji dropped into a crouch and demanded through gritted teeth,"What is that?"

Thatwas shinigawa. It was nothing like a bijuu's all-encompassing hatred, a sakki so strong it could trick the body into thinking that it was dying. Shinigawa was the split second of terror when one realized they were about to die, and the resignation and rage that went with it. But most of all, it was the hopelessness that drowned them and dragged them down, that demanded they fall to their knees and submit to the inevitable. It was no easier for Haku to handle now than it had the first time around - worse, perhaps, because of the anticipation.

Neji lurched upright with none of his usual grace, and he sidled in a little too close to Haku, but Haku didn't mind. He welcomed the other boy's warmth, cutting through the chill of the shinigawa and Haku's own, unchecked chakra.

"If you are uncomfortable with proceeding, say so now," Itachi said. He sounded entirely unaffected by that unnamed force that pressed down on Haku's shoulders and stole the breath from his lungs, and he envied that.

"I will see this through," Haku said, grateful when his voice did not shake.

Temari muttered agreement. Neji said nothing, but stayed still and resolved next to Haku. "If either of us tells you to get out, you get out," Shisui ordered. The flame cradled in his hand flared, growing in size and intensity.

Itachi landed on the ground lightly and without another word, ventured into the darkness. Haku took a fortifying breath and followed.

The quiet clack of his sandals broke the utter silence, and the stagnant air of the tunnel walls pressed in on him. Haku wondered if the blood he smelled was his imagination or the remnants of a massacre long past.

Zabuza told him the story just once, here, his voice a low rumble as he laid out the details clinically, emotionlessly, as if it were any other mission, but Haku remembered it so vividly he could picture the scene in his head with startling clarity as he followed Itachi into the heart of the arena.

There was the door the graduation candidates marched out of, dressed in matching, ceremonial grey training uniforms, brand new in a farce of equality, that would bare the bloodstains of success for the killers and failure for their victims. There was where Zabuza stood, five years old between two twice his age, ignoring their confusion at the child in their midst.

There was where Zabuza's handlers activated the seal to lock the would-be graduates in and the proctors out. Twelve hundred students and their class sensei watched in confusion from the audience seats and the hundred and eight students down on the arena floor shuffled uncertainly. From his viewing box, sixteen-year-old Karatachi Yagura, seventeen months into his first years as Mizukage, ordered his guard to find out what was going on.

There was the place where the first body hit the ground. Zabuza drove a kunai through the girl's chest so abruptly that she never realized that she had died. There was where a boy had thrown himself into the seal barrier in an attempt to escape, only to fall back into Zabuza's blade. This was where two high-caste girls and one high-caste boy had tried to corner him with an elementary suiton and kunai and katana, where he painted the concrete wall with their blood and brain matter.

And here was the spot where Zabuza stood, staring fearlessly up to meet the Mizukage's eyes, with blood soaking into his sandals and between his toes and a hundred and eight bodies scattered across the floor, until the barrier came down and the guards dragged him away.

'Why did you do it?'the Mizukage had asked when a disarmed and unresisting Zabuza had been shoved to his knees before him.

'I was following orders,'Zabuza had responded, still following his handlers' orders.

The Mizukage had handed him a kunai, motioned towards Zabuza's handlers - who had raised him, trained him, shaped him - and ordered,'Kill them.'

And Zabuza had taken the kunai and brought his kill count for the day up to a hundred and ten.

'Shut it down,'the Mizukage had told his guard. 'The eugenics program. End this test; it is wasteful.'

'And the boy?'his guard had asked, a hand on the hilt of his katana as he eyed Zabuza - eyed the five-year-old mass murderer, kneeling over the corpses of his latest kills. A sane man would have put down the rabid thing,Zabuza had told Haku, sharp teeth bared in a crooked grin.

The Yondaime had looked at the boy soaked in blood and said,'No. He will be a great asset to Kirigakure someday.'

Thousands of children had fought and died on this arena floor, but that day, a demon had been born.

The bloodstains should have washed out of the floor easily. Like the rest of the Academy, it was concrete, made for durability and easy cleaning. But though the arena still stood, solid and foreboding, and only lightly scarred by blade and jutsu over the years, the reddish-brown tinge clung stubbornly to the concrete.

The audience seats yawned above them, rows of stone steps yawning into the shadows cast by Shisui's tiny katon. Haku's neck prickled with the feeling of invisible eyes on him, but even without looking he knew there was no one there. He turned anyways, straining eyes and ears both into the nothingness.

"There is nothing we need to see here," Shisui said abruptly, and though he didn't raise his voice it sounded almost obscenely loud. "Everybody out."

Never had Haku been more grateful to be given permission to flee.

Belatedly, squinting against the sunlight and sucking in a lungful of the smoky air, he realized Shisui might have meantout of the arenarather thanout of the Old Academy. But Neji was right there at his side, clutching a nearby tree for support. "Are you okay?" he murmured to Neji. The other boy nodded, too rattled for affront, and used the trunk to push upright.

Temari stumbled out of the doors behind them, and then, abruptly, the shinigawa snuffed out. The air rushed back into Haku's lungs as an invisible weight lifted off his shoulders, and Neji shook his head as though that would rid him of the lingering effects. "Itachi-sensei put the seal back on, thank the gods," Temari said, pale beneath her tan.

"You sure rabbitted fast," Shisui said cheerfully as he strolled out behind them, all easy grace now that they were back in the sunlight and the shinigawa had been suppressed. "Proud of you kids. Looks like the speed drills really helped."

Haku smiled shakily. He let his chakra frost his fingers, taking comfort in the bite of the cold.

"So," said Shisui, eyeing them keenly. Itachi slipped out behind him, pulling the door closed gently. "What do you think about the Old Academy as housing for Hana-ha?"

What did Haku think? Haku thought Hana-ha was better off living in caves like San and the wolves. Unfortunately, Hana-ha probably would not agree.

"We can'tnotuse it," Temari pointed out pragmatically. "Winter's only beginning. It'll be miserable and dangerous without a real roof."

"The danger is the shinigawa," Neji said slowly, not quite objecting. "I would rather winter outdoors than live in the middle of that."

Haku managed to pry his throat open long enough to force words out. "If the arena remains sealed," he said, the words sticking to the roof of his mouth, "then I think using the Old Academy for housing is viable. It is large enough to hold a lot of shinobi."

Itachi and Shisui exchanged a long, considering glance, but Haku knew that their minds had been made up even before the door closed behind them. "This facility was designed to house up to fifteen hundred students," Itachi mused.

"Between the classrooms and dormitories, we can double that capacity," Shisui said. "It'll be tight, but that's at least five or six units. If we used the arena, we could fit more, but - " he grimaced. "I'd rather not bet lives on that."

"Three thousand," said Itachi, nodding decisively.

"Yeah," said Shisui, giving Haku, Neji, and Temari a nod. "Good points, all of you. We'll ask the captain to throw up a couple more seals on the arena to make sure nobody can break in. It'll be fine."

Haku eyed the foreboding walls of the Old Academy. It would be fine. It had to be.

Haku wasn't quite sure who had smuggled six shinobi children varying in levels of conspicuity into the back of the hospital tent, or how they had accomplished such a feat, but upon their return, the wall between the captain's room and Zabuza's had been rolled up and the rest of the refugee children were piled up in the corner in a mound of sleeping mats and blankets. Zabuza's pallet had been shifted closer to the far wall, ostensibly to lessen the chances of someone bumping it, and as Haku followed Shisui and Itachi into the room, the captain and Zabuza looked up from where they had been poring over reports next to and on the pallet respectively.

"Taichou," Itachi greeted, tugging the flap down behind him and lighting the secrecy seal with a twist of chakra.

The captain's half-lidded eye flicked over the returning team, counting, assessing, and he nodded once. Zabuza raised an eyebrow. "Didn't die. Good for you."

Didn't die. Good.

Haku was fresh out of adrenaline, and his mind churned sluggishly. Good. He was good.

"Go on, you three sleep," said Shisui, giving Haku a nudge in the direction of the children-pile. "Good work today." Haku shot a fleeting glance over his shoulder, just to double check that Zabuza's condition had not worsened while he was away. It had not; so reassured, Haku let himself drift towards the siren call of the bedding and the sleep it promised.

Sasuke was buried under a heap of blankets, just the tip of his hair visible. Naruto sprawled half on top of him, limbs akimbo and entwined hopelessly with Sakura and Sai. Gaara leaned against Sai's back, his hands loose and empty in his lap. Hinata lay between Sai and Gaara, her hair splayed out behind her in a fan.

Gaara watched their approach silently with dark-rimmed, unblinking eyes, up until Temari crouched to run her hand through his shaggy hair. "Hi, otouto," she whispered, and his eyes lidded as he leaned into her touch.

Neji liberated a blanket from Sasuke's grasp, who had curled up with no fewer than four, and folded himself under it at the edges of the pile without another word, where he made a very good semblance of falling asleep instantaneously. Haku envied him. He was too tired to think. He eyed the tangle of limbs and blankets uncertainly, not sure where he fit.

"C'mere," Temari murmured, tugging him down. She too stole a blanket from Sasuke, pulling it out from under Naruto and draping it over both herself and Haku as she tucked him close to her side. He could hear the rasp of her breathing, feel the heat from her body and the rhythmic thumping of her heart, and instead of potential targets, those sounds were a comfort.

Someone on his other side shifted, long hair brushing against his arm as they - maybe Hinata - rolled over and went still again. Someone else's shoulder pressed against his, but Haku's head was too heavy to turn to see who.

"Ichi?" Naruto's sleepy voice drifted over the pile, quietly for Naruto but far from the silence Haku desired. It would be polite to respond, but Haku no longer cared about being polite. "Ichi! You're back! You totally - "

"Shh," Temari scolded, her voice barely a rumble. "Let him sleep, Roku."

"Oh," said Naruto. "Oops. Sorry! I'll be quiet now."

"Shhhh," went Sakura drowsily, still asleep.

Haku's adrenaline had faded, his battles left behind. The captain was here, Itachi and Shisui were here, and his team was here. The entire Yorozoku pack was surrounding him. Zabuza was safe, and so was he.

Wrapped in blankets and the warmth of his pack, Haku let himself sleep.

Notes:

[07/16/2019] Hey look, a chapter!

I really thought this chapter wouldn't break 35k words, but once again...here we are. Writing this story remains my primary form of stress relief and procrastination. (Another is Netflix. I binged three season of Stranger Things in four days and one of Nikita in three.) When/if I write the sequel, I'm pretty sure I'm going to cap chapters at a more reasonable 10-15k words and just update more often because editing it all on one doc is a pain. Next chapter's going to be Late because I have not started it because I was finishing this one.

This chapter had a lot of action by necessity, but hey, that's probably going to be it for a while. It was exhausting.

Thanks for reading and your comments and kudos :)

Chapter 17: Kakashi's Had A Lot Of Wins Lately, Which Is Suspicious

Summary:

Congratulations! Your DUMPSTER FIRE KAKASHI evolved into TRAINWRECK KAKASHI!

Notes:

44k words. sorry.

(See the end of the chapter formore notes.)

Chapter Text

MISSION REPORT D-417

Contact with enemy combatants: three (3) incidents.

Enemy combatants from origin: Konohagakure (2); Sunagakure (1).

Status of Operative Cat-15:

Stable. No major injuries or illness.

Status of AT2:

Approximate age-appropriate growth continued. Social skills unable to measured.

Self-sustaining skills acquisition rated as ahead of average age group performance in both speed andretention in all areas except social development, which remains unmeasured.

Beginning-level combat and infiltration training continued. Combat skills acquisition rated as aheadof average age group performance in both speed and retention.

Status of TAP73I:

Stable. Present base camp located in [REDACTED].

No enemy contact reported. No enemy observations reported.

Duration of last contact with Operative Cat-15: 17 days.

Time elapsed after last contact with Operative Cat-15: 3 days.

Conclusion: TAP73I is satisfactorily self-sustaining in procuring food, water, shelter, and clothing. Mock combat evaluations estimate an 85% success rate of first combat contact with ACSG present,50% with ACST present, 40% with ACNS present, 20% with ACHN present, and 5% without theabove named. Success rate of following combat contacts decrease sharply; TAP73I has been advisedto leave the site quickly and stealthily after any enemy contact.

Plan of action: Operative Cat-15 will depart the TAP73I base camp with AT2 and continue to maintain minimal contact.

END REPORT

-Operative Cat-15

Kakashi's broken arm itched. It wasn't strictly broken anymore, the edges of the fracture joined by gossamer-thin bone that the medic-nin Kurumi had coaxed into holding his arm together, but it was fragile enough that Kurumi had splinted it in a cast and given him a sling.

Givenwas misleading word. Forcedwas more accurate. Nothing stopped him from taking it off, physically, but given that Tsunade herself was an iryou-nin, going against medical orders would incur her wrath, and it had been a long day - week, month, year - and topping it off with a pissed superior officer wasn't his idea of a good time.

So Kakashi wore his sling like a good little shinobi and made the best of his situation by using it to store the rolled-up messages and reports that apparently accumulated when one was off assassinating a Kage. Zabuza, still stoned half out of his mind, squinted at him like he wasn't sure if he was actually awake and watching Kakashi squirrel his papers away on top of his broken arm. Kakashi gave him his best bullshitting smile. Zabuza blinked twice, hard, visibly decided not to ask, and went back to his own packet spread out on his knees with a grunt. Kakashi had his doubts that the other man was actually reading them.

Kakashi was still grounded, which was why he was still in the medical tent, gently annoying Zabuza and ostensibly keeping an eye on the puppy pile of genin in the corner. Shisui and Itachi had come and gone, as Kakashi watched from his corner. He knew for a fact that Itachi was supposed to be on light duty, because though they'd cleaned up his concussion pretty well, his ribs were still wrapped and healing. Therefore, Kakashi should also be allowed to leave Medical, but for some reason he had been vetoed on the grounds of organ damage.

To be fair, Kakashi did want to sleep - just not on a foldable pallet in a medical tent where Shizune could materialize out of the ether and stab him in the neck with a syringe full of painkillers so he woke up as high as a kite, like she had Zabuza. But his chakra was still low enough that his head felt stuffed with cotton and the room spun every time he moved too quickly.

He was stubborn enough to stay awake for a little longer. He just needed Shisui or Itachi to come back, so he could pass the watch to someone awake, unimpaired, and older than eleven. Gaara was awake as always, but his pale eyes were distant and glazed over.

As if summoned by the thought, Kakashi caught Itachi's scent amidst the antiseptic sting that permeated the medical tent, and he lifted his head - slowly, carefully - in time to watch him slip into the tent. His eyes skittered over the genin in the corner, counting them, before meeting Kakashi's. His eyebrows furrowed in a slight frown. "You should rest, Taichou," he said, as if the dark circles under his own eyes did not exist. "You look unwell."

Kakashi had no energy for quips. "Take the watch," he said, sweeping the rest of his reports into a messy pile. "Wake me in three hours." He might have felt bad for dumping the responsibility onto a subordinate who was clearly exhausted, but Itachi wasn't supposed to sleep very long anyways - at least not for another half day or so.

"Hai," said Itachi obediently.

Or not so obediently, because the next time Kakashi opened his eye, it was of his own accord, and the encroaching evening had turned into mid-morning. "Traitor," he grated out, blinking away the grogginess.

Shisui leaned over him, the leopard mask absent. "Hey, Taichou," he said cheerfully. "Good to see you awake. You're in Medical, and as your attending, Shizune-sensei overrode your orders. Don't blame Itachi."

Kakashi sat up gingerly, his arm twinging in warning when he tried to move it. Zabuza was knocked out, his blanket pulled up over his nose. Itachi was an unmoving lump of dark cloth on a pallet with his katana in easy reach. He looked exhausted and very young; it was hard to blame him. Kakashi scrubbed a hand over his eye absently and transferred his glance to Shisui. "Sitrep."

Shisui straightened. "There have been a few scattered skirmishes in the city, but most of the loyalists have surrendered and the Hanran have taken point on suppression of those who haven't," he recited. "Hanabi-ha has secured the temporary base camp in the training grounds. Company commanding officers are expected to perform and report final headcounts by tonight. Teams have been sent to the Old Academy for cleanup and preparation, and estimated time for move-in is two days. Tsunade-sama did not attend the last Command meeting but is expected to be present for the one at 1700 hours today. Commander Nara continues to act as Hanabi-ha's leader and diplomatic representative in the interim. The joint Command meeting has been scheduled for 0900 hours tomorrow."

Kakashi grimaced, swinging his legs over the side of the pallet. Joint Command meetings were like paperwork: necessary but distasteful, with a small but still present chance of one killing themselves to avoid it. "Shikaku's going to need to brief me. Where is Command set up?"

There was a brief, polite silence as Shisui debated whether or not to say it. "Taichou," he said. "I don't think you've been cleared yet."

Kakashi stretched his senses out into the rest of the medical tent, probing in particular for Shizune. She wasn't there, and therefore could not stop him. "I'm discharging myself," he announced. He gave Shisui a pointed stare. "Threatening to shove me isn't going to work this time."

Shisui narrowed his eye. "Is this the example you want to set for the kids?"

Playing dirty. How shinobi. Kakashi glanced over at the assorted children, who were mostly awake save Haku, and were watching their exchange with unabashed interest.

Damnit.

"At least get me something to eat that isn't Medical rations," Kakashi said, sinking to sit back down on his pallet now that his escape had been thwarted. Temporarily shelved.

Shisui's eye curved into a particularly annoying smile. He had the manners not to openly gloat when he raised his voice and said, "Rei-chan, why don't you and Team Byakko get us all some breakfast?" he suggested. "Shichi and Kyuu, help me find either Kurumi-sensei, Kuri-sensei, or Shizune-sensei. Ni and Hachi, run a message to the commander, will you?"

As the named genin filed out in a mini exodus, Kakashi patted himself down subtly with his good hand. Someone - either Shisui or Kurumi or one of the other medic-nin - had removed the reports stashed in his sling, but left the weapons hidden under his standard Kiri greys. He frowned at Shisui.

Shisui said, "I'll give them back when you get cleared by the medics." Shisui was perhaps a little too confident in his ability to keep Kakashi from doing what he wanted, now that he had sent the underaged audience away. He seemed to realize this when Kakashi narrowed his eye.

"Give me the paperwork and I won't leave now," Kakashi offered magnanimously.

A pause. "Taichou," Shisui said, his smirk audible. "Are you asking for paperwork of your own free will?"

Kakashi bit back a sigh. Teenagers were suchbrats.

"Fine," said Shisui, producing the missing reports with a flourish. "Your command is my command. Fully expect me to throw you to the wolves if the medic-nin get upset."

Kakashi took the reports and somehow felt as though he'd still lost.

Itachi stirred not long after, shifting from asleep to awake in between one breath and the next. Kakashi glanced at him over the top of his reports, but his eyes were still closed and his breathing even.

"Good morning, cousin," Shisui said wryly from the opposite side, and only then did Itachi open his eyes and sit up.

"Taichou. Shisui," he rasped, his fingers ghosting over his ribs gingerly. "How long was I asleep?"

"Nine hours," Shisui answered, frowning at Itachi's side.

Itachi blinked, the grogginess in his eyes fading bit by bit. "I see," he managed, and proceeded to spend the next thirty seconds staring vacantly at the far wall.

"Hey, you know what we need?" Shisui said, tapping his fingers on the surface of his pallet. "A team name."

"What?" said Kakashi.

"We don't have a team name," Shisui explained patiently. "We should have a team call sign, especially for the reports on the Mizukage Assassination mission."

Kakashi would have suggested 'Team Kakashi' or 'Team Hatake' but his identity was supposed to be kept hidden. "Alpha Team."

Shisui gave him a pitying look. "Fortunately for the unimaginative - but practical!" he added hurriedly when Kakashi narrowed his eye, "I have an idea already: Team Seiryuu."

"Symbol of strength, power, and leadership. A little pretentious, isn't it?" Kakashi didn't know if he could go into a joint Command meeting and call himself a member of 'Team Seiryuu' with a straight face.

"We can match the kids! We'll have all four of the guardian spirits," Shisui said, a frankly unnerving light in his eye, and turned to his cousin.

"I have no opinion on this matter," said Itachi. Shisui rolled his eye expansively and gave him a pointed stare until he said, "Team Seiryuu is acceptable."

"Team Seiryuu," Shisui repeated with an air of victory. "I'm putting that in the official reports, Taichou."

Clearly, Kakashi had no say in this matter. "Team Seiryuu," he agreed listlessly, and ignored Shisui's gleeful aura in favor of returning to his notes.

Hinata and Gaara had found Shizune. She swept in trailing the kids and projecting both an air of distraction and one of intense focus. She spared a smile for Shisui. "Good to see you. How is the stab wound doing?"

"Which one?" Shisui quipped. "They're both fine. I'm not bleeding anymore, I promise," he added, when she shot him a look.

"Good," said Shizune, turning to Itachi with a hand already cupped with healing chakra. Itachi's eyes flicked towards her sharply, and she paused, slowing her movements. "I just need to check out your head, okay?"

Itachi blinked. "Aa. I apologize," he said. "Please go ahead."

Shizune smiled. "No need to apologize. It's normal to be on edge."

Hinata perched on the bench closest to them, her neck craned to watch Shizune work. Gaara, after a moment of deliberation, did the same, but his observation of Shizune was much more disinterested than the attention he fixed on Itachi.

Shizune's chakra sank into Itachi's temple, and Itachi's eyes half-closed. "No new bleeding or swelling," she noted. "Pressure okay. Have you had any headaches, dizziness, memory difficulty? Confusion or disorientation?"

"I do have a headache," answered Itachi. "It is constant, but low-level. Tolerable."

Shizune hummed, even as her chakra shrank to a tiny point and intensified. "The nerves are still sensitive. Does this feel any better?"

"It does. Thank you."

"Your ribs are holding up," said Shizune, giving him a final warm smile. "Nothing strenuous, if you can help it. I'll have Kuri check up on you later." She looked up at Kakashi. "What about you?"

Kakashi stacked his reports, pushing them off to the side. "I'm fine," he said.

She scowled, advancing on him. Medic-nin never seemed to take him seriously when he said that. "Hold still," she said, lifting a green-glowing hand to his broken arm. "I'm going to check you over."

"Go ahead," said Kakashi, though Shizune didn't care for his permission.

"The bone is healing nicely." Her chakra whispered along Kakashi's arm, down his side, and hovered over his abdomen. She frowned. "Careful with these," she warned. "I brought down the bruising yesterday ad cleared out the old blood, but any abrupt movements and you'll bleed again." She moved on, prodding at his knee both with her hands and her chakra. "Any stiffness or tenderness?"

"It's a little sore," Kakashi admitted.

"Ice it a couple times a day," Shizune directed, turning. Shisui passed her a thin stack of folders - patient charts - and she scribbled something illegible on the topmost sheet. "Take it easy, but you should recover full mobility."

"Am I cleared?" Kakashi asked, sitting up. Her lips pursed, but she didn't stop him.

"You can do paperwork," she said, "but nothing more strenuous. I'm keeping you here for observation for another day."

"There's a Command meeting today," Kakashi said.

"I'll think about it," said Shizune, already turning to go.

"Shizune," Kakashi said, and she glanced back. "Did you eat breakfast? We sent the kids to get some from the mess."

She gave him a wan smile. "I'll eat later. I have patients to see."

Temari and Team Byakko returned next, Naruto's exuberance tempered by the trays he balanced in his hands. He only had two trays to Temari's five and Sasuke and Sakura's three each, which was undoubtedly something he'd been outvoted on. "There's bacon!" Naruto announced, practically throwing his trays in his enthusiasm to show them, and if it weren't for Shisui's speed, said bacon would have ended up splattered over a sleeping Haku. "Oops," he said, ducking his head sheepishly at Sakura's and Sasuke's twin glares.

"Careful," Shisui admonished, raising the rescued trays higher above their heads as first Gaara, then Hinata sidled around him, lurer by the smell. "Good work, kids. Take ten. Hell, take an hour, we've got nothing better to do."

Sakura raised her hand. "Can we go outside?" she asked hopefully.

Shisui hesitated too long. "I'd rather you stay where I can see you."

"We can take care of ourselves!" Naruto objected. "We did when you and Itachi-sensei and Zabuza-sensei and the captain went to go kill the Mizukage! And wejustwent and got food!"

"I know," said Shisui. "Just - humor me, hmm? It's been a rough few days, and I'm not sure my blood pressure can take it if you run off now." His words were light and flew right over the heads of most of the children.

"Sure, Sensei," said Temari, effectively heading off further protests. She was just old enough to catch what Shisui wasn't saying, and in general was very useful for overall child wrangling. "We can eat in here."

"Taichou," said Itachi, drawing Kakashi's attention as he stood, reaching for his armor. "I need to see to my unit. I have not had the chance since before the mission."

"Go ahead," said Kakashi, watching with rather well-concealed envy as Itachi slipped on his bracers, and then his mask. "Final headcounts, I know."

"I will return," Itachi said with a grave nod, and took up his katana in its sheath. He dropped a hand in Sasuke's hair as he strode out.

Sasuke watched him go with ill-disguised dismay until Naruto's elbow caught him in the ribs in the process of grabbing a breakfast tray. "Watch it," he snapped, jerking backwards into Sakura, who overbalanced and toppled into Haku.

Instead of jerking awake violently, as shinobi tended to do when their sleep was disturbed, Haku sighed noiselessly and opened his eyes with glum resignation as Sakura squeaked an apology. Not really asleep, then, but probably wishing he was.

Neji and Sai returned in time to join the breakfast feeding frenzy. "The commander received the message," Sai informed Shisui solemnly. "His immediate response was, 'What now?' and his official response was, 'Tell him I got it.'"

"Thank you, Hachi. You too, Ni," Shisui added, his eye twinkling in mirth. "I appreciate your diligence."

Neji's only response was a distracted nod. He, like the rest of the pack, had fixated on the food as a stray dog did a butcher's bone. Kakashi narrowed his eye, even as he accepted a tray from Shisui. "You all eat much while we were gone?" he asked, deliberately casual.

The activity paused. Nine assorted children passed glances back and forth like candy.

"Not really, sir," Temari said, clearly choosing to take one for the team.

Shisui smirked from behind her and mouthed,Rank is very important during a war. That was bullshit because Shisui was the reason that it wasthe captain thisorthe captain thatevery time one of the kids referred to him when officially, Kakashi's rank wasn't even captain anymore. Shisui'srank was captain. Kakashi stared back at him balefully and silently promised retribution.

"They kinda had to shut down the mess for a day cuz it caught on fire," Naruto said brightly. "They made a new one last night. We didn't eat nothing but ration bars until today!"

"Didn't eat anything," Sakura corrected absently.

Behind her, Gaara silently traded his cup of zenzai for half of Hinata's bacon.

"Hm," Kakashi said blankly.

The afternoon found Kakashi idly taking inventory of his holsters and watching with half an eye as the children practiced their acrobatics (Naruto and Sasuke), rehearsed their specialized clan taijutsu (Neji and Hinata), or flicked pebbles (Temari and Sai) or ice (Haku) for Gaara's sand to bat out of the air. Shisui perched on the edge of his pallet, legs swinging off the edge, and chewed the end of his pencil absently as he frowned at the stack of reports in his hand.

The low hum of patients and medics outside changed, a hush followed by a slight burst of sound. Kakashi had just enough time to get off the pallet and firmly on his feet before Tsunade strode in, her haori and Genma and a beleaguered Shikaku drifting in her wake. Shikaku gave him a nod. Genma flicked a two-fingered salute, quirking an ironic grin around the senbon in his mouth. The genin scattered out of Tsunade's way and piled into their corner to watch with mixed awe and wariness, but her glare was for Kakashi alone. "What do you think you're doing? Sit back down," she snapped.

Zabuza came awake with a slurred, "The fuck - ?" and scrabbled at the edge of his pallet, trying to lever himself upright.

Tsunade rounded on him. "You, shut up and stop moving. I'll deal with you next."

"Oh, it's the witch," Zabuza muttered, slumping back down scrubbing his hands over his eyes.

Tsunade stopped. She turned.

Shikaku slouched discreetly to the opposite corner from the genin, out of the blast radius, and Genma strategically stayed right where he was at the exit. From his seat on his pallet, Kakashi watched silently and with great interest.

"He's on a lot of drugs," Shisui interjected hurriedly, because he was too nice. Zabuza had just enough good sense not to keep digging his own grave. "Like, a lot of drugs. Hydromorphone, I think."

Tsunade regarded him for a moment, perhaps reaffirming his identity now that he wasn't wearing his mask. "Uchiha. Still alive. Mediocre technique, good instincts, good memory, shoddy chakra control."

"That's me," agreed Shisui cheerfully, though Tsuande was probably the only person who would ever call his chakra control shoddy.

Tsunade nodded sharply. "You'll do more work with Shizune," she said, and turned to Kakashi. Shisui opened his mouth to protest, thought better of it, and closed his mouth again. "Gods above, Hatake, every time I see you, you find a new way to get the shit kicked out of you." Her tone was harsh but her eyes a mixture of exasperated and fond.

"I try," Kakashi said modestly, shrugging out of the sling to give her more room to work.

Tsuande whacked him over the head with his patient charts. "Don't be a brat. There are children watching."

Gloomily, Kakashi wondered if that would ever stop being a threat that worked. "Shizune checked me out thirty minutes ago."

"My condolences to her, then," Tsunade muttered. Her chakra was bright and warm and tickled as she pressed it against his head, and he wrinkled his nose to keep from sneezing. "Take that off," Tsunade murmured, tapping the edge of his mask with one finger.

Minutely, Kakashi shook his head.

Tsunade huffed. "Brat," she said again, too quiet for anyone but Kakashi to hear. Then, louder, "Lie down. Shizune's been on duty or on call for five days straight. She doesn't have the chakra to finish fixing you up."

"And you?" Kakashi asked, mild enough to hide the hopefulness.

Tsunade-sama snorted. "Ineed you in one piece for the Command meeting. Lie down, I said."

It was great to feel wanted. It was probably his sunny personality.

Still, he hesitated. Tsunade rolled her eyes expressively and turned and yanked down the canvas wall to cut off the curious stares of nine shinobi children. "It's like you don't want me to heal you," she grumbled, glaring at him until he lay back.

"Sorry," Kakashi said meekly, and gave her his best pitiful look. It had worked on her when he was four, but now it earned him an unimpressed stare. Time had not touched her; she looked the same now as when she used come around his house for dinner with Jiraiya and his father between missions, when she laughed and swatted his father when he tried to get Kakashi to call her Baa-san. Those memories were distant and foggy now, like most of his memories of his father. By the time his father died, she was long gone.

This was the same kunoichi who'd been revolutionized the entire institution of medic-nin before she was twenty, who was feared for her strength and her skill, the legacy of the Shodaime Hokage and of the Senju. Here, now, with iryou-chakra glowing at her fingertips and a scowl of concentration on her face, she was far removed from the shell of a woman that had spent the past evening frozen, blind and deaf to the world around her as her own mind snared her in its grip. The same grief that clung to her then still clouded her eyes, but instead of merely the ghosts haunting her, she was the ghost now, drifting in and out of life.

"There," Tsunade said brusquely. "You can lose the knee brace, but keep the arm cast and the sling; the bone's still fragile. Congratulations, you're back on light duty. Shikaku will fill you in. Now," she turned on Zabuza, who flinched, still half asleep and mostly out of it. "You."

"Oh, fuck," Zabuza mumbled reflexively.

Kakashi pushed himself upright as Shikaku sauntered around to meet him. The shadows seemed to drag at his form, draping off his clothes and tracing dark circles around his eyes. "You look like shit," he remarked.

Shikaku dragged a hand down the side of his face. "I know," he said, the words muffled. "I've been putting out fires since you left. We took some damage from the counterattack, and the Hanran was a mess with the majority of their top brass on the assassination team. Half the city's wrecked, and you know Terumi will find a way to pin it on us."

Kakashi rubbed the mask over his chin. "I may have antagonized her. Slightly," he admitted. Shikaku stared at him, unsurprised and droll. Tsunade snorted but didn't look up from her work on Zabuza. "In all fairness, she had just tried to have me killed. That'll be a point for us. Violation of the treaty."

"There's several outcomes she'll be angling for, given how the circumstances played out," Shikaku mused, his eyes sharp and distant. "She's going to want us divided, and preferably out of the Inner Village, but she seems to have given up on that. She's not going to want to feed and house our shinobi for free. In any case, we should prepare reasonable counters," he said, a frown creasing his forehead.

"We have the Old Academy," Kakashi pointed out. "We frame it as a favor to her, we can leverage something better than tents for the rest of the units."

Shikaku nodded, accepting his point. "As of now, our representatives for the joint Command meeting are you, me, Tsunade-sama - " he hesitated, glancing down at Zabuza, " - and Komorebi."

"What am I, chopped liver?" Zabuza growled. His eyes were more alert now, his voice less foggy.

Tsunade flicked the side of his head to his indignant yelp. "It was," she snapped."Again.Maybe you don't believe when I tell you that you do actually need it."

"I was stabbed, I didn't fall on my own sword," Zabuza hissed. "You need me when you're dealing with Mei. She's off-balance when I'm there."

"I'm not convinced you should even be walking," Tsunade's fired back, but she glanced at Shikaku.

"He's right," Shikaku admitted. "Having someone there who understands the way she thinks raises the probability of a positive outcome."

"Don't tell me about the probability." Tsunade's chakra pulsed, and Zabuza craned his neck to watch, alarmed, as if this was the time Tsunade was finally going to murder him on the operating table. "You're fine, you big baby. Shizune wasted all her damn chakra on you." Her chakra winked out as she dusted her hands off, planting them on her hips as she swivelled to regard all three of her shinobi. "Momochi, you're coming with the joint Command delegation."

"Joy," muttered Zabuza. Tsunade glared at him, and he grudgingly amended it to, "Yes, sir," and leaned away from her. Kakashi idly wondered if the drugs were still in his system or if Tsunade had burned them out.

"You two get some rest before the Command meeting," Tsunade ordered. "Three hours' sleep, minimum. Shizune will give you the location." She strode to the dividing wall, swept the canvas up and out of the way, and stopped dead. Her mouth twitched up in a reluctant smile.

Shisui had somehow managed to get all nine of the children - even Naruto - in a rough circle, cross-legged on the floor with their eyes closed in meditation. Kakashi watched nonplussed, and glanced over at Genma. Still hovering near the entrance with his hands in his pockets and his senbon in his mouth, the other man shrugged. The consensus: Shisui was a strange creature but an excellent babysitter.

Shisui was also unfortunate in that given the inherent details of his position, he amassed five times as much paperwork as even Kakashi. He attended the Hanabi-ha Command meeting still skimming through reports and left with his mask still buried in the scrolls and loose papers.

Nevertheless, Kakashi would have traded places with him in a heartbeat if it meant he wouldn't have to participate in the Joint Command meeting.

Kakashi was never a fan of broadcasting his weaknesses, but he liked to think he wore it well. Mei's eyes flicked to Kakashi's sling as he entered, and then his face, as if verifying that it was indeed Kakashi with the broken arm, and then gave him a slow, predatory smile. Kakashi ignored the scrutiny and the smile, settling into the chair at Tsunade's right, directly across from Ao, and Shikaku took the seat on Tsunade's other side. Zabuza crossed his arms over his chest, staying on his feet behind Kakashi as Komorebi took up a guard position at Shikaku's shoulder.

Mei folded her hands on the table in front of her, her face melting into a polite mask. "I'll cut to the chase, if you don't mind, Tsunade-sama," she said. Ao scowled ever so slightly.

"Fine by me," Tsunade said curtly, eyes narrowing until only a glint of amber was visible.

Mei nodded to her captain, the one Zabuza had some kind of mutual hate relationship with, who set a large cardboard box on the table with great reluctance and opened it. Inside were stacks of hitai-ate, marked with the Kiri symbol.

Tsunade stared, her face stony but her displeasure obvious. "What is this?" she asked dangerously.

Mei wasn't visibly smug. Instead, for a blink of an eye, she looked tired. Kakashi studied Fukaya, but the commander's face was carved from stone.

Mei steepled her fingers, resting her chin on her fingertips. "Kiri's shinobi forces are depleted, and many of our shinobi will be tied up sorting out the new administration and dealing with the loyalists. The battles throughout the Inner Village and the Lower City have caused immeasurable damage to our infrastructure, and we don't have the manpower to repair it all before the worst of winter hits."

"What," Tsunade repeated deliberately, "is this?"

Her anger was palpable, stirring beneath her facade of calm. It sent a prickle of warning down Kakashi's spine and sparked against his chakra. Beside him, he could feel Komorebi's subtle shift from guarded to poised though the assassination specialist did not move, and Ao's visible eye sharpened in response.

"This is an offer," Mei replied, unruffled by the stifling tension. "I could use the shinobi. Your shinobi could use the protection Kiri's symbol would give you."

"We have an alliance, one whose terms I expect you to uphold. We will notjoinKiri," Tsunade growled.

"Nor would I expect you to," Mei said smoothly. "This would be a temporary arrangement. You cannot expect to march against Konoha immediately. Take up the Kiri hitai-ate for a year, maybe two. You will have an outpost to operate autonomously, from which you can continue Hanabi-ha missions as long as Kiri is not implicated."

From the thunderous expression on her face, Tsunade was not impressed. "You expect me to split my shinobi between some outpost in the middle of the ocean and your village, when you have already tried to assassinate my second in command and three of my captains?"

"This is trust," Mei hissed. "Giving you our symbol is a risk to us, as well. You would continue to command your shinobi as you have. You would keep the profits from and have the option to accept or decline missions. You can continue to work towards your goal while giving your shinobi as well as mine a chance to recover. Kirigakure cannot support your war when we are still weakened from our own."

Tsunade met Mei's glare with her own. The chances of a fight actually breaking out were slim, but Kakashi let his chakra crackle closer to the surface, just in case. He exchanged a quick glance of understanding with Shikaku - if it came to it, the other man would trap Mei and Kakashi would neutralize Ao.

"Uzu no Kuni," Tsunade snapped at last.

Mei's eyes widened, then narrowed. "What about it?"

Tsunade crossed her arms across her chest. "I want it as the Hanabi-ha outpost.Andthe Hoteimaru."

Mei leaned back. Strategically, Uzu was the largest, and given its proximity to the mainland, arguably the most important outpost Kiri had - to say nothing of the value of Kiri's warships. Only five remained afloat, only three firmly in Hanran hands. Capitulating to a demand like that would be -

"Fine."

- suspicious.

Tsunade actually paused at that.

"Have your outpost on Uzu. Make use of the Hoteimaru," said Mei, letting just a little of her fatigue show. Calculated. "Tsunade-sama, I want this to work. We've intertwined the fates of our people, for better or worse, and we know too many of each other's secrets to move against the other. Accept the offer. It will benefit us both."

Shinobi were good at discerning truth from lies. Shinobi were also good liars. Silence hung heavy in the room as Tsunade scrutinized the other woman, searching for tells.

"Fine," said Tsunade at last, her voice frigid. "Keep in mind that should you choose to double-cross us, Hanabi-ha will have very little left to lose. If that comes to pass, we will make damn sure that all of Kirigakure goes down with us - and it willnotrecover." She whirled, storming towards the door. "On me," she snapped, and Komorebi and Shikaku peeled away to fall in behind her. Zabuza raised a sardonic eyebrow at Mei and rolled his eyes expansively at Kakashi.

"We'll send someone by to pick those up," Kakashi said, nodding at the box of hitai-ate, and whisked after Tsunade.

In light of Mei's rather unexpected proposal, Kakashi was in and out of both Hana-ha and Joint Command meetings for the better part of the next three days. Tsunade flat out refused to move her shinobi off Kiri's main island until spring, but for all her talk of trust, Mei didn't like the idea of the majority of a rogue nation wintering in her capital while it was still rebuilding. Mei requested a Hana-ha medical detachment to assist with the overhaul of Kiri's comparatively archaic hospital system, but Tsunade guarded her iryou-nin fiercely and suspiciously. Kakashi understood that slogging through the politics was necessary, but the reality was standing behind Tsunade's shoulder for hours on end as she and Mei circled and sniped at each other.

Moving into Kiri's Old Academy was, by comparison, a nice break. Itachi and Zabuza had their Units' own respective transitions to oversee, so Kakashi dressed down to a bandana and flak jacket and a light henge and went to join Shisui and the assorted children in their temporary camp next to a burned-out fallen tree. Ash and bark crunched under his feet as he made his way through the training ground, and he was nearly invisible among the rest of the shinobi in adjoining camps.

"Ne, are we gonna get our own rooms?" Naruto's voice was unmistakable, bright and carefree amidst the devastated clearing.

"No," Shisui answered patiently. "All three of your teams are going to have to share space. The captain's marked off the smallest library for our use, so the nine of you will share the adjoining storeroom and office."

"There's a library?" Sakura asked, thrilled. "Shi, don't you dare set this one on fire."

Sasuke made an annoyed or possibly disappointedtch.

"There are three in the Old Academy," answered Shisui, his voice amused. "I'm afraid the one we'll be using only has a dozen or so cases."

Kakashi rounded the bend to find Shisui, children, and assorted weapons and tools scattered across the clearing around the remains of a small campfire. He lifted his free hand in a casual wave as Shisui looked up.

"Ah, Hatake-taichou," Shisui greeted, and nine pairs of genin eyes swung around to regard him warily, curiously, or apathetically.

Kakashi rocked back on his feet, slouching to a less intimidating height. "Who's ready to go?" He asked. "I'll take the first group over now." Nine underaged genin accompanying the Captain of Covert Intelligence to the Old Academy would attract unwanted attention, and Kakashi was presently disguised as a regular jounin.

Sai raised his hand. "Team Genbu is ready to depart," he volunteered. His pack rested against his leg, as tall as a sleepy-looking Gaara sitting cross-legged at his side. Hinata tilted her face at Kakashi and managed a nod of agreement before she ducked her head, as if her eyes were skittering away. None of them were wearing the bone-masks, which made this an increasingly rare occurrence, but bandages swathed Hinata's eyes to hide her kekkei-genkai from view.

"Good," said Kakashi, giving Shisui a nod before settling his gaze expectantly on the team. "Let's go."

In the interest of avoiding his own troops more than Hanran or loyalist - or just Kiri, now - Kakashi chose a path that meandered through the edges of the village. Besides the thoroughfare, these were the areas hit hardest by the fighting, with scorched roof tiles and pavers torn up from the ground. He took his time, in deference to the kids' short legs and so he could examine the streets around them as they went. Not many people were outdoors, but in the windows, he made out the indistinct silhouettes of the buildings' inhabitants, moving on with their lives despite the unrest outside. A small cell of Kiri shinobi eyed them suspiciously as they passed the furniture store they had commandeered but made no move to challenge them.

"Hey! You there."

…or not.

The three children tucked themselves behind him without prompting. Kakashi appraised the approaching Kiri trio. Chuunin, probably, because Kiri had too few jounin or tokujo to spare one on guard duty at the edge of the city. Their clothes were battered but not patched, and at least the one in the lead carried himself with the brashness Kakashi had come to associate with shinobi born in one of the upper castes.

He glanced down at himself. Standard Kiri greys - the mass produced kind - flak jacket, cast and sling, and not much else. With his hair wrangled firmly under his bandana, the bandages wrapped over his actual mask, and his chakra reined back, Kakashi supposed he could have passed for a Hanran chuunin. Even a high caste Kiri chuunin wouldn't dare call out a low caste jounin - at least, not on purpose and not without painful consequences.

The chuunin glanced him up and down derisively. "Are you one of the traitors?"

Strong words for someone whose side had just lost the war.

"No, just a sellsword," Kakashi said amiably. He tucked his hands in his pockets, shifting his weight away from combat-ready and more towards relaxed. "We're on our way to the Old Academy, where we've been stationed for the time being. Hana Division, Unit 15; identification Hana-An-4696."

His answer did not appease the lead chuunin. "Nuke-nin," he said, the shadow of a scowl creeping across his face. His teammates spread out on either side of him, cutting off easy access to Kakashi's chosen path.

"Kiri must be half nuke-nin by now," Kakashi drawled. "I'm not trying to pick a fight. Just trying to get to where I need to go."

"No," the chuunin snapped. "All of you will stay right here until your identities are verified."

Kakashi glanced back at his tagalongs. Sai's face was wiped clean of emotion, his dark eyes particularly eerie as he watched the chuunin. Gaara slouched just behind his shoulder, predatory by comparison, and Hinata twisted her hands together as she rocked on her feet uncertainly. Kakashi didn't have a lot of options here that would avoid causing a diplomatic incident, or one that would risk undue exposure for the kids, so he said, "Fine. We'll wait."

Kakashi didn't mind waiting, and from their enthusiastic imitation of stone statues, neither did Team Genbu. Gaara sidled sideways the half meter necessary for him to move out of the shadows and into the sunlight, where he slid down until he was sitting cross-legged against the brick wall of a battered bakery with his eyes hooded. Hinata, her hands clutching her forearms in her sleeves, and Sai, who stared unblinking at the chuunin and his team, stayed where they were on their feet. Whether deliberate or unconscious, their positions gave Gaara a clear shot at the other team.

Hinata's head swivelled just a few degrees to Kakashi's right, a deliberate warning. Gaara's eyes opened just a little wider, suddenly much more alert though he didn't straighten from his slouch. Seconds later, Kakashi heard the feather-light footsteps approaching from behind the chuunin.

The other man turned, but rather than relief, first fear, then resentment twisted his face before he wrestled his expression under control. "Sir," he bit out. The rest of his team came to attention behind him.

Higata Beniko all but ignored them as she drew level with the small assembly. She nodded curtly at Kakashi and said, "Commander."

The chuunin's face drained of color rapidly as he glanced between Kakashi and Higata. Kakashi didn't need his reaction or even awareness of the instruments of corporal punishment littering the Village to know that Kiri punished insubordination more harshly than Konoha did.

"Captain," Kakashi drawled in response. He and Team Genbu had just passed the fifteen minute mark on their detainment.

"My apologies for the inconvenience," Higata said stiffly, watching him like one might eye a potentially rabid raccoon. Perhaps she was thinking of just a few days earlier, when she tried to murder him in the catacombs after the Mizukage's defeat. "The loyalist shinobi haven't been briefed on the situation yet. Or the identification codes."

"I wasn't aware you would be called," Kakashi said, sliding his eye over to the chuunin. "It was not my intention to cause a…" he trailed off thoughtfully, "...disturbance."

Higata pinned the hapless chuunin with a stare just shy of a glare.

"I assume we can be on our way," Kakashi said. Gaara took that as his cue to uncoil, rising to his feet with a sated air. Kakashi discreetly shot him a wary glance.

"Of course," said Higata. "But, Commander - " she said as Kakashi paused. "I must recommend that you wear an indication of your rank, to prevent future misunderstandings."

"I'll take it into consideration," Kakashi said mildly, then jerked his chin at his borrowed waifs.

Sai turned away from the Kiri shinobi dispassionately, and once he had, Hinata followed. Gaara cocked his head, the bloodlust brightening in his eyes. It was gone with one languid blink, lasting only long enough to send an ice-cold jolt of adrenaline down Kakashi's spine. Gaara sauntered past him nonchalantly and for a moment Kakashi could only stare.

Good gods. Was this parenting? How did Shisui manage it when he was practically still a kid himself?

There was nothing to do, then, but to make sure the kids didn't get lost on the way to the Old Academy.

"Kyuu?" Sai murmured.

"Left," said Hinata without hesitation.

Sai turned left. Gaara glanced back over his shoulder at Kakashi, his eyes some mixture of amused and tolerant, as if sharing a joke with him.

Kakashi didn't understand children at all.

The advance teams had restored the lights in the Old Academy, including in the hallways, but Kakashi had chosen the third library as the headquarters for his pack in part for the door that led directly to the outside from the north wall. Neji opened the door as they approached and stood aside to let them in. He scrutinized Hinata as she passed. Hinata shrank back, scurrying into the library and nearly tripping on Sai's heels.

"Careful," said Shisui, which was drowned out by Naruto's shriek of - and Sakura's much quieter, "You're late!"

Shisui eyed the children up and down, his brow furrowing when he could see nothing visibly amiss. He looked up. "What happened to you, Taichou? You guys left first."

"The climate was more hostile than expected," Kakashi responded, managing to keep from slumping by sheer force of will. He'd slept maybe six hours in the past two days though he was still recovering, and his fatigue was making itself known by causing the weight of his head to grow exponentially with each passing minute. "No trouble on your end?"

Shisui shook his head, "Nothing. Got lucky, I guess."

Kakashi hummed agreement, tugging down the bandages from over his mouth and nose.. "I like what you've done with the place," he said.

Shisui grimaced. "It's never going to be big enough for us all to have individual rooms partitioned out in here, but at least this way we can have only two of us in each. The kids are all crammed together in the stockroom, but I don't think they mind too much. It'll just be bedrolls for us until we can get something better, but the kids are using some of the empty bookshelves as bunk beds."

"Huh," said Kakashi.

"Yeah, I don't know," Shisui admitted. "Pretty sure they're light enough not to break the shelves as long as they're careful."

Kakashi meandered to the doorway leading to the stockroom, and Shisui kept pace with him, following at his shoulder. The bookshelves did make for convincing bunk beds once the extra shelves had been removed, if he squinted and let the sleep deprivation blur his vision.

"Roku, Go, start taking the shelves off those ones in the corner," Temari directed from the center of the chaos. "Ichi, can you grab the ones on the top?" Behind her, Hinata stacked the spare shelves as Neji hauled a bookshelf into place.

Kakashi, as was his habit, conducted a lazy head count that ended in his second adrenaline rush for the day because there were only eight small children heads bobbing around the room. "Shisui," he said deliberately, even as his eyes flitted over the room a second and third time. "Where's Sasuke?

"Oh, him," said Shisui, blasé enough to assuage Kakashi's panic. "Itachi took him off somewhere. They'll be back later."

There was nowhere safer for Sasuke than with Itachi. Kakashi turned away from the doorway, tipping his head up to examine the ceiling. Shisui caught his line of sight and said, "You going to do a seal?"

"Likely at least three," Kakashi answered wryly, ducking out of his sling. "A seal for silence, a trap seal for security, and an alarm seal. I know how to do those, at least, but it'll take some time. I need your blood. I need blood from everyone."

Shisui brightened. "I'll go get some from Z. No need to wait for me, Taichou!"

Kakashi watched the door slam shut behind Shisui and belatedly realized that an unsuspecting Zabuza was about to be ambushed for his blood. But that wasn't Kakashi's problem anymore, so he went to find his sealing supplies so he could start mixing the ink.

Shisui returned fifteen minutes later with three vials of blood and a very self-satisfied prowl. "Got Itachi and Sasuke-kun too," he said unnecessarily, handing them over.

Kakashi stared blankly at the vials in his hand. Teenagers.

Kakashi's audience for drawing the seals was everyone present, the kids sprawling across the room flat on their backs to watch him work. Seals were a language Kakashi understood enough of to realize he didn't know much about it at all. Still, as the Yondaime's student, he knew how to build a seal up, to connect the component parts and balance them to keep the entire thing stable, and this particular seal he had used enough that it'd have been burned into his memory even without the Sharingan. He painted silently, efficiently, and lines of ink spiderwebbed across the ceiling, crisscrossing with each other as they trailed spindly arms down the walls.

Below him, members of his audience left and returned again. Sai and Haku passed around food to Shisui and the rest of the kids. Naruto fell asleep and stayed asleep until a particularly loud snore prompted Sakura to plant an elbow in his ribs and he woke with an indignant yelp.

Kakashi stripped off his half-gloves for better fine control, tossing them down into one of the rooms Shisui had partitioned off. The challenge of this configuration was not only drawing the seals, but engineering them to coexist, and with luck, interlock for better integration of their individual mechanisms. His sensei had always had a near-maniacal light in his eyes on the third night of his sealing benders, and though Kakashi didn't quite have the same passion for fuinjutsu as Minato-sensei, he at least appreciated the artistry.

At last, he crouched upside down on the ceiling next to the nexus of his bastardized creation. The scent of the ink and blood smothered him even with his mask, and his fingers would be trembling with exhaustion if he let them. He didn't need a handseal sequence to activate this one, only Ram to help him concentrate his chakra. His chakra sparked at his fingertips, jumping to the seal that drank it in hungrily. "Fuin!" Kakashi growled, andshoved.

The array lit up in brilliant white-blue, crackling across the ceilings and darting down the walls. The sheer force of the chakra blasted against his face, and he squinted against the glare as muffled sounds of surprise and curiosity rose from his audience. Chakra fizzled along the surface of the seal, and Kakashi caught his breath. This particular seal wouldn't blow up in his face if it wasn't stable enough, but it'd burn the ink up and he'd still have to start over.

The seal buzzed ominously. Abruptly, it dimmed, the light from the chakra fading as it was absorbed by the seal. Kakashi fell more than jumped off the ceiling, sending little jolts of pain down his mostly-no-longer-broken arm.

The kids stared up at the seal, transfixed. "Did it work?" Sakura asked, hushed.

It did, in fact. Probably. "It worked," Kakashi said aloud. He was probably due for a string of bad luck now.

"That was cool, Taichou, but maybe put your sling back on before Shizune-sensei senses that you ditched it and comes to murder us both," Shisui suggested. "Kids - everyone except Shichi-kun, go to bed, I know you want to. In fact, Shichi-kun, you go to bed too, just don't sleep."

"I'm going to sleep too," muttered Kakashi, for Shisui's ears. Black smeared on his hands, but at this precise moment, he didn't give a damn. The floor wobbled beneath him as he made a beeline for the makeshift rooms on the opposite side of the space. "Wake me up if someone attacks."

"Free time, Taichou? It must be nice not to have ten thousand reports to sift through," Shisui said gloomily. "I'll wake you up for the meeting this evening "

Leaving a Zabuza restless from his medical leave behind to watch all nine of the children during a partial Command meeting perhaps not the best idea. As the sun began sinking beneath the horizon, Kakashi pressed his chakra into the lock seal, pushed the door to the library open, and found Zabuza lounging against the wall in the common area with a feral kind of amusement. The nine genin scattered on the floor around him were all absorbed in copies a very particular black book.

Shisui followed Kakashi into the room and frowned. "Z, you gave them bingo books?"

Zabuza grinned. "What? Shit's funny, it's basically all propaganda. "The one on Ao calls him a child murderer, as if they'd care if he killed a bunch of low-caste kids."

"Z," Shisui tried again.

Zabuza ignored him. "Did you know you're in Kiri's twice, Hatake? The Konoha entry calls you a tracking and assassination specialist, and the Raijuu one calls you a melee bruiser."

"The Konoha one has your ninken in it," Sakura said, beaming. "They tried to draw them in but the pictures look nothing like them."

"It says you mastered a thousand jutsu." Temari peered up at Kakashi from under her eyelashes. "And also that you killed the Sandaime Hokage."

"It says you murdered your genin teammates!" Naruto chirped.

Zabuza's grin froze on his face.

"Does it?" said Kakashi vaguely. He hadn't read a bingo book since before the Kiri Civil War.

Temari's eyes caught on Zabuza's expression and narrowed, darting between him and her book. Naruto's mouth opened and then shut silently again when Temari nudged him forcefully. Gaara's eyes widened from their half-lidded norm, drifting slowly to first Zabuza, then Kakashi, with interest.

"Okay, let's maybe pack those up," said Shisui hurriedly. "Haku, maybe you and Ni could grab us dinner - "

"No, it's all right," Kakashi said, consciously relaxing his posture to something more unthreatening as Sai and Hinata exchanged worried glances. "Everything is written in those books for a reason. Either you learn something about the shinobi or the Village who composed the entry."

"Right," said Shisui, recovering gracefully. "Very true. Yorozoku kids, we may as well get dinner now anyways. Grab what you need and we'll go."

An almost silent stampede spilled out the door with impressive alacrity. The door clicked shut behind them and the seals reengaged. Kakashi swivelled towards Zabuza.

Zabuza watched, tensed like he thought Kakashi might go after him right in the middle of their library.

"What did you think would happen when you gave the kids bingo books?" Kakashi asked lightly, sliding his hands into his pockets. He tipped his head up to study the seal on the ceiling, baring his throat to make it clear he had no intention of attacking. "There are things in there they aren't ready to know. Imagine if they threw Nara Shikaku's entry at him so carelessly."

"Yeah," Zabuza admitted gruffly after a pause. "That'd be a fuckup." Still, he eyed Kakashi warily.

Kakashi squinted back at him. Zabuza's skin was sallow against the bandages swathing him forearm to neck, his eyes not quite focused. "I'll assume you're still on the drugs and your judgement's impaired," Kakashi decided magnanimously.

"I am," Zabuza ground out, jerking his head to the side roughly. "That harpy keeps shooting me up during checkups."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "Painkillers?"

The other man grunted, shoving to his feet. "Something about nerve damage. Can't do shit til they finish dealing with it." He shuffled across into his room, but his room was also Kakashi's room, so Kakashi followed him in.

"Did you check in with your unit yet?" Kakashi asked, settling down on his bedroll and leaning back. The shelves dug into the knobs of his spine, and he tipped his head back to rest on one of them.

"Yes,sir." Zabuza smirked at Kakashi's reflexive eyeroll. "They're all shacked up in the first floor classrooms. They'll sort it out, Nishigawa took care of rooming assignments. Says he'll do food and shower rotations tonight. Was that guy a paperwork ninja? He likes this shit more than fighting."

Kakashi hummed, propping his elbow on his bent knee. "Don't know, didn't meet him until eight months ago. Maybe, if he retired from active duty after making tokujo or jounin. Good thing he knows what he's doing - you're hopeless."

"Fuck off," Zabuza retorted companionably. He lifted Kubikiribocho off its shelf, studying the ragged blade morosely. It looked a little better than it had immediately after they left the catacombs, a little bigger, but still lacked at least half its original length.

Kakashi wrinkled his nose when Zabuza's hot-metal bloodscent hit the air. The other shinobi pressed his forearm against the broadsword's jagged edge, and the sword drank in the blood greedily. "Maa, Shizune will have your head when she sees that," he drawled, but Zabuza ignored him. "You give your shinobi the hitai-ate yet?" Kakashi asked.

Zabuza had never stopped wearing his. He grunted. "Yeah. Don't think they're too happy about it. Some of 'em decided they'd wear it but didn't wanna wear the Kiri symbol on their heads." He swung Kubikiribocho back up onto its shelf once the cut on his arm had clotted. "I don't give a shit. Least this way they don't look as much like a pack of mercenaries."

Kakashi had sealed away his Leaf hitai-ate the night before he left Tetsu, but taking another Village's symbol felt like a step firmly into betrayal. He grimaced. "What about Itachi? His unit?"

Zabuza shrugged. "Haven't seen much of him. Past couple days he's always been with his little weed of a brother or that woman - the jounin. Something Akaba. Akuba?"

"Mayu Akiba. That's his Second." Kakashi let his eye drift closed.

A disgusted huff. "Kami, Hatake, just lie down, and go to fucking sleep," Zabuza growled. "You're making my neck hurt just looking at you."

"Wouldn't want that," Kakashi muttered.

Tsunade's quarters and the Command headquarters occupied the administrative offices on the top floor of the Old Academy. The corridor was long and empty to make it more difficult for any assassin to slip past the guards, and weak shadows dappled the floor in front of Kakashi. Genma intercepted him at the double doors, dropping out of the darkness of the rafters and landing lightly in his path. "Been outside today yet?" Genma asked, hands loose in his pockets.

Kakashi grimaced, hitching his Anbu mask to the top of his head. Not a good day, then. "Briefly," he said.

Genma nodded, touching a palm to the door to disarm the security seals for him. "Shizune's finishing up a shift in Medical. You might catch her. The commander's in his office."

"Hm," said Kakashi. Genma tossed him a casual salute and melted back to his post.

Kakashi slid the door open, delicately so the rollers wouldn't squeak, and closed it behind him, reengaging the seals with a spark of chakra.

Tsunade sat behind a heavy oak desk with her back to the windows, utterly still. A glass of water, half empty, sat on the desk just beyond her outstretched hand; the surface was otherwise bare. Dust motes drifted through the sunlight filtering in from the windows.

"Hime," said Kakashi into the resounding silence. There was no response.

He padded across the room, around the long table used for Command meetings, until he was standing at the side of the desk. Tsunade's haori had slipped half off, leaving one shoulder bare. Carefully, slowly, Kakashi reached over to tug it back into place. He straightened again, tucking his hands into his pockets, and just observed.

Sharp angles defined Tsunade's face, her specialized henge stealing only years, not hunger or the wear of war. But though her face appeared young and timeless, her eyes betrayed her age. Fatigue darkened her eyes and though she stared ahead she did not see.

"We're halfway there, Hime," he said quietly. "We're halfway home."

Words had never been enough to drag Tsunade from wherever her mind had trapped her, and today was no exception. Would Tsunade have gone ahead with the exposure therapy if she knew that this was the price for ridding herself of her hemophobia? Did she regret it?

Kakashi did.

Kakashi delivered her the Sandaime's last words - those naming her as his rightful successor. Kakashi was the one who dragged her out of her life, who pressed her to be the leader of an army she didn't want, who charged her to lead the Village that caused her immeasurable bitterness and grief. She was the fulcrum of Hanabi-ha's existence; without her, they had no legitimate challenge to Konoha's leadership. And so, because Konoha was his home and Kakashi loved it selfishly, he gave Tsunade the weight of its future.

And it broke her, just a little.

"It's nice out today," Kakashi told her, glancing out the windows. "The sun is up, and there's only a little mist up in the higher training grounds - we never had that in Konoha. It looks cold, but the sky is clear."

Kakashi ran out of words quickly - he had never been one for talking much. He watched the Village outside, the bare, spindly branches of the trees outside jutting up into the blue, and let the quiet lie unbroken.

Tsunade never stirred save for the rise and fall of her chest. Kakashi sighed silently, nudged her water glass just a little closer, and crossed the room to the adjoining door.

"Commander," he greeted, closing the door behind him.

Shikaku sent the ceiling a silent plea for patience. "What do you want?" he muttered, slumping forward over his desk. The surface was buried in paperwork - scrolls, scraps of paper, maps - and as Kakashi watched, a pen rolled into its depths and disappeared.

Kakashi grimaced sympathetically. "What's all that? Reports?"

"Yeah," Shikaku confirmed. "I'm reviewing reports and also working on determining the timeline to start moving on Konoha."

"Early start," Kakashi noted. "Anything you need from the mainland?"

Shikaku eyed him knowingly. "You have to go."

"Aa," Kakashi agreed. "It's been nearly a week, he'll know that the situation here is stable. He'll be expecting me."

"You've promised a steep price, haven't you." Again, it wasn't a question. Shikaku scrubbed a hand down his face, tossing his pen on top of the reports. His eyes followed Kakashi, dark and sharp and a little too knowing.

"I should be back within two weeks," Kakashi said instead of answering. "Send a hawk if something comes up. Take care of this place."

"Not to worry," Shikaku said, a sardonic twist in his voice. "Shiranui will guard Tsunade-sama and Momochi'll watch the children."

Kakashi rolled his eyes. "I'm so comforted."

"We'll all be fine, kid," Shikaku said, slouching back against the table. "Relax. Enjoy the break. I'll let Tsunade-sama know you left when she recovers."

Kakashi raised a hand in a lazy salute before tugging his cat-mask down and strolling out. Despite the restored lighting, shadows draped the hallways. He slipped between patches of darkness, skirting the glow from the classroom windows and doors.

He turned the corner. Three Guntai genin juggled kunai between themselves lazily, the light winking off the blades as they arched across the width of the hallway. "...better than camping outside," one drawled, flipping a blade end over end to his teammate.

"This place is haunted, man," argued his teammate, nearly fumbling the catch. "A hundred dead kids in one night and a hundred dead kids every year before that? They probably buried the bodies under this place without last rites or anything."

"You're a shinobi," scoffed the third. She nicked a kunai out of the air easily. "Try and act like - "

Kakashi flickered into the middle of their game and snagged all four of their blades out of the air. The kunoichi flinched and ducked and the two shinobi yelped, slamming back against the wall with twin thuds. The thrum of sound from inside the classroom, muffled by basic silencing seals, paused.

The kunoichi swallowed, her eyes darting from the kunai to his mask to his casted arm in its sling. Kakashi held the kunai out to her. "Not in the hallways."

The kunoichi took them gingerly. "Y-yes, sir. Sorry, sir." Kakashi turned to eye her teammates, who stammered their apologies, and held back a sigh. These genin were supposed to have a chuunin or a tokujo somewhere who was supposed to keep track of them. Kakashi wasn't supposed to have to - toparentteenaged genin. He stepped into a shunshin as the noise that came with a dozen curious shinobi spilled out to bombard the genin behind him. Once out of range, Kakashi slowed his pace to a saunter.

Movement flickered in the corner of his eye as he turned into the curved hall flush against the wall of the arena: dark hair and light armor. Itachi dropped into step beside him as he took the hallway that would lead to the pack library. He dipped his head in greeting but said nothing

Kakashi glanced at him sideways. "Where are you going? Base camp?"

"I will accompany you to the mainland," answered Itachi.

That...did not answer what he had asked. Kakashi narrowed his eye. "Will you," he said, a demand more than a question.

"Yes," Itachi said, and Kakashi stopped to face him. A flash of crimson whirled abruptly in Itachi's eyes and Kakashi's body froze of its own accord - Kakashi had not fought another Sharingan wielder in too long. Grimly, Kakashi clawed for his chakra, let it burn to Obito's eye as he smothered hisbetrayal, alarm, anger,surprise. But a Sharingan genjutsu was particularly hard to break and he had been caught off-guard. The genjutsu dragged him in.

"Wait, please," Itachi said urgently, holding his hands palms up and empty. The halls of the Academy had vanished around them, leaving them standing on stone ground shrouded by mist.

Kakashi's chakra seethed under his skin as he held it at bay. Itachi held himself slightly hunched, and the shadows under his eyes had deepened - but in a genjutsu, that meant nothing. "I expect you have a good reason for this, Itachi," he said, clipped.

If anything, Itachi looked even more hunted. "I apologize, Taichou," he said, his voice even but rushed, "but I needed to speak with you in absolute secrecy, where there are no eyes to see us. There is something I must tell you, and it cannot be within Kirigakure."

Kakashi's first reaction was suspicion, which immediately segued into a sort of shamed concern.

He was serious. Genjutsu or no, Kakashi studied him carefully, noting the pinched corners of his eyes, the tension in his jaw.

Itachi, gone rogue, would be nearly impossible to stop. Kakashi knew his own abilities, and he knew the chance that he would come out the victor in a battle of sheer power against Itachi, whose Mangekyo granted him a Susano'o that withstood a Bijuudama, was uncomfortably slim.

Trust was a hard thing to come by for a shinobi, and Kakashi had been burned once before. But Kakashi had put his trust in Itachi countless times - in Anbu, in those first mad days after the Fall, in the months spent building Hanabi-ha from the scattered remnants of the ousted dissidents - and though Itachi severed his ties with first his clan and then the Village for which he had done so, he had something here he would never abandon: his brother.

"What can you tell me now?" Kakashi asked at last.

"Not much," Itachi admitted, letting his arms fall to his sides. "There is no immediate threat, but it is present. I have briefed my second-in-command on my duties," he added. "She is prepared to lead the unit in my absence."

Kakashi shattered the genjutsu with a pulse of chakra. "Fine," he said. "Come."

Itachi let out a silent breath. "Thank you."

"Pack light," he said. "I plan to move quickly."

"So suddenly?" Shisui narrowed his eye.

Kakashi swiped a bloody thumb over the row of seals on his storage scroll, watching the stacks of spare kunai and shuriken appear one by one. "The situation here is stable, but we haven't received reliable intel from the mainland for many months. You reported that communication with your operatives outside of Kiri's oceans has been inconsistent." He ducked out of his sling, tossing it to the side.

"Yeah," said Shisui, drumming his fingers on the table he perched on. He shot Kakashi's discarded sling a nasty glare. "Before Houki left, he told me the majority of operatives outside Kiri had inactivated until the war ended. They need the order to reactivate afterwards. Can't intercept communication implicating Hana-ha in the Kiri Civil War if there is none."

"And you don't have immediate plans to send the order," said Kakashi, sealing his weapons away methodically.

"Well, no," Shisui admitted. "The protocol is verification in person, it's a five-step process. I figured I'd go when I finished sorting out the situation here - the intelligence community is kind of a mess, my operatives are all over the place."

"I'll do it. I have sources outside the Hana-ha network to check in with as well, and you're needed here," said Kakashi, sweeping the scroll back into a tight roll.

"Uh, and you're not?" Shisui asked incredulously.

"You and Zabuza will have things well in hand," Kakashi said, sliding his katana out of its sheath. He examined the blade, flipping it over to check for imperfections, before slipping it back in with a quietsnick. "There's going to be a quiet period here while everyone licks their wounds. It'll be like babysitting the kids, but with several thousand restless genin."

"You're really going to leave me here withItachi and Zabuzato babysit an entire army?" Shisui demanded. "Does that sound like the best idea to you?"

"Itachi's coming with me, actually," Kakashi said dryly, "so it's more like just you and Zabuza."

Shisui's face wiped abruptly blank. "Itachi's going with you?"

"I'm surprised he didn't tell you," Kakashi said, his voice mild, turning to meet his eye. Shisui was Itachi's closest confidante, the one who understood Itachi as much as anyone could. Kakashi's chakra roiled uneasily in his chest, and he turned away to hide it in the guise of sealing a stack of reports into a scroll.

"So that's why he's in there letting the kids climb all over him," Shisui said, the words coming slow and uncertain.

Kakashi hummed noncommittally and flipped his katana up over his shoulder and into its harness. "And Zabuza?"

"Well, he's there too because one of the medics gave him too much muscle relaxant and now he can't really move. Shizune-sensei's on a warpath," Shisui said. "He discharged himself in protest and made Haku drag him back here. The kids are supposed to be guarding him - they've been getting bored."

"Tsunade-hime is due to negotiate for training grounds tomorrow. Take the kids out to start their training." Kakashi's Konoha-issued armor sat comfortably on his shoulders, pale against his old faded blacks, and he felt more himself than he ever had in Kiri's bulky uniforms. He adjusted his bracer and snagged his sling as an afterthought as he ducked out of the room.

"Hai," said Shisui, hopping down from the table to follow, and nearly crashed into Kakashi's back when he stopped abruptly.

"Maa, Itachi," Kakashi said.

Itachi looked up. Itachi looked up from behind the rather sizeable fire burning merrily in a large cauldron in the center of the room.

Sasuke beamed. He held a tomato on a skewer over the flames, conspicuous among the rest of the pack's marshmallows jockeying for space. Smoke curled up to the ceiling, crawling out between the door and the doorframe. Naruto's marshmallow had caught fire, but he didn't seem to notice.

"Fire on cardboard, cousin, in a library?" Shisui raised an amused eyebrow at Itachi, who shrugged elegantly.

"This is very irresponsible," Kakashi said, eyeing the mess of white fluff, chocolate, and crackers scattered on the loose cardboard laid down almost like an afterthought. "Haku, you should know better."

Temari's eyes widened, but Haku smiled angelically. "I'm sorry, Kakashi-san. I assumed Zabuza-san would stop us if it was something we shouldn't do."

"The hell, kid?" Zabuza grumped, one arm thrown over his eyes as he sprawled flat on the floor. "I'm a fucking invalid. Uchiha's the supervising adult."

"Itachi-sensei is not an adult," Sai pointed out. Beside him, Gaara drew his skewer back and gnawed his marshmallow gravely.

"In that case, I will relinquish my duties to your Juu-sensei," Itachi said, rising to his feet in one smooth moment. "Taichou, is it time?"

Kakashi wanted to say no. Itachi was sixteen years old and captain of not just an Anbu team, but a war unit of some five hundred shinobi. He deserved more opportunities like this - to be a teenager, setting fires where he shouldn't and eating food with a negative nutritional value.

Fuck it. Kakashi was a commander. He could do whatever he wanted.

So Kakashi said, "Not yet. Tonight," and leaned back against the wall. He jerked his head at Shisui. "Go on," he said. "Supervise."

"Yes, sir," said Shisui cheerfully. "Kyuu-chan, pass me a skewer. I need to make sure this process is safe for you kids."

"Sensei, look!" said Sakura, her eyes as bright as her voice as she held up an unidentifiable mess of sugary goop for Itachi to inspect. "I made the sandwich thing!"

"Indeed," Itachi agreed, settling back down. "Perhaps I will make one as well."

"I don't know how you can eat that," Sasuke said, wrinkling his nose. "It's got to be like ninety-nine percent sugar. It's disgusting."

"You're eating a vegetable because youlikeit," Naruto argued, nearly planting his charred marshmallow in an unruffled Gaara's face as he gestured. "You're weird!"

"Tomatoes are actually a kind of fruit," Sasuke sniffed with great dignity.

"Would you like some chocolate with that?" Sai offered. "This one is supposed to be less sweet."

Temari recoiled. "No, Hachi," she said, intercepting the chocolate. There had been no danger; Sasuke had frozen with disgust painted across his face.

"I read that chocolate pairs well with fruits," Sai said blankly. "Is this information incorrect?"

"When the fruit is a tomato, it doesnot,"said Sakura empathetically.

Neji plucked Hinata's skewer out of her hands, replacing her black-spotted, uneven lump with his own perfectly toasted marshmallow. He bit into it vengefully, ignoring Hinata's hesitant attempts to switch them back.

Naruto's goopy chunk of coal dropped on to the cardboard, and flames sprang up with his muffled yelp. Shisui lunged for it, nudging Sasuke back when he jerked too close to the cauldron, but Haku was faster. He blasted a handful of ice, burying the fire in a layer of frost and showering Naruto in bits of ice crystal.

"Looks dangerous," Kakashi observed.

"Not to worry," said Shisui, neatly catching his dropped skewer before it hit the ground. "This has been an emergency preparedness drill." He paused. "We passed."

"More marshmallows!" Temari said cheerfully, tossing a bag across to Neji. The gaping hole torn in the plastic rained soft candies down into Gaara and Naruto's hair though Sai managed to duck out of the way, and Neji plucked it out of the air. With an air of tolerance more than resentment, Neji impaled a marshmallow on a fresh skewer and handed it to Hinata. Haku reached over to take the bag next, trading a wrapped bar of chocolate for it.

"Me, me," Naruto demanded, reaching sticky hands for the chocolate. Haku passed him a stack of three, and Naruto crowed.

Kakashi shrugged back into his sling to let the ache in his arm abate, indulging himself in this fleeting moment of contentment. The kids' faces practically glowed, open and truly carefree for the first time since perhaps the winter in San's forest - even Temari, who worried over the rest as though they were all her younger siblings; even Sai, who fixated on objectives and calculations every waking moment of his day. Even Shisui and Itachi, who each carried the weight and the hope of Hana-ha despite their youth and the horrors they had survived.

"Hey, Hatake. You squirrelly Konoha sap. You soft tree-hugging bastard."

It was like Zabuza could smell emotion - and was allergic to anything that wasn't bloodlust.

Kakashi glanced down. "You're calling me names. When you're in that kind of condition. Doesn't sound smart."

"You won't do shit to me, the yuki-onna'd take your head off," Zabuza said, hauling himself up to slump against Kakashi's wall, but his narrowed eyes betrayed his uncertainty.

Kakashi smiled brightly. "Are you sure?"

Zabuza paused. He considered. He retreated. "I'm on a lot of fucking drugs."

Kakashi reached down to pat his head absently, ignoring the irritated floppy-limbed swat Zabuza aimed at him. "That you are," he agreed.

For a long pause, the two of them just watched the makeshift campfire. Zabuza said, "I'd've gotten the shit kicked out of me if I even touched sugary crap like that."

Kakashi slid a sideways glance at him. "Sounds like you had a shit sensei. Or handler, if that's what you called them."

"Kiri had no idea what the fuck to do with me," Zabuza drawled, just a slight slur in his words to suggest he might not be in complete control of his facilities. "Fucking upstart mongrel who massacred high caste kids with the low caste. Kept me in the Academy half the time to finish book learning and gave me to a jounin handler the rest of the time. Senzaki Ao was my first handler - and the only one I ever called sensei." He bared his teeth in an entirely humorless smile. "I learned better, after that."

"What did you call the others?"

"Asshole."

Kakashi snorted. Zabuza's grin turned into something a little more genuine.

Gaara solemnly gave Sai a smashed cracker smothered in marshmallow fluff, who examined it as if he didn't know what he could possibly do with it. Sasuke nibbled on his third or possibly seventh tomato, leaning into Itachi's side. White fluff clung to Itachi's hair and melted chocolate dotted his armor.

"Haku can eat all the fucking candy he wants," Zabuza said absently. "Long as he stays alive and does his job, he can do whatever the fuck he wants."

Kakashi watched Haku smear a streak of chocolate across his face as he wiped his mouth and duck his head to hide an embarrassed smile when Temari laughed at him. "What if he wants to stop?" he said quietly. "What if he doesn't want to be a shinobi anymore?"

"That'll never happen," said Zabuza, with cold certainty and the faintest shadow of regret. "Kid hates killing - hell, he hates fighting - but he can't help but protect. He'll never stand back with someone else in danger. He's a fucking shinobi."

That was the problem. They were all 'fucking shinobi.' Kakashi sighed silently. "Hey," he said, nudging Zabuza with his foot. "Get me a chocolate marshmallow thing."

Zabuza rolled his eyeballs up to glare at Kakashi.

"How long are you going to be gone?" Sasuke asked in a small voice.

"Not long," Itachi answered, following Kakashi up onto the back of the winged ink creature. Like Kakashi, he had switched to Konohan armor and a cloak draped lightly over a small travel pack and his katana. "Listen to Juu while we are gone."

Sasuke didn't roll his eyes, but it was clearly a close thing. "Okay, but - " His shoulders slumped. "Yeah. Okay."

"This construct will rise to the appropriate altitude for sustained flight when you activate it and will continue to fly west until it runs out of chakra," Sai explained. "You will not be able to adjust the direction or the speed." His brow furrowed as he glanced at the ink creature. "I have not been able to formulate such a jutsu yet."

"This is fine," Kakashi said. He glanced down.

Shisui watched impassively, his mask hiding any emotion his face may have betrayed. Sakura and Naruto flanked Sasuke, Temari a supportive presence at their backs. Zabuza was leaning heavily on Haku, but though he looked significantly less concerned about their departure than the kids though his glower was still present. The assembly clustered in somber silence, a far cry from the marshmallow roasting party of just a few hours earlier.

"Oh, kids," said Kakashi, half turning. "Your three days starts now. Don't get caught doing anything you shouldn't and don't kill anyone. Go wild."

There was a brief pause as everyone else digested his words. Then Naruto whooped, leaping up and punching the air, and Temari laughed, a fierce glint in her eyes. Neji and Sai traded quick glances of mutual understanding, and even Sasuke cracked a small smile.

Sakura beamed. "Books!"

"Michishio,"said Gaara sagely.

Shisui's head whipped between Kakashi and the exuberant pack in horrified disbelief. "Taichou!" he cried, outraged.

"Fuck you, Hatake," Zabuza snarled.

"Mhmm," said Kakashi, letting his chakra jump to the seal on the ink-creature's back. "See you soon."

The massive bird rocketed off the ground, carrying Kakashi and Itachi up into the endless darkness of the night sky. Kakashi clung to its back with chakra anchoring his feet and one steadying hand as his cloak whipped around him. The air dropped from chill to freezing as they rose, lashing against Kakashi's bare shoulders until he wrapped his cloak around himself more securely. The wind would have carried his words away, so when he glanced over to check on Itachi, he signed,status?

Itachi's Sharingan glowed dimly in the darkness. Stable,he responded.

The Village rushed past them, marked by flickering torches and electric lights - then, the sprawling training grounds as they approached the mountain range that ringed the Inner Village. A jagged break in the mountains yawned before them, the peak it used to be before it met an irate Tsunade crumbling into shadows deeper than those around it. Here, the air was clean and crisp, with no trace of the ashes that still tainted the streets.

The air grew thin and almost unbearably sharp, and the currents that buffeted Kakashi's mask tossed the ink construct back and forth, but its wings carried it inexorably forward. By and by the mountains gave way to hills, and then the Lower City sprawled out below them in a blur of dimmed lights and rooftops. Kakashi peered down wryly - marching the same distance had taken weeks of bitter loss and combat but now flew past in just a few hours.

Muted lights dotted the harbor, a brighter yellow-white glowing from the top of the lighthouse on the bluff, but then they were past and the open ocean stretched out before them. Moonlight streamed down, glittering across the surface of the waves far below, and wisps of cloud streamed ghostlike above them.

Curious, Kakashi opened his Sharingan and looked down. Pinpricks of chakra danced through the water, dim and obscured by the moonlight, distant and indistinct enough that Kakashi wouldn't be able to tell if they were shinobi or fish or whales. He closed the eye again, letting the greedy pull of chakra fade to its usual gentle tug, and pulled back his hand to crouch upright on the construct's back.

The creature boasted angled, elongated wings and a forked tail rather than the raptor's broad, straight wings and fanlike tail that Sai normally painted into existence for reconnaissance or combat. Kakashi expected Sai must have spent long days studying seabirds to create this one, designed for distance travel.

In Konoha, recruiters scouted a particular kind of child for the Anbu trainee program even before entrance to the shinobi Academy - the ideal candidate was intuitive, naturally gifted, of a calm and consistent temperament, and an orphan. Uzuki Yuugao, from Kakashi's old team, had been one of the best products of the program, barely thirteen at the time of her graduation and induction. Sai, had the events of the Fall not taken him out of Konoha, could have followed in her footsteps.

Sai hadn't had formal training beyond the two or three years in the trainee program, but he'd led his team on long-term scouting and infiltration missions. He had no one to teach him his ink jutsu, but his constructs had only grown in size and capability. He experimented and learned and created, all so quietly that the brilliance of his achievements went unremarked. It was a kind of genius that was understated to Kakashi and Itachi's much flashier careers.

However, Sai was also an eleven-year-old producing experimental jutsu that he himself did not know the limits of, so the ink bird vanished beneath their feet in a puff of smoke and dumped them several thousand meters from the ocean surface without warning.

The buffeting air currents ripped away Kakashi's first attempts at a controlled drop, sending him plummeting through the air in an undignified tumble. He caught a glimpse of Itachi, dark cloak and pale armor, before the wind ripped him away again.

Wind-natured chakra was the most elusive nature type for Kakashi, but he reached for it anyways, wrestling it beneath him with his free hand to slow his fall. The ocean rushed up far faster than he expected in the blur of darkness and instead of landing on the surface, Kakashi crashed straight through and plunged into the icy water.

The shock from the cold and the impact knocked the breath out of his lungs, and Kakashi forcibly blocked his throat against the instinctive inhale. He held himself still, let the undercurrents push him about as they pleased until he caught the glimmer of moonlight and propelled himself towards the surface.

Itachi was already crouched on the surface a dozen paces away when Kakashi hauled himself out, both his hair and cloak drenched and droplets glimmering on the porcelain of his mask. Steam rose from his shoulders from the chakra warming him, and Kakashi shook his hair out before following suit. The bandana over his hair dropped into the water with a sad plop, vanishing rapidly beneath the waves.

"Taichou," Itachi greeted, the barest suggestion of a shiver threading his voice. Kakashi tilted his head inquiringly. "While flight is an efficient method of transport, the dismount is rather unpredictable."

Kakashi hummed agreement as his chakra stirred sluggishly beneath his skin, unable to trust his voice to hold steady. The ocean bobbed them both up and down, dripping moonlight and salt-sticky seawater and buffeted by Kiri's winter winds. "Approximate location?" he asked, once his chakra had chased the chill away enough that his clothes felt only uncomfortably wet and not about to freeze solid.

"24-36, exact sector unknown," Itachi answered. The crimson in his eyes glowed and blinked out. "We are approximately a hundred and eighty klicks east of the southern tip of Uzu no Kuni. "I can send my summons to find the nearest island if we are to stop for the night."

"Do it," Kakashi agreed immediately. He frowned down at his mostly-unbroken arm and tipped water out of the sling. He would have to cut the cast off, now that it had gotten completely and irreparably soaked, but he was loathe to do so atop these unpredictable waters. At Kakashi's back, the golden suggestion of dawn probed at the deep blue-black of the night sky.

With a burst of chakra and the rush of something not-of-this-world, a swirl of black wings and feathers spilled into the air between them, and one of the crows alighted on Itachi's shoulders as the rest of its flock wheeled into the fading night. "You remember Kombu?" Itachi said politely, and the crow bobbed its head in greeting.

"Aa," responded Kakashi, rising to his feet. "Your help is appreciated, Kombu."

Kombu croaked deep in his throat, pleased, and fluffed his chest feathers. Then he turned to tease the tangles from Itachi's hair with his beak, which Itachi bore with patient stoicism.

The rest of the crows winged back one by one, taking up residence on Itachi's free shoulder, upraised forearm, and then Kakashi's shoulders, chirping and rattling their discoveries. Itachi listened to their reports quietly and said, "There is a small island, ten klicks at twelve degrees north of due west, uninhabited. It should serve our purposes."

Kakashi nodded, conscious of the birds huddling on either side of his face. "Lead the way," he said.

The flock of crows did not disperse, but glided alongside them as the glow of dawn crept slowly over the horizon. Half an hour's run brought them to the sandy edges of an island that was not more than trees growing on a rock jutting out of the waves, but Kakashi and Itachi didn't need much more than dry land to sleep on before continuing on their way. Metal glinted in the water at the edges of the pristine beach, and Kakashi crouched to fish a kunai out of the water. The wrapping on the handle had unravelled, and the beginnings of rust marred the blade.

"I read the report: a skirmish was fought here," Itachi explained quietly. "But this location was of little strategic importance, and both sides withdrew without casualties."

Kakashi hummed, nodding to Itachi to proceed to the main bulk of the island. "Let's set up camp," he said.

Itachi, the dark shadows of his crows leapfrogging through the trees around him, slipped into the grey twilight. By the time he returned, Kakashi was sitting beside a small campfire, frowning in concentration as he cut through the sodden plaster on his arm painstakingly. "I have set the perimeter seals. There are no creatures here to hunt," Itachi reported, and Kombu croaked his disgruntled agreement from his shoulder. "We will have to eat the ration bars."

Kakashi hummed, peeling off the last of the plaster. He dug through his pack and tossed a couple of wrapped bars to Itachi before tearing open his own. The gentle slap of water against the shore was the only sound between them as they ate.

The moon waned, and the wind nipped at Kakashi's exposed skin. Itachi shifted to reach for his water, and the sound snapped up Kakashi's attention. Uneasiness crept up on him again, the camaraderie of the flight and subsequent fall worn away, and wariness twisted at his chakra. "Is this far enough from Kirigakure?" Kakashi asked lightly.

Itachi stilled abruptly, and very deliberately slid his sheathed katana off his back and out of easy reach. "Perimeter check," he said to Kombu curtly, and the crow took off with an unhappy rattle.

They sat in silence for a moment, Itachi watching the fire and Kakashi watching Itachi. Then Kombu cawed somewhere in the distance, and Itachi's shoulders slumped just a little before straightening. "Do you remember what I told you, about what happened to me in the days before the Fall?" Itachi asked, without looking up. Perhaps it was to make Kakashi feel safe, so he knew he would not look into an active Sharingan without warning.

"Danzou gave you the orders to exterminate the Uchiha Clan," Kakashi answered slowly. "You approached someone you believed to be Uchiha Madara to help with the mission."

Itachi nodded, the movement graceful and without any hint of his unease. "I believed both double-crossed me during the Fall, during that mission."

Kakashi narrowed his eyes. "'Believed,'" he parroted.

"Uchiha Madara held a deep hatred against both the Clan and Konoha," Itachi explained. "I assumed, when I sensed the attacks on the rest of the Village, that he had decided that the rest of Konoha made too tempting a target than merely the Uchiha. I was meant to leave with him after the completion of the mission, but given the deviation from the agreed, I did not seek him out again."

Kakashi nodded, but a sinking dread had begun to claw its way down his spine. "But?"

"I came across him once more in Kirigakure," Itachi confessed, his eyes blank and his voice listless. "He was waiting for me in the catacombs. He told me that he had nothing to do with the Fall, save what I had asked him to do, and that he still had plans for me."

His words dropped heavily into the silence.

Kakashi waited for his throat to untwist before he said, "What was he doing in Kiri?"

Itachi's eyes darted to him and away again. "I am not sure. Given that he lay in wait for me in the third level catacombs, I assume he had access to Kirigakure's leadership, up to and including the Mizukage."

When Itachi had said he had to tell Kakashi something and it couldn't be in Kirigakure, Kakashi had assumed it was something along the lines of a mole in Hana-ha ranks - which, while bad, was nothing earth-shattering - and at worst it was Itachi's bid to assassinate him quietly somewhere no one could see. The possibility of Konoha's vengeful co-founder drafting his sixteen-year-old captain for some international plot had never even crossed his mind.

"What did he want?"

"He told me he knew I tired of the endless cycle of war, and that if I joined him, he would be able to put an end to it," Itachi said. "Have you heard of Akatsuki?"

Kakashi paused at the abrupt pivot, but Itachi did and said nothing without purpose. "The mercenary group, out of Ame?" he asked, curious despite the slow churn of horror; of what, he did not yet know.

"Akatsuki belongs to him. It is his sword, but he did not share with me its exact purpose. What he is planning will threaten all of the Elemental Nations, and the only way we will be able to counter it is by having a man on the inside. This is a rare opportunity for an infiltration mission." Itachi's back stayed ramrod straight, his hands without a hint of tremor, but his eyes -

Kakashi had never seen him look so young.

"He wants you to join Akatsuki," Kakashi surmised. His chakra itched under his skin, but he tamped it down - the danger wasn't here, there was nothing to fight though his hackles prickled insistently. "And if you decline?"

Itachi remained silent, the firelight dancing against the darkness of his eyes. "I cannot deny him," he said at last. "He knows I have a weakness, and he will not hesitate to use it against me if I do not comply. We cannot stop him if we do not know what he is plotting - it is better that I go, and pass information back anonymously."

That weakness's name was Uchiha Sasuke. Itachi might have given his loyalty to Hanabi-ha, but he would turn on Kakashi or even Shisui a thousand times over if it meant Sasuke would be safe, and they both knew it. Kakashi wouldn't be able to stop him, not without one of their deaths; he suspected this was another thing they both knew. Yet Itachi had not made the decision himself and vanished into the night - he was offering his trust to Kakashi with his own life in the balance.

"What will he ask of you?" Kakashi asked.

"To kill. To raze villages, and later Villages, most likely," Itachi said after a moment's consideration. "You know the kind of work Akatsuki takes. Even for shinobi, they are honorless."

"You don't have to go," Kakashi said, but he didn't know who he was trying to convince. "You have all of Hanabi-ha behind you - and you and Shisui and I can keep Sasuke safe."

"If he comes, I cannot stop him," said Itachi, closing his eyes briefly as though exhausted. "And he will, if I refuse to follow him. He may only be one man, but Hanabi-ha is still too delicate to survive his displeasure." He paused. "He will likely ask for proof of my loyalty."

An icy chill prickled down Kakashi's spine. "Not my head, I hope," he said lightly.

"That would be a price too steep to ask of one still indecisive," said Itachi, far too seriously. "He will set a task that alienates me from my previous loyalties without framing himself as the enemy."

Perhaps not Kakashi's, not yet, but Hana-ha blood. And again and again the longer Itachi remained within his reach, until Itachi truly had nowhere to return to.

"You've thought about this," Kakashi noted. "You think you can sell that? Your loyalty?"

"He appealed to my desire for peace, and I shared some of my reluctance for the involvement of Hanabi-ha in the Kiri Civil War," Itachi said. "And he would not have approached me if he believed I would compromise his mission." His eyes drifted over the trees. "He likely knows of my crow summons, but he cannot keep track of them all - they are apt messengers. Otherwise, there are alternative methods in which I can avoid suspicion while passing on information - "

"Itachi," Kakashi interrupted. "Your life will constantly be in danger. Infiltrating Akatsuki - you can't come back." That was a massive understatement, but what Itachi was proposing, not even proposing but planning to do -

The only way out of an organization like Akatsuki was death.

Itachi fell silent. "No," he said after a moment. "I expect not."

"This is a suicide mission," said Kakashi. "Itachi, if you do this - "when you do this " - the only way you will ever see any of us again, it'll be on the opposite side of the battlefield. Even Sasuke."

Itachi glanced up at Kakashi, his eyes open and vulnerable. "I entrust his safety to you," he said softly.

The Hatake were an ancient clan, but they'd given up the old traditions when they dwindled, when his father's father and aunts and uncles had left for the battlefield and never returned. Kakashi still knew the words, however, and they dragged themselves out of his mouth unwillingly. "On my honor, your trust is not misplaced."

Itachi smiled, a small, genuine thing. "Thank you," he said.

Kakashi nodded, a sharp jerk of his head. His skin itched, and he bit back a growl, muzzled the chakra snapping in his chest. His instinct was to protect his pack but here, he was helpless against the puppet strings slowly strangling Itachi and tearing him away, and Kakashihatedit. He took one breath to steady himself, then a second before he opened his mouth, but Itachi spoke first.

"In order for this to work, no one can know of my intentions," he said, and again he met Kakashi's eyes. "You cannot tell Tsunade-sama or Shikaku-taishou. Every person involved increases the possibility of an information leak."

Kakashi hesitated. "Itachi - "

"Give me your word, Taichou," Itachi said quietly. "This goes no further than us."

"No," said Kakashi.

Itachi frowned. "Taichou - "

"You overestimate me, Itachi," Kakashi said. "If I die, no one will hold your secret. When the moment's right, tell Shisui," he added. "He's already Captain of Covert Intelligence; he'll be in a position to handle any reports you send."

Itachi's eyes drifted back to the flickering flames. "Shisui," he agreed, his voice soft.

Kakashi tipped his head back, watching the smoke from their fire twine around the yellow-bright sparks. The top of the sun had finally cleared the horizon, streaking the skies with crimson and gold. "We need to rest," he said. "There's a long way to the mainland." Itachi hesitated, reluctant to let the conversation drop when he had carried its shadow for so long, and Kakashi said, "We have fourteen days and thirteen nights outside Kiri. We have time to talk more later."

What Itachi told him weighed heavily on his mind nevertheless. Kakashi doused the fire and settled down in a hollow created by the roots of neighboring trees, wrapping his cloak around him for warmth. He watched with a slitted eye as Itachi settled in the crook of the tree in front of him, and by all appearances, dropped off to sleep almost immediately. His crows still hopped from branch to branch, chirruping amongst themselves. Kakashi closed his eyes.

The chance for a proper farewell was rare for shinobi, but Kakashi wondered if it didn't just make the loss more bitter - a slow, festering wound instead of an abrupt, sharp agony.

Two weeks. That was how long he had Itachi for. Beyond that was uncertain, but inevitably, he would be gone and Kakashi would have to deal with that.

Kakashi opened his eye in time to see the young crow hop a little closer to his ankle. The sun beamed down, high enough in the sky that it must have been early afternoon, and Kakashi soaked in even the meagre warmth of a winter sun as his mind adjusted to the sudden transition from asleep to awake.

The crow tilted its head and offered Kakashi a,"K-k-k-krrrp,"as a greeting.

Kakashi couldn't differentiate between crows very well, but this one had a particularly unruly patch of feathers at the back of its neck and a whiff of sunflower seeds. "Hijiki," he said.

The crow chirped, pleased, and took the correct identification as an invitation to flutter onto Kakashi's leg, then his proffered arm. Kakashi ran a finger down its head and glanced up to the tree where Itachi had been sleeping. It was empty. The crow on his arm flapped frantically, beating his wings in Kakashi's face, and he looked down at the bird bemusedly as he leaned away.

The crow chirped again, harsher, closer to a caw, and launched itself from Kakashi's arm only to wheel around when it reached the end of the clearing. Kakashi took the hint and followed it through the trees. The sun glinted as it caught the tips of the waves, and about seventy meters out from the beach, Itachi crouched on top of the water stripped down to just his pants despite the bite of the wind. The dark shapes of his crows swooped overhead, venturing out in wide sweeps before circling back. As Kakashi watched, Itachi dove, slipping smoothly underwater with barely a splash.

"Should I be concerned?" Kakashi asked his crow guide, only half joking. Uchiha were all about fire, after all, and fire and water didn't mix. The bird ignored him, abandoning him on the shore as it winged up to join the rest of its flock.

But it was Itachi after all, so Kakashi stepped onto the water leisurely and wandered out to the spot where Itachi had gone under. He squinted out into the open ocean, in the improbable chance that someone was coming their way.

Itachi surfaced with about as much warning as he'd submerged, pulling himself back on top of the waves with an ease the belied the chakra control he needed. "Maa, Itachi," Kakashi said without taking his eyes off the horizon. "You're going to give yourself pneumonia."

Itachi expressed his doubt by politely ignoring him. "I have acquired food for a meal before we depart," he said, and lifted the sodden bundle of cloth wrapped around his fist, bulging faintly at the edges.

Kakashi peered into the makeshift bag to see a collection of clams and cockles speckled with algae. Given that their midday meal would have been nothing, if Itachi hadn't gone diving, he elected not to comment on Itachi's misappropriation of his cloak as a seafood bag. "I'll take these," he said. "Go put on some other clothes; those will take forever to dry out."

Itachi nodded wordless agreement, handing over his haul without protest. Kakashi eyed him discreetly. This kid was supposed to be the most brilliant shinobi of his generation, yet here he was, diving for cockles in the middle of winter in ice-cold water that not even copious warming chakra could fully blunt, wearing nothing but threadbare Anbu pants. Maybe he'd gotten everything except the self-preservation instinct.

They left the island behind once they had finished eating, chasing the sun to the west, and by the time they reached Uzu no Kuni, it had traded places with the moon once more.

Kakashi, when they had bedded down for the night in the overgrown grasses between an abandoned farm and untamed hills, said in a low voice, "When you leave, it'll have to be believable - both to him and Akatsuki and Mei and Kiri."

"Aa," Itachi agreed. "I have a plan."

Kakashi dropped his head backed to stare straight up into the night sky. Thin, pale clouds rolled overhead, swept by the wind, and they momentarily obscured the glow of the moon and the faint pinpricks of stars. He scrubbed a hand over the cloth covering his mouth and took a silent breath. "I have a feeling I won't like this plan," he said lightly.

"Given that Tsunade-sama will be present, she will likely be able to mitigate the damage so it is not very extensive," Itachi offered, which was less than comforting.

"Ah," said Kakashi bleakly.

Itachi turned, his dark eyes unusually earnest. "Taichou, you trust your instincts. I trust you, and you trust me as well. That will be enough; the plan will work."

A shockingly idealistic departure from Itachi's usual cold pragmatism. But here, there was no pragmatic option. Kakashi closed his eyes and let the silence that followed lie unbroken between them as the night deepened.

Yu no Kuni, juxtaposed with its frigid neighbor Shimo no Kuni, boasted mild weather and full, green trees. No one knew for sure why the country stayed warm when the lands around it sank into winter, except that the same phenomenon also produced the hot springs for which it had been named.

Kakashi had never had much cause to visit Yu unless he was on a mission, on his way to a mission, or being chased while bleeding copiously after a mission. Despite the lack of positive memories, relief prickled at the back of Kakashi's mind when its shores came into sight. They had left Uzu no Kuni early the previous morning, so the sun now still hung high in the sky, not even halfway through its descent.

Kakashi tipped his head up to scent the air, but they were upwind and he caught only the briny tang of the sea. He slowed to a stop, and Itachi mirrored him as he crouched, rising and dropping with the bulge and ebb of the waves beneath their feet. "Anything?" Kakashi asked.

Itachi's cloak fluttered behind him as he stared out towards the coastline, catching briefly on the sheath of his katana before he shifted to let it flow free. "Clear," he answered.

Kakashi's near-instinctive use of bunshin and kawarimi made him ideal to take the brunt of any surprise ambush because he would not be there to take it, so he said, "Follow me and watch our six."

Itachi nodded seriously, where Zabuza would have grumbled that heknew what he was doing, don't treat him like a green genin,sir. He'd miss that about Itachi, when he -

Kakashi grimaced.

The stretch of beach where they made landfall was uninhabited, and if they had estimated their position accurately, would remain that way for several kilometers on either side. They weren't there to stay in the uninhabited regions, however, so once in the trees, Kakashi pointed them towards the nearest town.

He took off his battered porcelain mask and hooked it on the back of his belt, tugging a thin scarf out of his pouch and over his black half-mask in a halfhearted disguise, one that did about as much to hide it as his cloak did his Anbu armor. Itachi watched him with a slightly pained expression, tying his old hitai-ate over his forehead. Kakashi didn't have his; he'd been wearing his Anbu uniform during the Fall. He'd have to steal one from one of the teams that'd inevitably be sent after them, if they weren't all Anbu.

Itachi blinked. He tilted his head inquiringly down the road.

Kakashi gave Itachi a droll thumbs up.

The weather was jarringly mild. Kakashi set a pace between ambling and purposeful, enjoying the warm breeze that brushed his face and lifted the edges of his cloak. With a respectable distance between themselves and the ocean, the air was a cocktail of fresh leaves, hints of bird and squirrel, and distantly, the slightly sour-acrid scent that indicated a town.

Itachi's eyes flickered back and forth between the trees on either side; he relied on his sight more than Kakashi did. His shoulders were relaxed and his hands nowhere near his weapons, but he like Kakashi was tightly coiled as if they were back on the battlefields of Kiri instead of walking down the road to a mostly civilian village under a blue sky as the birds sang in the trees.

The immediate fear of the first person they encountered three klicks from the town, a stooped older man in a well-worn but well-kept yukata and wide-brimmed straw hat, was a much more familiar, almost comforting sight. He clutched the straps of his pack with white-knuckled hands, skirting to the far side of the path as Kakashi and Itachi passed. Fifteen minutes later, it was an entire family piled in a mule-drawn cart, the children watching with wide eyes as their mother drew them close and their father twitched the reins to hurry the mule along.

Kakashi exchanged a glance with Itachi. News from the mainland had been sparse, but Konoha must have been busy for their appearances to incite such a reaction.

Gradually, the forest thinned and gave way to a couple of small farms lining the road on the outskirts of the town. Bunches of green lined neatly plowed fields, and on the far side next to the treeline, small figures moved busily back and forth with pails and long-handled shovels or hoes. A massive draft horse blinked liquid eyes at Kakashi from its enclosure, its tail flicking back and forth languidly.

The town melted into existence in front of them, first a scattered house or two, then more and more. Home-grown food carts followed, then food stalls and stands and actual restaurants. The sight was almost bizarre in its sheer lack of destruction. The first onsen appeared somewhere between the middle of the food carts and the beginning of the food stalls, and from there on they popped up like weeds, sandwiched between restaurants and bars and grocery stores alike.

Normally, Kakashi would be all for a nice warm soak after a long, cold journey, but after nearly a year in Kirigakure, he'd rather not spend more time than he needed to in water.

As they walked, the sparse crowds around them muted, heads turning as the townspeople paused in their business to watch the pair go by. Kakashi kept his face blank and his stare ahead, but the atmosphere of uneasiness and fear only thickened as they continued towards the center of the town. The attention wasn't dangerous - Kakashi and Itachi were here to be noticed, to some extent - but warned that the peace here could not be entirely true.

Itachi made a low voice in his throat, and when Kakashi glanced over, he nodded at an inn further down the street.

Kakashi eyed the buildings around it - restaurant, restaurant, housing unit, multiple escape routes and doors in the alleys on either side - and nodded agreement.

The sun had just brushed the tops of the trees as Kakashi nudged his way through the inn's front door. The young woman at the front desk looked up with a cheerful smile and greeted, "Welcome to…" before she registered what they were wearing and trailed off, her eyes wide. She clutched the edge of the desk, frozen as Kakashi and Itachi approached.

"One room," said Kakashi, pitching his voice low. "Two beds."

The woman swallowed, her eyes darting between them, but she didn't release her death grip on her desk.

Kakashi glanced at Itachi, who was standing at his side in his unconsciously predatory manner. Itachi frowned back slightly, a question in his eyes, and Kakashi tipped his chin a little to the side. Obligingly, Itachi stepped backwards, turning away and tucking his hands behind his back as he examined the rest of the room.

Kakashi turned back to the receptionist. "One room, please," he repeated. "Corner room, if you have it."

The woman dragged her eyes away from him long enough to glance down at the record book in front of her before flickering back up nervously. She reached under the table and brought out a key, offering it to Kakashi but setting it on the desk when her hand shook. "Room...Room Seven, third floor," she managed.

Projecting his movements, Kakshi took the key slowly, but she flinched anyways. "How much?" he asked.

The woman shook her head. "No...no charge," she whispered.

"How much?" Kakashi repeated, a little gentler, but the woman didn't answer, her lips pressed into a bloodless line. Kakashi reached into his cloak, ignoring the way the woman jerked backwards nearly into the wall. "Eight hundred ryou," he said, setting a stack of bills on the table in front of her.

Itachi slipped to his side as he turned and left the young woman behind in favor of the stairs. "You are right to be wary," Itachi told the receptionist. "The next shinobi to come, even those wearing this symbol, will be far more callous."

"You scared her," Kakashi noted mildly, in the cover of the stairwell.

"As did you," Itachi pointed out. "However, I thought it needlessly cruel for her to expect such restraint from the next shinobi patrons. Her fear may keep her alive."

"Floor three, Room Seven," said Kakashi in lieu of replying.

Four doors lined either side of the hallway, and a window set in the wall at the far end let the setting sun spill across the floor. A wooden plaque bearing the number '7' adorned the door directly to its right. Kakashi waited for Itachi to step a pace to the side and two back before unlocking the door and pushing it open in one smooth movement. He glanced in warily, taking in the corner of a bed, a low table pressed against the wall, and another door hung slightly ajar, presumably the bathroom. "Clear. One door, closed." Kakashi said.

"Clear," Itachi echoed. "Closed window, closed wardrobe." He advanced, one arm lifted at his side in readiness for a fast katana draw.

The war had ruined them, if they were clearing a rented room in a sleepy Yu inn like they would a trapped and warded outpost in Kiri.

Kakashi slipped in after Itachi, keeping an eye on the bathroom door as Itachi investigated the wardrobe and the beds. He turned and gave Kakashi a nod, and Kakashi swung open the bathroom door cautiously.

Toilet, sink, showerhead, drain in the middle of a sloped floor. The most threatening things there were the aggressively curved faucet handles. Kakashi gave them a second narrow-eyed stare before telling Itachi, "All clear. Window bed is mine," he added.

Itachi blinked his reproach but swept his cloak off and onto the other bed without protest.

"Pick something for dinner," Kakashi offered magnanimously, shrugging out of the harness for his katana and taking a seat on the bed. It creaked under his weight, but Kakashi ran an exploratory hand over its surface without encountering any major dips or bumps. He inhaled impulsively and instantly regretted it when the cloying mustiness of dust shot up his nose. His eyes watered, and he blinked rapidly and willed away the urge to sneeze.

"Onigiri," decided Itachi.

Kakashi raised an amused eyebrow. "We're finally in a town and you still want travel food?"

Itachi's eyes pinched at the edges as he considered. "And yakitori with soba."

That, Kakashi enthusiastically approved of. "Yakitori with soba it is."

Itachi split off as soon as they stepped out of the inn doors in search of a restaurant. Kakashi wandered back towards the edges of the town in search of an onigiri stall. He'd abandoned his armor, holsters, and katana in the room, slapped a pre-prepared alarm seal on the inside of the door, and now wore a light henge with a loose, long-sleeved shirt just a few shades darker than his hair over his uniform pants. He didn't quite look like a typical civilian, but even with the bandana patching Obito's eye and the scarf covering his mouth and nose, he didn't quite look like a shinobi either.

He slipped through the dinner crowd, absentmindedly cataloguing things of importance - a rough-looking drunkard with a small knife tucked into his waistband eyeing the crowds around him with hazy belligerence; an abandoned building with signs it had been recently disturbed; a dessert stand with Itachi's favorite kind of dango. His slow circling gave him three options of onigiri sellers, and in the end, he chose one operated by an old couple wearing matching blue outfits.

"Good morning!" the man beamed, and his wife swatted him over the head with a wooden spoon.

"Not the new customers, Shunsuke," she grumbled, tossing the spoon to the tub of used dishware. "Can't let 'em know exactly how senile you've gone."

The man just grinned, gape-toothed and entirely pleased with himself. "Evenin'," he said to Kakashi. "What can I get ya?"

Kakashi cast a brief glance over the handpainted sign propped up against the front of the cart. "Four each of the salmon, pickled cabbage, and chicken," he said. He may as well buy breakfast as well, but if they ended up eating it all tonight, they needed the extra calories anyways.

"Big eater!" the man exclaimed. "Wonderful. Tha'll be four hundred an' twenty ryou an' twenty minutes."

"Ten to fifteen minutes," the woman corrected over her shoulder as Kakashi fished the bills out of his inside pocket.

"Ten t' fifteen minutes," her husband agreed, sweeping Kakashi's money off the counter and into his apron pocket in a blink.

"I'll come back then," Kakashi offered, and the man hummed absentmindedly, already absorbed in the fresh fish fillet he pulled out of an icebox in the back.

With his temporary anonymity, Kakashi meandered through the dinner crowd, squeezing past a boisterous goggle of teenagers and a ponderous pair of old women with their clasped hands swinging between them leisurely. There had to have been one onsen for every five of everything else, but inexplicably, each had a steady trickle of patrons either entering or leaving.

He turned a corner into a small plaza, the centerpiece of which was a small but elaborate fountain bubbling steaming water from its center. Benches ringed the square, a clear border between the fountain and the outdoor tables of the restaurants at its edges. Carvings in the cobblestones named the town Yu-Zaou, and Kakashi almost sighed at the confirmation.

He took a seat on the nearest open bench, sitting against the armrest to give himself the best field of view with his open eye. A couple of barefoot children, a girl and a boy, splashed in the outermost pool of the fountain, chasing each other back and forth and hurling water at each other with their cupped hands. A pair of women watched them with one eye as they talked and laughed with each other, the books open on their laps forgotten.

It had been nearly a year since Kakashi had seen a town in peacetime, and it settled and unnerved him both. Only half the sun still peeked above the rooftops in the distance, so he heaved himself to his feet with exaggerated reluctance and doubled back to the onigiri cart.

"The big eater!" the old man said cheerfully when he turned around to find Kakashi on the other side of the counter. He set a pouch made of stitched lotus leaves down in front of them, but didn't move his hand when Kakashi reached for it. "Thirty ryou f'r the bag," he said brightly.

"Highway robbery," Kakashi complained dryly, but forked over the money anyways as the man giggled.

"Makin' a living," the woman corrected, flashing him a quicksilver smirk.

Kakashi took the onigiri and shook his head, amused, and went to find Itachi.

Itachi, at the head of a queue for a restaurant wafting tantalizing scents from its open double doors, glanced at Kakashi, glanced at the lotus leaf pouch, and said, "You paid extra for the bag."

"Maa," Kakashi protested, pasting an offended and slightly injured expression on his face. Itachi stared back at him, expectant and somewhat disapproving. "You can't expect me to carry them all in my bare hands."

Itachi projected silent disappointment until the host stuck his head out of the restaurant and called, "Next!"

Rather than a sleek, modern establishment, which most teenagers in the town seemed to prefer from what Kakashi had seen of the town, Itachi had chosen an older restaurant with tables well-worn and smooth with age. The lights flickering in the walls were firelight, and the air inside was slightly smoky despite the open windows ringing the room up near the ceiling. Older married couples sans children bracketed the low cushions the host led them to on both sides and cups of hot sake or rice tea dotted tables all around the room.

Itachi was a sentimental old geezer in a sixteen-year-old body, but that wasn't news.

"We're close enough to the ocean that if you want seafood udon, it'll be fresh enough," Kakashi drawled,

Itachi peeked over the top of his menu at Kakashi. "We are finally on the mainland and you still want seafood?"

"Your cousin is a bad influence on you," Kakashi said severely, narrowing his eyes at Itachi's blank face. "You used to be my obedient little kouhai but here you are, throwing my own words back at me."

Itachi ignored him. "Niku udon and two skewers of yakitori," he told the waiter who set earthen cups of sake down before them.

"Beef for me as well," Kakashi said. "And a side of eggplant tempura."

Cows were scarce in Mizu no Kuni due to the sheer lack of open land for pastures. The cattle and pig farms that did exist in the foothills of Kiri's main island mountain range had been seized by loyalist forces at the beginning of the war, from what Kakashi understood, and by the time the combined Hanran and Hana-ha forces hit its shores, a living hoofed mammal that wasn't a military horse was about as rare as a Kiri shinobi who couldn't swim.

Their udon, topped with chunks of broiled beef in a savory sauce, reminded Kakashi just how much he'd missed land-based meat. Still, he leaned over it and inhaled, picking apart ingredients by scent to check for poisons. Itachi watched, nursing his sake, until Kakashi gave him a nod.

"What is the budget allotted for his trip?" Itachi asked, selecting a piece of beef delicately with his chopsticks.

"Did you choose a high-end restaurant?" Kakashi asked dryly. "Enough to spend a little excess for one meal. Plus more, if we can get it." Steal it.

Itachi's brows pulled together a little at that – the first part, not the second; Itachi was nothing if not pragmatic. "When will you meet your contact?" he asked instead.

Kakashi hummed. "If I find him tonight, tonight. If I don't see any sign of him in three days, we'll have to move on anyways – but he'll be here. Yu-Zaou, when the dust settles on the Kiri Civil War. He knows my time here will be short, and he won't want to give up what I have."

Itachi didn't comment on the vague wording; he would be on a different side soon, and it was in their best interests that he not learn new, sensitive information. "Would you prefer I restrict my movements to the room in the inn or patrol the town for impending teams?"

"Patrol," answered Kakashi. "Any sign of trouble, send up something big and flashy and get out of the way. Rendezvous in the northern woods outside Aoshima when either the sun or the moon is directly overhead. Otherwise, I should be back here within three hours."

Itachi nodded, and pulled a piece of chicken off its skewer with his teeth with a mysterious elegance.

Twilight had fallen by the time they exited the restaurant, and with the sun down the air was cooler but only just. Kakashi enjoyed the warm breeze ruffling his hair, the comfort of the low light perfect for hunting. This was the time between dog and wolf, and Kakashi was neither and both.

Once in their room, he pulled his Anbu armor back on, settling his porcelain mask over his face and his cloak over his shoulders. Instead of finishing the ensemble with his katana, however, he held it in its sheath and harness out to Itachi. "Hold onto this for me," he said.

Itachi paused in tugging his bracers on to take it. He looked down at it, then back up at Kakashi. "Hai," he said.

Kakashi slipped a storage scroll out from his pack, and with a splash of blood and a drop of chakra, his tanto appeared atop the seal.

Kakashi didn't have many constants in his life. Any material possessions he owned ended up used up, broken, or left behind at a moment's notice; the katana was his third since joining Anbu, the mask his fifth and technically stolen. His white chakra blade, however, was a clan heirloom, passed down to his father from his father's father andhisfather before – it was a sword that had seen action in the Warring Clans Era. The carved bone sheath had yellowed over the years and until he was a few years into Anbu he'd used a newer wooden sheath in the field instead, and he knew the blade had been reforged at least twice, but Kakashi wielded it, took care of it, and treasured it like nothing else he owned.

Itachi's eyes locked on the blade and he nodded understanding, but Kakashi knew he didn't, not really. He hooked the sheathed blade into his belt and waited for Itachi to finish armoring.

The two katana sheaths crossed at Itachi's back, the hilts protruding even when he tugged his cloak over his shoulders. "I will go first," Itachi said, standing.

"Don't scare the civilians too badly," said Kakashi wryly. He opened the window and waved Itachi out with a polite, "After you."

Itachi had been pretty damned eager to come on this little trip, considering that it was two weeks away from Sasuke when he had precious little time left, but that was necessity more than desire. Kakashi, too, had been eager to return to the mainland both for necessity and for his own desire to set foot on home ground once more, save one caveat – meeting this contact.

Kakashi was a shinobi and a commanding officer, so he bit down on his reluctance and the metaphorical bullet and dropped out the window once he could no longer see Itachi's retreating back.

Townspeople still bustled about the street though the night had taken hold, with chatter and laughter and the yellow glow of lights drifting out of the bars and onsen in particular. This was the heart of any town's nightlife, and most of Kakashi's experience of these were mission-related given that while he had legally been an adult at age five when he made genin, no one had particularly wanted to serve alcohol to a kid shorter than the barstools.

He kept to the shadows, stealing from building to building until he reached the first bar. A couple of rowdy tables threw dice or cards down between them, and a few others shot the shit at the counter, but when Kakashi inhaled the bitter-bite air wafting out, he recognized nobody. He moved on.

He worked his way through the bars methodically, spiraling out from the first bar as his epicenter. A trendy bar full of giggling girls his age and gigglier boys his age he ruled out almost on first sight, but glanced into anyways. A seedy dive with tables so sticky Kakashi could practically taste it warranted a second look, but only briefly.

He inevitably, unfortunately, hit gold on the seventh bar, a respectably-sized place sandwiched by two onsen. Kakashi spotted the familiar broad shoulders at the bar near the pool tables, far across the wide seating space. He ducked back out to do a perfunctory perimeter sweep, just fast enough that he could deny that he was stalling, before slipping inside. He stepped silently enough that anyone not facing him didn't turn, but those that did see him stiffened at the porcelain cat-mask, the pale flashes of armor under his cloak. He ignored them all, ignored the bartender's wary stare, and went straight for his target.

Jiyaiya glanced carelessly at Kakashi over his shoulder and waved down the bartender. "You know what, Hiseki? Think I'll take that booth after all. Couple bottles of sake for me and my…friend."

Jiraiya's chakra, even tightly reined in to civilian levels, echoed with the vastness of its slumbering, mountainous power. Kakashi followed him to a booth with cracked vinyl seats, where Jiraiya slid a bottle of sake across to him and slapped a paper seal down on the table, activating it with a spark of chakra before he sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. For a moment, he just looked at Kakashi, and then he said, utterly neutral, "I hear congratulations are in order."

Kakashi dipped his head to remove his mask, setting it down on the table in front of him. "The situation in Kiri is stable," he acknowledged.

"Yeah. I heard," Jiraiya rumbled, cracking open his bottle and tipping it into his glass. He didn't say where he'd heard it from. "How is she?"

Kakashi poured himself a shot. "She punched a mountain in half a couple of weeks ago," he answered, stalling. "She's enjoying getting into arguments with Terumi Mei."

"Don't play with me, Kakashi," Jiraiya warned, narrowing his eyes, and the thick-slick feel of his chakra stirred just a little.

Kakashi's hackles rose instinctively, but this was Jiraiya. If he wanted to, Jiraiya could squash him like a bug at twenty-four the same as when he was fourteen, but really the only thing to fear here was Kakashi's own guilt. "She has good days and bad days, same as before."

"She didn't have a brain disease,before." Jiraiya's displeasure was slow-moving but forceful. Kakashi stared at his bottle and chose not to bring up the hemophilia. The older man knocked back another shot. The next time he spoke, his voice was disinterested. "So, the mask. It work?"

Kakashi flicked a glance up over his cup. "It was your creation. It worked. Not even Ao's Byakugan could see through it." Or two pairs of full-blooded Hyuuga Byakugan.

"Well," said Jiraiya, setting his cup down and steepling his hands. "If you're satisfied, there's something that belongs to me now."

Maa, fair's fair,Kakashi tried to say lightly, but the words stuck in his throat.

He reached behind him and drew his tanto in its sheath, turning it over in his hands before setting it on the table between them silently. Kakashi had rewrapped the hilt before he left San's forest, and after a year of use it was smooth and supple. The great wolf pack engraved in the bone sheath twined around the blade, fierce and graceful and familiar - and now, accusing.

Jiraiya watched him impassively. "You can always pick the other option," he said. "The price is a name, yours or theirs."

He wanted the name of the one he had created the mask for. In a choice between his name and Shisui's, there was no contest. Kakashi pushed the heirloom blade across the table. "Take it," he said.

Jiraiya ran his fingers over the carved grooves, tugging the hilt just far enough out of its sheath for the light to catch the blade as Kakashi watched, heartsick. He looked up to meet Kakashi's eye. "I'll take care of it," he assured him. "It's for the better, Kakashi. If your father, Konoha's White Fang, muddied your Clan's reputation by being called Warbringer, how do you think people will react when they find another Hatake fanning the flames of war - one who's already been named Reiketsu and Friend-Killer?" He slipped the tanto into his inner pocket and reached for his bottle of sake again. "Better to let go of the name, preserve what honor the Hatake still have."

"Honor?" Kakashi said, a bare tinge of bitterness slipping into the word. "A traitor and a murderer wears the Hokage's hat in Konoha. Letting him keep it isn't honorable. Restoring Konoha to the rightful successor is my duty - my direct orders from Sandaime-sama."

"It didn't have to be with a war!" Jiraiya growled, slamming the bottle back down onto the table. "You were a child of war too, Kakashi, you should know better than to bring that down on another generation."

I didn't want to start a warwas far too petulant, a fool and a coward's excuse. Kakashi took the hit, felt it stab deep and twist, and absorbed the rest of the impact with a shot of sake. He wasn't here to argue, and he didn't have much fight in him tonight anyways. "I agreed to the deal already," he said instead, once the bitter-burn of the alcohol had abated. "I'll give up my Clan name, as promised."

Jiraiya nodded, somber and satisfied. His bottle had only a little left; he upended it into his cup.

"I need another favor," Kakashi said.

Jiraiya raised a patronizing eyebrow. "We're not on the same side anymore, Kakashi," he said. "You're going to have to offer me something in return; that's a business transaction."

"I need a seal design that can contain a partially-transformed jinchuuriki in Tailed-Beast mode," said Kakashi, and Jiraiya sat up, his eyes narrowing.

"For who?" he asked, leaning forward.

The Lost Four was Kakashi's next greatest secret, after Shisui's identity, and for all his sources not even Jiraiya knew where they - where Naruto - was. And though he had no right to resent Jiraiya for making him renounce his Clan name, that was a vicious victory Kakashi held close to his chest. "Get me the seal," said Kakashi, "and I'll tell you something you'll want to know about the Sanbi's jinchuuriki."

Jiraiya burst into laughter, an amused rumble. "All right, kid. I can whip something up. Send one of your hounds when you're back on the mainland, I'm sure they can find me."

"One more thing," Kakashi said. "Consider this an advance."

The Sannin squinted at him. "What now?"

"It's about the Akatsuki," Kakashi said.

Jiraiya's eyes widened for a split second. "What about them?" he asked, carefully casual.

Kakashi tapped the neck of his sake bottle. "This will be worth a lot towards our next business transaction."

Jiraiya waved an impatient hand. "Yeah, yeah. Out with it."

"One of the members is an Uchiha," said Kakashi, meeting Jiraiya's eyes. "In fact, not just a member - the puppetmaster."

Jiraiya's eyes narrowed and he sat back, rubbing his chin thoughtfully as he scrutinized Kakashi's face. "An Uchiha. Are you sure? How reliable is your source?"

"I am. And very," Kakashi said. "He's old and powerful. If you look into this further - be careful. I'm told that the still waters run deep with the Akatsuki."

Jiraiya blew out a short breath. "I'll give you that," he said. "Hell of an info byte, Kakashi."

Kakashi pushed his half-finished bottle across to Jiraiya, who arrested its slide with one hand. "It's late. I have a lot of stops to make on this side of the ocean." He picked up his mask, settling it back on his face, and ducked his head in a short bow. "Thank you for your time, Jiraiya-sensei."

Jiraiya crumpled the paper seal at the edge of the table and raised his cup in a salute as Kakashi stood. "Until next time," he said, low enough that the other bar occupants couldn't hear despite the broken seal. "Nanashi Kakashi."

Kakashi took a bottle of umeshu from the bar to go, and in a rare moment of self pity disguised as spoiling his kouhai, stopped by a late-night dessert stand to buy four skewers of dango that the owner baa-san helpfully stacked in a little tray made of banana leaves (complimentary). By the time Itachi returned, a silent shadow slipping through the window, Kakashi was sitting on his bed pressed up against the backboard in bare feet. He waved his stick at Itachi, gesturing at the table. "Picked up some dango," he said, his voice deceptively light. The umeshu had been tucked away into his pack, unopened.

Itachi's eyes travelled slowly between Kakashi and the tray of dessert. "Did the meeting go well?" he asked, neutral.

"As well as it could have," Kakashi said, tapping the tip of his skewer against his mouth. "Quiet patrol?"

"Aa," Itachi agreed, shedding the katana he wore. "There is a chuunin pair from Taki on the other side of town, but they appear to be keeping to themselves and avoiding attention."

Kakashi hummed acknowledgement. Itachi drifted towards the dango.

Kakashi flicked his empty skewer across the room to clatter precisely into the bathroom trash bin and leaned back into his pillows. Pillows were few and far between now to say nothing of actual beds, and it wouldn't be responsible of himnotto enjoy one when he had the chance. He watched Itachi with a half lidded eye and resolved not to mention Itachi's ever evolving plot until he finished his dango.

Itachi promptly dashed Kakashi's attempt at keeping work and downtime separate by turning around and saying, "The Mangekyou."

"Ah," said Kakashi. That. "You've seen my Bingo Book entry. With a title like 'Friend-Killer,' I'm sure it's self-explanatory."

Itachi looked blank, which Kakashi was grateful for. "No, Taichou - how did you learn to master it? Clan records are flawed, but they implied that should an outsider come into possession of a Sharingan, they still would never be able to use it to its full potential."

"I haven't," Kakashi admitted. "I have no idea what it can do. My chakra reserves were too small when I first activated it, and since the Fall they've always been too low. The regular Sharingan drains me enough as is."

Itachi nibbled on his dango delicately. "You will need it to stand against me," he said simply. It wasn't pride or overconfidence or condescension; it was fact.

The Mangekyou was about as deep a clan secret as the Uchiha had, but there were scarce few of them left and pragmatism had always triumphed over tradition with Itachi. Kakashi sat up and tipped his head sideways to face him. "I know. What can you tell me?"

They returned to the road once dawn had broken over the rooftops, tracking their way north towards the Kumo border. Ten kilometers from Yu-Zaou, Kakashi twitched his fingers at Itachi in a sign and veered sharply into the woods. Konoha's shinobi as a rule favored treetop travel, and Kakashi bounded easily up into the branches as he set their course twenty degrees west.

Yu's forests were not quite like Konoha's - the trees much smaller, the leaves a different shape, the angle of the branches much sharper. Moisture drifted though the leaves, catching the sunlight and beading on the surface of Kakashi's mask and katana hilt.

At noon they crossed a river ten times the width of the streams they'd encountered before. White froth bubbled at the bases of the rocks, a fast current sweeping leaves past in a heartbeat. Kakashi paused, head tilting as he considered, and changed course to follow it along its length. When the sun had nearly reached the highest point in the sky, he turned them north again, then east and south.

Itachi made no comment on their looping, erratic route, even when they ended up in the woods just over ten kilometers from the western edge of Yu-Zaou once again.

"Let's make camp here," Kakashi said peaceably, and would have stuck his hands in his pockets but unlike Kiri's baggier Anbu uniform, Konoha's didn't have pockets.

"Hai," Itachi said automatically, but paused when Kakashi didn't move.

"I'm going to catch something," Kakashi said. "To eat."

Itachi blinked once, slowly. "I will...build a fire," he said, and said by anyone else, it would have been questioning.

"Thanks," said Kakashi. He turned and left.

War hadn't touched Yu, or at least not this part of Yu. The unafraid chirping of songbirds spilled into the air over Kakashi's head as he prowled along the forest ground, sliding his feet under loose leaf litter as he followed the sour-fur-grass-scent between the trees. A faint scrabble alerted him to his proximity to his prey, and he froze, tilting his nose up to pinpoint the source of the smell. He pounced blind, landing sideways on the trunk of a silvery beech and flicking a kunai end over end into the shrubs at the base of the tree. It sailed through the branches without nicking a single leaf, catching the rabbit in the head with the ring in the pommel as it twisted away. It went down in a tangle of limbs, twitching weakly as its flight instincts fought to break free of its daze, but Kakashi sprang down and snapped its neck in one smooth movement before it could find its feet.

He didn't need to hunt for food, not with Yu-Zaou so close, but returning to camp with just one rabbit felt inefficient and a little absurd, and the itch in his blood, hair-trigger instincts to track and kill, hadn't yet abated. He hung the rabbit on his belt and stalked back under the sun-dappled leaves as he let the sounds of the forest wash over him.

He traced his way back to Itachi with three rabbits and a squirrel in hand, more relaxed than he had been in over a year. Hunting other shinobi never quite compared to stalking prey intended as a meal, though Kakashi wasn't sure if that was his humanity's influence or that of his Hatake blood.

Itachi glanced up as Kakashi entered the clearing. "Taichou," he greeted. A small fire crackled in front of him, wisps of smoke curling up towards the sky, but other than setting his pack down, he hadn't made any further attempts at a camp. Which was good, despite Kakashi's vague instructions, because they still had quite a distance to travel before nightfall.

Kakashi started by cutting off a front paw from one of the rabbits, which earned him a bemused stare from Itachi. Shucking and gutting all four creatures from their pelts earned him a respite, and peeling the raw meat off the bones of the rabbit missing a foot while the rest cooked over the fire, whole, drew a look both curious and wary.

"Don't ask," Kakashi advised, and tossed the entire skeleton into the flames. The rabbits and the squirrel roasted, and after a while he rotated the skewers, and fat dripped and sizzled off the plump bodies into the fire. Kakashi picked one up, browned unevenly but just about cooked through, and Itachi mirrored him. The other two animals he propped to the side against a tree, and they steamed gently.

That left the skeleton in the fire still. The licking flames had eaten away its meaty protection, and dark smoke rolled off the remains as the skeleton charred down to the bone.

Itachi wrinkled his nose at the acrid stench, glancing at Kakashi as he folded his hands into seals for a water suiton, but Kakashi waved him off. "Leave it," he said. "Just let the fire die out by itself."

Yu's rabbits were fat and soft, and the tender flesh tore easily in Kakashi's mouth. Neither of them had thought to bring salt or any other seasonings, but the taste of fresh meat satisfied him enough that he had stripped it down to the bone in less than ten minutes.

Itachi ate more delicately, twisting off pieces bone by bone and dropping the finished remnants in a neat pile. As he nibbled, Kakashi fished the smouldering rabbit-skeleton out of the fire with a stick, rolling it onto its side to let it cool.

Itachi eyed him judgmentally. Kakashi ignored him and wrapped it in a thin cloth once he'd finished eating. "You are bringing that?" Itachi asked, and that he had chosen that of everything he'd done so far to ask about brought an amused quirk to Kakashi's mouth.

"Aa," he said lightly.

Kakashi imagined Itachi making a quiet report to Shikaku, having decided to switch his secret-keeper after watching his old Anbu captain go completely off his rocker:Kakashi-taichou meticulously removed a rabbit's paw and kept its burned bones for no discernible reason after leading us in a large circle from our initial starting point. I have come to the conclusion that he is of unsound mind and should be removed from his position and access to any sensitive information. Also, I will be defecting to a mercenary organization; please ensure my brother comes to no harm while I am off razing other villages.

Shikaku wouldn't have the slightest idea of what Kakashi was doing either. The Covert Intelligence Unit and its protocols were under Kakashi's purview; he'd switched it for the Guard Platoon when it became clear that Kakashi would have more mobility than Shikaku in the early days before the Kiri Civil War.

Kakashi tucked the wrapped skeleton into the pouch at his back, snagged the rabbit and squirrel pelts, and rose, dusting his hands off. "Move out in ten minutes. Incognito from here on out - no armor, no masks. Civilian cover."

Late afternoon's sun beat down above them by the time they approached the village, some thirty kilometers from Yu-Zaou, though with Kakashi's meandering lead, it had taken the same time as a distance five times as long.

"I'm going in," Kakashi informed Itachi, as the two of them hovered in the cover of the forest. "Don't bother making camp; I don't plan on staying long."

Itachi dipped his head. "I will patrol the perimeter, to ensure that no one followed our scent trail." He paused and added, carefully, "to ensure that no one you did not intend to followed our scent trail."

Ah. Itachi was sharp, as always, patient enough to have waited out Kakashi's seemingly aimless meander. "Thirty minutes," Kakashi said. "Meet back here, or send a crow if something comes up."

Itachi nodded again and vanished into the undergrowth with a sweep of his cloak. Kakashi waited until he could barely catch a whiff of his scent before sliding out from the protection of the trees' shadows.

He papered a light henge over himself and headed into the town. It was small, little more than a trading post - only a couple dozen buildings scattered on a dusty lot, and at least two of them were bars. A pair of horses gnawed contentedly from a sack of hay in a dirt corral, and a small murder of crows peered down from the peak of the inn's slanted roof. A pack of kids romped down an alley, kicking up clouds of dust beneath their feet, and on the other side of the main road, two men smoked cigarettes as they leaned up against the porch railing of an onsen. Kakashi nodded at the men as he wandered past, and they tipped their heads gravely in reply.

Kakashi's path took him to the center of the town and the general store, a solid-looking wooden structure labelled with a hand-carved sign sandwiched between a grocer and a leatherworker's shop. He glanced around, but the street was still. He turned back and pushed his way into the general store.

Dust motes danced in the sunlight spilling in through clean patches of grimy windows. The bell above the door chimed cheerfully as Kakashi stepped inside, and the must of wood-dirt-leather slammed him full in the face. Gradually, the scents equilibrated, and though the sawdust and oil were overwhelming, Kakashi could filter out strains of oats, hay, jerky, metal tools, and people who didn't shower particularly frequently.

A narrow shelf of paperbacks squeezed between a rack of seed packets and a display of potatoes teetered precariously over Kakashi's head, and he gave it a wary berth as he moved deeper into the store. Sewing equipment jostled for space with bowstrings and cans of paint and hide scrapers. A string of lights flickered along the walls, faint enough that they were all but drowned out by the rays of sunlight filtering through the glass. Kakashi bypassed a farmer peering at the racks of spare farming tool heads to weave his way to the back of the store, where the shopkeeper leaned against the wall behind the till and frowned at a crossword.

"Afternoon," said Kakashi. "I've pelts to trade, if you're interested."

The man grunted, squinting at Kakashi from the other side of the counter. He tossed his paper down, the pencil after it, and nodded at Kakashi. "Might be."

Kakashi reached into his pack and laid the rabbit pelts down one by one, then the squirrel, and then pulled the bundle of cloth from his back pouch and set it next to them.

The frown on the man's face deepened. When he unwrapped the cloth, the charred rabbit skeleton rolled out, flaking ash onto the wood. He stared at it for a long moment. "There was a rot in one of the barrels of oats last week," he said at last, glancing up at Kakashi. Though he didn't take his eyes off Kakashi, the shopkeeper's hands slid the skeleton back into the cloth, bundling it out of sight.

"Looks like you need some good luck," Kakashi suggested, and set the severed rabbit's foot on the counter.

The man stared at Kakashi still, folding his arms across his chest thoughtfully. "Looks like," he agreed. He swept the rabbit's foot under the counter and dropped the pelts in a bin. "Yeah, I'll trade." But before Kakashi could respond, he continued, "Tell you what, I got something I think you'll be interested in. Let me know what you think."

Kakashi frowned internally - a deviation from the script. "Sure, I'll take a look," he said.

The shopkeeper clumped into the back storeroom, the floorboards creaking under his weight. Kakashi turned slightly to check his blind spots in the guise of perusing the newspaper stand next to him. The farmer had chosen a hoe blade and drifted towards the coils of wire an aisle over, but otherwise, the store stood still and empty.

Approaching footsteps caught Kakashi's attention again as the shopkeeper returned. He tossed a brown paper back down on the counter. Kakashi glanced at him, and when the shopkeeper nodded, opened the bag.

"Cinnamon sticks," said the shopkeeper. "New shipment outta Cha no Kuni." He looked at Kakashi expectantly.

"Hmm," said Kakashi, examining the three dozen-some curls of bark in the bag. They were brown, wood-looking, and did indeed smell like cinnamon. "Cinnamon."

"Good stuff," the man said, staring at Kakashi. "Tea. Ciders. Chicken. Goes with everything."

Kakashi looked back down at the cinnamon. He folded the bag shut again. "I'll take it. And a paper."

The other man leaned over the counter to grab a newspaper from the stand, dropping it next to the cinnamon sticks. "You got 'bout a hundred ryou credit left. What else you want?"

"The lot in chipped beef," said Kakashi, tucking away the paper and the cinnamon in his pack. He peeled a handful of bills out onto the counter. "That, too."

The shopkeeper squinted. "Right. Thirty kilos of chipped beef."

Kakashi's pack thumped against his armor until he tightened the straps, the extra weight pressing down as he left the store and skirted the edges of the town. The air, warmed by the sun still a ways from the horizon, brushed Kakashi's face and stirred the hair beneath his bandana. Itachi hadn't returned, so Kakashi bounded lightly up the trunk of a massive oak and settled on one of the lower branches.

He fished the bag of cinnamon sticks out of his pack, chose one at random and set the rest aside. The thin curls of bark tucked tightly in on themselves, little flakes crumbling off in his hands. He turned it over and over, feeling the rough bark beneath his fingertips. Kakashi brought the stick up to his nose and inhaled, choking down the overwhelming spicy-woody aroma, and caught the faintest hint of paper.

He flipped it once in his hand, considering, and eyed it carefully, then pressed his mouth to the end and blew. A thin roll of paper shot out the other end into his hand.

Kakashi unfolded and unrolled the paper slowly, taking care to keep it from tearing. A cramped, precise script marched in even rows down the page, and Kakashi's eyes narrowed.

MISSION REPORT D-210,it read. Contact with enemies: none. Enemy combatants from origin: Konohagakure observed on five (5) occasions. Status of AT2: approximate age-appropriate growth achieved.It was a mission report, styled after Anbu mission logs. He skipped down to the bottom.

It was signed,Operative Cat-15.

Kakashi reached for another cinnamon stick and unrolled the next report. MISSION REPORT D-113. The next. MISSION REPORT D-0. 0124 HOURS reported breach of walls. Multiple assailants, origins unknown.

The first. The report from the night of the Fall.

Primary target Hyuuga Hinata located with escort Hyuuga Neji, unranked. Secondary target Hyuuga Hanabi located with escort Hyuuga Makoto, chuunin.

Kakashi closed his eyes and took a breath. He rolled the reports back up, tucking them back into their cinnamon stick sheaths and bundling them all into the paper bag.

Itachi found him in the tree, his bag repacked and slung over his shoulders. "Taichou?" he prompted, tilting his head up to watch Kakashi curiously.

Kakashi dropped down lightly. "Ah. Is the forest clear?"

"Hai. No sign of recent shinobi activity," Itachi reported.

Kakashi glanced him up and down. "I'm dragging you around the country and abandoning you on the outskirts of town," he observed, almost an apology.

"It is necessary," Itachi returned, but Kombu, perched on his shoulder, scolded Kakashi with a reproachful caw. "Kombu," Itachi warned, frowning. The crow batted him over the head with a wing as he took off sulkily.

"Dissent in the ranks?" Kakashi asked dryly.

"Kombu is particularly fond of of Sasuke," Itachi said, watching the crow wing away through the trees. "My crows do not understand that I must leave to protect him."

"It's a human construct," Kakashi said. "War. Psychological warfare is as alien to them as a world without war is to us."

Itachi did not respond, his eyes shadowed and distant.

"Let's go," said Kakashi. "We have one more stop tonight."

The sunset over the shrine illuminated the torii, its faded paint restored to brilliant vermillion for an hour and a half before darkness fell. Kakashi paused before the gate and bowed before continuing on. He climbed the front steps slowly until Itachi stopped. Kakashi turned, and before Itachi could offer to patrol the forest or make a base camp, said, "If I die, someone should know the protocol to send a message from here."

Itachi's eyebrows knit together. "Surely there are less volatile shinobi to entrust this information to. You are aware of my situation and the dangers it will pose to myself and all of Hanabi-ha."

Kakashi slid a sideways glance at him. "A man outside can be useful. You're the best of us, Itachi," he said. "You'll find a way to make it work."

Itachi nodded slowly. "Very well," he said. "I will follow you."

The kannushi waiting for them at the top of the stairs wore the traditional white garments of his station, his hands folded neatly into his sleeves. Wrinkles lined his careworn face and his dark hair was streaked with silver. "Welcome," he said, his voice low and smooth. He bowed in greeting, which Kakashi and Itachi returned. "You have come far, travellers."

"We are grateful for the respite," Kakashi said.

"It is good to see young people who still remember the gods," the kannushi said. "What brings you to this humble shrine today?"

"My father used to bring me here," Kakashi answered, glancing past the man to the doors of the shrine. "He passed away a few years ago. My cousin - " he dropped a hand down on Itachi's shoulder, " - recently came to stay with me, so I thought I'd bring him to greet my father."

"I see," the kannushi said. "Very well. You may enter. Will you require a guide?"

"I know my way around. Thank you," Kakashi said.

The shrine constituted two floors, a sprawling yet empty building carefully kept if worn by time. Kakashi bypassed the entryway and the main hall, skirted the atrium, and turned down a narrow hallway lit only by the sunset streaming in from the window at the far end. Two doors lined the walls on either side, and he chose the door to the left of the window.

They were greeted by a simple painting of Izanami, black ink in delicate strokes over rough paper. A shelf protruded from the wall, holding only a single candle. A saucer filled with water, a stick of ink, and an inkstone sat in a neat row on the low table beneath the shelf, and a stack of translucent rice paper and a pair of brushes lay beside them on the table.

As Itachi closed the door behind them, Kakashi knelt at the low table and reached for the inkstone. Slowly, precisely, he ground the stone and mixed the ink.

Chichi-ue,he wrote with careful brushstrokes. Father.

Kakashi had never really known how to grieve his father.

Mourning Minato-sensei and Kushina was easy because the entire village had been mourning. Everyone had lost someone; some had lost everyone. Kakashi had not been unique in his grief, throwing himself into his missions and spending sleepless nights fracturing under the weight of his loss. The severing of his greatest anchors to Konoha left him adrift as he spiralled, but others were falling just as hard, just as fast.

Mourning Rin and Obito was simple because Rin lay buried beneath a headstone in Konoha and Obito's name was engraved on the Memorial Stone. There was no shame in mourning heros, shinobi who had given their lives for their village. Kakashi could look in the mirror with both eyes open and think,That's Obito,could let the harsh burn bleed crimson into a vicious pinwheel and think,That's Rin. Their deaths were Kakashi's burden, his regret, his guilt to bear, and grieving them was not only expected, it was right.

But Kakashi's father had died disgraced, not by an enemy's hand in battle, but by his own after he failed his mission, his Village, and his Kage. To Konoha, his death was not a tragedy but a relief. How could Kakashi mourn a man like that?

So, for years, he hadn't, just locked the grief away with the resentment and ignored it when he could, endured it when he couldn't. But after Obito, after Rin, Kakashi had carefully unburied his father's memory, remembered his smile, the sense ofpackhe held for all the Village, remembered his love. And even after losing the first and last things his father had left him all at once, Kakashi thought his father would understand that he had done it for his own pack, for Konoha.

Kakashi had never called his father anything as formal as 'chichi-ue,' but here, now, he mourned in his own way.

Itachi's eyes prickled against his back, curious and cautious and silent. "'Ojii-san' and 'omago' are warnings of duress," Kakashi explained, keeping his focus on his work. "'Sobo' and 'Aneki' are signals to freeze operations. 'Chichi-ue' and 'kanai' are summons."

"Summons," Itachi echoed. "You have operatives stationed nearby."

"Aa. Yoichi-san, the kannushi, serves as the gatekeeper," Kakashi said. "Any meeting request is facilitated through him." He set the brush back down and sat back on his heels to let the ink dry. "He went undercover on the Yondaime's orders a few days before the Kyuubi attack, but officially, he's listed as KIA. Neither Sandaime-sama nor Danzou received the briefing on his mission due to the timing, but I was a member of the Yondaime's security detail that day."

Funny how it became easier and easier to bring them up in conversation so casually, like Kakashi hadn't failed two Kages in a row, hadn't allowed two Hokages who let him into their confidence and their inner circles die on his watch. Like any of this would have happened if Kakashi hadn't been a little stronger, a little faster, a little smarter. And yet he was poised at the back of another Successor. History repeated itself, and Kakashi had a nagging doubt that this time could easily end the same way.

"Taichou," said Itachi from where he knelt a pace back, interrupting Kakashi's train of thought. "Thank you."

Kakashi blinked. "For?"

"I am glad to have had the opportunity to serve on your team," Itachi answered, with an unusually open sincerity in his eyes. "Both in Anbu and Hanabi-ha. I am relieved that it was you I followed into battle."

Shinobi who followed Kakashi into battle didn't have a great record either. "Right," said Kakashi, and snagged the sheet with the dried calligraphy as he pushed himself to his feet. "It's almost time."

It was not a retreat.

Itachi trailed him to the courtyard behind the shrine. Dusk had settled, and besides the faintest hint of orange on the horizon, only torchlight cut through the darkness; Kakashi could barely see his own feet in front of him. Like most doors in the shrine, the shed was not locked. Kakashi ducked inside. Sky lanterns lined the shelves in neat rows, delicate rice paper stretched over bamboo frames, each carefully handmade by the kannushi and miko who kept the shrine.

The table was narrow and low to the ground to fit the space, and held only a small clay pot and a blunt spreading knife. Kakashi chose a lantern, opened the pot, and used the rice glue to plaster the paper withChichi-ueto its side.

"This is quite blatant," Itachi noted, leaning into the doorway to examine the lanterns through the gloom. "The messages are hidden in plain view."

"Lanterns are frequently released from this shrine, though they don't have too many visitors," Kakashi said, replacing the lid on the glue pot when his eye started to water. "Most have names written on them, to petition Izanami-sama to guard their passage into death and their rebirth." He stood, taking the lantern with him, and Itachi stepped back to let him pass.

He paused for a moment at the corner of the courtyard and tipped his head back to watch the encroaching night. The sky darkened before his eye, the transition imperceptible as the pinpricks of starlight faded into being. Yu's night wind picked up, tugging gently at the edges of his cloak and the ends of his hair exposed beneath the bandana.

"I cannot remember the last time I looked to the stars without seeking a direction," Itachi confessed behind him quietly.

Kakashi hummed agreement. "It's a good thing the stars don't have all the answers, or we'd forever be looking up." He reached up for a torch, lifting it out of its ring in the wall, and lit the wick of the lantern with a deft flick of his wrist. He replaced the torch distractedly, the lantern cradled in one arm as it warmed under his hand.

"Is there any particular way that should be released?" Itachi asked, the golden glow of the flame dancing in his dark eyes.

"No," Kakashi answered, lifting the lantern to shoulder height. "As long as it clears the trees." He let go.

The sky lantern gained height ponderously at first, then with increasing grace as the air caught inside warmed. Kakashi watched it go, a sentimental twist in his throat at the sight ofChichi-uerising into the night sky - a golden light, alone in the darkness.

He inhaled a breath a little too sharply and disguised it by turning smoothly. "That's done. Come on, we should get some rest."

Candles and glass lanterns lined the inside of the shrine, illuminating their path as Kakashi traced their steps back towards the front entrance. The kannushi had returned, or perhaps he had never left. He waited for them with his arms tucked behind his back, examining the likeness of Izanami carved in pale marble that hung over the doorway. The goddess wielded the Amenonuhoko in one hand, the shaft of the great spear resting along her upraised arm and its blade downturned with her face.

"Not many still follow the old traditions," the kannushi said without moving. "Yet Izanami-sama will always take and give." A pause. The kannushi turned towards them then, still-sharp eyes resting on each of their faces for a lingering moment. "It is late. Perhaps you would like to stay the night," Yoichi suggested placidly.

Kakashi offered him a half-bow. "We would not want to impose."

"No imposition if you are invited guests," the kannushi said. "Come, I will show you to a room."

Sleeping quarters lined the hallway up a rickety set of stairs, the boards warped from thousands of feet and decades of wear. Kakashi matched Yoichi's quiet footsteps, and their footfalls echoed faintly in the stairwell.

The kannushi slid open the shoji door just at the top of the stairs. "Please make yourselves comfortable," he said, and dipped his head when Kakashi bowed.

"Thank you for your hospitality," Kakashi said.

As soon as Itachi shut the door behind him, Kakashi slipped a paper seal from his back pouch and ignited it with a spark of chakra. Otoglowed at its center,sound,encircled in a triskelion formed of, at its base,shuushi, suitoru,andazamuku-stop, absorb,anddeceive. "That will hide sound, but not chakra," he warned.

Itachi did not look up from the futon he was unfolding. "We have little time remaining, but working with the Mangekyou is better done with fewer chances for interruption."

Kakashi swept the cloak off his shoulders and shrugged off his travel pack. "I take it you have another topic you want to go over tonight."

Itachi reached for the second futon, laying it at an angle to the first that would give them both room to draw their concealed weapons without striking each other. "It is in regards to the event of my...exit." He hesitated, staring down at the blankets.

Kakashi smiled humorlessly. "I imagine you won't have much opportunity to consult with anyone else, so you may as well take advantage of a sounding board, since you can. What's your plan?"

"We established that my defection will impugn Hanabi-ha," Itachi said. "However, were I to appear to be colluding with a high-ranking member of the Hanran, the political battlefield will be levelled after my imminent departure."

Kakashi tapped thoughtful fingers on the top of his pack, leaning back. Itachi was proposing doubling the stakes and the payout alike. One misstep, and Hanabi-ha would be on the hook for both whatever damage Itachi's exit mission didandthe murder of a Hanran commanding officer - because there was no way they could allow that shinobi to live if there was even the slightest chance to disprove the lies Kakashi and Itachi spun. "Do you have a target in mind?"

"I have several candidates to consider," said Itachi. Even seated on the ground his back was ramrod straight and his hands loose and easy on his thighs, as though he were at a tea ceremony and not choosing which of their allies to frame and dispose of.

Nothing less than the betrayal of a Hanran captain could balance the scales in their favor. Kakashi shifted to mirror Itachi, running down the list in his mind. "Michishio Yuusei. Ankan Magari. Anyone I'm missing?"

"High caste captains are the obvious choice," Itachi acknowledged. "However, one from a lower caste and Terumi's most trusted inner circle will both arouse and deter suspicion in its audacity: Higata Beniko or Sakai Hanzei."

"Higata watched her back in the fourth level catacombs, and Sakai was one of the first to defect. He worked his way up to captain from chuunin," Kakashi said. "It'll be a tough sell."

Approaching footsteps stalled their conversation. A light knock rapped on the doorframe. Itachi reached for the seal, sliding it under the futon and crumpling the paper to disrupt it as Kakashi rose to open the door. "Kannushi-san," greeted Kakashi with a slight bow.

"I took the liberty of asking the kitchen for a meal for yourself and your cousin." Yoichi offered Kakashi the tray. "It is humble fare, but we at the shrine find it satisfies our appetites."

"Thank you," said Kakashi, taking the food. "We didn't intend to cause you so much trouble."

"The food was no trouble. You are a long way from home," Yoichi said gravely, and though his hands were steady as he tucked them back into his sleeves, his eyes were distant. "There is little I can do to assuage that."

Kakashi woke with the dawn. Itachi, his legs folded beneath him in light meditation, opened one eye as Kakashi sat up. "Quiet," Itachi reported. "Several kannushi and miko woke about an hour ago, but the remainder are still asleep. No notable activity."

"I hope you don't mind the quiet," Kakashi said, his voice still rough from sleep. He reached automatically for his canteen.

Itachi shifted, rolling out the muscles in his shoulders. "How much time do you anticipate before the summons is answered?"

"Not long," Kakashi answered. He passed the canteen to Itachi. "If there's no response by the second night, we'll send up another sky lantern."

Itachi tilted his head contemplatively. "Is it safe to remain in one place for so long? The trail we left may draw hunters to the shrine."

"Aa," Kakashi allowed. "However, we left little more than scent, and not many will recognize us by that alone. Slipping away shouldn't be too difficult as long as we haven't been identified."

Kakashi, on his own, was very difficult to catch for the same reasons that made him one of Konoha's top tracking and assassination specialists, heightened Hatake senses notwithstanding. He had probably trained whichever Anbu hunter had ended up replacing him.

Itachi was no slouch himself. Even at eleven, when he'd first joined Kakashi's team, he had quickly proven his abilities in stealth and infiltration. He could vanish like a ghost from the forest or the middle of a town, and those who did manage to track him generally didn't come out the other side alive.

But paranoia, not arrogance, kept them alive. They could rest here but they wouldn't relax, always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Fortunately, it didn't come to that. At sunset, after a day of slow katas performed in a cramped room and silent meditation in one of the smaller worshiphaiden,Yoichi knocked on their door once more. There was another chakra signature with him, one whose scent Kakashi didn't immediately recognize, and from the sound of their footsteps and the wood beneath their feet, they were smaller in build than the kannushi. He glanced at Itachi, who rose slowly and slipped to the corner closest to the door, a hand tucked behind him discreetly above the holster concealed at the small of his back. Itachi nodded once.

Kakashi opened the door. "Kannushi-san."

"You have a guest," Yoichi said gravely, giving Kakashi a nod. "This is Eifuku-san. She is a candlemaker from the town of Kounon. Perhaps you would like to discuss with her the creation of a memorial candle for your father."

"I appreciate your thoughtfulness, Kannushi-san," Kakashi said, bowing slightly to both him and the young woman at his shoulder, who inclined her head gracefully. "Please, come in, Eifuku-san."

Kakashi recognized the kunoichi on sight, though he knew her as Nakada Teishi, a Shinrei-bu chuunin who'd finished her two-year Anbu enlistment when Kakashi was nineteen. He had led the extraction team for her missions on at least three occasions.

She waited until he had closed the door behind them and activated anotheroto-seal before greeting him with, "Fallen blossoms don't return to the branch."

"So wake from death and return to life," replied Kakashi.

She smiled. "Hatake-taichou. I didn't expect to see you here."

"Teishi," Kakashi returned. "It's just Kakashi." Itachi's narrow-eyed stare prickled at his back, ever alert, but he held his tongue. "I'm filling in this time. You remember Itachi."

Teishi's eyes jumped to Itachi's face and skittered away. "I do."

Itachi let his hand drop from his holsters slowly, moving to seat himself on his futon with carefully projected movements.

"Have you been well?" Kakashi asked. He tucked his hands in his pockets and ambled over to the edge of his own futon. "Sit," he invited, sinking down crosslegged. Teishi sat, reluctantly, crouched back on her heels with a direct line towards the door. "I don't remember you being the point of contact out here."

"It's a recent development," Teishi answered. "I was the backup. Kouji...Kouji got caught in a Konoha-Kumo skirmish up north. He didn't make it. The team's down a member, but with the inactivation orders, we didn't get a replacement." She glanced at him. "If you're here, you must have news from Kiri."

"This is the official reactivation order," Kakashi confirmed. "The Yondaime Mizukage is dead; the Kiri Civil War is over."

Teishi huffed out a half-laugh, half-sigh. "I don't believe it. You'reactuallyinsane, no offense." She ran a hand through her short-cropped hair. "Halfway home," she said, a crooked grin spreading across her face. She paused, and her face froze in a rictus of trepidation. "My team was talking and there's a ninety-two percent chance Terumi Mei will betray us based on Kiri sociocultural patterns, and if you're here, that's an opportunity to make a move with two major players out of the picture. Did they try to backstab you yet? "

"Immediately," Itachi said dryly.

"It was a very half-hearted attempt," Kakashi interjected reassuringly. "Terumi only tried to have me killed once, and she did seem at least a little contrite about it afterwards."

Itachi frowned. "That is likely because she wishes to - "

"She's made some concessions to Tsunade-hime," Kakashi interrupted, before Itachi could finish explaining Mei's frighteningly amorous intentions for him. "The situation is stable, so we're reopening communications with the covert teams on the main continent."

"Copy that," said Teishi, eyeing Itachi with more curiosity than wariness now.

Itachi blinked at Kakashi innocently.

"What's the situation here?" Kakashi asked, giving Itachi a droll stare before returning his attention to Teishi.

"In Yu?" Teishi chewed her lip. "Western Yu is the highway of choice for Konoha and Kumo to strike at each other. There's a lot of shinobi traffic, but there were only a handful of skirmishes that spilled over the borders from either Hi no Kuni or Kaminari no Kuni through Shimo. Eastern Yu is pretty calm, apart from the refugees fleeing from the west. This side of the country is ignoring the hostilities as best they can, since Yu's official stance is neutrality. I don't have the status on any other operatives, but apart from - from Kouji, my team is operational."

Kakashi nodded. "Spread the word. Orders will start coming out in the next few weeks." He hesitated and glanced at Itachi. "Give us a minute, Itachi."

Itachi dipped his head. He rose without complaint, shrugging his cloak on over his shoulders and sliding out the door. It shut behind him with a soft tap, and his footsteps faded down the stairs. Teishi watched him go with a furrow between her eyebrows.

"Teishi, I'm giving you a codephrase," Kakashi said, and Teishi's full attention snapped back to him. "Itachi will have the other half. No matter what you hear about him, if he gives you the other half, you do as he says. Do you understand?"

Teishi's frown deepened. "Hai," she replied automatically. "But - "

"Especially if I'm dead," Kakashi added, and Teishi balked.

"Hatake-taichou - !"

"Kakashi," he corrected again. "Teishi, think about it," Kakashi said. "Tell me truthfully if you can do thiswithouttelling anyone else - not even your team."

Teishi's eyes flickered up to him and away, uncertain and electrified and just a touch resentful. "I can't be your first choice for this," she said, stalling.

"You're the only choice," Kakashi said relentlessly. "We don't have a lot of time. You just need to know that I trust Itachi, and I trust you." He glanced over with a hooded eye. "I can trust you, can't I?"

"Of course," Teishi said, the honest anxiety in her voice enough to convince Kakashi of her sincerity. "I mean, I'm just a chuunin - I'm not even supposed to be here - "

"You're supposed to be in Konoha. We all are," Kakashi broke in, and watched her face fall in the split second before she composed herself. "If anything happens to the troops in Kiri, Itachi will be the ranking member of Hanabi-ha, but he won't be in a position to take command directly."

Teishi was an information and infiltration specialist; she could hear what Kakashi wasn't saying. "Why are you telling me this?" Teishi asked, a hint of desperation tainting her voice. "You barely know me, I could be a mole. Or I could be captured and tortured or killed. Shouldn't whoever you choose should be at least a tokujo, if not a jounin?"

"Don't get caught. You're a capable kunoichi, I wouldn't have asked you otherwise." He paused for a beat. "And I know you're not a mole because you defected after Danzou killed your last tie to the Village, but you still have family in Hanabi-ha that you want to protect."

Teishi's younger brother had made the mistake of expressing his suspicions over the Sandaime's assassination at the wrong place at the wrong time. His arrest and those of three others was followed by a swift execution for the crimes of sedition, mutiny, and conspiracy to commit treason. Their older sister and surrogate mother, in the middle of a two-week mission when the Fall happened, had taken her entire team AWOL to the assembling yet-unnamed Hanabi-ha rather than return to Konoha.

Hatred and grief, ugly and dark, shadowed Teishi's eyes. She answered him with a bitter smile. "Precise as always, Kakashi-taichou. You're right. I can do it."

"Halfway home," Kakashi reminded her, relief and regret loosening the tension in his chest.

Teishi nodded silent agreement, but the exhaustion slumping her shoulders overpowered her earlier thrill.

The cramped room was windowless, but the night was slipping past. They all needed rest. Kakashi said, "Your prompt is, 'A candle to light candles and burn itself.'"The spirit of self-sacrifice. "His response will be, 'No fear of a lack of wood to burn in the green hills.'" There is always hope.

"Acknowledged. And, Kakashi-taichou - " The corner of her mouth quirked up, reluctantly sardonic. "It is good to see you again."

Under the scarf looped around the bottom half of his face and beneath the mask below that, Kakashi smiled too.

High noon saw Kakashi and Itachi depart from the shrine, Teishi having preceded them in the early hours of the morning when the birds began their daily chorus. Kakashi set a course that did not waver this time, and as the first hour passed, the furrow between Itachi's eyebrows deepened at their heading. "It can't be avoided," Kakashi said, breaking the silence that had hung between them since leaving Izanami's shrine.

"Entering the region where the Konoha and Kumo borders are closest while maintaining a civilian cover will be difficult," Itachi mused. "From Teishi-san's account, the situation is volatile and the boundaries fluid. The shinobi on either side will be looking specifically for disguised shinobi." He slanted a glance at Kakashi. "If we exchange the cover for the ability to wear weapons unconcealed, we can decrease both our travel and reaction times."

"Fine," Kakashi agreed easily. "If we're spotted, the Anbu uniform should give anyone pause, Kiri or Konoha."

They paused on the ground under the cover of a large, springy bush dotted with tiny leaves, and while Itachi kept watch, Kakashi shed the baggy civilian shirt and trousers, exchanging them for the familiar weight of his armor and katana. Vambraces and gloves followed, then the fastenings on his sandals. He hooked the old cat-mask over his face and took up the guard so Itachi could do the same.

Itachi's armor hung on him loosely, the shoulders just a little too wide and the bottom edge overlapping the top half of his belt. Sixteen was still on the young side for Anbu, and Itachi was shorter and slighter than other shinobi his age. Stealing his current set of armor had taken time and patience as well as the mortification and possibly reprimand or demotion of a hapless Anbu operative caught alone in a seedy motel room. Kakashi stepped over to tighten the straps Itachi couldn't reach.

Kakashi shifted the harness for his own katana to settle more comfortably on his shoulders as Itachi adjusted his mask, the final piece of the uniform. "I'll take point," said Kakashi. "Maintain silence from here out."

Itachi's mask dipped acknowledgement, and Kakashi turned and leapt for the trees.

The massive trees of Hi no Kuni dwarfed Yu's forests by far, and rather than the comfortably broad boughs one could use to travel in a relatively straight line, moving by the trees here needed more dexterity and concentration. The path Kakashi chose was erratic by necessity, ricocheting off the sturdiest forks between trunk and branch so as not to rattle them.

The glint of metal flashed in the corner of his eye, and Kakashi held a hand up as he pulled up short. Itachi landed in the next tree over, clinging to the trunk with chakra as he melted into the dappled shadows. Kunai littered the ground, patches of rust-dry blood discoloring the dirt and bark, and a length of wire tangled in the grasses.

Kakashi strained his nose and ears but sensed nothing out of the ordinary but the faint tang of old blood, with the sour twist that precluded death. Life negative,he signed at Itachi, who parroted the same back at him. Hold position,Kakashi directed, and dropped to the forest floor. He prowled among the deitrius of battle. Leaf litter had been trampled into crumbs underfoot, branches snapped and leaves bruised, but despite a patch of dried blood too large for the shinobi from whom it had come to have survived, there was no sign of anyone still present, dead or alive. The body must have been removed when the battle ended.

Clear,he signed at Itachi. Then,forward.

The battle sites they encountered grew messier and more frequent. They had yet to find a corpse, or even a live shinobi but Kakashi did encounter an arm and a hand, severed just above the elbow and beginning to rot. Ants swarmed the rancid flesh, and Kakashi wrinkled his nose and backed away. The trees here were scorched and gouged, entire swathes burned or felled.

At nightfall, they set up a camp without a fire at the edges of a stream from which wisps of steam curled off the surface. Kakashi didn't dare risk the chakra spike to activate a warning seal with both Konoha and Kumo teams on the prowl; Itachi didn't summon his crows for the same reason.

Kakashi leaned back where he sat, feeling the knobs in the wood dig into his back. Night here was a little more tense, a little more silent, but the forest was the same. "Tonight isn't a Mangekyou night either," he said, barely louder than a breath."

"No," Itachi agreed just as quietly from Kakashi's right. A long pause followed, and Kakashi waited patiently for Itachi to choose his next words. A breeze rustled the leaves above them, and for a moment, they both strained their ears for any hint of movement camouflaged in the sound. "I have a concern in regards to my brother," Itachi said at last after the trees had settled.

"Specifically?" Kakashi prompted, though inwardly he cringed. Kakashi wasn't one to offer empty platitudes, just couldn't, and he doubted Itachi's concern was easily amended.

"There are certain gaps in his knowledge and in that of all the children," Itachi said.

Kakashi didn't spend much time with the children, having foisted babysitting duties off to every other member of his team. He certainly wasn't the best judge of what they should or shouldn't already know.

"Regarding the Fall," Itachi added.

An impending sense of disaster crept to the edges of Kakashi's mind. "Specifically?" he repeated. Hedging was unlike Itachi, though all bets were off where his brother was concerned. This was as close to squirming as Kakashi had ever seen him, and he turned to seek out Itachi's masked face in the dark.

Itachi met his querying look with eyes that glinted in the holes of his mask when he blinked. "They only recently learned that you were framed for the Sandaime's assassination, and they know Tsunade-sama is the leader of Hanabi-ha, but not that she is the Sandaime's rightfully appointed successor. They know that they, or the Lost Four, were smuggled out of Konoha, but not what they mean to Danzou and the resistance. They also know that the Uchiha were massacred," Itachi said, finally blunt, "but they don't know who killed them, or what happened to the Nara."

"Ah," said Kakashi. He stared into the darkness bleakly. War was never the best place to raise children, the best excuse they had in the name of distraction, but the idea that nobody had ever really sat the kids down to explain the Fall was equal parts ridiculous, appalling, and understandable. "Those are some rather large gaps." Itachi continued to watch him expectantly as Kakashi followed the thought to its inevitable conclusion. "You plan on filling some in before you leave," Kakashi noted.

"It will make the separation easier," Itachi said, his eyes resolved, "if I tell them that I killed the Uchiha."

Kakashi's eyes slid sideways to Itachi. "You want them to fear you? You want Sasuke to hate you?"

"Hatred will protect him." Itachi met Kakashi's scrutiny steadily. "Too much knowledge is dangerous, and he is not strong enough to protect himself yet. It is better for him not to miss my presence or the memory of me once I leave."

Kakashi frowned. He was well aware that he was not the gold standard for anything involving emotions, but...that...didn't quite sound right. In theory, evoking a negative last memory should lessen or even sever the attachment, but while the logic was sound, people tended to react unpredictably. "You're sure that's what you want to do."

Itachi nodded.

Well, Kakashi wasn't an expert. Itachi wasn't either, but he seemed like he had the situation under control.

The faintest brush of Itachi's hand on his shoulder jolted Kakashi from asleep to fully awake, with a spike of adrenaline shooting ice-cold down his spine. His chakra wrenched, and not a second later a trio of kunai impaled the mizu bunshin that had taken his place. Itachi vanished into the shadows in a blink, and Kakashi sent a second bunshin out to gauge the field.

"Identify yourselves," Kakashi's bunshin ordered, shifting into a light crouch with one hand on the hilt of his katana as the attacking shinobi alighted in a loose circle around him.

"Akimichi Shitou, Gouki Platoon," rumbled the jounin in the lead, with a voice like falling rocks. He planted his feet firmly where he stood, and his grey plated armor stood out among the faded green flak jackets of the rest of the shinobi. Eight total; two teams. He swept his bo staff out to the side, a warning more than a threat. "We weren't told of any active operations in this sector."

A platoon named for fortitude - these teams were a border patrol, most likely, sweeping the territory Konoha had staked out in Yu as Kumo must have done in Shimo. "No, you weren't," Kakashi's bunshin answered curtly. "This is a sensitive mission. Move along, and next time, watch the friendly fire."

Shitou hesitated, studying the armor and mask.

A ninken barked from behind Kakashi, high and warning, and he gritted his teeth even as its Inuzuka partner snapped, "Hatake!" and lunged.

Itachi's fireballs streaked through the shadows on the far side of the clearing, crimson concealing the white-hot cores until the crash of impact, and the teams scattered. Kakashi whipped out two more mizu bunshin in quick succession to intercept the Inuzuka and her ninken, unsheathed his katana with a hiss, and launched himself at the Akimichi.

Jounin earned their rank honestly, and Shitou caught the blade on his staff with a ringing crash despite the considerable force Kakashi had used. Kakashi disengaged, swinging around lightning-fast with a backhanded slash for the gap between his armor plates. Shitou blocked with a single fist, the metal plating the back of the glove shielding his hand from the blade, and spun his staff in the other.

Kakashi leapt backwards, but Shitou swung hard and fast and caught him in the ribs midstep. Kawarimi. Behind him, his clone exploded into a spray of water as Shitou's bo completed its arc. The Inuzuka yelped, alarmed, as Kakashi twisted coming out of the substitution, and she swerved hard to avoid his scything blade. Another substitution, and the hilt of his katana cracked down on her ninken's skull, sending the hound tumbling into the dirt with a whine that cut off abruptly.

"Get away from her!" the Inuzuka snarled, pouncing for Kakashi with clawed hands as her canines elongated in her mouth. Chakra bubbled into the air around her, seething from her form.

Kakashi pivoted out of the way, then flipped backwards over Shitou's head just as the jounin slammed an oversized fist into the ground where he'd been standing. The ground rattled, and the spindly Yu trees groaned and topped around the point of impact. Kakashi landed in a light crouch, splitting off another bunshin and melting backwards into the shadows as it darted forward to meet the other jounin just as Kakashi's other bunshin sprang to intercept the Inuzuka.

The last two members of Shitou's team, a taijutsu specialist and trap specialist, tag-teamed Kakashi's first decoy bunshin without success, loops of wire closing around empty air as the clone twisted and ducked just out of reach with every strike, and some dozen meters away, he caught a glimpse of Itachi flitting through the trees, luring the other team on a fruitless hunt.

The Inuzuka's bunshin opponent splashed into a puddle as she struck a vicious blow in its midsection, and when her eyes flicked directly to Kakashi, led by her nose, he formed yet another mizu bunshin. Her answering snarl was wild and frustrated, and she pounced furiously. Kakashi backpedaled as the clone intercepted her, leaping up and ricocheting off a tree trunk as his hands flashed through seals.

"Raiton: Gyomou,"he intoned, and with ahiss-snapa net woven from strands of lightning spewed out into the clearing just as each of his mizu bunshin lunged for their opponents in synchrony. Kakashi slammed an extra jolt of chakra into the jutsu just as it caught its targets.

The mizu bunshin exploded into sizzling balls of lightning and steam, and raw screams shattered the illusion of stillness in the night as the clearing lit up in crackling white-blue. The raiton extinguished abruptly, darkness rushing back in accompanied by the stench of burnt cloth and flesh.

Kakashi crouched where he was, straining his senses for any sign of a counterattack. He opened Obito's Sharingan tentatively, eyeing the wisps of chakra coming off the prone bodies scattered across the forest floor, the steady if dim lights at their cores. Nothing moved, and he let out a quiet breath. He stood and sheathed his blade back over his shoulder.

Itachi joined him as he picked his way out of the scorched clearing, unruffled and marred only by a narrow scratch down the front of his armor.

"Status on yours?" Kakashi asked, temporarily giving up the order on silence since they had somewhat disrupted it already.

"Neutralized," Itachi answered. His eyes pinched slightly in a frown. "Are you injured, Taichou?"

Kakashi bit down the instinctivenoto take stock, and only then did he register that the dull ache in his only-slightly-not-unbroken arm had sharpened into a - a pinch. "No," he said anyways, giving his arm a betrayed stare.

"I will retrieve your sling from your pack," Itachi said placidly, ignoring him. Kakashi transferred his stare to Itachi but let him take it. After the violence of battle, the forest yawned forebodingly empty around them and his back prickled under eyes that weren't there.

His memory slapped him upside the head and he said, "Stay here. I'll be right back."

He doubled back through the woods before Itachi could argue, following Itachi's scent to his last battlefield. A shinobi, probably chuunin, sprawled where he had fallen, his head narrowly missing a half-buried boulder jutting out of the ground. Kakashi rolled him over and the man's head lolled back to bare the dark bruise around his throat where Itachi must have choked him unconscious, but his chest rose and fell gently. He wore the standard Konohan uniform - chuunin-jounin blues, military green flak jacket, and a Leaf hitai-ate on a dark band.

"Sorry," Kakashi told him, and tugged at the knot of the hitai-ate. It loosened. Kakashi pulled it off entirely and stood to make his way back to Itachi, prize in hand.

Itachi glanced at the hitai-ate and offered Kakashi's sling and travel pack to him. "Reinforcements may arrive shortly," he warned.

"Then we should go," said Kakashi, shrugging his pack on and ignoring the sling to tie the hitai-ate over his forehead, under his cat-mask.

Itachi held the sling out insistently and did not move.

"That will interfere with my ability to fight," Kakashi said.

"The probability that we encounter an enemy or enough enemies that you cannot defeat them with one hand, or I with two, is statistically low," Itachi said, and on anyone else that assuredness would be arrogance. "The probability that you re-injure your fractured humerus is significantly higher."

It would take half a second to cut the sling off in the event of another attack. Kakashi weighed the pros and cons with the implacability of Itachi's face and reluctantly took the sling.

And burned it.

No, he didn't. But he wanted to.

Having successfully caused more of a disturbance than intended, Kakashi and Itachi opted not to make camp, continuing further north towards the border with Shimo. They crossed a wide, flat river, coming up the opposite bank some hundred meters west from where they entered, and twenty minutes later, darted through the misty screen atop another river until Kakashi determined that the two teams they'd left behind would be hard-pressed to track them even if the Inuzuka pair recovered in time to pick up the trail from the battlefield.

He motioned Itachi back towards the south bank, and they slipped easily into old Anbu habits, progressing through the trees in staggered advances. The moon still hung high above the trees, flickering between the leaves above them as they moved. Kakashi's steps fell noiselessly, finding protruding roots and stone instead of fallen leaves or brittle twigs, but despite the cover of the night and silence, Kakashi's chakra coiled, tense, just under his skin.

Itachi's hand flashed ahead of him, and Kakashi eased to a halt. The artificial lights signalling a town glowed through the branches, and Itachi signed a question. Kakashi shook his head once, motioning to the west with his free hand, and Itachi nodded, slinking through the undergrowth. The night faded into the golden tones of sunlight, but the forest continued unbroken around them.

Kakashi pulled up short when Itachi paused, his head tilted in concentration. Shinobi,Itachi signed. Number unknown.

Hold,Kakashi signed. He skirted Itachi's position, prowling around a copse of trees, and heard the nearly silent exhale of the sentry on the far side. He froze, but the sentry's even breathing never changed, chakra dormant and unalarmed. Carefully, Kakashi leaned around and signalled Itachi forward.

Painstakingly, with slow, smooth movements, Itachi ghosted past him, moving a little further before halting in the cover of a large bush dripping leafy branches laden with berries. Kakashi waited for his signal before continuing forward.

They left the camp behind without alerting its occupants as to their presence, and an hour later, a second in the same fashion. After that, Konoha's shinobi presence faded abruptly, as though the intensifying damage to the woods itself had sapped its strength.

Kakashi tasted the faintest hint of dried blood, diffuse and directionless as if absorbed by the air around them, and where he tread soft ash stirred beneath his feet. Oaks and maples sprawled uprooted alongside massive pitted craters. The trees bore burns streaking black across their trucks, leafless branches drooping forlorn and brittle into dirt mixed with ash. Light glinted off half-buried kunai and shuriken abandoned once thrown, and blood and brain matter smeared the odd flat surface. The air was choked with the memory of smoke, acrid and stifling.

An uncharacteristic break in the forest ahead of them let streams of morning sunlight into the shaded forest floor. When Kakashi reached the edge he stopped, listening for any rustle in the eerie silence even as he absorbed the sight. Itachi slipped up to his side, just as silent, just as solemn.

A wide slash carved its way through the trees, as tall as three of Kakashi at its deepest and the far side some two hundred meters away, and the earth it disrupted was scorched black and desolate. Not a single thing, not a tree or an animal or even a stone had survived its path, burned to cinders or immolated alive or melted to slag. The trail of destruction stretched far past what Kakashi could see on either side of him, disappearing into the distance, a deep wound scored into the land. Kakashi knew of one thing that could inflict this level of destruction.

Kakashi wondered what this empty carnage would look like if a town had happened to be in its path.

"Kumo deployed a jinchuuriki," Itachi said, breaking the silence at last.

"Aa," Kakashi agreed, sober. He slid a sideways glance at Itachi. Konoha didn't have a jinchuuriki, or a Mangekyou to counter a Bijuudama. He cast a quick look over the burned land, but the battle had long since ended and neither side had claimed this region. "Let's keep going. We don't have a lot of ground left to cover today."

The town called Takehara sat on the northernmost edge of Yu, just shy of the border, and sprawled out over fifteen square kilometers. Trade trickled in from Shimo and Tetsu under both shinobi and samurai guard, and for that reason, the city was generally considered neutral ground, and held to neutrality more than the rest of the country. Even so, a town this size had enough people, enough ambient chakra, to disguise even a mid-range ninjutsu battle as long as is participants limited its environmental damage.

"Coming in?" Kakashi asked, as he bundled his cloak into his back with the rest of his Anbu gear. The back of his neck prickled at the idea of entering a town known to be crawling with enemy shinobi in civilian clothes after practically living in his armor, in a warzone, for a year.

"No," Itachi decided, reaching out to take Kakashi's sheathed katana. "I may observe patterns of movement from approaching or departing teams that will be useful for navigating the return trip."

Kakashi nodded. "Same signals," he said, flattening his hair under a fresh bandana. "Send a crow, if you need me."

Without Itachi, Kakashi slipped into the town with a paper-thin henge to shade his skin and hair and a cough mask over his mouth and nose. "It's allergies," he told the proprietor of a sunglasses street stall apologetically. "I'm allergic to everything, my wife is so crushed I can never bring home flowers."

The aging woman clucked sympathetically. "Poor dear. What's she like? Pretty?"

"Very," Kakashi said. "Graceful and confident in everything. Hair's always long and soft and - in a ponytail, and those eyes are...really something." He crinkled his own visible eye in a smile. "I want to make sure they're protected. I thought I could get us matching ones."

"You're such a sweetheart," said the shopkeeper, watching him pick up a pair of shades and try them on. "But whatever happened to your eye?"

"Accident with a kitchen knife when I was a kid," explained Kakashi.

She nodded at his arm. "And that?"

"Horse got away from me when I was hooking her up to the plow."

The woman frowned, shaking her head despairingly. "Bit of a klutz, are we, dear?"

"I'm a bit of a fixer-upper," Kakashi agreed cheerfully, shrugging his good shoulder. He tapped his sunglasses and held up a second pair. "How much for these?"

Kakashi credited his ability to wander through Takehara wearing sunglasses, a cough mask, and a tattered bandana without immediately being identified as a shinobi and attacked to the fact that Takehara's villagers were simply much weirder than him.

A woman wearing goggles with her hair in two long tails down her back strode past, her puffy sleeves overshadowed by the strings of flowers around her neck and bright yellow geta on her feet. An elderly man shuffled past in a puffy feathered vest that had been a particularly vivid lime green before years and washings had faded it nearly white and a hat with a veil lining the edges of a brim so wide it bumped into the walls and other passersby as he went.

Others had just one quirk that might give the average person cause for a double-take. One man wore cloth draped loosely around the lower half of his face, tied at the back of his head; another wore a mesh shirt with bright blue rhinestones over sensible trousers. Kakashi passed three different women wearing sunglasses and a soft cap with a rounded crown and a stiff peak projecting in front over their eyes. Two children wandered past hand in hand, perfectly normal but for the headgear that encircled their heads and shielded their faces with a dark, plasticky screen.

Takehara was simplytoo strangeto reliably pick out an undercover shinobi unless they did something obviously shinobi-like, like pull out a katana or walk on walls or activate a doujutsu in the middle of the square. Even touched with the forecast of war, the town - closer to a city - continued determinedly along its merry, eccentric way. Lights illuminated stores from the inside, their doors thrown wide to entice those walking past, and voices and laughter jostled in the air. Kakashi sifted through the crowded streets, sliding between a man prodding his oxen down the road and a trio of women with their heads drawn together despite their conversation dissolving into incoherent shrieks.

In the eastern side of the city, Kakashi circled towards an inn built with sandy, reddish stone, rising above its two-and three-story neighbors at a respectable six floors. The bottom floor housed a coffee shop, a bar, and a small grocer besides the inn lobby, and Kakashi lingered in the grocer. Under the store owner's suspicious eye, he picked out a somewhat battered package of biscuits from Kaze no Kuni. Nobody bought biscuits from Kaze unless they were nostalgic, planning a prank, or needed an overpriced, makeshift paperweight, but he paid an even hundred ryou for the package anyways. "You have a very wide selection," Kakashi informed the owner.

The man grunted and squinted suspiciously at the bills in his hand, holding them up to the light.

"Thanks," Kakashi said, raising the biscuits in a lazy wave, and strode over to the inn lobby.

A young woman with a round helmet pulled down low over her eyes beamed at him from the front desk. "Good morning!" she chirped. "How can I help you today?"

"I'd like a room for a night," Kakashi said. "Sunrise side of the building, if you don't mind."

"Excellent choice, customer-san!" she said, flipping a page in her record book. "Room Seven-three-seven on the sixth floor is open, and it'll be fifteen hundred ryou for the night. Will that work for you?"

"Sure," agreed Kakashi, reaching for his wallet. "Oh, and another thing." He set the bills on the counter, the package of biscuits beside it, and finally the bottle of umeshu from Yu-Zaou. "I'm an old friend of Benjiro. Could you pass those along to him? Tell him it's from Chikafusa."

"Oh, you know the manager! I'll leave them for him in the back," she said brightly. "Enjoy your stay, customer-san."

Fifteen hundred ryou bought a night in a nice, single room with a table and two chairs, a wardrobe, and a bed. The window, flecked with dirt, overlooked the eastern markets. Kakashi dropped his pack on the table, checking the room over quickly, and set a simple alarm with an open pouch of coins balanced on the doorknob before deeming it safe to take a seat on the bed. It dipped under his weight, soft and giving, and he lay back experimentally. It swallowed him entirely. He sprawled there for a moment, resigned, before rolling over with great effort.

He dragged the blankets onto the floor instead, settling on top of them and pulling down a pillow for good measure. Now, his mission was to wait.

He dozed lightly, but his eye opened of its own accord when the light outside faded to the orange-golden tones of evening, Obito's eye staying closed out of habit. Kakashi frowned, his hand sliding to his holster instinctively as he sat up. The room was empty, undisturbed, and when he padded over to the door, the coin pouch on the doorknob sat exactly where he had placed it. He picked it up, letting the coins jingle in his hand absently as he eyed the door.

No intruders. No visitors. More importantly, no deliveries.

Kakashi glanced out the window. The clamor from the dinner crowds drifted up, cheerful and frenetic and as colorful as they themselves were. He bundled up the bedding one handed and tossed it back up onto the bed, then unstrapped his holster and dropped it next to his pack. After a moment's consideration, he put his sunglasses back on.

He took a seat at the table and waited.

As dusk approached, a floorboard outside creaked, brushing just at the edge of his hearing range. Kakashi froze.

He tugged the strap on his sling over his head, pulling it off and tossing it to the table. He turned towards the door, drawing a single kunai from the holster on the table and flipping it up into his hand as he crossed the room on silent feet. He paused just behind the door with one hand on the knob as he waited for a telltale shift.

Cloth rustled over skin. Kakashi whipped open the door, grabbing the man outside and slamming him against the doorframe with the tip of his kunai angled up under the other shinobi's sternum.

Kakashi had just enough time to register the man's eyes, pale green and wide with shock below his Konohan hitai-ate, before the man's teammate set his katana to Kakashi's throat, pressing lightly with just a hint of the edge in a clear warning.

Kakashi grimaced. He released his hostage and raised his hands slowly, taking a step backwards as the shinobi he'd pinned eeled behind his teammate, joining a third shinobi and a kunoichi looming behind the kenjutsu wielder. Kakashi let the kunai drop from his splayed fingers with a clatter, hyper-aware of the touch of cold steel pressed to the underside of his chin.

"Back," ordered the shinobi, and Kakashi eased backwards slowly as the man advanced, past the table with his pack and holster until he'd backed himself to the far wall of the room. "Get on your knees."

Kakashi frowned, his eye flicking down to the blade at his throat until the man lifted it away slightly. "On your knees," the shinobi repeated, and gingerly, Kakashi knelt. The katana returned to his throat.

His teammates spilled into the room after him, the threat evident in their unsheathed blades. The last shut the door behind her, twirling her kunai into a backhanded grip and fixing Kakashi with a cold stare. A shinobi with a scar running from the edge of his eye down to his jaw moved deliberately between Kakashi and the window, glancing out briefly before returning his attention to the room.

Live capture for an interrogation. Kakashi looked the team over. All four wore the standard blues under their flak jackets, but intercepting a suspected intelligence operative wasn't a mission that would be assigned to a Guntai team or a majority genin team. He inhaled discreetly, sifting through the scent of dried blood and the sticky-burn of metal oil, and caught the slightest sickly-sweet tang of poison from the wire shinobi.

For an on-site interrogation in a foreign environment during wartime, even in one's own secured territory, there would be a full sentry team to negate disturbances and serve as a second net should the prisoner manage to escape. "You're from Konoha," Kakashi stalled, his eyes skittering over all four to the closed window. He let his hands drift downwards, but the katana wielder gave the blade a warning twitch and Kakashi raised them again obligingly.

"Did the hitai-ate give us away?" drawled the kunoichi.

"You could have just knocked," Kakashi said dryly, and tipped his head further back when the shinobi pressed the edge of his katana in harder in warning.

"Jokes won't help you here," snapped the scarred shinobi. "Who do you answer to?"

"The gods?" Kakashi tried.

The kunoichi's teammate drew back his sword in time for her to strike Kakashi across the face, snapping his head to the side and sending his sunglasses clattering across the floor. He caught himself on both hands, sending little spikes of pain shooting through his mostly healed arm. He let his head drop low, his hair hanging over his eyes as if stunned by the blow, and snuck a quick glance that showed no recognition on the faces of his captors, even with his scarred eyelid revealed.

"We know you're a rebel spy," Kakashi's former prisoner said, low and dangerous. "Don't play dumb." He slipped a coil of wire out of his back pouch, unwinding it as he spoke.

Kakashi worked his jaw discreetly, feeling for bruising or fractures. "What happened to the operative stationed here?"

The kunoichi scoffed. "The usual. He gave you up pretty quick."

Lie. This team came prepared to bag a spy, not a combat jounin carrying reactivation orders. Captured, though, and probably to be killed once they finished with Kakashi. "You've brought your entire team just to grab me," he said idly. "And...a second team as backup securing the perimeter. Don't you think that's overkill? Are you trying to catch my reinforcements, too?"

"You're here by yourself," the scarred shinobi said, tapping his kunai against the windowsill. "No one's coming for you. You won't leave this room alive unless you give us what we want."

"That's not entirely true," Kakashi said, ignoring the way the entire team stiffened. "But I don't need him to rescue me from you. I just needed you to confirm your numbers." He opened his left eye, and the world sharpened and saturated and slowed all at once. "You should be more careful next time."

The kenjutsu specialist lunged, but Kakashi saw the path of his attack and pounced, coming up inside the man's guard. He turned with the other shinobi, seizing the hilt of his katana with his good hand and striking him in the chest with the pommel in the same movement. The other man flew backwards, narrowly missing his kunoichi teammate as she crouched, chakra burbling as she formed handseals, and crashed into the table, which splintered and collapsed under him. He didn't get up.

Scarred shinobi - wire and shuriken. Green-eyed ex-hostage - two kunai. Kakashi went for the biggest threat and whirled, hurling his captured katana at the kunoichi.

"Shit!" she spat, jerking back, but the blade skewered her through the shoulder and pinned her to the floor. She hit with a thud, her chakra losing its form, and cracked her head against the ground.

Kakashi was already moving, vaulting over her to meet the green-eyed shinobi. The shinobi hurled a kunai directly at his face in a panic with a soundless yelp, and Kakashi snatched it out of the air, using it to parry the second in the man's hand. The other shinobi struck again, desperately, but Kakashi ducked easily, slamming the ring of the kunai into his arm just below his wrist. The bone broke with a loud crack, and Kakashi took the opening to kick him into the wall. His cry cut off sharply as he hit and collapsed to the base of the wall.

Kakashi closed Obito's Sharingan as he turned and the drain on his chakra abated abruptly. A shuriken sliced through the air on either side of him, the attached wires glinting in the fading light, and he leapt straight up onto the ceiling before they could encircle him. He sent his kunai hurtling at the scarred shinobi as the other man released the wires in favor of his own kunai.

Kakashi dodged one kunai, leaned around a second, and flipped down off the ceiling practically on top of the other shinobi. He ignored the bared teeth and the reflexive punch as the man's snarl distorted the scar on his face, and snapped a hand out. He caught the man by the throat and dragged him backwards for two long paces as he gagged and clawed at Kakashi's hand, slamming the back of the shinobi's head into the wall and dropping him when his muscles went slack.

The sudden stillness gave Kakashi pause. Outside, electric streetlights flickered on one by one, spilling faint yellow light in through the window. He stood motionless for a long moment, waiting to see if any of the shinobi were less unconscious than they appeared to be, or if the perimeter team would try a second ambush, but the seconds ticked past with nothing to break the silence.

Kakashi let himself relax. He surveyed the destruction, dusting his hands off absently. He sifted through the remnants of the table for his sling, rolling the unconscious shinobi out of the way. His arm was starting to ache again. Then he hogtied his would-be assailants with ninja wire, went through their pockets and holsters and equipment pouches, and robbed them blind of money and weapons alike, because Hanabi-ha was always short on resources.

Four standard sets of kunai and shuriken, two coils of wire, a katana maintenance kit, three of the standard weapons maintenance kits, and five thousand ryou. He squirreled his haul away in his pack, knocked askew but intact, and sat back on his heels to strap on his holster and weapons pouch. He couldn't stay, not with the grab team here and the room in ruins.

One team outside, though - that was the intel he'd needed.

"Thanks," he said to the incapacitated team, sling cradeling his barely-not-completely-healed arm, and shut the door behind him on his way out.

The hallway was empty. Kakashi darted down the stairs to the second floor and took the expedited exit through the window at the end of the hallway. He dropped down unnoticed in the alley between the coffee shop and a neighboring restaurant, landing in a crouch.

He stretched his senses out, weathering the rank stench drifting from the dumpsters on either side of him, but he could hear or smell nothing out of the ordinary. He stood slowly, slipping out into the dinner crowds, and took a loop of the inn's perimeter. The sentry team should have been posted in the building lobby or in the nearby streets, but though Kakashi made no attempt to hide his holster or the way he checked over his shoulder every five steps, no one took the bait.

He frowned, wandering around to the front doors again to peer into the lobby, but saw only a young couple talking to the receptionist as their three children climbed over the armchairs in the waiting area. He inhaled and caught the faint scent of the grab team - relatively fresh, less than an hour old. He backtracked, but following a scent in a high-traffic area was difficult even when he had his hounds' eight extra noses.

"Caw."

Kakashi glanced up. A crow perched on the roof of the next building, a barely-visible silhouette against the night sky. It cocked its head to the side and repeated,"Caw."

Ah.

Kakashi took one long step into the alley and leapt straight up, landing on the edge of the roof. Itachi's familiar chakra brushed against him as he landed, and Itachi himself stood next to the neatly piled bodies of four Konoha nin a couple meters away, wiping a streak of blood from his eye absently.

"I see you found the perimeter team," Kakashi observed.

"Taichou," Itachi greeted. "I followed this team in from the outskirts of the city and realized their objective when I saw you in the window. I assume your operative was compromised."

"Yes," Kakashi agreed, rubbing a hand over his mask. Itachi handed him his katana, and he shrugged into the harness.

Itachi watched him with a strange mixture of curiosity and resignation. "Will we proceed to the operative's replacement?"

Kakashi shook his head. "The reactivation order for this sector can wait. I don't leave a man behind," he said. "We rescue him or we confirm his death."

Itachi merely nodded. He knew firsthand Kakashi's mode of operation. "I can summon my flock as eyes," he said. "However, their tracking capabilities are limited without knowledge of what their targets look like."

"The operative is Kodate Masoto, chuunin, twenty-five years old with a medium build. No identifying marks on his face. Dark brown hair, dark grey eyes," said Kakashi, quashing the uneasiness that rose at the back of his mind. "He should have been inactivated for the past ten months. Given that the grab team and the backup team were both in place within eight hours and that the teams knew the signal but not the countersignal, either his capture must have been recent, his interrogators have only recently begun to break him, or he was prematurely killed. "

"If either of the first apply, he must be held nearby," Itachi concluded. "The backup team approached from outside the town, but they were not packed for travel. Their base camp is in Takehara or in the surrounding forest."

Kakashi eyed the unconscious backup team. "Will they be getting up anytime soon?"

Itachi appeared faintly abashed. "I attempted a relatively benign Mangekyou genjutsu on them," he explained, his tone perfectly even. "I wished to see if a recovery would be possible without medical intervention."

The backup team did not seem anywhere near recovery.

"You don't know," Kakashi summarized with a sinking feeling.

"No," Itachi agreed with a slight frown.

For lack of better options, Kakashi chose to move on to the mission. "I'll take point," he said. "Sweep for anything I flush out." He dropped back down to the street as Itachi's flock materialized behind him in a flurry of chakra and feathers.

Difficult didn't mean impossible, and the trail was still relatively fresh. Kakashi wove patiently across the street in front of the hotel lobby, chakra bolstering his nose, before he picked up the scent of the scarred shinobi, and from there, those of his teammates. He slipped between a slow-moving couple with their heads bent together and a small pack of teenagers, his concentration entirely on the faint hints of metal and Konohan oaks and woodsmoke. He kept very little attention on the rest of his surroundings, save what was directly in front of him; he trusted Itachi to guard his back.

The grab team had not bothered to detour on their route. Their trail led Kakashi unerringly into the progressively seedier southwest corner of the town, and though he lost the scent on three separate occasions, he picked it up each time less than a dozen meters ahead in the same direction. A dark skinned woman flitted at the edge of his vision for a few paces, sharp eyes wary and her grace a little too easy to be anything but a kunoichi. Kakashi marked her and then ignored her. Itachi would take care of any problems that arose, and that was a Kumo nin if he ever saw one - he doubted she would attack without provocation in a city under an uneasy ceasefire.

Dark shapes winged above him, chirping and rattling back and forth between themselves. The burn-bite of alcohol and the sharp-sour taint of vomit and the heavy-hot reek of sex crowded in on him, and he paused to equilibriate himself, sifting for the breadcrumbs of the team's scents. Like the faintest stars in a moonless sky, he followed the trail between a pair of brothels, looping around a bar to an entire street of brothels.

Fluorescent lights danced over crude signs and the slight figures that lingered in the doorways and the shadows, watching him with hungry eyes and bared skin. One or two may have called out to him, but Kakashi registered only background noise, as inconsequential as the wind. A harsh chorus of caws broke out above him as he turned the corner, the neon signs leaving white spots in his vision as he entered the unlit alley, and would have walked straight into the kunai if Itachi hadn't been there to grab the shinobi from behind.

"Hm," said Kakashi, blinking, and caught the kunai that dropped from a nerveless hand as Itachi quietly choked the shinobi into unconsciousness with an arm pressed against his throat.

"You seemed rather too distracted to notice either my or the crows' signals," Itachi said neutrally.

An accurate assessment. "Do you have an exact location?" Kakashi asked.

"Kombu identified a second guard on the far side of this building, but no other visible guards," Itachi answered, inclining his head to the right. "I will move to neutralize her before you enter."

"On your mark," Kakashi agreed. "Do you have eyes inside? Building layout?"

"No eyes inside," Itachi answered. A crow croaked above him. "Three stories; judging from the exterior, between four and six rooms per floor, maximum of two windows per room, curtains drawn. Lights on in two windows on the first floor, three on the second, and two on the third. Possible basement level as well."

Kakashi considered. "I'll make a stealth entry from the bottom floor, clear the basement first if there is one. You come in from the top and work your way down to meet me."

"Hai," said Itachi. "I will send Kombu to you once the sentry has been neutralized." He vanished in a flash of shadows, crimson winking to life in his eyes.

Kakashi padded around the corner to one of the darkened windows. He didn't have time for his armor, but he pulled off his sling and cough mask, bundling them into his pack and replacing them with his Anbu mask and letting his henge dissolve. He waited.

A small, dark shape swooped down on him, hovering silently at his shoulder before flapping laboriously skyward. Kakashi jimmied the window latch with a kunai, prying it open and slipping inside. Rather than sex and booze, metal and oil and the faint tang of blood flooded the air. He closed the window behind him, shutting himself into a cramped room with armchairs and a tiny couch pushed against the wall to free up pace. Scuffs and cuts marked the floor, scarred by training but the air in the room weighed stagnant and undisturbed, and Kakashi eased towards the door. He didn't draw his sword - the katana was too long for these close quarters, and though he had his kunai, it had a reach short enough that he may as well go hand to hand. He missed his tanto fiercely, but wishes wouldn't help him here.

The door swung open on greased hinges, and Kakashi slipped down the hallway to the next room, following the people-scent and the yellow lights that spilled out from under the door. He drew to a stop just outside.

Kakashi inhaled carefully. Two people, neither of them Masoto, both carrying the faintest hint of the same metal-oil combination that clung to most shinobi, with a familiar tint reminiscent of the woods surrounding Konoha. Voices drifted out, one deep and rumbling, the other a gentle tenor.

Kakashi opened the door and sprang. Both shinobi whirled and went for their holsters, and the taller dropped the mug he was holding, but Kakashi was on them before they could manage more than a shocked inhale. He slammed an open palm into the solar plexus of the taller, struck the other precisely in the pressure point above the collar of his flak jacket, and spun to catch the fallen mug before finishing off his first victim with an uppercut to the chin. He grabbed the man's collar as he collapsed, caught the other with a leg under his back and lowered them to the ground noiselessly.

He turned, probing the room with a keen eye. Empty dishes and mugs scattered the table, a pitcher of water and a large glass pot of tea on one side. Three crates stacked in the corner held sacks of rice and packages of dried meat. Chairs clustered in twos and threes, throwing angular shadows from the overhead light. Kakashi set the mug down on the nearest chair and retreated to the door.

A room containing two long tables pushed together, ringed by chairs, was empty. A small restroom was empty. A coat closet was empty. Kakashi cleared them in less than a minute and bypassed the staircase in favor of the kitchen. Pungent chemical cleaners warred with composting waste, and faintly, raw meat, but Kakashi tasted the metallic tang of fresh blood underneath. He padded closer to the open doorway, keeping to the wall, alert for any sound of movement within.

Kakashi stiffened as a spike of chakra from upstairs cut off abruptly with a quiet thump. The element of surprise gone, he let Obito's Sharingan blaze and hurled himself around through the doorway as the world sharpened with startling definition. He skidded into the empty kitchen.Overhead lights - wooden cabinets - dining table -pantry. He crossed the kitchen in a heartbeat and yanked the door open, springing down the stairs and landing in a crouch at the bottom. He had just enough time for the scene to burn irrevocably into his memory - the blades and senbon lined up neatly on the table, the bloodied figure slumped on his knees with his wrists strung up with wire, the startled kunoichi's blade already in motion - before the kunai completed its arc and slashed a crimson smile through Masoto's throat.

Kakashi's hand filled with lightning before he could consciously think of it, and the shrieking chorus preceded thechidorithat ripped through bone and beating heart and out the kunoichi's back as she choked. He yanked his arm out as he let the jutsu die, whirling frantically to Masoto with green chakra sparking at his fingertips.

But iryou-ninjutsu had never been Kakashi's strength despite what he'd learned from Rin, despite the ability he'd been gifted from Obito, and Masoto's blood sprayed through his fingers as he clamped his hands over the mortal wound. The kunoichi had severed an artery and two veins, and nicked one more, and Kakashi patched the edges together desperately, sloppily, but Masoto was losing too much blood and Kakashi couldn't start an infusion because he needed both hands to stop the bleeding -

"Ka...kashi," Masoto rasped, his breath bubbling and rattling in his throat.

"I'm here," said Kakashi, but even as the words left his mouth Masoto's fluttering pulse stuttered to a stop.

Kakashi snarled silently, switching from iryou-chakra to lightning and shoving a jolt of energy straight into Masoto's heart. His limbs jerked and flailed, his body shuddering from the electricity, but his heart didn't beat. A second, stronger jolt. Kakashi paused with his breath caught in his throat, but Masoto stayed still and silent. The third left a patch of scorched skin, an acrid taste of singed hair in the air. Kakashi let his chakra crackle away, taking his anger and desperation and leaving him empty.

Dead.

Kakashi sat back on his heels and examined his hands clinically. Chidori was always intended to kill up close and messy, never a 'clean' jutsu, but he had both Masoto's blood on his hands and his killer's, drenched to his forearms and dripping onto his pants and soaking into the knees where the blood pooled on the floor.

He sensed more than heard someone at the top of the stairs, and turned to see Itachi's crimson eyes flick around the room, on the kunoichi's corpse, on Masoto hanging by the wires, on the blood splattered and spilled, before landing on him. Wordlessly, he descended until he was standing at Kakashi's shoulder. "You knew him," Itachi said, matter-of-fact.

"We began at the Academy at the same time," Kakashi said, his own voice coming out entirely devoid of emotion. "I worked with him several times over the years." He stood, taking a knife from the table of torture implements to slice through the wires binding Masoto's wrists. "He was a good shinobi." He caught Masoto's body as it slumped and lowered it to the floor. "Do you have a sealing scroll? I need to wash up."

Kakashi's civvies were well and truly ruined. He stripped out of the bloodsoaked clothes, rinsing as much of the blood off as he could in the kitchen sink and switching back to Anbu blacks and amor. He flipped his hitai-ate over in his hands before tying it on, then fitting his mask over his face.

When he returned to the basement pantry, Masoto's body was gone and Itachi held a scroll neatly edged in black in one hand. He hadn't touched the kunoichi Kakashi had killed, and Kakashi paused to look into her empty eyes long enough to feel regret surface amidst his anger. He turned away. "Light it up," he told Itachi brusquely.

"Kakashi-taichou - "

Kakashi bared his teeth in a silent snarl beneath his mask. "The shinobi you knocked out. Did you use genjutsu?"

"No," said Itachi, the frown evident in his voice.

"Then everyone upstairs has a fighting chance before this place burns to the ground. Light it up, Itachi," Kakashi repeated. "This is a message that needs to be sent."

Orders or no, Itachi wouldn't obey him if he thought it would compromise them. Itachi examined him with an unwavering stare. Slowly, his hands formed seals one by one. "Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu," he murmured, and with a muted roar the katon set the room alight.

Kakashi let his eyelid drift closed over Obito's Sharingan as he turned towards the stairs. "Let's go," he said.

Itachi silently handed him the scroll with Masoto's body as they exited by the roof, and he slipped it into his back pouch before leading them towards the nearest edge of the town.

The Kumo kunoichi made a reappearance, this time in full uniform, slinking along the streets behind them for a few blocks as they neared the outskirts of Takehara. Kakashi paused, tilting his mask down at her long enough to warn her that she'd been spotted before leaping to the next roof. After a moment, her chakra pulsed, and she darted forward and upward in a sudden blur to intercept them.

Kakashi gritted his teeth, landing lightly and straightening to his full height as Itachi did the same at his shoulder, angled to cover their backs.

"Sorry for the inconvenience," the kunoichi said, strolling forward to meet them with her hands in her pants pockets. The red-and-white woven hilt of her katana protruding over one shoulder was well worn and well cared for. "But that was a Konoha satellite camp you just raided."

Kakashi made a show of looking her Kumo-style armor and hitai-ate up and down. "That a problem for you?"

"I hope you didn't do anything to implicate Kumo in there," she said rocking onto her toes and then back on her heels, "or we might have a problem."

"Don't worry," said Kakashi, checking over her shoulder for backup. "If Konoha sends a team to investigate, they'll know exactly who did it."

"And who might that be?"

Kakashi lifted his porcelain mask, shaking his hair free though he kept the Sharingan closed. "Kakashi. And a helpful shadow," he added, glancing at Itachi.

The kunoichi's eyes widened. "Hatake?"

"Kakashi," he repeated. "And you are?"

"Serui," she answered absently, eyes narrowed as she scrutinized him. "What's Kage-Killer Kakashi doing in a contested border town like Takehara?"

Kajino Serui was a name Kakashi recognized from a report back when he was an Anbu captain, regarding a particularly brutal three-way free-for-all on the border of Ame and Kusa that left a body count of eighteen. The sole Konoha shinobi who survived described a kunoichi who summoned a storm on the ground itself, white lightning shooting through white clouds - White-Storms Serui, her Bingo Book entry named her. "What's Shiroiarashi Serui doing in a low-stakes border town like Takehara?" Kakashi shot back. "Aren't you afraid we'll tell someone you don't want knowing that there are Kumo combat jounin lurking here?"

Serui smiled, clear amusement dancing in her eyes. "I think you've made it clear you're not on their side," she said, nodding towards the smoke now starting to twine into the night sky. "Thought about joining the other side? You've got the lightning affinity to match."

"We're just here to retrieve one of our own," Kakashi said neutrally.

Serui glanced again at the burning building, longer this time. "My condolences," she said.

"Our fight isn't with you, but we're not looking to join a side right now," said Kakashi.

Serui shrugged elegantly. "The offer stands now, but not forever," she warned. "Kumogakure would welcome Copy-Nin Kakashi more than Konoha ever did."

Takehara was hot, too hot, especially now that Kakashi and Itachi had set one of Konoha's bases on fire and they knew that Kumo had an operation planned; reactivation of their own intelligence operatives in the area could wait until the turmoil died down. They turned south instead, heading for the border with Hi, and the next time they made camp, evening had begun to creep up on the afternoon.

Kakashi set up the perimeter seals and a small fire and took Masoto's scroll from its pouch while Itachi went to find more wood for the fire. He turned it over in his hands absently, carefully.

For all that he had enrolled at the same time as Kodate Masoto, Kakashi had spent only a year in the Academy, and even during his time there, he'd gravitated towards the other clan brats or the kids of prominent Shirei-bu shinobi by force of familiarity. Masoto had been neither, and he hadn't made the cut to Command after his graduation, so though they'd crossed paths on missions and in the village on occasion, Kakashi never had much cause to talk to him. Kakashi carried the man's body with him but didn't really know him, and he wondered if the guilt weighed that much more heavily on him for it.

Itachi returned with an armful of wood, which he set at the camp's edge. He tossed a piece on the fire and turned to Kakashi expectantly. "Negative emotions feed the Mangekyou," he said, and it would have been callous but Kakashi suspected it was Itachi's way of trying to distract him.

Kakashi tapped the end of Masoto's scroll lightly and slipped it back into the pouch. "What's first, Itachi-sensei?"

Silence.

Kakashi looked up warily, chakra surging under his skin, but there was no threat. Just Itachi, staring at him blankly. Kakashi checked over his shoulder. Still nothing. "Itachi?"

Itachi blinked. "Activate your Mangekyou, Kakashi-taichou," he said, as if nothing had happened. "Each holds power unique to its wielder, and we must determine what yours grants."

Kakashi checked with his chakra to make sure one or both of them weren't under a genjutsu, then opened his left eye. Before the initial burn had a chance to abate he gritted out,"Mangekyou,"and the world gained an extra dimension as agony stabbed into his eye. When he glanced up again Itachi was watching him, the triple bladed pinwheels in his own eyes revolving languidly.

Itachi broke eye contact to reach to the side and pick up a piece of firewood from the pile. Kakashi tracked his movement in future- and present-time, superimposed on themselves in spectral form. "Concentrate on this," he said, and set the wood down between them.

Kakashi stared at it, pooling more chakra to the Mangekyou that sucked it in greedily. When he blinked, the impression burned itself into the inside of his eyelid.

"You want something to happen to it," Itachi continued, his voice quiet but steady in the background. "Your chakra is formless until it reaches your eye, but the Mangekyou knows the shape it should take; let it happen."

Kakashi's vision was starting to blur, from keeping his eye open so long or the future-present overlaid sight or the dizzying amount of chakra the Mangekyou devoured - but then he realized it wasn't his sight wavering at the edges, it was reality. The air rippled, gaining strength like a wave crashing down towards the shore as reality itself twisted into a spiral with the piece of wood at its epicenter.

"Give it a name," Itachi said, low but urgent. "Give it an identity and it will be easier to call up the second time."

Itachi's techniques were named for gods,Susano'oof the storms andTsukiyomiof the moon, and Obito's deserved a label no less potent. "Kamui,"he said aloud. Authority of the gods.

With a rush of electric-charged energy the wood blinked out of existence.

Kakashi reeled at the suddenness, absently noting the slick, scalding trail sliding down his face. He blinked and his Mangekyou spun apart into its three tomoe. Kakashi's hand rose of its own accord to his eye as he squeezed it shut, the white-hot burn searing into his nerve endings. He glanced to either side, but didn't see where his firewood target had gone. He looked up at Itachi with his one regular eye. "Long distance kawarimi?" he suggested dubiously. That was an awfully elementary ability for a legendary doujutsu.

Itachi deactivated his own Mangekyou, a slight frown crinkling his forehead as he scrutinized the rest of the clearing. "I did not see where it reappeared." He turned back to Kakashi thoughtfully. "Perhaps another trial," he suggested.

Kakashi wiped at Obito's eye, and his fingers came away bloody. "One more," he agreed, and braced for the piercing pain again. "Mangekyou." He blinked away crimson tears, taking a bare second to let the world orient itself in his sight before turning his eyes on a small branch on a tree about five meters away. He let his chakra surge, and it came more readily than it had the first time around as he growled, "Kamui!"

The tree two over from the one Kakashi had been aiming for warped abruptly. Kakashi gritted his teeth, dragging his gaze further right as the twisting fabric of space ripped apart, and the whorl caught the middle tree in its focus. The burn in his eye grew nearly unbearable as he shoved a final burst of chakra into the jutsu.

Reality snapped back. The world righted itself, minus a section of the tree trunk in the middle a meter long, and the top half of the tree crashed down with the sudden absence of its support. Kakashi leapt backwards as he closed the Mangekyou and let it smoulder away, clamping his hand over it ineffectually as though he could squeeze away the pain. Itachi leaned over to give the tree a light shove as it crashed down, and its reaching branches narrowly missed the campfire.

They looked at each other. "I suggest we debrief later and leave the vicinity immediately," said Itachi, and smothered the fire with a tiny suiton.

"I agree," said Kakashi, tearing down the perimeter seal on the tree trunk above his head and lunging for his katana and travel pack.

Camping unobtrusively in hostile territory was one thing; bringing down trees with uncontrolled jutsu was another, and Kakashi's chakra stores was drained enough from two tries at Kamui that a Guntai chuunin team would have a sporting chance at knocking him off.

Kamui,he thought, as he and Itachi darted into the familiar shadows of the forest. A mystery, a weapon, and possibly, a trump card. Obito would have loved it.

Kakashi had expected the border of Yu and Hi to be heavily patrolled, particularly where the border with Shimo drew closest, but given that it was the quickest way into Fire Country, he'd been willing to give it a shot. Crouched behind a crooked hickory tree about three breaths too close to discovery, Kakashi tipped his mask towards Itachi and signed,Numbers?

Itachi leaned around the side carefully, eyes tracking the movement in the next copse. Three squads,he signalled, his hands barely visible in the moonlight. Two four-man teams each.He tilted his chin forward in a silent question.

Kakashi shook his head. Too heavily guarded. He flicked two fingers towards the southeast. Eighty klicks. They would make their incursion further down the border.

The Konohan camps grew sparser the further from the Shimo border they travelled. When they chose a clearing for their own camp, dawn had broken, and they had not seen another team for two hours. One hour ago, the ground had begun tilting loopily beneath Kakashi's feet, and fifteen minutes ago, his vision had begun blurring for reasons not related to the Mangekyou except for chakra exhaustion from its overuse. Around the same time, Itachi started eyeing him like he needed to make sure Kakashi was still conscious and capable of movement.

"I'll do the west side perimeter sweep," Kakashi said, blinking his vision mostly clear. "Take the east, circle back and meet back here."

"Hai," Itachi agreed, giving him a last careful once-over before leaping up into the trees and springing lightly between the thin branches without so much as rustling the leaves.

Kakashi didn't think he had enough chakra for even that so he kept to the ground, weaving his way low through the undergrowth. The bushes were tall enough to cover him even if he were standing at his full height, though they were lighter and airier than the jungle tangle in the Forest of Death, and the air was damp under his fingertips. A small stream spilled over the rocks ahead of him, steam curling up off the water and clinging to the bindings of his sandals.

He almost didn't notice the extra scent trail, snaking atop his and Itachi's; their tail had been only a few minutes behind and gaining ground rapidly. He stood abruptly still, examining the scent barely indistinguishable from his own for a long moment. With a cursory glance towards his intended path, he broke off to follow the scent trail, quickening his steps to a jog as it looped back towards their camp and Itachi.

Kakashi doubled back over the stream, rounded the tree trunk, and came face to face with himself.

The other Kakashi blinked back, lazy and sharp and coiled all at once. Every detail of his double matched exactly - the faded Anbu blacks, the shade of the skin under the Fire tattoo, even the chakra signature - metal and forest and a taste of ozone. Silver hair peeking out from under a worn bandana flashed as the other Kakashi tilted his head, its sheen muted by hints of dyes.

Kakashi took a step. His doppelganger mirrored him. It took a second step, and as it took a third, it toppled forward slowly. It erupted with a soft puff as it hit the ground.

Shiba burst out of the smoke with an overjoyed bark, hurling himself straight into Kakashi's chest. His arms closed around the wriggling ninken automatically, hefting him in his arms as the dog knocked the porcelain mask askew and licked his face frantically. "Maa, settle down, you're supposed to be a shinobi," Kakashi admonished, leaning away to get his mouth out of the danger zone.

Shiba finally leapt off, paws digging into Kakashi's stomach as he pushed away, and capered on the ground madly instead, darting back and forth and back and forth as Kakashi watched before rearing up on his hind legs again to plant his front paws on Kakashi's thighs. Kakashi dropped a hand down to scratch his ninken's ears, and Shiba's yelps dissolved into a happy whine.

"Where's the rest of the pack?" Kakashi asked, giving Shiba one last pat and releasing him to tear circles around the clearing.

"Outskirts of Aoshima!" Shiba answered brightly. "C'mon, let's go, I'll take us there!"

"Whoa," said Kakashi mildly, snagging Shiba by the scruff as the hound whirled to bolt. "You're forgetting something. We need to wait for Itachi first." But even as he spoke, Kakashi heard the whisper of cloth over cloth, and Shiba's ears pricked.

"Silence-black-scorch!" Shiba wrenched out of Kakashi's lax grip and pounced at him. Itachi, who was shorter - far shorter - than Kakashi, ended up with a face full of Shiba's belly fur.

"He grew!" Shiba said gleefully, squirming atop Itachi's head. "Kakashi, tell him he grew!"

"Shiba says you're still a midget," Kakashi told his erstwhile kouhai, watching him prod tentatively at the ninken enthusiastically attempting to suffocate him.

"Ah," said Itachi, looking askance at the ninken as he peeled the hound off his head.

"You liar!" Shiba yipped, thrilled, dangling in Itachi's grip. Itachi set the ninken down, only for Shiba to jump up on him again and attempt to lick his face off entirely.

"Down, Shiba," Kakashi admonished.

Shiba's tail battered the air but he backed off obediently, his front paws pattering in place as he fairly beamed up at them with a doggy grin.

"You are unhurt," Itachi said to the ninken politely, which was about as warm a greeting as anyone who wasn't Sasuke could get from Itachi unprompted.

"I am unhurt!" Shiba agreed enthusiastically.

"The rest of my pack is near Aoshima. It's too far for me to summon them with the chakra I have left," Kakashi told Itachi, crouching to let Shiba wriggled up against his armor once again. He scuffed his hand through the fur on Shiba's head, let his fingers tangle in his long coat at his shoulder. "We can make it there before noon."

Itachi instantly frowned. "You have not fully recovered from your injuries and are nearing chakra exhaustion. You can barely walk; we will be more vulnerable to attack," he pointed out. "We will be able to make the journey more quickly once you have rested."

"I'll take a chakra pill. Once we join up with the rest of my ninken, we'll have eight additional options for guard duty," Kakashi said, bracing one knee against the ground so the faint tremor in his muscles wouldn't give him away. "Both of us will have the opportunity to rest, and we'll have more protection from attack."

Logic tended to work best in arguments against Itachi. He paused to calculate both options, his eyes on Kakashi the entire time. "Half a chakra pill," he concluded. "And you will resume wearing the sling."

"It's fine," Kakashi said reflexively, at the same time Shiba demanded, "Asling?"

"It was broken. Now it's not," Kakashi said for Shiba's benefit.

Shiba snapped at his arm, catching it between his teeth gently but firmly, and Kakashi failed to hide his wince from the twinge of pain. "Ah cou' tell y'did s'mth'n t' it!" he growled accusingly.

"I know I've told you about biting me before," Kakashi said mildly.

Shiba let go immediately, swiping his tongue over his teeth and hunching defensively. "Wear the sling thing, boss," he insisted. "It'll make the bone better, right?"

"No," said Kakashi.

"You may reinjure the arm if you continue to use it as you do normally," Itachi interjected, clearly picking up on the conversation though he could only understand half of it. Shiba pricked his ears triumphantly.

"Fine," said Kakashi as the world did another lazy loop around him. The better they got to Aoshima, the better, and if he stayed here any longer Itachi and Shiba would win the argument by default when he passed out. He fished his med pouch out clumsily and tossed it in Itachi's general direction so he could find the sling that he regretted not leaving to burn in Takehara. "Get me the chakra pill."

"Aa," said Itachi, pretending at obedience once again.

"Oh no," Shiba said suddenly, flattening his ears.

The strap of his sling halfway over his head, Kakashi paused. "Oh no?" he parroted, and Itachi glanced up sharply, eyes narrow.

Shiba shuffled his paws. "I forgot about Akino?'

Had Kakashi full range of his cognitive facilities, he would have realized how strange it was that Shiba had turned up by himself. Now, the faintest prickle ofoh, yeahdrifted through the fog over his mind and he said, resigned, "Where did you leave him?"

"Fifteen klicks north," Shiba admitted. "He wanted to take a nap and I did too and I was only going to get a drink but then I picked up your trail and it was fresher than the one the rest of the pack was following and I wasn't totally sure it was you so I thought I'd just follow it a little to double check and then it was so I got excited and just...forgot about him."

Kakashi pinched the bridge of his nose. "Shiba, youdon'tleave a pack member alone in hostile territory without telling him where you're going. Even if it's Akino."

"I know," said Shiba, ears pressed flat against his skull and tail tucked. "I'm sorry."

"Akino won't be happy," Kakashi warned, and groped in Itachi's direction for the chakra pill without moving his head. Itachi set it in his hand. Kakashi popped it in his mouth and swallowed it dry as its bitterness washed through his mouth, and the pill caught in his throat until he swallowed a second time. His eyes watered as chakra slammed into his system bright and sharp, and chased away his lingering aches. "Whatever he does to you, you deserve it."

"I know," Shiba repeated glumly. And then, as his ears swivelled, "Oh,no."

Kakashi cocked his head. "Ah. One moment," he said to Itachi, and turned expectantly.

A blur of grey-gold-white fur launched itself out of the bushes, and Akino's ice blue eyes locked on their target unerringly as he planted his paws and skidded to a stop. "Kakashi," he rasped stoically though his flanks heaved and his legs trembled with exertion.

Kakashi crouched and held out his hand. "Come here," he said, unable to keep the fondness out of his voice. Akino padded towards him regally, but the ninken's tail betrayed him with its slow wag. Kakashi buried a hand in Akino's thick ruff, and the ninken twisted to lick under Kakashi's chin. "I hope you've been keeping the others in line," he murmured as Akino's cold nose brushed against his ear.

Akino's answering growl rumbled low in his throat as he turned to glare at Shiba.

Shiba flopped onto his back in immediate surrender, his best combination of pitiful and sheepish as Akino loomed over him. "Sorry?" he tried.

Akino bared his teeth halfheartedly. "This one will deal with you later."

"Maa, you're lucky he's in a good mood," Kakashi said, amused, as Shiba wriggled back over to sprawl on Itachi's feet.

Akino's eyes snapped to Itachi, and for a moment, ninken and shinobi examined each other steadily. "Silence-black-scorch looks well," Akino told Kakashi, just as Itachi said to Akino politely, "You look well."

Shiba yipped his mirth. "That's adorable!" he crooned, mock-pouncing at Akino and dancing away, and Akino showed his teeth again.

Kakashi kept his face blank. "Akino says hi."

"We should depart," Itachi said, giving all three of them a faintly narrowed stare. "I will take point."

"Fine," Kakashi said. "Shiba, rearguard." He needed Akino to lean on in case he collapsed halfway. Which he wouldn't.

He did.

"Itachi, give me the other half," Kakashi said, propped up against Akino's shoulder as he pawed for his emergency medical pouch and found it missing. Itachi hadn't given it back. "The chakra pill. I'm fine, Shiba," he added as the ninken licked at his hand urgently.

Despite his mask, Kakashi could hear Itachi's frown. "Perhaps we should make camp and resume travelling at nightfall."

"Akino, how much farther?" Kakashi asked, blinking the world back into focus.

Akino twisted to look up at him. "You are quite debilitated," he noted.

"Akino," Kakashi warned sharply.

Shiba whined low in his throat, and Akino's ears twitched slightly flatter. "No more than thirty klicks," the ninken answered, clipped.

"I believe it will be to the detriment of your health and our safety for us to continue, even with the assistance of the chakra pill," Itachi said, and went in for the kill. "You said that you would ensure Sasuke's safety when I leave, but now I am unsure if I can trust that claim."

"Then you'll stay," Kakashi said, only half joking, deflecting the calculated barb with his own before it could sink in too deeply. When Itachi just looked at him silently, Kakashi closed his eyes, leaning a little more heavily on Akino. He didn't want to fight Itachi, didn't want them to pitch words at each other that they didn't mean to corner the other into their own course of action. "Shiba, perimeter sweep," he ordered, sinking down to sit heavily against the nearest tree. "We'll make camp for three hours before continuing the rest of the way." He opened his eyes and glanced to Itachi. "When we make contact with the rest of the pack, we'll take a longer break."

"I will set up the camp," Itachi said. "Taichou, you should sleep now."

Normally, Kakashi would argue, but the world had started doing the thing where it spun every time Kakashi moved his head. He waved his free hand in Itachi's direction, then used it to tug on Akino's fur until the ninken lay down beside him, his head in Kakashi's lap. Kakashi tangled his hand in Akino's pelt and let his eyelids drift shut. "I didn't mean to snap at you," he said, his voice embarrassingly slurred.

A wolf howled not far away, long and mournful. It took nearly ten seconds before Kakashi recognized its voice as Shiba's. "The pack wishes you return in one piece," Akino replied, gruff. "You have this one at your side already. There is no rush."

Kakashi wanted to respond, but his limbs were heavy and his head was light, and talking suddenly needed more strength than he had. He had pack here; that was safe enough for him to sleep.

Kakashi snapped awake with a looming anticipation. The sunlight that trickled through the leaves from overhead informed him that just over three hours had elapsed, and Yu's ever-present warmth radiated up from the ground beneath him. Akino raised his head from where he had one foreleg thrown over Kakashi's lap, ears pricked and eyes going from drowsy to alert in a split second. Itachi's eyes flickered open from where he had bundled himself in his cloak on the opposite side of the clearing, and at his side, Shiba flailed upright.

"Hm," said Kakashi.

Akino yawned, shoving himself upright and sauntering off to the side as he shook out his coat. "Brace yourself," he advised. Kakashi grabbed for him and missed when the sling aborted his movement.

"Get back here," Kakashi hissed as Shiba cackled gleefully.

Akino sat, settling his tail primly over his paws, and ignored him.

Kakashi briefly considered getting up before deciding it was better that he had something to brace against.

Uhei sprang out of the bushes with a high, excited, bark and Guruko bayed somewhere behind him as the hound charged. He would have headbutted Kakashi in the chest at full speed if Urushi hadn't body-checked the smaller dog out of the way, sending him tumbling across the clearing in a flurry of long limbs.

Urushi loped the last few strides, brushing the entire side of his head against Kakashi's face in greeting, and Uhei hit Urushi's broad side more than Kakashi when he flung himself at them a second time.

Another lithe body landed on Urushi's shoulders, wriggling down into the space between them. "Your arm!" Guruko yelped, dismayed, sticking his muzzle in Kakashi's sling.

"That's why you don't just charge at him like a new pup, Uhei," Urushi rumbled pointedly, nosing into the side of Kakashi's neck.

"I wasn't going to hit him," Uhei protested, nudging forcibly at his good hand until Kakashi scratched behind his ears.

Bisuke, as with everything he did, made his entrance unobtrusively. He wove under Urushi's legs, curling up on Kakashi's lap silently with his tail beating a slow tattoo against his kunai holster.

"Kakashi."

Kakashi glanced up to meet Pakkun's eyes from the ninken's perch atop Bull's head. "Pakkun," he said, and reached out. Pakkun leapt without hesitation, and Kakashi caught him against his shoulder.

Uhei yelped and Urushi staggered as Bull leaned down, pressing against them with his bulk. Bisuke grumbled a little as he and Guruko were flattened against Kakashi's chest. Kakashi glanced skyward, as if that would get him out of his pack's puppy pile, and that was the moment Shiba took a nosedive onto his face.

"Shiba!" Akino growled somewhere next to Kakashi's ear, but Kakashi huffed a laugh. His pack was here and he was of Hatake blood with or without the name, and this was the closest he was to whole he had been in a long time.

Later, with all his pack sprawled around the clearing or on him, Guruko and Uhei attacking the last of the chipped beef, and Itachi sandwiched between Shiba and Bull, Pakkun said in the human tongue, "What's the plan, boss?"

"I have one more stop in Hi to make before Itachi and I return to Kiri," Kakashi said. "Pakkun and Guruko, I need you to go back to Takehara with the activation orders. The last point operative was killed, and the situation destabilized before we could reach his backup."

"Takehara," Pakkun said, glancing up sharply. "Wasn't that - ?"

"It was," Kakashi said evenly. Pakkun fell silent. "Bull and Bisuke," he continued, ignoring the way his hounds plus Itachi watched him with a silent combination of concern and assessment. "Go ahead to Uzu and do some scouting; Command is eyeing it as a base of operations. Akino, Uhei, and Shiba, head north and leave a decoy trail, make it look like I'm heading into Shimo."

"Hai," Akino agreed, and Shiba whined high in his throat.

"When do we get to go with you?" Shiba asked, draping a paw on Itachi's leg. Guruko nodded agreement.

Kakashi glanced at Itachi. "We'll be back in Kiri by next week. I'll summon you then."

Bull let out a surprised whuff. "Really really?" Guruko demanded, his tail wagging furiously. Akino nodded regally, as if it were his due, and Bisuke brushed his head into Kakashi's hand from his perch on Kakashi's lap.

"Aa," Kakashi confirmed, rubbing Bisuke's ears. "Make sure you dispel in five days," he warned. "I don't have enough chakra to summon you across the ocean if you don't make it back to the Spirit Lands."

"Got it, boss," said Pakkun.

"I'll take Urushi with me," he added. "He looks least like a dog summon."

"Least likeyoursummons, you mean," Bisuke interjected drowsily.

Kakashi cupped the little ninken's skull in his hand, rubbing a thumb over velvety-soft fur. "Exactly."

This reunion with his hounds would be brief, but the next would not.

"Time is running out," Itachi said quietly.

Kakashi, watching Shiba's tail disappear into the dawn-lit forest, sighed silently, the emptiness where his pack had been weighing on him once again. Urushi nosed his hand briefly and sat, leaning against Kakashi's leg. "Let's go into town," he said, instead of bringing up the heaviest topics that hung in the air between them. "We need more provisions before we try for the border."

Itachi acquiesced with an inclined head, letting the opportunity for that weighty conversation slide past without a fight. He was forever looking to the future, but his promised to be difficult and lonely. Maybe he too recognized this as one of the few moments he had left among allies.

They took to the road in civilian wear, including a thin cough mask and the miserable sling still for Kakashi, with Urushi trotting in the forest just at the edge of the trees as they walked along the road. The wolf-like ninken vanished as Kakashi and Itachi entered the town, circling back into the shadows.

Aoshima was a quarter the size of Takehara, a calmer, much sleepier town with buildings accented in muted colors to match. The roads were dirt but wide and hard-packed and warm, and people meandered past as though they had nowhere else to be. Itachi took it in with a shinobi's practiced eye and said, "A grocer or a general store would serve our purposes best."

Kakashi hummed. "Let's make a stop first," he suggested, and nodded down the street.

The teahouse was simple but elegant, of a traditional design with dark wood and tall windows. Itachi followed Kakashi's line of sight, then glanced back at Kakashi. "Very well," he said, when Kakashi raised an eyebrow expectantly.

They settled at a window table, close to the ground. Itachi ordered a pot of tea - green - and a plate of anko dango. "You enjoy tea," Kakashi noted, once the waitress had deposited the teapot and cups on a tray and retreated.

"Aa," Itachi said, reaching for the cups with easy grace. "I find it calming." Not just the drink, Kakashi knew, but all of this - the teahouse, watching the weather and the outside world, the stillness. Itachi's natural state was tranquility where his cousin was all restless or barely-restrained motion. Itachi poured Kakashi's tea, then his own.

Kakashi was somewhere between tea and sake in his own tastes. He watched the steam curl up from his cup in soft wisps, and its aroma drifted through the air. "Do you have a favorite?"

"I used to share a pot of tea with my mother in the mornings when I did not have missions," Itachi answered, taking a careful sip. "She had a fondness for a certain green tea leaf that originated from a plantation in northern Taki. I am not as particular as she was, but I will admit an inclination for green tea."

The dango arrived. Itachi motioned to the plate, but Kakashi shook his head, content with his tea. Itachi ate delicately, one piece at a time, and Kakashi nursed his cup, letting his gaze drift.

Outside the window, a bit of grey fur flashed as Urushi slunk down the narrow alley between an onsen and a butcher's across the street. The ninken raised his head to make eye contact with Kakashi before he whisked back into the shadows.

"Excuse me a moment," Kakashi said absently. Itachi glanced up, his eyebrows slightly creased, and Kakashi gave him a brief reassuring smile. "I'll be right back," he said. "Finish your dango. Order a fresh pot, if you like."

Itachi's face smoothed, and he nodded despite his well-concealed curiosity. "I will await your return," he said, and brought his teacup to his lips.

Urushi was nowhere to be seen when Kakashi made his way out of the teahouse, but his nose led him down the street, further into the center of the town. He'd had Urushi long enough to know that his ninken wanted him to see something that wasn't urgent enough to approach him directly - not dangerous, not a threat, but important nonetheless. He wandered down the street after the fresh trail, waiting for something to happen.

Kakashi froze mid step at a familiar scent, the mixture of steel and moonflowers stirring his memory. He turned towards it, taking an unconscious step back the way he had come, then a more deliberate one.

Rather than the traditional teahouse Itachi favored, he faced a brighter, more modern cafe. A glass case in the back showcased small cakes and pastries, and a selection of eclectic teapots sat on the shelf above the cafe worker's head. Wooden tables and cushioned chairs scattered the floor beyond the window, strings of electric lights dripped from the rafters, and leafy plants draped vines down pots set in the walls.

Three of the tables were occupied, but Kakashi's attention drew immediately to the little girl with a strip of cloth tied over her eyes swinging her legs from a chair too tall for her. She sat straight-backed and elegant despite her plain, well-worn clothes, loose strands of hair falling to her cheekbones as she set her half-drunken glass of milk down next to her plate and felt for her chopsticks. She looked just like her sister.

Here was Hyuuga Hanabi, the last of the Lost Four, inheritor of the strongest doujutsu-taijutsu combination in the Elemental Lands, the youngest princess of the Hyuuga Clan.

Kakashi took two more steps to the cafe entryway and reached for the door. He had just enough awareness to scan for enemy shinobi or unwelcome observers as the bell attached to the door tinkled cheerfully, and immediately, he locked eyes with the young woman sitting across from Hanabi. Her hair was cut in a severe line from the nape of her neck to below her chin, much lighter than its natural color, and she was wrapped in a light yukata and wore no visible weapons. Her lips moved soundlessly, and immediately, Hanabi slipped off her chair, ducking around to her side and pressing against her non-dominant shoulder with well-rehearsed movements despite her lack of sight.

Contact-colored eyes tracked Kakashi's approach calmly. He sat down across from her, and he knew his mask didn't quite hide his smile when he said, "Ready to come in from the cold, Cat-15?"

Notes:

[09/30/2019] Long A/N because long chapter:

First: thank you to everyone who's left kudos, and thankyouthankyouthankyou to those of you leaving comments! They never fail to bring a smile to my face.

Ayy we made it it's still August lmao but I'm serious I really thought this one was going to be around 30k but then Kakashi and Itachi went on a roadtrip that became a lot more extensive than planned and now it is the longest chapter. Sigh. I got kinda fatigued and it showed. Hopefully the last chapter will be done before October - fingers crossed, but no promises because these've been mutating to XXL without any input from me. Also added a chapter because there will be an epilogue that WILL be shorter.

I've seen a lot of comments in favor of the fact that there's POV of every main character. The pros are that some of them are very fun to write and there's a lot of different views of the same/different situations. The cons are that some of them are rather difficult to write or read and every chapter ends up being its own mini-fic and/so anything left unfinished in previous chapters may end without a satisfying resolution because the next character is doing different things or has different priorities. That being said - what are your opinions on this in a sequel, and which POVs did you enjoy or find hard to read? I'd love to hear what you think (especially you frequent flyers in my inbox) :)

Back to the chapter: here is where we touch back in with canon, but the secrets and circumstances here won't follow the series. Same tightrope, different starting and ending points. I have no intention of having Itachi throw a fight to let Sasuke kill him and gain unimaginable power or whatever. Both of them are taking different paths. Also, you all almost got 200 words of marshmallow fluff instead of 1k but I figured that our intrepid group was going to be taking some hits, so. Bonus fluff. Kakashi's morale: -7000. It would be -10000, but his ninken, and also Cat-15. They give him a nice little boost to make up for losing Itachi and his Clan name and his heirloom tanto. Poor Kakashi.
((You know what happens when a character gets too OP. Gotta nerf em / Enjoy your Itachi, it's a Limited Time Offer.))

Also, RE: Cat-15 - haha sike

Chapter 18: Sasuke Gets The CliffNotes Version And It's All Horrible

Summary:

Surprise, emotional repression is not the way to go.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter fornotes.)

Chapter Text

MISSION REPORT D-633

Report received from ACNS: Involuntary contact made with Anbu Commander Kitsune and Anbu Captain Taka, allegiance: formerly Konoha, currently unknown. TAP73I now in custody of Kitsune and Taka. Likelihood of malicious intent: 33%.

Extraction impossible with current resources. Cat-15 advised TAP73I to hold position indefinitely.

Plan of action: Cat-15 will monitor the situation remotely and devise a course of action should the safety of the primary, tertiary, and quaternary targets destabilize. Extraction to be conducted in order of designation if necessary and possible. Cat-15 will continue to protect secondary target AT2 directly.

END REPORT

-Operative Cat-15

As it turned out, setting fires - or 'committing light acts of arson' as Neji once put it, was generally frowned upon in a shinobi village that had more or less just wrapped up a civil war. Everyone was still jumpy, and things catching on fire could bring down a whole bunch of shinobi frantic to find and stop the attack. Sasuke found this out firsthand the morning after Itachi left with the captain, and the only reason he was still in one piece was because Shisui was probably the fastest person alive and swooped in to bail him out. So. His bad.

"I'm going to murder him," Shisui said under his breath, depositing Sasuke in a grassy field at the edge of the treeline. He clearly wasn't talking about Sasuke though his cousin knew full well that he'd been the one to set the fire, so Sasuke exercised the self-preservation skill that he and Sakura both had but Naruto lacked, kept his mouth shut, and looked anywhere but at Shisui. "Stayhere,Shi," Shisui ordered irritably from behind his leopard-mask. "I need to - damage control - " and he was gone. Sasuke felt a tiny pang of remorse.

Admittedly, maybe lighting up a pile of broken chairs in an abandoned alley wasn't the best idea, but Sasuke wascareful. There wasn't anything else in the area that could burn, and he liked the dance of the flickering flames. And the captain had promised that they could do anything they wanted for three whole days - but he did say 'without being caught', so maybe he needed to work on that part a little.

Sakura had woken at the crack of dawn and promptly buried herself in one of the larger libraries, because something had clearly gone wrong with her. Hinata and Sai had gone along too, but Sasuke was pretty sure they weren't working their way through a pile of textbooks and encyclopaedias the way she was. Temari and Naruto had wandered into town to do some pickpocketing and shoplifting in the wealthier sector of the Village, while everything was still chaotic and security haphazard, and Gaara had followed along as either a sentry or a decoy.

Haku stayed behind in their library base with Zabuza-sensei, who was still not entirely there. Shisui said he'd gotten hismetabolismall screwed up when he got tortured, so the medic-nin could never quite give him the right amount of any medicine. It was both hilarious and terrifying, because while seeing him all floppy was definitely funny, Sasuke had a very healthy fear of Zabuza-sensei, who would not appreciate being the source of anyone's humor. Neji stayed behind too, not to stand guard like Haku, but to meditate.

Three days of freedom, and he chose to meditate. Sasuke didn't understand him either.

Then again, Sasuke's choice of activity had led him...here. He glanced around him curiously. Grass, dirt, trees, rocks. At the edge of his hearing, running water burbled. With a cursory glance over his shoulder, he edged into the copse, following the sound to its source.

The whole war, the whole year, practically, had been on the ocean. Sasuke could run and fight on the water and swim if he needed to, and he was wearing his rebreather as always, which would make it difficult for him to drown. He wasn't uncomfortable with water. He was just - wary of it. Needed to keep his eye on it. The ground could swallow him in a douton and the air could twist into a fuuton, but Sasuke was far more paranoid of a suiton rising up out of the water at his back.

He reached the bank of the river. Frost crunched under his feet, and dead leaves scattered either side. The water flowed smooth and slow except for the gentle froth over an outcropping of rocks, entirely innocuous. Sasuke gave it a last suspicious glance and edged away, back towards the open field.

Empty space, different terrain - this had to be a training ground of some kind. Maybe this was Shisui's pointed way of telling him to practice his jutsu here instead of in the middle of the Village.

He was here. Training was on his list, anyways - three days' freedom was well and good, but he was a shinobi. He couldn'tnottrain.

Sasuke considered sending a giant fireball straight up in the air, but he wasn't an idiot, and Shisui had probably meant to include 'keep your head down'with the 'stay here'.He gave the field one last scan and slid his feet apart into the opening stance for the first kata. He hadn't brought his cloak, and he shivered through the first repetition in the bite of the air. Winter had settled, even if it wasn't snowing yet like Haku said it would. After the second, as he picked up his speed to move faster and faster, his muscles warmed though his breath left soft white puffs in the air through the filter of his mask.

He ducked at the flicker of chakra behind him, sliding into a low crouch and reaching for his kunai holster, but it was only Shisui, stepping out of a shunshin with Neji in tow. Sasuke made a face and stood.

"Buddy system," said Shisui, gesturing Neji forward with a jerk of his chin. "I don't care what the captain said; whatever you do, everyone has one other person with them at all times."

That was fair. Sasuke scowled but nodded. Neji looked about as excited to be there as Sasuke was that he was there.

"I've brought Kyuu-chan back to base camp," Shisui went on. "Where're Rei-chan, Shichi-kun, and Roku-kun?"

"Stealing things in the rich people part of town," Sasuke said.

Shisui stared at him for a long moment. "Of course they are." His shoulders slumped slightly. "The two of you, don't leave this training ground - the captain hashed it out for us specifically. No Kiri, no Hanran, no Hana-ha."

"Hai," said Neji, and Sasuke echoed him.

"I'm going to - pull your teammates out of whatever mess they've gotten into," Shisui said, and vanished abruptly.

Sasuke looked at Neji. Neji looked back at him from beneath his ever-present wraparounds. "I assume you did something inadvisable," Neji said.

Sasuke bristled. "Not as inadvisable as stealing from rich people in an enemy Village."

Neji nodded, accepting that. "Would you like to spar?"

Sasuke had sparred with Neji enough to know that he probably wouldn't come out on top, but Shisui always said that every spar was a learning experience no matter who won. Also, he wouldn't mind setting something else on fire. "Yeah," he said.

Neji was fire-natured like Sasuke, but his was a seething smoulder to Sasuke's mercurial blaze. He also had a sense of fair play that bordered on patronizing - when he saw Sasuke hadn't brought his katana, he took off his tanto's harness and propped it up against a tree. Sasuke watched him with narrowed eyes. "Everything goes, shy of drawing blood?" Neji proposed.

"Sure," said Sasuke. Neji favored close combat and his blade more than Sasuke did, and Sasuke was a shinobi - shinobi didn't give up advantages when they were already behind.

Sasuke's Sharingan whirled to life with a handseal, the world turning bright and sharp, and he saw the answering flare of chakra as Neji activated his Byakugan. Neji set his feet and raised his hands before him, and Sasuke took the invitation to charge.

Sasuke palmed a pair of kunai as he sprinted, watched the impression of future Neji's dodge, and hurled the blades in quick succession. Neji spun to the side, but Sasuke swerved in his path, a third kunai in hand as he slashed at the older boy and his other arm snapping up to knock away the parry he knew was coming.

But his eyes only showed him one future of many fluid possibilities, and Neji had trained against him before. Neji vanished in an abruptkawarimithat the Sharingan hadn't predicted, and Sasuke's attack struck wood with a hollow thunk.

Sasuke spun, his hands already flying through handseals, and spat aGoukakyuuas Neji as the older boy lunged. A trio of shuriken hissed back at him through the fireball, and he jerked away with a backwards twist that only barely managed to get him clear.

The misstep was enough of an opening for Neji, whose entire team drilled their speed during every training session. Neji came at him hard from the left, kunai upraised in a backwards grip, and Sasuke gritted his teeth as he drew his own, planting his other hand on the ground to flip out of the way again. He landed crouched with his kunai raised defensively as Neji slashed downwards. Sasuke battered it out of the way, barely, and the second and the third, but Neji's strikes were too fast, too precise for him to regain his balance. Neji lunged inside his guard, grabbing his wrist to force it out of the way, and pressed his kunai against Sasuke's collarbone.

Sasuke froze, face to face with Neji's covered eyes, arm straining in Neji's grip. His heart pounded still, his body caught up in the battle and the threat of the blade at his throat. Then he forced his muscles to relax, and Neji let him go.

"Watch the blind spot you make with the katon," Neji said, drawing back the kunai and slipping it back into his holster.

Sasuke grunted. The fight had been lost from that moment, he knew.

Of Yorozoku, Neji was the worst opponent for Sasuke - fast enough and canny enough to work around the future-sight, and he had a doujutsu that could see through the Sharingan's secondary advantage of genjutsu. But Sasuke would never learn to counter Neji's advantages the way he had Sasuke's if he wrote it off as a lost cause, so he took a step back, spun the kunai in his grip, and said, "Again."

Neji slid his feet apart into his opening stance. Sasuke charged.

Their final match ended in a draw when the afternoon sun prickling through the clouds reminded them that the hour for lunch had come and gone. Sasuke had a loop of wire around the back of Neji's neck with the ends fisted in one hand and a kunai at the hollow of his throat. Neji's palm lay flat against Sasuke's chest, just above his heart. Each stared at the other as their breaths rasped in their throats.

"Well fought," said Neji at last, dropping his hand.

Sasuke let the wire go, sliding the kunai back into his holster. "Yeah, good match," he said. He jogged to the treeline to retrieve the thrown kunai, and Neji did the same further out in the field. Never since they left Konoha had they ever had enough, even with frequent scavenging, and losing even one during practice meant one less on the battlefield.

Afterwards, he sat down in the field and lay back, staring up at the sky as the long grass shielded him from the wind that chilled his sweat-dampened skin. His Sharingan petered out when he stopped that chakra flow to his eyes, and the world returned to its normal, washed-out colors. Smoke curled lazily from the bit of dead brush that Sasuke had set on fire during the second match, which had taken both of them to put out.

Neji drifted over as well, buckling the harness for his tanto back on, and sat cross-legged and straight-backed next to him. "Your footwork has improved," Neji offered grudgingly, which was entirely Shisui's influence from the months when he had been Team Suzaku's primary sensei. Before, Neji had been entirely sharp edges and cutting comments, rather than mostly.

"Thanks," said Sasuke, equally reluctant, because Shisui had gotten to him too. He closed his eyes against the sunlight's glare. His stomach felt hollow, and the afterburn from exertion had begun to collect in his muscles. He rolled his head over towards Neji. "Where is this? Juu-sensei dropped me here in a shunshin. Didn't see which direction or anything."

"This training ground has been warded against the Byakugan," Neji said. "I cannot see beyond its borders."

"Just say that you don't know, and that we're stuck here," Sasuke muttered, the words muffled under his respirator.

Neji didn't move, but Sasuke could feel his glare. "Juu-sensei already instructed us to remain here until he returned for us."

Boring.

He should have just gone with Naruto and the desert siblings to steal things. Naruto was dumb and too loud, and Gaara was creepy and too quiet, but Temari? Pretty strong, pretty cool. She'd been the best shinobi of the eight of them when they'd spent the years running.

They'd added Haku to their number and become Yorozoku, and now the pack wasthe packand they had Itachi, Shisui, Zabuza-sensei, and the captain, but in the very beginning for two years, they'd only had Neko-sensei.

Neko-sensei had never told them her real name. Names are dangerous,she had said for the first time of many when she was standing over the bodies of a team sent after them, with her katana dripping crimson and blood splattered all over her mask, days after That Night when it was just seven kids and one of her. Do you understand? They came after you because of your names. More will come ifanyonefinds out your names. It's safer to be nameless out here.

Living with the captain was like living with a legend - he was there, but not quite tangible, a little too perfect. They'd all heard the stories from other shinobi when they ran supply missions - Reiketsu Kakashi or Kage-Killer Kakashi or even just Raijuu, stories so tall Sasuke wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen the captain break a warship in half to rescue his team with his own eyes.

Living with Neko-sensei had been like living with a feral lioness - she was raw and rough and ferocious and fiercely protective. They watched her struggle and lie and steal, watched her hunt and kill, watched her leave them behind to provide for them and keep them safe. She was the first time Sasuke had thought,adults aren't flawless,but he and the rest of the pack trusted her unquestioningly nonetheless, to teach them and protect them.

And then abruptly, she was gone. She left them with Itachi and the captain and didn't look back, didn't contact them apart from one final word:clear.If this - Yorozoku and Hana-ha and Kirigakure - had been one possible future, Sasuke wondered what another would have been if they'd stayed with Neko-sensei.

Sasuke stole another glance sideways at Neji. They didn't talk about Neko-sensei among the pack, especially when they hadn't fully trusted the captain yet and then when they had the war and constant threat of ambush to worry about, and they didn't talk about Hanabi either. Did he and Hinata think about her? Wonder if she and Neko-sensei were dead or alive? Because even the edges of the war had taught Sasuke that people died suddenly, quietly, and sometimes left someone behind without them ever knowing they'd been left.

"I can see you doing that," Neji said pointedly.

Sasuke glowered at the sky. He reached down to his belt for his bone-mask and hooked it over his face and the respirator. Let him try to see through that.

"Tch," Neji scoffed.

"Do you think about them?" Sasuke asked abruptly.

"About who?" Neji shot back.

"Neko-sensei. And Hanabi."

Neji sucked in a sharp breath. "No," he said, clipped. "Thinking about them will do nothing. It is better to focus on the problems of today."

"Think they're alive?" Sasuke pressed. "It's been a year since we heard from them."

"What does it matter?" Neji said irritatedly.

Sasuke huffed and dropped it.

Just as Sasuke was beginning to shiver, a rush of wind and chakra prickled his senses and he was crouched on his feet with a hand over his holster before registering that it was Shisui again. "Right, kids," said Shisui, his affability back intact. "Ichi-kun and Kyuu-chan put together lunch, and everyone else is back at base and in one piece. Let's head on back."

Haku and Hinata both cooking meant lunch would be pretty decent, even though there wasn't much food in Kiri even after the war. Sasuke shoved to his feet, and Neji followed suit with a grace that Sasuke envied. Shisui held out both hands to them, and when they took them, pulled them along in a dizzying shunshin that deposited them at their library's doorstep. Sasuke shook his head to get rid of the lingering vertigo as Shisui palmed the door with a pulse of chakra.

"Oh my gods, Shi, look what we got!" Naruto yelled gleefully as soon as they stepped in the door, lunging towards him in a tackle. Sasuke ducked, but Shisui plucked his teammate out of the air without looking and set him back on his feet, so instead of bulldozing Sasuke into the floor, he just crashed into Sasuke's shoulder and bounced off.

"What?" snapped Sasuke, staggering backwards as Neji eeled around him and beelined for the food, hooking his shades up to the top of his head now that they were under the cover of their base camp.

"We gotso much stuff,Shi, lookit, lookit!" Naruto dragged him by the wrist - past the still-steaming pot on the table, which Sasuke threw a despairing glance at, past the rest of the pack as Sakura waved at him and made no move to help - and into their converted sleeping quarters. "So! Much! Stuff!" Naruto repeated, dropping Sasuke's hand and doing a little twirl in the middle of the room.

Sasuke's eyes widened and he pulled off his mask for a better look, because the bottom bunks were all completely covered in clothes. Pants, shirts, jackets, all draped over the frames and blankets and sleeping bags, mostly dark colors but some brighter ones too.

"What - did you take off with an entire store?" Sasuke demanded. "Where did you even put it?"

Naruto cackled. "Shichi madesand clonesto wear them and walked them back here! Check it out, I got you - "

Sasuke's stomach growled, and he said hurriedly, "Roku, I need toeat. Show me whatever after lunch." If he knew Naruto, the clothes-showing would take the entire afternoon and then some.

Naruto puffed up and then deflated, because they were all sensitive about food. "Fine," he said, jabbing a finger at Sasuke. "But you better eat fast, or I'll give all your stuff to Gogo-chan!"

Sasuke scoffed, already on his way to the platters of food on the far side of the main room. "Like she'll want it," he tossed over his shoulder.

"Do I ever say no to new clothes?" Sakura called, her mouth half full, and Temari laughed, cheerful and viciously satisfied.

"You would if they resembled Zabuza-sensei's cow patch-pinstriped combination uniform," Sai pointed out, and Sasuke snorted.

Haku twitched. "That particular outfit met an unfortunate accident while I was mending it," he said, and then checked over his shoulder. The curtain that served as a makeshift door to the captain and Zabuza-sensei's quarters didn't stir.

"I don't think he cares about what he wears," Shisui offered from his perch on a worn desk a little ways away from the pack. "He kind of just throws on whatever and sometimes it just...doesn't work."

"Those pieces did not work with anything," Haku said.

"Someonecould make them work, I bet," said Sakura.

Sasuke tuned out the rest of the conversation in favor of the food. Today was oyako-don and gyoza, and Sasuke heaped an overflowing ladle of the chicken and egg over his rice, adding a dozen gyoza almost as an afterthought. He ignored Naruto's enthusiastic waving - he had since returned to his own lunch and couldn't talk with his cheeks bulging with food - and sat down with Hinata and Temari instead, tugging his rebreather down to hang around his neck. When Temari grinned down at him, he jerked his chin towards their sleeping quarters and raised an eyebrow.

Temari shrugged, but her smile had once again taken on a smug edge. "It wouldn't be fair if we didn't get something for everyone," she said. "We raided the stockrooms for most of that. It'll be a while before anyone notices anything missing."

"And you willnotbe doing that again," Shisui interjected pointedly.

"Yes, Sensei," said Temari, but her eyes sparkled with mirth.

"You especially, Shichi-kun," he added, narrowing his eyes at Gaara.

Gaara glanced up, blinked once, innocently, and went back to his food.

"The captain said we get three days to do whatever, though," Sakura piped up, although Sasuke doubted her chosen hobby of reading in the library was going to be blacklisted next.

"Yeah!" Naruto agreed, bouncing up and accidentally sending one chopstick catapulting across the room until Sai caught it midair and tossed it back. "We ain't gonna get caught getting new stuff!"

Shisui looked very much like he wanted to slam his own head into the wall. "Within reason. Not setting bonfires in the middle of town or robbingupper-caste boutiquesor taking two dozen books from the librarywithout checking them out."

All eyes swung to Sakura, who cringed. "I was going to bring them back when I was finished with them."

"We do not have library cards," Sai added. "The staff appeared short-handed, and in any case, approaching a staff member to register an account would compromise our identities, or betray our lack thereof."

Shisui stared dully at him. "What about training? Didn't you hellions want to train? Funtraining?"

Sasuke exchanged a glance with Hinata, then Temari. "We can do that," Temari said magnanimously.

"Cool. Great," said Shisui, with marginally more enthusiasm "We'll head out to the training field after lunch. And another thing - from now on, in the village, we're going no masks, no henge. The Kiri forces are going to be told that Hanabi-ha is the Hanran's Hana Division, made up of a combination of mercenaries and Kiri shinobi that had been stationed away from the mainland."

"That shouldn't be a difficult story to sell," Haku noted, tapping the ends of his chopsticks against his lips. "There are numerous Academies and outposts on the outlying islands. Some shinobi are stationed there their whole lives and rarely if ever come to the Village proper."

Shisui nodded. "I need you guys to get really solid on your covers. Rei-chan and Ichi-kun, coordinate it and let me know by the end of the week what you all decide." He reached behind him. "We're going to need to start wearing these."

Sasuke's heart leapt into his throat. When he was a kid, the hitai-ate was all he'd wanted - it symbolized skill, strength, responsibility, acknowledgement - but every time he imagined receiving the headband at his graduation, it had borne Konoha's leaf, not Kiri's mist. He glanced up at the sudden silence and saw the same indecision on Naruto's face and Neji's, and even Temari's.

"Hey," said Shisui gently. "It's all a cover, yeah? Don't think about it too much. It's a stepping stone on the way back home."

"It's the mission," Hinata said, in Kyuu's controlled tones, low and dispassionate.

Shisui's brow crinkled a little, but Naruto said, "Yeah! It's just us being spies, like real shinobi!"

"Wearereal shinobi, idiot," Sasuke said reflexively, and Naruto scowled at him.

"If it helps," Shisui interrupted before Naruto could throw something or himself at Sasuke, "many of the Hana-ha shinobi have decided to wear the hitai-ate, but not on their foreheads, as is traditional."

Another small piece of rebellion; Hana-ha were good at that. Yorozoku were good at that. "That does help, Sensei," said Sakura, her eyes resolved. "Give us the hitai-ate."

The hitai-ate weighed heavily on Sasuke's bicep. A brief, chaotic scramble to divide up the spoils of stealing had followed lunch until Shisui called them back out in their criminally nice new clothes to do their 'fun' training. From his understanding, what separated 'fun' training from 'not fun' training was the absence of live weapons, and Sasuke wasn't sure at all how that could be fun.

"What do you think?" Sakura asked, dropping back to his side from where she had been walking with Hinata and Haku. "Another three-way team battle?"

Sasuke scowled, hidden under his rebreather. "Probably." Training had been nothing but teams and team formations and team battles since Tetsu - since the very beginning, when apparently the captain himself had set their teams - and it wasn't that Sasuke didn'tlikeSakura or Naruto, because they were pretty all right even if Sakura was a girl and civilian-born and Naruto was way too loud and kind of dense sometimes, but when he could admit it to himself, he resented being put on the weakest team.

He'd learned a lot from Zabuza-sensei, who was much, much tougher and a lot meaner than the Academy sensei and definitely more short-tempered than Shisui or Itachi, but he was an elite shinobi and a good teacher. And then Zabuza-sensei had dumped them like a sack of hot potatoes and taken Team Suzaku with him on his missions instead, so. That was kind of a blow. True, Haku was his apprentice already and had been an actual hunter-nin, and true, Temari had practically been a genin when they met her, and Neji was a year older than him, had activated his doujutsu, and wasall rightfor a Hyuuga even if he did tend to stay behind his teammates in battle because he wasn't quite to their level yet, but they'd gone on real missions and real fights.

Team Genbu had done solo missions, and even gone on a long-term infiltration in the Lower City, because Sai had his ink and Anbu training, and Hinata had her eyes and the thing she did where she became different people, and Gaara had his sand and a body count nearing if not already in the triple digits. Sasuke was eighty-five percent certain that Gaara had killed someone or multiple someones on that long mission that none of them, not even Shisui, would admit.

Meanwhile, Sasuke and Sakura and Naruto drilled and sparred and traded off endless sentry and cooking duty, or fought in battles under very close supervision, except for the one time on the warship in the harbor. Their only claim to fame was that they'd gotten captured on their very first solo mission, asupply run,gotten tortured, and needed the rest of the pack and all of the sensei, plus the captain, to rescue them.

So. In general, Team Byakko didn't tend to do very well in three-way team battles. Sasuke didn't have high hopes for today, either.

Sakura hummed, her fingers coming up to cover the plate on her own hitai-ate absently. "I think it'll be fun," she said optimistically. "At least no one'll be trying to kill us. This is supposed to be a break," she added when Sasuke just shrugged, but his mood had no effect on hers whatsoever.

"Okay, everyone," Shisui called, clapping his hands together. "Here are the rules for today's training exercise. It's called - " he paused dramatically, " - Assassins."

The pack exchanged dubious looks. "Is this kinda like when we played 'Shinobi' when we were kids?" Naruto asked skeptically.

"You're not going to be running around throwing sticks at each other," said Shisui after a confused pause. He grew up during the Second Shinobi War and graduated to genin at age six; he'd probably never played the game in his life. "The point of the exercise is to eliminate your assigned target while avoiding whoever has you as their target. You canonlyeliminate your target, and once you do, their target becomes yours. The goal is to be the last person standing."

Sakura raised her hand. "Does everyone know who everyone else's assigned target is?"

"Nope," said Shisui. "This is a game for stealth, strategy, and deception. I'll let you figure that out. There're two ways to eliminate someone: pin them for a three-count or steal their hitai-ate without damaging it - so everyone, tie yours somewhere accessible, single bow knot. No ninjutsu, no genjutsu, no doujutsu, and no live weapons."

"Boo," complained Naruto, screwing up his face and sticking out his tongue.

On the far side of the group, Neji looked faintly disgruntled. "Using natural abilities should be allowed," he said.

Shisui raised an eyebrow, amused. "Hey, I'm just trying to give you all a sporting chance against Shichi-kun. In any case, everyone can stand to work on the basics." Temari was nodding. Sasuke agreed - reluctantly. "Any questions before we start?" he asked cheerfully? "No? Ten seconds to get as far away as you can, and then I'll find you all and give you your targets individually. And - scatter!"

Sasuke bolted, his feet carrying him off instinctively before his mind registered that he was running. Out of the corner of his eye he could see a blur of black hair and black cloth as Sai streaked into the cover of the trees to his right.

"Stop!"

Shisui's voice drifted faintly on the wind, and Sasuke skidded to a stop under a crooked beech. He turned in a slow circle and caught a flash of dark cloth on his other side maybe eighty meters away. He watched, but whoever it was shifted until the tree trunk covered them entirely.

Sasuke waited. The morning's clouds hadn't cleared, and the sunlight that trickled through cast an omniscient grey shadow over the training ground. He still didn't have his cloak or a jacket, but he was now wearing a longsleeved shirt with a high collar to block the wind from the thievery team's haul. The cold was bearable now.

A familiar rush of chakra and wind announced his cousin's arrival. "Hey there, Shi-kun," said Shisui breezily. A crow perched on his shoulder - not his flock leader, but Dashi, who croaked a greeting and ruffled the feathers at the base of his neck.

"Hi," said Sasuke, half to Shisui and half to Dashi. Dashi rattled approvingly.

"Your target is Ichi-kun," Shisui said. "Good luck."

Sasuke was doomed.

Shisui vanished in another shunshin, and Sasuke stared blankly over the field and contemplated his misfortune. Naruto or Sakura? Easy. Sai or Neji? Doable, with the game restrictions. Haku or Temari?

Nah. At least, not by himself.

He needed an ally, or allies. He raised his eyes to the sky and heaved a deep sigh, resigned. Even in an individual game, he always fell back on Sakura and Naruto.

"Ready!" Shisui's voice carried across the training ground, and Sasuke crouched into the grass, tense. "Go!"

Distance first. Sasuke didn't know where anyone was except Sai, roughly, or who was after him. The only person he was absolutely safe to be alone with was now Haku. He stole into the trees for the cover, even knowing that most of the others would do the same thing.

A sudden scuffle made him freeze and then duck, and he glanced through the branches of the bush in time to see Sai land in a crouch, turn, and lunge at Neji in a second attempt at a tacke. Neji swerved gracefully out of the way and took off through the trees with Sai hot on his heels. Sasuke paused for a minute and then kept going. Sai seemed like a safe bet for an ally, but it could all be for show - it was unlike him to show his hand so early.

He nearly tripped over Sakura five minutes later when he leapt over a tiny stream into the patch of reeds she was hiding in. He jerked back, bouncing out of reach, but the first thing out of her mouth was, "Oh, thank the gods."

Sasuke eyed her suspiciously, poised to defend or run. "Why?"

Her shoulders slumped. "I haveShichi,"she groaned. "Shi, youhaveto help me."

Shisui must really have it out for Team Byakko. Maybe it was payback for the arson thing and the book-stealing thing. Sasuke met Sakura's eyes grimly. "I have Ichi."

Sakura whimpered.

And of course, to complete their circus of misfortune, the very distinct rustle-crunch of Naruto trying to sneak anywhere approached until Naruto himself stumbled out of the bushes and babbled, "Shi, Gogo-chan, I know it's an individual competition but it'd be pretty smart if we teamed up, huh?"

Sakura and Sasuke exchanged a glance. "Who do you have?" Sasuke asked, resigned.

Naruto slumped dramatically. "Rei-nee."

Shisuidefinitelyhad it out for them. They took a moment to commiserate in their mutual despair.

"I don't care if I don't win," Sasuke muttered. "I just want to take out at least one person."

"Yeah," Sakura agreed. "Team? We can totally take out at least one of our targets if we work together."

"Yeah, team!" Naruto cheered, and Sasuke lunged automatically to slap a hand over his mouth.

"Not so loud," hissed Sasuke, throwing a wild glance over his shoulder.

"Okay," said Sakura, propping her hands on her hips. "Our targets are Rei-nee, Ichi, and Shichi. Who do we think we have the best shot of eliminating?"

"Not Ichi," Sasuke admitted grudgingly. "Black-ops hunter-nin." They'd probably never even find him unless he came for one of them.

"Shichi's only a problem if he tries," Sakura pointed out. "It's a fifty-fifty shot at worst."

True. Gaara hated running, anything physical, and not being able to use his sand - pretty much everything involved in this exercise. But going after Gaara also had a slight but still significant chance of being smashed into bits if he didn't stop his sand in time, regardless of whether he liked them (Naruto), tolerated them (Sasuke and Sakura), or hated them (a vast majority of the population).

Sasuke grimaced. Naruto agreed. "Rei-nee?" Naruto offered weakly.

"I think we'll have to," said Sakura, her brow creased in concentration. "Let's run a double-decoy. She'll definitely hear Roku coming - "

"Gogo-chan!" Naruto protested, drooping.

" - but if Shi ambushes her while she's distracted, she'll think Roku's the distraction and Shi's going to try and tag her out. Then, when she's more concerned with Shi, Roku can grab her hitai-ate."

That sounded...all right. "What are you going to do?" Sasuke asked.

"I'm the pre-decoy," Sakura said. "I'm just gonna go talk to her."

Naruto's face scrunched up. "Y'think that's gonna work?"

Sakura smiled. "I'll tell her I need help taking down Ichi. He's Shi's target, so I know he won't be hers."

"Hers might be you," Sasuke pointed out.

"Then I'll make anexcellentpre-decoy and you better come help me before she catches me," Sakura said.

Fair.

Naruto squinted somewhere between Sakura's head and Sasuke's. "What - d'you think Rei-nee and Ichi'll be working together? They're teammates too."

"No," said Sasuke with certainty. Temari and Haku were both apex predators in this game; solo apex predators didn't hunt with each other when the potential damage from one of them turning on the other outweighed the comparatively small benefit of working together to catch easy prey.

"Let's go," Sakura urged. "I don't want to get ambushed by staying in one place too long. I'm first contact, so I'll take point. Roku, mid. Shi, rear. And - "

"Don't let anyone sense me, I know," Sasuke finished impatiently.

Sakura smiled a little sheepishly. "Uh, yeah. So - "

They sensed it all at the same time, some combination of air displacement or the feather-light footstep or a shift in the shadows, and all three of them turned, their heads snapping around to face the disturbance. It was only Hinata, who froze like a deer but watched them calmly with contact-colored seagreen eyes that flicked to them each in turn. "Are you targeting me?" she asked, still tensed to run. "I'm not after any of you."

"No," Naruto blurted, before Sasuke could think to bluff.

Hinata studied their trio a moment longer and then nodded. She whisked away back the way she had come without another word, vanishing quickly into the dim forest.

Sasuke frowned, the sense that something had beenoffpinging in his mind. "That wasn't Kyuu," he said. "Moe? Tatsuko?"

"Definitely not Moe, maybe Tatsuko." Sakura watched the place where the other girl had disappeared, mystified. "But why would she be using a civilian persona now?"

"Maybe it's a new one that's half civvie half kunoichi," Naruto suggested. "Like Kyuu and Tatsuko mashed together."

"She didn't make the Tatsuko one too long ago, though," Sakura noted. "Maybe she wanted something a little less intense than Kyuu but still shinobi."

In any case, they didn't have to stand around gossiping about it now. "Let's move out," said Sasuke. If they stood around any longer, Temari would probably just stumble into them the way Hinata had. Technically Naruto and Sasuke had done the exact same thing too, because that was just how things tended to go with Team Byakko.

Sakura set the pace at a light jog, darting nimbly through the trees on the ground level. Naruto kept pace about fifty meters to her right, and he was definitely trying to be quiet but Sasuke could still hear the abnormal crinkle of leaf litter above the branches shivering in the wind.

Sasuke had the best vantage point, taking up the rear, and his stealth had always been the best in his team. He caught a glimpse of Hinata again, just a flicker in and out of his range of vision, and someone slinking through the undergrowth that had to be either Sai or Neji or Haku, but no one tried to attack. He lost sight of them, but maybe they were just biding their time. He and Naruto and Sakura were basically a row of ducklings all lined up for a fox, anyways, it wouldn't be hard to pick any one of them off.

Their 'plan' was a plan that relied on a lot of luck and also, not that he'd tell his teammates, the three of them providing too tempting a targetnotto attract hunters while being a big enough group that attacking them head on would give any of the pack pause except Gaara. They'd come across Temari eventually, and she was straightforward enough to confront them head-on to at least see what they were trying to do.

Sasuke had known Naruto for about four years now, and he'd discovered that among many bizarre quirks, the blond either had wildly bad luck or wildly good luck on any given occasion. For example - being born on the night of the Kyuubi attack, becoming the jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi, becoming the primary target of torture aboard the Jurojinmaru: massively bad luck. Surviving and escaping the ambush that killed his Anbu guard during That Night, meeting the rogue Ichibi jinchuuriki who promptly decided to follow him home, a really fast healing factor and in general, surviving as long as he had: massively good luck.

So when he heard Temari's voice say, "Hey, Go-chan," some ways ahead of him, he was unsurprised and mostly just resigned at Naruto's power to make things happen.

"Rei-nee, youhaveto help me!" Sakura cried immediately, parroting almost exactly what she'd said to Sasuke. "I haveIchi."

Temari huffed a laugh. "It's an individual game," she reminded her. Sasuke stole forward, stepping lightly as he advanced. "But I'm thinking a temporary alliance might be a good - "

Naruto charged out of his bush with a whooping war cry, flinging his entire body at Temari in a whirl of stubby limbs. Sakura yelped, high and surprised and entirely fake, as Temari ducked and Naruto went sailing over her head. He landed in a crouch on all fours, cackling, and pounced again.

Sasuke abandoned stealth for speed, shooting forward as Temari tossed Naruto over her shoulder. Sakura took advantage of the opening to sweep Temari's feet out from under her, landing in a low stance as the older girl twisted to roll to her feet in a crouch. But Sasuke was there when she came up, one arm blocking her instinctive punch and the other reaching for the hitai-ate on her belt.

Even with the sudden ambush, Temari was fast and nimble enough to evade, sliding out of the way of his grasping hand and leaping up in an aerial somersault when Sakura threw a roundhouse kick at her back. Naruto, evidently not seeing a problem with reusing the same technique until it worked to his satisfaction, launched himself a third time and this time connected with Temari midair, sending them both tumbling into the bushes.

"Now, now!" Naruto yelped, high and panicked, and in unison Sakura and Sasuke jumped towards where they'd vanished.

Naruto made a sound like an enraged cat and Sakura let out a quietoofas Temari lobbed Naruto bodily into her, but Sasuke swerved around them both and dove, managing to get a hand around Temari's ankle as she was about to leap away. She staggered but didn't fall, but that was okay because Sakura lunged in time to collide with her, catching both of the older girl's hands in her own. With a crow of triumph, Naruto flopped more than jumped at them, and as Temari slithered out of Sakura's grasp, yanked Temari's hitai-ate clean off her belt.

Sasuke let go and rolled over, spitting dirt, and sprawled back against the nearest tree as Temari leapt away, too late. Annoyance flickered over her sharp features, a flash of temper, before it vanished like quicksand and she gave them a wry smile. "You caught me. Good work."

"Yatta!" Naruto cheered, because not gloating was probably not something that had occurred to him. "Shi, Gogo-chan, we did it!" Naruto lunged at Sakura in a tackle-hug, and Sakura caught him with a laugh, her eyes alight, and let him swing her around in a circle. She patted his arm to get him to put her down.

When she stepped back, she had Naruto's hitai-ate tangled in her fingers.

Sasuke boggled. Naruto looked at the hitai-ate in his hand, looked at the one in Sakura's hand, and said, "Hey, isn't that my…" and then gaped silently.

Temari started to laugh.

"You're terrible," Sasuke said, eyeing Sakura with newfound wariness and respect.

She beamed, victorious and bashful at once. "Sorry, Roku," she said.

"You said you had Shichi!" Naruto protested, outraged. "Gogo-chan!"

Temari barked a laugh. "Shichi wasmytarget," she said, grinning. "He's out. Has been for the last ten minutes."

If Gaara was out, there was now at least a twenty-five percent chance that Sakura's new target would be Sasuke. Sakura realized this at the same time, and she turned to meet his suspicious stare with mock-innocence. She offered him a sweet smile. "Shi-kun, we're still allies, right?"

Ha. "Nope," he said, and turned tail and fled while he still had a head start. Better to run now than let her worm her way back into his trust and backstab him the exact same way.

The pro: he and Sakura and Naruto had managed to eliminate Temari, which was pretty good even if they had outnumbered her three to one. The cons: Sakura had just been using him and Naruto both, Sasuke had no real of finding let alone tagging Haku out, and someone coming after him - probably Sai or Neji - now had a lone target. He needed to change at least one of those.

He changed his course, angling back out to the open field, where the grass brushed his shins and left beads of water soaking into his pants. The clouds had darkened; even though he'd left the shadows of the trees, the light was just dim enough that he had to strain his eyes when he checked the treeline behind him.

One sweep and nothing - just the easy rattle of naked branches and the small-leafed shrubbery with the wind. Sasuke shivered and swivelled slowly. He squinted. He said out loud, "Even if you tag me out, you can't get Ichi by yourself."

A pause, long enough that Sasuke wondered if he'd called out a really springy bush or something by mistake. Then a shadow detached from the rest and Neji slid out of the trees, the loose ends of his hitai-ate fluttering behind where it was tied on his arm. "You believe you will improve those odds with an alliance?"

Sasuke glowered. "It's basic math," he pointed out. "Sure, you can take me out. Go after him by yourself, let me know how that goes for you."

Neji stalked closer, and Sasuke tensed. "Fine," said Neji. "We will ally until Ichi has been eliminated."

"Great," said Sasuke unenthusiastically. "Can you track him without your doujutsu?"

Neji scoffed. "Just because I could activate my doujutsu by the time I could walk does not mean I am overly reliant on it."

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Is that a yes or what?"

"Ichi is the best of our team at stealth, but it is possible," Neji allowed.

"Well," Sasuke said, "I guess if we don't find him he'll definitely be able to find us."

"Undoubtedly," Neji agreed.

Sasuke eyed him skeptically. "You think you can hold him down long enough for me to grab his hitai-ate?"

"If you are able to identify an opening, I will not need to hold him down," Neji shot back.

Sasuke bit back a grumble. If only he had Neji as his target instead of the other way around.

They ran a two-man search formation back into the wooded area, with Neji on point and Sasuke staggered a little ways behind him because despite Neji's snobbishness and Sasuke's annoyance, he was the better tracker. He wasn't sure what'd happened to Shisui or everyone who'd gotten out, but the trees had gone silent and even though their barren branches could hide only a fraction of what they could in the spring, he didn't see even a hint of anyone else.

This game had turned into a fun bit of role reversal, just to keep life interesting, since Neji and Sasuke had grown up hunted and Haku had grown up hunting. Still, that wasn't exactly fair because Haku had never really been on the top of the food chain, and also after the Konoha kids had run into the Suna siblings, there was an overarching terror and solace in the fact that any and all hunters that came after them would be subject to an immediate and enthusiastic attempt at smashing them to bits by Gaara.

The point was, Haku knew a lot about chasing, but Neji and Sasuke knew a lot about being chased.

Neji took off suddenly without a word, sprinting through the barren trunks. Sasuke bolted after him blindly, hurtling a fallen log and zigzagging over a pile of rocks even though he saw exactly nothing. After nearly thirty seconds of flat-out sprinting, a shadow flitted around a copse of droopy trees in the far distance and Sasuke put his head down and ran.

Haku was the fastest person on the fast person team, but Neji was also a member of the fast person team and Sasuke was the fastest person on his team, so between the two of them, Sasuke had a half-hearted optimism that they could run Haku down.

Their quarry veered away sharply, swinging back around in their direction. Past him, past the break in the trees, Sasuke spotted the thick hemp rope strung along worn wooden posts - the training ground boundary. He gritted his teeth and ecked out a final burst of speed, throwing himself forward to intercept Haku.

Sasuke caught him with a glancing blow to the knee with his shoulder and Haku spun away as Sasuke landed heavily in the dirt, but even that momentary delay was enough for Neji to join the fray. Neji's lunge almost matched Haku's, but less pure speed and more grace. He threw two open-handed strikes, weaving around Haku's retaliatory blow, and got himself flung into the closest tree as Haku made his getaway.

Attempted to, actually, because Sasuke tackled Haku into the frosty loam to his soft huff of surprise. Haku jabbed a hand into his stomach, and one at his throat that he just barely blocked, and Sasuke struggled to keep a hold on Haku's elbow as the older boy twisted sharply and vaulted into an aerial flip. "A little help here?" Sasuke snapped over his shoulder at Neji. Haku wrenched his arm out of his grip, hit the tree trunk with both feet, and launched himself through the air.

"If you could keep a hold on him for longer than half a second, that would be extremely helpful," Neji sniped back, ricocheting off a knobby trunk directly into Haku's trajectory and forcing him to divert back to the ground.

"There's no need to fight over me," Haku said, flattered, as Sasuke did his damndest to land at least one punch. He didn't, but he also managed to dodge a lightning-fast butterfly kick that would have been devastating had it landed, so he counted it as a win.

Neji took the split-second recovery at the tail end of the attack to dart in close, wrap a hand around Haku's bicep, and heave him over his shoulder in a throw, but Haku rolled over in his grip and brought them both crashing down to the ground. Sasuke dove for them.

They landed in a tangle of limbs, all three of them, probably the worst display of shinobi-ness ever as they grappled blindly on the ground, crushing fallen twigs and dead leaves beneath them. Someone's elbow struck a glancing blow on the edge of Sasuke's respirator and his eyes watered in response, but he clawed grimly at snatches of Haku's clothes. The end of Haku's hitai-ate brushed his fingers, and he yanked, tumbling backwards. "Got it!" he cried victoriously, and immediately realized his mistake when Neji extracted himself from Haku in record time and pounced.

That was a dumb mistake. That was aNarutomistake, which meant he'd been spending too much time with his teammate. Sasuke backpedalled furiously and dropped the hitai-ate, throwing a wild look over his shoulder for an escape route. "Is he my target?" he demanded of Haku as the older boy sat up to watch.

Haku shook his head, and as Neji lunged, mouthedKyuu.

Sasuke'd forgotten all about Hinata, and promptly forgot about her again when he misjudged his dodge and tripped over a snarl of protruding tree roots. He stumbled, and Neji helped him the rest of the way down by sweeping his legs out from under him. He hit the ground on his back, the air rushing out of his lungs, and he struggled to get a breath in as he caught both of Neji's wrists in his hands. Even unable to grab the hitai-ate tied around Sasuke's arm, he straddled Sasuke and leaned down, pinning him.

Sasuke wrenched his entire body to the side and almost,almost,rolled them over, but Neji braced his knee against the ground and shoved him back.

"One," Neji counted aloud, bearing down with his slightly-heavier-than-Sasuke weight.

Sasuke struggled. He got a leg up and kneed Neji in the gut, and the older boy bit back a grunt at the impact.

"Two."

Hinata slunk out of the bushes behind Neji's shoulder. Sasuke stiffened. "Hey!" he snapped, jerking his chin at her.

Neji gave him a condescending head tilt for the obvious attempt at distraction. Sasuke gave a mental shrug - his loss, since Sasuke was pinned. "Three," he said smugly.

Hinata whipped the hitai-ate off her cousin's arm in one smooth movement. Neji whirled, practically flinging himself off of Sasuke and digging an elbow in his ribs in the process, and Hinata smiled at him angelically while Sasuke wheezed on the ground. Sasuke couldn't see Neji's eyes but he was sure they were as wide as his mouth, which he could see.

Served him right. Prick.

"Kyuu-chan wins, I believe," said Haku into the resounding silence, hiding a smile.

Sasuke blinked awake groggily, staring straight up at the distant ceiling. There was a warm, heavy weight on his chest and he was squashed up against yet another. The makeshift pillow beneath his head rose and fell rhythmically. These were not unfamiliar feelings, but given that Sasuke had definitely gone to sleep in his own bunk, he wasn't quite sure how he'd ended up in the middle of the puppy pile.

He dragged himself out from under Naruto's arm, distangled his legs from Sai's, and wriggled out from under the blanket, eyes half-open. The cold hit him immediately and he shivered, stumbling to his bunk to grab his fur cloak, and sat on Naruto's bottom bunk numbly to finish waking up. He could see his breath in the air.

Ridiculous. They were indoors. San's caves in the middle of the forest were warmer than this place.

That was why they'd all ended up on the ground in a pile of limbs and blankets - the cold. The hunting game in the training ground three days ago had tired them all out, to Shisui's delight, and so he'd devised another series of training games that kept them busy enough that Naruto only graffitied three buildings with paint he'd gotten from who knew where, but last night the chill had woken Sasuke in the middle of the night and evidently prompted his still-asleep hindbrain to seek out the warmth of the growing pile of pack on the floor. Even Gaara, lying flat out at the very bottom and therefore warmest part of the tangle, had eyes half-lidded in displeasure at the cold.

Grudgingly accepting that he wasn't going to get any warmer sitting here, Sasuke reached up to his bunk for his respirator and pulled it over his head, wrapped the cloak around his shoulders a little more securely, and padded out to the main room.

Shisui wasn't there, but Zabuza-sensei and Haku were. Zabuza-sensei had improved rapidly after burning through whatever meds the medics'd had him on, and as far as Sasuke could tell, was back to his normal asshole self. This morning he was perched on a table shoved up against the wall with Kubikiribocho resting on his knees, glowering at Haku - or more specifically, at the tiny bundle of white fur cupped in his apprentice's hands. Haku looked up and beamed, which was the most animated Sasuke had seen him maybe ever. "Look what I found," he said, and held it towards him. The fur moved. It had tiny, dark eyes and a pair of long ears folded along the line of its skull.

"A rabbit." Sasuke frowned, confused. Was Haku trying to show them what breakfast was going to be? It was a very small rabbit, probably a baby, and would barely be a single bite without its pelt.

"A white rabbit," Haku agreed, pleased. "I'm going to keep it and raise it as a pet."

Sasuke glanced at Zabuza-sensei reflexively. "Haku," Zabuza-sensei growled, rolling his eyes.

Haku sighed and said, "I'm going to keep it and raise it to use as a decoy in battle."

Sasuke nodded. That made more sense. "Where's - ?"

"Konoha has shit to do," Zabuza-sensei said. "He got jack done trying to herd you hellions and now he's buried under a metric fuckton of paperwork. You're awake. Congrats, you two get to do breakfast."

Sasuke made a face, but he didn't really mind cooking, and Zabuza didn't take no for an answer. The rabbit vanished into one of Haku's pockets and he stood, glancing to Sasuke expectantly. "Shall we?"

Sasuke grunted assent and led the way to the door. The village was in the bizarre stage between wartime and peacetime, between assigned meal rations and buying food like any other citizen. Technically, as Hanabi-ha - or now Hana Division, they should grab meals from the communal mess set up in the Old Academy cafeteria.

But that stuff was crap. They were better off making their own food.

Sasuke tugged the door open and stopped short. Snow blanketed the ground, soft flakes drifting down thick and fast to join the drifts already piling high atop the bushes at the edges of the grass.

"If you don't close that damn door I'll kick your ass," Zabuza growled from behind him. Haku quirked a wry smile as he slipped out first, preceding Sasuke into the chill air. Sasuke stepped outside and closed the door behind them.

Over breakfast, the rest of the pack received the news of the snow with glee, apathy, or dismay depending on their relationship with the stuff. Everyone except Sakura, who was dull-eyed and listless.

Sasuke caught her eye, looked deliberately down at the food - plain rice, miso soup, and tofu - then back up at her and raised an eyebrow. Not good enough for you?

Sakura looked at him, tired, before remembering herself and mustering up a smile and a thumbs up. Everything's good.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. Sakura deliberately ignored him.

Nightmares, again. They all had nightmares now and again, but Sakura's were particularly persistent.

Sakura was glaring at him now, like she could read his thoughts. She didn't like to talk about them, didn't like to talk about how she couldn't shake them off, so nobody ever mentioned them. She jabbed her chopsticks at him in warning before dipping down for the agedashi tofu.

"Something you two want to share with the class?" asked Shisui, amused.

Sasuke stuffed rice into his mouth. Sakura said brightly, "I read a book yesterday about the digestive processes of cows yesterday, Sensei, did you know they have four stomachs?"

Sasuke watched Naruto spray paint an extremely unflattering nose on the wall and said, "Why am I here?"

"You're my lookout!" Naruto said cheerfully without looking up, adding a pair of buckteeth in bright purple.

Sasuke crossed his arms. "That's Shichi."

Gaara, perched on his heels in a patch of sunlight on the edge of the sloping roof above him, blinked languidly but otherwise ignored them.

"Nah," Naruto dismissed. "Shichi's here to make sure this looks right. Like that guy."

"Like who?" asked Sasuke, already regretting asking.

"You know," said Naruto. "That one guy the sensei told him he could off. Michio? Mochichimo?"

Sasuke doubted any human being could look like the monstrosity Naruto'd created, but Gaara examined the mess of paint, nodded gravely, and pronounced it, "Michishio."

"Yeah, that guy," Naruto agreed, pleased. "Rei-nee says he's a real pizza word and Ni doesn't like him either."

"Piece of work?" Sasuke had gotten used to however Naruto's weird brain translated things.

"Uh huh." Naruto wasn't paying much attention, since he needed most of said brain to do one thing at a time.

"Michishio," Gaara repeated quietly, and blinked.

Sasuke gave him a wary stare.

As he watched, Gaara poked around the roof tiles next to him. One came free, and Gaara batted it over the edge, leaning over to watch it hit the ground with avid interest.

"Hey," said Sasuke, turning back to Naruto. "This stuff is flammable. Let's light it on fire."

"Huh?" Naruto squinted at the spray can. "It's what? No, this is paint."

"I saidflammable,moron, that means we can set it on fire," retorted Sasuke.

"Oh." Naruto looked back at his painting, considering. "I dunno. Should we?"

"Yes," answered Gaara.

"Okay, but we're gonna have to split fast, after," Sasuke warned, even as he gathered chakra to his hands.

Sasuke set the graffiti painting on fire.

They ran.

"You smell like paint and smoke," Temari noted dryly as they tumbled back into the library.

Sasuke grunted, trying to even his breathing back out, as Gaara brushed past him to tuck himself up against Temari's side. Naruto cackled under his breath, wriggling in place. "Where's everyone else?" asked Sasuke.

"Sensei's asked us not to steal for at least today," Temari said, "so Kyuu-chan and Ni and Hachi went to go run a quick con and panhandle. Ichi and Go are on meal duty."

"Rei-nee, you didn't go?" Naruto chirped.

"Nah, I'm babysitting," said Temari, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. The library was empty, but the curtain over Zabuza-sensei and the captain's room was drawn.

"The fuck did you just say?" The snarl carried from behind the curtain was noticeably slurred.

"Go back to sleep, Sensei, you're hearing things," Temari called back without missing a beat. Then, to Sasuke and the others, "Kurumi-sensei tried another mixture of meds on him after breakfast and it's made him kind of batty."

Zabuza-sensei'd never gotten hurt badly enough to need heavy drugs, but some combination of whatever injuries he'd collected during the Mizukage's assassination had him out for the count for over a week. Not even when he'd gotten poisoned and needed emergency surgery in the middle of San's mother's forest had he needed so much time to recuperate. Shizune-sensei assured them that he was healing. Just slowly.

"Ichi said ishikari nabe for dinner," Temari said, catching his attention again.

Hotpot? Sounded good to Sasuke.

"Hey, Yorozoku," Shisui said, when the pack was sprawled around the library after breakfast a couple days later. His cheerful air had lost some of the manic, strained edge of the past few weeks. "Do you know what today is?"

Sasuke exchanged a confused look with Haku. Someone's birthday? No, it was December, and Sai and Hinata had November birthdays, and the next were Haku and Gaara in January. He snuck a quick glance at Zabuza-sensei leaning against a table at the back of the room with his arms crossed, the corded muscles bulging in his forearms. Zabuza-sensei narrowed his eyes at him, and he turned back to the front quickly.

"It's four days after Itachi and the captain left," Shisui announced, a cross between vindictive and relieved. "Your three days are up! Congratulations, your proper training starts now."

"Aww," Naruto groaned. "I didn't get to graffiti the Mizukage Tower yet!"

"And you won't," Shisui said with relish. In the back, Zabuza-sensei muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like,What a fucking nightmare.

Sasuke thought that was just poor planning on Naruto's part and had no remorse. Temari'd made time to blow away not an entire lake, but at least a pretty good-sized pond, Sakura'd devoured a good section of the library, and Sasuke'd set a couple of bonfires - controlled, thanks - on their training ground. Haku picked up that rabbit, which was tucked in the sleeve of his haori. Hinata and Sai had combined their calligraphy and ink painting into sentinel wall hangings in their sleeping quarters that could be activated in case of an attack. Neji and Gaara had done...probably whatever Neji and Gaara had wanted to do. The fact that Naruto hadn't grabbed the chance to deface the Tower instead of random buildings in the Village was his problem.

"What do you mean, 'proper training?'" Sakura asked tentatively. Behind her, Gaara's heavily lidded eyes opened just a little more in interest.

"Well," said Shisui. "Practically since we met you, we taught the bare basics and then how to survive a war. Your training hasn't been very structured or consistent because we just taught you what you needed to stay alive at that moment in time. You're all missing some fundamentals and theory, so since we're moving towards peacetime, we're going to set up a regular learning and training schedule! That sounds fun, right?"

It sounded good...but suspicious. Shisui was enjoying himself a little too obviously, and when Temari looked around, he saw his mistrust reflected in her eyes. "That sounds good," Temari said slowly, clearly choosing to spring the trap.

"When do we begin?" asked Sai.

"Right now!" Shisui said. "Everyone take a sheet of paper and a pencil and have a seat at the table."

A moment of dead silence. "Book learning?" Naruto and Sakura demanded in unison, with entirely different levels of enthusiasm. Gaara scowled thunderously. Sasuke frowned. He knewwhyhe needed that stuff. That didn't mean he had to like it.

"Book learning," Shisui agreed. "Some of you need to work on your writing. Some of you aren't at the level where you can read and understand a mission dossier or a map. All of you can improve your understanding of battle strategy and chakra theory, especially as you start to specialize in a particular jutsu. Paper, pencil, sit," he urged, when nobody moved, and Sasuke resigned himself to a long morning.

Sasuke expected that Zabuza-sensei would leave or do whatever he did as a captain, but instead, he stayed where he was with his own stack of papers, one eye on the pack and Shisui gathered cross-legged on the floor ringing the tables. He looked anticipatory.

"First, I'm going to test to see where you are individually," Shisui announced. "No cheating. It won't help anyone."

Naruto tried anyways.

There'd been no way to practice reading and writing when they were on the run or living with San and the wolves or in the middle of war, and honestly they'd had much more important things to worry about, like eating, or staying alive. Sasuke frowned at his misshapen kana and snuck a look at Sakura's and Neji's papers. Neji scowled and covered his paper. Sakura didn't, but looked distressed despite her annoyingly perfect script.

"Hmm," said Shisui with forced cheer as he collected their papers and gave each a very careful scrutiny. "I see we have a...wide variety of answers." Zabuza-sensei muffled a snicker in the background.

Sasuke caught a glimpse of what had to be Naruto's paper - he was pretty sure at least half the kana were backwards or had some embellishing curls or swirls, and he'd substituted words he didn't know with crude illustrations.

Then they moved on to mathematics, starting out with, 'What is seven plus nine?' which gradually progressed to, 'If Kenji has a hundred ryou and buys fourteen apples for six ryou each, then sells eight of them for eight ryou each, how many apples and how much ryou does he have?' and ended with, 'If a shinobi standing at the edge of an eighty meter cliff throws a two-point-three kilogram kunai horizontally off the edge on a windless day with an initial speed of sixty-five kilometers per hour, how far away will the kunai hit the ground?'

Sasuke's self-esteem might have taken a tiny hit, but everyone else was as clueless as he was by the time they got to the final question. Gaara was very deliberately marking an army of dots with his pencil, Naruto had doodled Shisui as a cartoon cat, and Hinata had frozen, staring down at her paper with blank eyes. Only Temari seemed to have the slightest idea of what to do with that one - her, Neji, and Sakura, who sketched some sort of halfhearted diagram before scribbling a number and a lot of question marks on her paper and giving up.

"It's okay!" Shisui told them as he shuffled their begrudgingly relinquished papers into a loose pile. "We're, we're just figuring out where we need work! Don't feel bad." He wasn't very reassuring.

Zabuza-sensei tossed a handful of dried seasoned kawahagi into his mouth like potato chips and crunched down loudly. It rapidly became apparent that he was sticking around solely to bask in Shisui's growing despair.

"Chakra theory," said Shisui a little desperately. "This one is fun, huh?"

It was not.

"Shinobi strategy and weaponry."

Don't get caught. Kill the other person before they killed you.

"Basic shinobi history?"

Clans fought each other. Clans made Villages. Villages fight each other. Was there more than that? Apparently so.

"Civilian and shinobi culture."

Sasuke could only name about a dozen gods, and seven of them because of the Kiri warships. And how was he supposed to know how many pieces there were to a formal court kimono?

"Geography of the Elemental Lands."

Suna: sand. Konoha: giant trees. Kiri: islands. Kumo: mountains. Iwa: ?

"Shinobi ranking and organization."

Okay, Sasuke knew a bit more about this one because of the whole war thing. Or was Hanabi-ha organized differently because they were technically all nuke-nin and not a proper Village? He scratched his temple absently and stole a glance at Sai, whose flow chart had turned into an elaborate web. Then he looked over at Neji, who was glaring intently at the five empty boxes he'd drawn on his paper, and Naruto, whose answer consisted of 'KAGE!' and 'ninja' and 'civilians' and not much else.

They all had odd patchworks of knowledge. Sakura, for example, could recap the transformations of the political climates of Nami, Kawa, and Tetsu for the past twenty years, but she hadn't known that the Sandaime Hokage was the student of the Shodaime and Nidaime Hokage. Hinata could tell you what was appropriate to wear for about fifteen different functions of varying formality but stuttered into silence when asked to explain the merits of a single versus a double bladed sword. Neji could do crazy math in his head but had literally no knowledge of anything before the founding of Konohagakure. Sai could draw a historically accurate reenactment of the battle leading up to the clash between the Yondaime Hokage, the Yondaime Raikage, and the Hachibi jinchuuriki, but couldn't name a single thing that a civilian might gift another for Ochugen or a birthday.

Sasuke had some weirdly specific knowledge about growing garden produce. Gaara knew an awful lot about countries with wet climates. Naruto could describe, if not name, the foods, drinks, and the spices preferred in each of the five Great Villages. Haku could list more than fifty gods, goddesses, or supernatural creatures and their dominions. Temari could recite the names of every known jinchuuriki ever for all nine of the bijuu.

But in conclusion: most of the nine of them knew a whole lot of nothing.

At the end of their 'pre-testing session', Temari, having more or less completed the full Academy curriculum in Suna, got drafted as assistant teacher for the stuff that she did know, and Haku to a lesser extent because he picked up some stuff as Zabuza-sensei's apprentice even if he never went to an actual Academy. Zabuza-sensei also got loudly and reluctantly drafted as ateacherteacher since he was a jounin and an adult and technically already their sensei, and Shisui didn't have time to teach everything himself even if he didn't sleep.

"That's cool, Juu-sensei, but can we go train now?" Temari asked.

Sasuke could not agree more.

"Yes, go, get out of here," Shisui said distractedly, not looking up from where he stared dejectedly at the stacks and stacks of pre-test answers.

Sasuke hopped up to join the pack scramble for the door. Nothing like a rousing afternoon of trying to maim each other after a long, boring morning.

Something was shaking. Sasuke's consciousness surfaced muzily, and he pried open his eyes in time to see Gaara finish wriggling his way out from the bottom of the puppy pile and scramble for the door, a barely-there shadow in the gloom of the dark. That was concerning. Gaara rarely moved faster than a slow crawl of his own volition.

"Oh gods, what time is it?" Sakura demanded, her voice rough with sleep as she hunched where she'd been unceremoniously shoved out of the way.

"Otouto?" Temari called softly with a note of wariness. No response.

The creak of the front door opening jarred them all to full alertness. Sasuke sat bolt upright as Sai jackknifed to his feet and Neji slapped a hand over Naruto's mouth.

"Suzaku on me," Temari hissed, barely louder than her breath. "The rest of you, stay quiet and be ready."

But Sasuke recognized that chakra, even compressed and folded down so neatly, and he pushed past her and Haku both and skidded into the doorway. Itachi looked up with a small smile from where he stood between Shisui and the captain, snow soaking into the shoulders of his cloak, and said, "Tadaima. It's good to see you, otouto."

"Okaeri," Sasuke's mouth replied for him, since he couldn't seem to move. "You're back."

"Oh, Taichou - Sensei!" Temari said, when she whirled around the corner after him and pulled up short, the rest of the pack piling into the doorway after her. Gaara glanced back at them smugly from his perch on one of the tables. She tucked her kunai away discreetly. "Welcome back."

"Hm. One more," said the captain vaguely, one hand still on the open door. A flash of fur big enough to be a wolf slipped through the gap, and he closed the door behind it.

"Urushi!" Naruto gasped, throwing himself forward because he physically could notnotpet a relatively friendly dog when he saw one, ninken or not.

"As you were," the captain said when he saw them all still hovering. He stripped off his cloak and vanished into his sleeping quarters, where Zabuza greeted him with a groggily snarled, "Keep your godsdamned wet clothes on yourown fucking side,Hatake."

Urushi's ears flattened at either the sudden bombardment of attention or the abandonment of his summoner, but he stood patiently where he was and allowed Naruto, and then Hinata, to coo over him.

Sasuke went over to tuck himself into his brother's side silently, and Itachi lifted an arm and draped it over Sasuke's shoulder carefully. His skin was cool to the touch, chilled by the wind and snow. "Are you not tired?" he asked, and Sasuke shook his head.

"How was the mainland, Sensei?" Temari asked.

"Terrible and exhausting," Shisui answered for him. "Oh wait - that was you kids."

"Sensei!" Sakura protested reproachfully.

Shisui levelled her with a droll stare. "How many acts of theft and vandalism were committed by persons in this room?" A sheepish silence. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

"Surely," said Itachi, "you could not mean to imply that these competent, responsible genin committed numerous crimes in a foreign Village."

Naruto wriggled in glee at being caught. Neji rubbed the edge of his jaw and became very interested in greeting Urushi with a careful pat. Temari's smirk flashed across her face, fleeting quicksilver.

"Oh yes," Shisui said dryly. "Criminals and aiders and abettors, all of them."

"But of course they cannot be considered criminals unless caught and charged guilty," Itachi concluded thoughtfully.

Shisui glared at him. "I hate you."

"Hate leads to suffering," countered Itachi. Then he stiffened ever so slightly and immediately relaxed, fast enough to be a flinch, and Sasuke glanced up to see his brother watching him back, his eyes shadowed with thoughtfulness and something else. Sasuke frowned a silent question, but Itachi patted his shoulder once reassuringly before returning his attention to the rest of the pack and Shisui.

"I don't think hatred is the reason I've been suffering," Shisui muttered, giving the pack a stink-eye.

Itachi hummed low in his throat, and it vibrated through his chest. "What is the reason, then?"

"Sensei's trying to teach us properly," Temari volunteered, hopping up to sit next to Gaara, who leaned into her.

"Most of us lack a formalized, classroom-based education," Sai added. "Juu-sensei and Zabuza-sensei have begun to remedy that during your absence."

"This causes suffering?" Itachi asked with polite disbelief.

"Yes,"Shisui groaned as Naruto nodded empathetically.

"It's so boring!" Naruto whined.

"It's not so bad," Sakura defended. "It can be...a lot...but I like it!"

"Juu-sensei is struggling to organize lessons due to the disparity in knowledge between each of us," Neji explained.

"Yeah, the this parody," Naruto agreed.

Shisui rubbed at the edges of his eye. "I hope you realize you've been drafted as a teacher, cousin."

"I'm sure you understand I have many responsibilities, as a captain," Itachi deflected. "A significant amount of work must have accumulated while I was away."

Shisui's eye narrowed. Hinata stifled a giggle.

"However," Itachi continued magnanimously, "as you are greatly struggling and I cannot in good faith allow such 'suffering,' I will assist you."

"You're lucky you're my precious little cousin," Shisui grumbled. Urushi slithered out of Naruto's adoring grasp and padded over to nose at his hand consolingly.

Itachi said he was busy, and between his duties with his unit, Command, and teaching the pack, he was - but he still made time to steal Sasuke away like he had the days fresh after the war's official end and the Mizukage's death.

"Don't you have better things to do?" Sasuke asked, knowing the answer wasyesbut hoping it could beno.

"'Better', I would not say," Itachi answered, tucking his hands behind his back and leaning over the edge of the cliff to peer at the patchworks of training grounds far below. Maybe it was a Konoha thing, to like heights - Sasuke'd never seen the Kiri shinobi climb trees or mountains or even buildings just for the distance from the ground. "There is nothing urgent that I must attend to."

Sasuke scooted to the edge and sat, swinging his legs over the sheer drop. "What was it like, back there?" he asked abruptly. "Been a while since we left."

"Yu no Kuni is forever locked in spring," Itachi said, sinking down to sit next to him. "The air is crisp and the sun far away, but the heat yet rises from the ground. We passed through Yu briefly after leaving Tetsu, if you remember - the climate has not changed much."

"Yeah, I remember," said Sasuke, kicking his heels. "What did change?"

Itachi's face smoothed, blank and unreadable. "Konoha and Kumo wage their war through the lands between their own. Yu is one of those countries caught in the crossfire."

Good luck to Yu, then. They'd be lucky if anything was still standing once the two Great Villages were through with each other. "That's too bad," he managed to say.

"It is not a fate its people deserve," Itachi agreed with just a hint of bite. Sasuke chewed on his lip awkwardly. "Enough of that," Itachi said lightly, turning a small if worn smile on Sasuke. "I should also add that the captain and I were able to become reacquainted with cuisine not based in seafood."

Sasuke stifled an envious groan. "Everything here is finned," he grumbled vehemently. "There's only so much sashimi and steamed fish and fish stew we can make before it all starts tasting the same. Did you getsteak?"he demanded. "Chicken? Pork that'snotdried and salted?"

Itachi was watching him funny again, that strange mix of amusement and affection and something else that glinted in his eyes for a split second before vanishing. Nothing on his face betrayed him, even when Sasuke frowned and tilted his head up. "Yes," he said with an almost-smile. "All of those," and Sasuke bit back a Naruto-esque sigh of envy. "Let us go into town," Itachi suggested with a hint of a smile. "I will treat you something that is not seafood-based, though I cannot promise anything like steak. Does that sound amenable?"

Sasuke ducked his head and bit down on a smile. "Yeah, I guess," he said. "Curry?"

"I don't see why not," Itachi agreed.

They ended up in a proper restaurant, down the street from one of the stores the others had successfully burglarized, and Sasuke was self-conscious even with the cloth flaps that hung down to give their booth privacy. He took off his respirator only when their food had been delivered, steaming and savory to make Sasuke's mouth water.

Itachi watched him take the first bite indulgently. "How do you find it?"

"It's good," Sasuke said. "I think I'll try to make some for the others."

Itachi smiled slightly, dipping down into his own dish. "What are your plans, now that the Kiri Civil War is over? Experiment with cooking?"

Sasuke shrugged. "Yeah, I guess," he said. "And train. I figured I'd learn more of our clan's ninjutsu. More like theGoukakyuu." He snuck a glance up at Itachi to see his reaction.

"A good idea," Itachi agreed, pouring out tea for them both. "Is there anything else you wished to learn?"

Sasuke frowned. "Kenjutsu? And tactics and strategy of course." Should he be mentioning reading? Drawing battle maps?

"I see," said Itachi, perfectly neutral, but Sasuke still got the feeling he'd disappointed him.

"What about you?" Sasuke asked, pushing a bit of rice into the sauce on his place. "I mean, do you have things you want to do since the war's over?"

"I imagine my duties will continue to take up the majority of my time," said Itachi regretfully. "There is the transition to peacetime to coordinate, and plans for future steps to make. However, I would not decline the opportunity to spend time with you, otouto."

"Yeah," Sasuke said nonchalantly. "I guess I wouldn't mind either."

Shisui was always running to meetings or buried in paperwork these days, so Sasuke guessed he should be happy or at least grateful that his cousin took time out of his day to train them. And he was. Just. Taking notes on mathematical processes was mind-numbingly boring.

"Look," said Shisui, when it became clear that the attention of most of the pack was drifting. "This is stuff you're going to need in real life, it's not just messing around with numbers on a piece of paper."

Gaara looked unconvinced. Naruto looked lost. Sasuke fought the urge to yawn.

Shisui heaved a sigh and Sasuke kind of felt bad for being bored. "Let's say you're on a forced march," he said. "You're short on supplies. Say you've got a special sort of ration bar that's extremely potent but, maybe, only eleven out of seventeen of all shinobi are able to tolerate it. And of those shinobi, two out of seven will experience serious side effects, so you don't want to feed it to them either. If your unit has five hundred shinobi in it, how many of them will be able to eat the ration bars? First, - "

"Two hundred and thirty one," blurted Sakura, and promptly clapped her hands over her own mouth in mortification.

Shisui sighed. "Yes," he acknowledged wearily. "That is correct. Please explain how you solved that." Sakura squeaked something unintelligible muffled by her hands, and Shisui said, "That's fine. Ni-kun, you've learned this, haven't you?"

"Hai," said Neji warily.

"Why don't you explain it to everyone?" Shisui suggested. "I wouldn't want you all to get tired of me talking at you."

Temari traded an embarrassed look with Haku over the table.

"It is multiplication of the fractions," Neji said. "Multiply the numerators and denominators to - "

"Hold on," said Shisui, raising his hand. "What fractions? Where did you get fractions? Every step, please."

Neji's sunglasses did a lot to hide his aggravation. He took a careful breath. "The first fraction is the eleven out of seventeen shinobi who are able to tolerate the ration bar. Eleven over seventeen." He took another deep breath for patience. "The second fraction is the shinobi that will not experience side effects. Two out of seven will, so five out of seven will not. Five over seven. The numerators are then - "

"What are numberators?" interrupted Naruto, which was good because Sasuke didn't know what they were either.

Neji looked at Shisui for help. Shisui crossed his arms and didn't help. "Numerators are the numbers on top of the fractions," Neji said, after a long, blank moment where he tried to figure himself out. "Above the line. Denominators are the numbers below. Understand?"

"Uhh...yeah," said Naruto. "By why you gotta give them weird names?"

"So that you know which number we are referring to," explained Neji with remarkable patience. "We multiply the numerators of the two fractions. Do you know what that means?"

Naruto looked down at his notes for help, but they were chicken scratch and doodles and entirely illegible. "Uh," he said, and Hinata slid over her own perfectly neat notes. "It means...you count to eleven five times."

"And that is?" Neji prompted.

"Eleven, eleven, eleven, eleven, and eleven," said Naruto.

Neji opened his mouth, shut it silently again, and looked for the nearest hard surface to bash his head against.

Naruto cackled. "I gotcha!" he crowed. "It's fifty-five. I'm not that dumb!"

Sasuke huffed a laugh as Haku hid his in his sleeve. "Thank the gods," Shisui muttered under his breath, his face buried in his hand. "That was terrifying."

"Yes. Good," said Neji, rubbing his forehead between his eyebrows. "Fifty-five. Yes. And then multiply the denominators - "

Naruto interrupted, "The what?"

Neji tipped his head up towards the ceiling and sighed.

"Good stuff, you guys," said Shisui, once Neji had finished the entire torturous explanation a full thirty minutes later. "That's the kind of teaching and learning I expect from you all when I'm not around. No losing patience and no giving up, got that?"

"Hai," Sasuke chorused dutifully with the rest of the pack. Neji despaired silently.

"Great," said Shisui. "I have briefings lined up from now til midnight, so I'll be handing the rest of your lesson over to your Karasu-sensei," he said, nodding towards the far side of the room. "Be good for him, he's still getting back into the swing of things around here."

Itachi pushed off from the table he'd been leaning against from which to watch and gave Shisui a solemn nod. "Thank you," he said, as Shisui gave the pack a wave and ducked out the door, pack in hand and mask over his face. "Please have paper and a pencil to take notes, as the information we discuss today will be vital moving forward."

Ugh. More notes.

Sakura raised her hand. "What're you going to be teaching us, Karasu-sensei?"

"History," Itachi answered after a thoughtful pause. "We will briefly cover the relevant events in Konoha history that brought us to this point, and at a later lesson, we will go back to examine them with greater detail. We will begin with the Warring Clans Era."

Neji sank into stone-faced dismay. Gaara scowled. Naruto blurted out, "We're starting all the way back there?"

Sakura was the only one who was remotely happy with this, because everyone else was sane and realized that history was about as interesting as a bag of rocks. She was practically sparkling. Disgusting. "That'sso muchstuff!" she bubbled, blithely ignoring the daggers Sasuke stared in her direction. "Wehaveto start back there, else nothing will make sense."

"Precisely," Itachi agreed, unruffled in the face of the overwhelming displeasure swamping the room. "Sasuke, please describe the founding of Konohagakure."

What a shinobi thing to do, to deflect the burden and the blame onto Sasuke. Sasuke glowered, and unwillingly ground out, "During the Warring Clans Era, the Uchiha and Senju Clans were the greatest and most evenly matched shinobi clans for hire in the region that'd become Hi no Kuni. Clan Head Uchiha Madara and his brother Izuna were rivals with Senju Hashirama and his brother Tobirama. After years of killing each other, the clans got tired of fighting and made an alliance instead. A bunch of other clans joined in and that's how Konohagakure started."

"Succinct, but ultimately accurate," Itachi observed. "Though it should be added that one of the casualties of the constant warring was Uchiha Izuna, and with his dying breath, he told Madara not to trust the peace the Seju were offering. Years after the founding of Konoha, after Hashirama was chosen as the first Hokage, Madara split with the Uchiha when they refused to leave with him, bent the Kyuubi to his will as a weapon, and fought Hashirama to destroy the village. He was ultimately defeated."

That...was something that should be added? Sasuke kind of considered it dirty Clan laundry. Nobody liked to talk about crazy old Grandpa Madara, or 'the venerable mad ancestor'. That was a story that the Uchiha would like nothing more than to bury forever.

"I know what happened there," Temari interjected, and Itachi inclined his head to her. "When the Shodaime Hokage freed the Kyuubi from Madara's control, his wife Uzumaki Mito subdued it and sealed it into herself, and became the first jinchuuriki not only of the Kyuubi, but of any of the nine bijuu."

Sasuke's and Sakura's eyes met and in unison flashed to Naruto, who looked lost for a moment before realization struck and he shot bolt upright. "Uzumaki?" he yowled. "Like me? Is she mygrandma? Am I like, the Shodaime Hokage's, like, great-great-great-great grandkid or something?"

Temari's eyes widened. "You're an Uzumaki?" she demanded. "Why are you blond?" The way she said it sounded a lot like,Why are you dumb? Which was kind of loaded, considering she was blonde too.

"He is related to the Shodaime?" Neji asked over Naruto's yelps of offense, eyes narrowed and calculating.

"No," said Itachi crushingly. "Yes, Naruto is descended from the same clan as Uzumaki Mito. However, he is not related to the Shodaime Hokage in any manner that I know of."

Naruto wilted a little, but he was still vibrating because the captain said he knew Naruto's parents but refused to tell him much and now he knewhe came from a clan,which Sasuke unfortunately could tell was different from hisI really really have to peevibrating due to repeated exposure to the latter. He'd be talking about it nonstep for the next four months unless some other, more interesting tidbit dropped.

"Karasu-sensei, as clan leadership is often hereditary, are you and Shi descendants of Uchiha Madara?" Sai asked.

Ohno. Sasuke let his head drop to the table to wallow in his gloom and regretted. Through his eyelashes, he could see Itachi's face blank in a way that would be a grimace on anyone else. "That...is possible," his brother allowed. Naruto gasped gleefully. Gaara turned to examine Sasuke curiously, mirrored by Sai.

"And then the Shodaime died," Sasuke added quickly, before anyone could ask ifhewas going to go insane too.

"The Shodaime did die," Itachi agreed, "but not before he and his brother, who would become the Nidaime, took a group of promising young shinobi under their tutelage. The Nidaime later sacrificed himself during a mission in the First Shinobi War, before which he famously named one of his students, Sarutobi Hiruzen, as his Successor over another student, Shimura Danzo."

The name drew a round of hisses from the crowd, Sasuke included. Boo. Loser. Sore loser.

"The Sandaime Hokage led Konoha through the rest of the First and the Second Shinobi Wars. In the latter, some of Konoha's shinobi gained great renown - including Orochimaru, Jiraiya, Senju Tsunade, and Hatake Sakumo."

"The White Fang," Gaara said suddenly, reminding them all that he and Temari had grown up on the opposite side of the battlefield from the Konoha crew.

Temari tangled her fingers in his hair. "Yeah, we've heard of him," she agreed wryly. "The captain's father."

"None of them remained heros for long," Itachi continued, and the barely-there noise from rustling clothes stopped abruptly as the pack stilled. "Jiraiya abandoned the war effort for some time before returning, though he did not stay long before he left again, ostensibly to build an intelligence network. Senju Tsunade lost her lover in the war, then her brother, and she too left Konoha. Orochimaru defected after years of unsanctioned human experimentation, after he was passed over for the position of Yondaime Hokage. Hatake Sakumo failed a mission that contributed to the onset of the Third Shinobi War, became the most hated shinobi in the Village and consequently took his own life when his son was six years old."

Sasuke wasdefinitelynot comfortable with hearing about this - this was the captain's personal life more than it was Konohan history. He checked over his shoulder reflexively to make sure the captain wasn't in his room, and caught Haku's eyes when he did the same. Haku grimaced, a flicker of uneasiness mirrored in Sakura's face and amplified in Hinata's.

Itachi was oblivious or more likely ignoring them and hewould not stop. "Namikaze Minato rose to fame in the Third Shinobi War as the Yellow Flash and was named the Yondaime Hokage. He reigned for just a few short years before the Kyuubi's second jinchuuriki lost control of the bijuu, and he died resealing it into Naruto."

Temari didn't volunteer the second jinchuuriki's name. Sasuke didn't blame her.

"Danzo built up a secret sector of Anbu under his own command. After the death of the Yondaime Hokage, the Sandaime resumed the position; Danzo attempted to assassinate him - and his chosen assassin was Hatake Kakashi, student of the Yondaime."

"What?"Sasuke blurted, in unison with Sakura and Temari.

"Quit messin' with us!" Naruto demanded, but none of them really believed that Itachi was lying.

There was thatsomethingin Itachi's expression again, something hard and cold and unfamiliar, and this was feeling less and less like a history lesson and more and more like a trap. "Kakashi-taichou decided not to follow those orders and reported to the Sandaime instead. Sandaime-sama ordered Danzo to shut down his faction. He did not; he merely subsided to wait for an opportunity." His words were clipped, precise. Sai, who always needed to make a real effort to show any emotion, was discomfited enough that he'd forgotten entirely about facial expressions. "The Uchiha Clan had been marginalized after the death of the Yondaime due to Madara's ability to control the Bijuu and suspicions of their involvement in the Kyuubi attack. The Uchiha fostered discontent for many years and ultimately planned a revolt to take over the Village."

Hinata glanced at Neji, her mouth set in a grim line. Haku had gone preternaturally still. Sakura shot a panicked look at Sasuke.

"What?"Sasuke croaked.

Itachi eyes drifted to his dispassionately. "The Uchiha wanted more, and were willing to start a war to attain it. Danzo was convinced that the best course of action would be to eliminate the clan entirely before an attack could happen." He paused. "I was assigned to this mission, but unlike Kakashi-taichou, I did not question my orders. I carried them out."

The orders: eliminate the clan. Itachi -

Carried.

Them.

Out.

Sasuke didn't hear anything after that. There was a strange, high pitched whine cutting through the Itachi's words, words Sasuke couldn't make out, and only when the rest of the pack shot him wide-eyed looks out of the corners of their eyes did Sasuke realize it was him, keening over and over uncontrollably.

"Sensei," Temari spoke up bravely, pulling back her shoulders like she was facing down a threat and glancing towards the door. "Maybe we should - "

"I am not finished," Itachi cut her off, pinning her in place with his eyes and ratcheting up the tension to unbearable heights. He transferred the almost-glare to Gaara when he shifted in place on the verge of wary and agitated, his sand stirring as it responded to his distress.

"You couldn't have killed all the Uchiha," Sasuke said abruptly, his heartbeat roaring in his ears. "I'm still alive." The second the words left his mouth he knew it was a mistake, a weakreason, grasping at straws because no matter what happenedItachi never lied to him.

"If that mission had gone according to plan, you would have been the only survivor," Itachi countered.

"Cousin Risuke came to get me from the Academy yard, to take me away when the Kumo forces attacked," Sasuke argued, desperately ignoring the frigid paralysis creeping its way along his spine. "Everyone was still fine, or else he would have seen. He would have known!"

"No, you were not with Risuke-juukei," Itachi replied, as unmoving and cold as ice, "because I killed Uchiha Risuke twelve minutes before the Sandaime's assassination, eleven minutes before the order to initiate Protocol 73I, and ten minutes before the apparent Kumo incursion. You likely encountered an undercover operative with orders to remove you from the battlezone, per the parameters of my mission."

Sasuke wanted to yell, to throw something at him, shout,Why would you joke about something like this? Do you even care that they're dead?This wasItachi,the perfect shinobi, the perfect son, the perfect brother, and right now Sasuke looked in his eyes and didn't recognize who he saw. Sasuke's traitorous mouth said for him,"Why? Is this some kind of sick joke to you? A test?"

Naruto was scooting away from the table, Sakura inching towards Sasuke, and they flanked him like they did when they were facing an enemy, because - because Itachi was staring them down like they were nothing, likeSasukewas nothing, like he hadn't saved him, trained him, like they didn't share a home, share blood, shareparents. Like he wasn't Itachi's own brother.

Parents…

That he killed?

Sasuke was almost dizzy with the possibility. His vision sharpened and blurred at once, the room sliding in and out of focus. Gaara's sand was hissing in earnest now, murderous intent warring with open uncertainty on his face. Hinata was still as a stone, and Temari's expression had shut down as her eyes tracked Itachi.

"This is not a test," Itachi said evenly, his gaze skating over them all dispassionately. "Those were the orders given to me by a commanding officer; these are facts. They may not be facts you are comfortable hearing, but as shinobi you have no choice but to confront them." He sighed, a slight rise and fall of his shoulders, ignoring the way the entire pack stiffened at the motion. "I will conclude the lesson here for today, as I have duties I must attend to. You may self-study the history of Kirigakure from the books here for the remainder of the evening."

And like he'd finished any old history lesson - like he hadn't just flipped Sasuke's world upside-down, like he hadn't just confessed to killing their entire family - he stood, hooked his mask over his face, and walked out the door.

Sasuke -

Sasuke couldn't breathe.

"What the hell was that?" Temari demanded, sharp but low.

"H-h-he k-killed the e-entire c-clan?" Hinata whispered, Kyuu's calm fleeing her control now that Itachi was gone.

"He was following orders," Sai said slowly, like his thoughts were moving too fast to comprehend.

"Danzo's orders," Neji spoke up, the corners of his mouth pinched in a frown. "He was following Danzo's orders."

"Does the captain know about this?" Sakura's voice was shrill. "He can't - if he did, he wouldn't - "

Wouldn't what? Wouldn't trust the Anbu who admitted to working for the usurper right up to the moment the Fall began? Let a Clan-killer serve with him when Hanabi-ha was delicate and hunted and short of good leaders? Ignore Itachi's crimes because of his talent and his skills?

Wouldn't he?

Naruto was watching him, eyes wide and worried, and for once he had no words at all.

"We must decide our next course of action," Neji said, head tipping a little towards first Hinata and then Sasuke, and Sai turned the same look on Naruto. The two older boys hadn't ever forgotten their original assigned missions to keep the three of them alive, but they'd stepped back a little when Hana-ha picked them up. They were supposed to be with allies here - for Sasuke, with family. They were supposed to be safe.

"I can get us clear of Kirigakure with Choujuu Giga, if necessary," Sai said with obvious reluctance. "The primary concern we need to address is whether we are safe if we stay here." His eyes shifted to Haku, calculating.

Because Haku wasn't like the rest of them; he was Zabuza's first. If the rest of them ran, he wouldn't follow.

Haku didn't acknowledge the scrutiny, continuing to stare contemplatively at the door through which Itachi had vanished. "I might be able to cover for you for a while, if it comes to it," he offered quietly.

Sasuke abruptly realized his Sharingan was active and shut it down, and the room swam back into fuzzy focus as the extra chakra surged back into his system. He couldn't think. He needed tothink. He took a breath that shook, folded everything down neatly like he had when he was bleeding out in the hold of the warship, and settled into the sudden silence of his mind.

"...Karasu-sensei hasn't made any indication that he wants to hurt us," Temari was pointing out. "He's had years of opportunity. And we're not likely to be any safer on our own on the mainland."

"Why would he just tell us this now?" Sakura said. "What's he getting out of this? Why hasn't anyoneelsetold us about this?"

"It...never came up," Sasuke rasped, biting down the hysterical laughter. Hey, little brother, just thought I might inform you - remember how our entire clan died during the Fall? In actuality, they died right before the Fall because they were planning to take over the Village and I killed them all. He'd said it so emotionlessly, like it was any old mission and not his own parents, his aunts and uncles and cousins whose blood he spilled in the streets of their own compound.

Did he even care that hekilled them?

"We need to decide," Temari said doggedly before Sasuke could lose his mind completely. "With Hanabi-ha and Kirigakure. Do we go or do we stay?"

"Go," Sakura said immediately, her voice wavering. "Hehasto have an ulterior motive, even if we don't know what it is yet. I don't want to get caught up in that."

"Stay," voted Naruto. "Senseisavedus in Iwa, and he didn't have to. He taught us and protected us and I don't think he wants to hurt us."

"Go," Neji said firmly. "Just because he has declined the opportunity in the past does not guarantee he will continue to."

"S-stay," countered Hinata. "W-hat he t-told us is t-t-terrible, but h-his m-motive might n-not be m-malicious."

There was a pause. Temari chewed her lip. "I think we should go," she admitted. "At least for a little. Regroup somewhere neutral until we can figure things out."

"I don't know if I get a vote here," said Haku, "but I think you should stay. Winters in Kiri are unforgiving if you strike out alone, and I for one will do my best not to let anything happen to you here." Which was both a lot and not very much.

"Go," said Gaara simply.

"Stay," Sai countered. "I agree that fleeing now will cut us off from a number of resources. Strategically, leaving now will make us unprotected targets hunted by multiple military forces."

The room fell silent again, and Sasuke felt the pack's eyes all turn to him. "Sasuke," Sakura said almost gently, the first time she had used his real name in months. "Sasuke, it's four to four. It's down to your vote."

Sasuke's hands should have been shaking. He should be hyperventilating, he should be near tears, he should be feeling something. Anything. But his hands were rock steady and so was his heart when he said, "We should go."

Packing was hurried and efficient but not panicked - rusty, but well practiced. Temari cracked the front door open, enough to disrupt the seals so Hinata and Neji could see anyone coming, and they all retreated to the pack sleeping quarters to gather their things while Haku ran out to get them travel provisions. They all kept and replenished emergency stashes of food, had since the very beginning and never lost the habit, but not enough for striking out on their own in the middle of winter.

Sasuke packed the new clothes Temari and Naruto and Gaara'd stolen, the extra weapons and holsters he stockpiled, a handful of ration bars and bundles of dried meat, his bone-knife and his katana in its sheath, coils of cord and wire, a gas lighter and a folded handheld lantern. He swung his fur cloak over his shoulders, tucked the bone-mask on over his respirator, and stood.

Temari was still packing, throwing more supplies in her bag because she was stronger and could carry more: whetstones and hair dyes and makeup and extra colored contacts, full canteens and dry rations and a small bottle of shochu as disinfectant, fishhooks and water purification tablets and hygiene kits.

A massive flare of chakra erupted in the distance, and Sasuke's head snapped around towards it, the rest of the pack following suit like pointer hounds.

"Ni?" Temari said sharply, a hand reaching for the massive tessen leaning against the wall.

"The source is out of my range," Neji said, taking off his sunglasses and blinking rapidly, "but it was a large and intense burst. My vision will be restricted for approximately two minutes."

"Same," said Hinata, going back to her packing with no indication of her sudden loss of sight. She took her twin hiogi from her travel pack and tucked them in her belt instead, under her cloak.

"Keep going," Temari said, her voice grim. "Two minutes to departure, assuming Haku gets back before then. Hachi, prep your birds. Ni and Go-chan, plot our course out of here since you're done packing."

Haku whirled back through the door with a sack of provisions in hand, a harried crack in his composure. "There's something going on out there, I'm not sure what, but - " Another wave of chakra rose and crashed, and he stopped abruptly, ducking like there was a physical attack to dodge.

Shisui slammed through the front door and Sasuke flinched violently, the rest of the pack startling into crouches, hands on weapons. "All of you need to stay here, keep the door shut," his cousin ordered, ignoring their obviously half-packed state, Sai's unfinished ink-creature taking shape on the scroll sprawled on the floor, the cloaks and the masks that were a dead giveaway that they intended to run. "Hachi, take this - " he shoved a slip of inked paper into Sai's startled hands, who was closest. "That's a security seal. Activate it after I leave, stayhere,and don't letanyonein until I give you the all-clear. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," Sai said reflexively. "What - "

"No time," Shisui snapped, and this time Sasuke recognized the chakra that surged. Shisui's head whipped towards the door, and Sasuke caught a flicker of worry? Fear? Without another word, Shisui blew back out the door in a blaze of chakra, and it slammed shut behind him.

"That was Itachi," Sasuke rasped into the stunned silence. "That chakra, it was Itachi's."

"Change of plan," Temari said. "Hachi, put that seal up. Everyone else, be on your guard. We're staying put."

They waited. The seals kept out chakra well, but sound less so. A faint, haunting howl split the air as they perched around the edges of the main library room, and that was followed by the barely-audible shriek of a high-powered raiton. Sasuke sat cross-legged with his hands on the katana balanced across his knees and ignored the glances the rest of the pack traded.

The ground rumbled once, then again ten minutes later, the second time hard enough to jar some of the books right off their shelves. They tumbled to the floor and were ignored.

When an hour of silence had passed, Haku distributed some of the rapid-ready ration meals he'd pilfered from the mess - bars of peanut butter encased in cornmeal coatings, strips of fruit leather, cubes of dried meat and potato.

A rattle of the door handle and then rough banging on the door made them all jump after maybe four hours of quiet. Temari had her tessen half-unfurled, Hinata's hiogi all the way, and Sakura had a kunai in each hand. Sai's hands hovered over his scroll, Sasuke's over the hilt of his katana, and Neji drew his tanto in a backhanded grip.

"Hey, brats," growled Zabuza-sensei through the door. "You put up an extra seal in there? This shit's not opening."

Haku rose for the door. Temari made an aborted lunge for him, but Haku got there first. "Zabuza-san, Juu-san instructed us not to open the seal until he returned," he said apologetically, and Temari sank back down warily.

"Yeah, Konoha's down for the count," Zabuza-sensei said, a bite of anger cutting through the weariness in his voice. "Open the door, kid."

Haku hesitated, glancing over his shoulder. Temari set her mouth and nodded. "Zabuza-san, what did you say to me when we first met?"

A pause, "What, about your eyes?"

Haku brushed his chakra through the seal and opened the door.

"Sensei, what happened?" Temari asked as Haku stepped aside to let Zabuza-sensei in.

Zabuza-sensei eyed her, then the rest of the room as Haku shut the door behind them. "Going somewhere?" He didn't wait for a response. "A lot of shit went down. You're all gonna have to hunker down here for the time being."

"Zabuza-san," Haku said, concern creasing his eyes. Sasuke took a closer look - Zabuza was unsteady on his feet, the beginnings of a hearty bruise peeking out from under his collar. His hair was damp, and he smelled of antiseptic and smoke. "Please. What happened?"

Zabuza-sensei slumped against the nearest table as the pack watched warily, and dragged a gloved hand down his face. "Fuck," he muttered to himself. "Fucking...fuck." He visibly pulled himself together, bracing his hands against the edge of the table, and looked them over before his eyes landed on Sasuke.

Sasuke felt the blood drain from his face.

"Itachi went batshit," Zabuza-sensei said mercilessly. "He and fucking Makoto - you don't know him, he's the head of Mei's bodyguard team - they up and tried to kidnap the new Sanbi jinchuuriki."

Sasuke stopped breathing.

"Hatake caught them. Held them down til backup got there, but the fucking fool held back. Itachi put him in a coma - he's not waking up."

No. He wouldn't. Not the captain, Itachi respected himso much.

"Makoto's dead; Higata got him good. Itachi split without the jinchuuriki when Senju showed up, but Konoha's - Konoha's not doin' too great either. Lost a lotta blood and got a whole rack of cracked ribs. He's in Medical, Shizune's working on him while Senju does Hatake."

Sasukehurt. His chest was killing him, his throat too swelled up for him to breathe, and he clawed uselessly at the collar of his shirt. Thiswasn't real. It couldn't be, this was, this had to be training, he got caught in a genjutsu and he just needed to break out. He was keening again, he realized, and Zabuza-sensei was staring at him with confusion and alarm.

"Oh, fuck," Zabuza-sensei said, leaning forward like he wanted to go to Sasuke but not sure what to do. "Fuck, what's wrong with him?" His words faded in and out of Sasuke's hearing. "Shit! Punk, dollface, go fetch fucking - what's-her-name, the medic-nin - Kuri. Now!"

Sai and Neji bolted from the room on the edges of Sasuke's awareness, and he clutched the sides of his head and pressed hard like that might make everythingstop. Zabuza-sensei was suddenly in front of him, trapping either of his wrists in an iron grip and forcing them down. "Hey, none of that," he said gruffly. "Quit, if you know what's good for you. Step back," he snarled over his shoulder at Sakura and Naruto, hovering behind him with concerned etched in their faces. "Give him some fucking room to breathe."

Ha. Breathe.

How the hell was Sasuke supposed to breathe?

Sasuke woke up with dread sitting in a pit in his stomach and he didn't know why. He blinked as his vision blurred and turned his head to the side to see Shisui slumped in the chair next to his - his Medical pallet? His cousin's face was pale and drawn, shadows drawn in dark circles around his eyes. Bandages wrapped his torso under his loose yukata, and clear tubing snaked blood into his arm from the bag that hung on the wall above Sasuke's pallet.

He was asleep, but as Sasuke watched, his eyelashes fluttered and he stirred, awareness flickering back into his eye. "Shi-kun," he grated out, and tilted his face away and coughed a horrible, hacking cough that wracked his body in tremors.

Itachi. Itachi did that to him, Sasuke realized apathetically. He felt...he didn't feel anything about that because the world had gone blessedly, horribly numb and he didn't even care. "Are you okay?" he asked Shisui listlessly.

Shisui huffed an incredulous laugh and stifled another cough. "I'm fine. You collapsed," he added, and shuffled his chair closer to Sasuke's side. Sasuke turned back to face the ceiling.

"Is he gone?" he asked.

Shisui was silent, but Sasuke could feel the trickle of anguish in his chakra. "Yeah," he said. "He's gone."

"Oh," said Sasuke, and closed his eyes again.

In a bizarre turn of events, Zabuza-sensei was sacked out in the chair the next time Sasuke woke up. He blinked, uncomprehending, and tried to climb out of bed.

There was an unexpected needle in his arm that had been pumping something clear into his veins, and it ripped itself out and sent the bag with the fluid crashing to the ground, which disoriented Sasuke as he tripped out of the bed. Zabuza-sensei caught him by the arm before he hit the ground and scowled at him. "Th' fuck d'you think you're doing?" he muttered, heaving him back up with very little effort.

Sasuke thought about that, but it was bizarrely difficult because his mind was foggy and sluggish. "Training," he decided.

Zabuza-sensei snorted. "Yeah, no."

That was...fair. Sasuke didn't know why, though. "Where's..?" Where was...who?

"Konoha's back at base camp, recovering," Zabuza-sensei answered when he trailed off. "Hatake's still in a coma."

Sasuke squinted at him. "Why - ?"

Zabuza-sensei must have gained psychic powers while Sasuke was sleeping, because he said, "Konoha didn't wanna leave you alone. Wouldn't leave here til I told him I'd stay." He rolled his eyes dramatically. "Plus, I'm ducking the shitstorm of Konoha and Kiri Commands. They're all pissed."

Oh. Sasuke considered this. "Can I go back to camp?"

Zabuza surveyed him with narrowed eyes and shrugged. "Fuck it, I don't see why not. Sit tight, let me find a medic-nin to clear you or they'll be on our asses from dawn to dusk." He stumped out of the room, and as Sasuke sat up, he saw the bulge of Kubikiribocho under his cloak.

Sasuke rubbed at the place where the needle had come out of his arm, pinching to watch the blood bead up, letting go and watching it spread and slide down his skin.

"Ah, a bit too eager to get out of here?" said a voice, but the woman's face was neutral despite the concern in her voice. She reached out, and Sasuke let her take his arm and draw a green-glowing finger over the break in his skin. It closed without a whisper, and Kuri wiped away the blood briskly with a clean cloth. She rested a hand on Sasuke's head, careful but impersonal, and her eyes lidded as warm chakra washed over him. She opened her eyes again and the green glow faded. "You're good to go," she said. "Come back if you feel dizzy, faint, or experience changes in hearing or vision."

Sasuke nodded. Zabuza-sensei, leaning in the doorway, stepped through to let her out. "All right, boy," he said. "Mask on, let's roll."

The entire pack was sprawled or perched in the main room of the library, books and paper or weapons and cleaning cloth laid out in front of them, and they all looked up when Sasuke stepped into the room.

"Shi!" Naruto whisper-yelled, which was everyone else's normal talking voice. "You're back!"

They very deliberately weren't crowding him. Sakura grabbed Naruto's arm when he tried to lunge, dragging him back.

"Shi-kun," Temari said, carefully, like she was approaching a feral cat. "It's good to see you."

Sasuke shrugged a shoulder. "Thanks," he said, and went over to sit with Hinata and Haku.

"Are you okay?" asked Haku, hushed enough that only they three could hear.

Sasuke thought about it. "I'm fine," he said, reaching over to pull one of the textbooks closer to him.

And he was.

Sasuke drifted.

Life moved on. Itachi was gone and he left Sasuke behind after bringing his entire world crashing down, but the sun still rose every day and Sasuke hated it a little for that.

But he ate at meals and took notes when Shisui lectured on anatomy and clan etiquette between coughing spells and sparred and drilled with his team on the training grounds. The pack made no more mention of leaving Kirigakure, and Zabuza-sensei and Shisui never brought up their interrupted attempt either.

The Konoha and Kiri delegations settled back into their uneasy alliance after the double betrayal. Temari and Haku led pack training exercises more often than not now, since Shisui and Zabuza-sensei were frequently absent, trying to fill the gaps left by Itachi and the comatose captain.

"I'm surprised they never moved him to the hospital," Shisui said during a rare dinner where all - all eleven of them, now - were gathered together. "Hana-ha's medical ward is only really supposed to support short-term injuries."

Zabuza rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'm not. The hospital's shit. The death rate's so high the in-building morgue's always overcrowded. There's a private morgue down the street that sends 'em gift baskets on the holidays because they get so many bodies from the overflow."

"Ah," said Shisui after an appalled pause. "So that's why Tsunade-sama really doesn't want her medic-nin in there."

"But why not?" Sakura piped up. "If they need a lot of help, shouldn't we give it to them?"

"That's sweet of you, Go-chan," said Shisui, ignoring the way Zabuza raised a sardonic eyebrow. "But our iryou-nin are already under a lot of stress and our medical ward's very understaffed. Adding on that kind of environment isn't healthy." He saw Sakura's expression and relented. "Tsunade-samaiswilling to help, just on her own terms and without endangering the medics."

"I-is the c-captain getting b-better, t-though?" Hinata asked timidly. "I-I mean, a-almost t-two w-weeks have p-passed s-s-since…" she trailed off.

"Tsunade-sama has been working on him a little bit every day," Shisui said, his voice light. "She's optimistic, but she's never dealt with damage from a - a genjutsu that severe. She thinks he'll wake soon."

The door opened just as he finished the sentence. The entire pack ducked at once. Shisui's leopard-mask appeared on his face in a blink as Sasuke dove automatically for his own mask, nearly crashing into Sai as he did the same.

"Maa," said the captain, shutting the door behind him, tall and not-quite leaning on the hound at his side but still carrying himself with confidence. "My ears were burning."

Shisui was instantly on his feet, hooking his mask up to the top of his head. "Taichou! You're awake!"

"Apparently," the captain agreed, dropping a hand to Urushi's shoulder for support as he lowered himself to sit.

"Are you even cleared to leave Medical?" Shisui demanded suspiciously.

"I'm on leave," the captain not-answered.

Zabuza hooked an extra bowl over to him with his chopsticks but otherwise didn't acknowledge him.

Temari breathed a silent sigh of relief. Sasuke lowered his mask slowly to his belt and picked up his bowl again.

That was one more piece back in place.

Sasuke's world turned a little differently now. In the morning, when Sasuke padded alongside Naruto into the main room, only half-listening to his chatter, the captain was leaning up against one of the tables, a handful of reports in one hand and a stack beside him. Urushi was curled under the table, his great muzzle resting on his forelegs and golden eyes watching the room alertly. Haku's rabbit was tucked between his chest and his neck, apparently asleep.

Sasuke ducked his head in a greeting, reaching over to grip the back of Naruto's head to force him to do the same. Naruto let him do it without complaint, the stream of words coming from his mouth not even faltering. He didn't expect a response beyond a silent wave, but the captain said, "Good morning," as casual as anything.

Sasuke froze. Naruto shut his mouth with a clack. "Uh," said Naruto intelligently. They both glanced at the captain furtively.

"Do you mind getting the others?" the captain asked, scribbling on the top page of his report and setting it down on the table next to him. He glanced up and gave them a reassuring eye-crinkle.

Was that...an order? That sounded like an order. "Yes, sir," said Sasuke, and turned on his heel, leaving Naruto gaping behind him.

Gaara was awake, swinging his heels on Hinata's bunk next to her, but most everyone else was still asleep. The two of them watched him curiously as he came back in. Sasuke jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Taichou wants us all outside," he said.

Gaara's eyes widened in curiosity, and his exchanged a glance with Hinata's covered eyes. Gaara reached around and down to pat at Temari's ankle and she came awake with a sharp intake of breath and sat up. "Otouto?"

"Captain," Gaara explained. "Wants us all outside."

Temari muffled a groan, sliding out of her bunk. "Hey!" she called, clapping her hands once. "Front and center, everyone, we've been summoned."

Sakura growled her way free of her blankets, and Haku tipped himself out of his bunk to land on the floor lightly. "This is unusual," he observed, as Neji emerged rumpled, the bandana on his forehead askew to reveal the edges of the seal on his forehead before he pulled it down again.

"Is it Zabuza-sensei?" Sakura asked, glowering at the room at large.

"It's the captain," Sasuke answered.

Neji straightened his shirt self-consciously and ran a hand through his hair. "We should not keep him waiting."

The captain hadn't moved in the few minutes Sasuke'd been gone, but Naruto was now crouched by the table next to him, one hand buried in Urushi's thick pelt as ninken and summoner alike ignored him. "Ah," said the captain as they all filed in, as if mildly surprised at their appearance. "Good morning." He received more or less the same response as when he'd tried that on Sasuke and Naruto - confusion and mumbled greetings, plus a coherent, "Good morning," from Haku.

"I'll cut to the chase," the captain said, setting the rest of his paperwork to the side. "There's going to be a couple changes from now on - for one, I'll be adding myself to your teaching rotation, because Shisui and Zabuza don't have the time or energy to do it all themselves." And because your third sensei defected and therefore will no longer be teaching. "I have at least a week of medical leave. I'll use part of that to revamp your training schedule - I understand Shisui started organizing one before it was disrupted."

"Hai," Temari agreed, lifting her chin a little. "We're self-studying where we can."

The captain nodded absent acknowledgement. "All of you," he said. "It's time to think of what you want to specialize in. You aren't going to have a lot of supervised training, so having a focus will be especially important. If you were Shirei-bu genin teams in Konoha, you'd have a jounin sensei for eight hours a day, five days a week. Given the nature of the situation, it will be rare that you have four hours a day of direct instruction from myself, Shisui, or Zabuza. The rest will be up to you."

That was fine. The pack was good with keeping up their own training.

Sakura put up her hand. "Are you really going to teach us what we want to learn?"

"What we teach you will be a combination of your own personal preference and concentrations we feel are vital for you to know," the captain answered easily. "I want a list of your opinions by tonight - and don't write it based on what skills you think we know or just what you already know, but what skills you want to learn. By tomorrow morning, I'll discuss with your other sensei and announce the schedule."

"I'm gonna go for ninjutsu," Naruto said, a gleam in his eye, when the captain had sort of released them to do their own thing. "Super strong ninjutsu, like the Raijuu! What 'bout you, Shi?"

"Kenjutsu," Sasuke said after a pause. "Maybe genjutsu, maybe ninjutsu. I don't know." Those were Itachi things, but Sasuke couldn't think of anything else he'd want to do. That now-familiar wave of grief and panic rose, and so Sasuke locked away his Itachi thoughts and brought his breathing back under control between one breath and the next.

"I'mgoing to put down iryojutsu," Sakura announced. "So I can patch you losers up when you're being idiots. Not that you'd be an idiot, Shi-kun," she added sweetly.

Naruto sputtered, outraged. "What's that supposed to mean, Gogo-chan, huh?"

"Think this goes for book learning too?" he added absently, ignoring the brewing fight at his back.

"'This', what?" Sakura asked, momentarily derailed from needling Naruto.

"Do we pick a subject we like?" He smoothed down the cover of the old geography textbook on the desk next to him. He didn't think much of geography, but something like chakra theory? He could see himself spending extra time on something important like that.

"He didn't specify," Sakura noted. "Maybe pick a couple just in case. I'd pick anatomy, but maybe that's already a little too similar to iryojutsu?"

Naruto dropped his head to the table with a clunk, muffling his groan. "I don't wanna read books," he complained. "Can't we just learn how to hit people?"

Sasuke snorted. "How're you going to read mission orders if you can't even read?" Sakura pointed out. "Or write them?"

"Can't you just do it for me?" Naruto whined halfheartedly, rolling his head to the side to eye the textbook balefully. Sakura laughed at him.

"Shi," the captain said in a way that was probably supposed to be casual but still got the entire pack to look his way. He tipped his head over towards the kitchenette.

"Be right back," Sasuke muttered.

Sakura made a skeptical noise but waved him on, catching Naruto with a hand over his mouth with ease before the questions could start spilling out.

Sasuke preceded the captain into the kitchenette, retreating as far back as he could go and leaning up with his back against the sink. The captain closed the door behind him and Sasuke stiffened instinctively before forcing himself to relax again. A seal papered against the back of the door lit up with a brush of chakra, and the captain turned to look at him, slouched against the fridge with his hands in his pockets.

Sasuke recognized the way the captain was looking at him - wariness and calculation mixed with familiarity and regret. Shisui looked at him like that too, now, before he caught himself. "I remind you of him," Sasuke accused, too tired to be anything but blunt.

The captain didn't react at first, one dark eye fixed on Sasuke's face until Sasuke scowled. "Yes," the captain said, and that felt like a condemnation "You do." He exhaled a silent sigh. "You're almost the same age he was when he first joined my Anbu team."

Sasuke didn't speak. There was nothing for him to say. His fist had clenched; forcibly, he pried his fingers apart and let it go limp.

"I trusted him, even though I've been betrayed before," the captain admitted, and the words twisted a little at Sasuke's throat, like Sasuke'd been the one to do it and not Itachi. "I wanted to trust him, but - " he paused wryly. "Well, that didn't matter, in the end." He turned away, towards the treeline. "You're not him. You're your own person, and I'll try to remember that."

Empty words. They rattled in the air between them before falling away uselessly. Sasuke shrugged and asked, as if observing from far away "Do you hate him?"

The captain didn't move, but suddenly he seemed to Sasuke's eyes much older and wearier. "No," he said. "I don't think I could if I tried."

"Cousin said Itachi put you in a genjutsu, and that's why you wouldn't wake up for half a month," Sasuke said, and the captain dipped his head in confirmation. "What did he show you?" The captain was silent, and Sasuke quickly amended. "Sorry. I was just - "

"No, it's all right," the captain said, thoughtful. "It's relevant, actually. He showed me my life. A thousand iterations, from the day before the Fall until the day he...left, if I lived that long." He shook his head. "Most of my real memories I can tell from the false, but from the Mizukage's assassination onwards, it becomes muddied - especially during and after the two weeks we spent on the mainland. Sometimes, he kills me then; sometimes he saves my life. Sometimes he tells me his intentions to betray Hanabi-ha, sometimes he tells me he's going undercover to save it. Sometimes nothing extraordinary happens." He was watching Sasuke as he said it, almost expectant.

Sasuke frowned, his eyes drifting to the side as he thought. "You think he told you something, then, about what he's doing now," he realized, gaze snapping back to the captain's face. "You think that's why he tried to hide your memories."

"Correct," the captain agreed. "Likely something that seemed innocuous at the time. You spent time together when we returned. Did he say anything out of the ordinary, that you can recall?"

It was strangely easy to think about Itachi now. Sasuke dredged up the memories that already seemed faded and grey and combed through them clinically. "I can tell you everything I remember," he said. "I don't know what's important and what's not."

"Good," said the captain. "That's what I need."

Someone knocked on the door when Sasuke was just about out of words. He stopped and rolled shoulders he hadn't realized were tense as the captain turned to open the door.

"Nara wants us," Zabuza-sensei said, leaning around the door to squint at first the captain, then Sasuke. "Ten minutes, HQ."

"Copy that," said the captain. He gave Sasuke a nod. "Take a break," he said. "You - did well."

Zabuza-sensei stared after him in bemusement as the captain retreated, then looked at Sasuke. "The fuck you do to him?"

Sasuke licked his lips and shrugged.

"Well," said Zabuza-sensei. "Okay. Whatever. Off you toddle. I got a fucking paper-pushing session to get to and you're in the way of me and some fucking oatmeal before that happens."

Sasuke sidled out the doorway. Afternoon sent a faint glow through the paper over the windows, and the main room was abandoned except for Sai and Hinata poring over the same book at one of the center tables. He ducked into the pack sleeping quarters, where most of the others were sprawled out in their bunks, and slid down against the wall to sit on the floor.

There was an itch under his skin, and Sasuke wanted nothing more than to follow it outside, run until the icy wind numbed him head to toe, but he couldn't do that, and he especially couldn't do that alone. He jerked to his feet, pacing over to where Neji sat at the far end of his bunk, reading something with just as many mathematical symbols as kana.

"Hey," said Sasuke, flicking Neji's mask at him. "Come out to the training ground with me."

"Were you never taught manners?" was Neji's acrid response, but he brushed the mask aside and slid out of his bunk anyways. He slung the harness for his tanto over his head, slid his sunglasses over his eyes and jerked his head towards the door.

It wasn't snowing, but the ground was frozen beneath their feet and the clouds gave the sky an eerie silver cast. Sasuke's itch to run had turned into a different kind of impulse, and he split off from Neji as soon as they hit the training ground to find something to burn. Neji ignored him in turn, drawing his tanto and settling into a slow kata as Sasuke dumped an armful of wood onto a patch of bare ground and went back for more.

When the firewood pile was about knee-high, Sasuke reached for his chakra, muttered, "Katon: Goukakyuu no jutsu," and spat a massive fireball that set it ablaze in a billow of smoke. Shisui's katon tended towards pale gold, nearly the same color as his raiton, while Itachi's had been crimson with white-hot cores hidden beneath the surface. Sasuke's didn't have that kind of character yet, but he watched the red-orange flames dance and spark and wondered what kind of fire would be his hallmark.

The fire wasn't big enough, he realized, and turned back to the woods. He found a fallen tree, broke off massive branches to drag back and throw on top, and it wasn't until he was on his fifth trip that he realized he was building a funeral pyre. He stopped dead where he was, huffed out a silent laugh that turned white in the air in front of him.

His breath caught and then it was a sob and not a laugh, and he clutched hard at his temples and dropped to his knees next to his latest load of dead wood for the empty pyre for his dead family. What the hell was wrong with him? He was on the edge of hysteria, he recognized that in the rational side of his brain that watched what he was doing with clear detachment. His family was three years dead and gone and he knew that already for all three of those years, sowhy was this happening now?

Sakura'd seen her parents murdered right in front of her. Haku killed his own father after the man killed his mother. Sasuke hadn't even had to watch his family die and those two were both fine sowhy wasn't he? He was really, actually crying now, forsome reason,the air escaping from his throat in soft whimpers as he dug his fingers into icy mud. He jerked his arm up, twisted his head to sink his teeth into his leather bracer, held his breath to quell the sounds spilling out of him, and shook silently against the ground.

He was lightheaded, dizzy, his jaw clenched so hard it creaked. If he could just stop - stop thinking about them, about it, if he could just get his breathing under control -

Slow exhale, inhale, hold until he couldn't hold it any longer. Slow exhale, inhale, hold, repeat. Again and again until his breath didn't shake and his eyes stopped watering and everything wasfineas long as his mind stayed blank. He sat up on his heels slowly, pried his teeth out of his bracer. He wiped the damp off his face with his sleeve, took one more deep breath and stood.

Sasuke didn't know how long he'd been gone, but when he got back to the fire it was still roaring high though Neji was now standing before the bonfire with his tanto sheathed and hands clasped behind his back. He made no comment as Sasuke heaved the branch onto the blaze and watched the shower of sparks erupt.

Sasuke brushed the bark and mud off his hands. They weren't shaking anymore.

"Did you know how my father died?" Neji asked out of the blue.

Sasuke scowled at the fire and didn't answer. Neji didn't talk about his father, ever. The timing was suspicious.

"When I was four, the clan heir was kidnapped. Her father killed the kidnapper, Kumo'sshinobigashira,and Kumo demanded his head as recompense." He smiled, a small, bitter thing that tainted his voice the next time he spoke. "Fortunately, the clan head had a twin, who was killed in his place. The peace between Konoha and Kumo was preserved, the slave-seal meant Kumo would not discover the secrets of the Byakugan, and the Hyuuga clan head kept his head." It was Sasuke's turn to look at him, and Neji's turn to stare into the fire. "My father was killed for all of that," he said. "And all that was because of Hinata-sama."

One minute, then two, when all the sound between them was the crackle of the flames. "That's why you hate her," Sasuke observed distantly, turning his eyes back to the pyre. Maybe he should feel something - horror, sympathy, pity? But he was hollow.

"I do not hate her," Neji corrected after a pause. "I did, for a long time. But a bird cannot help the color of the feathers it is hatched with. She would always have been born my superior, and I her subordinate." Light glinted off the metal plate of his hitai-ate as he clasped his hands in front of him. "She is not my enemy. We both have far greater enemies, and I will not waste my energy shirking my duty."

Was that Neji's grand message? Don't hate Itachi? But Itachi wasn't an innocent party in any way.

"Regardless of my feelings for Hinata-sama," said Neji, oblivious or ignoring Sasuke's rising impatience, "I still grieve my father." Oh. This was Neji trying tobig brotherhim. Well, guess what? Sasuke already had a big brother, and he was a mass murderer! AnIchizokugoroshi- a Clan-Killer.

"My point," Neji said, clearly glaring despite his covered eyes, "is that death is normal for shinobi, but so is mourning. It does not last just one day or one year or a dozen. It is not limited by time. Everyone mourns differently. There is no shame in it. Just do not let it affect your work as a shinobi," he added as an afterthought.

"Sure," said Sasuke. He wasn't thinking about it now, so it wasn't a problem - and as long he didn't think about it, it wouldn't be a problem. That sounded like a pretty well practiced speech, though. "My cousin tell you that?"

Neji gave him a funny look. "No," he said. "Your brother told me that."

"I have cooking duty," said Neji the next morning, rattling a handful of coins from their communal funds in his general direction. "Come with me. I require assistance transporting purchases back to base camp."

Sasuke put down the kunai he was oiling and gave him a droll look. "You just want me to carry your bags for you, don't you?" Neji huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, and Sasuke grimaced, sliding the kunai back until his spare holster and slinging his katana over his shoulder. "Fine, let's go."

The bottom of Sasuke's face was covered by his respirator. The top of Neji's face was covered by his bandana and sunglasses. They had one uncovered face between the two of them, but Kirigakure was a ninja village so they didn't get so much as a second glance.

"What're you cooking today?" Sasuke asked, sliding out of the way of a mule-drawn cart. It was late enough in the morning that the streets were crowded with both civilians and shinobi. He watched them under his eyelashes as they passed.

"Miso soup," Neji said distractedly, eyeing the grocery across the street. "Steamed rice. Steamed takenoko. Tsukemono salad. Grilled fish, I have not decided which at this time."

"Painfully traditional," Sasuke noted dryly.

"There is nothing wrong with traditional fare," Neji retorted. "It will be filling as long as we make enough, and we have enough ingredients that we only need to purchase fish and takenoko."

"Fine, it's efficient," Sasuke muttered under his breath.

"Go is on dinner duty and requested additional ingredients," added Neji, leaning over to inspect a carrot.

Oh, no. "What's she trying to make?" Sasuke asked suspiciously.

Neji gave him a look of commiseration. "Tempura and ramen."

So the tempura would be undercooked and the ramen would be overcooked. Sasuke sighed.

"She will not improve if she does not practice," Neji said grimly, and went to go pay for his carrots.

Practicing was fine. Sasuke just didn't want to have to eat it if there was a risk of food poisoning.

Across the street, there was a fish market. The fish weren't alive, but since it was winter and below freezing, they were as close to fresh as they could get this far from the coast. He glanced over his shoulder but Neji was still busy with the grocer, so he crossed over by himself.

"Morning," said the shopkeeper, eyeing him disinterestedly.

Sasuke nodded in greeting, giving the fish a cursory glance. He pointed at the crate of fish lined up on the ice at the far edge of the stall and raised an eyebrow.

"Saury from the northern coast. Five kilos is a hundred ryou," the shopkeeper answered, squinting at him a little closer now that he appeared to be a paying customer.

"We'll take ten kilograms," Neji said, coming up behind Sasuke. He handed Sasuke his bag of carrots and reached for his wallet.

"You could at least help," Sasuke complained, two stores later when he had four bags slung over his shoulder and Neji had a serene zero.

"That is your job," said Neji, unconcerned. "Today, I choose, you carry."

Ugh. Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Hurry up."

"Be patient," Neji muttered. "Go still wants okra and potatoes."

There was a small, open-air produce stand at the western edge of the city that had some pretty good potatoes the last time Sasuke'd swung around. They could head over there -

"You there."

Neji's jaw clenched. Sasuke shot a glance at him because that was an entitled high-caste voice if he knew one, one with authority, one that expected to be obeyed, and one that was clearly directed at the two of them. The guy and his companion were wearing standard flak jackets, and Sasuke didn't know where he stood on the Village totem but it definitely wasn't below Sasuke so he said, "Sir," in the least aggressive way he could manage. He wasn't super successful.

"Sir," said Neji in a much more neutral tone.

The Kiri shinobi were watching them with detached interest. The shinobi jerked his head in a summons, and Neji stepped closer. Reluctantly, Sasuke shadowed him. "Do you recognize him, Umeko-chan?" the shinobi said, staring right at Sasuke. Sasuke narrowed his eyes at them both.

They were around the captain's age. The kunoichi wearing a dress, long, flowing skirt parted in the middle over a shorter, tighter one, the kind Sakura would probably drool over: that told Sasuke she was rich enough to afford clothes like that and competent enough that they wouldn't hinder her. The shinobi was wearing the regulation uniform, the cloth worn but fine.

The kunoichi didn't look anywhere near as snobbish as her companion despite her clothes. "No, Mitsuhide," she said patiently. "He doesn't. Please stop pulling every genin you see off the streets to ask me that." She smiled at them dismissively. "You can go."

"No, wait," Mitsuhide said, holding out his arm to block their path. "Look again, Umeko-chan, you didn't look."

Umeko sighed, crossed her arms over her flak jacket, and gave Sasuke a resigned glance. "On the Hoteimaru, in the harbour, no?" she suggested.

"See? The little rat does look familiar," the shinobi mused, looking over Sasuke like he was a particularly interesting insect. "It's...nice...to see you survived the war," he said in a tone that implied anything but. "I suppose your team did not?"

Sasuke breathed through the anger that raged wild through his veins even though he knew Sakura and Naruto were perfectly fine. His hands were shaking, and he knew he couldn't reach his katana before the shinobi got to him but he itched to try. Neji's hand closed on his wrist, firm and warning.

"Please excuse us," Neji interjected, with a slight dip of his head. "We are expected to report for training - "

"I don't think so," said Mitsuhide. Sasuke's lips peeled back in a silent snarl. "I didn't dismiss you, genin. Know your place."

"Mitsuhide," Umeko amondished, rolling her eyes.

"He did tell youpolitely,"Sasuke spat, even as Neji's grip on him tightened to painful, "or were you too - "

A whirl of a white-furred cloak filled his vision and the detached part of Sasuke's brain noted that once again, Shisui had perfect timing, and then that he must be getting tired of having to bail Sasuke out of tight corners. He wore a mask Sasuke hadn't seen before, curving over his left eyebrow and covering his empty right eye and most of his nose before cutting diagonally across his cheek to his jawline, as well as a furred cloak thrown over his left pauldron. Sasuke could see the edges of the leopard-mask between the cloak and the pauldron, the seals etched in the porcelain glowing faintly with chakra. "Leave them," Shisui ordered, without a single glance for Neji or Sasuke. "They have not provoked you, and they are needed elsewhere. Be on your way."

Mitsuhide's lip curled. "Who are you?"

Shisui looked at him, flat, and said, "I guarantee that I outrank you."

"I am Mitsuhide, jounin of the Makanai Clan," said Mitsuhide as Umeko closed her eyes briefly behind him. "Tell me your name."

"Kita no Juuta," Shisui said, icy as the north he'd named himself for. "Jounin in the Hana Division. But I hear your people called me Yukihyou."

Mitsuhide's face didn't change, but Sasuke got the impression that the naked arrogance had faded into wariness at the name. "You can't be from the high caste," he said, still defiant. "So you don't outrank me."

Shisui tilted his head up to stare him down. "You mainislanders with your blood purity delusions of superiority," he mused, blunt, almost deliberately provoking. "You who would keep slaves of your own comrades; I'll never understand it." He leaned in a little closer. "Perhaps you didn't get the briefing. I am Hana Division. These genin are Hana Division. We answer to our commander; we don't interfere with you and you all don't interfere with us. We are outside whatever authority you believe your blood grants you."

"Aa, Hana Division. Understood," Umeko interrupted before her friend could dig himself deeper. She put a hand on Mitsuhide's shoulder, ignoring his ire. "Well met, Juuta of the North. We won't disrupt you any longer. Mitsuhide, come."

Sasuke watched them go and let out a quiet breath, the air hissing out between his teeth as he wrestled his anger under control. "Sorry," he said to Shisui when he could talk without biting his head off.

"It's not just you," Shisui said reassuringly, relaxing as the Kiri jounin drifted out of his sight. "Most of Hana-ha has been staying away from the rest of the village since we've got living quarters and training grounds earmarked, but we still have shinobi who've gone into the city now and then, especially since we're starting to take missions. Hostilities between the loyalists and the Hanran are still high and our shinobi don't look high caste. We've got squad leaders and the other captains putting out fires left and right."

"I wish you would control your temper," Neji muttered, shooting Sasuke a glare. "You make us more enemies when you allow yourself to be provoked.

"That is true," Shisui agreed without accusation. "Peace is unfamiliar now. Shinobi on both sides are still looking for fights."

Sasuke simmered, but neither of them were wrong. "What's with 'Kita no Juuta'?" he asked instead. "That's new."

Shisui shrugged. "Trying to establish a shinobi cover. Even Ao has yet to recognize me, and spending less time in full Anbu uniform is less conspicuous." He surveyed them both. "Well, you have the rest of the day off so you don't actually have training to report to, but I don't recommend you stay around town. If you're picking up groceries, get them now while I'm still free and we'll all get out of here. Sound good?"

Neji, of the pack, wasn't one of the ones who needed supervision cooking, so when they got back to their library, Sasuke dumped his bags in the kitchenette and abandoned him. Shisui'd split as soon as they walked through the door, spreading out on one of the tables in the main room with a frankly alarming number of documents.

Sai and Sakura were also at one of the tables, bracketing Naruto on either side. "If it can't divide, then you have to look at the next digit over," Sakura was saying grimly.

Naruto groaned burying his head in his arms. "But why?" he demanded desperately. "Then the numbers are bigger!"

"You cannot force a larger number into a smaller number," Sai explained patiently. "Therefore, you must make the number that is to be divided larger."

Naruto made a noise of helpless frustration. Yeah, Sasuke didn't want to be part of that, so he swung around into the pack's sleeping quarters.

Temari had her battle fan spread out on the floor, taking up nearly the entire room. "Sorry," she said without any actual remorse. A pot of melted wax sat beside her, and as Sasuke edged around her, she brushed it over the stiff canvas. The elaborate painted design in hues of blue centered around a stylized cyclone, silver where the rest of the canvas was midnight blue. It was the Senpuu Clan symbol, apparently, and not even Temari was shameless enough to paint over a stolen clan heirloom.

"Again?" Sasuke asked, wrinkling his nose at the smell as he settled on the edge of his bunk.

"That was the other side," Temari said absently, leaning over to smooth the wax in with her bare hands. "For canvas tessen like these, you only need to renew the wax every year or so, but Kiri's extra wet so I figured a touch up couldn't hurt. Hey!" she yelped, as a ball of fur bounded across the room, dangerously close to the pot of wax.

A second streak of fur, golden-white, blurred past in a pounce, and Shiba straightened with a doggy grin and Haku's rabbit in his mouth, tail wagging. Temari eyed him warily. "Don't eat that," she warned. "Haku would be upset."

Shiba chuffed a laugh, eyes dancing playfully. Haku's rabbit hung in his mouth, docile.

"C-could you b-bring it up h-here, S-Shiba-san?" Hinata asked from the top bunk. She didn't need to do the same kind of maintenance on her hiogi. Her fans were wire and slats of bone, nothing more. "O-or, i-if it's t-too much t-trouble - ah." She cut off abruptly as the hound made a flying leap to where she was. "T-thank you."

Sasuke unsheathed his katana, reaching for an oiling cloth. Downtime was weird and made him restless. There'd always been another meal to hunt or prepare for, another rotation of guard duty when he wasn't sleeping, another session of training stolen between moment of sleeping and action. Having an entire day off where he didn't have to do any of that, or worry about starving or being attacked, was very, very strange. "Where's Ichi?" he asked.

"Out," she said, leaning back to stretch out. "Shichi was feeling restless, so they went to go stretch their legs."

Gaara did? In the cold? Maybe the bijuu was stirring again. It was just as sluggish as its jinchuuriki was in the winter, but still foul-tempered and just about the only thing that could make Gaara do what Gaara didn't want to do.

Hinata leaned down over the edge of her bunk, and Shiba poked his muzzle over as well, upside down.
"A-ano," she said, holding out the rabbit. "W-would you l-like to h-hold h-him?"

Not particularly. But he hesitated too long. Hinata gripped the edge of the makeshift bed frame with one hand, the rabbit tucked close to her chest with the other, and swung down into the bunk with him. "H-here," she said, and pressed the tiny creature into his hands.

Sasuke strangled his groan because making Hinata cry was cardinal sin number one in the pack, and the reason Neji either spent hours discreetly glowering at or was that offender. "Thanks," he muttered grudgingly.

Hinata had cloth wound over her eyes, but she tilted her face towards him expectantly. Sasuke looked at her and then down at the rabbit and then up at her again. "It's...warm," he tried.

Hinata beamed. She settled on the pile of his futon and blankets in the corner, pulled out a pair of senbon and a skein of yarn, and started doing...something.

Sasuke grimaced. Clearly, he wasn't going to be able to give the rabbit back to her. He didn't want to drop it over the edge of the bunk either, because he was one up off the ground and the thing looked kind of breakable.

Temari smirked at him and made absolutely no move to help.

Sasuke scowled at her and kept the rabbit, cupping it in one hand and maneuvering his katana back in its sheath with the other hand. It was all right, he guessed. The rabbit wasn't pissing on him or trying to bite him or anything, so he guessed it could stay. Even if it was stopping him from cleaning his sword.

Neji appeared in the doorway. "Food," he announced. He gave Sasuke and the rabbit a weird look.

Shiba gave a high pitched yip of excitement and launched himself off the top bunk. Neji ducked and whirled as the ninken landed behind him. "Donot!"he snapped, vanishing after the hound.

In general, the captain's ninken didn't make very good teachers because they didn't know much about human history or culture or politics or weapons. They were dogs. They didn't care.

They were, however, capable of running physical exercises, which is what happened after the entire pack but mostly Naruto got tired of doing nothing and being forbidden from spray painting hideous faces on random buildings in town.

"Again," drawled Pakkun, from his usual perch on Bull's head.

Naruto snarled under his breath, crouched on the balls of his feet with one hand braced against the snow and the other clutching a kunai.

Sasuke agreed. Uhei was a speedy little rat and he would not. hold. still.

Sakura blew her bangs out of her face. "Shi," she said without taking her eyes off the hound. "What's the play?"

Sasuke narrowed his eyes at the bell hanging from a strip of ribbon in Uhei's jaws. The ninken shook his head playfully to make it jangle and sat. And waited. And yawned, snapping his jaws to catch the strap before the bell could hit the ground.

"Gah," said Naruto, vibrating in rage and desire.

"He's too fast for us to catch by chasing him," Sasuke said. Sakura huffed disgusted agreement. "We need to limit his mobility. You have wire on you?"

"'Course," said Sakura, digging in her back pouch with one hand. "We're going to need - "

"A herder," Sasuke agreed, turning to Naruto.

"Uhh," said Naruto.

"Make a bunch of bunshin. Keep him from leaving the area," Sasuke clarified.

"Oh, yeah! I can do that," said Naruto, beaming. He crouched up on his haunches, giving Uhei a predatory stare. Uhei was not impressed.

"We'll trade off?" suggested Sakura to Sasuke. "He can't dodge if he's airborne."

Sasuke nodded. "Get in position, Roku." He waved vaguely in Uhei's direction, hoping Naruto hadn't forgotten what to do in the past thirty seconds.

"Ganbatte!" Naruto said cheerfully with just a few too many teeth, and scampered off. Uhei turned to keep him in his line of view, curious but unconcerned, and gummed at the bell.

"Do you want first swing? Sakura offered, looping wire around the handle of her kunai with practiced movements.

Sasuke jerked his head at her to go ahead, drawing a kunai in each of his hands. "Get ready," he ordered. They only needed one good hit.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Naruto roared from the other side of the field, and both their heads snapped up as copies of their teammate exploded across the training grounds in a spray of snow.

"Gods damn it, Roku!" Sakura growled under her breath as she fumbled the knot in her wire. "Can't you wait for likefive secondsuntil we're actually ready?"

Sasuke shot past her, winding up and hurling one of his kunai as he sprinted, but Uhei leapt out of the way gracefully, weaving in and out of Naruto's bunshin.

Naruto yelped as the kunai caught one of his bunshin in the middle of the forehead. "Quit the friendly fire!" he hollered. "Just cuz that's not me don't mean it don't hurt!"

Frankly, better the bunshin than Sasuke. Maybe if Naruto learned to dodge better, his clones wouldn't get hit either.

Sakura's kunai hissed through the throng of clones, who shrieked and windmilled out of the way as it passed. Uhei ducked, slinking low to the ground, and vaulted up off a clone. He collided paws-first with a second, who sputtered and dissipated under the onslaught. Sakura hurled a second kunai that hissed just under Uhei's legs as the hound twisted, and Sasuke joined the edges of the crowd of clones.

Living with the wolves meant he knew a henge would be useless against the hound so he didn't bother, just added his kunai barrage to Sakura's assault. Sakura yanked on her wired kunai with a shout, and Uhei yipped in alarm as the kunai flew back towards him again -

- and missed, when Uhei executed a tight flip off the back of a clone and landed in the thick of another group.

Sasuke gritted his teeth, drawing another kunai and a length of wire. Too many clones. "Dispel!" he shouted, hoping Naruto would get the message and not think he was in a genjutsu.

Fortunately, Naruto's bunshin exploded en masse into clouds of smoke, blanketing the snow. Sasuke charged in blindly, hurling the kunai towards where Uhei had been. The blade swung around in an arc as he tugged the wire, and Uhei's silhouette swerved as the wire cut off his path of egress.

Sakura darted around, launching yet another kunai from the distance, and the ninken pivoted on a single paw, only barely avoiding it.

"Ha!" cried Naruto, snatching the kunai from the air and hurling it again. The hound hopped out of the way, almost insultingly languid, and straight into Sasuke's path as he charged.

Sasuke grabbed the hound in a full body tackle. "Gotcha," he grunted, wrestling all of Uhei's long, flailing limbs down. Uhei let out a whine of surrender, and Sasuke got an arm free to grab for the bell, mindful of the ninken's snapping teeth.

The bell wasn't there.

"What," he sputtered, and Uhei took advantage of his distraction to wriggle free. The ninken ambled three meters to the right as Sasuke and Naruto watched, dumbfounded, and dipped his head down to pick up the bell, where it had dropped in the chaos.

In the distance, Sakura made an inarticulate noise of frustration and rage.

"Nice try, kids," said Pakkun dryly, examining the pad of his paw. "Ten minute break, then we'll go again."

Sasuke took a deep breath and went to yank his misfired kunai out of the trees.

Naruto liked to sleep in, but he also needed much less sleep than anybody else besides Gaara. This meant that given the chance, Naruto would sleep past noon on some days, but on others would also wake up at unreasonable hours and expect everyone else to feel the same way he did.

"Let's go to town," he suggested, popping his head up over the edge of Sasuke's bunk. When Sasuke didn't give him the desired response - attention - he repeated in a much louder voice, "Let's go to town!"

"Argh," said Sasuke, and jammed his pillow over his head.

"Shhh!" Sakura hissed from her top bunk. It was too early for even morning warm-ups.

"Come on!" Naruto whined. "I wanna go out where there's people."

"You already got busted by the sensei for stealing stuff and doing graffiti," Sasuke muttered through his pillow.

"That was like two months ago," Naruto protested. "C'mon, I promise I won't steal anything. We've got the headband thingys, I just wanna walk around."

"Go 'way or shut up," grumbled Temari, who wasn't a morning person until she was awake.

"Gaara!" Naruto's head vanished down to the lower bunk. "Gaara, you wanna come?"

A pause. "Yes," said Gaara.

"Yes!" hissed Naruto.

There was a light thump as Hinata dropped down from her bunk. "I-I'll come," she offered.

That was a bad, bad idea. The thieving team minus Temari, who was the self-restraint for all three of them, plus Hinata, who was a little bit of a wild card depending on who she decided to be? Sasuke heaved a sigh and threw back the blankets. "Wait. I'm coming," he muttered. If those three ran into someone like that Mitsuhide guy from the other day, he didn't want to think of the kind of chaos they'd wreck.

Sai was for some reason already awake at oh-gods-o'clock, ink smeared on his skin as he frowned down at the scroll in front of him. He looked up when they trooped out into the main room, took in the four of them, and said, resigned, "I will accompany you. Give me two minutes to prepare."

He came back with Sakura, who looked extremely annoyed but fully dressed and also very distrustful of the rest of them. "I want to not get in trouble for this," she warned them, jabbing a finger at Naruto in particular.

"Gogo-chan!" said Naruto, delighted.

They got their circus act on the road with only a minor hiccup when Naruto tripped over a shrub and promptly accused it of attacking him, when everyone knew only the Senju had Mokuton. The last time Sasuke'd been in this part of town was with Itachi, when they - right before he -

Sasuke steered himself clear of that train of thought before he had an awkward breakdown in front of the others.

The streets were slippery with snow, and more drifted down from the skies as they went. Sasuke trailed the rest of the group with Hinata, her hand tucked in the crook of his non dominant elbow. Naruto led the way, picking turns seemingly at random with Gaara following tolerantly.

The shops were just opening up, workers sweeping away the half-melted mess of slush from their entryways and unfurling the awning covers. The aroma of fresh bread drifted from a nearby bakery, attracting Naruto's attention for all of fifteen seconds before he was off again. It was like walking a dog, except the dogs Sasuke knew best were the captain's ninken and they would never be so undisciplined.

"Why am I here?" Sakura groused, throwing up her hands when she and Sai caught up with Naruto just in time for him to throw himself across the street at a takoyaki stand, Gaara in tow.

Sai made a vaguely sympathetic hum, his eyes focused on scanning the street around them. Sasuke realized he was doing the same, as they had when they'd been on the run. Like then, they were once again in a village both friendly and enemy, except now they were older, stronger, and had allies at their backs other than just Neko-sensei. Someone had to keep an eye on their surroundings, and seeing as that definitely wouldn't be Naruto, Sasuke figured Sai and the two actual sensors could use the help.

Like a pair of hunting dogs, Hinata's and Gaara's heads turned in unison. The rest of the group followed suit. "Ah," said Sai pleasantly. "We've met you before."

Sasuke didn't see anything at first - then, in the reflection of a window, a massive, hulking shape. He tightened his grip on Hinata reflexively, and she made a soft, displeased noise. "Sorry," he muttered, unable to tear his eyes away from the giant freaking tiger rounding the corner ahead of them.

Whether the tiger - and the shinobi with the tiger - smelled them or heard them Sasuke didn't know, but both their eyes locked on Sai almost instantly. "Well," said the shinobi, in a voice neither angry nor surprised, nor particularly loud though it carried under the noise of the marketplace. "You were a shinobi after all, Itaru-kun."

Sai inclined his head, both a greeting and an apology. "I am," he admitted. "It is - good to see yourself and Koharu-san well, Ren-san."

There was a large, jagged scar, still pink and puffy, cutting across the tiger's shoulder, a break in the striped pelt where the fur had been shaved away. The tiger chuffed and said, "Told you," to its partner, who rubbed a fond hand over Koharu's muzzle.

"My team," Sai introduced politely, gesturing to Hinata, who let go of Sasuke's arm to step forward, and Gaara, who wandered up on his other side. "Perhaps you have heard the names Tatsuko and Rakushi during your observations of the Lower City?"

"Aa," the shinobi - Ren - agreed, as Hinata gave a slight bow in greeting. "I recognize you."

Naruto bolted up then, having finally noticed that Gaara had abandoned him for the massive nintora chatting up the others. "Hi!" Naruto beamed, and immediately turned to Koharu. "You're a familiar and not a summons so it's okay to talk to you, right?"

Sakura slapped a hand over her eyes as the tiger chuffed, exchanging an amused glance with Ren. "Yes," Koharu rumbled, and offered magnanimously, "You may touch my fur if you like."

Naruto gasped comically, both hands coming up to cover his mouth, and edged forward.

"And this is a team we work closely with," Sai continued, as if he had not been interrupted.

"Hi," said Sakura with a small wave. "We're in the same unit."

"That's my genin I hope you're not menacing."

It was Shisui again, with his half-mask and white fur cloak, but at least this time Sasuke didn't need to be rescued. Shisui was relaxed as he sauntered up, really relaxed and not just the pretend-relaxed that warned of danger.

Ren smiled, reading into the tone rather than the words, and a hint of a long incisor flashed with that smile. "I wouldn't dare. I am Ren, and this is my partner Koharu, of the Torakuro Clan. I've encountered Itaru-kun and his team before, but I don't believe we've been introduced."

Shisui's mouth twitched, amusement at some part of that. "Well met. Juuta, of the north," he introduced himself. "From Hana Division. We've not been on the Mainland long."

Naruto twisted from where he had both forearms buried in Koharu's ruff. "Sensei! Look, she's beautiful!"

Shisui winced. "Ah, Roku - "

"No bother," Koharu reassured him, the amused light in her golden eyes mirrored in Ren's.

"I appreciate your patience, Koharu-san. Kids," Shisui said, turning to the pack members. "I hope you've enjoyed your early outing, but you're about to miss your morning lessons."

Morning lessons? They didn't have - oh. The captain wanted to changethings, add himself to the teaching rotation and revamp the entire schedule. This must be part of it.

The white-hot fury hit out of nowhere. Suddenly Sasuke was straight uppissedand he had no fucking clue why. Shisui said something - Sasuke didn't hear it, too focused on keeping his breath even and his muscles loose.

A hand dropped down on his shoulder. "Are you okay?" Shisui asked carefully, scrutinizing him with a dark eye.

Was he okay? Sasuke was sick and tired of being asked if he was okay. He was fine. He wasfine. He was -

Shisui grabbed him in a shunshin and Sasuke stumbled his landing, whirled around, and buried his fist into the trunk of the nearest tree.

Which hurt. A lot, gods damn it all.

Sasuke yanked his hand back out of the splintered bark with a hiss, clutching his wrist with his good hand as he staggered backwards. They were at the training grounds; Shisui'd taken him halfway across the village. "Son of a - "

"Hey," said Shisui from his periphery, reaching for him with green flickering around his hand, but Sasuke ripped away with a snarl, took in the familiar features with furious eyes. Uchiha features.

"Do you know?" Sasuke demanded, spinning sharply to face him. "Did you know?Did you know what he did?"

He didn't have to answer; Sasuke could see it in his eye - that terrible, knowing sorrow. And that broke the fragile hold he had on his temper.

"Why aren't you angry?" Sasuke roared, shoving at his cousin's chest as hard as he could. "That was our family! That was your family too, sowhy aren't you angry?"

"Sasuke - " said Shisui, swaying slightly from the onslaught but otherwise unaffected. "Sasuke-kun, listen. What Itachi did was - was terrible, but he - "

"Don'tsay 'he did it for a reason!" Sasuke spat. "You can't say it was just a mission, that was our family!"

"If the Uchiha didn't die," Shisui said, ice cold and immoveable, "it wouldn't just have been our family and the Nara. It would have been the Hyuuga. It would have been the captain, since he was so loyal to the Sandaime and carried our doujutsu. It would have been Sai, on the wrong side of the battlefield. It would have been Naruto. It would have been the Fall, but with our clan alive and your friends dead or hunted andyousitting pretty in Konoha like Danzo is, and you would be the villain, not him. Is that what you want?"

Sasuke wanted to say,yes,because that was his clan,his parents,the Fall would have happened anyway but he still could have had them - but that meant no Naruto, no Hinata, no Neji, no Sakura, no baby Hanabi. No pack. No Yorozoku. He spun again, lashed out at the tree he'd hit before, and gritted his teeth as the pain jarred up his shin.

Shisui rarely smiled, but he did now and it was hard and bitter. "If I had been in Itachi's shoes the night of the Fall, I can't promise that I wouldn't have made the same choice - especially without the hindsight knowledge that Danzo planned a betrayal. So I grieve our family, but they made their own decisions too. There was no scenario in which everyone walked away from the Fall alive, Sasuke-kun, it was a no-win situation."

Sasuke drew a kunai from his holster, burying it in the bark and twisting savagely, but his heart wasn't in it anymore. He yanked it back out, hurled it off deeper into the forest, and glared after it. And then his breath caught in his throat again and he jerked away, sliding down to lean against the abused tree.

"But you're wrong. I am," Shisui said, when enough time had passed that Sasuke was wrung out and shivering from cold and grief.

"What?" Sasuke croaked, lost and only half-interested in the response now.

"Angry," his cousin clarified, and his eye flashed though there was no change in his posture or position. "But not because of the Fall - that was following orders. But attacking me, doing that to the captain, turning against Hanabi-ha? That was betrayal."

He sank down next to Sasuke, resting his forearms on his knees and clasping his hands in front of him. "It hurts," he admitted, "and I don't know why he did that. I probably never will. He was my Clan Heir first, then my friend, and then - then he was like a brother, and he turned on me and threw it all away, and I'm - I'm furious." He rolled his head to the side so he could see Sasuke with his good eye. "And so are you."

Sasuke huffed a humorless laugh. No use denying that.

"And that's fine," Shisui said. "That's fine. Just don't let it control you. Don't make it your life, and you'll be all right."

If Shisui was waiting for a response he wouldn't get one, because Sasuke was all out of emotions for today. Try again tomorrow. He let his head fall back against the tree.

The bite of the wind was getting harder to endure. He cleared his throat. "Probably missed morning lessons," Sasuke said gruffly.

It was a weak maybe-joke, but Shisui laughed anyways, reaching over to ruffle his hair. That was...safe, because Itachi never really did that, not like Shisui did. "Probably missed the captain's entire explanation of your training schedule," he agreed, false cheer that turned real at the end. "He put a good bit of time in that. He'll be disappointed."

Sasuke slid a glance sideways at him. "The captain's really going to train us? Seems a bit below his paygrade."

Shisui's mouth quirked. "You're lucky that he is. He's trained some of the best Anbu operatives - including Cat-15."

Sasuke's eyes widened. "He trained Neko-sensei?"

"Sure did," Shisui said. "He got drafted as an instructor sometimes when he was suspended from active duty, and she ran with his team, before. You're in good hands."

It was about six minutes into their first training session with the captain and it was getting clearer and clearer that the captain didn't really know what he was doing. To be fair, Sasuke, Sai, and Gaara didn't really know what to do either. None of the four of them were much of talkers anyway, so the majority of their session so far had just been them looking at each other silently.

"You all have shown clear aptitude for ninjutsu," the captain said at last, and Sasuke refocused on him. "I'll be helping you hone that, as well as supplemental taijutsu. Shichi and Hachi, the styles you've been using are very distinctive, and Shi, your repertoire is effective but general. We will work on changing that and widening your arsenals."

"Hai," said Sai, and Gaara and Sasuke nodded.

"Good," said the captain. There was another needlessly long pause. "I have chakra paper for you," he said, producing three small strips of paper from his back pouch. "Hachi. What does this do?"

Sai frowned for a long moment, and Sasuke glad the captain hadn't asked him because he had no idea. "Chakra paper. Chakra channelled into chakra paper can reveal the elemental affinity of the user," he recited.

"Correct," said the captain, passing a piece to each of them. "I'm able to perform ninjutsu from all five of the basic elemental categories, so whichever you have, I have something to teach you."

"Channel chakra?" Gaara asked, turning his paper over curiously.

"Yes. One at a time," the captain said. "Hachi, go first, since you know how it goes."

Sai's eyes blanked in the way that said he really didn't know how it went, except in theory, but he lifted his paper anyways. He filtered in a tiny pulse.

Nothing happened. He frowned, and before the captain could intervene, gave it a bigger jolt. The paper crumbled away into nothing, tiny specks drifting down to the ground.

"Shichi," said the captain, and Gaara, whose attention had drifted to follow the paper, looked back up, eyes wide and startled. "What does that mean?"

Gaara glanced down at the remains of the paper, at Sai, and back at the captain. "Failure."

Sai frowned in consternation.

"No," said the captain. "That was a successful result. Again. What does that mean?"

Gaara scowled ferociously, but not even he would go against the captain. "Earth," he guessed after a long pause where his face twitched like he was reacting to someone talking to him though nobody was.

"Correct," said the captain, and Gaara relaxed back into a languid slouch. "Hachi, your primary affinity is earth." He nodded to Sasuke. "Go ahead, Shi. Same thing - a small burst of chakra, about half as much as a regular henge. What do you think your affinity will be?"

"Uchiha are fire-natured," answered Sasuke, releasing his chakra into the paper. It crumpled like tinfoil, and Sasuke narrowed his eyes at it. He didn't know what a fire-natured paper looked like, but it was probably not that.

"Apparently not all of them," the captain said dryly. "Hachi, what does that mean?"

Sai stared at the paper blankly, sifting through the possibilities. "Lightning," he concluded.

"Lightning," the captain agreed. "You're in luck, Shi, that's my primary affinity. Raiton for you."

Raiton meant powerful things like Shisui's Yukihyou or the captain's Raijuu. Sasuke was very okay with that, and anyways, the Uchiha were gone so what did it matter if he was or wasn't fire-natured anyways?

"Shichi," said the captain. "Go."

He might as well have been talking to one of his hounds, but Gaara didn't mind. His paper split straight down the middle, each side crumbling into small pieces that stuck together as they flaked to the ground.

That was...earth? If not earth, then wind? But the captain was silent. Sasuke shifted on his feet until he noticed what he was doing and forced himself to still. "Shichi," the captain said at last, and the look Gaara gave him was wary. "Your clan had a kekkei-genkai, didn't it?"

Gaara frowned. He shrugged.

"Jiton," said the captain. "Magnet release. All four of the Kazekage have had it, and candidacy is generally hereditary. It would make sense for you to have it as well."

Gaara looked entirely blank, and not because that was his default expression.

"Unfortunately," the captain said, "the Sharingan can't copy ninjutsu from kekkei-genkai, and jiton are also fairly distinctive. Fortunately, having jiton also means you have both wind and earth affinities, and those I can help with." He glanced up to check the position of the sun. "I have seventy minutes until I have to be at Command. Let's make the most of that time."

The problem was, Sasuke quickly realized, that the captain was a genius in terms of chakra theory. He could break down and understand jutsu as the handseals were performed and as a result, his attempts to explain them were not very successful. "Raiton: Sanda. Do you need the seals again?" the captain asked, apparently calm. Unlike Sasuke.

Sasuke gritted his teeth. "No," he growled. "I got it. Ox, dragon, snake, monkey, dragon, monkey, monkey, bird, dragon, ox, monkey."

The captain waved a hand at him to go ahead and crossed his arms over his chest.

Sasuke took a deep breath. He formed the seals one after the other, the shapes familiar from years of drills. Even on the run, even without chakra, they'd practiced these religiously - that was one of the first things Neko-sensei taught them to do. His chakra gathered about his hands, the electric buzz of his chakra coming easier than katon ever had, but when he clasped his hands into the lastmonkeyand growled, "Raiton: Sanda!" the that sparks fizzled at his hands puffed into nothing. He snarled.

"Again," said the captain.

Sasuke tried again. The chakra crackled at his hands, but as he finished the jutsu it died. And again.

"You're doing something wrong," the captain observed. And Sasuke did his damndest not to try and behead him because,yes, obviously. "Go again, slowly. You're shaping chakra, not signalling."

Don't flip out. Donotflip out on the captain. Not the freaking captain.Ox. Dragon. Snake. Monkey. Dragon -

"What are you thinking?" the captain interrupted.

Sasuke paused, his concentration broken. "Dragon, monkey..?"

"Don't think about the seals," the captain said. "Think about how the seals mould your chakra. Think about how each handseal modifies the existing form. Think about the chakra and what shape you want it to take - both the process and the end result. Start over. Again."

That was a lot of stuff to keep in his head while he was trying to pull this off.

"And don't get frustrated," the captain ordered. "It'll interfere with your concentration."

Sasuke had to walk that one off to get his mind back on track.

The captain drifted over to Gaara, who was slamming his hands into the ground over and over between seals with a look of deep concentration, and one of the captain's ninken - Bisuke - wandered over to watch as Sasuke kept working on the raiton. His raiton. Because he was going to master it, no matter how stubborn it was or how long it took.

Ox. Dragon. Snake. Monkey.

He breathed in with the ebb of his chakra, exhaled with the flow.

Dragon. Monkey. Monkey. Bird.

For power, for control, for size and pattern. He moulded the jutsu like unformed clay with the seals.

Dragon. Ox. Monkey.

"Katon: Samba!" Sasuke growled, and this time, little crackles of lightning zigzagged off his knuckles before dissipating, and Sasuke let out a breath of surprise and victory. Bisuke panted at him encouragingly.

All right. All he needed to do now was figure out what he'd just done.

"That concludes our session for today," said the captain, once all three of them had been thoroughly frustrated up until they each achieved a passable jutsu in the last ten minutes, which was suspiciously coincidental. So maybe the captain did have some idea of what he was doing.

"Thank you, Taichou," said Sai, who had been and still was the most composed of them three.

The captain looked pained. "I'm teaching you," he said, and looked expectant. Guruko, the hound that'd been ostensibly supervising Gaara, chuffed a laugh as Bisuke visibly rolled his eyes.

Sasuke exchanged a glance with Sai. "Thank you...Hatake-sensei," Sai tried.

That got them upgraded to a grimace. "Not Hatake," he said. "Just Kakashi."

This time, Gaara swung around to give Sasuke a look. The captain was really asking the moon of them today.

"Kakashi-sensei," Sai amended.

Sasuke was definitely not comfortable with saying that with his own mouth so he ducked his head in agreement and let Sai take one for the team.

The captain still didn't look entirely satisfied but nodded. "Don't practice these without supervision until I clear you," he warned. "Even C-ranked ninjutsu can do major damage if performed incorrectly."

And then he and his hounds were gone, like the whole afternoon had been some kind of fever dream.

Sasuke looked at the other two. "What happens now?"

"Train," answered Gaara, in a tone that implied that there was no other possible answer.

"Fifteen-hundred hours to sixteen-hundred hours: individual concentration practice, except for those assigned to meal preparation," Sai recited. "Dinner at sixteen-hundred hours. Team practice, drills, or inter-team exercises begin at seventeen-hundred."

"Right," said Sasuke, and abandoned their spot to go find one of the other groups.

The group that'd been with Zabuza-sensei was easiest to find because they were near the part of the stream that looped around like a horseshoe and also because they included Naruto, who was loud. They too had been summarily abandoned by their sensei and willing to talk about their session.

"Taijutsu," Temari explained, "with an emphasis on strength building."

"Zabuza-sensei calls it the lessons on 'how to hit things hard,'" Naruto chirped. There was a very distinct footprint in the center of his jacket. "It's loads of fun. He kicked me into a tree!"

"Congratulations?" Sai offered. Naruto beamed.

"What'd the captain do with you?" Sakura asked curiously.

"Ninjutsu," Sai answered. "He tested our chakra nature and taught us each a jutsu of our elemental affinity."

"He wants us to call him Kakashi-sensei," Sasuke added.

Sakura looked at him like he'd sprouted an extra head. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," said Gaara, looking profoundly disturbed.

"That's super weird," Naruto said. "He's thecaptain."

"Technically, he's the commander," Temari corrected absently.

Sakura brushed her gloved hands off on her pants. "I don't have any rotations with him," she said nervously. "Think I should still call him that?"

"I havetworotations with him," Naruto breathed. "I'm gonna have himfour times a week." He gasped. "Does that mean he's mydouble sensei?Should I call himSensei-sensei?"

Sakura, who was closest, cuffed him upside the head so Sasuke didn't have to as Temari sighed tolerantly and said, "Call him whatever he wants to be called, and don't call him anything he hasn't asked you to call him."

"Hey," said Sasuke. "Did you know he trained Neko-sensei?"

"The captain?" asked Sakura, startled. "He doesn't really seem like a teacher. Just, you know. Like a captain."

"When they made him take leave from active duty," Sasuke clarified, and that got a round of nods from the others.

"Ohh," said Naruto. "That makes sense, then. He must be a really good teacher!"

Sasuke and Sai exchanged looks. "He has knowledge of a large number of ninjutsu that he is able to pass on," Sai allowed.

Temari raised her eyebrows as she turned away. "Let's get the others," she said. "I want to know what Juu-sensei's teaching them."

The last team was in a clearing on the far side of the stream, Neji and Hinata trading open-handed blows back and forth without chakra as Haku spoke quietly with Shisui on the edges of the trees.

"Hey!" called Shisui across the clearing. Haku turned around and gave them a wave. "Team and inter-team exercises are after dinner!" But his tone was light and teasing rather than amondishing, so Sasuke and the others didn't bother retreating.

Neji and Hinata spun apart, and Neji flashed a signal that had them both straightening out of their respective stances.

"Hey," said Sakura, crossing over to them. "You guys doing taijutsu too?"

"Yes," Neji agreed. "Kyuu-sama and I are most useful as sensors, but with our doujutsu, the Jyuuken is a weapon too powerful for us not to hone."

"Kakashi-sensei informed us he would be teaching us both taijutsu and ninjutsu in our rotation," Sai volunteered. "It appears that this rotation include taijutsu for all of us."

Neji and Hinata both looked at him like he was crazy. "Did you just - what did you call him?" Neji said.

"He asked us to call him 'Sensei'," Sasuke explained, enjoying the increasingly incredulous looks on their faces. "Since he's teaching now."

"Sen...sei," Gaara agreed with zero confidence.

"They're not lying," Temari said with certain resignation. "As far as I can tell, at least."

"Anyways," said Sasuke. "Who's on dinner duty?"

Sasuke was on dinner duty - Sasuke and Sai, who was promptly demoted to assistant by Sasuke due to the authority granted to him by virtue of being a better cook. "Start with chopping the cabbage and the nakaimo," Sasuke directed, dumping an entire sack of flour into their second-biggest pot.

"What are we making?" Sai asked, setting out the vegetables on the counter in front of him.

"You're making okonomiyaki," Sasuke said, "which I'm seasoning for you. I'm making udon. And then you'll finish it and I'll do the soup."

"Hai," Sai agreed, not offended by the very blatant hint that he couldn't be trusted to finish a dish by himself.

Sasuke left him to it and went back to his not-yet dough. There was something calming about it, as settling as performing a kata or sharpening weapons or mastering a new ninjutsu.

He didn't have any sort of spoon or spatula strong enough to mix a dough that thick so he did it by hand, rolling up his sleeves to the elbow and plunging his forearms into the mess of water and flour and salt. At last it rolled smooth and elastic under his hands, and neither dough nor flour stuck to his skin when he let go. He threw a cover on over the pot and went to check on Sai.

Sai'd moved on from the vegetable chopping and mixed up the batter. Sasuke leaned around him and stuck a finger in the stuff and then in his mouth.

"I followed the recipe exactly," Sai said. "There should be no issues with the seasoning, if that is what you are concerned about."

"Too much salt if you're adding sauce later," Sasuke corrected, wiping his hand on his pants. "Cut in, like, another couple hundred grams of nakaimo and it'll be fine."

"This is the exact formula we followed the last time we made okonomiyaki." It was an observation and not a protest - Sai picked up another piece of the vegetable and a knife.

Sasuke shrugged. "I don't know how it works, I just fix the taste," he said, already distracted by the sauce mixture. It needed more sugar. And also more...ketchup.

After the sauce, the udon needed to be rolled out and cut. The broth needed to be seeped and boiled. The okonomiyaki needed to be fried. Naruto needed to be stopped from stealing the food before the actual meal.

"Would you back off?" Sasuke swiped at his teammate with his spatula as Sai fished another bowl of udon out of the pot of boiling water. "Set the table, if you have nothing better to do."

"I just want a taste," Naruto wheedled, dancing out of reach.

"Yeah, you'll get one at dinner," Sasuke muttered, menacing him with a carton of salt.

Naruto tracked it warily. Sasuke'd thrown one at him before and sprayed salt everywhere, which was both annoying and painful for everyone involved, and they both knew he'd do it again if Naruto kept pushing. "Fine," said Naruto, sticking out his tongue before retreating to the main room.

The captain didn't show up for dinner, but Zabuza-sensei did, as well as Shisui, who muttered something about skipping meals and force-feeding under his breath.

"I've got something to take care of in Command," Shisui said, tipping the dregs of his soup in his mouth as he stood. "Z, I'll see you at the meeting tonight. Kids - be good. Or don't get caught. Don't forget your drills and listen to Rei. Rei-chan, don't let them slack off."

"I won't," promised Temari as Naruto complained, "We're not little kids anymore," and Sakura chirped, "Bye, Sensei!" Gaara lifted one hand in a solemn wave. Zabuza-sensei grunted and reached for the plate of okonomiyaki, unimpressed with the world at large but especially Shisui.

Shisui slipped out the door with a stack of reports as thick as a kunai was long, and the seals pulsed with chakra as they activated behind him.

"For team training, how about we steal the sign off of that dumpling stand next to the ink store in the western district and stick it on the gates of one of those fancy clan compounds?" suggested Naruto brightly.

"And incite a second civil war?" Neji muttered. "I think not."

"I would prefer to maintain positive relations with that ink store," Sai added. "They have a wide range of products."

"Let's leave off giving Shisui-sensei a heart attack," Temari said, with a quick glance at Zabuza-sensei. "Save that for another time."

"Save that for never," Zabuza-sensei suggested under his breath. "You know who has to clean up after you pull that shit? If it's me, you know damn well it's coming out of your skin."

Sakura coughed. "Er, we won't." She didn't sound particularly sincere.

"Michishio," Gaara suggested meaningfully.

"Do not fuckingassassinatea jounin for your teambuilding exercise," Zabuza-sensei growled. "I don't care how much of an asshole he is."

"M-maybe j-just a t-tracking exercise?" Hinata ducked her head as soon as the words left her mouth.

"Tracking a jounin," Sai mused.

Sasuke let himself sink into the easy conversation of the pack, the cadence of the evening. This wasn't the same as it was before, like surviving a life-threatening attack but with a crippling injury that he could never quite push out of the edges of his mind. Time didn't wait, or maybe it was Sasuke, stumbling forward with no way to stop.

That was fine. This was his normal, now.

The first real storm hit just over a week later in the middle of the night. The wind shrieking outside woke Sasuke from a dreamless sleep, dragging him back to consciousness. Haku shivered uncontrollably against his side, his hands fisted in the blankets as his eyes moved fitfully beneath the lids.

Sasuke reached over drowsily and patted at Haku's shoulder. The cold would never kill him, but it could make him very uncomfortable. Haku came awake instantly, muscles relaxing as his conscious mind registered the temperature problem and fixed it, and the tremors stopped. "Did something happen?" he murmured.

Sasuke squinted back at him through the gloom and waved his hand a little at the ceiling. "Thought I heard something. But it's just the wind."

"Ah," said Haku. "It sounds like a blizzard."

It did sound like those snowstorms that had swept through San's mother's forest, but those had felt impersonal, imperious. This one, even though it was kind of stupid to describe storms as having intent, felt cruel. A killer of all, and not just the unwary.

Haku's breathing evened out as he drifted back to sleep. He wasn't shivering now, but Sasuke shifted to press him into Temari, on his other side, because she tended to run warm. Naruto would be better, plus he slept like the dead, but Sasuke wasn't too sure where he was in the pile. Probably near Gaara on the far side, since Gaara was a lot more blatant about wanting to be near a source of heat.

He lay awake until the dawn, listening to the almost-silent breathing of the pack as the wind faded to a low howl. Outside, Zabuza-sensei's rough growl joined the captain's voice as they moved around the room outside, and then Shisui's lighter tones. Sasuke debated for a minute before sliding out of the blankets, finding his sandals and his cloak, and padding out to join them.

"Look who's up with the fucking sun," Zabuza-sensei grunted when he saw Sasuke. "Bread in the kitchen. Eat."

The captain gave him an absent nod. There were maps and scribbled notes and books spread out on the table in front of him and three ninken sprawled at his back and under the table. Pakkun, perched on the table on one of the open books, jabbed a paw at one of the maps and muttered something under his breath. The captain hummed in response and scribbled in the closest notebook.

"Ah, good morning Shi-kun," said Shisui. He was already dressed in Kiri chuunin-jounin greys and a flak jacket, furred cloak, and his half-mask.

"Where're you going?" Sasuke asked over his shoulder, slicing off a piece from one of the loaves in the kitchen.

"I've been filling in for Unit 13," Shisui answered lightly. "Z and I are gonna go do unit check-ins. It sounds like the storm's over, but maybe you all can do some self-studying inside first anyways. Z should be back in time to do your lessons, because he likes to foist his work off onto his second."

Zabuza-sensei grumbled wordlessly in response. "Slack off and you'll pay for it, boy," he threatened. He opened the door and glared at the solid wall of snow that greeted him on the other side. "Gods damn it," he snapped. "Haku! Come take care of this."

Haku had a preternatural sense for anything involving Zabuza, and he stumbled out of the sleeping quarters still mostly asleep in ten seconds flat, his usual grace coming back in fits and starts. He trudged straight to the snow and stuck both his hands in up to the wrist. A rush of chakra like icy wind swept through the room, and the packed snow billowed out of the doorway, opening up a path taller than Zabuza-sensei. It was still snowing white flakes blown nearly sideways by the wind, and some of them drifted in to land in Haku's loose hair.

Haku stifled a yawn and shuffled away from the open door, his eyes half closed. "Go back to sleep, kid," said Zabuza-sensei, and stomped out into the storm.

"Bye, Taichou, Shi-kun. Thanks, Ichi-kun," Shisui said cheerfully before he followed. The door swung shut behind him.

Haku stood for a moment staring blankly at the door, swaying slightly, and meandered back to the sleeping den. Sasuke was too restless to sleep again, so he took his bread and picked a textbook at random and took himself to a table on the far side of the room. Guruko peeled away from the group of ninken around the captain, wriggling under the table and sprawling by Sasuke instead. Sasuke eyed the hound, but Guruko just thumped his tail in greeting and lay his head down on his paws.

They all ignored each other, which suited Sasuke just fine.

Maybe an hour later, sharp movement caught Sasuke's eye as the captain turned towards the door sharply, and his ninkens' heads all jerked in unison, ears pricked. Guruko whined softly in the back of his throat and abandoned Sasuke for the captain's side once again. "Hm," said the captain, and when he saw Sasuke watching, added, "No threat. It's for me."

He definitely wasn't acting like it was an emergency. The captain vanished back into his room and came back out in full armor plus a cloak, and minus all of his hounds save Urushi. Sasuke ducked his head in a nod as the pair slipped out and went back to his book.

Temari was the next of the pack to wake, wrapped in two cloaks. "Did you sleep?" she asked, her voice still groggy.

"Yeah," said Sasuke. He jerked his chin towards the kitchen. "There's bread."

Temari hummed but sat down across from him anyways, pulling a pencil and a book on grammar and written composition closer to her. The same easy silence fell between them. Sasuke dutifully copied a diagram of Kiri's northern islands.

The door flew open abruptly and Sasuke and Temari both jumped, lunging for their weapons. Shisui burst in, his cloak swirling around him with the wind that billowed in. His hands were empty of weapons or chakra but his eye locked on Sasuke, ignoring Temari's wary, "Sensei?" as he strode directly for Sasuke.

Alarmed, Sasuke barely had time to stand before Shisui seized his arm in an iron grip and dragged him towards the door, and Temari cried, "Hey!" and sprang to her feet. Sasuke reached instinctively for a kunai, twisting out of his cousin's grip just as Shisui shouldered them out the door.

"Watch the others, Rei," Shisui ordered without a backwards glance.

"What're you doing?" Sasuke demanded, sidestepping quickly as the door clicked shut behind them.

His cousin was tense, nearly rigid, and coiled on a hair trigger. A storm brewed in Shisui's eye, cold and tumultuous. "What Itachi did was unforgivable," he said, "so I'm going to do something he'll never forgive me for. I'm going to tell you the truth."

Sasuke took a step back, alarmed at the manic light in his cousin's eye, and brought his arm up defensively in front of him. "What?" he demanded. "What do you mean?"

Shisui grabbed his arm before he could flinch back, dragging him into a particularly overwhelming shunshin. Sasuke hit the ground on his side, skidding out of Shisui's grasp when his cousin landed in a crouch. They'd gone clear across the village to the cliffs overlooking the training grounds. It wasn't snowing anymore, but the wind was still frigid against his face. "Cousin, what - "

Shisui snapped, "Quiet." He slammed a paper seal down between them, and a bubble-like dome expanded around them, glowing white-gold around them. For a moment, he went preternaturally still and silent, and warily, Sasuke waited. Shisui took a deep breath and said, "Itachi staged the Sanbi kidnapping attempt. He never wanted to succeed; he planned to get caught."

"So?" Sasuke staggered to his feet, retreating a couple steps backwards to the edges of the seal's range. "He - he needed a distraction, right? If there's a danger of a bijuu getting loose, there won't be manpower to chase him, and it lured in you and the captain. You two were the most likely to stop him. Just good strategy, right?"

"Sasuke-kun," Shisui said, reaching out to grab him by the shoulders, and Sasuke leaned back, unnerved, but wasn't fast enough to dodge. "Did the captain tell you that Itachi usedTsukuyomion him? Did he tell you what he showed him?"

Sasuke frowned, shrugging as best he could. "Uh, he told me Itachi used a genjutsu to make him relive his life a thousand times. The captain figured it was to smokescreen the weeks they were at the Mainland, because he let something about his plans slip."

Shisui bared his teeth in a grin. "Yeah, it wasn't just something, it was the whole thing. They planned it together. They arranged it so Itachi could reverse the effects with a coded message by one of his crows once the captain was beyond suspicion for his involvement."

"What?"Sasuke demanded, rearing back. "The captain's a double agent?"

"And afterwards, he sent that crow to me," Shisui said, triumphant and terrible and furious. "The captain isn't the agent. Itachi is."

That couldn't make sense. That made complete sense.

That was...insanity. That was a sudden, mad clarity.

Itachi was an agent. Itachi was undercover?

Itachiwasn't a traitor.

That knocked the breath from his lungs, his vision blurring at the edges and staying so even when he blinked. "Why - why would he - why wouldn't he - ?" He forced the words out with an uncooperative tongue, his thoughts flying faster than he could put speech to. "He told us - the, the Clan - "

He didn't like the way Shisui was looking at him, with a combination of pity and fury. "Because," Shisui spat. "Knowledge is dangerous and knowledge is power. By telling you his role in the Clan's downfall, he absolved you of caring about him. By keeping his mission from you, he tried to protect you from both those who would kill him for what he is doing and those who would kill him for what they believe he is doing. That knowledge is dangerous, both for him and for you. It's safer for you not to know."

The wind rushed sharply at Sasuke, buffeting him as he stood stunned, and its ferocity stung his eyes as Shisui's words sank in.

"He wanted me to believe a lie," Sasuke said, his mind empty but for the rush of his own blood to the tempo of his pulse. And then the next realization, "He wanted me to hate him."

"Yes," said Shisui, reaching to him more gently now, and only when he had Sasuke's face pressed against the shoulder of his flak jacket did Sasuke realize he was crying, hot tears soaking into the cloth covering of his cousin's armor. "That was cruel of him. That, I won't forgive him for." He grimaced, the muscles of his neck tensing. "And because he made me his secret-keeper, to him, telling you this is the cruelest betrayal I could commit."

"He didn't want me to know," Sasuke said, the thought running over and over and over in his mind. "He didn't want me to know."

"Tell me right now. Sasuke, tell me right now if you can't keep this secret," Shisui said fiercely, taking hold of Sasuke's head in his hands and forcing him to look him in the eye. "I'll take the knowledge from you. You won't have to - to carry this."

"No! I can," Sasuke insisted, suddenly desperate, suddenly terrified to lose even a piece of his brother. "Please. I have to. Shisui, Ihaveto."

His cousin met his gaze, long and searching. "Okay," Shisui whispered, tugging him back down to his shoulder again. "Okay."

"I hate this," Sasuke confessed, and that felt like a revelation. "I hate that he did this to me, there'sno excuse."

"But you love him," Shisui said quietly, and Sasuke's fingers tightened on his armor.

"Yeah." Sasuke's voice wavered and broke. "Yeah."

Sasuke didn't want to get up. So he didn't.

"Shi, breakfast's ready. Let's go," said Temari, tapping the wall on her way out.

Sasuke closed his eyes and ignored her. He wasn't sleeping, just...drifting. He could hear the others crowding around the tables for breakfast outside, the muted clamor of chopsticks against bowls and even quieter murmur of conversation.

Temari's clothes rustled as returned. Probably for her tessen, which he knew without opening his eyes was leaned up against the wall somewhere to his left. "Shi," she repeated, disbelief lacing her voice. "Shi, you're not up? We're starting morning warm-ups."

So? Morning warm-ups weren't mandatory.

"Shi." Temari shook his shoulder gently and he snarled wordlessly, batting her off as she recoiled in surprise and wariness. "Shi!" she amondished, scowling.

Sasuke didn't care. He subsided into the blankets.

"Rei-chan?" Shisui. "Is something wrong?"

"It's Shi," Temari answered, her voice fading as she left the room. "He won't get up. He snapped at me."

"He's just grumpy," Naruto said uncertainly. "Right?"

"Is he sick?" Shisui was coming closer now, and Sasuke gritted his teeth.

"No, he's just - "

"What if he...?"

"Do you think - "

"Leave him." That was the captain, cutting through the mess of voices.

"Taichou," said Shisui reproachfully. There was a brief silence where the captain was probably giving him alook. The captain had yet to lose an argument that way. Shisui raised his voice again to the pack. "Aren't you all going to morning warm-ups?"

"Sensei!" Sakura protested, but the outcry was only her and Naruto's wordless exclamation, and the mute displeasure of the others.

"Now," ordered Shisui, and the almost-silent shuffle of the pack preceded the door closing behind them.

Sasuke was selfishly vindictive, but it passed like a breath and he just felt tired again. He closed his eyes.

There were footsteps behind him, too light to be a person. Sasuke ignored them. It was probably just Haku's rabbit -

A small, warm body wriggled its way between Sasuke's arm and the blankets, and his eyes shot open as he jerked away from the captain's quietest ninken, who gave him a sleepy stare as he settled in the warm divot. "What are you doing?" Sasuke demanded, the words coming slow and slurred as he rolled away. "Leave me alone."

Predictably, Bisuke ignored him, tucking his paws under himself and nestling down deeper into the blankets.

Did the captain know what his ninken was doing? Was this on purpose?

Sasuke decided he didn't care. He was too tired to care. Bisuke could do what he wanted; Sasuke was going to sleep. Sasuke rolled over so he had his back to the hound and let his eyes drift closed once again.

He must have fallen asleep, because he peeled open his eyes with great effort when he heard the door open again. It was the pack; he recognized the cadences of their voices. It'd be lessons now, and Sasuke'd never skipped out on lessons on purpose, but he didn't really feel like getting up. So he didn't.

A muted grumble at his back told him Bisuke was still there. The ninken's senses were sharper than his, and Sasuke doubted he'd let him be attacked without warning. He slept again.

"Shi-kun, lunch is ready," Haku called through the doorway, stirring him from his half-slumber.

Spicy fish stew, which Haku made best out of the entire pack, Sasuke included. But Sasuke was hollow, not hungry, so he didn't move. The smell wasn't as tantalizing as it usually was, just a ghost of temptation. Haku didn't press, and despite the fog of discussion that he couldn't quite make out or couldn't quite care to make out, nobody else tried to get him up.

The faucet creaked and the rumble of the old pipes stirred him again as whoever was on cleanup duty washed up, and the door whispered open again as the rest of the pack went for training.

"Shi!" Naruto exclaimed, startling him. Sasuke shot upright despite himself, flailing in the tangle of blankets. Bisuke made an offended grumble as he was dislodged, clambering to his paws and slinking off under the closest bunks.

Blearily, Sasuke glared.

It was just him and Sakura in there - Team Byakko. "You - are you okay?" Sakura asked tremulously.

This again. Every time someoneaskedhim, hethought about it again,and now the knowledge of what Itachi had done - to him, for him - weighed on him so much more heavily. "I'm fine," Sasuke said, too tired for his anger to stir, and dropped back down into the nest of blankets that had accumulated in the center of the room. It seemed to have gotten bigger since he last woke up, but the only one who'd been in there was Bisuke. "Leave me alone."

"Sasuke," Naruto said, his eyes wide and blue and sad and horribly knowing. "You're not." Curse whatever god of luck had decided thatnowshould be the time Naruto became observant. Though, to be fair, sleeping half the day away was a pretty big hint.

"You can tell us," Sakura added, hovering just behind Naruto's shoulder. "We're your team, we just want to help. Tell us what to do."

And…they were his team. They were his friends. They were pack, they were family. Even after Itachi, he trusted them as much as he could anyone. He trusted the pack, because for years that'd been the only way for them to survive.

But Sakura was strangely fragile these days when nobody was watching, and Naruto could barely keep his own name a secret. Sasuke was just a little tired today. There wasn't anything he couldn't handle and what could either of them do to help anyways?

"I'm having a hard time," he admitted just when he'd decided not to say anything. He paused, part of his mind frantically running damage control while another screeched in alarm and dismay. "Just - with my brother and everything that happened," he said, his scramble to cover completely betrayed by his own mouth.

Sakura nodded though she couldn't ever hope to understand, her eyes serious even as she clamped a preemptive hand over Naruto's mouth.

"I just need to work through it all," Sasuke finished lamely after half a minute where he fished for something to say.

"We all have things to work through," Sakura said, and since heknewwhat she'd gone through, since he'd been there for much of it, that…helped. Like struggling alone in solidarity. "There's no hurry. Shizune-sensei told me it's better to process and confront how we feel about things instead of letting it fester, even if it takes a while."

Sasuke resisted the urge to ask,how's that working out for youbecause she was trying and he wasn't cruel.

"We'll be here if you ever need anything," Naruto said earnestly, peeling Sakura's hand away from his mouth and leaning in so close their noses nearly touched. "We're always watching your back!"

Yeah, a little too closely. "I'll be okay, usuratonkachi," Sasuke muttered, shoving him over. Naruto hurled a pillow at him. Sasuke caught it and had it tucked under his chest in a heartbeat, daring Naruto to do something about it with his eyes.

"Hey!" Naruto cried, outraged, flailing without actually touching him.

Idiot. Sasuke snuggled his stolen pillow closer. If he didn't want Sasuke to keep it, he shouldn't have thrown it.

Sakura eased down to lie next to him and smiled, unbearably sad and radiantly happy at once. "We're going to be fine," she said. "All of us."

'Fine' wasn't going to happen so easily. But there were moments of peace before then.

"Get up," Temari ordered in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, after three and a half years of being in charge, she wasn't used to taking no for an answer. Sasuke defying her once had made her even more determined to make sure there wasn't a repeat.

"Guh," said Sasuke. It was still dark outside, darker even then when they'd gone to sleep what had to have been three or four hours ago.

"What is the time?" Sai asked, sounding about as scattered as Sasuke felt.

"Two," answered Haku, voice rough. Sakura let out a groan of distress.

"We're going on a run," Temari said. "Cloaks and masks, everyone."

The grumbles of the pack simmered down. Sasuke wove around Naruto in the dark as Sakura took a flying leap up to her bunk to retrieve her mask. "Juu-sensei said we're not supposed to use the bone-masks in the Village anymore," she said primly, though that clearly wasn't stopping her.

"Bah," said Gaara dismissively.

The outside room was dark and empty except for Urushi, who was sitting near the outside door with his muzzle pointed towards the outside. His ears swivelled when the pack filed into the room, but he didn't otherwise acknowledge them. Sasuke still paused, Hinata and Sai bunching up behind him, but Temari motioned them onwards with her hand as she strode past without hesitation.

The winter moon was cold and bright in clear skies. Urushi slipped out after them, joining Sai at the rear of the pack. Adrenaline buzzed through Sasuke's veins already from the threat of discovery and the anticipation of the run.

Temari broke into a sprint and Sasuke chased after her instinctively. With a quiet whoop, Naruto followed close on his heels.

And then they were all running, the entire pack streaming across the surface of the snow as the moonlight glimmered off the white bone of their wolf-faces and grey-brown fur of their cloaks. The trees blurred past as they hit the training grounds, and Sasuke swerved through their trunks, leapt a low bush that rose in his path. The air bit painfully into his lungs, cold and fresh and sharp.

Someone was laughing breathlessly - Sakura, he thought - and it was bright and exhilarated and fed into the rest of the pack. At the head, Temari swerved sharply towards the encircling mountains, and the rest of them gladly followed.

At their rear, Urushi raised up a haunting howl, and Naruto joined in with his own, one that faded into helpless giggles. Then it was Gaara with a growl that wasn't quite human, that raised the hairs on the back of Sasuke's neck.

The wind dragged the hood back from Sasuke's head, tugging sticky fingers through his hair as they climbed. He fell in stride with Hinata, whose legs were shorter but who took quick leaps to cover more ground, then fell back to join Haku's easy lope.

The climb grew impossibly steep, and Temari surged upwards ahead of them, catching herself on the sheer surface with chakra. Sasuke followed in a bound, then snapped out a hand to catch Naruto by the collar when his teammate slipped on a patch of loose gravel. Haku did the same on the other side, and together they hauled Naruto up and let go as soon as he found his footing, and up they climbed, higher and higher into the mountains.

Sasuke was lightheaded by the time Temari drew to a stop, on a flat outcropping at the top of a sheer drop. Neji skidded to a halt beside him, and for a moment, all nine of them plus Urushi stood in silence in the snow, the blood hot in their veins and their adrenaline still rushing. Sakura brushed against him as she stepped closer to look over the edge, and Naruto's warmth pressed against his side, for once silent.

This was enemy territory, but at this moment, surrounded by his pack, with his chakra sparking just under his skin, Sasuke felt safe. He felt strong.

He could see the entire Inner Village from there, the golden glow of streetlights twinkling in the dark and the starry sky yawning endlessly above. The moon was two nights from full, but lit up the snow blanketing the slopes and the training grounds and the streets far below.

"Beautiful," Hinata breathed, the word all but stolen by the wind.

It was ridiculous, to give such qualities to the inanimate night, but Sasuke found that he couldn't disagree.

It was a new day, and he and Shisui were alone at the cliffs again, the same spot they'd been at before. The sun was breaking through the clouds, high above, and Sasuke could feel their weak rays on his face.

Out beyond the ocean was Hi no Kuni, where a traitor and a liar and a murderer presided over the Village of his birth. There was Konoha, the home he'd lost. There was a clan's worth of graves to mourn there, and that knowledge was a heavy stone in Sasuke's heart, but still -

Below them, in Kiri's Inner Village, was his pack, his Yorozoku, safe and well-fed and stronger every day. They weren't running anymore; they were fighting.

Somewhere out there was Itachi, fighting a lonely war to keep them - to keep Sasuke - safe.

Despite everything, Itachi shouldn't have to be alone.

Hanabi-ha had made it through one war and come out the other side still fighting. They had allies, supplies, and space enough to plan their counterattack. When they retook Konoha, when at last their own long war was over, Sasuke could go find his brother.

"Do you forgive him?" Shisui asked quietly. There was a pendant of dark stone hanging around his neck, the one he'd given Itachi for his sixteenth birthday. Heiwa,it read, his brother's greatest wish - peace.

Sasuke watched the wind rustle the tips of the trees far below their feet. The first leaves were starting to sprout, the beginnings of spring after a brutal winter. "No," he said with certainty. "But I will."

They survived being hunted, they survived a war, and they would survive the next. And every day until that time came that they could finally go home and put down their weapons in peace and know that they were safe, like the sun after every dark twilight, they would rise.

Notes:

[10/05/2019] Hello friends! Happy October. Thanks for sticking around to the bitter end. Life is hard but at least I'm not a child soldier in exile from my home.

I really stiffed Neji in this fic bc his chapter was so early on and didn't have a lot of words, and he maybe kind of sneered in the corner a lot, which wasn't fair to him and really not what I wanted his character to develop into. He has Dimensions and Depth too, I promise. He's not the cool older brother surrogate parent that Itachi and Shisui are - he's more like the annoying punk 'only I can beat you up' older brother.

As for Itachi's carefully laid plans RE: Sasuke - Shisui's gonna NOPE right outta em with his superior EQ and trample them to pieces. There are examples of both good and bad methods of dealing with your emotions in here, so I suggest don't blindly follow what Sasuke does. Process your emotions, don't repress - that's something I've got to work on too.

We're nearly at the end of our journey here with Rise. There's only the epilogue left after this, which will be from someone we haven't heard from yet. It will also be markedly shorter than all save the earliest chapters, as the story has more or less concluded, and serve more as a standalone or a lead-in to the sequel. Yes, there will be a sequel, and its name is currently Children of Empire. I'll be taking a break after Rise is completely finished to work on all the other fics I have on the back burner (since Rise has owned my soul since 12/2017) and to actually plan out CoE instead of letting it run wild. I'm leaning towards yes for continued multiple POVs because they are fun to write and people seem to be a fan of them (besides Naruto's lmao). Rise is now the first of the series that I'm calling Burning Legacy, which will be a total of 2-3 main installments if all goes according to plan.

Thank you everyone who's been reading and leaving kudos :) Many, many thanks to you leaving comments, which always brighten my day and bring a smile to my face when I'm tired. If you're enjoying this story, I'm glad to be writing it.

Chapter 19: Epilogue

Summary:

Time spent with a Cat is time well spent.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter fornotes.)

Chapter Text

The breeze in Yu no Kuni would ever be that of summer, but the winds blowing west from the sea had warmed as well. She turned away from the ocean, and the small figure at her side shadowed her.

"Is it time to go?" Hanabi asked, the cloth covering her eyes dark against bleached hair.

"Hmm," she said lightly. "Would you like to go sailing on a ship, Emiri-chan?"

Hanabi considered the question seriously. "I should think it shall be a grand adventure," she said at last with a small smile.

She didn't know if Hanabi had picked up such a manner of speaking before she'd left the Hyuuga compound, but it was oddly adorable. "We'll pack our things and prepare some food and go sailing east for a little bit, doesn't that sound nice?"

"Quite so," Hanabi agreed solemnly, and reached up to take her sleeve.

Walking sedately along the beaten roads instead of running through the trees was no longer foreign to her after three and a half years with Hanabi. A young woman and a girl-child travelling alone was a strange sight, but not suspicious in the way a lone kunoichi with a little girl would be. She had her armor and katana hidden away in Aoshima because she couldn't hide carrying a blade that big. Instead, there was a wakizashi down the back of her yukata, the sheath strapped tight against her bare back, and senbon holsters wrapped around her bicep.

"Shall we go find Aki-san?" she asked, and Hanabi nodded.

Their camp was completely and unfortunately civilian, open and unguarded, a forty minute walk from the bluffs. Hanabi didn't tire so easily anymore and walked the entire way beside her, her steps light and sure despite her covered eyes.

The hound sprawled by the firepit raised his head as they approached and lowered it again when they entered the clearing.

Hanabi bowed. "Hello again, Aki-san," she greeted seriously.

Akino's ears flickered towards her and he blinked his ice-blue eyes in reply.

"Thank you for guarding the camp," she said, even as she stretched out her senses for anything the ninken might have missed. He was Kakashi's hound, though, sharper than most, and as she expected she found nothing. "We plan to gather some supplies and take a voyage on a ship, Aki-san," she added. "Perhaps by the end of the week."

"You'll come along, won't you?" Hanabi said.

Akino blinked again, the only break in his apparent apathy. But there was a pair of rabbits laid out at the edge of the clearing, skin unbroken by canine teeth with their necks cleanly snapped. For her and Hanabi, because the ninken would have eaten it raw and buried the remains far away.

"Would you like soup for lunch, Emiri-chan, or roasted rabbit?" she asked, rolling up the sleeves of her yukata. A snap of her fingers sparked a tiny flame that jumped to the remains of the campfire, and she added a handful of twigs for the burgeoning fire.

"Soup, please," answered Hanabi. "May I help?"

She smiled. "Would you fill the pot with water? You remember where the stream is, don't you?"

"But of course," Hanabi agreed. "I'll not take long."

"Three meters right, half forward, four o'clock," she reminded the girl, and without hesitation, Hanabi navigated to the pot and tucked it in the crook of her elbow.

Hanabi trotted off into the forest, head crooked to listen for obstacles, and once she was nearly out of sight Akino rose to his paws and slunk soundlessly after her. Hanabi didn't need such close watching, not anymore, but she was grateful for the ninken's instincts nonetheless.

She shucked the rabbits while Hanabi was gone, slitting the pelts neatly with a hunting knife she kept strapped to her thigh. She hung up the furs to dry and set aside the entrails for Akino, as they were rich in nutrients to compensate the energy he had spent on the hunt.

Akino preceded Hanabi to the camp, snapping up the offering and settling back at the northern edge of the camp as Hanabi carried her pot, stepping high to keep her feet from tangling in the undergrowth. "There were fish in the stream, but only little ones," she announced. "Too little to eat for dinner, I should think."

"Thank you, Emiri-chan," she said, taking the pot from the girl and hanging it over the fire. "Perhaps we will have dinner in Miyajima instead. Then we won't have to catch a hundred little fish for our meal."

"How far is Miyajima?" Hanabi asked, coming closer to the fire. "Do you imagine we will have time to train before we arrive?"

She smiled, carefully dropping the chopped rabbit chunks into the pot. "I'm sure we can schedule it in somewhere between walking and walking," she agreed, and Hanabi's quietly delighted laugh was high and clear as bells.

Akino, the pale fur around his jaws stained bloody from his snack, rose and slipped back into the trees. She let him go without comment. Perhaps he would come back before they packed up the camp, but she doubted it. He had his own mission here; he would find them again when he pleased.

"Emiri-chan, let your eyes breathe for a while," she said, and obediently, Hanabi tugged the cloth down and opened her eyes. The Hyuuga doujutsu marked her eyes with unnatural blankness as Hanabi blinked, adjusting to the light. There was a tiny crease between her eyebrows, the one that always came back whenever she thought of why she had to hide her eyes. She didn't want an all-seeing doujutsu if that meant she had to blind herself, she'd confessed once, her tiny shoulders shaking with sobs she wouldn't let herself voice. She didn't care that she was Hyuuga, that her name was known all across the Elemental Lands.

But names were dangerous out here, and Hanabi's eyes would betray her name faster than a blink. Her name would get them both killed at best.

"I should like to go down by the stream again," Hanabi said, breaking her out of her thoughts. "I thought I smelled watercress that would go quite nicely in the soup."

"Go on then," she said. "The soup will need some time to cook. Find whatever you can - we'll say it's a test. Will you do well?"

"Of course," Hanabi agreed, her eagerness breaking her from her usual controlled stride to an excited skip.

"Stay alert and run right back if there's any danger!" she called after Hanabi. She wasn't too worried. Both Konoha and Kumo had settled into an uneasy detente once winter took hold of their respective countries and Shimo, even if it had passed Yu by, and Hanabi would not be taken by surprise by any civilian ambusher.

She didn't carry much in the way of spices, only salt and iron supplements because low blood pressure was as dangerous as an open wound. Hanabi complained only rarely, because her memories of life before leaving Konoha faded a little more each day. She understood survival and sacrifice already.

Hanabi was her mission, her objective, but she had come to care for the girl like a little sister, like her own child even. But Hanabi wasn't hers. She was the Hyuuga's youngest princess. She belonged to Konoha first and foremost, and in a year or five years or ten years, in the end, her mission was to return Hanabi safely to her birthplace. That was her duty, and there Hanabi would meet her destiny.

She'd known what would happen when she finally turned in her reports to the drop point. She knew, and she did it anyways. Their time like this, with the two of them alone on the road, was running out. Konoha - those who carried its spirit, if not its name - had issued its summons, and now that she had chosen a faction she was compelled to respond.

"Neko-sensei!" Hanabi's voice rang out high and triumphant as she crossed the clearing in light bounds. Bundles of green were clutched in either hand and her face was flushed high up by her cheekbones. "I have collected both greens and roots." She offered them for inspection.

"Ah," she said, bending down to inspect Hanabi's findings. "I see you did find the watercress. And what are these?"

"Gama tubers," Hanabi pronounced. "Cattails. I cleaned them before I brought them back."

She brought the roots up to her nose, smelling carefully. "Very good, Emiri-chan," she said warmly. "These will make an excellent addition to our lunch."

Hanabi beamed, a split-second smile before she swallowed it back down. "May I go train for a while?" she asked hopefully. "Only until we eat."

She tapped twice next to her eye. "Aa. Stay alert and don't go too far."

Hanabi frowned but activated her Byakugan obediently. "I'll be just fine without this," she complained, but vanished, already drawing the kunai hidden up her sleeves.

Another reason she worried - Hanabi was an agreeable child and a born fighter but never a soldier, and yet she'd been made the symbol of a rogue army. On the other side, her life had been planned for her since birth, and the Fall was just an inconvenient detour.

She stretched out her senses as their meal bubbled over the fire, stepping away to prowl around the edges of the camp. She was a combat specialist with a combat specialist's codename -Cat- but what had made her so appealing to the Anbu recruiters had been her burgeoning sensor abilities. And luckily, this also made her an ideal sensei to Hanabi, because Hyuuga or no, prodigy of the Byakugan or not, Hanabi still had a lot to learn regarding sensor abilities, had yet to live them rather than use them.

She let herself sink into the trees and feel the thrum of chakra in every living thing from their camp to the very edges of the road as the wind played with the fringes of her hair and the leaf-laden branches of the plants surrounding her. What separated the skilled sensors from the talented was omniscence rather than omnipresence, to be able to filter through massive amounts of information for that which was most revealing.

There were little flickers of chakra in her periphery, tickling like a feather across bare skin - birds or rabbits or squirrels, maybe even foxes or fish - and then the stronger, slightly alien, slightly familiar feel of Akino's chakra, simultaneously wild and controlled, moving away steadily. She found Hanabi's steady flame, glowing a little brighter in erratic intervals with exertion, and nothing else.

Then she pulled herself out of the trees and the air and poured herself fully back into her body as she finished the slow lap. She stopped by the hollow where she had hidden hers and Hanabi's packs and cloaks, laying them out as she considered their plan of action.

She'd only grown a centimeter or two since last year so her cloak still fit reasonably well, but Hanabi's cloak was approaching her knees instead of ankle length. She should get the girl a new one now - better to get their things here, where supply still kept up with demand; war-torn Kiri would doubtless have wartime prices.

Food was another thing they needed to buy - well-preserved rations that were easy to carry, and fresh water as well. She wanted to retrieve her armor and katana, if she'd be rejoining the combat forces, but she'd leave the extra weapon caches stashed in boltholes scattered through Yu and Shimo and Tetsu and Hi and all the others. There were too many, too far apart, and too small to make the extra trips worthwhile.

Other than that, they didn't need much else - they travelled lightly as they moved around. They would still stop by in Miyajima, before they went, because besides a hot meal, the outpost traded information. From her understanding, Hana-ha's information network on the mainland was good, but Kiri's borders had shut down abruptly in the middle of the Civil War and even still not much entered or exited the country, people and information included. The only reason she knew it had ended was because Kakashi had told her so in person.

She stood now at a crossroads.

She didn't know what had really happened during the Fall. Some of the stories were fantastic, outlandish. That of Uchiha Itachi, the patriot who executed his own clan for treason, only to be blackmailed by the dissidents into fleeing Konoha. Hatake Kakashi, assassin of the Sandaime Hokage, whose coup failed when his Kumo allies failed to penetrate Konoha's defenses in time to offer backup. Shimura Danzo, who murdered his own teammate for a taste of power in the daylight instead of snatched from the shadows. Senju Tsunade, who was bequeathed the title of Hokage by her sensei as he died, thousands of kilometers away and unknown to her.

Each side told a different tale, lies and truth and suggestion indistinguishable from the others, and belief in one or the other cracked clans right in half, split families, ripped teams apart and made enemies of friends. It tore the nation in two, and Konoha was still standing but it was fractured.

She didn't know who to believe, because the people she knew - her teammates and friends, the trusted jounin and captains and clan heads - stood on both sides of the divide. For Nara Shikaku there was Hyuuga Hiashi; for Hatake Kakashi there was Sarutobi Asuma; for Shiranui Genma there was Namiashi Raidou; and each stood staunchly in their own convictions. For each, she would not have and still did not doubt that their loyalty to Konoha still held.

But they could not all be telling the truth. The Sandaime died that night, and her allegiance was owed to the one who had not taken her Hokage's life.

It wasn't too late to change her mind, and it wouldn't be until she got on that ship to Uzushio, to Kiri. She could take Hanabi home to Konoha right now. She would be welcomed for completing her mission, rewarded for her loyalty, and even be called a hero for saving the lost Hyuuga princess.

But if she chose to return, everything she had now would all end. She would go back to Anbu, and Hanabi would go back to her clan, and if they ever saw each other again it would be a fleeting moment forgotten seconds after its conclusion. And she was selfish, but she had grown attached - too attached. She'd watched Hanabu grow up for three years already, from broken words to too-elegant sentences and stumbling steps to chakra-enhanced leaps.

And so ultimately, that which decided her mind between two equally improbable choices was her own selfishness. She chose to believe Kakashi not because he had been her trainer, once, her team leader or a commander, but because believing him meant she could keep Hanabi just a little longer.

Maybe that belief wouldn't last. Maybe once more, she would steal away Hanabi in the middle of the night and run. That was all right. Every bond of trust formed was a risk, and any bond could be severed. She was, after all, a kunoichi.

"There are four men hiding in the woods two hundred meters ahead of us," Hanabi announced ten kilometers from Miyajima. "They mean to rob us, Neko-sensei."

"Oh?" she said, examining the chakra signatures with her own senses. "What makes you say that?"

Hanabi's brow crinkled in consternation, her face that of a child asked a far too simple question, such as the color of the sky. "They are holding knives."

"Are they not just hunters?" she asked, tensing her arm briefly to reassure herself of the press of her senbon holster against her skin.

Hanabi frowned more deeply. "They are on either side facing the road," she said, her impatience absent from her voice. "They are watching the road, not the forest."

She hummed. "Perhaps they are shinobi or civilian peacekeepers attempting to apprehend a criminal," she suggested.

"Their clothes are tattered," Hanabi said bluntly. "They wear no uniform or symbols or hitai-ate, and carry no kunai or shuriken. Three have covered the bottoms of their faces with cloth."

"Perhaps we should prepare for an attack, in that case," she said. They were drawing nearer to that ambush site now, only a hundred meters away. "What do you think, Emiri-chan?"

"Shall we try Formation C?" asked Hanabi. "I should like to try on civilian targets before contact with shinobi."

"You should act as though all combat encounters are contact with shinobi," she amondished mildly, but added, "Very well. Initiate at will."

"Copy," Hanabi said seriously, and tucked her hands up her sleeves.

She hid a smile, sinking back into her sensing. Akino's chakra signature appeared like a candle's flame at the edge of her awareness, meandering vaguely in their direction. He wouldn't reach them in time for the confrontation; he might not even be returning to them at all.

Not until she and Hanabi had passed the first pair of chakra signatures did the group make their move. A man in a sweat-stained shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows stepped out from behind a tree in front of them, a thin shoto in hand. He smiled, crooked, as she gasped and grabbed for Hanabi and missed as the girl kept walking.

"Emiri-chan!" she cried. "Ri-chan, stop."

Hanabi stopped, swivelling in place with her head cocked. "Hi there, little lady," said the man, his grin widening as Hanabi stiffened. "How about'cha both don't move and nobody gets hurt?"

She whirled - civilian sluggish - in time to see a pair of men with bandanas tied around their faces, one carrying a club and the other a chokuto. "Leave us alone," she demanded. "We have nothing of worth to you."

One of the men reached for her arm and she jerked it up so he grabbed her forearm instead of her bicep. "We'll be the judge of that, darlin'," he rumbled, giving her a rough shake.

"Boys, be nice," the first man drawled, as the last of the men stepped out from the trees, blocking her path to Hanabi. "We don't want to scare 'em. Just havin' a chat, friendly-like. Ladies, hand over your coin - ack!"

He cut himself off abruptly with a yelp as Hanabi whipped a kunai out of her sleeve directly at his face and pounced.

In unison with Hanabi's attack, she wrenched forcibly out of the grip of the man holding her as it slackened in his surprise, reached down the back of her hakama, and watched her assailants' eyes bulge as she drew the entire length of her wakizashi from its hidden sheath. She didn't spare them a glance, instead springing directly for the man between her and Hanabi. He was slow - fast, perhaps, for a civilian, but not fast enough to block her sword. Her slash was neat, precise, and cleaved him from shoulder to hip before he could get his blade up to block. He choked, the blade falling from a limp hand, and gurgled impotently as his legs folded beneath him.

Hanabi vanished in a substitution a bare moment before impact and a chunk of wood struck the leader instead, sending him staggering backwards.

With Hanabi clear, she stalked forward, stepping over her collapsing first victim towards the leader of the little group.

The displacement of air gave her warning as did a heavy footfall, and she ducked gracefully as one of the men behind her swung his club for her head from behind. She knocked his legs out from under him with a sweeping kick and drove her blade straight down into his chest as he hit the ground with a grunt.

His partner flinched back mid-lunge, the arc of his sword going wide as she rose while taking up her wakizashi with her, and she battered his blade down with a harsh blow from her own. She spun inside his guard, flipped her blade into a backhanded grip, and used it to slit open his throat, shoving him away to avoid the ensuing spray of blood.

She turned. The apparent leader had chosen the other option after watching his compatriots fall and fled, and the metal of his shoto flashed as he ran. "Emiri-chan," she called out, watching the man disappear into the tree cover. Blood trickled down the edge of her blade, dripping to the ground in bright crimson drops. "What do we say about witnesses?"

Hanabi hopped out of the branches of the tree on the opposite side of the road and padded to her side. "No survivors," the girl answered.

"That's right," she said, closing her eyes and letting her senses sink into the forest. "No survivors."

"I shall have the hamburger steak, if that's all right," Hanabi announced, hands folded neatly in her lap to avoid touching the aggressively sticky surface of the battered wooden table.

She paused in her recitation of the bar's food menu. "All right," she agreed. Their newly acquired provisions sat in a pack on the chair next to her, and she had already agreed to treat Hanabi out after collecting the money from their would-be robbers earlier that day. It might make pickpocketing necessary in Aoshima later on, but given the relative uncertainty of the weeks ahead, she would afford the girl this much.

They waited an objectively unreasonable amount of time for the waitress to detangle herself from the group of men crowded around a table near the bar and take their orders - hamburger streaks for both of them. "Emiri-chan," she said as the waitress bustled away. "Let's go over the incident this afternoon, shall we?"

The girl kicked her legs mullishly before catching herself. "Very well," she acquiesced, her distaste admirably absent from her voice. "Formation C was used on a group of four civilian attackers, three of whom were taken out at the attack site and the last of which was taken out about one point eight kilometers south-southeast by operative codenamed Neko-sensei, who served as primary combat operative. Operative codenamed Emiri served as decoy and rearguard."

"I thought we could discuss your role specifically," she said, which Hanabi had known had been her intention to begin with. "Formation C calls for you to isolate a small percentage of assailants to allow me time and space to eliminate the greater number first, and then for you to remove yourself from combat."

"Yes," agreed Hanabi, propping her folded hands on the edge of the table and immediately, visibly regretting it when the residue clung to her skin. "I used a kunai as distraction on the first enemy to make contact followed bykawarimito remove myself from the battle after the delay and distraction."

"Yes," she acknowledged. "It was quite a good kawarimi. However, you did take an unnecessary risk by making an aggressive physical advance after the initial distance attack."

The girl took a while to digest that, mouthing the longer words silently until she puzzled out their meanings. Then her frown deepened. "I did no such thing," Hanabi objected.

She raised an eyebrow at Hanabi. Hanabi could not see it but read the silence accordingly and tipped her chin up defiantly, glaring with covered eyes. "You jumped at your target."

"I performed the kawarimi before I hit him!"

"A shinobi opponent would not wait for you to both jump and perform a substitution," she reproved. "You would have time to choose only one."

Hanabi sank into an elegant sulk, straight-backed and face blank as a stone.

She paid the girl no mind, keeping her eyes roving around the room and the street outside. It was a risk, staying so close to the drop point when she had already visited to collect intel, but the sun had set long ago and sensor or no, she preferred not to travel when the hunters were out at night.

"Here we go! Hamburger steak and hamburger steak," said the waitress with a distracted smile, sliding the plates down in front of them. "Give me a holler if you need anything."

Hanabi lit up, bad mood evaporated like the morning mist in the face of food. She tested both their plates for traces of poison as Hanabi waited with her head cocked slightly. "Go ahead," she said, when she found nothing, tapping the table just to the side of Hanabi's plate.

Hanabi reached out unerringly and pulled it close, picking up the silverware on the side of the dish when her fingertips brushed against them.

She felt a wave of affection sweeping over her as she watched Hanabi delicately decimate the plate. She was too close, she knew. Far too close. Perhaps it was to compensate that she felt the draw to Kakashi's Hanabi-ha.

Aoshima was a small port city, nearly the size of Takehara on the Shimo border, and took half a day's travel at an easy lope through the trees. She made sure Hanabi's hand was tucked in the crook of her arm as she shifted through the crowd on one of the cobbled stone roads towards the coast. Hanabi was fairly good about navigating blind in small towns and even in the forest, but densely populated areas still gave her difficulty. There were too many bodies, too much crowding into her space, too many distracting smells and sounds. They'd steered clear of cities when they could because those same things kept her sensing muddied as well, hid their hunters in the tangle of humanity and ambient chakra.

Stores and restaurants transitioned into factories and warehouses. She turned them into a narrow alley between a towering bread factory and a milk processing plant. "Up," she said after checking for observers, and crouched. Hanabi climbed up onto her back automatically, hands clasping just above her sternum without pressing on her throat. She leapt, carrying them both to the top of the wall, and let the girl climb off again. Hanabi could run up walls, of course, but her chakra stores were so small that even with her above average chakra control it was safer for her not to unless actively fleeing, fighting, or training.

The bread factory had a particular vent on the southwest corner of the building where, when the cover was removed, one could install a false ceiling panel. One could conceivably use the space above that false panel to store, for example, a Konohan Anbu uniform, a full katana, and a tanto. This particular vent did in fact have all of these right up until she pried the false panel loose and removed them.

"Come along, Emiri-chan," she said as Hanabi stared covetously at the tanto. "What is our next step?"

"Find cover and secure a base," Hanabi answered by rote.

Cover and a secure base became a motel room with one full sized bed pushed against peeling wallpaper. She left the sheathed tanto on the foot of the bed as Hanabi activated her doujutsu to check their surroundings, and went to change into something less obvious than an Anbu uniform that would still look natural worn with a blade. She had her uniform and equipment but she couldn't take Hanabi into the heart of the Bloody Mist looking entirely like a non-combatant. Advertising weakness in a Village that prized strength was inviting harassment at best.

"Keep watch. Remember the protocols for enemy approach and discovery," she warned, and Hanabi nodded once, scooting the tanto within easy grabbing distance.

Now wearing hakama and haori, and both sheathed katana and wakizashi hanging in her sash, she went shopping.

Aojima, like many major trading cities, welcomed an eclectic array of people from all backgrounds. Her samurai-appearing attire didn't garner second glances from any but a wide-eyed girl who couldn't have been older than Hanabi. She met eyes across the street with a pair of shinobi wearing hitai-ate from Kusagakure, giving them a wary look as they did the same to her, but the moment passed as she did and they were lost in the afternoon crowd once again.

Down by the waterfront across from the docks, she found what she was looking for. Shinobi would prevent the bell tied to the top of the door from ringing, out of habit, but she was here as something else so it merrily announced her presence as she entered the shop.

The tiny old lady sitting on the counter on the far side of the shop gave her a long, scrutinizing stare and then visibly dismissed her, returning her attention to the naginata in her lap whose blade she was remounting. The shop's shelves were full but not crowded, each piece from whetstones to boxes of shuriken to small hunting knives in its own place. There was a staircase in the corner to the side of the old lady's counter, flanked by a case of kunai holsters and a shelf of different gauges of wire.

The upstairs room was entirely clothing, of all different sizes and styles. Unfortunately, Hanabi was a child and a rather small one at that, which was rare enough in the shinobi world that those young shinobi generally needed custom uniforms fitted. Often times in Konoha they came from clans or were recruited for the Anbu trainee program and were thus provided for, and as of now Hanabi had none of those resources available.

She found a dark padded vest with adjustable straps under a pile of plate armor, long enough to be a jerkin on Hanabi but which would fit the girl still if she tightened the straps all the way and wrapped them around her once first. After consideration she picked out a cloak, a soft skullcap, and water resistant drawstring pants that were still a little too long and took them all back downstairs.

The old woman squinted at her as she set her choices on the counter beside her. "You got a master, samurai?"

"Ronin," she corrected blandly. "My previous lord declared that should I not spread my legs for him like a whore, then I could peddle my services like one. I took that to indicate the release of my sworn oath."

The old woman tilted her head, her hand stilling on the haft of her polearm. "And where is this lord now?"

She blinked. "Still in Tetsu no Kuni, I imagine."

"Hm," said the old woman, an odd gleam in her eye. "I see. A pretty story, love. You have money, I assume."

She wasn't offended or even surprised by the disbelief. A weaponry and supply store would have a proprietor no less sharp than her wares, and the old woman didn't press further. She handed over the money without protest, gathered her purchases, and left.

"We have passage on a ship in two days' time," she told Hanabi at night, over a dinner of onigiri. The afternoon had been spent fitting Hanabi's new clothing, and with the skullcap pulled low over her eyes, the girl tilted her head.

"Have we?" Hanabi asked, shifting a little and shrugging her shoulders. She had been doing so for some time now, getting used to the more restricted range of motion and the additional heft. Her voice was distracted but the stiffness in her posture betrayed her anxiety. "Will I still be Emiri?"

"If you like," she answered. "Or you can be Kimiko now, if you prefer."

Hanabi considered. "I should like to be Emiri a little longer," she decided. She reached back to touch the hilt of the tanto resting in its holster over her shoulder.

"Then I am Tenjin Nekoto and you are Adachi Emiri, my apprentice," she said, and Hanabi nodded. "Remember those names. When we are on the ship, you must stay in our berth or by my side at all times, do you understand?"

"Yes, Neko-sensei," Hanabi responded obediently. "May I practice my kata? I have not used this blade in some time."

"Very well," she said. "Remember, it is a live blade. Give it the respect it deserves."

"Yes, Neko-sensei," Hanabi repeated. She hopped down from her chair and trotted off to go wash her hands.

She kept one eye on Hanabi's careful handling of the tanto as she laid out their supplies on the bed to take inventory once again. She wouldn't don her Konohan Anbu uniform until they were away from the mainland but she went through the motions of checks and maintenance, examining each part with meticulous patience. Surrounded by the pieces of her armor, with her charge moving gracefully on the open floor and the metal of the blade flashing in the dying sunlight pouring through the window, she felt like she was preparing to go to war.

Akino slunk aboard the Hatomaru just before it disembarked, an hour after she and Hanabi had already boarded. He was wearing a henge of the quartermaster that promptly vanished when he ducked behind a stack of crates tied down to the ship's deck.

She stood at the rail at the aft with Hanabi and let the crew work around her, and with her hand resting on the hilts of her swords, no one approached them.

"I have never been aboard a ship before," Hanabi murmured, the words nearly carried away but the wind. She gripped the railing as the deck rolled beneath their feet. "What an interesting experience."

'Interesting' almost certainly meant uncomfortable, but the Hatomaru had already set off and she could not run across the entire ocean, particularly when Hanabi could not yet water walk reliably let alone for any great distance.

Akino padded from the cover of the crates, his pawsteps audible as he brushed up against Hanabi's leg to announce his presence. Even clutching the railing with both hands as she was, Hanabi still managed a bow. "Hello, Aki-san," she said, her serenity strained. As ever, Akino did not respond.

"This is a merchant ship," she said, more for Akino's benefit than Hanabi's. "Estimated time of arrival to Uzushio waters is fifty-four hours."

Hanabi's mouth twisted into a frown of displeasure. "I do not like this adventure," she said under her breath.

The Hatomaru didn't make it to Uzushio. The ship came to a shuddering halt in the middle of the night a day and a half later, jarring her from a fitful doze. "Get up, Emiri-chan," she ordered as the girl jerked awake.

She didn't have time to change, just buckled on the pale armor and bracers and left the Anbu blacks packed so she was wearing a hybrid of the uniform and the samurai-guise. Her hands didn't shake as they fumbled in the dark, but only because her breathing had settled into an even rhythm, her mind going clear and cold and focused.

Hanabi sensed the change in her demeanor and went still and watchful accordingly, loose in the way that belied her coiled readiness. She didn't ask what was going on; after countless ambushes and near-misses Hanabi had caught on that her silence and following of orders led to the best outcomes.

The Hatomaru had stopped because it'd been stopped. There was another ship looming over its stern, sleek and dark, and the man that had the Hatomaru's captain crowded up against the mizzenmast was unmistakeably a shinobi. The captain stood his ground though the tautness of his entire body like a bowstring about to snap betrayed his nerves, but despite his wariness the shinobi made no overtly threatening moves.

"Stay behind me," she said, hooking her cat-mask over her face and walking, her footsteps deliberately audible, towards the pair.

A rush of chakra. The captain turned but the shinobi did not and there was now a shinobi flanking her on either side. She stopped, and sensed Akino prowl from the shadows, putting himself square in front of Hanabi with just a hint of fang as warning. They had not bared steel and she kept her hands away from the hilts of her swords. "Deep cover operative Hana-An-eighty-six-ninety-three reporting to the outpost at Uzushio," she said without turning, following the instructions Kakashi had passed on. "Under orders from Captain Hana-An-forty-six-ninety-six."

She sensed more than saw the two exchange a glance. "Your mission?" one asked.

They couldn't honestly expect an answer from her. "Classified," she said.

Another glance. "And the kid?" said the first again.

She turned a little to get both of them plus Hanabi in her field of vision. "My trainee."

"Fucking gods," the second muttered under his breath as he gave Hanabi a startled look. "That's a freaking toddler."

She suspected that a deep cover operative presenting herself at a far-flung outpost might be above her new guards' paygrade, since in any country the Anbu were ghosts and reported only to their own or to their Kage. "Get me your ranking officer or take me to them," she ordered evenly, when it became clear neither of them knew what to do with her.

A chakra signature approached from behind her, and she turned back slightly to see the shinobi that had been speaking with the Hatomaru's captain. "Anbu-san," he greeted neutrally, a hand on the pommel of his sword. The Mist-marked hitai-ate on his forehead flashed in the moonlight. "You wear Konoha's uniform."

"Deep cover operative Hana-An-eighty-six-ninety-three," she repeated.

The shinobi met her eyes. "You're Hana Division."

She inclined her head. "Received orders for self-extraction and termination of current mission."

The shinobi's stare changed to something closer to resignation. "What's the passcode you were given?"

"Crescent moon, howl, cat's paw, seventeen. Jakuniku Kyoushoku." That last bit was an echo of Kakashi's dry humor, an outsider's perspective into Kirigakure. The weak are meat and the strong eat.

"Accepted," said the shinobi, either ignoring or oblivious to the meaning. "A Hana Division captain arrived at the outpost two days ago. We'll take you to him."

The ship that had intercepted the merchant ship Hatomaru was in fact one of Kiri's seven famous warships, the Bishamonmaru. Since declaring herself as Hana Division the team had shown her to a cabin and promptly left her, Hanabi, and Akino alone without so much as introducing then to the ship's captain, which she took to be rather unusual.

She had never been to Uzushiogakure, which appeared portside through the window just as the dawn had begun to break. In the Academy, she'd seen its pictures in textbooks, sun-kissed clay-red roofs and walls a pure sandy white in its prime, spiralling pavered stairways and saltwater fountains; and the pictures after its decimation, when the beautiful stone had cracked and crumbled stained brown with blood that would not wash away, when the vines had crawled over houses turned into tombs before dying themselves.

As the Bishamonmaru docked at the broken Village, Hanabi went to peer out. She had been silent since waking and she broke that now when she asked, hushed, "What happened to this place?"

Because Uzushiogakure now was not the freshly scarred site of a massacre, nor was it the bustling cities they had left behind on the mainland. "An old battle took place here," she answered, clasping her hands behind her back as she stepped up to Hanabi's shoulder. "There used to be a Village here many years ago until its destruction. It's a Kiri outpost now."

The village had been patched back together, structures of wood and stone rising from the remains of their predecessors with none of the same careless elegance. These new buildings were constructed for function, not for beauty, and even from far out they could see the cracked, scorched walls like broken shells encircling them.

"Don't talk," she reminded the girl as footsteps approached their door politely. She tugged Hanabi's hat back down over her eyes. "Never let your guard down."

Hanabi made a face that wiped smoothly clean when someone knocked on the door.

She opened it. The shinobi on the other side wasn't one who she'd seen on the ship before. There was a furred cloak thrown over one shoulder of his Kiri-style flak jacket and a porcelain half-mask slanting diagonally across his face, and his hitai-ate was tied around his bicep. "You must be 8693," he said by way of greeting. "Hana-An-010; I'm the ranking Hana shinobi on site. Come with me. There's a ship going back to Kirigakure in a few hours but I have quarters on land that are more secure. Good to see you again," he added to Akino, who deigned to greet him with a slight wag of his tail.

She gave the ninken a curious glance, then transferred it to the shinobi. He worked closely with Kakashi, then, and was both Anbu and a captain despite his regular forces uniform. "Sir," she acknowledged. She nodded to Hanabi.

He looked familiar, but she could not place him despite the glances she snuck of what she could see of his face. She could name his features - pale ash-brown hair that was a color about as real as her own curling a little over his mask, a dark eye - the other was completely covered - a broad nose, a strong jaw, almost aristocratic cheekbones. She could describe him, but she couldn't recognize him or who he reminded her of. His chakra was the same when she reached out tentatively - murky, vaguely familiar, crackling with its potency.

Hanabi tucked herself in her shadow, keeping pace behind her nondominant arm. The girl couldn't see the ruined streets without her doujutsu active but her head swivelled minutely nonetheless, catching the sounds and smells and the seabreeze through her hair.

Hana-An-010 didn't speak, didn't acknowledge the other shinobi whose paths they crossed as they wove their way through the streets. Then it was like an invisible barrier had been breached and he did, giving nods to a trio in flak jackets and a then a lone tokujo who hurried past. Akino had vanished again into the maze of pale stone, but the shinobi didn't comment on his absence.

The building he led them to was small and might have been a noodle shop in a past life, but now it was bare, the floor new wood and the stones in the walls not yet weathered by time. She stepped in as he waved them through the doorway and activated a seal inked on the back of the door.

"Cat-15," he said with a small, crooked smile. "I've heard a lot about you."

"Is that so?" she said warily. Hanabi tensed behind her, like a cat whose fur had begun to puff up along its spine.

"The kids have nothing but praise for their Neko-sensei," he agreed, relaxed and cheerful. "Never thought it'd be you, Uzuki."

A bolt of alarm shot through her, but she'd been expecting this. Kakashi wasn't the only one who knew her. She just hadn't expected her identity to be exposed by someone she couldn't name. "Don't call me that. Who are you?" she asked, a little too sharply.

He grimaced in response, running a hand through his hair in a manner that was maddeningly familiar. "Classified, until you clear all security checks," he said apologetically. "You can call me Juuta."

That felt unfair, but they were both shinobi and pragmatism was a way of life. "You said 'the kids'," she offered instead. "Who?"

"A spitfire used to the heat and her sleepy brother," Juuta said, a hint of his smile coming back. "A kid with a lot of heart who makes a lot of noise. A boy who likes to set things on fire just a little too much and a girl that would bury herself in books all day if she could. A couple of little soldiers who can't ever seen to forget what duty is. A quiet princess who I suspect misses her sister very much."

Very vague, yet specific enough that there was no question as to whom he was referring. "You know them well?" she asked.

His grin widened. "I've been working with the captain for a couple years now," he said, and it was obvious with the ease of familiarity thatthe captainmeant Kakashi. "I was on his team when we retrieved the kids, and I've been one of their training sensei since then. I've got three of them as my official genin team now, specialized in infiltration and espionage."

Infiltration and espionage? That had to be Sai, maybe Neji, but the rest of the children she couldn't remember as being particularly inclined for undercover work. "And the others?" she prompted. Hanabi pressed in close to her side and she reached out automatically, pulling the girl under her arm.

Juuta paused, his hesitation barely noticeable. "Two are on a team with a former hunter-nin under Momochi Zabuza." What?"And the captain's taken on the last three."

The Demon of the Mist and Hatake Kakashi taking on genin teams? Was this some kind of test to see what lies she would swallow? Juuta must have read her disbelief in her silence, because he said, "Momochi has been a member of Hanabi-ha as long as I have, even if he's loyal to the captain more than Senju-sama. And the captain only took his team on because of security reasons after issues arose with their previous sensei."

"What issues?" she asked warily.

His mouth twisted. "Uchiha Itachi was their sensei until about three months ago, when he and a member of the Kiri Hanran tried to kidnap the jinchuuriki of the Sanbi, nearly killing myself, the captain, and one of the Hanran captains before fleeing. He's been declared as defected."

"Uchiha Itachidid?" she demanded. "But his - "

"I know," Juuta said grimly. "He's had his disagreements with Command but we assumed he wouldn't leave the bonds he had here." He sighed, weariness evident in his voice. He turned his attention to Hanabi. "Will you introduce me?" he asked, deliberately light.

She glanced down reflexively at Hanabi, who tilted her head up in response.

"I am Adachi Emiri, apprentice to Tenjin Nekoto," Hanabi informed him solemnly.

"It is good to meet you, Emiri-chan," responded Juuta with the same gravity. "You look just like someone I know who would love to see you again. We'll have to sail a little ways to get there, though."

Hanabi's interest subsided. "Another ship?" she said, dismayed.

The voyage to Kirigakure didn't take long, comparatively. Warships moved much faster than civilian vessels did, especially with the tamed force of a trained shinobi crew.

"Hana-ha is just beginning to establish a base on Uzushio," Juuta explained. "There's a lot of back and forth travel, especially for those of us involved in logistics and planning."

She didn't answer, watching the sprawling Lower City hurtle ever closer. The scars of battle were still visible though the winter since had smoothed over the sharpest edges. There were craters containing only rubble and debris scattered between battered buildings. The cliff atop which the lighthouse perched had a massive gouge taking a chunk out of the rock. Mist hung low over the entire thing, giving the city a muted, ghostly atmosphere. Hanabi's Byakugan absorbed the sight from beneath a layer of dark cloth, and the girl clutched her sleeve more for comfort than for guidance as she did so.

Shinobi crew or no, it still took over an hour for the warship to maneuver its way into port and allow them to disembark. "The Inner Village is a bit of a ways away still," Juuta said apologetically. "We'll have to go on foot through the Karikachi Pass. Do you want to stop for breakfast first? Anything in the city will be better than ship rations, I assure you."

"That is not a particularly high bar," she said dryly. "Yes, that would be appreciated, thank you."

She hadn't been sure that Akino had even followed then off Uzushio to begin with, but she saw the hound as he slipped out from belowdeck and leapt over the side of the railing without pause, his pale fur shining in the sunlight before he plummeted out of sight. There was no splash to herald his landing.

"What would you like for breakfast, Emiri-chan?" Juuta asked.

Hanabi considered. "I should like some omurice, today," she decided.

"Omurice it is," Juuta agreed. "Follow me, I know a place."

She had been three years into what she assumed would be a long tenure as a career Anbu when the Fall happened, but even those three years and the five before that as a trainee had taught her that one did not normally take a recalled deep cover operative out to breakfast before security checks and a debrief. "This seems irregular," she noted aloud.

"Nothing about this is regular," Juuta assured her. "Ah, here we are."

Hanabi wound tighter and tighter the longer the morning dragged on. She realized the girl was talking cues from her when she brushed the handle of the blunt dinner knife without picking it up for the fourth time and Juuta's eye dropped to it and then Hanabi for just a moment. Her senses were strained, focused on Juuta and the restaurant and the streets beyond with their grim tension that buzzed through the ambient chakra and set her teeth on edge.

"Kirigakure is not very hospitable," Juuta said, almost apologetically. "Or should I say - it's hospitable to a select few. Identify yourself as Hana Division and you shouldn't get much trouble from Kiri's regular forces."

"Noted," she said, and pulled her awareness back in a little closer to fend off the encroaching headache.

"I'll have to take your weapons," he said, and this time he was apologetic but unwavering.

"Very well," she agreed, despite the uneasiness at being disarmed that reared its head. "Now?"

Juuta shook his head. "You can keep them while we're still in the Lower City - it's probably safer that way."

Whatever danger Juuta believed possible did not materialize, and after breakfast they passed through the city without incident. The checkpoint at the Karikachi Pass showed signs of recent construction, with new stone in the ground and wooden scaffolding crawling up the walls to frame and support gaping cracks and holes. Three guards hanging around the main entrance watched their approach but didn't challenge them as Juuta led them in.

Inside was cold and dark, the only light from lanterns set high up in the walls. Echoes bounced up and down the corridors and her hackles rose, her senses reaching out to orient her but revealing only the vague suggestion of other chakra signatures within the walls. Juuta took three left turns and a right turn, led them down a flight of stairs, and opened a door that revealed a barren room with only a wooden table and another door at the far end. "Weapons and armor, please," he said, gesturing at the table.

She hid her grimace and swung her travel pack up, then unhooked her katana and wakizashi from her waist, setting them on the table. Juuta waited patiently as she unstrapped the kunai holster from her thigh and the senbon holsters from under her sleeves. Her all-purpose pouch followed, then the armored vest, bracers, and shin guards. Then she extracted the senbon from her hakama hems, the thin wire from her sash, the file from the collar of her yukata.

Juuta glanced over the pile of weaponry and then turned a closer scrutiny onto her. "Thank you. Please stand up against the wall," he said. "Emiri-chan?"

Hanabi took off her pack and pushed it up onto the table, then unslung her tanto in its sheath and did the same. She turned towards Juuta expectantly.

"Emiri-chan," she chided.

Hanabi scowled and pulled out the kunai strapped to her upper arms, the lockpicks tied in her hair, and the tiny hunting knife holstered at the small of her back. She jerked her head at the weapons and crossed her arms over her chest defiantly.

"Emiri,"she said severely.

Hanabi huffed. She produced eight senbon and an improvised glass shiv and slapped them down onto the table.

"You're a right little terror, aren't you then?" Juuta said, fond and amused. "Through that next door, if you don't mind."

No matter how politely stated, that was an order. She gave Hanabi a reassuring nod despite the nerves crawling up her spine.

The hallway held a row of doors; she knew without checking that these would lock from the outside only. Akino made his reappearance sitting beside a short, slight shinobi a little ways down the hall, and his presence was at least reassuring.

"Emiri-chan, if you would take a seat in the first room," Juuta directed. "Cat-15, in the second. Emiri-chan, would you like Akino to come in with you?"

She was grateful for the offer, and Hanabi nodded slightly, her hand reaching out to curl in Akino's ruff as the ninken padded over, rearing up to open the door for them both.

Juuta did not acknowledge the shinobi who waited on the other side with hands clasped behind his back. Instead, he turned and followed her into the second interrogation room.

The stone table and bench had been moulded from the floor itself. There were rings set into the tabletop, but Juuta made no move to handcuff her or seal her chakra. Instead, he activated a seal carved into the wall with a pulse of chakra, dragged a wooden chair to the opposite side of the table, and said, "It's protocol that you be separated for initial debrief, but I figured you'd be more comfortable if you could still sense her."

Comfortable for her, yes, more dangerous for him. "You're not worried that I'll attack you?" she asked, deliberately laying her hands palm down on the surface of the table.

"Ah," he said, sheepish. "This may come off as arrogant, but I'm not that concerned."

That did sound blindingly arrogant, leaving a potential enemy with her chakra, but she wasn't going to complain in case things went sideways.

"Let's begin," Juuta said, drawing a notebook and a pencil from his flak jacket. "Please state your name and rank."

"Uzuki Yuugao, codename Cat-15. Anbu operative."

"Affiliation?"

"Konohagakure."

Notes:

(Melodramatic) ending notes:
Rise is a frolic. It's a descent into the valley - controlled, light, exploratory. Sure, there are stumbles here and there where the long grass hides the dips and hollows, but overall, it's a gentle introduction, a child at play, learning about the world.
Children of Empire is the fall. It's gloomy, fickle, and offers darkness with only a faint hope of light. It is humanity. It is people, and people are not kind to others, let alone themselves.

(Don't be dramatic, wenwen.)

How about this?
Sometimes in order to grow, you need to fall apart first.

(Actual) ending notes:
Cheers to you if you were able to guess Cat-15's identity!

This is, officially, the end of Rise, with this epilogue (which is shorter than recent chapters - which is why it's posted after just one week - but still longer than probably chapters 1-3 were) serving as somewhat of a bridge to the sequel. Thank you to everyone for reading, leaving kudos, and commenting, especially those of you have have been patiently following along for the past year and a half since the first (somewhat stumbling) chapter went up. This is probably the most ambitious project I've attempted (besides like...a degree/career lol) and it really means a lot that anyone would take time out not only to read it but to leave reviews, to interact with this world I've been trying to drag into existence.

I don't know that there's anything left unsaid that I haven't mentioned before in previous A/Ns, so: stay tuned for Children of Empire after the Burning Legacy hiatus, stay healthy, and see you soon!

-wenwen